Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Well shit. 

Just when he thought his week had been going well. 

Monday was fine, he got to blow some shit up during his remedial course. 

Tuesday was chill, he got his math test back, and obviously he had aced it. 

Deku hadn’t been around on Wednesday after he had broken one too many bones (the scolding he got from Recovery Girl had been one of her finest). 

He destroyed the idiot squad in a spicy noodle eating contest on Thursday. Their faces had been a priceless mix of horror, pain and panic as they watched him slurp down the spiciest noodles on the menu, all while he looked them dead in the eyes without even wincing. It got even better when he got to watch them chug milk that (because they are incapable of doing anything normally) dripped down their chins and soaked their shirts. It was hilarious. They even got some of it on camera.

But, he should’ve known the good week was never gonna last.

In all fairness, Friday had been just fine till the evening. Classes were surprisingly calm and the remedial course was neutrally chaotic. Aizawa had been the one to bring Icy-hot and himself to the classes that day, and since it was already pretty late - around 6:45pm - sensei had decided to take them out to dinner at a Thai place not too far away. 

“It's my treat,” he had said in his usual deadpan voice. “You guys have been training hard and I think you deserve a break. Plus, I’ve been craving Thai all week so you two are getting lucky”

Katsuki hadn’t put up much of a fuss. He was honestly pretty hungry and already kinda worn out from training. Thai sounded pretty good right about now.

But then, of course, he had to forget his phone in the car. 

Stupid.

So here he is, walking back through some alley with his phone stuffed in the pocket of his oversized, white hoodie, on his way to the restaurant where the candy cane and his sensei are waiting for him. 

But something’s off. He’s sure of it, the hairs on the back of his neck stand up and it feels like someone’s watching him. Like something’s following him.

(Keep walking).

Katsuki glances around, but he doesn’t see anyone. He can feel it though, this shit’s happend often enough and he knows when something is wrong. 

Something is definitely wrong.

He doesn’t know what, but he isn’t alone right now.

Yeah okay, fuck, something just moved on the roof. 

Alright, he should probably call Aizawa. Just to be safe.

He grabs his phone and calls his first emergency contact. It rings exactly two times.

“I’m guessing you found your phone. Do you need directions or something?” comes from the other side of the line.

“No, but we might have a different problem.” It’s not quite a whisper, but Katsuki keeps his voice low.

“... What kinda problem?” He can practically see his teacher straighten up as he speaks, there’s a subtle kind of concern(?) in his voice.

“I think I’m being followed.”

-----

Shota just sat down at the table with his Disaster Child when he felt his phone buzzing in his pocket. He goes to grab it and immediately has a wary feeling in his gut when he sees the caller ID. 

The fact that Bakugou is calling him, is definitely raising red flags in Shota’s mind. The explosive teen never calls anyone . And if he has to, then he will always text. 

And that is NOT an exaggeration. 

When the class was doing practice disaster scenarios where the students had to try and keep the ‘civilians’ safe, Bakugou had gone off on his own to safely destroy a small building to prevent it from spreading fire to a bigger building. The other students had agreed with the plan and went off to guide the ‘civilians’ to safe locations. Bakugou was told he’d have exactly eight minutes to set up and get out but -as they found out later- the supposedly controlled fire wasn’t as controlled as they thought, and Bakugou ended up having about two minutes instead of eight. 

The building collapsed on itself with Bakugou in it. 

And about three minutes of ‘oh fuck’ later, Shota received a text -a fucking text - that read: 

Bakugou: The hell? The fucking building collapsed. Thought i had ten min?? 

With a follow-up text that read:

Bakugou: Anyway im stuck in the fuckin basement and cant get out so if u could maybe send someone thatd be appreciated

They eventually got him out and he was mostly fine, just two fractured bones and some bruises, nothing Recovery Girl couldn’t fix. 

But the point is that Bakugou never calls, and the fact that he’s calling right now, well, Shota doubts the kid just doing it to check in.

And, as it turns out, Shota’s right (as usual), because there is no way Bakugou would say something like that if he isn’t 100% sure it’s true. 

His student is being followed.

Fuck. 

Shota knows, he knows, that this isn’t going to end well. The Hell Child is all alone, probably about a 7 minute run away from where Shota and Todoroki are, and he’s being followed by an unknown amount of people who have unknown quirks and unknown plans. 

Given Bakugou's track record, those plans can’t be any good. 

Goddammit. 

Why does it always have to be Bakugou? The kid’s already been targeted and kidnapped before. He’s only sixteen, a child. The universe really can’t leave him alone for two-freaking-seconds?

Jeeze, Shota really doesn’t get paid enough for this bullshit. 

He just wanted to eat some Thai food with his ki- his students.

-----

“Okay, don’t hang up the phone. Keep walking and send me your location, I’m on my way.”

Yeah, Katsuki knows this is where his good week’s gonna end. 

Damn, this really had to happen right before dinner as well? Can’t whoever is following him at least have the courtesy to not attack until after dinner. 

He sends out his live location and keeps walking through the alleyways, and just when he’s putting his phone back to his ear, he realises that he can't breathe. Well, he can still breathe, but it’s like the air has changed. Like there isn’t enough of it or something. 

Yeah fuck. This isn’t good. His steps start to falter and he comes to a stop next to the alley’s wall. His breathing is picking up fast and it’s becoming erratic. His hand grips up to his chest to pull at the collar of his hoodie, he’s trying to take in more air. Fuck. Why isn’t he getting enough air??

“Bakugou? Are you alright? You still there?” He can hear the suppressed panic in his teacher’s voice and he notices the vague background noises of cars and crowds (Is he running?).

“Yeah. Just can’t fuck’n-” he tries to take in a sharp breath. “Fucking breathe.” Little sparks are popping in his palms now. He’s starting to panic and he feels a little lightheaded. 

Okay yeah, this isn’t good, he’s pretty sure he just dropped his phone. Crap. Aizawa’s probably going to worry now. The old man would never admit it, but he’s definitely a big softie and Katsuki knows the class has already basically taken years off of the man’s life at this point. Aizawa really deserves better.

Okay, focus.

Looking around, Katsuki isn’t seeing anyone he can fight. 

The edge of his vision is getting darker.

Goddamn. This shit’s so much fucking easier when he can fucking breathe. 

Just try to stay calm. Don’t pass out. 

He’s taking in quick, heavy breaths and leaning against the wall, maybe he should pick his phone up ‘cause he’s pretty sure Aizawa is calling his name.

And in that exact moment, he isn’t paying enough attention to his surroundings. It’s really his own fault. He should’ve been paying better attention, shouldn’t have been so focussed on the panic he felt. Next thing he knows, some weird, sticky, slimey arm (is it an arm? Why does it feel so wet?) is covering his mouth and nose, wrapping around his face, and yanking him back. Dragging him away.

Okay so now he really can’t breathe.

Fuck. This shit’s reminding him too much of sludge forcing its way down his throat. It’s reminding him of muzzles and chains that were put on too tightly, leaving his skin red and raw after he’d finally gotten them off. And it’s reminding him too much of a hand on his neck and being pulled into darkness. 

Yeah alright, he’s in panic mode now.

He claws at the arm, tries to blast it off, but the second he touches the sticky stuff, he knows he fucked up again. His hands are coated in the slimy substance and it’s covering his nitroglycerin. It’s blocking his sweat and holding his explosions back. And he can’t get it off. He can’t fucking explode. It’s like the quirk restraint gloves his mo- wait no, nope, not going down that path right now. 

Okay, FUCK THIS. He’s being dragged away, he can’t breathe, he can’t explode, he can’t fucking scream and he can’t even bite this slimey bastard, but he is not letting this shit happen again. He needs to get away.

Letting his instincts take over, Katsuki throws his full weight back, slamming whoever’s behind him into the wall. He hears a grunt and some curses but the slimey arm hasn’t let go. His explosions aren’t working right now, he doesn’t have enough time to clean his hands from the icky goo so he goes to grab the knife he keeps strapped against his ankle. 

He doesn’t even think about it. He just stabs whoever’s behind him in the leg, hears a high pitched scream, and feels the arm let go. Katsuki stumbles forward, wiping the sticky substance off his face so he can take a fucking breath. But then there's a tall, bulky looking man there who introduces himself by punching Katsuki in the face. Ouch, that was pretty fucking rude. He stumbles to his left (at least the air’s still working over here) and regains his balance quite easily. 

“Stop fighting, kiddo.” Someone says from a distance (Okay so, at least three people. Don’t know where the third one’s at though). “There’s no point, and you’ll only get yourself hurt.”

Alright, Katsuki is not happy, in fact, he’s getting kinda pissed . First some assholes attack him when he just wants to go eat some Thai food, then they tell him to not fight back?? What the fuck were they expecting?

He’s wiped the nasty sticky stuff off his hands while regaining his breath. And jumps towards the tall guy to give him an explosion in his face, but it’s like there’s a force working against him, slowing him down, and the guy grabs his arm and throws him in front of his slimey, tentacle armed friend. 

Okay, well at least that explains the whole ‘not-being-able-to-breathe’ situation. The tall guy probably fucks with the density of the air, he decreased the density so he couldn’t breathe and he increased it so the drag countered the force of his explosion. Great. 

Mr. tentacle goes to grab him again, with one arm wrapped around his bleeding leg, but there’s no way Katsuki is falling for that bullshit again. He dodges to the left, sidesteps, and jabs his knife in the guy's side. Blood splatters on his sweater when he pulls it out, another high pitched scream and Mr. tentacle slides down the wall to the ground, cursing at Katsuki and trying to grab his leg. He isn’t letting that happen though, so he sets off an explosion right in the guys face. It leaves quite a nice scorch mark on the man’s bald head and the wall, it’s like what you would see in a cartoon. 

Unfortunately, Katsuki doesn’t get a lot of time to think about that, as he gets slammed in the side by ... something. 

The impact is so hard that it throws him about a meter or two to the right. Using his explosions to maneuver himself through the air, he manages to land on his feet. 

He’s barely there for a second before he launches himself at the tall guy. He tries his best to use as much force as he can in the small area to try and slam himself into the fucker. It works to some degree, he feels the air density shift about two seconds before impact (it’s kinda like trying to fly off with Aizawa sensei’s capture weapon holding and pulling him back). There’s still enough force to get himself close enough to the asshole to set off a big blast though. The guy gets stunned enough to stumble backwards a bit. And just when Katsuki wants to get above him whilst he’s got his guard down, there’s a transparent blue square flying right at his face. He manages to dodge it, but this has gotta be the third person's quirk and what had previously hit him in his side. 

Looking at where the square came from, he sees a woman standing on the roof. She’s glaring at him, clearly pissed off, but the glare is weak compared to his mother’s and -more importantly- he doesn’t give a fuck. This does mean that he’ll have to deal with her long distance attacks while fighting the asshole in front of him though. Great.

He can feel the air around him becoming thinner and it’s hard to breathe again. However, if he’s right about the tall guy’s quirk, then that means he’ll be faster. There’ll be less air resistance. 

Taking his chance, he uses his explosions to dodge two squares that fly past his side and under his feet, and gets himself about three meters above the tall guy. He knows he can’t just use the force of his explosions to take this guy down when he feels the air becoming dense again. The guy is obviously expecting Katsuki to try and knock him out with an explosion or something. He's trying to use the air density as a shield against Katsuki’s force. It won’t work though, ‘cause the density of the air won’t hold back his momentum. It might slow him down a little, but it won’t stop him. He flips the knife in his hand, and when he comes down, he sticks it right in the guy’s shoulder and twists it to the right. The man lets out a pained cry and Katsuki can feel blood splat on his face as he pulls the knife out. 

It’s weird cause he isn’t even thinking about it, he doesn’t even notice the blood dripping down his neck and he doesn’t register the painful screams and yelling coming from the man.

All Katsuki knows is that he can’t let these people win. He won’t get taken again . He can’t be weak. He doesn’t want these people to have any power over him. This is the only way he can get them away. This is the only way he can say no. He still has the right to say no, right? Not that not having that right matters that much, it’s not like he’ll stop saying it, it’s not like anyone ever listens when he says it in the first place. 

No, Katsuki isn’t thinking about the unconscious man against the wall and he isn’t thinking about the blood spilling from the shoulder of the guy in front of him. He just needs him to back the fuck off. Why can’t people ever just leave him alone?

The guy goes to kick Katsuki in the side, but Katsuki grabs his leg and yanks him off balance. One strong and firey explosion to the chest and he’s down.

One left to go.

The woman has the audacity to hurl another couple of her weird squares at him whilst she casually climbs down from her spot on the roof. Katsuki quickly dodges and sends an AP shot her way. She doesn’t jump to the side or try to dodge, instead she just conjures one of her fucking squares in front of her, it’s bigger that the previous ones, and it works as a surprisingly good shield. It doesn’t even rattle or move from the spot it materialised. 

Huh, weird quirk. 

She hurls maybe ten or fifteen squares at him as he charges right at her. He just manages to dodge them all, minus one that grazes his cheek. And then, when he gets close enough, he sends a giant blast to her shield, but it doesn’t even crack. 

She’s laughing now. Looking pretty smug and not at all bothered. Probably has some boring monologue going on about how he’ll never get through her stupid square or whatever. She’s clearly worried about that happening though, why else would she surround herself with more stupid squares? She basically boxed herself in with the ugly things, she even has one floating right above her head. Which means she can’t go anywhere and she has to create openings to hurl more squares at him. 

It’s pretty stupid to have such an obvious weakness. 

Katsuki knows exactly how he can win this. The stupid bitch is giving him very clear openings whenever she creates space to throw some more squares. They’re not big enough for his explosions, or for the knife he is currently holding in his hand to get through. But it expands just a little whenever she sends a square his way. If he times this just right, he’ll be able to shut her the fuck up.

He’s carefully dodging the squares while timing the openings so he can do this in one go (he’ll probably only have one shot at this). He blasts his way over her cube of isolation and just as he sees a square hurtling towards his face, he whips out three of his smaller throwing knives -he keeps these in his right side pocket- and throws them through two different openings in her cube. 

The first knife embeds itself in her arm, the second one lands in her upper leg and the third one embeds itself just above her leg in her torso. She lets out a painful groan and falls to her knee. The walls around her fade, but she clearly isn’t done yet. Pulling the knives out and disregarding them on the floor, she’s slowly standing up. She seems pretty pissed, but that sucks for her ‘cause Katsuki is pretty damn pissed himself. 

