The Hand

The first hit against the bag lands clean.

It's a good sound— knuckles against leather, the dull thud swallowed by the empty room, satisfying in a way that settles somewhere deep in his chest. Bakugou exhales through his nose, controlled, measured, and resets his stance without thinking too hard about it. His shoulders roll back, weight shifting to the balls of his feet, muscle memory carrying him through the motion like it always does. He doesn't need light for this. He knows where the damn bag is, knows the distance, and knows exactly how much force to put behind each swing.

He couldn't sleep.

That's the reason… the easy one, the one he'd give if anyone asked— not that anyone would, not at whatever-the-fuck hour this is, not when the dorms are dark and quiet, and everyone else is unconscious like normal people. He couldn't sleep, so he came here. It's simple, logical. The kind of thing that doesn't require examination.

That's not why you're here.

The thought slips in uninvited, and his next punch lands harder than he meant it to, the impact tearing up his arm. He grits his teeth and keeps going, keeps moving, because stopping means sitting with it and sitting with it means— no. He breathes out, sharp and deliberate, forcing the air through his teeth. He's here because his body needed to move. He's here because lying in bed staring at the ceiling was making his skin crawl. He's here because—

That's not why you're here.

His fist connects again, and a spark pops from his palm on impact— don’t lose control, his mind notes clinically. He smothers it immediately, forces the sweat to cool, forces his quirk back down where it belongs. The gym stays dark. He keeps it that way. Another spark escapes on the next hit, brighter this time, and for a split second the gym flashes into existence around him, the equipment looming, mirrors catching the light, shadows jumping before the dark swallows everything whole again. It’s gone before he can register it fully, but the afterimage lingers behind his eyelids, orange and gold and almost…

Beautiful.

The word surfaces before he can stop it, and something in his chest tightens uncomfortably. He watches the next spark bloom from his knuckles like a firecracker caught mid-burst, the way it illuminates everything all at once, the way it dies as quickly as it's born. There's something poetic about it, maybe, if he let himself think that way. The way his hands light up the darkness without meaning to. The way destruction can look like celebration from the right angle.

Dangerous.

He corrects himself automatically, the reminder landing heavy and familiar, a weight he's carried for so long it doesn't even register as weight anymore. His hands are dangerous. That's the point. That's what they were made for. Not beauty, not light, not anything soft or worth looking at. They were made to destroy. He learned that early, learned it from the way people flinched, the way his mother grabbed his wrists too hard when he was small, the way teachers watched him like something that might go off.

His rhythm falters for half a second, and another spark pops, golden and fleeting.

Stop looking at it.

He can't, not really. His eyes keep catching on the light even as he tells himself not to, keep tracking the way it flickers and dies, flickers and dies. In the dark like this, with no one watching, it almost looks like something other than a weapon. It almost looks like something someone might want to reach toward instead of away from.

Dangerous, he thinks again, more forcefully this time, and the next punch comes harder, meaner, his knuckles screaming against the leather. They're dangerous. You're dangerous. Don't fucking forget it.

The sparks keep coming anyway, beautiful and unbidden, and Bakugou keeps swinging like he can beat the thought out of himself if he just hits hard enough.

That's why you're here.

The thought lands differently this time, less accusation and more resignation, settling into his bones like something he's too tired to fight. He's here because he can't stop thinking about his fucking hands. Not in any way that makes sense, not in any way he could explain without sounding insane, just… hands. The concept of them, their existence. The way they're attached to his wrists, five fingers on each one curling and uncurling against the leather of the punching bag like they know what they're doing even when the rest of him doesn't.

He pauses mid-swing, breath coming harder now, and stares down at them in the dark.

The gym is cold. He notices it distantly, the way the air bites at his bare arms, the way his breath fogs faintly in front of his face when he exhales, barely visible. The floor is cold too, seeping through his shoes, through his socks, settling into the soles of his feet like it's trying to remind him that he's standing in a room that doesn't want him here. A room he shouldn’t be in, because the gym is closed and it’s a Saturday in January.

Everything is cold, and still he's sweating. He can feel it gathering at his temples, sliding down the back of his neck in slow, irritating trails. His palms are slick with it, the nitroglycerin kind, and it’s pooling in the creases of his skin, making his grip feel uncertain.

He flexes his fingers slowly, watching them move even though he can barely see them. Just shapes in the dark, familiar and foreign all at once.

What the fuck even are hands?

