Chapter Text
Bakugo wakes up early, as per usual. It’s only four thirty, and everything is still quiet. He gets dressed and quickly leaves his room with only his backpack and his phone. He creeps down the stairs as quietly as possible so as not to wake any of the extras up. He turns his phone on as he gets to the kitchen. He has two missed calls from his dad, and four from his mother. Instead of calling them back, he just clicks his phone off and grabs a protein bar from the pantry. Then he exits the dorm, very careful not to let any doors slam.
Then he starts his morning run. He leaves campus and heads into town. No one pays him any mind. Most of the people up this early are on their way to a very early job, or exercising as well. He doesn’t even slow down until he gets to a small gas station. He walks in, breathing a little heavily. The old woman at the counter waves cheerily.
“Morning, June,” Bakugo greets.
“Good morning. You’re a little later than usual. Normally you’re here by five, and it’s five fifteen. Something happen?”
“Nah, just moved a little slower this morning.”
He grabs an energy drink before heading to the counter.
“How’s your parents?”
Bakugo shrugs. “Don’t know, don’t care.”
“What happened to,’ I can’t let them come to the school, so I have to put up with their phone calls and other crap.’?”
“Don’t know. Guess I’m just feeling a little bold today.”
June nods. “Ok, just don’t let it affect the other parts of your life.”
“Thanks.”
He puts a five down on the counter, then walks out. He loops around and heads back to the school, and is back at six. By then, almost everyone else is getting ready for school or making breakfast. He’s done with his shower by six fifteen. The common room is loud, and everyone is clamoring to get everything that they need to get done before school when he walks in. Kirishima waves happily at Bakugo, but Bakugo just frowns. He stomps over to Deku.
“What're you doing?” he asks, leaning against the wall.
“Nothing much, Kacchan. How was your run?”
Bakugo shrugs. Deku smiles. “Yeah, ok, I have to get ready for school. See you later.”
Deku jogs off towards the stairs. Bakugo finishes his normal daily routine before heading off towards homeroom. He’s the first one there, because everyone else is in the cafeteria for breakfast. Aizawa isn’t there yet, meaning Bakugo is alone. So, he pulls out his homework and starts working on the essay that’s due in Present Mic's class next week. It’s not long before Aizawa walks in though.
“You’re here early again,” he drawls.
Bakugo barely looks up. “Yeah.”
Aizawa turns back to the board. It’s not until almost eight that all of the students come filing in. After everyone is seated, Aizawa starts passing out tests. The rest of the school day is full of tests and a big practice rescue run in All Might’s class.
By the time All Might’s class comes around, Bakugo is starting to get sleepy, because nightmares kept him up late the night before. All Might drones on and on about people’s safety, but Bakugo isn’t really listening. Deku, who is standing beside Bakugo, keeps nudging him. Probably trying to get him to pay attention. Bakugo ignores him as well as All Might. Once the exercise starts, Bakugo heads off with his friends, because he’s not entirely sure what the instructions are.
“Everything’s on fire. We need to get all of the dummies out of the buildings with the most structural damage first,” Bakugo mutters.
“Alright, we should split up into two groups,” Deku says. “Kacchan should lead one of them, and I’ll lead the other one.”
“I’ll take the worst one. I’m more fireproof than you are, idiot,” Bakugo replies, adding the idiot as an afterthought.
Deku looks concerned, but nods. After splitting the group up into teams, they walk towards different buildings. Bakugo turns to his team, which consists of Mina, Kirishima, and Koda. Bakugo blinks as he looks at all of them.
“I didn’t realize you were here,” he says to Koda.
Mina frowns at him.
“Alright, the building with the most damage has three floors and a basement. Mina, you take the basement. Kirishima, you take the first floor, and Koda you’re our lookout.”
“What about the other two?” Kirishima asks.
“I’m taking those two. Now move.”
Without wasting any more words, Bakugo strides towards the building. Stepping inside, he sees how much of the building is destroyed.
‘Wow, I can see why they chose to use dummies. This is too dangerous for real people,’ Bakugo thought.
He quickly makes his way up the stairs, which by some miracle, are still intact. He races up them all the way to the top floor. After getting all of the dummies slung over his shoulder, he climbs back down the creaking stairs carefully. He grabs the two dummies from the second floor, barely able to hold all of them. As soon as he turns towards the stairs, they fall in on themselves, leaving him on the second floor.
“Crap.”
He turns around, nearly dropping one of the dummies. His eyes sting from the smoke, and his ears are ringing slightly. Despite that, he smashes the window and climbs through with the dummies until he’s sitting on the windowsill.
“Screw this,” he mutters, then jumps out.