Just as he flips himself around to land about a meter away from her, she conjures one of her annoying ass squares over her hand and decks him in the nose. His eyes water as he blocks a high kick with his arm as he stumbles backward. Dodging two more failed punching attempts and one more kick, he goes in and punches her right on the bleeding wound on her torso and gives her a nice right hook to the jaw. Hollering in pain, she collapses to the floor. Her head hits the ground and then she promptly passes out.

-----

Honestly, Shoto wasn’t really feeling Thai food today. Camie had mentioned something about tacos during remedial courses that afternoon and he had been craving them ever since. However, Aizawa was the one taking Bakugou and himself out to dinner tonight, and he knew for a fact that his sensei/newly adopted father had been complaining about wanting Thai food all week. Therefore, the half-hot half-cold boy didn’t really mind not getting his tacos tonight. 

That was really meant to be the only downer of the night.

And it sucked because he’d honestly really been looking forward to dinner. He’d been kinda excited to spend time with his recently acquired, tired dad and Bakugou. Their group dynamic was… interesting, in all the good ways.

Though it’s contrary to what many people probably think, Shoto really likes the Bakugou, and -even though the blond will probably never admit it- they are friends. It isn’t a friendship either of them ever really talk about, but it’s there and it’s real. 

They can relate to each other in ways they can’t relate to other people. They share silent glances and have their own ways to be there for eachother that no one else really has to know about. They have their own quietly mumbled inside jokes that the others wouldn’t get, and they have their own sort of banter filled with harsh insults that only the other is allowed to say. 

And Bakugou knows all about him and his childhood, he knows about his father. 

He was actually the first person Shoto told about Aizawa and Yamada adopting him (other than Eri, Shinso and his siblings for obvious reasons). It was partially because Bakugou had actually already figured it out himself, but also partially because Shoto felt that he deserved to know first. Because Bakugou was the one he’d vent to about his family issues and Bakugou was the one who’d give him valid excuses to not have to see his father. He’d even yank the phone out of Shoto’s hand and tell his dad, the number one hero , to F-off ‘cause he already had plans with Shoto. He’d tell him they were sparring or training and sometimes they would do just that, but sometimes they’d just chill. They’d even gone to the movies once or twice (some of the ‘bakusquad’ members tagging along). And even if he complains about it, Bakugou would always be there. 

He knows that Bakugou doesn’t actually mind it, Bakugou would never willingly do something that he doesn’t want to do. 

Shoto also knows that Bakugou’s parents aren’t great (there’s a reason he can relate to the other so well). 

However, he doesn’t actually know too much about them or the blond’s childhood. Bakugou doesn’t tend to talk about himself as much as Shoto talks about himself. 

Whenever Shoto asks, the explosive boy always just sorta shrugs and says that he didn’t always have the best childhood but that it was okay. His mom’s just a bitch (or asshole, hag, wench, you name it) and his dad’s a pussy and a liar. He deals with it. He says it’s not a big deal and besides, he only has two years -that he can mostly spend inside the dorms- left and then he can finally pack his bags and get the heck away from there. 

Shoto never pushes for information, Bakugou will tell him when he is ready. But he knows there’s more to that story, no one’s that angry for no reason and no one has reflexes that are just naturally that good. He knows people tend to think that anger is just part of Bakugou's personality, but he thinks the opposite is true really, the anger is more of a cover-up of his personality. He uses it to keep people away and he uses it to hide his true feelings. He hides a part of himself with his anger, and Shoto guesses it works like armor for him. It’s intimidating and it looks scary, it keeps people out (from something he doesn’t want others to see). It weighs him down but it protects him, at least, he thinks it protects him. 

Shoto tries to help with the weight where he can, he calmly tells people they’ve had a long day at remedial courses and that Bakugou’s probably not in the mood to hang at the moment. And he goes to train or spar with the blond when he can tell he’s got too much energy or needs to let some anger out.

The point is, Shoto and Bakugou are friends, and Shoto has already had the displeasure of watching Bakugou get taken right in front of his eyes - when he was so close to catching him - once. And he does NOT want that to happen again.

So here he is, running after Aizawa and shoving people to the side like a madman, trying to get to Bakugou before it’s too late (again). Trying to keep a level head as he hears Aizawa shouting Bakugou's name through the phone, that can't be a good sign. 

They’re almost at the alleyway Bakugou is (hopefully) still at. Running at full speed, they round a corner -maybe two alley’s from where Bakugou supposedly is- and both faceplant into some kind of bluish, transparent wall. 

Yep. This definitely won’t be considered their most graceful or elegant moment, the loud SMACK that resulted from their faces colliding with the wall would have probably been heard within a mile radius from where they’re standing. 

They both stumble back a couple steps from the impact and examine the wall, it seems to go up pretty high and there’s no way around it. This definitely isn’t good. 

“Shoto, I know you don’t have your license yet, but I need you to-” There’s a loud explosion in the distance. Aizawa’s eyes go wide and he’s grabbing his phone. “-try to break through the wall. I’m calling for backup.” 

Aizawa takes some steps back whilst dialing a number on his phone.

Alright, he can do this. Bakugou needs their help right now and he can’t let him slip through his grasp again.

Shoto takes a step back and sends a sharp and strong slab of ice at the wall. The ice crashes against it but the wall doesn’t even rattle. Fuck. This clearly won’t be easy. He tries again and again and again , but the freaking wall won’t even budge. He tries using his fire and he tries using both his fire and ice at once, but the goddamn thing won’t let them through. 

And then, just when he’s taking a breath and trying to regain his focus so he can try for a different approach, the explosions in the distance stop. 

He makes immediate eye contact with Aizawa and he notices the worry in his eyes. 

The distant explosions meant that Bakugou was still there, he was still fighting, but now they stopped. 

Bakugou always fights till the end. 

Shit. They were too late. He let him slip through his grasp again .

-----

Shota was just about to attempt scaling the five or six meter high wall when the explosions abruptly stopped. He could see the worry, fear and exhaustion in the eyes of his Disaster Child as they locked with his own. Oh fuck. There was no way the backup he called was going to get here in time if the villains were escaping with his Hell Child right now. 

Fucking shIT. 

GODDA M N I T. 

Why? Why did it always have to be his freaking class? Couldn’t Vlad’s class be bothered once? Did villains always have to attack UA? Couldn’t they go after Shiketsu or something? Can the universe not give him a single break?!

Okay, take a breath. 

There’s only one option left: he’s gonna have to scale the wall now. He has no clue how the fuck he’s going to pull it off, it’s at least five meters high in the air and there’s no grip, but he is going to get to the other side even if he has to do it by using the pure force of his deadly rage alone. 

This is fine, it’ll be easy. No sweat. He’s glared down plenty of villains and he will not hesitate to glare down the laws of physics.

He takes a step back, readies himself and then, the wall fades away. Wait what? Did it just fucking disapear? His rage must’ve been more powerful than he thought.

No wait, if they’re not holding them back anymore, then this definitely can’t be any good. This means that the villains probably already left and who knows what’s happened to Bakugou. 

Alright, time to run like a madman part 2, let’s hope they don’t faceplant into another wall this time. 

They round two more corners and arrive at Bakugou's last known location. 

Of all the things Shota was expecting to find, this was not it. 

To be fair, he probably should have given his most powerful student some more credit, but he was definitely expecting another kidnapping situation or maybe even worse. 

Thankfully though, that isn’t the case and Shota was relieved, he lets out a breath he didn’t even realise he was holding. His student is still there. He’s okay, just slightly panting as he stands over an unconscious body on the floor, a dripping knife in his bruised hand, white sweater stained red and blood splatter on the side of his face, and- oh. 

Oh. 

OH.

There’s three unconscious bodies laying around, and he notes the little pools of blood under them. A man with tentacle arms slumped against the wall, another man lying on his back a little further down the alley and a woman lying face down in front of Bakugou. 

He locks eyes with his student after taking in the situation and he can tell that Bakugou’s in full fight or flight mode. He’s fully prepared to either fight Todoroki and himself, or to bolt away from them and disappear within a second. Then, realising who they are, his student’s face changes and he releases a small puff of air. The anger and panic in his kid’s eyes is replaced with releaf.

Walking over to him, Shota asks the most important question first: “Bakugou, are you alright?”

There’s a flash of legitimate confusion in the kid’s eyes, like he doesn’t understand why someone would ask him that question, but it’s quickly replaced by a look of horror and slight panic. The kid looks around, takes the scene in and his gaze drops to his hands, stained in blood and holding a knife.

There’s police sirens approaching in the distance. 

“I fucked up.” His voice is hoarse, “Fuck, I- I’m sorry.” and Shota swears he’s never heard Bakugou sound so small.

Chapter Text

He isn’t really registering what’s going on around him, but he’s pretty sure he’s headed to the police station. 

All he can think about is how he fucked up. 

God. Why did he have to be such an idiot? He’s never lost control like that before, he’s never done any real life-threatening damage. He’s been fighting people off for basically as long as he can remember, and in all that time, he’s never done damage this bad without having carefully thought it through. He always knew what he was doing. He was always careful to just immobilize his opponents so he could get away. But not this time, he had dealt way too much damage this time. The people who attacked him were all being hauled to the hospital right now, and they could be dying.  

His mom’s fucking right, he’s turning out to be a monster. 

What he did was fucking illegal. He doesn’t even have his provisional license, and he basically beat those people to the ground. 

Fuck. What are they gonna do to him now? What if they don’t allow him to do his remedial courses anymore? What if he gets expelled? Can he even still become a hero after this? What if- oh. The car stopped, he should probably get out. 

-----

Shota is getting a headache, he’s so fucking done with having to deal with this crap. 

Ugh. 

It’s probably going to be a shit ton of paperwork. 

After the police and the ambulances arrived, and after he and his students had answered some of the cop’s questions. The cops wanted Bakugou to come to the station with them so they could write an official report and get his statement. Yamada had come to pick Todoroki up and Shota had gone to the station with Bakugou.

The kid had been quiet during the entire ride. 

He’s actually been pretty quiet since Shota saw him standing in that alley with a fucking knife in his hand (where had he even gotten that knife?). 

Thing is, Bakugou doesn’t do ‘quiet’. It isn’t in the kids nature, you can always feel his presence in the room and you always notice when he’s not in said room. But right now, sitting next to him in an interrogation room, it’s like the kid isn’t even there. 

Shota doesn’t like it.

It takes the cops a little under an hour to ask their questions and get Bakugou’s statement. This usually doesn’t take this long, but the cops need to make sure they get as many details as possible and well, Bakugou isn’t being very talkative right now. The whole situation is kinda complicated for two reasons:

1. It’s Bakugou. Things are probably never going to not be complicated for him. He was targeted and, since this wasn’t the first time, that complicates things. They don’t know what this means yet. They don’t know why he was targeted and they don’t know what the villains were planning to do. They can’t go asking them either, ‘cause Bakugou had kicked their asses so hard, that they’re unconscious in a hospital somewhere right now. Which brings him to reason number two.

2. Bakugou had kicked the villains’ asses so hard that they’re unconscious in a hospital somewhere right now. Honestly, Shota doesn’t really mind this at all and, if you ask him, those villains deserve what they got. But, Bakugou already has a reputation for being violent and -even though it was self defence and he had every right to do what he did- he had gone too far. At least, that’s probably what the media’s going to say about it, and they’ll probably bring up the fact that the kid doesn’t have his provisional license yet either. 

He internally rolls his eyes, god, he really hates the media. 

But yeah, this is definitely going to be a lot of paperwork.

But the paperwork isn’t the thing that he's most annoyed or angry about right now, and it’s definitely not the thing he’s most worried about either.

No, Shota’s most angry at the villains who caused this in the first place and he’s most annoyed at the way these cops are treating his student. First thing they did was bombard Bakugou with questions, next thing they did was shove him in a police car and last thing they did was drag him into an interrogation room. The cops didn’t even check him for injuries or let him wash the blood off of his face.

Which brings him to the thing he’s most worried about right now. 

Bakugou hasn’t been himself. He’s been all quiet and he’s clearly pretty spaced out. He hasn’t even touched the plastic cup of water in front of him. He’s just been staring at it.

Shota can’t blame him. He’s a sixteen year old who’s already been through more than the average hero with a couple years of experience. 

Bakugou’s behavior is completely understandable, but Shota is definitely still worried though.

It’s now 8:33pm and the cops are finally done with their questions (which is good cause Shota was incredibly close to just saying ‘fuck it’ and throwing the table through the glass, scooping Bakugou up and fleeing).

He doesn’t waste a second to get the kid out of the room. He just gets up, tells Bakugou to follow him, and leads him to the restroom. He needs to check his kid for injuries and he needs to wipe the blood off of his face, it’s been bothering him for over an hour now. 

Thankfully, the restroom seems to be empty. 

Shota pats the area on the washtable between the wall and the sinks. “Sit down kid.” 

Bakugou complies without a word, (seriously, he isn’t even making complaining noises, that’s not good), and sits down cross legged in the corner against the mirror.

Shota sighs and goes to grab a towel from the neatly placed stack on the opposite corner of the washtable so he can clean his kid’s face.

“Did you get injured anywhere?” He eyes the cut on the boy’s cheek, it’s not just a simple graze. It starts at the side of his nose and ends about two centimeters away from his ear. And, judging from the amount of dried blood around it, it’s pretty deep. There’s also a red mark on his jaw and the area between his eyes is looking pretty red too.

Bakugou shakes his head and lets out a ruff “I’m good.”

Frowning, Shota lets out another sigh. “Don’t lie to me kid, there’s a pretty clear cut on your face and there’s no way your fight didn’t leave at least a couple of bruises.”

“I’m fine. It’s just a little cut and I can handle a couple of bruises.” 

(Course you can, doesn’t mean you're fine though.)

There’s a pause as Shota soaks the towel in warm water. 

Then, unexpectedly, the kid speaks up, his voice still ruff but a little shaky: “Listen, I know I fucked up okay. I went way too far on those people and now they’re at the hospital and they could be dying. I- I’m sorry, I shouldn't've been so fucking aggresive and- and violent and I overestimated them and didn’t think things through like- like you taught us and I- I was panicking and being reckless and stupid and-” the kid takes in a sharp breath “Can you just get the lecture over with and tell me what my punishment is or whatever?” 

