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Bakugou didn’t wake up screaming, but only because his throat was tight enough to leave him mute.
He sat up with a gasp, clawing at the sheets as he struggled against the black visions dancing in his dreams. His eyes flew wide, searching the room for an enemy, finding nothing but the familiar furniture of his dorm. His heart galloped so loudly in his chest that he was surprised it didn’t wake his neighbors.
He’d woken Kirishima once, about a week after the kidnapping. There had been screaming back then, when the nightmares were at their worst. Kirishima had been worried, and Bakugou had been angry: at himself, at Kirishima, at the world in general.
Since then a month had passed, and then another, and still Bakugou could barely get enough sleep to keep him going. He’d never been more exhausted in his life. The week before, he’d fallen asleep in class for the first time since kindergarten. Aizawa hadn’t disturbed him, either because he hadn’t cared or because he’d realized Bakugou needed the rest.
Bakugou collapsed back onto his bed, pushing a handful of sweat-damp hair away from his forehead. He closed his eyes and tried not to think about the dream. He knew from experience that the sharpness of it would fade in an hour, maybe two, and it would just be a hazy flicker of memory after that.
If only it was that easy to shake off the real memories, the ones that laid the foundation for the nightmares.
He didn’t want to think about that either, but he could never stop himself.
The recollection pressed its ugly face against the window of his mind: mangled flesh, scalding flames, eyes so cold that they froze him all the way to his core.
It could have been worse. Bakugou knew that, and he didn’t like thinking about it. After he’d denied the League of Villains, they had no reason to make nice with him. They would have tried to convince him in other ways. He imagined they were the type to try and torture their enemies into submission. When they were finished, maybe Bakugou would have been a mutilated mess, too.
That could have happened, if the heroes hadn’t shown up. If All Might hadn’t shown up.
If he hadn’t given up everything to rescue Bakugou.
Thinking about that was just as bad as the nightmares.
Bakugou flung the sheets away from his sticky skin and got out of bed. He wouldn’t get any more sleep that night. He never did when the dreams woke him up. He snatched up his phone and checked the time. 4:30.
It was better than most nights. Usually he didn’t sleep past 3.
He yanked on a t-shirt and some baggy sweatpants, stepped into his slippers, and crept into the hallway. He felt like slamming the door and screaming, but bit his tongue and closed it quietly instead, unwilling to wake his floormates. He didn’t want them, or anyone else, to know about the nightmares. He didn’t need anyone’s pity.
He took the stairs instead of the elevator, counting the steps on his way down to keep his brain occupied. He knew exactly how many there were, and when he reached the bottom, that number was reconfirmed.
The ground floor was silent, a phenomenon that only happened in the early hours of the morning. Most of the time his classmates were loitering around as loudly as possible, doing everything within their range of abilities to annoy him.
Bakugou passed through the communal kitchen and into the lounge area. The room was dark, but the lights from outside slanted through the blinds, illuminating the furniture just enough that he didn’t walk into it. He circled the couch and dropped onto the middle cushion with a huff. As he reached for the remote, he flicked his eyes from side to side, scanning the shadowed corners of the room. He knew he was alone, but couldn’t shake the feeling of something breathing down the back of his neck with the breath of a rotting corpse.
He scowled at himself and turned the television on. That was an aftereffect of the dream, as usual. It would fade.
There was never anything good on tv this late. He flipped through channels until he found a mindless cooking competition, the type where the contestants try to sabotage one another in the name of victory.
It was stupid, but it wasn’t as if Bakugou had anything better to do.
He settled into the couch and stared at the screen, his attention drifting further away as the minutes ticked by. The details of the nightmare were already beginning to soften, but despite his best efforts, he couldn’t stop turning it over in his mind. He’d been tied up. He remembered that for sure. He was always tied up in the dreams, always left helpless and vulnerable. That was probably the part that scared him the most.
Bakugou wasn’t afraid to fight anyone or anything, but that was just it. If he was captured, pinned down with his quirk out of reach, he couldn’t fight anyone. He was just another victim.
Bakugou couldn’t stomach the thought of being helpless. It left an empty pit in his gut, one with gnawing teeth and cutting edges.
What if it happened again, and this time no one came to save him?
“Bakugou? Is that you?”
Bakugou was on his feet in an instant, hands curled at his sides, heat burning in his palms. His teeth were clenched so hard that his jaw creaked.