The question is stupid. He knows it's stupid, knows that if anyone could hear the inside of his head right now, they'd think he'd finally lost it, Bakugou Katsuki standing alone in a dark gym at god-knows-what-hour contemplating the nature of hands like some philosophy student having a breakdown. Still, his brain picks it apart like a dog with a bone, gnawing and gnawing until there's nothing left but fragments.

His breath fogs again. The sweat on his neck is starting to cool, uncomfortable and clingy, but more keeps coming. His body can't decide if it's hot or cold, can't decide if it's working hard or barely moving at all.

The thumb. 

Opposable. 

Made to grip.

Made to wrap around things and hold them in place. The opposable thumb, humanity's great advantage. The thing that separates people from animals is the reason humans could make tools, build cities, and climb to the top of the food chain. The ability to hold. His thumb twitches against his palm, restless, and he curls it inward without thinking. The nail bites into the meat of his hand, a small, sharp pressure that doesn't ground him the way he wants it to. He presses harder. The cold air stings the sweat on his arms, raising goosebumps, and somewhere in the building, the heating system clicks and hums.

The index finger. 

Made to point, to direct, to single things out. 

That one. Over there. Him. 

The finger people use when they're accusing, when they're aiming, when they want something specific and need the world to know exactly what it is. Teachers point at chalkboards. Parents point at the messes their kids made. Heroes point at villains, at danger, at the thing everyone else should be looking at.

Bakugou pointed at a lot of people in his life.

He's pointed and shouted and demanded and made damn sure everyone knew exactly who he was singling out. His index finger has always been good at that: direction. At accusation, at blame. The sweat is dripping now, sliding past his eyebrow, and he swipes at it with his forearm, the motion rough and irritated. The gym is still cold, his body is still confused.

The middle finger. 

Made to insult, made to offend. 

It was made to tell someone exactly how you feel about them without wasting breath on words. He's used that one plenty— at extras who pissed him off, at villains who thought they could take him, at anyone who looked at him wrong on the wrong day. The middle finger doesn't require explanation. It doesn't require nuance. It just is, blunt and crude and honest in a way that doesn't leave room for misinterpretation. He almost laughs at that, a short huff of air that sounds too loud in the empty room. His breath fogs, dissipates, disappears.

The ring finger.

Something in his throat tightens before he can stop it, a reflexive clench he doesn't fully understand. The ring finger. Made for what? 

Made for connection and commitment. 

The place where people put rings when they decide to tie themselves to someone else, to promise something permanent. He doesn't wear rings, he's never worn rings. The thought of putting something on that finger makes his skin itch in a way he refuses to look at directly, like staring at the sun. He moves past it quickly, too quickly, his brain scrambling for the next thing before the thought can finish forming.

The pinky finger.

Made for promises.

The kind little kids make, linking their smallest fingers together and swearing to keep secrets. The kind of promise that means nothing and everything all at once, flimsy and childish and still somehow binding in a way that bigger gestures aren't, or maybe it's just... balance. Grip strength. Something functional and forgettable, a finger that exists only because hands are supposed to have five of them.

Why is he thinking about this?

The question cuts through the fog, sharp and sudden, and his hands curl into fists automatically. The sweat on his palms squelches faintly, disgusting and warm, and his breath is coming faster now, even though he's stopped moving entirely. The cold is pressing in closer, the dark is pressing in closer, and he's standing here cataloging his own fingers like a crazy person instead of just punching the damn—

That's why you're here.

The thought slams back into him, undeniable this time. He's here because his hands won't let him sleep. He's here because every time he closes his eyes, he sees them: his hands, other hands, all the hands he's ever noticed and never understood why he was noticing. He's here because something about hands has crawled under his skin and made a home there, and he doesn't know how to dig it out. His palms spark, unbidden. Gold light flickers across his knuckles, illuminating the space around him.  He should hit the bag, burn this off, exhaust himself until his brain finally shuts the fuck up, but he doesn't move.

Hands.

He's thinking about hands that have touched him. The thought arrives without permission, unwelcome and immediate, dragging memory up from somewhere he doesn't want to look. His skin prickles, not from the cold this time, something else, something closer to revulsion, and his fingers twitch at his sides like they're trying to shake something off. His mother's hands first. Always first, because she was the first person to ever grab him. She has strong hands, impatient hands, hands that gripped his wrists when he was small and sparking and didn't know how to stop yet. 

Katsuki, knock it off. Katsuki, I swear to god. Katsuki. 

Her fingers digging into his arms hard enough to bruise, pinching him when he acted up, yanking him back from whatever he was about to destroy. He doesn't remember it as cruel, not exactly. He remembers it as a correction, necessary. The same way you'd grab a dog by the collar before it runs into traffic. He was dangerous, after all. Even then, his hands were dangerous, so hers had to be harder.