Jezus christ, this is even worse than what Shota was expecting. The kid thinks he fucked up? He thinks he needs to be punished ? Is he kidding right now?? Why the hell would he think that?

“Bakugou.” The boy doesn’t even look up. 

Shota needs to set this straight right now.

“Katsuki.” And that’s got the kid’s attention. 

He makes his voice sound a little softer that usual: “Look at me.” Katsuki’s gaze flickers up to meet his eyes.

“You didn’t fuck up. I’m actually pretty amazed and quite proud of you.”

Tired red eyes look at him full of doubt. 

“Really, you recognised that there was a threat, did the sensible thing and called me. That alone is already very impressive seeing as none of your other classmates has ever done that in the past. Then you managed to defend yourself against three villains who were working together to try and capture you. You fought them off and, if you ask me, they definitely got what they deserved.” 

He can see Bakugou ready to protest, so he puts his hand up and continues. “Being aggressive in battle is a good thing. You protected yourself today and I don’t think you were being reckless at all. Yes, you sent those people to the hospital, but i can assure you that they aren’t dying nor are they going to die. I saw the wounds you inflicted on them and I know you didn’t damage a single vital organ. You may have caused a lot of blood loss, but the ambulances and medical workers arrived on time and they can take care of that.” 

Shota puts his hand on the kid’s shoulder, noting the suppressed flich that Bakugou tries to hide at the contact. He gives his student a serious look.

“I’m not going to punish you. I’d never punish a student for protecting themself against evil.” 

He lets his words sink in for a second. 

“You got that?”

Unreadable red eyes stare at black ones for what feels like an eternity, but it can’t have been longer than seven seconds. 

Red eyes look away first.

“Yeah, okay.” It’s hesitant, but the signature frown on his face and the familiar angry spark in his eyes are back.

He gives the kid’s shoulder a pat before turning around.

“You’re not a bad kid Katsuki, you’re good.”

Shota steps back to the sink and squeezes the excess water out of the towel.

“Alright, pull your hood down. I want to clean your face and we’re also gonna have to take care of that cut, and I want to see how bad the bruises are.”

“Tch. I can take care of myself y’know. I can check my bruises when we’re back at the dorms and I’ll take care of the cut while I’m at it then as well. I know how to do that shit.”

Thank god the kid is returning to his usual fussy self, but that doesn’t mean Shota’s gonna put up with this. Bakugou might have the ability to handle this crap himself, but first of all, he shouldn’t have the ability to handle it himself (he’s a fucking kid) and second of all, he doesn’t have to handle this himself. Shota is literally right there and He Will Help His Child, even if he has to fucking fight him to do so (which is quite possibly the case since this is Bakugou he’s talking about).

So, Shota starts staring him down with the same intensity he uses when Eri won’t eat her vegetables, or when Hitoshi doesn’t want to go to sleep, or when Shoto sets the kitchen on fire again.

-----

Katsuki is NOT a quitter. 

He tries his best to win the stupid stare down with his sensei, but the man litterally does this for a living. His eyes have this weird sort of intensity in it that Katsuki can’t quite place (no one’s ever looked at him like this before). And that combined with the fact that he doesn’t really have enough energy for a stare down right now, means that there’s no doubt he’s inevitably going to lose this battle. 

And also, if he’s gonna be completely honest with himself, he might not mind letting Aizawa win today, because he does trust him. 

If he had to pick any adult on the planet to help him clean up his wounds, he would pick the man standing in front of him right now.

So, after having had a pretty tense stare down with his teacher, Katsuki admits defeat, sighs, and pulls down his hood.

He notices the faint smug smile on Aizawa’s face, Katsuki just scowls at him. The man doesn’t really seem to care though because he lifts a towel up to the blond’s face without changing his expression. 

It’s got a surprisingly nice and warm temperature and it feels soft as Aizawa brushes it against the side of his face.

Wait, fuck. 

That actually feels pretty nice. 

Oh no, holy shit. 

It definitely feels nice. 

Aizawa is being surprisingly gentle , and the towel is soft and warm and it feels nice . 

Fuck. He really hates himself for leaning into the touch.

He watches as Aizawa’s other hand comes up to hold the other side of his face. He suppresses another instinctive flinch and he can’t remember the last time he felt so fucking safe. 

God. he feels so fucking stupid, it’s like he’s a fucking puppy getting headscratches or some shit. 

He’s never had to fight this hard to keep the scowl on his face, but it feels so nice . So safe .

Aizawa strokes the blood out of his hair and off his ear, he carefully rubs over his eye for a third time and rubs his cheek for a fifth, then he wipes the remaining blood off of his neck. 

After cleaning and re-soaking the towel, he carefully cleans the cut on his cheek and wipes the blood off of his hands. It stings a little, maybe the cut’s a bit deeper than he thought, and he hadn’t realised the blood on his hands was partially his own. The skin on his knuckles is looking pretty red and busted up. 

Huh, apparently he punched those people pretty hard. 

Aizawa grabs a gauze pad, some bandages, disinfectant spray and gauze tape from the belt around his waist and patches up Katsuki’s face and his hands.

The faint prickle from where his sensei had held his face still lingers under his skin.

“Alright Hell Child, lift your hoodie, I need to see how badly you were hit.”

Hell Child? Yeah okay, that’s actually pretty fair.

Katsuki straightens up and pulls the red stained hoodie over his head. He can kinda feel the movements but it’s not bad, he’s used to it and he’s definitely had way worse. 

The left side of his torso, around his ribs, is looking pretty red and there’ll probably be some bruises there when he wakes up tomorrow. 

It’s not any worse than he would get during hero training or whatever though.

Aizawa carefully pokes around the red area on his torso and softly hums. “Seems like you’ll be fine. Let’s go back to the dorms and then we can get you some ice and dinner there.”

Dinner. He’d 100% forgotten about that. Crap, this whole mess had cost Aizawa-sensei his Thai food, hadn’t it? The man had been craving it all week.

He hops off the washtable and follows his sensei out the door, he doesn’t really feel like eating. Will he be able to get out of it though? Maybe he can subtlety escape saying he needs to wash his hoodie or something? That wouldn’t even be a lie ‘cause his hoodie is actually kinda making him look like he’s some sorta serial killer right now. 

Damn. 

He’s gonna have to face the whole class isn’t he? The extras always butt into every situation and they’ll probably want to know all the details about what happened. 

Oh no, he does NOT have the energy. 

Fuckin’ great.

-----

It’s 7:42pm when Shoto gets back to the dorms, Yamada trailing behind him.

“Todoroki!” Midoriya immediately bounces from his seat on the couch. “You’ve been gone for quite a while. Remedial courses don’t usually take this long right?”

“Hey” Kaminari speaks up. “Why isn’t Bakubro with ya?” He says it in his usual peppy voice, but it’s obviously mixed with concern.

Taking off his shoes, Shoto answers in his usual, calm voice: “He got attacked by villains.” He doesn’t want the others to be as worried about Bakugou as he had initially been.

However, judging from the reactions across the room, that didn’t work out the way he expected.

Seriously, there’s a beat of absolute silence before everyone in the common room immediately drops what they’re doing and jumps up. 

Shinso even arises from his slumber in the corner. 

And then the chaos starts.

The whole bakusquad simultaneously starts running around and yelling questions, Midoriya joining them. Ashido spills the cereal she was holding all over the floor. Kaminari has elektricity crackling around him (he breaks a lightbulb beside him). Yaoyorozu just looks horrified. Koda doesn’t seem to know what to do. Iida is chopping his arms in the air, screaming at everyone to stop screaming. Uraraka accidentally sends Jiro flying when she clings onto her with all ten fingers. The kids who were upstairs in their dorms all come running down and start yelling, causing even more chaos. And Dark shadow is throwing around threats whilst Tokoyami attempts to settle him.

Oops. Shoto didn’t mean for this to happen. 

Yamada just sighs from behind him, pats him on his back and does what he does best.

“ALRIGHT LISTENERS. CALM.  D O W N!” 

Everyone flinches at the sound and they all turn to look at Present Mic.

“What happened to Blasty?? Do we know where he is?!” They’ve formed a half circle around the entrance where Shoto and Yamada are standing. 

“Please do not worry! Bakugou is fine.” Half of them let out a collective breath. 

“How about everyone takes a seat and I’ll let you know what happened, then you can ask your questions afterwards.” Yamada gestures to the tables and everyone anxiously moves to take a seat.

“You should go and get yourself some dinner Shoto, you haven’t gotten the chance to eat anything yet!” 

Shoto moves over to the kitchen, silently stepping over the puddle of milk and fruitloops on the floor, and reaches for his secret stash of cold soba.

-----

They’re on their way back to the dorms and Katsuki realises how tired he is. He had hero training in the morning, remedial courses in the afternoon, and he fought off three villains early in the evening. He’d been really tense at the police station but now that he can finally relax, all he can think about is how exhausted he feels. His muscles ache, his cheek stings and his side hurts. He’s hungry, but he really doesn’t feel like eating. 

“Just so you know,” Aizawa says in his usual tone. “I saw some reporters around the scene when we were leaving.”

He doesn’t need to explain any further, Katsuki knows what that implicates. 

Fuck. 

Having the media involved is never good. 

He still remembers the headlines from the sludge villain incident, from the sports festival and the kidnapping. 

He wonders how creative journalists are gonna get with the headlines this time, how much negativity and drama are they going to be able to fit in a single sentence? Are they going to call him a victim like they did during the sludge incident, or will they call him a monster like they did after the sports festival? Will they use his name or will they simply refer to him as that student who got kidnapped which led to All Might’s retirement.

Katsuki sighs, his mom’s gonna be pissed. The tiny bit of hope he had that the school hadn’t informed her of tonight's events, doesn’t even matter anymore. If she doesn’t know already, then she’ll definitely know soon. He’ll bet anything that his inbox is already full of missed calls from her right now, he supposes it’s a good thing that his phone died. 

Yeah, his appetite is gone for sure. 

When he gets back to the dorms he’ll beeline straight to his room, plug his phone in the charger, wash his hoodie (the blood’s gonna be a bitch to get out, luckily he’s got years of experience) and then he’ll pass the fuck out on his bed. Hopefully his classmates will let him be tonight. He knows that they’ll probably be pestering him with questions the moment he opens the door, but maybe he’ll be able to slip past them real quick.

-----

Eijiro is worried. 

He already felt like something was off when Bakugou and Todoroki hadn’t come back from their remedial courses by 7pm. They usually come back around 6:30pm and they always let the class know to save them food if they’re gonna be late. 

But none of the bakusquad had heard anything from Bakugou and none of the dekusquad had heard anything from Todoroki. Everyone had been feeling kinda on edge and most of the class even lingered behind in the common room after dinner, casually glancing at the door every couple of minutes, waiting for it slam open and reveal their missing classmates. 

The door didn’t slam open. It was quietly pushed open, and if Eijiro hadn’t been paying so much attention to it, he probably wouldn’t even have noticed Todoroki and Present Mic entering. 

Apparently, he hadn’t been the only one who noticed, because he immediately exchanged worried glances with Sero, Mina and Kaminari. 

Kaminari was the one to ask the question on all of their minds.

And then they absolutely freaked. It was chaos. He was panicking. Surely this couldn’t be happening again, right? Could the universe really fuck his friend over this often? Was this even real right now? 

It was a moment of pure chaos, anger and fear that spread through the entire class like a freaking fire. He was seriously about to burst out in tears, and then Mic told them Bakugou was fine. He let out a breath.

His best friend was okay, that was a relief. 

Except, how could he be okay? He’d just been targeted and attacked by villains for the umpteenth time.

Mic told them what happend. Told them about how Bakugou had fought the villains off. Eijiro should’ve known better, of course Bakugou had fought them off, he’s the strongest and manliest guy Eijiro knows.

Then they watched the news. 

Unsurprisingly, Bakugou made the headline. 

They showed footage of the aftermath, scorch marks and bloodstains in an alley somewhere. Shots of people being taken away in ambulances.

It must’ve been quite a fight.

But Eijiro did not like the way the reporters were describing the situation. 

They were making it seem like it was Bakugou’s fault that villains were after him. They made it sound like Bakugou had been in the wrong for defending himself. Saying he was supposed to be a hero, yet he put three villains in a hospital. Like that’s not what three grown adults deserve for attacking a teen who was just trying to get to a restaurant to have some dinner. 

They were implying that Bakugou was the one at fault in this situation. 

How could they even say something like that? How in hell was Bakugou the bad guy here? 

This was just some straight-up unmanly bullshit, and Eijiro was pretty f-ing mad about it.

But right now, watching his best friend silently enter the dorm in his previously white sweater, with gauze on his cheek, red looking skin between his eyes, bruising on his jaw and with bandages wrapped around his hands, all he feels is concern. 

-----

Katsuki knew this would happen. The second he gets home, all eyes are on him. Kirishima and Kaminari are already both on their way over to him, just barely keeping themselves from breaking out in a full sprint. Mina and Sero are close behind them and he can just feel Deku staring at him from somewhere in the corner. 

Deku isn’t the only one staring, everyone in the common area is, but Deku’s stare feels the heaviest, he’s way too familiar with it. 

At least the other extras are trying to be somewhat subtle about it (not that it’s working).

“Are you okay Bakugou?” It’s annoying how Kirishima doesn’t even try to hide the worry in his voice. 

“I’m fine”  He grunts, he really doesn’t have the energy to deal with this right now. Why’s everyone asking that question anyway? He already handled the villains. 

“Are you sure Blasty?” Mina’s biting her lip and she almost sounds upset. Why would she be upset? 

“You’re all actin’ like I just lost a limb or something. I’m fine. Didn’t even get hurt.” He says it while taking off his hoodie and pushing past them. The sooner he takes care of the blood stains, the sooner he can be alone and pass out on his bed.

Kaminari speaks up with the usual grin on his face: “Alright well, if you say your fine does that mean you’re gonna hang out with us tonight? I’d love to destroy you at mario kart on the wii.” 

He never thought he’d think this, but he’s really grateful that Pikachu is letting the subject drop and moving on with his usual bullshit.

“Not tonight Static, I gotta wash this and then I’m going to sleep.” He’s already halfway across the common room, just a couple meters from the stairs.

“Not so fast Bakugou.” 

Fucking dammit, he hates that Aizawa can see through his shit so easily. 

He was really close to booking it outta the room too.

He slowly turns around, casually still stepping back towards the stairs (if he can just make it to the stairs, he’ll be in the clear and he can be left alone). 

