Chapter Text
“No, I mean it. You did what a true hero would have done. I… we… misjudged you… And for that please allow me to apologize on behalf of myself and the entire class. It was wrong of us to assume that we knew your true character before ever truly seeing who you were.” Iida bent forward into a deep bow. He wasn’t certain how he expected Bakugou to react, whether he would blow Iida off the porch or just storm off was anybody's guess.
What he didn’t expect was what he got. “Stop that. Get up.”
Iida straightened in surprise to find Bakugou looking at him intently.
“Words don’t mean anything unless you can back ‘em up.” Iida blinked, not expecting that answer. “I just did what needed to be done. I don’t need any of you extras. I don’t want your job. I’m gonna be the number one hero all on my own. You understand that?” Iida nodded. “But I can’t very well do that if I let all you morons die, can I?” Iida shook his head. “You wanna lead these idiots? Then show them.”
-From Chapter 10 of “Here We Stand...As the World Tumbles Down”
*****
Iida fidgeted. These seats were supposed to be designed for optimum ergonomic comfort when one was sitting with correct posture, but that clearly didn’t take into account the difficulty of maintaining that posture after not having slept for over twenty-four hours. Also the tracks had curved so that now the early morning sun was falling directly across his face.
They’d all managed to finally regroup after watching the - he wasn’t certain what word to use - horror? triumph? tragedy? - that had been All Might’s fight, but the streets had been such chaos between evacuations and emergency personnel alongside workers just trying to start their day in the midst of it all that any attempt to inform the authorities of Bakugou’s rescue had seemed futile. The most logical next course of action then would be the one which they had chosen - to escort their classmate back home and to the police station there.
At first they’d attempted to talk about what had just happened, but none of them had truly felt up to discussing the fight itself just yet. As of yet no one had even paid them any mind, not even to Bakugou whose face had been plastered all over the news for the past three days, now as good as invisible to crowds too shocked by what they had just witnessed. Even so it still wouldn’t be wise to risk drawing attention to themselves by discussing his captivity, even if he had been willing to talk about it, and instead they had lapsed quickly into silence.
Todoroki could seemingly sleep anywhere and was currently passed out with his head against the window. That angle couldn’t possibly be comfortable. Iida thought perhaps he should attempt to adjust the younger boy so that he wouldn’t have a sore neck when he woke except that at that moment Yaoyorozu shifted in her seat so that her head came to rest upon Iida’s shoulder. Considering how she was so recently recovered from yet another serious head wound, it wouldn’t be prudent to disturb her, and so instead he resigned himself to serving as a pillow for his fellow class representative.
Across the aisle from them Bakugou was also asleep, or at least so it appeared. His eyes were closed at any rate, arms crossed, also leaning against the window though at a vaguely more comfortable angle.
Kirishima, seated next to Bakugou, and Midoriya, next to Todoroki, were awake, though both also appeared to be lost in thought, his green-haired classmate mumbling softly under his breath. For his part Kirishima was mostly staring off into space but every now and then looking over as though to make sure that Bakugou was still there.
Iida swallowed hard on the unexpected lump which suddenly formed in his throat. They’d all heard from Todoroki and Shoji how Bakugou had been walking along behind them only to suddenly be gone, taken, in the blink of an eye.
He must have been staring just a moment too long as Kirishima suddenly appeared to notice how he was being watched and looked up to meet Iida’s gaze.
He should say something… He didn’t know what.
What do you say to something like this?
… Shouting at his classmates….
… Forbidding them to go…
….Another pair of red eyes glaring at him in the rain… He’d ended up going that time as well…
…
Anything he might have formulated to say left his head when Kirishima began speaking instead.
“So, um, I just wanted to say thanks, man. I- I know that y’ didn’t wanna come along, but we never could have gotten him back without you… That is - it was totally manly of you.”
Oh.
“I am thankful that we were able to rescue Bakugou - though I’m not certain that I deserve your gratitude after I tried to stop you all from going. I simply wanted all of you to be safe.” - Then show them! - “That is my responsibility to all of you as the class rep. After all the mistakes I’ve made…”
Midoriya’s voice cut him off. “No, Iida!”
Iida blinked. He hadn’t thought the other boy had been paying attention.
Slowly Midoriya leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees, fingers pulling at each other. For a moment he paused, obviously having interrupted without a fully formed response, but at last he spoke. “You were right - what you said last night that is - in front of the hospital, when you said that we hadn’t considered your feelings at all.”