He breathes out slowly, watching the fog curl and vanish. The gym hums around him, that low mechanical sound of a building at rest, pipes and vents and things he can't see doing their jobs in the dark. 

A teacher's hands next. The ones who guided him through drills, adjusted his stance, pressed his shoulders down, or pressed his elbows up with clinical efficiency. Impersonal touches, functional, the kind that didn't mean anything beyond you're doing this wrong, do it better. He never minded those. They were transactional. They didn't ask for anything except improvement, and improvement was something he knew how to give.

Then there were the other hands. The ones that reached for him differently. His jaw tightens. A spark pops from his palm, sudden and sharp, and the light catches the sheen of sweat on his forearm before it disappears again. He's clenching his fists without realizing it, nails digging into his palms, and he has to force himself to uncurl them, finger by finger, like prying open something rusted shut.

Hands that grabbed him in fights. Villains, mostly, the ones stupid enough to get close, the ones who thought they could hold him down. He remembers the pressure of fingers around his throat, his arms, his wrists, always his fucking wrists because that's where the danger was, that's what they needed to control. Grabbing him like an animal, like a thing to be restrained. The memory makes his throat tight, makes his breath come shorter, and he swallows against it hard.

The sludge villain.

He doesn't want to think about that. He really doesn't want to think about that, but his brain drags it up anyway, mercilessly. It was not hands exactly, not fingers and palms and knuckles, but the feeling of hands everywhere, of being grabbed from the inside, of something pressing against every inch of him at once until he couldn't breathe, couldn't move, couldn't do anything but choke on it. His hands had been useless. Sparking and sparking and useless, and all he could do was—

Stop it, Katsuki.

He breathes in sharply, forces the memory down before it can fully surface. His heart is beating too fast now, a rapid thudding he can feel in his throat, in his temples. The cold air scrapes against his lungs. The sweat on his skin feels wrong, clammy and sick. His wrists ache suddenly, phantom pressure circling them.

The restraints. 

The way they'd locked his hands away, bound them behind his back like the things attached to them were too dangerous to exist freely. Over his mouth, too, pressing against his face, making every breath feel earned. Muzzled, like a dog, like something rabid and uncontrollable that needed to be contained before it hurt someone.

His hands hadn't just been useless then. They'd been taken.

Someone had looked at him, at his hands, at the things that made him him, and decided they were too much. Too dangerous, too uncontrollable, and they'd strapped him down and covered his mouth and taken away the only thing he'd ever been sure of. The sparks come faster now, popping from his palms in irregular bursts, gold light flickering across the dark gym like a strobe. He can't control it. His breath is coming too fast, shallow pulls that don't fill his lungs the way they're supposed to, and the cold doesn't feel cold anymore— it feels suffocating, pressing in from all sides.

Stop. Fucking stop.

His brain won't listen. It keeps going, keeps dragging up every hand that's ever touched him, and now it's reaching for the other ones. The ones that didn't grab or restrain or take. The ones that—

The gentle ones.

His breath catches, something in his chest seizing at the word like it's a trap. 

Gentle. 

He doesn't— he's not good with gentle. 

Gentle asks things of him, and gentle always expects something back, something soft, something he's never been sure he knows how to give. Violence is easy, violence is transactional. Someone grabs you, you fight back. Someone restrains you, you explode until they can't anymore. There's a logic to it, a rhythm, a call and response he understands in his bones.

But gentle…

His mother's hands again. Not the grabbing this time, not the correction. The other thing, the thing he thinks about less because it sits wrong in his chest, because it doesn't fit the narrative he's built. Her hands in his hair when he was small, when he was sick, when he'd fallen asleep on the couch, and she thought he wasn't aware enough to notice. The kind of touch that didn't demand anything, present and warm.

He hadn't known what to do with it even then. Had always stiffened slightly, had always waited for the catch, for the moment it would turn into something else. It never did. She'd just keep going, fingers carding through his hair, and he'd lie there rigid and confused and almost admitting to himself he wanted it. The gym is too quiet. His breathing is too loud. The sweat has soaked through his shirt now, cold and clinging, and he can feel it in the small of his back, under his arms, everywhere his body is betraying him. A spark pops from his left palm, illuminating the fog of his breath for a split second before the dark swallows it again.

Pretty— no.

Jeanist.

The name surfaces before he can stop it, and something in him goes very still.