Uraraka stood in the doorway, one hand on the frame, not flinching away from Bakugou’s sudden aggression. She had clearly just woken up. Her hair was a rumpled mess and she was dressed in a tank top and short cotton shorts. Her feet were bare, footsteps silent as she moved closer.
“Are you okay?” she said quietly, eyeing the sparks dancing between Bakugou’s fingers.
Bakugou took a steadying breath, trying to quell the furious pace of his heartbeat. He clenched his fists and the sparks went out, wispy trails of smoke painting the shadows. “Of course I’m okay,” he said, voice so low it was nearly a growl. He dropped back onto the couch and folded his arms, resolutely glaring at the television. The show had ended while he’d been lost inside his head. It had been replaced by an infomercial for a magic mop.
“Why are you up so early?” asked Uraraka, creeping up to the edge of the couch. “Or up so late, maybe? Have you been to bed at all?”
“Of course I have. Don’t be stupid.”
Uraraka rocked back and forth from her toes to her heels, hands clasped behind her back as she studied Bakugou. “You’re kind of jumpy. Did something happen?”
“What the fuck could’ve happened at five in the morning, genius? I just woke up, alright? Is that a crime now?”
Uraraka frowned, her eyebrows tucking together. “You’ve kind of been in a bad mood lately. Worse than usual, I mean. Do you have insomnia? You can talk to Recovery Girl about that, you know. She can give you something to-”
“I don’t have fucking insomnia. Stop talking.”
Uraraka sighed, but ended the line of questioning. She tilted her head at the television, then looked back to Bakugou. “I can’t sleep, either. Mind if I join you?”
“Will you go away if I say no?”
“Nope,” said Uraraka brightly. She hopped over the arm of the couch and bounced onto the cushion next to Bakugou, pulling her knees against her chest as she settled in. “Why are you watching this? It looks boring.”
Bakugou tossed the remote in her direction. “Pick something else, then. There’s not a damn thing on this time of morning.”
Uraraka caught the remote and accepted the challenge. She searched through the channels with purpose, stopping only when a cartoon with blinding colors stretched across the screen.
Bakugou gave her a flat look. “Seriously?”
“I like watching this when it’s dark,” she said. “It makes everything seem a little brighter.”
Bakugou wanted to scoff at that, but couldn’t bring himself to do it. He would never say she was right, but he had to admit that it was almost impossible to think about any details of his nightmares with something that cheerful in his face. Maybe she was onto something.
He folded his legs up and braced his heels on the edge of the couch, sinking lower. Uraraka wriggled around, trying to get comfortable, her knee occasionally nudging against his thigh. Finally, with a sigh, she seemed to find a suitable position. Her legs were tucked beneath her, face pressed against the back of the couch, those big eyes focused on Bakugou.
He ignored her for a while in favor of staring blankly at the tv screen. He didn’t know what the purpose of the show was, and the low sound was like static in his ears, but still it kept him from visiting those dark places inside his head, places that he would prefer to never see again.
Finally, after so much time had gone by that Bakugou’s legs were starting to go numb, he said, “Is there a reason you’re staring at me, Round Face?”
Uraraka hummed. “Just trying to figure out what you’re really thinking.”
“Not a damn thing.”
“I don’t believe that.”
“You don’t have to.”
Uraraka sighed and readjusted again. The movement brought her a little closer, so close that Bakugou felt her breath against his arm.
Silence fell between them again, broken only by the mindless chatter of the television. Bakugou wasn’t watching it anymore. It was just something convenient for his eyes to fall on between the glances he slid at Uraraka.
He should tell her to leave. Over the past couple of months, he’d spent a lot of lonely hours on this couch, and he planned to keep it that way. He didn’t need anyone interfering in his business, pretending that they cared about him. It was a waste of his time and theirs.
“Hey, Bakugou?”
Bakugou grunted. He wasn’t about to waste his breath with an actual response.
“I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
He expected her to apologize for being in his personal space, or for interrupting his alone time, or for being a general nuisance who exuded cheerfulness.
Instead she said, “For what happened at the training camp. Or after it, really. When the others were talking about trying to find you I should’ve gone with them. I should’ve helped.”
A dark curtain fell across Bakugou’s sight, replacing her face with a leering collection of others, their breath stale and their intentions black.
He shook his head, banishing the nightmares. Or memories. Sometimes it was hard to keep the two separate.
“I didn’t want your help. I didn’t want anyone’s help.”
