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As students returned to the dorms, they were greeted by the sight of their previously missing teachers in the common room.
Mic was lying face-down on the couch, not giving any sign that he was breathing. Aizawa was staring off into nothingness from his place in a chair, not even glancing up when they all entered.
The group of students glanced between each other, not quite sure how to proceed. Some whispered amongst themselves, trying to figure out what to do, when shouting broke them out of their stupor.
“What’s the fucking holdup?!” Bakugou shouted from the back of the crowd, explosions cracking in his palms. Everyone quickly shuffled away from him and when they glanced back at their teachers, it seemed like the loud noise finally alerted them to their student’s presence.
Aizawa rubbed his eyes as Mic sat bolt upright, taking a second to turn the correct way to face them. They seemed unaware of the thick layer of awkwardness choking the room as students slowly trickled to their dorms to change into casual clothes.
The few that dared return back to the common room were greeted with the most unenthusiastic smile from Mic and no response from Aizawa. Midoriya had tried to ask if something was wrong but had been dragged away by Sero asking for help cooking before he got the chance.
Dinner was prepared then served and still their teachers sat ominously in the common room, back to their dead imitations or blank staring. Some students whispered about it, especially those who typically ate on the couch Mic was now occupying, but nobody approached them.
After dishes were put away courtesy of Yaomomo and Kouda, a couple people dared to step into the common room to go about their afternoons as normal. Neither teacher seemed to react to the company until halfway through a very tense game of Uno, Mic dragged himself off the couch and fished his keys from his pocket.
“Oh, are you going somewhere Mic-sensei?” Uraraka asked, definitely not trying to get Bakugou to turn away from the game so she could place a +4 without getting her face blown off.
He seemed to hesitate for a moment, glancing between his keys and the curious students looking at him, but nodded. “Need to go blow off some steam at a rage room, ya dig? Actually, I could bring some of you listeners with me too. Seems like some of you are stewing in rage.”
Bakugou slammed his cards down and declared he was going, quickly messing up the game which Kaminari quickly yelled at him for. Mic warned he could only fit three people in his car and that they would have to work out who’s going amongst themselves.
Uraraka said she’d like to go before turning her attention back to her teacher. He was still smiling, but it was strained and his hands were shaking enough to jingle his keys as he tapped Aizawa’s shoulder. It was hard to hear the conversation over Kaminari and Bakugou bickering about the ruined card game, but she managed to pick up that he was being invited on this little outing too.
Eventually it was decided that Bakugou, Uraraka and Todoroki would be going. She wasn’t quite sure when Todoroki had appeared, much less when he managed to secure a spot in this outing, but she shrugged it off as they made their way out to Mic’s car.
Bakugou attempted to call shotgun but Mic told him that the seat was reserved for Aizawa, which Todoroki narrowed his eyes at as Bakugou seethed. The three students crammed into the backseat, Todoroki getting stuck in the middle after attempting to sit in the seat Bakugou had apparently wanted and being threatened repeatedly.
The drive was mostly silent save for Bakugou’s grumbling and the quiet radio, though it was longer than the trio expected. Eventually they stopped outside of what they would have assumed was an office building before walking inside.
They hung back as Mic talked to the man at the desk, fidgeting as they waited for the conversation to be done. Eventually their teacher handed his card over before walking back over to them.
“Alright, I got you three separate rooms but only one is quirk resistant-“
“Which one?” Bakugou demanded and Aizawa sighed before reluctantly showing him.
“Well then, that gives you two listeners the other rooms. They’ll give you a couple weapons to break stuff with but no quirk use, got it?” They both nodded before following Mic to their respective doors.
Uraraka felt a rush of adrenaline as she picked up the sledgehammer and started smashing the numerous glass objects scattered about the room. She could faintly hear Todoroki next door throwing things against the wall and despite being further away, Bakugou’s explosions were still loud and clear.
It was about half an hour before the room was completely torn apart and Uraraka was drenched in sweat. She put the sledgehammer back to its rightful place mounted on the wall and went back to the main room.