He doesn't talk about Jeanist; he tries not to think about Jeanist, not if he can help it. The internship was one thing. It was annoying as fuck, and boring. It was full of lectures about presentation and composure and all the bullshit that didn't mean anything to him at the time. He can talk about that part. He can roll his eyes at it, complain about the hair styling and the endless fittings, and file it away under experiences he survived. Hands straightening his posture, the kind of hands that didn't grab or restrain or take, just... guided and shaped.

Those same hands had tried to hold his insides in, his heart pumping.

Bakugou's breath stops, caught somewhere between his lungs and his throat. He doesn't remember all of it, not clearly. Pain has a way of smearing memory into something impressionistic, colors and sounds bleeding together until you can't tell what was real and what your brain invented to fill the gaps. He remembers pieces, flashes. The sky above him, too bright. The taste of copper flooded his mouth. Hands, Jeanist's hands, pressing down on him, pressing into him, trying to keep everything inside working.

Those precise, deliberate fingers shaking.

He'd never seen Jeanist's hands shake before. Not once, not during all those fittings and adjustments and careful corrections. Jeanist's hands were always steady, always certain, always controlled… and then they weren't. Then they were covered in blood, his blood, trembling against the wreckage of his chest like they didn't know what to do, like all that precision meant nothing when the thing you were trying to fix was a person falling apart under your palms.

Bakugou had felt it. Even through the pain, even through the haze of oh fuck I'm dying I'm actually dying, he'd felt the way Jeanist's hands pressed harder, moved faster, tried to outpace something that couldn't be outpaced. They were frantic, desperate. The steadiest hands he'd ever known, coming undone because of him.

Gentle hands, trying to keep him alive.

He hadn't deserved that. The thought lands heavy and wrong, settling somewhere in the pit of his stomach. He hadn't deserved those hands, that care, that desperate shaking attempt to hold him together. Jeanist should have been fighting, could have been protecting someone more important, someone who mattered more to the outcome, someone who wasn't just a stupid fucking kid who got in the way of something he couldn't handle.

Jeanist had chosen him; those hands had chosen him.

A spark pops from his palm, too bright, illuminating the sweat dripping down his wrist before the dark swallows everything again. His chest aches— not the phantom pain of the wound, but something deeper.

He's alive because of those hands.

He doesn't know what to do with that.

The thought sits there, heavy and unfinished, and his brain does the thing it always does when something gets too big to hold— it reaches for more. Catalog, then compare. Start lining up all the hands that have ever reached for him like evidence in a case he doesn't want to solve.

Recovery Girl's hands, clinical and quick, pressing against his skin to check for damage that was always there. Present Mic's hand on his shoulder once, awkward and too enthusiastic, gone before Bakugou could decide whether to shrug it off. Aizawa's hands wrapped in bandages, always wrapped in something, like even his touch needed to be restrained. All Might's hand, huge and warm and certain, ruffling his hair once after a training session, a gesture so casual it almost broke him, almost made him say something stupid, almost—

Stop.

He's spiraling. He knows he's spiraling, can feel the thoughts picking up speed, piling on top of each other faster than he can sort through them. His palms are sparking constantly now, little pops of gold that light up the dark in stuttering bursts, and the sweat on his face has gone cold, and his breath is fogging too fast, and—

Kirishima.

The name doesn't land like the others. It doesn't settle or sit or wait to be examined. It slams into him, sudden and total, knocking every other thought out of the way like they were never there at all. His hands stop sparking. His breath stops fogging. Everything just… stops.

Kirishima's hands.

He doesn't want to think about this. He really, really doesn't want to think about this, and that's how he knows it's the thing he's been avoiding all along, the center of the spiral, the reason he's standing in a dark gym at fuck-knows-what-hour with his heart pounding so hard he can feel it in his teeth.

Kirishima's hands are… what? How does he even start to describe them?

Big. That's the first thing, the easy thing. Bigger than his own, broader across the palm, fingers thick and blunt and calloused in ways that shouldn't matter, that he shouldn't have noticed, but he has. He's noticed every fucking time Kirishima's hands have entered his field of vision, cataloged them without meaning to, filed away details he has no excuse for knowing.

The way they look when they harden: jagged and sharp, red like raw stone, like something pulled fresh from the earth, indestructible and unbreakable. The hands of someone who decided to make themselves into a wall and succeeded. 

The way they look when they don't harden: softer than you'd expect. Skin that scuffs easily, knuckles that crack when he stretches, calluses building and fading with training. Human hands, vulnerable hands. The hands of someone who chose to be hard but wasn't born that way. Bakugou swallows hard. His throat clicks, dry and tight, and he realizes he's stopped breathing again. The dark presses in around him, patient and heavy, waiting for whatever comes next.