“I know,” said Uraraka. “That’s what I told them, when they were planning it. I knew you wouldn’t want us to try and rescue you.” She sighed and tugged at a messy piece of hair. “But still… I’ve only heard a little bit about what happened and it sounds terrible. It must have been really bad for you, trapped by the villains.”
Trapped.
“I’m sorry you had to go through that,” she said, her voice dipping into a whisper. The tv threw brightly colored shadows across one side of her face. The other side, nestled into the couch, was dark. “I would’ve been really scared.”
Bakugou should’ve said something sharp. He should’ve laughed at her for worrying, or said she was weak because of her fear. It would have made her drop the subject, probably would have made her leave the room altogether.
“Well,” he said, more quietly than he intended, “It’s a good thing it was me and not you, then.”
As he said it, he found that it was true. He didn’t like thinking about the kidnapping at all, but imagining someone else there instead of himself – anyone else, but especially Uraraka, who was actually a halfway decent person – was painful.
Uraraka didn’t say anything else. She just curled into herself more tightly, tilting perilously close to Bakugou in the process. Her hair tickled over his arm, right where his sleeve ended. He clenched his jaw and said nothing.
A few more minutes slipped by. He was too busy replaying Uraraka’s words in his head to concern himself with anything more sinister.
Her balance shifted and she leaned against him completely, her face pressing into his shoulder, her bare arm on top of his. Bakugou turned his head to snap at her, but the words failed him when he realized she’d fallen asleep. Her eyes were closed, dark lashes dusting over her always-pink cheeks. Her face was relaxed, breaths steady.
Bakugou tilted his head back and stared at the dark ceiling, silently cursing. His first instinct was to shove her away, but he couldn’t make himself do it. She looked too peaceful.
He decided his best bet was to ignore her. She would wake up eventually, realize what she’d done, and run off to hide her embarrassment. Bakugou could laugh at her, and everything would be normal again.
Except he didn’t think he’d be able to laugh at her, not for this, not when she’d been comfortable enough in his company to drift off.
People tended to be unnerved by him. Hardly anyone would be bold enough to fall asleep on him like that.
Uraraka had never lacked boldness, though. She’d proven that at the sports festival, and he couldn’t help but respect her for it.
As time slowly rolled by, Bakugou’s arm started going numb, too. He’d stretched out his legs to improve their blood flow, but he couldn’t do the same with his arm unless he was willing to disturb Uraraka.
To his surprise, he found that wasn’t something he wanted to do.
As carefully as he could manage, he braced his free hand against her shoulder and slowly pried his dead arm from beneath her weight. She didn’t stir, but simply fell a little further into him, her face resting against his chest, arm falling across his stomach. Bakugou bit his lip and stretched his arm over her shoulders, only because there was nowhere else for it to go. He closed his eyes and cursed himself for being so nice about this, for letting Uraraka squirm into his personal space.
He didn’t really regret it, though. She was a warm, gentle weight against his side, and she smelled like fresh laundry. Her breath was soft and steady and he found himself focusing on it, matching his inhales with hers, letting himself relax into the rhythm.
He didn’t even know he was asleep until he woke up.
The room was brighter, the morning sun insistently pushing against the windows. Bakugou had stretched out onto his back at some point, though he didn’t remember moving. His first thought was that he was warm, and the second was that this may have been the first time in two months that he’d woken up without the aid of a gut-wrenching nightmare.
It took too long for him to realize Uraraka was still there with him.
He sat up quickly, the sudden movement rolling her to the side. She’d been lying with her head pillowed on his chest, hair spread in a messy halo. Bakugou was warm all the way from his shoulder to his knee where she’d been curled against him.
“What the fuck,” said Bakugou, more confused than angry.
Uraraka groaned and burrowed into the couch, slinging an arm up to shield her eyes. “Turn the lights out. Five more minutes.”
“What the fuck,” Bakugou repeated.
Uraraka went stiff, her shoulders stilling as her breath caught. She raised her head slowly, sleepy eyes widening as they found Bakugou.
“Oh,” she said, her voice nearly a squeak. “Umm… Did I fall asleep?”
Bakugou was off the couch before he even knew he’d moved. “This didn’t happen,” he said. He snatched the remote from where it had fallen into the floor and cut off the television. “If you tell anyone it did, I’ll say you’re lying.”
Uraraka sat up, rubbing at an eye with the heel of her hand. Her hair was even worse now, sticking up in all directions. “I won’t. Tell anyone, I mean. I didn’t think I was going to go to sleep. I usually can’t, not for long anyway, not after… Well, I just… Okay. It didn’t happen.”
