Chapter Text
# Chapter 1: The Boy They Buried
The hallway smelled like antiseptic.
Bakugou hated it.
Hospitals smelled like antiseptic.
Morgues smelled like antiseptic.
Places where people waited for bad news smelled like antiseptic.
The underground corridor stretched ahead in dull gray concrete, lined with heavy steel doors. Emergency lights flashed red across the walls.
Aizawa held up a hand.
The class stopped.
Silence settled over the group.
Not true silence.
There was always noise.
Distant alarms.
Crackling fire.
The muffled sounds of heroes fighting somewhere deeper in the facility.
But compared to the chaos above ground, this felt wrong.
Still.
Like something holding its breath.
"Stay alert," Aizawa said quietly.
Nobody argued.
Even Kaminari looked tense.
The mission briefing had mentioned Nomu production.
Illegal experimentation.
Possible trafficking.
Nobody had expected to actually participate in the raid itself, but circumstances had changed after the initial assault team encountered resistance.
So Class 1-A had been reassigned to evacuation and rescue.
Find civilians.
Secure survivors.
Leave combat to the pros.
Simple.
At least it had sounded simple.
Then they found the first room.
The steel door hung half-open.
Inside sat six hospital beds.
Three empty.
Three occupied.
The children in them couldn't have been older than ten.
Yaoyorozu went pale.
Jirou looked away.
Nobody spoke.
Nobody needed to.
The IV lines.
The restraints.
The surgical scars.
The room explained itself.
Aizawa immediately contacted the medical teams.
Then they kept moving.
And found another room.
And another.
And another.
Each one worse.
Each one making the knot in Bakugou's stomach tighter.
The Doctor.
That was the name intelligence kept using.
Not a real name.
A title.
A monster hiding behind credentials.
The farther they descended into the facility, the more evidence of his work they found.
Children.
Teenagers.
Failed Nomu.
People reduced to projects.
Experiments.
Things.
Bakugou clenched his jaw.
If he ever met the bastard—
A faint sound interrupted the thought.
Tokoyami stopped walking.
"Did you hear that?"
Everyone froze.
Aizawa raised his capture weapon.
Another sound.
Metal scraping against concrete.
Somewhere ahead.
Slow.
Uneven.
Footsteps.
Bakugou immediately moved to the front.
"Kacchan?"
The world stopped.
The word wasn't loud.
Barely above a whisper.
But Bakugou heard it anyway.
Every syllable.
Every sound.
The voice echoed faintly through the corridor.
Familiar.
Impossible.
His heart slammed against his ribs.
No.
No.
No.
No.
The others were staring at him.
Confused.
Concerned.
He couldn't hear them.
Couldn't think.
The footsteps came closer.
Then a figure emerged from around the corner.
Bare feet.
Hospital clothing.
Messy green hair.
Thin enough to make his stomach twist.
The boy stopped when he saw them.
Large green eyes blinked once.
Twice.
Blankly.
Like he wasn't entirely sure what he was looking at.
Bakugou felt the blood drain from his face.
The others didn't understand.
Couldn't understand.
Because they hadn't stood in front of a framed photograph at a memorial service.
They hadn't watched Inko Midoriya cry until she couldn't breathe.
They hadn't spent years wondering if there had been a body somewhere nobody found.
The boy tilted his head.
"Kacchan?"
The name shattered something inside him.
Midoriya.
Midoriya was dead.
Midoriya had been dead for years.
Hadn't he?
The boy took a cautious step forward.
Recognition flickered across his expression.
Small.
Uncertain.
Like finding a half-forgotten word.
"I know you."
Bakugou couldn't breathe.
The others were saying something.
Questions.
Demands.
Confusion.
He ignored all of it.
Because the boy standing in front of him wasn't a memory.
Wasn't a dream.
Wasn't a ghost.
There were scars visible beneath the collar of the hospital uniform.
Faint burns on his arms.
Bruises that hadn't fully healed.
Proof.
Proof that he was real.
Proof that someone had hurt him.
Proof that he had survived.
Midoriya studied his face.
Then smiled.
A tiny thing.
Fragile.
Tentative.
"I remember your name."
Bakugou had imagined this moment.
Not once.
Not twice.
Hundreds of times.
Finding him alive.
Finding him hurt.
Finding him angry.
Finding him broken.
Finding him anywhere.
Anything was better than a grave.
But none of those fantasies had prepared him for reality.
For the simple fact that Midoriya was standing here looking at him like a stranger.
Alive.
But not untouched.
Present.
But altered.
Like someone had taken the person Bakugou remembered and scraped away entire pieces.
The realization hurt more than he expected.
Midoriya's smile faded.
"Did I say something wrong?"
Bakugou moved before he could think.
Crossed the distance.
Grabbed both of Midoriya's shoulders.
The class startled.
Midoriya blinked.
Bakugou searched his face desperately.
Looking for something.
Anything.
The freckled cheeks.
The green eyes.
The stupid expression.
Pieces of the boy he'd lost.
Pieces of the boy he'd killed.
Because he had.
Maybe not literally.
But every night for years he'd heard those words.
Take a swan dive.
Every night.
Every damn night.
And then Midoriya vanished.
The guilt had never left.
Never would.
"Bakugou—" Aizawa warned.
Bakugou ignored him.
"Are you real?"
The question escaped before he could stop it.
Midoriya stared.
Then laughed softly.
Confused.
Gentle.
The same way he used to.
"I think so."
Something in Bakugou's chest cracked.
Not healed.
Not fixed.
Just cracked.
Enough to let hope in.
A distant explosion shook the facility.
The floor trembled beneath their feet.
Everyone immediately snapped back to attention.
Aizawa cursed.
The alarms suddenly intensified.
Red lights flashing faster.
Emergency evacuation warnings echoed through the corridor.
The building was becoming unstable.
"Movement later," Aizawa ordered sharply.
"We need to get everyone out now."
Midoriya looked toward the deeper sections of the facility.
Then back toward them.
For the first time, uncertainty vanished from his face.
"I know where they are."
Everyone looked at him.
"The others."
His voice was quiet.
Steady.
"There are more."
The hallway fell silent.
And for a moment, Bakugou could only stare.
Because Midoriya had just been rescued.
Had just been found.
Had every reason in the world to think only about himself.
Instead—
"There are fifty-three people still inside."
The words landed like a bomb.
Midoriya glanced toward the collapsing depths of the laboratory.
Then back at the heroes.
"We don't have much time."
And before anyone could respond, he started walking.
As though rescuing everyone else was the most natural thing in the world.