Kirishima's hands have touched him.

The thought lands like a grenade with a pulled pin, live and dangerous and already too late to stop. Not often, Bakugou doesn't let people touch him, and Kirishima is better than most at reading when to back off… but enough. Enough that Bakugou can recall each instance if he lets himself, can line them up chronologically, and examine them like wounds that never fully healed. A slap on the back after a good match. The brief pressure of fingers on his shoulder, a hey, nice job that didn't require words. 

That one time, early, before either of them knew what they were to each other, when Kirishima had grabbed his wrist to get his attention, and Bakugou had almost blown his hand off on instinct. Kirishima had just laughed. He laughed and let go and didn't flinch away, didn't look at him like he was something dangerous that needed to be contained. That was the thing about Kirishima's hands. 

They reached for him like it was easy, like Bakugou was someone you could just… touch; casually, without consequence, as if his skin wasn't a minefield, as if his palms weren't weapons, as if there was nothing to be afraid of. Kirishima's hands reached for him the same way they reached for everyone else, and that should have been annoying, should have been presumptuous, should have made Bakugou want to bite his head off.

It didn't.

It made him want to—

Stop.

His hands spark violently, a burst of gold that lights up the whole room for a split second: punching bag, mirrors, his own reflection caught wide-eyed and wrecked before the dark crashes back in. His chest is heaving. When did his chest start heaving? He presses his palms flat against his thighs, trying to ground himself, trying to force the sparks to stop, but they keep coming, popping and flickering like his quirk has forgotten who's in charge. Kirishima's hands reach for everyone. That's just who he is. He's friendly and tactile and open in ways that Bakugou has never been, never will be, never learned how to be. It doesn't mean anything when he touches Bakugou. It's not special. It's nothing, right?

Wrong.

There was one time… his brain shoves it forward without permission, the memory so vivid it almost knocks him off his feet. Smoke and chaos and screaming, the world falling apart around him, his body had been bound and taken, and then a hand, punching through all of it, reaching down from the sky like something out of a dream.

Kirishima's hand.

Open, and waiting. Not grabbing, not restraining, not forcing him anywhere. Just there, suspended in the air, offering something Bakugou didn't know how to name. An escape route. A choice. A chance to reach back.

Take my hand.

He hadn't said it. Hadn't needed to. The hand said it for him, said everything.

 I see you, I'm here, you're not alone, just reach for me, just this once, just let yourself.

And Bakugou had.

He'd reached back. His hand had moved before his brain caught up, before he could overthink it, before he could convince himself it was weak or stupid or dangerous. He'd shot himself up, and Kirishima's hand had been there to catch him, and for one impossible second suspended between the sky and the ground, Bakugou had felt something he didn't have a name for.

Freedom.

Not rescue, not salvation, not any of the words heroes use when they're talking about saving people. Just plain old freedom. The freedom to choose something instead of having it forced on him. The freedom to reach instead of being grabbed. The freedom to trust his own hands to do something other than destroy. Kirishima's hand had given him that. The memory won't let him go now. It's pulling more with it, dragging up every other time Kirishima's hands have touched him like threads connected to a single knot. His brain catalogs them helplessly, compulsively, matching them to the fingers he'd been thinking about earlier like puzzle pieces he didn't know he was solving.

The thumb. 

Opposable. 

Made to grip.

Kirishima's grip on his arm after a rough training session, fingers wrapping around his bicep to steady him when his knees buckled ever so slightly. Not asking, not hesitating, just gripping: firm and sure and exactly as hard as it needed to be. Kirishima was an arm-hugger, that was the thing. Always grabbing biceps and forearms and wrists like it was the most natural thing in the world, like bodies were just meant to be touched that way. Bakugou had never been an arm-hugger. Had never been a hugger of any kind, had never understood the impulse to reach for someone's limb and just hold on.

Kirishima's thumb pressing into his arm hadn't felt like an imposition. It had felt like an anchor, like something Bakugou could lean into without admitting he needed to lean. His breath shudders out of him, loud in the empty gym. The dark presses closer.

The index finger. 

Made to point, to direct, to single things out. 

That one. Over there. Him. 

Kirishima pointing at him across the room when they split into pairs, grinning like he'd won something. You, I want you. No hesitation, no second-guessing, just that finger aimed at Bakugou like a declaration, like there was never any question of who he'd choose. It shouldn't have mattered. It was just training, just a random exercise, just Kirishima being Kirishima: loud and obvious and painfully sincere about every fucking thing he did.