Right before he hits the ground, he lets off the smallest explosion he can manage, and bends his knees. He hits the ground at a slower pace, and all of the dummies are completely undamaged by the explosion. Mina and Kirishima come running over.
“Are you alright? Did you just jump out of the window?” Mina says, practically screeching in Bakugo’s ear.
“Yeah, sheesh. When did you get so loud?” Mina frowns at Kirishima. “Here, take some of these. We gotta get them to the nearest first aid station.”
“Here, we’ll take them. You just walk with us,” Kirishima replies.
They set off towards the nearest first aid station. Before they get there though, they pass by a building that has fire coming out of the windows. Deku is entering quickly through the front door.
“Deku, stop,” Mina calls, because the building looks on the verge of collapse.
“I’m gonna go get him,” Bakugo growls.
They both protest, but Bakugo doesn’t listen, just keeps storming towards the building. He stalks inside, but doesn’t see Deku.
‘He must be working his way down,’ he thinks, extremely frustrated.
He makes his way up to the top floor, which is four stories in the air. From there he makes his way all the way back down, but still doesn’t see Deku. His vision blurs, and the fire dances around the room. Then he notices another door.
‘He has to be in there. I can’t have missed him.’
The door opens to a set of stairs that lead down to the basement. Bakugo hears something moving around down there, so he makes his way down the stairs. They creak and groan under his weight, but still hold. The basement is on fire too, so Bakugo picks his way through the fire. He can still hear something or someone moving around. What he isn’t aware of, is that All Might specifically said that there would be a few real people dotted around the city. All of whom have fire resistant quirks and are trained for this, but are also supposed to be acting like scared civilians. So, instead of finding Deku, he finds a little girl. She’s eight and crying.
Bakugo drops to one knee in front of her. She frowns for a moment, because she can see how pale he is despite the fact that he’s covered in soot. She quickly straightens her face out.
“Hey, come on. We gotta get out of here,” he says, reaching a hand out towards the girl.
She takes his hand, and he picks her up in one fluent motion. He stumbles approaching the stairs, but steadies himself with the wall. He manages to get all the way up the stairs without falling, but right as they get within a few feet of the door, the walls shake. Without thinking, Bakugo tosses the little girl, and she barely clears the open doorway before the roof starts to collapse. Bakugo, who’s reflexes are dulled, barely moves out of the way before the first piece of the ceiling can crush him. A wooden beam comes down, smacks him in the side of the head, and knocks him back down the stairs. He loses consciousness before he even hits the floor.
Deku jogs up to the first aid station with the dummies from his latest building. He sees Kirishima and Mina, so he waves cheerfully. Mina runs over.
“Where’s Bakugo?”
“I don’t know. I thought he was with you guys,” he replies.
That’s when Kirishima walks over. “He went into an unstable building to get you. We had to get these things back to the first aid station before we could do anything else, and he decided to go in after you,” Mina says.
“Please tell me that you don’t mean the one that I just left because the walls started to shake. I didn’t see Kacchan, and I searched the whole house,” Deku says, speaking quickly and close to hyperventilating.
“Calm down. He’s probably coming back here, looking for you,” Kirishima replies.
As if on cue, the little girl runs up. “You guys are heroes, right?”
Mina nods. “Why are you alone?”
“One of the other heroes came and got me, but he was trapped inside the building afterwards.”
“What did he look like?” Deku whispers.
“He had a black, orange, and green costume. He had these huge grenades as support items, and he’s blonde,” she rushes through, beginning to get breathless.
“Kacchan. One of you two go get All Might and Mr. Aizawa. I have to go see if I can find him.”
Deku takes off back towards the building that he just left. ‘How did I miss Kacchan and a whole little girl?’ Deku wonders.
The building is almost completely collapsed by the time Deku gets back there.
‘Is it possible that he’s even alive?’
The major problem is that Deku has no idea how to get through the debris without bringing down the rest of it, and condemning Bakugo to undeniable death. Luckily for him, it’s not long before All Might and Aizawa show up.
“Where’s Bakugo?” Aizawa asks.
“I’m not sure, but I think he might be trapped inside.”
“We have to start with the most stable parts of the building first. Then we work our way around the actual debris to find Bakugo,” Aizawa replies calmly.
Bakugo wakes up slowly. The basement is still on fire, but the fire isn’t spreading as fast. That immediately rings alarm bells in Bakugo’s head. The air also feels thin.
“There’s less oxygen,” he mutters. “Why is there less oxygen?” He turns his head around, but all he can see is fire and debris. “Air must not be getting in here. Where am I again?”
He tries to stand up, but his whole body protests. He sits back down heavily.