The memory of that moment stung all over again. The hurt of them not seeing how hurt he was… how worried he was… “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have punched you.”
Midoriya frowned but shook his head and shrugged. “Maybe not, but you weren’t entirely wrong either. It all worked out, but - that villain… he... “ Midoriya paused a moment before continuing, ignoring however he might have been thinking to end his previous sentence. “Kacchan might never have escaped without us there and you were an important part of that, but it could just as easily have gone badly for us.”
Kirishima also leaned forward. “No matter what anyone might say I’ll never accept that what we did last night was anything less than 100% the right thing to do, but… Midoriya’s got a point. None of us knew what we were getting into. I’m not even sure if the pros expected that to happen!”
But they’d been so certain…
He’d gone along to be a force for restraint, to hold them back when they behaved too recklessly - a repeat of Hosu mustn’t happen! - but now they reminded him of his original stance, that to go at all was the reckless action. How had he been so easily swayed?
But then he looked at Bakugou so relaxed at Kirishima’s side.
He’d gone along with desperate plans before but those were all cases of self defense when the pros weren’t around…. It was all so confusing and conflicting. He couldn’t even finish a thought.
Midoriya was staring at Bakugou now as well. “We had to do it. We needed to save him just like -” Iida watched as his classmate shifted his gaze to Kirishima, seeming to consider a moment, then turned those sharp eyes on him. “Just like Todoroki and I came to save you at Hosu. We couldn’t stand by and watch you die if there was a chance that we could do something to help, and I think that you understand what that feels like too.”
“Yeah, man,” Kirishima put in. “I’m not gonna pretend I’ve got any idea what you guys are talking about, except I knew there was something going on with you three after our internships, but you’ve protected us all before. You saved all of us when you got help when those villains attacked the USJ, you were ready to go after Bakubro yourself and to fight those villains at the cabin, and you fought as hard as any of us back on I-Island. I guess - until you tried to stop us at the hospital we didn’t even realize you would see this time differently from the rest of us.”
Oh. But all of those events had been so different? Or so he’d thought… Was he actually the one who was different?
He could clearly see those red eyes in the rain again, but now he remembered what was behind those eyes. All of his classmates standing - or at least sitting - together.
They’d all survived that mountain together without anyone else to rely on, any assurance that someone would come to rescue them in time. Without any safety net they'd done whatever was right to protect each other.
On I-Island during the expo he’d justified his decision to go with them the same way he’d tried to justify going last night, by reminding his classmates that they couldn’t fight - but they had. True it had mostly been against robots, but they’d still done quite a lot of collateral damage, and he certainly hadn’t tried to stop his classmates from engaging the villains in the name of self-defense once they were underway.
So then… it really was just him.
His classmates had been consistent all along. He was the one who was changing, who couldn’t be clear even to himself exactly where he stood.
Even as early as the USJ incident he’d objected to running away. He’d wanted to stay and defend his classmates until Thirteen Sensei had convinced him that going for help really was the best way to get them out of that situation alive. When had that changed? When had he changed?
He’d been so afraid of getting in trouble that he’d been willing to turn his back on the needs of a classmate. Bakugou said to show them what it meant to be a leader. What had he shown Bakugou? Had he just proven himself to be a coward?
It would appear that he had more questions than answers…
A growl from Bakugou’s seat. “You idiots think too loud.”
*****
Bakugou slumped back in the office chair and crossed his arms. Least those cops coulda done would have been to let Shitty Hair come inside with him if they were just gonna make him sit around in here and wait until they finally found time to talk to him. After that damn sludge guy they’d been all over him! Just figures that this time they’d be busy with other things.
Whatever. It wasn’t like he wanted to talk to anyone right now anyway.
There were at least five dead flies in that light fixture up there. Didn’t they ever clean this place?
He was about to start counting how many coffee cups whatever detective whose office this was had left sitting around and work out the guy’s life expectancy based on the obvious caffeine addiction when he heard shouting from out in the main room and sat up to see what was going on. Anything had to be more interesting than this.
“... not even supposed to be here!” A pause followed by, “At home! Where it’s safe!”
Bakugou poked his head out to see that detective that had interviewed everyone after the USJ standing toe to toe with a kid with freakishly pale blue hair. The kid was signing something, but Bakugou couldn’t quite make it out from this angle.
“Why can’t you just do as you’re told?! Does Makoto even know where you are?!”
