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"This is the part where it gets difficult," Jeanist says, and that’s the most warning he gets, really.
Katsuki doesn’t spark off the second the silk winds around his arms, doesn’t ignite the sweat suddenly prickling across his palms in an instant. They’d discussed this, and Jeanist had come to the conclusion that it was better for them to start with something he could burn off if he needed to—but that’s not the point of this. That’s not the point of Katsuki in his office, on his knees, arms extended and palms carefully directed up.
The point is that regaining the strength in his right arm has been a long, painful struggle, and in the interest of not setting that back at any point, most of the practical training exams had focused their attention on things other than his arms when throwing out damage. The point is that Katsuki’s quirk is concentrated in his palms, and that everyone knows his hands are the most dangerous part of him. The point is that Shigaraki had broken his arm so badly they’d been afraid he’d never use it again.
The point is that Katsuki has had a slowly bubbling complex about having his hands rendered useless since he got attacked by the fucking sludge villain when he was fourteen, and it’s only now, late in his third year, that it’s reared its ugly head in a bad way.
Aizawa’s been slacking with his capture weapon, honestly. Katsuki’s pretty sure he hasn’t been properly fucking restrained even once since the final battle with Shigaraki. Which is maybe why he didn’t think it was going to be a problem at all when Genius Agency was running interns and sidekicks both through basic hostage situations, and he’d been voluntold to act as a hostage for one of the scenarios; after all, it wasn’t like he’d lost his fucking shit when he put his gauntlets on, and those had as much weight and heft to them as a pair of quirk-nullifying cuffs.
But he can feel the difference. And whatever the look on his face had been was enough for Jeanist to call the exercise off, and then call him to his office, and now—this.
It’s just silk. It’s flammable, and even if silk has a remarkably high tensile strength, it’s nothing Katsuki couldn’t blow his way out of with enough incentive. He’s not in costume, and his compression sleeve is on, so one arm is pale, unmarked skin and the other is black sweat-wicking fabric, both of his hands thick-palmed and scarless. The silk is orange, which might be Jeanist’s obscure idea of a joke—it’s hard to tell with him.
It’s just silk, and Katsuki’s ears are ringing, and he swallows hard as sweat pools in his palms like dangerous, poisonous springs in a desert.
Fingers press to his jaw, gently redirect his attention upwards. He stares, unseeing, before his good eye properly focuses on Jeanist’s face, eyebrows lifted in question, mouth covered. Makes it kind of a fucking pain in the ass for Katsuki to read his lips when he can’t fucking see them, but he’s gotten used to it, and Jeanist is always good at articulating his words clearly and audibly.
"Dynamight," he says, and the cadence of it tells Katsuki that this isn’t the first time he’s said it, "I asked if you could handle this much pressure."
He swallows again, tries to assess it. The silk on his arms is pressing into his skin with the kind of steadiness that’s akin to a hand gripping him—not tight enough to bruise, not light enough to tickle, but somewhere in between. Like the brace he still wears around his back, almost.
"I can handle it," he says, his voice hoarse and raw, and the fingers tucked under his jaw press a fraction harder.
"Can you keep your attention on me?" The question isn’t idle, for all that Jeanist’s voice is as even and unbothered as it was when he ordered Katsuki to kneel. Katsuki might be trembling and sweating and close to tears from this, but Jeanist is remote and entirely in control, and every word is chosen as precisely as the pressure on his wrists and the color of silk binding him down.
Keeping his attention on Jeanist means not checking the fuck out of his head. Katsuki can’t panic and he can’t shut down and he can’t explode his way out of this situation. He has to stay focused, and he has to think, and the whole point of this is the rewiring of his brain so he can do both under pressure.
Under the pressure of the silk on his wrists, specifically.
"Yeah," he croaks, but he means it. He’s watching Jeanist and fighting to breathe, but he can keep his attention fixed to that one solid point, Jeanist the spindle on which the world spins.
Jeanist’s hand slips lower, fingers trailing over his pulsepoint, wrapping around his neck. Like everything else about him, they’re long and elegant, stretched out in ways that would look alien if every inch of him wasn’t a little too thin, a little too tall. Nothing like Katsuki’s fingers, blunt and practical; Jeanist’s hand can fit around his throat with more than enough room left over.