“What happened? How did I get here?”
Bakugo forces himself to stand, and almost passes out. His ribs are screaming at him, so he takes stock of his injuries. His wrist is swollen and purple, definitely broken. He has at least three broken ribs and two fractured ribs. Also, his head is pounding and his vision is blurry. He sluggishly puts a hand to his hairline, and starts running his hands through his hair. His right hand comes back sticky and red.
“Well, that explains something,” he mutters to himself.
Luckily, as the fire slowly dies, the rest of the structure holds. Bakugo sits in the corner, attempting to piece his memory together since he already knows that he can’t get himself out of this situation. By the time he’s completely pieced his memories of this morning together, he’s struggling to get a full breath. He isn’t paying enough attention, or he would be able to hear someone moving around near the stairs.
Right before he passes out, he hears someone call his name,” Kacchan! Kacchan, can you hear me?”
He wants to respond, but his vision fades too fast. He wakes up in Recovery Girl’s office with a major headache. His ribs feel fine, but his wrist still feels like it’s on fire. Deku and Kirishima are in chairs nearby, asleep. Mina walks in with three cups of juice. She squeals before setting the cups of juice on the nightstand next to Bakugo. Deku and Kirishima both sit up, Mina’s squealing waking them up.
“Kacchan, I’m so glad that you’re ok!”
Kirishima just grins at him.
“What were you thinking?” Mina asks, smacking his arm.
“I wasn’t. I just thought someone was in danger. Then there was that little girl.”
“Yeah, how did you find her? I didn’t realize that there was a basement,” Deku says.
“I was looking for you, and I saw the door. On my way down, I thought I heard someone. I didn’t think it was a little girl, I thought it was you. Close enough though.”
“Hey!”
“What are you yelling about?” Recovery Girl demands as she walks over.
“Nothing,” Kirishima quickly steps in.
“If you don’t quiet down, I will kick you out, Midoriya. Remember the rules. How are you feeling, Bakugo?”
“I’m fine.”
“Be honest, or I’ll kick them out.”
Bakugo mutters something, but none of them catch it. “My head hurts a little bit, and I have a freakin’ broken wrist.”
“How can you know that it’s broken?” Kirishima breaks in.
“I’ve broken my wrist a lot, and I’ve fractured them. It feels different. Definitely broken.”
Shinso pokes his head in. “Recovery Girl?”
“Yes, dear?”
“I need your help.”
“What did you do?”
“I didn’t do anything. You know how Nezu was going to have that meeting with some of the parents? Well, one of them used their quirk on Mr. Aizawa.”
“Oh dear, let’s go. I’ll have to get back to this later. I can also heal you a little bit more later.”
He nods, and she walks out with Shinso.
“Wonder what the quirk is that they had to come get Recovery Girl,” Bakugo says nonchalantly.
“I hope Mr. Aizawa is ok,” Mina says with a frown.
“Come on, let’s get out of here.” Bakugo gets up, and grabs his phone off of the nightstand.
“Kacchan, I brought some of your clothes from your dorm,” Deku says, holding them out.
“Why were you in my dorm?”
“I thought I’d get you some stuff. Is that alright?”
“Yeah, as long as you didn’t go snooping around my room too much, I guess it’s fine.”
“Of course not, Kacchan. Either way, I already know most of what you own anyway. I can’t think of anything you wouldn’t want me to see.”
“Yeah, that’s why it’s stuff that I don’t want you to see, not stuff I don’t want you to see again,” Bakugo replies. “Now, get out of here so I can change clothes and we can get going.”
All three of them vacate the room, and Bakugo changes into the clothes that Deku brought him: a pair of white washed jeans, a black t-shirt, an orange pull over hoodie, and black combat boots. He puts his hand on the doorknob, but pauses because he can hear the others talking.
“Why was he acting like that about his room?” Kirishima asks.
“I don’t know. I’ve never noticed him acting weird about it before,” Deku replies, and Mina giggles.
“I don’t really care. Maybe Blasty’s just touchy about his personal stuff.”
Bakugo slams the door open. “Alright, let’s go extras.”
“I don’t think that this is a good idea, Kacchan.”
“I agree with Midoriya,” Kirishima adds.
“Whatever.”
Bakugo walks past them, only limping slightly. They don’t get far though, barely to the dorms before Aizawa shows up.
“Bakugo, what are you doing outside of Recovery Girl’s office?” he demands. Other than his face being a little red, he looks fine.
“I wanted to be. I have to go to my room real fast, but I’ll listen to the lecture after.”
“I’ll come with you to make sure that you’re alright,” Deku says, rushing over to Bakugo.
“Nah, I’ll get it myself. I’m fine.”