None of that made sense, but it didn’t matter. As long as she kept her mouth shut, there wouldn’t be a problem. “Good. As long as we agree.” He left the room in a rush, quickly enough that he almost slammed into someone as he rounded the corner.
Of course it was Deku. Luck had never been Bakugou’s friend.
“Kacchan?” said Midoriya, shuffling back in surprise. He was dressed in his gym clothes, probably on his way out for a pre-class run. He’d always been such a damn overachiever. “What are you doing up so early? Is everything-”
“Out of my way,” snapped Bakugou, pushing past him and stomping toward the stairs. He didn’t look back, but from the doorway of the lounge, he heard a distinct, surprised, “Uraraka?”
Bakugou fumed as he climbed the stairs to his room. The entire situation was infuriating, and tossing Deku into the mix made everything worse. He couldn’t think of a more miserable way to start his morning.
Except, as he was changing into his school uniform, he realized he wasn’t as exhausted as usual. He felt more well-rested than he had in a long time, and those extra couple hours of sleep must have been the reason.
Which meant, in a roundabout sort of way, Uraraka was the reason.
Bakugou yanked on his jacket, grabbed his bag, and refused to let himself think about it anymore.
That day’s classes were typical. The most notable thing about them was that Bakugou didn’t feel the urge to doze off a single time. It was a relief, and he wasn’t the only one that noticed a change.
“You’re in a good mood today, dude,” said Kirishima, when he plopped down beside Bakugou at lunch. “Well, better than usual, anyway. What’s up?”
“Nothing,” said Bakugou. “I’m the same as every other day.”
“No way,” said Kirishima through a mouthful of food. “You’re definitely more upbeat. Did you get good news or something?”
“I said nothing is different,” said Bakugou. He shoved a napkin into Kirishima’s hand. “Chew with you mouth closed, that’s fucking disgusting.”
Kirishima did as he said, unbothered. He was clearly unconvinced by Bakugou’s denial, but he didn’t push the subject. That was one reason Bakugou tolerated his company. Kirishima talked a lot, but he knew when to shut up when it was important.
After lunch Bakugou sat through the rest of his classes, took meticulous notes, and breezed through quirk training without a single mishap. That was a much needed change. The week before, Hagakure had nearly gotten caught up in one of his explosions and Bakugou had gotten a stern lecture from Midnight about minding his surroundings.
Bakugou thought that wasn’t his fault. He didn’t know how he was supposed to keep an eye on someone that was fucking invisible.
The evening sailed by with little incident, and Bakugou was back in bed by ten-thirty, the usual sense of dread that came with nighttime more muted than usual. He’d been in higher spirits that day, even though he’d denied it when Kirishima had asked. Maybe since he was in a good headspace, that meant the nightmares wouldn’t creep in. It was a sound theory, one that he held onto as he fell asleep.
When he was wrenched awake at midnight with an aborted scream lodged in his throat, he knew he’d been stupidly optimistic.
He sat in bed panting, the sheets twisted around him like ropes. He kicked his way free and grabbed a t-shirt, pulling it over his head with a snarl.
The night before had been too good to be true. He would pay for it now. Tomorrow he would be running on an hour and a half of sleep and it would be miserable.
He yanked open the door to storm downstairs, and bit down on a shout when he came face to face with Uraraka in the hallway.
She stumbled a step back, just as surprised as he was.
“What the fuck are you doing?” he hissed, struggling to keep his voice low for the sake of his floormates.
“What are you doing?” she said, her whisper fierce. “It’s midnight. You should be asleep.”
“You’re the one wandering around in the middle of the night. This isn’t even your floor!”
Uraraka looked as if she wanted to snap back at him, but couldn’t come up with a good argument. She floundered for a response, her face growing pinker with every passing second.
Bakugou took a half-step back, sighing as he slouched against the doorway. When he spoke again, his voice was no longer sharp. “Seriously, what are you doing out here?”
Uraraka tugged at the hem of her tank top. She glanced down at her fingers, then at the floor, then at the opposite end of the hallway. “I was just… I don’t know. Checking to see if you were awake.”
“Why would I be awake at midnight?”
She peered up at him. “Well you are, aren’t you?”
“Obviously,” he said through his teeth.