“Hmm?” He tries his best to sound casual, but he knows his annoyance leaked through.

There’s a loud sigh. “You haven’t eaten anything yet and we’re still going to ice your side. You can go wash your hoodie but in the meantime I’ll be making us some dinner and Sero will get you some ice.”

“I’ll pass, I’m not hungry.” He is, but he just doesn’t want to eat anything right now.

“Sorry kid, but I don’t care.” 

And thus, another glaring contest has begun. 

Katsuki can feel his classmate’s gazes shifting between him and his sensei, but he will hold his teacher's gaze, no way is he giving up without a fight. 

There’s a weird type of tense silence that fills the room, it’s filled with curiosity, confusion and probably still some worry. 

“Uhhh riiight,” Sero begins after a moment, but Aizawa and Katsuki are still wordlessly glaring at each other. “I’ll go get some ice then. Does anyone know if we still have ice packs?” He says it hesitantly and doesn’t avert his gaze from Aizawa and Katsuki.

Yaoyorozu speaks up after an awkward second of more silence, also keeping her eyes on the glaring contest going on in front of her. “No, but I can create some gel packs and-” 

Katsuki tears his gaze away from his sensei. 

Damn, why’s it gotta be like this? He just wants to pass out. He’s too tired. 

He grunts out a low “I’ll be back.” and walks up the stairs.

He doesn’t even know why he decided to listen to Aizawa, it’s not like the man’s his dad or anything, but there’s just something about his glare that leaves no room for debate.

He will defeat the man next time though, when he has more energy.

-----

Hizashi really wishes he had some popcorn right now. Watching his husband use his Tired Dad Glare™ on Bakugou is hilarious. Bakugou might be a stubborn-as-all-hell kid but Shota has had lots of time and practice to perfect his glare, so he’s excited to see who’ll win.

The battle ends up being longer and intenser than Hizashi ever could’ve predicted, the class is pretty lucky they got to witness it.

But, after a pretty good fight, Bakugou gives in first.

And Hizashi is honestly impressed, if Bakugou put up such a good fight now, when he isn’t even in top condition, then he can’t wait to see the rematch. It’ll be a never ending battle and Hizashi will be sitting in the front row, munching on some popcorn, and betting on who’ll win. 

It’ll be glorious.

“Hizashi, can you make me and the kid some dinner?” Shota looks at him with his beautifully cold eyes.

“Wha-?! But I thought you said that you were gonna be making dinner Shota!”

“Well yes, I did say that, but we both know that I can’t cook for shit.”

He shoots his husband a pair of finger guns, “That is definitely true, we don’t want Bakugou to have to taste your awful cooking right now! I’ll get started rigHT AWAY!!!”

So he turns, ignoring his husband’s annoyed mumbles about him screaming all the time, and starts searching through the fridge. 

Bakugou comes down about ten minutes later when Hizashi is about halfway through cooking dinner. He just needs to wait for the rice to heat up, for the fish to finish frying and he still needs to cook the vegetables. Food will probably be done in about five to ten minutes.

He watches from the kitchen as Shota demands Bakugou to sit down, the blond reluctantly listens and Shoto walks over with the gel pack that Yaoyorozu made. 

Shoto doesn’t miss a beat, he simply sits down, lifts Bakugou’s shirt and carefully places the gel pack against Bakugou’s purple-reddish looking side. Shoto has it frozen within a second, and he keeps his right hand there so the pack doesn't fall.

He feels a sense of doom and ‘oh no’ for his son, but then there’s a flash of red and floating hair. 

Thank god Shota is there to stop Bakugou from blowing Shoto up. 

Jeeze, his son can be dense when it comes to social interactions. 

He chuckles to himself fondly.

“Da FUCK you doin Peppermint Boy?! HAH?? You wanna die or something?!!” 

Sero and Kaminari burst out laughing in the background, and Ashido and Kirishima are failing at trying to muffle their own laughs.

Shoto’s voice is as monotone as ever: “‘Peppermint Boy’? That doesn’t make sense, peppermint is a plant.” 

“A pla- Wha-?? NO. no no no no holy fuck. No. Do I seriously have to explain everything to you? I meant the fucking candy not the goddamn plant , ya dimwit.” The blond harshly flicks Shoto on his forehead as he rages at him, but Shoto has somehow managed to keep the pack in place.

“Oh. Okay, then I guess it makes sense.” 

“Gimme dat!” Bakugou shoves Shoto to the side, snatches the pack from Shoto’s hand, and goes to stand up. 

Aizawa pushes him back down.

“Stay.”

The microwave beeps, the leftover rice should be heated up now. 

As he turns to grab the rice, Hizashi listens to Bakugou grumbling curses under his breath. 

“Don’t just go around lifting people’s shirts outta nowhere ya creep. I probably would’ve blown you up if I hadn’t seen you.”

“The pack will melt if I don’t hold it though.”

“You’re an idiot.”

Hizashi grabs two plates, places the rice, fish and vegetables on them and walks over to the couches.

Shota mumbles a tired “Thanks Hizashi.” and moves to start eating.

Bakugou takes the plate without a word and starts poking at it with his fork, angrily looking at the food like it’s some kinda question on a test that doesn’t make any sense.

They sit there for about 45 minutes. 

During this time, Shoto had to re-freeze the gel pack three times, Sero lost in mario kart against Kaminari thrice and won twice, Hitoshi had burst out in an angry rant because he hadn’t gotten the villager he was hoping for on the new game he got for his switch (crossing animals or something?) and Bakugou had eaten a grand total of five tiny bites from his dinner. 

After his sixth bite, the blond stands up, announces his departure and leaves. 

Shota lets him.

Kirishima worriedly looks up from his phone on the opposite couch and pipes up once Bakugou is out of sight: “He barely ate anything.”

There’s a small pause as no one seems to know what to say.

“He gets like that sometimes.” 

Even though the words were quietly mumbled under Midoriya’s breath, everyone must’ve still heard them, because all eyes immediately turn to the bonebreaker. 

The green haired boy clearly hadn’t anticipated the attention though, seeing as he immediately seems unnerved.

“Ah! No wait I- uh I mean I don’t really know, it’s just that- uhm well I just, yeah he- I’m not sure, but I’ve known him a really long time and it’s just, well-”

“Midoriya. Take a breath will ya?” 

“Uh yeah you’re right Jiro, thanks” 

He takes a breath.

“I’ve known Kacchan for basically my whole life, and I don’t know why , but he usually tends to eat less whenever he’s upset or if something happened maybe? Like one time, after he’d gotten in a fight at school and the teachers called his parents, I noticed how he didn’t bring any lunch with him for a couple days after. It wasn’t anything serious though! He was fine and the longest I’ve noticed him eating less was for maybe three days tops? But he’d always still been fine whenever I noticed, it’s not like he collapsed or anything serious like that and he’d always still be his usual self! He just eats a little less for a short period of time and then he goes back to normal.” 

There’s a moment of silence as Midoriya regains his breath and no one really responds.

“Don’t tell him I told you guys though, he’d probably kill me.”

“We won’t, but we are gonna have to make sure he takes care of himself. I’m kinda worried about him.” Kirishima’s voice is full of his usual determination that has never failed to motivate anyone who hears it, right now is no exception.

Hizashi can feel himself nodding along with the rest who are in the common room.

A silent pact is made.

-----

When Katsuki finally reaches his dorm, he doesn’t even bother to take a shower or change his clothes. He just rips his socks off, throws his shirt in the corner and then falls onto his bed.

He’ll take a shower tomorrow.

He’ll clean his knives tomorrow.

He’ll check his phone tomorrow.

He’ll deal with his parents tomorrow.

He’ll deal with everything tomorrow.

All the fucking consiquences and hurt can wait until tomorrow.

He’s just too fucking exhausted today.

Tomorrow’s gonna suck.

Chapter Text

Katsuki wakes up around eleven in the morning.

He still feels like shit.

(Suck it up, you’re not some baby. Besides, the worst is probably yet to come.)

He turns his -now charged- phone on and distantly bets himself it’ll be 23.

Fuck, he was pretty close. He’s got exactly 26 missed calls from his mom and 2 missed calls from his dad (she’s gotta be pretty pissed if she got dad to call). 

Today’s gonna suck, the hag’ll definitely want him to come home so she can ‘speak’ to him. She’ll be pissed and there’ll be a screaming match for dinner, and he’ll probably get kicked outta the house for dessert.

Great, really looking forward to it.

He lays his arm over his eyes as he chokes on a chuckle. (She’s so fucking predictable, always does the same fucking things). 

He takes a deep breath in and smiles with the shaky exhale.

Yeah okay, maybe he’s finally going crazy. 

Why the fuck is he smiling? He knows he’ll get his ass beat when he gets home, he knows it’s gonna suck and it’s gonna hurt, there’s no point in denying it, so why the hell does he think it’s funny? Are his emotions really so fucked up that this is how he reacts to things now? 

God, he wished he could just stay in the dorms and ignore her for the rest of his life.

But that wouldn’t work, it’d only get worse if he doesn’t answer her calls and doesn’t show his face when she inevitably demands him to come home. She’d probably show up to the dorms and beat him in front of the whole class if he did. Not like she gives a fuck, not like anyone else gives a fuck.

Nope, he doesn’t want that. Besides, he ain't some pussy, he’s faced her countless times before and he can do it again.

No biggie.

All he’s gotta do is take the beating and listen to her yelling, listen to everything he’s ever done wrong in his life and listen to how much she fucking regrets ever having him. It’s fine. 

He can take it.

It’s fine.

It really is. 

He deserves it this time anyway.

He fucked up pretty bad.

(But Aizawa said I didn’t fuck up, Aizawa said he was proud.)

That’s true, Aizawa did say that.

But then again, it’s not like he’s never heard encouragement like that before. 

“She just wants what's best for you Katsuki, you have to understand that.”

“It’ll get better.”

“Why don’t you just listen?”

“Just do better and this wouldn’t have to happen.”

“Just behave.”

“We love you.”

Adults love to lie to you like that, you shouldn’t trust everything they say. Because guess what? Things never got any better, they only got worse. ‘Just behaving’ was never good enough, so why should he even try? And if both of them really did love him, then they would’ve shown him that by now… right?

He clenches his jaw and fists his hand in the sheets, presses his arm down over his eyes a little harder.

God, he can’t believe he used to be stupid enough to genuinely believe everything his dad told him, what adults in general told him.

You have to be careful with who you trust, people are full of lies half the time.

That’s why he hates his dad, he’s different from his mom. His mom might hurt, but at least she makes what he did wrong clear, at least she’s straight forward about it. His dad, on the other hand, is too much of a coward to even touch him, instead he always just fucking confuses Katsuki. He never knows what to think when his dad talks to him, never knows what to believe and what not to believe, because his dad is manipulative. 

His dad’s a fucking liar.

And that’s worse.

He always fixes him with that stupid, sad, dissapointed look that means: ‘See, I knew this would happen again, saw it coming from a mile away and it’s your fault. You fucked up again and you’re the one who pissed your mother off. This didn’t have to happen, but -as usual- we were right and you can’t even begin to understand how hard it is on us to have to parent you. When are you going to learn?’. 

That stupid, fake expression that Katsuki used to think was real and those fucking encouraging lies that his dad seems to copy and paste after every goddamn fight, all those things that used to give him false hope, they somehow hurt more than the slaps he gets from his mom. 

And he doesn’t know why, but he still falls for it sometimes.

And it’s not just his dad, teachers and other adults, they all like to twist the truth. They all like to lie so they don’t have to take the blame for anything, so they don’t have to admit that they were wrong. 

They make up pretty lies and expect you to blindly go along with everything they say.

And when you tell them no, or when you tell them that they’re wrong, that’s when they get mad. They tell you that you’re being disrespectful, “That’s no way to treat your elders.”

They were born before you so they deserve to be treated with respect.

And they’re older so they’re always right.

But it’s all fucking bullshit, respect isn’t something that you fucking deserve , it’s something that you earn . You have to prove yourself if you want respect. And you’re not automatically right just because you’re older.

He un-clenches his fist and in a swift motion, turns to punch the wall next to his bed.

Fuck, he can really piss himself off sometimes. He huffs, at least he’s back to reacting with his usual anger.

( “You’re not a bad kid Katsuki, you’re good.” )

He wants to believe it.

He shouldn’t but he really really wants to.

He will admit though, that Aizawa doesn’t say stuff that he doesn’t mean. The man has not once lied to him or praised him for unnecessary shit.

Aizawa isn’t like his dad or any other adult he has ever met.

He isn’t a liar.

And it is true that the man has earned Katsuki’s respect.

His teacher has proved himself as someone that he can trust.

And, the man did seem kinda serious when he said what he said. 

So maybe, maybe , Katsuki can believe that it was true? 

But then again, it’s not like any of it really matters right now, it’s not really going to help him in any way, is it?

There’s nothing that his sensei can do.

He sighs, all he can do is try to remember what Aizawa said and hope that that wasn’t a lie when he listens to his mother screaming the opposite at him. He’s just going to have to survive the night, it’s his only option. Try to get out as soon as he can and then pretend like it never happened, the usual.

If he’s survived all those other times, then he can survive this one too, just like he’ll survive all the ones after. It’s his only option really.

It’ll be fine.

It’ll be fine .

It’s whatever.

It doesn’t even matter.

He just prays to any dead god out there that he’ll get kicked out before curfew at the dorms, he really doesn’t feel like being on the streets tonight, he’s pretty sure it’s supposed to rain.

For now though, he’ll just ignore the hag for a few more hours until he doesn’t have any other choice but to pick up his phone.

…

Today’s gonna suck.

Katsuki’s playing minecraft with Ashido, Jiro and Kaminari in the common room. Todoroki is also ‘playing’ but he’s been stuck in a hole for the past five minutes.

The hole is two blocks deep. 

Two motherfucking blocks.

He has officially given up on trying to get the popsicle stick to understand the game. It’s useless.

Their server is pretty sick though, they got one with about half of the class and they’ve already built a ton of cool stuff, plus, they’re hella rich. 

But the best part is that class B’s server’s got nothing on theirs. Those losers don’t even have the fucking nether yet. Katsuki got that within the first week of getting the server, and they had three exams that week, so he hadn’t even had the time to play that much.

Anyway, he’s letting some rage out by fighting two skeletons and a creeper when his phone almost vibrates off the table. 

He tries to ignore it.