He hurries off before Deku can argue. He has to make sure that Deku didn’t find his stash. He walks into his room and over to his desk. He pulls up the loose floorboard under his carpet, and sighs in relief.
‘I knew he couldn’t have found it.’ he thinks relieved.
After putting it back, he stands up. His wrist aches, so he rubs at it absentmindedly. After a moment, he descends back down the stairs into the living room. Aizawa is still standing there with his arms folded.
“Now, explain.”
Before Bakugo can try to come up with a good excuse, the door slams open and police officers file in. Nezu is trailing behind, looking unsure of why he's allowing what’s happening. Aizawa turns so fast that Bakugo is sure Aizawa’s going to pull a muscle.
“What is going on?”
“Katsuki Bakugo, you’re under arrest for treason,” one of the policemen says, walking over.
Bakugo instinctively takes a step back, but the policeman pulls his arms behind his back and handcuffs him. He forces himself to calm down and not lash out, despite the fact that he’s being restrained again. He flashes back to his capture, but once again forces his breathing to steady. They walk him out of the dorms right as Aizawa moves to intervene. Nezu holds his hand up.
“They have proof that he’s a traitor. I’ll show it to you as soon as they’re gone.”
Once Bakugo is settled in an interrogation room, a detective walks in.
“Katsuki Bakugo. What would you prefer I call you, Katsuki or villain?”
Bakugo snickers. “You’re one for the dramatics, you can just call me Bakugo. Everyone does.”
"What about that kid back at the dorms? You two seemed close.”
“Which one?”
The detective consults his phone before replying,” Izuku Midoriya. Did he help you with your crimes? He even has a pet name for you. You have to be close.”
“It’s not a pet name. He’s an idiot, and he couldn’t say Katsuki, so he called me Kacchan. Also, I didn’t commit any crimes.”
“You’re very calm for your usual attitude.”
“Yeah, I took my anti murdering pills earlier. Also, I’m pretty sure that I have a right to know what I’m getting arrested for, and don’t you want to ask some useful questions? Deku has nothing to do with anything anyway.”
“Ok, we know you’re the traitor inside UA. Don’t try to deny it, we have proof.”
“Ok, then show me. Show me this magical proof.”
“Well, here is a tape of the villains talking about you.”
A voice comes over the speaker, it sounds like Shigaraki,” Our spy, how is he doing?”
Another voice, one that Bakugo doesn’t recognize, speaks,” He’s fine. He’s getting plenty of intel, and we’re meeting him at an abandoned motel in a few days.”
“Who is it again? I never can tell those brats apart.”
“Katsuki Bakugo. Some people are starting to get a bit suspicious though, so we’ll plan for an accident of some sort. Make him seem more reliable. Also, make sure that you’re ready once we get the intel.”
The recording cuts off there. Bakugo frowns.
“Not enough to hold up in court.”
“We have texts coming from your phone to an unknown number, which we traced back to one of the league’s old hideouts. Also, you leave every morning super early and always make sure that no one else is awake. You’re always in class the earliest, even before your teacher. What are you doing in there? Maybe looking through your teacher’s things.”
“I go for runs every morning, and I don’t like waking my idiot friends up. That doesn’t sound like a bad thing. Also, I’m doing homework, sorry if that’s a crime. I don’t know what that tape is, but you’re an idiot.”
“Ah, there’s a little bit of the usual anger. I can work with that.”
“You’re trying to get me to slip up, and I’m not doing it. If this was an open and shut case, we wouldn’t be here right now. You need something out of me. Now, I want my phone call.”
“That’s not happening.”
“I’m not saying another word until I have my phone call. I’m a minor, and you’re interrogating me without my parents, a social worker, or a lawyer. This is not going to go well for you when this is all over. Your career probably will be too,” he adds with a grin.
The detective stands up, and hands him a phone.
“You can talk with me here.”
Bakugo smiles sweetly at him. “Thank you so much.”
He dials Deku’s number, mainly because it’s the only number he can remember with his head spinning the way that it is. Deku picks up on the third ring.
“Hello.”
“Hey.”
“Kacchan! Oh my gosh, what happened? Where are you?”
“I’m in an interrogation room. Look, I need for you to call my mom and tell her what’s going on. Also, I needed to let you know that I didn’t do anything. I don’t really know what’s going on yet, but I… I need you to trust me on this one.”
“Of course, Kacchan. You know that I trust you.”
Bakugo sighs. “Thank you, Deku.”
He hangs up before Deku can respond. He hands the detective his phone back.
“Alright, now, let’s get back to what we were talking about.”
Before he can say anything else, the world jerks, and they’re both thrown into the wall.