Chapter Text
Katsuki stared at the first page of his diagnostic assessment report. The first sentence read 'Bakugou Katsuki meets the criteria for an ASD (autism spectrum disorder) diagnosis.' The black ink lay there sharply on the pristine white paper. There was no erasing the words. They just sat there, as if the information on the page was eternal truth. After that there was some stuff about psychoeducation and an overview or something but all the boy could focus on was the diagnosis.
Autism. The same thing he scorned and mocked Deku about for over a decade. In hindsight it made sense, internally he always used to justify his cruelty as just doing what his mother did when he tried to do the things that Deku did constantly.
Deku had been diagnosed when they were 4, their preschool did a whole day of workshops and information about it but Katsuki couldn't actually remember the stuff in said workshops, only that it was all just everyone trying to make excuses for things that Katsuki had to suck up and deal with. Only that Deku was making excuses for things he always had to hide. Making excuses for the things that Deku got to explain away under the excuse of autism but that he had to hide or stop or bottle up to become fuel for an explosion later because it made him weak, annoying, a brat, too sensitive, etcetera etcetera.
"Bakugou-kun, are you listening to me? I was just saying how I completely understand how this may come as a shock, especially as for some reason you decided not to know what you were being assessed for before the assessment started, and I just wanted to say that no matter how you feel about this you are safe here to express those feelings in whatever way feels right for you. As you are under the age of 18 I will have to call your parents to make them aware of your diagnosis but it’s up to you whether or not you want to be part of that conversation."
His therapist was talking again. Did he ever shut up? This entire thing was bullshit, and he wouldn't be here if stupid UA hadn't mandated for him to start therapy after his fight with Deku at Ground Beta about a month ago. There wasn’t any reason for him to even be in therapy, let alone get assessed for this bullshit.
"Fuck this, keep your shitty report I'm going to the gym."
He stood to leave, his therapist calling to say that he'd email him a copy of the report for him to look over when he's ready, and to email him back when he was ready to continue with the session.
He didn't go to the gym, instead journeying from the main campus back to the dorms, locking his door as soon as he got in and ignoring the requests from his friends to come play Mario Kart with them, much to Kirishima's despair. He didn't trust himself not to fuck over their Saturday if he joined them right now.
Instead he rummaged around under his bed for his old middle school backpack, knowing his first journals were all stored in there. He had been journaling since he was about 3 or 4, the ‘entries’ for the first few years just being a crude few sentences about a cool thing that happened that day or a villain fight that he'd seen on the way to or from school.
Over the years the entries slowly morphed from an innocent kid just recounting his day to a fully documented list of the things Deku did that pissed him off and the responses he would give the next time he did them. He never saw what he was doing as wrong, after all he never acted unprovoked as there was always a direct cause and response to the torment he subjected his classmate to.
At first he solely did it for things about his quirklessness, for daring to even imagine one day being as good as he was, for constantly writing in that analysis notebook of his as if he wasn't just copying Katsuki and trying to one-up him to try and shove it in his face that he, a useless, quirkless boy, would always be better than the whiny brat who's anger always seemed to come out as explosions.
Over time it became anything that Deku thought he could do that Katsuki couldn't. And by halfway through middle school all that reasoning had been forgotten. Anything that pissed him off he would add to the list and whatever response Katsuki gave he would always give in that situation from then on.
He wrote other stuff in his journals as well, namely a lot of hero analysis from any and every source he could find, as well as lists and diagrams. Lots and lots of lists and diagrams. He had always made them in his head, taking everything around him into account and ordering them in his head in various ways, but writing them down and drawing them out was more real and it was often as close as he could get to ordering the objects how he wanted.
What he actually wanted to do was to put the things he saw in the right places, it started as wanting to make his dollhouse right as a kid and he would have hours of fun setting up the house right. His mother never liked that though, Katsuki never spent much time playing with the dolls, he only enjoyed setting them up, and eventually Mitsuki got frustrated at him for wasting her money and so she gave it away to his little cousins.
He eventually found the bag and a pen and got about three items down, asking himself if there was ever a time where he wanted to do the thing listed but had decided against it for various reasons, before the burning feeling in his chest got too intense and he had to stop, knowing that if he didn’t he’d lose control for the first time in years. He knew how to deal with this feeling, the prickling on his skin when the lights got too loud and the sounds too sharp. He had been dealing with it the exact same way for years now.