“I just thought… if you always have trouble sleeping, like you did last night… but you slept okay on the couch, which I haven’t mentioned to anyone, by the way… and like, sometimes I can’t stand being in the dark by myself because… well, I just can’t, and I thought if you were awake-”
“Get to the point,” said Bakugou. He had a feeling that if he let her continue, she would stand there and ramble all night long.
“I just thought maybe you would let me sleep in your room,” she said in a rush. She lowered her face so her hair fell in front of it like a shield, hiding her burning cheeks. “Now that I’m saying it out loud it sounds ridiculous, though. I can’t believe I’m even up here. I’m so sorry, please don’t tell anyone about this. I don’t want them to think-”
“Stop talking,” said Bakugou. He didn’t say it with any particular rudeness. He just couldn’t sort through his own thoughts with her murmurs in his ears.
Uraraka wasn’t wrong. It did sound ridiculous.
Still, Bakugou couldn’t ignore how well he’d slept the night before, with her warmth tucked against his side. It had been more comforting than he would willingly admit. It was probably a fluke, a one-time relief. There was no way he would find that same peace again, with or without Uraraka.
If there was even a chance that it would work, though, he didn’t think he could turn it down.
He pushed the door all the way open and stepped back, jerking his chin in invitation. “You coming in or what?”
Uraraka’s eyes were huge, still half-hidden by her hair. “What?”
“You heard me.”
“Are you serious?”
Bakugou felt the scowl digging between his brows. “Do I look serious?”
Apparently he did. Uraraka inched closer, pausing just before she stepped through the doorway. She looked up at him, as if waiting for him to shove her back into the hallway, or laugh in her face. When he didn’t, she took the final step inside and he closed the door behind her.
It was so dark in the room that he could barely make out her silhouette. He stepped past her and paced to his bed, crawling into the twisted sheets. He smoothed them out as Uraraka tiptoed closer, her hesitation obvious even in the dark.
This was a weird situation, one that made Bakugou’s stomach flip with uncertainty. He didn’t know what to say, so he kept his mouth shut and stretched out on the mattress, keeping to the far side to give Uraraka room.
It took her longer than it should have, considering this had been her idea. When enough time had passed that Bakugou thought she would back out, the mattress shifted beneath her tentative weight. She slipped her legs under the sheets but remained sitting, hugging her knees close to her chest, uncertain.
Bakugou waited. He thought that was the only thing he could do.
“Hey, Bakugou?” she said, her whisper so low that he barely heard.
“Yeah?”
“Can I, umm… get closer?”
“You’re already in my bed,” said Bakugou. “I don’t have any personal fucking space left. Do what you want.”
Uraraka didn’t immediately move. She waited, her toes shifting quietly beneath the sheets. Finally the mattress dipped again, and Uraraka rolled closer. Bakugou was lying on his side, and she mirrored his position, shifting until her back was pressed against his chest. She was flush against him all the way down to her thighs, and Bakugou held his breath, waiting for her to put some distance between them. Instead she whispered, “Will you… I mean, if you don’t mind… Could you just maybe… hold me?”
Bakugou took a steadying breath. His face felt warm, but that was probably from the extra body heat in his bed. Denying her didn’t even cross Bakugou’s mind as he laid an arm across Uraraka’s waist. She settled even more snugly against him, and that nervous flip in his stomach gave a breathtaking lurch.
Uraraka’s hand brushed against his forearm, tracing from his wrist to his elbow before falling away. “Thank you,” she said, her murmur half-lost in Bakugou’s pillow. “I get… scared, sometimes. At night.”
If they hadn’t been curled up together in his bed, Bakugou may have made some snide comment about that. As it were, he only said, “Yeah, sure.”
He stayed that way, all too aware of all the places Uraraka’s body was pressed against his, until he heard the shift in her breathing as she fell asleep. After that he relaxed a little, curling his arm over her more comfortably, his muscles less stiff.
She was soft. He couldn’t let himself think that while she was awake, but now he couldn’t stop thinking it. She was soft, and warm, and the hair strewn across his pillow was fragrant.
He didn’t want to admit it even to himself, but he thought he could get used to this. Secretly he hoped Uraraka would give him the chance to get used to this. If she showed up at his door tomorrow night, and the one after, and the one after that, he didn’t think he’d be able to turn her away.
Bakugou closed his eyes and didn’t even have to chase sleep. It found him easily, and it wasn’t the barbed, razor-sharp sleep of the past two months. This sleep was soft and gentle, just like Uraraka.