Chapter Text
It was a perfectly average early summer day at U.A., and students were filtering into their homerooms and sparking idle conversation to fill the time before class began. Katsuki Bakugou, on the other hand, saw no point in such idle activities. He figured there was no point in joining in on the pointless conversations designed specifically to kill time, especially with his classmates. He regarded them, for the most part, mere extras in his mind. So as his colleagues chattered around him, Katsuki merely kicked his feet up onto his desk and leaned back in his chair, knowing full well the class representative wouldn’t bother chiding him. As it should be, he figured. Katsuki shut his eyes and shut out the mindless chatter with it, but a familiar voice pulled him out of his reverie.
“Did you see Kamui make that awesome save for Mt. Lady on the news yesterday?” Kirishima asked, sliding the door open with Kaminari in tow.
Katsuki grunted, watching the two enter the room. It figured that Hair-for-Brains and the electric moron would be the most annoying first thing in the morning.
“Oh, dude, it was awesome! Kamui has to be extremely tough to be able to use his lacquered chain prison to catch Mt. Lady while she's using her quirk. They always seem to be working together when they’re fighting some crazy mutation or beast type villain, so he’s probably gotten pretty good at it by now,” Kaminari mused, probably considering how unfathomable it would be for him to preform such a feat.
“You know, I wouldn’t be surprised if we had a specifically save-based training exercise coming up soon.”
“Oh, maybe something like that first exercise with All Might, but with your partner being the hostage or in the thick of a battle or something?”
“While that would be a great learning experience for us, practicing saves is something a hero in training should be doing all the time in our practical training,” Iida interrupted, nodding to himself. Katsuki couldn’t help but roll his eyes and scoff.
Kirishima and Kaminari looked at one another and both shrugged.
“I mean, you’re right, I guess, but with all the heroes teaming up and everything, you’d think that assists and saves would be a big part of the hero course,” Kirishima said, sitting causally in his seat.
“I think it would be pretty fun, you know? Watching everyone in battle training was really cool, and besides you get to see how well different quirks synergize with or against each other,” Kaminari said, and gestured to Katsuki, “or how badly they synergize, in some cases.”
“Shut the fuck up, lackwit,” Katsuki snarled, “I worked together with glasses fine, you don’t know what you’re going on about.”
Iida looked momentarily offended, and opened his mouth to speak, but was cut off by Kaminari scoffing.
“Yeah, sure, whatever, Bakugou! I’m not talking about you and the class rep over here, I’m talking about you and Midoriya!”
“What about that shitty nerd?” Katsuki glowered, sitting upright in his seat so he could easily spring out of it and blow Kaminari’s stupid face off if the situation permitted. Iida and Kirishima both tried sending warning glances signaling to end the conversation to their classmate, who was too busy tempting fate to notice.
“Come on Bakugou, you straight up tried to kill a man in battle training! You and Midoriya are a terrible combination! That makes you a seriously bad dude, and not in a good way,” Kaminari added, pouring fuel onto an already dangerous fire.
Katsuki clenched his teeth, ready to retort and punch the blonde’s stupid face in, when several more of his classmates decided to pile on the conversation before he could even finish reacting.
“Yeah, Bakugou, you’re really strong, but you’re not a very good teammate if you say you’re gonna kill someone! Caring more about fighting than working together is kind of scary, honestly! Almost villain-like! What’s gonna happen if you have to help someone?” Mina laughed from her desk, close enough to comment but safely out of range of Katsuki’s sizzling fists.
“He’s usually so combat focused, if you were in trouble, he’d most likely forget about you. I don’t know if I would be able to count on him in a situation where a save would need to be preformed,” Tsuyu added.
“Oh gosh, could you imagine what would happen if the person he was partnered with was poor Midoriya? He’d get left for dead for sure!”
“I certainly hope they don’t end up fighting together as professionals. That could end badly for poor Midoriya.”
“Shut the fuck up, what the hell do you know!?” Katsuki snapped, standing and slamming his palms on his desk, effectively ending the banter. He glared at his stunned silent classmates before Kirishima brushed off his outburst like it was nothing.
“Man, Bakugou, you can dish it but you sure can’t take it,” Kirishima said with a chuckle, gently shoving Katsuki’s arm, who instantly swatted it away with more force than necessary. Whatever. Kirishima’s quirk was hardening or whatever. He would be fine.
“So what if he’s a bit pissy? When it really comes down to it, Bakugou would save anyone in a pinch when he goes pro. Even, you Midoriya! Right?”
Deku? When had that shitty nerd slunk into class?
Katsuki whipped around to look behind him and saw Izuku, who looked as though he had just arrived and as trying to take a seat and avoid the banter completely. Katsuki glared at Izuku, who jumped a little once he was noticed, already looking nervous from being asked such a loaded question by Kirishima.
“W-what? I’m sorry, I wasn’t paying attention to the conversation, so…” Izuku stammered, his voice trailing off as he avoided eye contact with anyone, obviously trying to avoid the question.
Fucking liar.
“Shut up, Deku. You’re not a part of this,” Katsuki growled, glaring at Kirishima, as well as his other classmates, who were retreating back to their seats before class really began.
Even as Aizawa slid into class in his sleeping bag, Katsuki couldn’t help but continue to simmer over what his classmates had said. He was so absorbed in his own thoughts, Aizawa’s announcement of the second semester field training exercise- working under professional heroes again - was fully ignored. This sort of thing shouldn’t have bothered him at all, but Mina and Tsuyu’s commentary made him seethe, but in a way he wasn’t entirely used to.
Why should he care about the pointless, idiotic, pre-class banter that his classmates spewed out? Kirishima and Kaminari were both idiots, and obviously anyone who cared that much about saves and assists was probably someone who was useless, dead weight enough to need it.
Maybe it was because he didn’t make his goal of becoming the greatest hero excessively public (unlike Deku’s middle school delusions) but being called a villain still bothered him, a little bit. Just a little more than he would ever admit.
They didn't know anything about him, if they thought he was more of villain than a hero.
They didn’t know a damn thing at all.