“Aren’t you gonna pick that up? I’m pretty sure that this is like, the fifth time that someone’s trying to call you thi- fuck! There’s a creeper in my house! Shit shit nooo please don’t blow up.” 

“Ah! Again Jiro? This is like the third time! How many times I gotta tell ya to close your door when you leave at night.” Ashido’s really saying that like her house hasn’t been blown to bits multiple times. Fucking pink hypocrite. “Also Blasty, she’s right y’know, it’s rude to ignore people. Who’s calling you anyways? You got some secret admirer you don’t want us to know about or something hmmm?” Her eyebrows bounce up and down on her forehead like she’s training them to lift weights and she’s making some kind of ridiculous face at him. 

Annoying much.

Katsuki sighs (guess I can’t really put this off much longer).

“No. It’s just my mom,” Todoroki’s eyes shoot up to him “Imma go take this.”

He stands up, shoots Todoroki a look and leaves.

-----

Shoto’s still trying to figure out how to get outta this hole. He had fallen into it when he was trying to make friends with a cat he found in a jungle. He went running after it after Bakugou gave him a fish and told him that he could tame it and keep it as his pet, he was even told that the cat could be given a name of his choosing if he wanted. He was actually really excited about it.

But now he’s stuck in a hole and he can’t jump out. 

Worst part is that the cat is probably long gone.

He wonders if maybe he should try to befriend a real life stray cat. 

(Could I just walk around with a fish until I become friends with a cat? That has to work in real life right? I think it probably works. Where else would the creators of the game get such an idea from?  And it makes sense too because cats like fish, so the theory definitely checks out.

But would the cat stick around after it finishes the fish, or would it just leave? 

Can I just randomly name a cat and decide it’s my friend? Is that even allowed? 

Maybe I could call the cat Ash, like the main character of pokemon? That name might not fit with what the cat looks like though. Perhaps I should give it a normal name, like Jeff. Mmm that sounds like a name that’d fit any ca-)

“No. It’s just my mom,” He’s pulled out of his train of thought with that sudden sentence. “Imma go take this.” 

(Bakugou doesn’t have the best relationship with his mom so, this probably isn’t good.)

So Shoto looks up at Bakugou and he glares back, they share a whole conversation within a second.

‘Is this something bad?’ ‘What’s gonna happen?’ ‘Do you need any help?’ ‘Are you going to be alright?’

‘I’m fine’ ‘Don’t worry about it’ ‘Just stay out of it.’

So he does. He doesn’t want to, but he does.

He doesn’t go after the blond and he doesn’t ask any further.

He stays out of it.

What would he even do anyway?

Besides, it’s probably not too bad.

Bakugou comes running down the stairs with his jacket on about half an hour later and goes straight to the front door.

“Ey Bakubro! Are you leaving? Where’re you going man?” 

“Obviously I’m leaving Sparky, and where I’m going is none of your fucking business!”

“Aw come on man, I’m just curious. When are you gonna be back then?”

The breathing bomb almost falls as he’s yanking his sneakers on. “I dun know.” 

“Well that’s ominous, you know you can’t just leave outta nowhere and not tell anyone where you're going or when you're coming back dude. You don’t want us to get worried about you do you? Cause we will y'know, you’d give us no other choice but to start annoying you into telling us what you're doing and I know for a fact that you’d eventually give in, so you might as well save us all the trouble and just let us know what you’re up to.” Kaminari ends with a fearless grin.

“Shut the fuck up Pikachu.” There isn’t as much heat in that statement as usual, it almost seems to have a hint of tiredness (?) in it.

“Well maybe if-”

“I’m going to my parent’s house alright, you happy now?”

Hm. 

Why would Bakugou be going to his parents? He literally never goes to his parents. The only time Shoto’s known of the blond going to his parents has been when he didn’t have any other choice, like during breaks.

So Shoto interrupts: “Why are you going to your parents?”

Bakugou makes some kind of low, annoyed growling noise. “Cause they wanted to fucking see me. Now if you’d all leave me alone, I got a train to catch.”

There’s a cold gust of wind that passes through the room when Bakugou yanks the door open with way too much force. And he’s already halfway outside when Ashido quickly pipes up before Shoto can say anything else.

“Wait! Did you get permission from Aizawa to leave, Blasty? He’s gonna be super pissed if he finds out you left without permission!”

Bakugou yells out a quick “Aizawa knows!” just before the door slams shut and then he’s gone.

Shoto almost goes after him, but he knows that there’s no hope in getting the blond to stay. Besides, Bakugou will be fine… right?

He’ll be okay. 

The door will probably be slammed open again before the forecasted storm even starts and before Yamada takes him and Shinso home for dinner.

-----

It’s around 11pm and Hitoshi is watching Avatar: The Last Airbender with Shoto, because Shoto has, for some reason (he knows the reason), never seen Avatar before. Hitoshi has taken it upon himself to educate his brother about all the things a 16 year old should know, so they started binge watching classic childhood movies and series (like pokemon, Shoto really enjoyed that) together about three months ago. Eri joins in all the time as well, because she too, has some stuff to catch up on.

It’s a pretty chill night, rain is pouring outside, there’s the occasional rumble of thunder, Eri is sound asleep in her room (he’s kinda jealous), Hizashi is grading papers at the bar in the kitchen and Shota is turned around on the couch in his caterpillar form. He’s probably sleeping, but you can never be too sure with that man.

He already knows he won’t be able to sleep for at least another couple of hours, but that’s fine because he has a good home where he can relax now. 

He looks over to Shoto who’s covered in a thick blanket and seems to be completely engulfed in the show. 

His phone buzzes.

He does not expect Bakugou of all people to text him, and yet, when he looks down at his phone there’s a message.

ExPloDoKiLL: Eyebags

ExPloDoKiLL: Is Aizawa awake?

-----

He’s running.

He doesn’t remember when he started running -probably the second he slammed the door shut- but, judging from the way his lungs and throat sting with every sharp intake of breath, he’s been running for quite a bit. 

His back fucking hurts, he’s been ignoring the prickle behind his eyes and he hasn’t been able to think straight this whole fucking night. 

Katsuki slows down his pace until he comes to a stop, his breath heaves and he’s just now registering the fact that he’s fucking soaked.

Fuck. 

Where the fuck did he even run to? 

The rain is heavy, pouring down so aggressively that only a duck could enjoy it. It’s dark out and the thick raindrops are obscuring his vision, even with a couple of flickering light posts around, he can barely see anything.

He should probably try to find some kind of shelter.

There’s a giant flash of lightning that’s accompanied by a loud rumble of thunder with a three second delay, he flinches.

(How’s Pikachu’s doin? The idiot’s quirk always acts up during thunderstorms.)

Eh, he should probably try to focus on the problem at hand (Pikachu will be fine anyway). 

His breath is still evening out and fuck, the rain is really goddamn loud.

What the fuck is he gonna do?

Usually he’d be fine to stay the night outside just wandering about or finding a random place to sleep, he’s got his go-bag with him and usually there wouldn’t really be any problem. But right now he’s standing in the middle of a fucking storm, and even though he isn’t cold, he never gets sick and he can stomach a night out in a storm (it wouldn’t be the first time), he really really doesn’t want to.

He just wants to go back home, he doesn’t really want to be out here in the dark, alone. He’d honestly -and he’ll never admit this to anybody- rather be surrounded by his obnoxious, annoying classmates than have to spend the night out here on the streets on constant high alert for villains of any kind. 

Shit. He won’t be able to rely on his explosions as much in this weather if he happens to encounter anyone, he’d still have his knives but it would be risky.

He sighs, heavy. He’s so fucking fucked, and so godamn tired . He hates this, it fucking sucks. Fuck his mom, fuck his dad, those assholes can go to fucking hell for all he cares. Fuck them and fuck everyone else! 

This just fucking sucks.

He’s so frustrated, it bubbles up inside his chest and he fucking screams. Because he’s so tired, and they were right, but it still hurt.

Yeah, he wants to go back to the dorms. It’s warmer there, and he could go to sleep.

Too bad for him though, it’s almost 11pm, curfew ended about three hours ago, the gates are closed and he has no way of getting inside.

Perfect. Just his fucking luck.

Maybe if he texts Aizawa with some lame excuse he’ll let him in? 

It could be worth a shot.

There’s another loud strike of thunder that nearly causes Katsuki to drop his phone as he’s fishing it out of his jacket pocket.

He really doesn’t want to bother Aizawa right now though, the man’s probably finally enjoying some well deserved sleep.

Fuck. 

Another bright flash crosses the sky and the crash is just two seconds away now.

He strikes a deal with himself. 

(If Aizawa’s awake, then I call him. If he’s not, then I suck it up.)

So he hunches over his phone, trying to keep it out of the rain, and opens his chats. He texts the only person who’s always awake, near Aizawa and most likely to not ask too many questions. 

Eyebags

Is Aizawa awake?

MindFucker: Bakugou?

MindFucker: Why u wanna know?

You think he can let me in the dorms?

MindFucker: Uhhh

MindFucker: Why do u need to go to the dorms?

MindFucker: Thought you went home 

Ye, went to my parents house

They left tho

So now i wanna go back to the dorms

MindFucker: They left? Wdym??

I mean they’re fucking gone

Went on a trip somewhere for work

Just 

nevermind

I’ll figure somethin else out

He sighs, leans his head back to look up at the rain and runs a hand through his wet hair. 

He used to love the rain, perfect weather to just run and jump around, to not care. He can enjoy the feel of cold, heavy drops falling onto warm skin now too, but the fact that he’ll still be outside when the pouring turns into drizzle, the fact that he has no other choice but to be out in this weather and the fact that he can’t go back to a place where it’s warm, kinda cancels out all the fun. 

Rain isn’t fun when you don’t choose to go out in it yourself.

His phone rings, he looks at the caller ID and the picture of a purple cat in a coffee mug that pops up for a couple of seconds before he decides to pick up.

“Bakugou”

“Mhmm”

“Your parents make you come home to talk to you and then they just up and leave on a trip a couple hours later? And you don’t want to stay the night at your house so you decide to text me to ask if your homeroom teacher is awake and willing to let you in the dorms about three hours after curfew?” there’s a bit of an accusatory tone in that bored voice.

Katsuki swallows, he knows it’s a fucking lame excuus but in his defence, it’s not 100% a lie, his parents are supposed to be leaving in the morning, he just changed the time a little and besides, he didn’t really expect a follow up on it, he would’ve thought of something better if he had.

“Yea, what’s it to you asshole?”

“Just find it pretty fucking suspicios and unlike you of you. Where are you right now?”

“None of your fucking buisiness.” He also has no clue.

“Bakugou, where the fuck are you? I know you gotta be outside somewhere cause I can literally hear thunder and rain in the background. Why aren’t you home?”

“I- uhh-” He lets out a heavy sigh. “Fuck, I just can’t really go home right now alright? Don’t worry about it, it’s fine I jus-”

“Need to find a place to crash?”

“...Yeah, wanted to go back to the dorms but I missed curfew, and you guys went home right? So there isn’t anyone to let me in.”

“Yeah we’re all home for the weekend. You should come over and crash here. Aizawa and Yamada won’t mind and Eri loves you so she’d be thrilled if you come too.”

Wouldn’t they mind though? Can he really barge in on their weekend like that? 

“Me and Shoto could use a third player for Uno anyway, it’s more fun with more people. Besides, it’s better than staying outside right?” 

It is better, but they’re gonna be asking questions. 

(But I could get out of the rain.)

What’s he gonna do?

It’s either stay outside in the rain or crash with IcyHot and MindFuck. It’s either survive the night or answer a couple of questions. It’s either be alone or play Uno with two idiots.

“Bakugou?”

Fuck, okay. This is a bad idea.

“Text me the address.”

But it’s the lesser of two evils.

-----

Thank god.

It’s not like Hitoshi was worried or anything, but he knew something was wrong when he saw Bakugou’s text. Shoto had told him earlier that Bakugou had gone home, which they both found pretty suspicious because Bakugou never goes home. He knows that the angry TNT block doesn’t have a great relationship with his parents, he’s definitely joined enough Therapeutic Late Night Ranting Sessions With Shoto And Bakugou™ to figure that out. But he never imagined that things got this bad for the blond, seeing as he never talks about it much and always shrugs off whatever questions Shoto or Hitoshi throw at him. 

So he’s really happy that Bakugou’s coming over to stay at their place opposed to staying outside in a fucking storm.

He had to be careful with what he said because he knows that Bakugou could’ve easily hung up if Hitoshi made a wrong move. 

He knows what it’s like to stay nights outside and he doesn’t want Bakugou to do the same.

Okay, so maybe he was a little worried, maybe he still is.

But it’s fine because Bakugou is coming over and staying the night, thank god. 

This’ll actually be pretty fun he thinks, well, it might be pretty fun. No doubt that Shota is gonna be asking some questions and no doubt Bakugou will refuse to answer them. 

Damn, it’s kinda unfortunate because Bakugou is actually a lot of fun to hang out with if you can get past his anger. The guy is aggressive, honest and it’s fun to insult him and even funnier to insult others with him. They got good banter going on. The blond’s got good humor too and he can be incredibly sarcastic if he wants to be. Hitoshi can respect sarcasm and he honestly likes the guy.

He sighs.

Bakugou won’t be willing to answer any of Shota’s questions though, and that won’t make Shota happy.

And Hitoshi understands not wanting to answer questions, he really does. He’s been there, but he also knows that it’d be better if Bakugou does answer. They could help him.

He does know that they can help him, right?

When he walks back to the living room, he sees Hizashi trying -and failing- to get Shota up and to bed.

So, because he’s such a good person, he decides to help Hizashi out a little.

“Bakugou is coming over to crash here tonight.”

And, as expected, his dad immediately, but slowly (like he’s being cautious in case this is some kind of trap) sits up from his sleeping bag, it’s like he just awakened the dead with a single sentence.

In his usual indecipherable voice the man asks: “What?” 

His other dad is fixing him with a confused look and Shoto’s looked up from the TV now too.

“Bakugou is coming over.”

Unzipping and stepping out of his sleeping bag, Shota walks over to him with a serious look on his face. If the man wasn’t wearing hot pink pants with cats on them, then this would be pretty intimidating.

“What happened?”

“Dun know, he texted me to see if you’d let him back to the dorms. I asked him why and he said something about his parents going on a trip? Then I called him and invited him over to crash here, he said he’d be here in about twenty minutes.”