Todoroki and Bakugou were already there, both looking equally as disheveled. Todoroki was still heaving breaths like he had run laps and Bakugou was absolutely covered in soot. They both glanced up as she entered but beyond a half-wave from Todoroki there wasn’t a greeting.
“Still no Aizawa-sensei or Mic-sensei?” She asked, glancing at the clock. Those rooms were full of stuff, yeah, but she expected two pros to go through it much faster than them.
Todoroki shook his head as Bakugou scoffed. “Didn’t you see them? They’re gonna rip those rooms to shreds before they come back out here.”
She frowned slightly at the answer. They did both look upset, but being upset would mean they tore through the room faster, right?
Apparently not. It was another fifteen minutes before the door connecting the main room to the others swung open and their teachers walked through.
None of them commented on the blood poorly wiped off around Mic’s mouth or the tear tracks on Aizawa’s face, but they all noticed it. The car ride back to the dorms was somehow quieter than the first one and as their classmates greeted them and asked how it went, the three shared a glance before talking about how fun it was to completely wreck the place.
The outing seemed to have the intended effect, both their teachers and Bakugou seemed more relaxed than before even if by a small margin. Aizawa and Mic sat around the unusually unoccupied coffee table to grade homework while Bakugou stalked off to shower, stomping only slightly louder than normal footsteps now.
He returned back downstairs a few hours later, pushing a bit past his usual bedtime. Most people had gone up to their rooms already, far more aware of curfew now that two teachers occupied their space. Only Midoriya and Todoroki were downstairs now, along with the teachers who were still grading.
Bakugou flicked the electric kettle to get it heating up and grabbed the tea Ponytail had made for him after he fell asleep in class. He hated it, the taste was foul and drinking tea was for fancy pants like her, but it was the only thing getting him to sleep on time nowadays.
Taking a seat at the only unoccupied table, he tried to ignore the Nerd’s mumbling to Icyhot and instead focus on the other people nearby. The scratch on pen against paper was harsh and a few seconds later, accompanied by the noise of ripping paper.
Mic growled in frustration and stood, coming fully into the three’s sight rather than just the end of his hair peeking over the couch. Midoriya’s rambling stopped and Todoroki paused his trek to get a snack, turning toward the noise.
“Mic-“ Aizawa started and he sounded more tired than usual. Midoriya’s eyebrows furrowed in concern as Bakugo glanced at Todoroki, the two stuck on the outcome of the rage room earlier.
“I can’t do this! How can you just sit here and grade like nothing fucking happened!” Mic snapped and they all flinched back. Hearing him mad was a rare occasion, at Aizawa no less and swearing in-front of students pushed this situation firmly into ‘what is happening right now’.
“Oh like how you showed up to class the day after the funeral smiling and refusing to talk about it?” Aizawa replied coolly and he was standing now too. Midoriya’s eyes were wide as saucers and the tile floor separating the dining areas from the common room was rapidly changing between hot and cold. Bakugou barely even registered the sound of his kettle clicking to indicate his water was ready and he could get out of here.
“I’m the one who refused to talk about it?!” The volume of his voice was building and the three were starting to wonder if this was going to escalate into him using his quirk to bring the building down. It seemed likely, at this rate. “You hid out in your room for a month and I’m the one who refused to talk about it?”
“You think putting on an act every time I left my room would’ve been better? Didn’t turn out great for you, did it?” Aizawa’s questions were sharp and pointed, voice unquestioning as he said what must’ve been true.
“At least I wasn’t rotting away!” He argued and it felt desperate, the hypotheticals leaving no room for the argument he had.
“You really think getting alcohol poisoning is so much better than-“ Aizawa started, but Mic cut him off quickly.
“Than fucking killing myself? Yeah, Shouta, it is.”
Midoriya’s small gasp was the only thing filling the silence afterward. Todoroki was shaking, hands hovering near his ears like he desperately wanted to cover them but couldn’t. Midoriya was gaping like a fish, attempting to say something but no words were coming out.