That finger had pointed at him. Out of everyone in the room, all the extras who would have been easier to work with, less explosive, less difficult. Kirishima's index finger had found Bakugou and stayed there.

I want you.

The words echo in his skull, louder than they have any right to be. His palms spark again, twin bursts of gold that make the shadows jump and shiver.

The middle finger. 

Made to insult, made to offend. 

Except with Kirishima, it never was. Bakugou remembers the first time he'd seen Kirishima flip someone off— Kaminari, probably, for some dumb joke— and the way it had startled a laugh out of him. Not because it was unexpected, but because of how he did it. The grin that came with it was wide and shameless. The way his whole face lit up like the gesture was a punchline instead of an attack. Kirishima held up his middle finger the way other people held up peace signs: casually, affectionately, never seriously. Never actually trying to wound.

Bakugou's middle finger had always been a weapon. Quick and sharp, deployed to shut people down before they could get too close. He didn't know how to use it the way Kirishima did, didn't know how to make rudeness feel like warmth, but he'd watched Kirishima do it. It had felt like something twisted in his chest every time, something that wanted to understand how an insult could feel so much like an invitation.

The sweat on his neck has gone cold again. His shirt is sticking to his back, uncomfortable and damp, and his legs are starting to shake from standing still for so long. He should move. He should hit the bag, or sit down, or do something other than stand here cataloging Kirishima's fingers like a fucking creep.

The ring finger.

Made for connection and commitment. 

The memory surfaces before he can stop it: the training accident, his own quirk backfiring when Kirishima got too close at the wrong angle. Nothing serious, just a nick across the knuckle, a thin, burning line of red that shouldn't have mattered. Bakugou had frozen, staring at the burn like it was something monstrous, like he'd done something unforgivable. 

Hey, hey, it's fine, I'm fine, look—

Kirishima's voice, cutting through the panic. Then his hands reached for Bakugou's before Bakugou could pull away. Gentle, always so fucking gentle it made his teeth ache. Kirishima had dug a bandage out of his pocket. He always carried them, because of course he did. He was the kind of person who thought ahead about small hurts. He wrapped it around his own ring finger like it was nothing, like Bakugou hadn't just burnt him. The sting didn't matter, like the accident didn't matter, like the only thing that mattered was making sure Bakugou stopped looking like he was about to combust.

See? All good. Doesn't even hurt.

It was a lie, it had definitely hurt, but Kirishima had smiled through it, had pressed the bandaid down with his thumb and flexed his finger to show it still worked, and something in Bakugou's chest had cracked in a way that never healed right. The ring finger was made for connection. Kirishima had used his to connect to Bakugou even when Bakugou was the one who'd wounded him. The dark is suffocating now. His breath comes ragged and uneven, and his palms won't stop sparking, little flickers of gold that illuminate nothing, that just keep reminding him his hands are still here, still his, still dangerous.

The pinky finger.

Made for promises.

That night.

His whole body goes rigid, every muscle locking at once like he's bracing for impact. He doesn't want to think about this one. He's avoided thinking about this one for so long it's become a reflex, a wall he built so carefully he almost forgot it was there. The wall is crumbling now, bricks falling one by one, and behind it was…

Kamino.

Days after at the dorms, dark and quiet, everyone pretending to sleep while they all lay awake replaying horrors behind their eyelids. Bakugou had been on the roof, because of course he had, because enclosed spaces felt like cages and cages felt like muzzles and muzzles felt like suffocating. 

Kirishima had saved him.

No explanation, no announcement. Just footsteps on concrete, and then warmth beside him, and then silence that didn't demand anything. They'd sat there for a long time, shoulders almost touching, staring up at a sky that didn't have any answers. Bakugou's hands had been shaking. He'd hidden them in his lap, pressed between his thighs where Kirishima couldn't see, but Kirishima saw anyway. Kirishima always saw him. He had said, "Hey," so softly Bakugou almost didn't hear it over the blood rushing in his ears. A hand, hovering near his own. Not touching, not yet, just waiting. Asking permission in a way that made Bakugou's throat close up, made his eyes burn with something he refused to name. He remembers nodding, just a jerk of his chin, too small to mean anything except it meant everything.

Kirishima's pinky had curled around his.

That was it, that was all. Not a full grip, not hand-holding, nothing that could be called romantic or soft or any of the words Bakugou would have recoiled from. Just their smallest fingers, linked in the dark, the same way little kids make promises they don't know how to keep yet.

I'm not letting go of you again.