“There’s a lot of holes in that story Hitoshi, wh- wait, twenty minutes?”

“Uhh yeah?” (Why the hell is this his first question?)

“How the hell is he gonna get here in twenty minutes? His house is a rough twenty minutes away from the school, and our apartment is on the opposite side of the school, also twenty minutes away. There’s no way he can get here in under forty minutes, especially if no one's going to drive him and he has to take the train.”

“Well, going off of all the rain and thunder as background noise during the phone call, I’m pretty sure he’s outside somewhere and not at his house.”

“He’s not- then where the hell is he?”

“I don’t know, he wouldn’t tell me, but I got him to come over so you can ask him when he gets here.”

“Wait wait wait,” Hizashi interjects “let me get this straight. What you’re telling us right now, is that Bakugou, the same Bakugou that got attacked by some random villains yesterday, is now on his way over here, on his own, in the middle of a storm, with a very vague excuus about his parents leaving on a trip and we don’t know where he is exactly?”

“Listen, I don’t like it either alright? Just be glad I got him to come over here because I’m pretty sure he was just gonna stay the night outside.”

“He was gonna wHAT NOW? I swear to god you kids are putting me in an early grave. That’s it. I’m going outside and I’m gonna bring him over here.” Shota sounds angry now, Bakugou is definitely gonna get it when he gets here.

“I don’t think that that’s a great plan.” Shoto has since paused the TV and is staring at them from his spot on the couch. “Bakugou is already on his way over here and I don’t think he’ll tell us what’s going on, especially not if we’re the one to approach him instead of the other way around. Besides, you don’t even know where he is so how would you even bring him here in the first place? It’s probably better if you’re here when he shows up.”

Hitoshi’s gonna have to agree with that logic. Bakugou would not appreciate it if they went through any trouble for him, and forcing him to come here wouldn’t do any good in the long run.

Aizawa sighs, heavy and tired. “The kid’s in the middle of a storm and he probably won’t be able to rely on his explosions if something happens.” 

Oof, that's a fair point too. Chances of Bakugou getting into trouble are always at at least 60%.

“He’s got knives, you saw it yourself yesterday. I’m pretty sure he always carries a couple around because he told me about that during remedial courses. Said something about having eight on him then because there were kids around, I still don’t know if that meant he had more or less than usual. Either way, he knows how to defend himself and he’ll call if something is wrong. You can go and look for him out in the rain but it’s possible that you’ll be looking in the wrong direction and end up further away from Bakugou instead of closer. That’d be worse, right?”

There’s a long pause as Aizawa considers what Shoto said, Hitoshi sees how the man seems to be having an internal war with himself before sharply inhaling as he makes up his mind.

“Fine, but if he doesn’t show up within exactly twenty minutes, then I will be going outside to find that fucking Hell Child.”

Thirteen minutes of watching his dad pace the apartment nervously later, and Hitoshi finally hears a knock on the door. 

He watches as Aizawa lets out a relieved sigh, visibly relaxes, and goes to open the door. 

-----

He checks his watch again, only 13 seconds have passed since the last time he checked it. If Bakugou doesn’t get here in the next 7 minutes and 37 seconds, then Shota is going to smash through a fucking window just to get outside a little faster so he can find his fucking kid and- wait. 

When did he start referring to Bakugou as his kid? 

Bakugou isn’t his kid , he’s more like his problem . The boy is like a fucking neodymium magnet for trouble and Shota’s the one who somehow ended up with the task of keeping the trouble away from him, and him away from it too. 

Which, for the record, is a terrible task that is giving him gray hairs.

It’d be easier for Shota to get his hands on a square circle, which, even in a quirk filled world, is impossible.

Okay, whatever, this is not the point right now.

On a rational level, he’s completely aware of the fact that going after Bakugou right now, is not the best idea. He wouldn’t even know where to go and even if he did find him, it’d be incredibly hard to convince Bakugou to accept the help and come home. Besides, the kid knows how to fend for himself and the actual chance of him getting jumped right now, well, it’s not nothing but it's also not very big. 

And then on a completely irrational level, all Shota can think about is how dangerous the situation that Bakugou is in right now is. The kid literally got attacked when he was left alone for one second the day prior. And because he’s also in the middle of a fucking storm right now, he won’t be able to rely on his quirk as much, and sure, Shoto claims Bakugou keeps knives with him, but they don’t actually know for sure if he does, and they sure as hell don’t know if it’d even be enough. The storm, by the way, is raging on like a fucking monster and since hi- the Hell Child has been strolling around in it for god knows how long, he’ll probably be sick by morning too. 

There are way too many problems going around in his head right now, and it’s making it kinda hard to listen to the rational side of his brain.

Jezus, his kid is really walking around, all alone, in the middle of a fucking storm. 

Fuck, he fucking hopes he’s all alone.

Pray to any deity out there that Bakugou is the only person crazy enough to go outside tonight.

But then again, he knows that Bakugou would never be that kind of crazy, not without a reason at least.

And, ‘my parents left on a trip so I decided it’d be a great idea to go outside in the rain so I could go back to stay at the dorms and then realise I’m not even allowed back in the dorms because curfew ended a good three hours ago’ does not qualify as a good enough reason. 

The kid better explain himself when he gets here which, looking down at his watch again, he now has exactly 6 minutes and 51 seconds for. 

Letting out a frustrated sigh, Shota wonders how the hell his life came to this.

There’s a knock at the door, and he almost snaps his neck with the speed he uses to turn to it.

He feels himself deflate in relief for all of half a second before he starts power walking towards the noise.

Gripping the handle with a little too much strength, he uses whatever resolve he has left to morph his face back to his trademark stoic neutral. Then -without wasting any time looking through the peephole in the door- he rips the door open. 

And he swears he’s ready to ask about a billion questions and give a whole lecture, but then he sees his student standing there, absolutely drenched from head to toe with a puddle forming beneath his feet and what seems to be a new bruise (he swears it wasn’t there yesterday) on his cheekbone. 

But what stands out the most, is the look in his eyes. The kid looks so tired . It’s not the same kind of tired that Eri gets when she’s been up too long and it’s not the same kind of tired he’s seen on his husband’s face after he’s been busy grading papers all day either.

No, Bakugou has the kind of tired look in his eyes that doesn’t belong to a sixteen year old. The kind of look that says he’s seen too much, and he’s not surprised anymore, he’s just tired . 

It hurts because he knows that look.

His head feels like it’s going to explode with everything that’s going through his mind, questions he needs answers to, things he wants to say, things he doesn’t want to say. 

Then Shota watches as the kid’s eyes flicker down to the pants he’s wearing.

And Bakugou is doing a bad job at suppressing a grin, when his face looks back up to meet Shota’s gaze, any hint of tiredness has been carefully hidden away. The gremlin raises an eyebrow and Shota dares him to say something.

And -because Bakugou doesn’t have the self preservation to say no to a challenge- the kid tilts his head, clicks his tongue, opens his mouth and with a ruff voice says: “I like your pants, teach.” He sniffs whilst swiping a hand under his wet nose before swatting it in the air like he’s trying to get the last remnants of mayo out of the bottle, water droplets go flying through the hall and everything going through Shota’s mind abruptly comes to a halt.

He takes a deep breath in before pinching the bridge of his nose, then he steps aside to let the kid in. When he turns around to see everyone not-so-subtly staring at them he realises that he’s pretty tired. “Hitoshi, get the Hell Child a towel and show him where the bathroom is.” He takes a few steps forward without looking back at Bakugou. “I’m going to bed. And Bakugou,” he spins on his heels to see the kid still standing in the doorway. “We’re talking about this in the morning.” 

Shota doesn’t stick around long enough for Bakugou to reply, he just grabs Hizashi by the wrist when he walks past and drags him to their room.

He can practically feel the gray hairs coming in.

He’ll deal with this shit tomorrow. He’s tired right now.

And so fucking done.

-----

They started playing Uno after Bakugou had taken a shower and changed into some dry clothes. There was a pretty gloomy mood at the start of the first round, but that had quickly changed when they got into the game. Of course, Bakugou ended up as the winner, which meant that Shoto and Hitoshi had to suffer his gloating, but it also meant that the second round somehow became even more competitive. 

And, despite the giant elephant in the room that they were all really good at ignoring (well, honestly Hitoshi wasn’t really ignoring it. He was just kind of hoping for Bakugou to address it first, which -by the way- he knew was probably never going to happen, hence the hoping ), it was fun.

Unfortunately though, it was Shoto who won the second round, and it sucked because Hitoshi was so fucking close to winning. He had just declared Uno after he’d put down a +4, but Bakugou threw a +4 card down as well and then his asshole of a brother threw another +4 on top of Bakugou’s which meant that Hitoshi had to grab 12 fucking cards and Bakugou was left with 2 whilst Shoto was left with 1. The assholes were both cackling at him and Shoto won the game about five seconds later. 

So now here Hitoshi is, at 12:01 am, shuffling the deck for their third round of Uno (which he really needs to win), waiting for Shoto to return with the bowls and milk for their midnight cereal snack, because apparently someone hasn’t had dinner yet, whilst carefully glancing at Bakugou.

Now, in all honesty, Hitoshi doesn’t believe he’s the type of person who worries. He usually just doesn’t care or he knows how to recognize and deal with -what he sees as- real problems or threats, but right now, he’s starting to get some real worrying, piglet-level anxiety vibes. 

Because, what the fuck? Even a short-circuited Kaminari could realise that something is going on, that said something can in no way be anything good, and that something also needs to be done about that something . 

Okay, that didn’t even make any sense in his own head (he hasn’t slept in a good 15-something hours, leave him be) but the point still stands.

Meanwhile Bakugou, who -this needs to be addressed- looks tiny in the oversized sweater he’s borrowing from Shoto, hasn’t mentioned or hinted at anything that could even begin to answer Hitoshi’s previous question of what the fuck? The blond’s just been distantly staring at the wall with his head resting on the table between his arms for a while now, and he isn’t looking too good. 

He’s a bit pale, there’s a new bruise on his cheekbone, a split lip, he looks absolutely exhausted and, with how his posture was slightly different than usual when he was walking, it looked like he was hiding quite some pain.

Hitoshi has to admit: Bakugou is really good at pretending that he’s okay. 

It’s… concerning, to say the least.

There’s a not-100%-comfortable-but-also-not-necessarily-bad-or-uncomfortable silence around them, the only noise being Shoto entering the room with the milk and bowls, him dividing the cards, and the soft pitter patter of died down rain against glass windows. It feels like they’re the only ones breathing, like they’re in their own little bubble that’s been detached from the world. It’s the type of vibe you can only get when it’s dark out and the whole world is asleep. However, despite the comfortableness of the bubble, there’s also some tension in it, because they’re all avoiding talking or asking about what Bakugou definitely doesn’t want to talk or be asked about. 

But someone’s gonna have to make the first move.

So he waits until he’s finished his cereal and it’s his turn to put down a card again. He chooses a green 5 to put on Shoto’s green 3 before deciding to break the silence with a low whisper that’s loud enough for them to hear but not quite loud enough to break the quiet bubble that they’ve found themselves in.

“So, what were you doing out in the storm?” It’s hard for him to not glance up at Bakugou, but he manages to keep staring at his cards when he asks the question as casually as possible.

He can sense how Bakugou’s guard comes up as he tenses with the words. 

And the calm and quiet bubble they were in? It suddenly feels a lot heavier.

Hitoshi looks up to see Bakugou’s brows more furrowed than they were before and watches as the other places a red 5 on the pile.

“Don’t worry about it, asshole.” 

Course he’d say that.

“Too late, dumbass.” Hitoshi counters. “You have our backs when we need it, Bakugou, so let us have yours in return.” 

Shoto grabs a card from the deck.

Bakugou lets out an angry sigh, his voice comes out as a low rumble: “ Don’t start that shit with me, you tired looking purple troll doll, it’s not the same. Besides, I’m fine . Everything is fucking peachy.”

Hitoshi grabs a card from the deck too, and Shoto speaks up: “You’re not fine. And how exactly, is it not the same? It seems pretty much the same to me.”

“Just drop it alright? I’m telling you I’m fine , it’s fine.” He throws an 8 in the mix.

Shoto grabs another card, Hitoshi doesn’t drop it. “You were out on your own at 11 pm in the middle of a storm after being attacked by villains the day before, you come here with a new bruise on your cheek and a split lip-”

Bakugou rolls his eyes as he feigns innocence, and interrupts: “Those were from yesterday.”

“No, They weren’t! We all know they weren’t.” He raises his voice as much as he dares to without waking anyone up and ends in something not-unlike a hiss. 

“You also hurt your back somehow,” Shoto says, monotone as ever. “You’ve been avoiding leaning back in the chair and you winced earlier when you forgot to do that. And there was blood on your sleeve earlier, on the exact spot that someone would use to say, wipe a bloody nose?” 

Hitoshi places a blue 8 on top of the red one: “And for some reason you’re still saying you’re fine. Do you seriously not realise how fucked up that is? How fucked up the situation in general is?”

“Calm down drama queen, it aint that bad, and you shouldn’t care anyway.” Bakugou doesn’t look either of them in the eyes when he grabs another card from the deck.

“We’re friends, of course we care.” Shoto states it like a fact, ‘cause, well, it is. And Hitoshi is honestly really happy to have Shoto by his side right then and there. It’d be a fucking pain if he had to have this conversation with Bakugou alone- wait, nevermind. The cold-soba-slurping bastard just threw down a blue +2, he takes back everything he just thought. Shoto can go rot in hell.

Reluctantly, he grabs two cards from the deck (dammit, he’s back to 6 cards now) before adding a 7 to the pile: “Why were you out in the storm, Bakugou?” It’s not so much him asking a question, but more like him demanding an answer. 

Hitoshi stares Bakugou straight in the eye this time, Shoto joins him.

There’s silence as Bakugou stares back between them, seemingly confused(?), frustrated(?), defensive(?), he’s not sure what’s going through the other teen’s mind. Then his eyes fix on the cards in his hand, blond brows furrow impossibly further, he scratches at his messy hair, mumbles something unintelligible under his breath, and finally, he slightly deflates in defeat as he lets out some kind of grumbling noise.

It’s still quiet as Shoto and Hitoshi patiently wait for an answer, Bakugou takes his time grabbing a card and thickly swallows before he finally puts it down.