Bakugou may not have made it out before, but he definitely heard when Deaf Con 4 suddenly stopped signing! “Oh yeah cause I suddenly needed a ‘babysitter’! Sorry I disrupted your comfortable bachelor life!”
The detective said something, but he’d dropped his voice so Bakugou couldn’t catch it. Where was Ears when you needed her?
“Yeah well I’ll make sure to grow up or die as soon as possible so you can get back to that!”
Was that kid gonna cry? Great. Just what this place needed.
Something else from the detective he couldn’t catch.
“Don’t bother.” The venom in the kid’s voice was enough to make even Bakugou raise an eyebrow. “I’ll take care of myself. You obviously don’t have the manpower to waste right now.”
With that pronouncement, the boy turned and stalked - almost ran really - out of the room back in the direction of the entrance. The detective looked like he might go running after him for a second, but instead the guy just buried his fingers in his hair and looked up at the ceiling. A cop with a cat head walked over and they started talking.
Well that was boring.
Bakugou went back into the office. Did they really have so much going on that they couldn’t have someone in here to talk to him by now so that he could go home?
Instead of dropping back into the chair he’d been sitting in, he wandered up to look down at the top of the detective’s desk. He didn’t touch anything - even that damn nerd knew better than to do that - but if the detective was careless enough to leave it out for just anyone to see it was fair game.
Most of the files were closed and the open ones all looked like they were about him and the bar where the villains had kept him. The open ones not on top were harder to read without moving the top files so only bits and pieces of information were visible, but there was one on the edge of the desk that caught his eye. The villain in the picture looked like he was all muscle and no brains and the guy in the photo poking out from behind that was definitely the creep Birdface’s quirk had demolished in the forest.
…
What the hell?!
Someone had scribbled in a note on a paper scrap next to the pictures.
‘Follow up - Tartarus
Killed in transit
Follow up w/ Hawks - Obsidian quirk van
Connection?
Bakugou grasped the edge of the desk hard enough that he caught a faint scent of smoke before he forcibly drew his hands back and clenched his fists to keep from blowing something up.
Obsidian quirk… did that mean that volcano villain from the mountain was involved?.... But what would he…?
He didn’t get to finish that train of thought since the detective picked that moment to finally walk in. The guy looked like the cup of coffee in his hand was the only thing keeping him going.
“Sorry I kept you waiting. You can have a seat if you like.” The detective dropped down into his own chair to punctuate the offer.
Bakugou scowled but he sat, crossing his arms.
The detective nodded and continued as though “As you can probably guess, there’s a lot of clean-up to take care of in Kamino. Actually we had multiple reports from people who claimed that you were still in the hands of the League and others saying you’d escaped. I’ve had guys out trying to track down your whereabouts since the dust started settling in Kamino. Not that I’m not glad to see you’re safe, but you wanna tell me how you got to my office?”
Bakugou raised an eyebrow. “On the train. That kid was right - you need more cops if you managed to miss that. You sure you've actually got time to waste on me?”
Well that put a sour look on the guy’s face…
“We have enough men to keep everything under control. You don’t need to worry about that.”
“And what do you think I should be worried about?” He could feel sparks trying to form around his fingertips and clenched his fists to hold them back. “How ‘bout that villain from the damn mountain still running around free?!”
The detective froze where he was for a second, before slowly setting down the recorder device he’d been pulling out of his desk. “Did you see him with the league?”
“No, but it sounds like you did!”
Both the detective’s eyebrows jumped and he folded his hands on the desk in front of him. “How did you come to that conclusion?”
Was this guy an idiot?! Bakugou jumped up and leaned across the desk to stab at the note with his finger. “Right there! ‘Obsidian quirk’. You’re telling me you still haven’t caught him yet?! And now All Might can’t be there to stop him!”
…
He hadn’t been planning on saying that.
The words tasted bitter on his tongue the second he said them.
The detective knew that too. There was a long pause. Finally the guy stood up and stepped around the desk to look him in the eye.
When at last he spoke his tone of voice was softer. “I think perhaps we both started this conversation on the wrong footing.” He held out his hand. “I’m Detective Tsukauchi Naomasa. I’d like to ask you a few questions about your time with the League of Villains if I may?”
Bakugou took a deep breath. Another pause. Shorter this time.
Before he had time to convince himself otherwise he reached out and accepted the detective’s hand. “Yeah, alright, let’s get this over with.”