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A few days after the USJ attack he pulls them aside, tells them in future not to worry about him and look out for themselves instead. His body can conduct electricity safely, after all. He winces when they point out that he flinched, noticing the wide eyes that spilled tears over dirty cheeks.
He explains that it would hurt. Streams of foreign current running through his veins like liquid fire, his body strung tight and red hot.
He doesn’t mention the side effects on his brain that would damage him beyond repair or the flashes of pain and sepia that were singed into his earliest memories.
Two weeks later Bakugou grabs him by the back of the neck and he releases enough energy to power a house for a week. The terror in his expression is chilling enough to freeze even the harshest words in Katsuki’s throat.
***
It takes a few moments after Aizawa’s speech for the reality of the situation to set in. Moments he doesn’t have before he’s dragged behind the bushes and comes out a flustered mess. Mind blank.
Instead his emotions run wild as he unpacks his belongings with shaky hands. Storms brewing in his mind and leaking through thin lashes. Why didn’t he step up for his friend when the result would have been the same either way?
Cowardice. He thinks. A word that had been thrown at him for many years when he thought he was just being careful. Wary. He was closer to Bakugou than Midoriya. Yaomomo, Todoroki and Iida, too. So why had he frozen, his brow crumpled in doubt, as he saw the raw passion it took to save a friend? What they did was still dangerous. Reckless, definitely. But that wasn’t a problem. Not when everything could’ve and should’ve been put on the line for the ones he holds closest.
How would he ever be able to gather up the courage to risk his life for a stranger when someone he has an emotional connection with slips through his fingers like water, leaving him frozen in place.
Hero. A word that can’t be used to describe him. Not by a long way. And he wonders if he’ll ever be able to make the kids back home proud by saving them in the future generation, protecting parents that never should’ve been taken from vulnerable children with powerful quirks.
He dries his eyes and looks around. Mindlessly unpacking his possessions made the room cluttered and haphazardly decorated. Just the amount of chaotic colour he needed to blur and distract himself from darker thoughts. Perfect.
***
As Kirishima is hit with their opponent’s quirk, he is hit with Kirishima’s. His body hardening rigid with solid fear as his best friend is crumpled and disfigured before his very eyes. How can this monster be allowed to use a quirk like that? These were people. They were people. He sees the incredible pain shooting through his body at the twitch of a gritted jaw and remembers how lost he felt the last time something like this happened and he did nothing.
New determination and anger breaks his shackles, shattering the cuffs into dust as a chain snakes around his leg. Even if it is just to shout in panic, it’s something. Voicing your fear is better than nothing, he thinks, better than numbing darkness as time holds him still in its grasp.
Bakugou has enough energy and drive for the both of them, already leaping forward and throwing words as explosive as his quirk. Dangerous and never faulting, a true hero.
Instinct and muscle memory puts him in the midst of battle. Finally, finally. But with this comes indignation and immediate regret as Katsuki is taken out, his eyes wild with panic just for a second as he chucks a grenade, the metaphorical baton, to Kaminari. The last man standing.
Emotions swell up inside of him and he desperately struggles to put them into words laced with venom and hopes they burn Shishikura’s heart as badly as they do his own. He couldn’t make up for not going to rescue Bakugou before, but now he would readily defend him to the death. That’s what a hero does. What he would do, was doing.
The rest of the fight is over in an adrenaline fuelled flash. Doubts and insecurities about not being enough not quite quenched by his victory. How did he get here? He doesn’t remember. Everything else passes without a hitch, except of course that one of their team doesn’t make it.
Guilt wavers in his stomach as they return to the dorms and although Kirishima’s brilliant smile never wavers, he sees something too perfect and ‘fine’ about the bravado. He is hurting. Thoughts only confirmed when they skip the celebrations and Kirishima cries in his arms. He feels numb.
They sleep in the same bed that night, consoling Katsuki with his loss and feeling safer together. Kirishima’s hands often dart over his face, arms, legs, checking that he really is still there. Phantoms of agony and nothingness plague their bodies where they were hit and he knows deep down he wasn’t good enough. He couldn’t save them.
Calloused hands grip him in his sleep and he feels them through the nightmares, their frantic touch only fuelling his belief that he wasn’t enough, didn’t provide the help that they so desperately needed.
He withheld power. His quirk was not trained properly. He could barely use it without specialised equipment. He didn’t deserve to be here. Not at UA. Not around the future top heroes. Not holding them back. Someone more worthy should’ve taken his place. Still could, with the way things were going.
He’s not strong, just a liability. And, oh god, he doesn’t want to die. Pitch black nothingness haunting him around every corner although he knows the risk is ultimately worth it. He is scared. The hold on him tightens and he tenses, ready to feel himself being dragged down.
Instead he is held in place. Warm bodies either side of him keeping him secure and warm while empty tears drip down his cheeks. The hitching of his breath only serves to tighten their embrace and finally, finally, he relaxes. Knowing he is safe in their arms and they’d protect him as if he is their world, just as he’d do the same.
These little comforts aid him to drift into dreamless sleep where the distorted echoes of the past can’t reach him. Three boys in a bed, the world still turning as their shoulders rest.