The words hadn't been loud, dramatic, hadn't been any of the things Kirishima usually was: all shark teeth and volume and unrelenting enthusiasm. They'd been quiet and steady. The kind of promise that doesn't need witnesses because the person making it has already decided it's true.

I'm not letting go of you again.

Bakugou hadn't responded. How the fuck was he even meant to? He hadn't said anything, hadn't moved, hadn't done any of the things a normal person would do when someone handed them something that precious. He'd just sat there, pinky linked with Kirishima's, shaking in a way he couldn't hide anymore, letting himself be held by the smallest possible point of contact.

It was too much.

It was everything he didn't know how to ask for, offered freely, as if it cost Kirishima nothing to give. The sparks are coming constantly now, a strobe of gold that turns the dark gym into something fractured, something nightmarish. His breath is too fast, his chest is too tight, and his hands are shaking the way they'd shaken on that rooftop, the way they always shake when he thinks about this, about him, about who he—

His hands were made to destroy.

He's known that his whole life. It's the first thing he learned about himself, the foundation on which everything else was built on. His hands are weapons. His hands are dangerous. His hands spark and burn and ruin everything they touch, and that's fine, that's good, that's what a hero's hands are supposed to do.

But Kirishima's hands…

Kirishima's hands grip and point and insult without wounding. Kirishima's hands connect, promise, and hold. Kirishima's hands reached through smoke and fire and chaos, and they didn't grab, didn't restrain, didn't force. They just opened, waited, and offered. Bakugou had reached back. Maybe that's the thing. Maybe that's what's been keeping him awake, what drove him to this dark gym in the middle of the night, what's making his hands shake and spark no matter how hard he tries to control them. It's not about what his hands were made for. It's about what he chose to do with them.

That's what you’re here for. 

He chose to reach once. Just once, in the middle of the worst moment of his life, he chose to reach for someone instead of pushing them away. His hands were made to destroy, but maybe— maybe— now, they were meant to hold.

The thought lands like a physical blow, knocking the air out of his lungs. He staggers slightly, his shoulder hitting the punching bag, and he grabs onto it without thinking, fingers digging into the leather like it's the only thing keeping him upright. His breath is coming in gasps now, sharp and ragged, and the sparks have stopped completely, his palms gone cold and clammy in the dark.

Meant to hold…

His hands were meant to hold.

Not just capable of it, not just able to do it when circumstances forced him. Meant for it. Like that was always the point, buried underneath all the explosions and the violence and the years of convincing himself that destruction was the only language he knew how to speak.

His thumb, pressed into someone's arm to steady them.

His index finger, pointing at the person he chooses.

His middle finger, raised without malice.

His ring finger, wrapped in a bandaid.

His pinky, linked with another in a promise he's never broken.

A hand can do more than destroy.

A hand can grip…

Can point. 

Can connect. 

Can promise.

Can hold.

His knees give out. He doesn't catch himself; he doesn't even try. His body just folds, joints unlocking one by one until he's on the floor, palms flat against cold concrete, head hanging between his shoulders. The impact barely registers. Just a distant thud of kneecaps against gym mats, the shock absorbed by muscles too exhausted to care.He breathes, that's all he can do for a while. Just breathe. In through his nose, out through his mouth, the rhythm ragged and uneven but present. The dark is still pressing in around him, thick and patient, but it doesn't feel suffocating anymore. It just feels... there. His hands are flat on the ground. He stares at them without really seeing. They’re just shapes in the black, familiar and foreign all at once. The sparks have stopped completely. His palms are cold and damp and trembling faintly, little shivers he can't seem to control.

Meant to hold.

The thought echoes through him, and something in his chest cracks a little further.

What if you can't do both?

His jaw tightens. His fingers curl against the floor, nails scraping faintly against the mat.

What if choosing to hold on means losing everything else?

The questions come faster now, piling on top of each other, each one sharper than the last. What if softness makes him weak? What if gentleness dulls his edge? What if reaching means he can't fight anymore, can't win anymore, can't be the person he's spent his whole life clawing his way toward? His hands were made to destroy. He knows that. He's built his entire identity around it:  the explosions, the victory, the relentless forward momentum that doesn't stop for anything. That's who Bakugou Katsuki is. That's who he has to be, because the alternative is… what?

The question hangs there, unanswered. His breath fogs in front of him, slow and thin.

If he chooses to hold, does he lose his bite? His fist? His fight? Does he become someone softer, someone lesser, someone who hesitates at the crucial moment because he's thinking about connection instead of victory? 

Does it have to be one or the other?