There’s no pressure at all. Katsuki’s attention doesn’t waver, even though he can feel another roll of silk beginning to wrap around his wrists, heavier, tighter.
"Where are you?" Jeanist asks, and Katsuki has to blink a few times to bring him back into focus, the faint blurring of tears in his eyes as much as surprise as the fact that the hand is still around his neck.
"In your office." His throat clicks when he swallows, mouth dry. Sweat is starting to drip from between his fingers, rolling in fat, heavy beads down off of his palms. "In Genius Office. Third floor."
"That’s good," Jeanist says, and the words hit him like a punch to his chest. "Very thorough, Dynamight."
"Thank you, sir," he says, and he is pretty fucking sure he’s going to be humiliated about this later, but right now he can’t waste time and attention on something as petty as self-loathing. It’s hard enough to stay in the moment, tracking Jeanist’s blue eyes with his own. It’s hard enough to feel the silk around his wrists tighten and not throw up.
"If you were confined here, what information would you relay to the rescue team?" Jeanist asks, and it’s a task, it’s another thing to focus on, and Katsuki breathes in sharp and careful around the tightness in his throat.
He outlines the entry points and exits—not just the doors but the windows as well, which walls the vents are on, which walls border other offices. Jeanist asks careful, pointed questions that force him to focus on parts of the room and not the way his arms are restrained, even though Katsuki is hyperaware of them anyways, and he answers as best he can—then answers better, because Katsuki is going to be good at this, no matter what it costs him.
It’s getting harder and harder to breathe without gasping, tears burning molten tracks down his cheeks as his fingers flex and curl, but he does it. In for seven, out for ten, losing count when he relays information that a secondary team would use to breach the building and then regaining it again in the empty spaces before Jeanist asks another question. The entire time, the pressure of silk around his wrists is a constant he can’t quite break his thoughts away from, a horrified sort of fixation that looms ever larger in the back of his mind with every passing minute.
"You’re doing well," Jeanist tells him, long after Katsuki’s lost track of the time. He doesn’t need to know how much time has passed; he just needs to stay focused on Jeanist, the lodestone that draws his eyes whenever Katsuki no longer needs to verify something in his environment. "I’m going to increase the weight and restriction now, Dynamight. Can you—"
"Wait," he chokes out, losing his count entirely. "Wait. Just—just fucking wait a second."
Jeanist’s hand is still around his throat, though he’s settled into a crouch in front of Katsuki instead. His fingers don’t so much as twitch, but his blue eyes soften and he—waits.
He can do this. He can do this. If he does nothing but focus on the environment and the critical information for him to get to a rescue team as soon as they get in contact, Katsuki can do this. All he has to do is ignore the way his arms are restricted, how he can’t fight back at all, how he’s fucking trapped with no one coming and—
"I can’t," Katsuki gasps, tears rolling down his face. "I can’t, sir, I can’t."
In an instant, the silk unravels, a flick of Jeanist’s wrist sending it flying away. The hand around his throat shifts, cupping his jaw and tipping his face up, Jeanist’s expression gentle through the blur of tears. The breath in his chest is raw and heavy, his ribs aching like they’ve been crushed, and when he flexes his fingers, they feel stiff and nerveless, even his left hand.
He can move his hands. He’s not actually trapped anymore, his skin clammy with sweat and his knees aching. Katsuki tries to say something more, but what ends up coming out is a ragged, ugly sob.
Long, elegant fingers slip through his hair, heedless of the sweat turning it damp, tucking his face into one denim-clad shoulder. The fabric is surprisingly soft, washed often enough that it’s velvety against his wet cheeks, and Jeanist’s chest is warm where Katsuki leans most of his weight into it. Safe, he reminds himself, muffling his sobs in the fabric. He’s fucking safe.
It takes longer than it should for him to get himself under control, chest heaving as he grabs at Jeanist’s jacket with indiscriminate hands. The fingers in his hair don’t waver, combing through it in steady, constant motions, Jeanist’s other arm wrapped firmly around his back, and past the awful sound of his own hysterical sobbing, Katsuki can make out a steady stream of nonsense words. Reassurance that he’s safe, promises that he’d done very well. Stupid bullshit. Pointless bullshit.