“Got kicked out,” his voice is lower than before, and he halfheartedly shrugs “happens.”

Oh, well he knows what that’s like. 

Since when did Bakugou know what it was like too? 

Shoto places a yellow 1 on top of Bakugou’s card, he looks kinda angry, although it is hidden well: “This isn’t the first time?”

Bakugou actually snorts at that: “Course not, you knock off prince Zuko. Happens all the time, I told ya, it’s not a big deal.”

Oh.

Fuck.

It happens all the time ? And Bakugou never told them about it? 

He honestly thought that they knew the guy pretty well, better than most of the class anyway, but now that he thinks about it, it’s quite possible that he was wrong about that. Bakugou has always been a very private person, never even told Shoto or himself much about his childhood. Always been a master at dodging questions and redirecting topics.

Now that he thinks about it, he’s kind of terrified to find out exactly how wrong he was.

He gulps.

How much has Bakugou not told them about?

How long has he been suffering without anybody ever finding out?

How many nights has he spent all alone, with nobody there to have his back?

Shit. 

Things get a lot worse in the Bakugou household than Bakugou lets on, don’t they?

Does Bakugou even realise it?

Hitoshi grabs another card as he speaks up, frustration leaking through in his voice. “Why wouldn’t it be a big deal? You said it was fucked up when I was out on the streets, you said that Shoto shouldn’t ever go back to his buttwipe of a father, you told me you’d fuck up my next foster parent’s if they mess with me and you said you’d love to punch endeavor in the face next time you see him. Why would you care and think it’s a big deal when it’s literally anyone other than yourself? Why doesn’t it matter if it’s you ?” Hitoshi honestly, genuinely wants to know.

Bakugou’s already grabbed another card, and he seems adamant to keep this argument going. “It’s different.”

“How- why?” Shoto throws a 3 on the pile and Hitoshi has to admit, he’s almost impressed with the amount of emotion in his brother’s voice, there’s definitely not a lot of it, it’s barely any more than his usual monotone, but you can hear the frustration and confusion in it. Shoto usually doesn’t react to things this much. “Why would it be different? I don’t understand.” Shoto puts his cards face down on the table with those words and leans back on his chair.

Bakugou puts his cards down -with more aggression- on the table too.

They stare at each other for a second and there’s some kind of low growling noise before Bakugou starts whisper-shouting, probably to stop himself from waking up the entire house. “It’s different cause it just is , okay? It’s not the same ‘cause I ain’t innocent like you two dimwits are, I wasn’t just unfortunate for being born in the wrong family like you guys were. I was born into a great motherfucking life, I have an amazing quirk, I’m smart and strong, talented at everything I try and I have nothing to fucking complain about. But I’m an asshole, aggressive, violent, potential villain , I done some real bad and fucked-up shit and there’s an actual reason I get yelled at and kicked out. There’s a reason my parents hate me. And it’s my fault, it’s all on me. So yeah, it is different .” 

Wauw, well okay then… that’s.. a lot.

Bakugou really likes to blame himself for... everything, doesn’t he?

Hitoshi takes a breath before placing a red 3 down and putting the rest of his cards on the table as well: “It isn’t your fault, Bakugou. You can’t blame yourself for the shitty way your parents treat you. It’s on them , not on you .”

Bakugou lets out an almost watery, chuckle-like huff of air. Hitoshi doesn’t think he’s ever heard such an incredulous noise coming from the other before. 

He seriously believes it’s on him. 

Shoto leans forward, arms on the table as his heterochromatic eyes stare at Bakugou’s seemingly glowing red ones. “Why’d you get kicked out then?”

Hitoshi has a pretty good guess to what the answer is.

“Cause I fucked up, big-time this time.”

“How?”

“Is that a serious fucking question?” his voice has got so much tension in it, like he’s barely able to control himself. “I literally almost killed three people yesterday.” They don’t actually even know if they’ll survive yet, all three of them are in coma’s he’s pretty sure. “Cut through flesh with knives and spilled blood to the point of hypovolemic shock, burned skin to a crispy black and handed out some severe concussions. I made the fucking news, again , I’m giving journalists the time of their fucking lives. Of course I got kicked out, I fucking desereved all the shit that happened tonight, if anything, I’m lucky that mom hasn’t thrown me out for good yet.” His voice sounds so close to breaking, but it doesn’t.

“No. You’re not lucky. Yesterday’s bullshit was not your fault, Bakugou. You don’t deserve to get punished for protecting yourself, you don’t deserve the shit that people, your parents included, are throwing at you. You saved yourself from getting taken by villains, it was self defence. Those villains deserve what they got and there was nothing you could have done differently, nothing you should have done differently.”

Yes shoto, fucking preach!

“Yes there is, I shouldn’t have been so violent. Shouldn’t have nearly killed those people, shouldn’t have panicked so much and shouldn’t have acted like such a fucking villain .”

“Okay fine, and then what would’ve happened? If you hadn’t defended yourself? You would have been taken, or worse, dead. Would that have been better? Would your mom be satisfied because you weren’t ‘violent’?”

Bakugou opens his mouth to argue with that but stops short as he thinks about what Shoto just said. There’s a beat of that intense silence between them before Bakugou answers, voice much calmer than literal seconds ago: “It wouldn’t be better, but it’d still be my fault though. For being too weak to save myself from a couple of villains, she’d be pissed either way.”

“So then you don’t deserve any blame. You couldn’t have made the outcome any better and you did the right thing. You’re not the one who fucked up here, it’s not on you. It’s on the villains, the media and your parents.” 

Bakugou opens and closes his mouth a couple times, just like before, but ends up not saying anything. Shoto and Hitoshi stare at Bakugou expectantly for a moment like that before Bakugou just decides to look away. 

It doesn’t seem like the explosive blond is planning on reacting to what Shoto said anymore at all now, so it’s silent again, save for the sounds of breathing and the weather outside. It stays like that for a bit, Bakugou’s staring out the window, Shoto is staring at the wall, and Hitoshi is staring at the floor a couple meters away. He doesn’t really know how much time passes like that, but the heaviness surrounding their bubble gradually fades and it feels lighter now, it’s comfortable again. There are still a million questions running through his head despite this though. 

So he attempts another casual approach when he asks his next question, voice back to a calm quiet. “So, what happened tonight, exactly?”

Bakugou takes a deep breath before carefully leaning back in his chair, it takes a sec and his face scrunches up at the touch, but he eventually relaxes when he answers: “Mom was pissed. She called me around 3pm, wanted me to come home so we could talk.” he’s still distantly looking out the window. “I got a whole lecture about villains and media attention, reputations and how I fucked up, plus the usual bullshit about whatever the fuck. She was really mad, and dad looked so- so disappointed . It- yeah, whatever. Got kicked out after that and I don’t really remember where I ran to.”

“What about your face? How’d you get the split lip and new bruise?”

He needs Bakugou to confirm it for them.

“First thing the hag gave me when I got home. Dragged me in by the hair and punched me in the face. Got the bloody nose from being slammed into the table in front of the couches, didn’t have enough time to catch myself and she wanted me to sit down, shut up and listen.” Bakugou is looking him right in the eyes now, and Hitoshi can’t make out his expression. The other is being so uncharacteristically calm.

“And your back?” Shoto asks.

Red eyes look away from purple and stare straight into heterochromatic ones. “Belt.”

Hitoshi feels his heart drop for a moment there and his mind goes blank. 

He doesn’t know what to think.

What the actual fuck.

Things get way worse in the Bakugou household than Bakugou lets on.

He stares at the other, static going through his head. “That’s… so fucked up.”

“Maybe, but things got worse than usual today okay. It doesn’t often escalate this far, they were just extra pissed cause all the bullshit went public.”

Shoto steps in at that: “You should tell Aizawa.” 

Hitoshi can’t agree more.

But Bakugou scowls, and he gets a foreboding feeling that the anger packed hedgehog doesn’t agree.

“No. I’m not going to do that. And you little shits better not tell him either.”

Sometimes, he hates being right.

Shoto doesn’t miss a beat. “Why not?” It’s said with an impossibly calm voice.

“Because trust me when I say that it won’t end well. My bitchass mother would never go down without a fight. She may not care about me, but she cares about her reputation. And it sucks but she’s a pretty famous model and she’s got fans, same goes for my dad except that he’s a fashion designer instead of a model. They’d for sure find a way to twist the whole story and they’d get away with it too. There is literally no reason for me to drag sensei into that mess and besides, even if I did, then what would he even do? He could try to have the school take custody of me, but my petty parents would just hand custody over to the state or some shit. And I’m sorry, but I don’t really feel like being yeeted into the system. Don’t think that I haven’t thought about it before, okay? I just know that shit won’t end well.”

So this is a fight that he doesn’t think he can win. Bakugou fucking Katsuki, who’s faced down countless villains on his own without so much as wavering, who somehow prevails against the toughest of opponents, wholeheartedly believes he’d lose a fight, a fight against his mother and father.

Hitoshi and Shoto both open their mouths to react to that but Bakugou cuts them off before either can so much as form a word.

“No, don’t even fucking start. I already made a plan a long time ago, alright? I’m sixteen, I only got two fucking years left. I already got so fucking lucky when they implemented the dorms, I only have to go home during breaks now. I can handle it, just two more years and I’ll be able to get some shitty apartment somewhere and I’d never have to see my parents again. It’s fine , it’s going to work and I’ll be fine . I have a plan.” 

“But you could reach the end goal of that plan so much sooner. You really think Aizawa’d just let you get dragged into the system? That man won custody over me against the number one hero in the country, he can win custody over you too.” Shoto is getting increasingly more determined with every word. “Your parents may not go down without a fight, but neither does Aizawa and, last time I checked, neither do you . I’ve never seen you back down from a fight and you better not start doing it now. We’ve got your back, Bakugou. We are not going to let you go back to your terribly shitty, fucking parents for two whole more years, nor are we letting you become a ward of the state.” 

“Tell Aizawa, Bakugou.” Hitoshi steps in. He feels so ready to kill a bitch. “Your parents don’t deserve you. You should tell Aizawa, you’d never have to see them again if you do.”

“I don’t-”

“What? You don’t think you’ll win? You’re backing down from a fight? Are you too scared to face them or something?”

“Fuck no! I just- I don’t wanna drag anyone into this fucking mess. It’s not that bad and I’ve already given Aizawa enough gray hairs as it is, he’s got more important shit to deal with you know? I can handle myself.”

“Do you have any idea how stressed he was when you called yesterday, he nearly shoved a waiter into a table in his hurry to get out of the restaurant. He didn’t know what the situation was and he seemed this-” Shoto’s fingers are almost pinched together. “-close to having an actual heart attack. And earlier tonight, I’m pretty sure he would’ve jumped out of the window if you took much longer getting here. I’m almost certain that he got his 10000 steps in for the day with how much he was pacing the apartment. You really think he’d be getting less gray hairs if you don’t tell him what’s going on?”

“I bet he’s barely sleeping from the stress right now.” Hitoshi adds.

“I-“ Bakugou looks between them, frustration painting his features. “Hmph” He’s pouting now, arms crossed over his chest as his gaze fixes on the window again. Hitoshi already knows that they won this argument. 

Bakugou takes a deep breath before releasing it with a heavy sigh and turning back to the two brothers. “That man is way too soft.”

-----

It’s too early in the morning for Shota to be walking out of his room, it’s Sunday, he should be spending this time in bed. But he can’t properly rest right now, he’s way too worried. 

It took him a long time to fall asleep yesterday (or maybe it was this morning?), he was stressing about the Katsuki situation and debating what he should do about it. Because well, protocol said he had to inform the Bakugou’s of their son’s whereabouts, but his gut said that that wouldn’t be a good idea. His heart screamed at him to find out what the hell was going on right away, his mind told him to wait till morning, it won’t help if you bombard him with questions. In the end, he decided to trust his gut and listen to his head, but he doesn’t know if those were the right choices.

He closes the door behind him, leaving Hizashi alone in their bed. It’s a bit before 7am so the boys will likely be asleep in either Shoto or Hitoshi’s room, Hizashi will be in bed for at least another hour or so and Eri will probably wake up any time now. 

Alright, first things first, he could really use some coffee. Would it be inappropriate if he spiked it with some vodka?

(No! You have kids now, you can’t do that type of shit anymore. Sets a bad example or whatever.)

Stepping out into the kitchen, he goes to get his coffee, obviously it’s black, just like his soul. Hopefully it’ll help to drown out the stress induced headache he’s got pounding against his skull.

He takes a deep breath as he leans against the counter to wait.

His mind hasn’t stopped going absolutely crazy with random theories about what might’ve happened with Katsuki, some are definitely plausible, some are worse than others and some are just so ridiculous that he wonders if Shoto had temporarily possessed him when they shot through his head or something.

In his mind, he looks over to the insane thought he had somewhere well into the night.

What the hell made him think that Bakugou would come here to steal their milk? That doesn’t make sense on any level, at all.

He sighs, wishing it’d be something so simple, so straightforward, so weirdly innocent, but deep down he’s always wondered some things about Katsuki. The boy’s never mentioned anything about his childhood to Shota before, except for maybe some off-handed comments here and there, and he still remembers that one home visit he had with All Might. 

He doesn’t know what happened last night, but, with the minimal information he has on the subject, he can make a couple vague and educated guesses.

Lets just say that Shota has some… suspicions. 

None of which are in any way positive.

And- fuck.

Why didn’t he act on those suspicions sooner?

The coffee machine stops whirring. He takes the hot mug filled with five shots of espresso towards the couches, and then he freezes.

Three lumps of sleeping teenagers are sprawled around the room. Hitoshi and Shoto both take up a couch and Katsuki is laying facedown on the carpet, like a starfish. It looks like Hitoshi and Shoto both ripped their comforters off their beds and Katsuki got the spare one with dinosaur sheets. Shoto is neatly tucked in as if he’s in an actual bed, Hitoshi is wrapped up like a burrito and Katsuki’s got about a third of his body poking out of three different sides of the blanket. 

How’d the kid even end up in that position? 

The TV is still on, commercials serving as soft background noise, there’s one empty and two half full cups of whatever on the coffee table and -this has to be the annoying, squishy dad-part of his cold and dead heart talking, because he swears that he does NOT care about this at all, it’s just an observation- they look adorable. Katsuki is basically drowning in Shoto’s oversized sweater (he looks so small), Hitoshi is hugging a pillow like a teddy bear (toddler much) and Shoto’s dual coloured hair is an absolute mess (it looks worse than when Eri gave him a makeover). 