He took one of his grip strengtheners out of his drawer, changed into looser clothes that didn’t scratch at his skin in all the wrong ways, turned the big light off and his desk lamp on, and sat on the floor with his duvet over his head to watch that one semi-obscure All Might documentary from when he was 4. It was one that was made for little kids to teach them about what heroes do and it was animated with really annoying songs every five minutes and constant Dora the Explorer style questions.
And Katsuki loved it.
It also happened to be one of the last good memories he had with Deku. It came out just before he had been diagnosed quirkless and they watched it round at Deku’s house during a sleepover not two days before Deku received the news. That fact usually didn’t bother him in the slightest, hell usually he didn’t even remember it until after he was already calm.
But today it just kept gnawing at him, overriding any feelings of calm he was getting from the documentary.
For a while he attempted to ignore it, trying to avoid falling into the pit of guilt by keeping the hand not using his grip strengthener in his pocket rubbing his All Might card. He couldn’t feel like this. It was just going to end up being forced on everyone else around him and he didn’t deserve to feel sorry for himself.
“Fuck this, can’t even watch my documentary because of shitty Dek-”
He fell silent again. He was doing it again and he knew it. This entire fucking situation was his fault. That feeling was back in his stomach as tiny explosions popped in his palms.
If this were a school day he’d probably be fine. He’d be pissed at the fluorescent lights in the classrooms and the sound of pens scraping the paper and the texture of the food at lunch and if they had combat training he’d probably end up taking it out on whichever poor sucker was paired up with him. But he’d be fine.
School days were (for the most part) predictable and even when they weren’t he was able to just ignore it and let it simmer without anyone noticing. He didn’t have to think about what he needed to be doing at any particular time. There were set expectations that he knew how to work within.
But no, it was a Saturday and so his options were to go and find somewhere to train, get his homework done, go on hero forums for the 50th time this week, or go downstairs and play Mario Kart. None of which sounded particularly enticing to him right now, other than going and training but he was already feeling shit and he did not want to have to take off his binder.
He was just about to go sit at his desk to try and get some work done when his phone started to ring. Katsuki let out a groan when he saw the name on the screen.
“What does the hag want, she knows I fucking hate calling.” he murmured to himself as he answered the phone, putting it on speaker so he could remain under the duvet until she allowed him to hang up.
“Bakugou Katsuki. I will give you one guess why I have to be calling you right now. And if you can’t get it then you’re more of a twit than you seem because I have had this conversation with you too many times to count, and still it never goes in.” Well, fuck. He’s screwed. Katsuki had 0 idea what she was on about and to be quite honest he had about as much of an idea whether or not he was actually meant to answer the question.
“Good fucking morning to you too hag, try opening with that next time and maybe I’ll actually want to figure out what the fuck you're on about.”
“Unbelievable. I call to ask why you are still making excuses for your behaviour and instead of owning up to it you continue to make more and more.”
Fuck. The school called her.
“I’m not making excuses, the shitty therapist is the one doing that. It's not like I asked to get assessed for it.”
“So you do know what I’m calling about! How many times do I have to repeat myself to get it in your thick skull that lying straight to my face isn’t going to work Katsuki? I want to help you but god dammit you make it hard to be around you when you pull pathetic shit like this.”
Ah yes. Because no information was given between him not knowing and him figuring it out, so of course he was lying!
“I wasn’t trying to make your life hard, come the fuck on.” A scoff echoed through his ears before his mother just sighed through the phone.
“Yeah it’s pretty clear you weren’t trying alright. Yet again your carelessness and selfishness becomes everyone else’s problem because you can’t be bothered to have some basic manners and not make a mountain out of every single molehill you dig up for yourself.”
Katsuki stayed quiet at that. He knew she was right and he also knew the quicker she got through her rant the quicker he could hang up. At least over the phone he could close his eyes and tense his face to stop himself from responding without being accused of rolling his eyes or some shit.
“Can’t even be bothered to respond. Typical. Just, actually try and not fuck up everything you touch for once? Ok?”
“Yeah. Got it.”
“Come round for lunch this weekend if UA lets you.”
“Sure.”
“I love you Katsuki, you being difficult doesn’t change that.”
Katsuki stays silent for a moment more. It’s not like he wants to be difficult, it just happens.
“Yeah I know. Love you too mum.”
The line went dead.
He felt like he was about to explode, possibly literally with how much sweat he’d accumulated under the duvet. Getting work done now was going to be impossible, he’d already ruled out his All Might documentary, and there was no way in hell he was letting any of his classmates see him like this so going to the common room was out of the question too.
That just left going to train. He counted to five on his fingers on repeat as he slowly emerged from the duvet cocoon, grabbed his training bag, and shoved on his headphones, continuing the count as he dragged himself to the gym.