But it helps. It gives him something to ground himself in, Jeanist’s low voice and the texture of his stupid denim jacket, until eventually he can tuck the torn edges of himself back in and force himself to breathe. In and out. Not counting this time, because he’s using the steady rise and fall of Jeanist’s chest to measure himself against instead, until he’s finally, finally, in time.
Still fucking crying, but what else is new.
"Sorry about your jacket," he croaks, because it’s soaked with tears and snot under his cheek and damp with his toxic sweat under his palms. Having a breakdown on his mentor isn’t exactly his idea of a good time; doing it and then having to walk him through the best way to launder his tailored denim is—
"It will wash out," Jeanist says, unbothered. "I have an alkaline solution to neutralize your sweat. I wouldn’t have done this with you if I wasn’t certain I could deal with the consequences."
"Like your intern having a tantrum over fucking ribbons?" Katsuki asks bitterly, finally lifting a shaking hand to grind against his burning eyes.
"A tantrum implies a baseless emotional reaction." Jeanist’s fingers skate over his scalp, not quite scratching at it, gliding through the sweaty strands unbothered by it entirely. "I think we can both agree that your reaction isn’t baseless."
His lip curls in a silent snarl, but he doesn’t move out of Jeanist’s lap. Even if it’s a little humiliating to cling to one of the top heroes in the country like a fucking child.
He doesn’t say anything, and after a few minutes, the steady drag of Jeanist’s fingers through his hair settles in a hand curled over the back of his neck. The pressure is still nice—just firm enough to remind Katsuki where he is, not so much that it feels like Jeanist is trying to push his head down. Just… keeping him in place. Just keeping him where he should be.
"What was with the hand around my neck?" he asks when he feels Jeanist shift like he’s about to move; humiliating as it is, Katsuki does not want to let go. Not yet. Not until he feels steady in his skin again.
There’s a pregnant pause, and then Jeanist answers, "I was testing a theory. I apologize—I should have discussed it with you beforehand."
"It’s fucking fine or whatever, I just didn’t know why you did it." It had helped too, but he doesn’t particularly want to unpack that right now. "What was the theory?"
"That your issues with restriction included pressure around your throat—you make a point to avoid having anything tight around your neck, I’ve noticed. Even formalwear."
Katsuki barks out a laugh, startled and a little wet as he rubs at his eyes again, and finally works up the willpower to push his way out of Jeanist’s lap. He’s still shaky and his clothes are sticky with sweat—the noncombustible kind—but he feels less broken. Less like he’s three seconds from collapsing in on himself, crushed under the overbearing weight of some bits of fucking silk around his wrists.
Fuck. He has got to get over himself.
"I leave my collar open because it’s cool," he says, in open defiance of the fact that he’s talking to a supposed fashion expert who would die before he let anyone see his neck. "The hand didn’t bother me, it was—fine. It helped. With grounding and shit. So I guess if I ever end up in quirk cuffs and choked out, I can rely on that."
"We should make an effort to avoid that scenario, ideally." Jeanist watches him, steady and thoughtful with his long fingers pressed together in his lap, and Katsuki fights not to squirm under that bright gaze. "You did very well managing your fear, Bakugo. I know it doesn’t feel that way right now, but you handled yourself with remarkable aplomb and kept your wits."
"I broke," Katsuki tells him flatly.
Jeanist’s eyebrows lift, and he unfolds from the floor with an easy grace, lightly brushing his fingers over the damp spots on his jacket that Katsuki winces at. Before he can apologize for that—again—Jeanist leans down to ruffle his hair, not unlike rewarding a fucking dog for doing a trick, just without the edge of condescension.
"You did well," Jeanist repeats, low and warm, and Katsuki is not fucking unpacking the way something tight in his chest unravels at the words. "Take your time putting yourself together, and then we’ll discuss a time to do this again."
Because he did well, if Jeanist is to be believed, but he still broke. And if he’s going to be a hero, Katsuki can’t let himself break like that.
He blows out a sigh, heavy and frustrated, rubbing feeling back into his right hand and says, "Yeah, okay. Sounds fucking great."
Jeanist’s hand drags over his head a final time before he strides out of the office, leaving Katsuki behind. The orange silk sits, tauntingly, across the glossy wood floor, out of reach but not out of sight. Katsuki stares at it, then leans back and shuts his eyes and breathes. And breathes.