Bakugou waited a second to see if a full on brawl was gonna happen before speaking. “If you’re gonna argue at least say shit you mean,” he scolded boldly, the two quickly snapping their attention toward him. “You,” he pointed at Aizawa “go take a fucking nap, you look dead on your feet. And you,” he pointed at Mic, who visibly flinched “escort me to the gym, since we’re not allowed to go on our own for some goddamn reason.”
Miraculously, that worked. He stalked toward the door with the pro hero following, eternally grateful that he was the one deescalating and not one of the dweebs. They probably would’ve tried to get them to talk it out (Deku) or awkwardly gotten someone else to deal with it (Half-and-half).
Though he was starting to wonder what the fucking point of the rage room was if this still happened. The walk to the gym was quiet and Mic was tense as a spring, shoulders against his ears and fingers messing with his stupid hair causing it to fall apart slowly but surely.
“Spar with me,” he practically demanded the second the gym lights flicked on. It was predictably empty and his statement echoed off the vast walls. “No fucking quirk though, I don’t need to be any more deaf than I already am.”
That got a small laugh from the man as he shrugged off his leather jacket to leave just a yellow tank top underneath that was his own merch for his stupid radio show that Bakugou definitely didn’t listen to with his classmates. “Me either listener, besides without my sick support gear it’s unreliable at best anyway.”
He gestured toward his uncovered ears that revealed his hot pink hearing aids and bare neck. Bakugou scoffed but scolded himself for not remembering that, he knew fucking Deku would’ve.
The two stood across from each other on one of the mats leftover from training and dropped into a fighting position.
Bakugou really didn’t know what he was expecting when he proposed to spar with someone who was both a long-range fighter and probably weighed half he did, but getting knocked on his ass three times in a row certainly wasn’t part of it.
Learning experiences was what he felt like calling them for now. The first fight (about ten seconds, which felt personally insulting) he learned that the man bounced on his feet enough to give Mirko a run for her money and feigned punches like a dick before sweeping legs.
Second time around he figured out that there was a tempo to what he was doing. He always jumped around at the same time and swung the second he was still. Predictable, yes (got him up to a minute that time after he learned that) but apparently hitting him out of tempo mean an absolutely brutal retaliation that had him lying on the mat gasping for air pitifully.
The third fight went considerably better and was much longer, which finally let him pick up on how familiar the fighting style was. He originally assumed it was simply a common technique he couldn’t remember the name of, but something felt off about it, like a piece was missing. It wasn’t until he was pinned that he figured it out.
“You fight like him,” Bakugou blurted out and maybe he should get checked for a damn concussion because why the hell would he say that? This was supposed to distract the both of them from the argument, not drag them back into it.
Mic released him and he sat up quickly, about to get back on his feet before the hero sat down infront of him, a sad smile on his face. “He’s the one who taught me to fight, wanted to make sure I ‘wasn’t a liability the second my quirk stopped working’.”
Bakugou snorted. It was definitely something his classmates had been told whenever they lost in hand-to-hand (he pointedly ignored that he had been told the same thing).
“He’s deserves an apology,” he said eventually, now that they’ve gotten into it, no turning back.
“I know,” Mic sighed and dragged a hand down his face, glasses quickly falling off.
“You do too,” Bakugou throws in. “Both of you said some shit back there. Whatever the hell happened this morning,” the man tenses “did something to you guys. Everyone could fucking tell. But, no matter why it is, don’t let it ruin you guys or whatever the hell.”
He wasn’t good at this and it was clear, but his words must’ve done something if the laughter and small, genuine smile the pro hero gave him were anything to go by.
“Thanks, kid,” he said earnestly, replacing his glasses. “And don’t worry about it, about us. We’re both okay now and this is nothing but a bump in the road.”
The tension that held Bakugou’s shoulders to his ears finally dropped. He refused to admit it was worry or concern or other therapy words, but the words definitely got rid of it.
“You wanna go again?”
“Isn’t it past your bedtime?”
“Shit!”