The thought surfaces from somewhere deeper, quieter. Not the panicked spiral, not the self-doubt. Something underneath all of it, something that sounds almost like Kirishima's voice, patient and steady.

Can't you be both?

His hands are still on the floor. He stares at them,  really stares this time, trying to see them clearly despite the dark. These hands that have destroyed so much. These hands that have pushed people away for years, that have sparked and burned and ruined. These hands that reached, once, when it mattered most.

Gentle and firm.

The words feel strange in his head, but they fit, somehow. They fit in a way that the binary never did. Destroy or hold. Push or reach. Fight or connect. Those were the only options, like he had to pick one and abandon the other. Kirishima's hands are hard and soft. His quirk makes him unbreakable, jagged, sharp enough to cut, and still those same hands wrap bandages around wounded fingers, still they reach down from the sky without hesitation, still they link pinkies in the dark and make promises they intend to keep.

Hard and soft.

Unrelenting and Tender.

The word makes him flinch. It's too much, too vulnerable, too close to something he's spent years running from, but it's there now, sitting in his chest beside the doubt, refusing to be pushed away.

Can he be that? Can anyone? Can you spend your whole life sharpening yourself into a weapon and still learn how to hold something without breaking it?

His breath shudders out of him, shaky and thin. The cold is seeping up through the floor now, pressing into his knees, his palms, everywhere his body touches the ground. He should get up, he should move, shake this off, go back to the punching bag, and beat these thoughts into submission the way he always does. He doesn't move, he just stays there, hands flat on the floor, breathing in the dark, letting the question sit unanswered.

Can you be gentle without losing your edge?

Can you be firm without forgetting how to soften?

Can you fight and connect at the same time, or does one always have to win?

He doesn't know. That's the terrifying part: he genuinely doesn't know. He's never tried. He's never let himself try, because trying meant risking, and risking meant failing, and failing at this… at being someone who could hold without destroying,, felt worse than never attempting it at all. Kirishima's hand had reached for him anyway. He hadn't asked if Bakugou knew how to hold, hadn't demanded proof that he could be soft, or gentle, or any of the things he'd never practiced being. Kirishima had just... offered. Open palm, open heart, open everything.

Take my hand, and Bakugou had.

Maybe that was the answer. Maybe it wasn't about knowing how, or being ready, or having all the contradictions figured out before you tried. Maybe it was just about reaching anyway, choosing to hold even when your hands were still shaking. Being gentle even when gentle felt like a foreign language. Letting yourself be everything you could, all at once.

The stillness stretches.

He doesn't know how long he stays there: minutes, maybe, or hours. Time doesn't mean anything in the dark, in the quiet, in this space between who he's been and who he might become. His hands are still on the floor, palms down, fingers spread. Not fists. Not weapons. Just hands, pressing against something solid, holding the ground like the ground might hold him back. His breath evens out slowly. Not calm, exactly, he doesn't think he knows what calm feels like anymore, but steadier. The ragged edges smoothing into something survivable. His heart is still beating too hard, but the rhythm has shifted from frantic to persistent, from panic to presence. 

The sparks don't come back.

He waits for them, braced for the next burst of gold to fracture the dark, but his palms stay quiet. Cold and damp and trembling faintly, but quiet. Like his quirk has finally exhausted itself, burned through whatever fuel was driving the spiral, left him empty in a way that doesn't feel entirely bad. Empty, but not hollow. The dark presses in around him, patient as ever. He lets it, he doesn't fight it, doesn't try to fill the silence with movement or violence or any of the things he usually reaches for when the world gets too still. He just... exists. Kneeling on a gym floor in the middle of the night, hands open, breathing.

It's almost peaceful.

He doesn't know how long it takes him to notice the shift. It's subtle at first, just a thinning of the black, a softening at the edges of his vision that could be exhaustion or imagination. He blinks, slow and heavy, and when his eyes open again, the dark has pulled back another inch.

Gray… the gym is going gray.

His head lifts without permission, his gaze dragging toward the windows he'd forgotten were there. They're high on the wall, narrow rectangles of glass that usually don't let in much of anything, and right now they're glowing. Not bright, not yet. Just the faintest blush of color bleeding through the dark, pink and gold and something softer underneath. 

Dawn.

The light creeps closer. It moves slowly, almost hesitantly. A thin line of gold stretches across the floor, inching toward his hands, and Bakugou watches it come with something caught in his throat that he can't swallow down. The light is warm. He can feel it on his face, on his closed eyelids, can feel the warmth pressing against his skin like a promise…

Like a hand, reaching for him.