He fishes his phone out of his pocket and takes a quick picture (it’s for Hizashi, he’d start yelling if I didn’t capture this moment for him).

Hitoshi stirs in his sleep, it looks like he’s trying to change positions but his burrito-form isn’t really making that an easy task for him. Shota watches his kid struggle for a minute (cause it’s funny), before he notices the sound of a door opening and closing and he hears little footsteps coming closer.

He whirls around, ready to intercept his princess before she gets the chance to wake the three idiots.

“Good morni-”

He gives her a quick look, index finger pressed against his lips.

“-ng daddy.” The end of Eri’s statement is whispered, and she’s frozen still where she stands, wide eyes staring at Shota with anticipation, maybe a distant hint of fear.

Four big steps and he’s scooping her up in his arms, designer pj’s wrinkling under his grip.

“Mornin’ princess” he whispers it in the voice he only reserves for Eri.

“What’s going on?” she asks.

“Gotta show you something. They’re sleeping though, so be very quiet.” he doesn’t give her enough time to react to that, just starts walking back to the TV room.

And her eyes light up a little when she sees her brothers: “Why are they sleeping here ?”

Shota takes a few more steps so she can see Katsuki as well.

It takes her a moment to notice and recognize the third lump on the floor, but when she does, there’s a small gasp and her eyes light up fully, filled with delighted surprise and excitement. She smiles as she turns to him: “What’s KitKats doing here? Are you going to let him stay the whole day?”

(It might be a little longer than that.)

“Hmm, I don’t know. We’re just gonna have to wait and see.”

There’s a hint of mischief in her eyes, and her smile morphs into a grin. “Can I wake them up?”

“No.”

“Pleeease”

Hitoshi moves again, uncomfortably rotating like a rotisserie chicken and grunting when he can’t get comfortable. He’s probably half awake right now and, unfortunately for him, that’s good enough for Shota.

“We’re not going to wake them up because they need sleep okay? You can sit with Hitoshi though, you two can watch some TV and I’ll cut you both some apple slices to eat and then we’ll wait for your pops to wake up so we can prepare some breakfast.”

“Okay.”

He carefully, as quietly as he can, walks further into the room and heads over to the couch with a grumpy, half awake Hitoshi. He makes it about half way when he’s suddenly staring into alert, but extremely tired red eyes. Katsuki shot up on his forearms and is staring at them like they’re some kind of threat. He seems to be pretty out of it still but Shota finds himself -yet again- impressed by this kid’s reflexes.

What the hell?

How’d he know they were there?

“Go back to sleep kid, it’s just Aizawa and Eri.”

Shota doesn’t need to say it twice, cause not even a second later, the kid crashes back down and it’s like the whole thing didn’t even happen. Katsuki is out cold.

He drops Eri on Hitoshi’s side and goes to prepare some apple slices.

It’s around an hour later when his husband decides to get up and take a shower, Shoto woke up a while ago and is now watching cartoons in a half awake state. Katsuki is still sleeping on the floor and Eri and Hitoshi are cuddled up under a blanket on the couch.

It almost feels like any other typical Sunday morning.

-----

Katsuki is startled awake by a sudden scream . It’s loud and it’s got him sitting up within a second, his body is ready for a fight before his mind can even catch up to where he is. Pushing through the cloudiness of sleep that’ swirls through his head, he moves to stand in a fighting stance. Reflexively, his palms start to fill with power as tiny sparks and explosions pop in anticipation. When he’s halfway through fully turning around, he feels a sudden pain shooting through his back that makes him curse under his breath. He opts to ignore that though and next thing he knows, he’s up on his feet and ready to throw a swing at whoever’s around. 

Now he just needs to figure out what the hell is going on. And where he is. And most importantly, where’d the scream come from?

It’d be a great help if his vision could sharpen for that.

“Katsuki,” he whips his head to where the familiar voice came from, Hitoshi’s sitting there and Eri’s in his lap “calm down, it’s just Yamada.”

What? 

… 

Oh.

Right, okay.

Last night, his parents, Hitoshi and Shoto, Aizawa . 

Alright, he’s fine.

He’s just at the Aizawa-Yamada household or whatever you wanna call it.

There’s no one around to worry about here, just a bunch of idiots, and Eri.

He takes a deep breath in to calm himself. 

What time is it?

Slumping down to the floor with a huff, he tries to even his breath out as subtly as he can. 

He looks around to assess the new occupants in the room and review the situation in his head. Eri’s all huddled up with Hitoshi to his right, she seems completely enraptured in whatever cartoon she’s watching and to his left, Shoto looks to be half asleep as he scrolls through his phone. On the spot next to Shoto, Aizawa’s staring right at Katsuki. 

Welp... shit. That’s not good.

The man isn’t even trying to be subtle about it.

God-fucking-dammit, this means he’s going to have to talk about feelings and shit isn’t he?

Not looking forward to that.

He can tell his sensei is just about to say something but then a door slams open from the other side of the apartment. Five heads snap towards the sound and only four of them have enough experience to immediately cover their ears when they hear a strong inhale.

“W H Y Y Y  IS THE SHOWER SOO  H O T ?!!! I NEARLY BOILED MYSELF!” 

Katsuki was not one of those four.

And holy fucking shit, why the fuck would the cockatoo start screaming so fucking loud in the goddamn morning?? How do these people put up with that? 

It takes him a moment to recover from the sound wave and register what was said. When he unfolds his arms over his head, he notices four faces -also slowly unshielding themselves by lowering blankets and removing hands from ears- one by one turning towards him. Five different eye colours stare right at him for a moment. Then Shoto -the bastard- points right at him to state the obvious: “Bakugou was the last one in the shower.”

“Oi! You-” 

He gets cut off by bastard 2.0 who turns to yell back to where Yamada screamed from: “Bakugou did it!”

“-You fucking assholes.” He swiftly grabs the pillow he slept on and smacks it right into Shoto’s face. Hitoshi is fucking lucky he has Eri in his lap to protect him from Katsuki’s wrath right now, but that bastard is gonna fucking get it later though, no way that Katsuki is letting him get away with being a fucking snitch .

Besides, it ain’t his fault Yamada didn’t check the temperature the shower was left on, he swears he’s gotta stop getting blamed for that shit. This happened when they all moved into the dorms too, everyone getting mad at him cause they all can’t handle a little heat. ‘S not his fault ‘warm’ water feels like lukewarm tea to him, temperature wise he means.

He jumps to his feet and launches himself towards Shoto, with the help of gravity and his elbow, the landing is satisfying and Shoto’s painful wheeze is blissful. Fucker deserves it.

Unfortunately though, the fucker throws him onto the ground immediately after and they end up rolling around on the floor as they wrestle and try to suffocate each other with pillows. It probably looks incredibly stupid and pretty pathetic from an outsiders point of view.

Or, y’know, in Eri’s case, it probably looks so much fun that it’s worth the risk of getting squashed just to join in.

Either way, it’s safe to say that all intents of murder suddenly vanish when a tiny giggling girl jumps in the middle of it. 

He feels… weirdly at ease.

-----

After some pushing and some pulling, and some threats (and maybe some use of his capture weapon) Shota finally gets all the children to stop fighting and off the ground. They all help set the table and whatnot and they all pretend that Bakugou came by last night under completely non-suspicious and normal circumstances. They listen to Eri babble on about random stuff during breakfast (thank god for that because 4 out of five people above the age of 10 in the room all suck at small talk) and they all help clean up. 

And, to his credit, Shota’s been able to successfully ignore the elephant in the room this entire time -this is an achievement because it’s not an exaggeration to say he’s kinda desperate for some answers- but he knows he won’t be ignoring the metaphorical elephant for much longer, because it needs to be addressed. In addition to that, he knows ‘the addressing of the elephant’ won’t be received well, and he knows no one is going to be enjoying the conversation to come.

But it needs to be done, because he needs answers.

So, Shota waits until everything is cleaned up before he tells Bakugou that they’re going to talk, privately. 

He doesn’t miss the way the kid immediately exchanges looks with Hitoshi and Shoto, quick glances and sharp but barely noticeable nods, Bakugou’s expression hardening immediately.

He’s not sure what to make of that exchange.

They step over to the ‘dining room’ as Yamada always calls it, it’s more like the space next to the living room that has the table where they often eat, Shota wouldn’t really classify it as a room but whatever, and they both take a seat opposite of eachother. 

God, this makes it feel like it’s an interrogation. The kid’s already had enough of that this weekend, hasn’t he? 

Yeah, this really isn’t helping ease the amount of dread he has for the conversation to come.

This isn’t going to go smoothly, and it’s not going to be any fun.

He’s not even sure how he’s supposed to begin.

So he takes a deep breath instead, about to open his mouth to force out a first sentence when-

“I got kicked out.” Katsuki stares him dead in the eye. “That’s what you were gonna ask and there’s your answer.”

The statement makes Shota’s brain stop for a solid second there, he doesn’t think he’s ever been taken aback by anything like this. He thought he was going to have to drag the answers out of Katsuki like he has to drag Eri away from candy apples, instead the kid is just telling him what happened? Without him even needing to ask? It’s.. unexpected.

He knows that Katsuki is blunt, but… this?

“I-” he doesn’t even know how to respond. And wait, hold up- did he just say he got kicked out ? “You got kicked out?” God, Shota was so taken aback by the statement that he forgot to even process what it meant. The kid got kicked out. That.. isn’t good. It’s not completely unexpected, it definitely confirms some unpleasant suspicions, but it also isn’t what he’d secretly been hoping for. Oh fuck no, Shota fucking hates this, everything about it.

“Yea.” The kid averts his eyes as he moves his right leg up on the chair and slightly leans back. His posture says he’s relaxed and knows exactly what he’s doing, but the slight hesitancy in his voice and unsure look in his eyes give away just how nervous the kid is. Like he’s making the worst decision of his life right now.

But it seems that the kid’s willing to tell the truth, and it looks like he's already made up his mind about telling Shota what happened. 

There’s determination in those red eyes.

-----

This is going against everything he ever pictured his life to be. He had a plan, it was simple, no real details cause he never knew how far he was going to make it (honestly didn’t even think he’d make it to this point, actually), but he’d always had this simple outline, a few set goals for when and if, and that’s what he always lived and worked towards. He guesses that this doesn’t really change the plan in the long run, but it changes that little stopover, the little savepoint like the halfway flag in mario bros that he’s been trying to get to since basically as long as he can remember. 

This conversation he’s having right now, it’s going to change that. 

And it’s a real fucking risk.

Either this somehow ends up working out and he makes it to the savepoint two whole years before he was expecting to get there, or this all goes to shit just like most of his life and this ends up being the worst decision he’s ever made.

Either the school somehow manages to get custody over him from his raging mother and manipulative dad (who’ve never let Katsuki win a fight in his life) and he goes to live in the dorms until he graduates or something, or he’s 1000% doomed and probably dead.

It’s a risk, but he’s already been convinced to take it and because he is Bakugou-fucking-Katsuki so he won’t back down from the fight.

“Why would you get kicked out?”

His gaze moves over to his hands. “Cause the old hag was mad.” 

“Why?”

He pauses for a sec, gaze not moving from his hands: “Various reasons.” 

There’s a tired sounding inhale in front of him, kinda sounds disappointed, maybe frustrated?

And okay, look, he’s aware that he’s not being a huge help right now, but just because he’s decided to tell Aizawa about his parents, doesn’t mean he’s going to outright share everything about his life. He won’t deny anything and he won’t lie but he will be sparing his sensei details and he will be giving as little information as possible. 

He just needs to tell the gist of it all, the rest doesn’t matter.

“Like what?” Aizawa sounds way more tired than he did a minute ago.

He kinda feels like the man should know the answer to that though, it’s blatantly obvious. So he decides to stare right into black eyes, his face goes deadpan.

“She was mad cause I nearly offed three people on Friday. It didn’t put her in a good mood.” 

He remembers how numb he felt as he listened to her yell in his face.

“Got kicked out after that.” he adds, probably best to skip the part where his mommy beat the shit outta him with his dad’s belt.

His gaze travels back to his hands.

“Have you gotten kicked out before?” 

A bunch.

“Yeah.” 

Aizawa takes a deep breath in before he asks his next question: “Have your parents ever beat you?”

“Nah, just my mom. Dad’s a coward, he could never.”

The man rubs his hand over his forehead, like this pains him or something. “Does this happen often? And how far does it escalate?”

“Depends.”

There’s a beat of silence, maybe Aizawa expects him to say more, but he aint doing that so…

“Can you elaborate on that? Do you remember when it started?” He can hear the amount of effort Aizawa is putting in to keep his voice level… weird.

“Not sure, basically as long as I can remember? It didn’t used to be so bad though.” Memories of trips abroad and long car rides filter through his mind, listening to music in the car seat as the skies turned dark when all three of them would be on their way back home from the studio. Playing with action figures as his mom cooked and his dad watched TV, interrupting his dad’s sketching to show him new tricks that he learned. Eating sandwiches on the make-up table where his mom got her make-up done for another photoshoot and listening to bedtime stories that were read in different voices.

Yeah, there used to be quiet moments in between the yelling, the hitting and disappointed looks. The moments that made him think they actually cared.

Course those only lasted so long, and they got more and more scarce as he grew up but, not everything he did used to piss his mom off so much. And he guesses that there was a time when he didn’t mind their presence. 

“It just got worse and worse when I got older, I guess.”

Yelling increased, his dad lost interest in Katsuki’s new tricks, they started to leave him home alone more often, he’d fuck up more and he’d get worse punishments.

Eventually he learned how to yell back and how to stop asking his dad if he wanted to see his tricks. He learned how to take care of himself when his parents weren’t around. He learned how to dodge hits, he learned how to sneak around the house without anyone noticing, he learned how to survive and fend for himself when he got stuck out on the streets. 

He learned how to deal.

“In what way did it get worse?” The man sounds so serious .

“Y’know, more yelling, more disappointment and more of me fucking up. So all in all, more punishments.” He kinda mumbled the last part, fuck.

There’s an audible gulp before his sensei chooses his next words: “What have your parents done to punish you, Katsuki?” 

That’s a… broad question. 

“Well, the hag mostly sticks to her usual slaps and punches and whatnot, she likes to scream at me too, if I mess up a bit too bad then I’ll usually get kicked out for a day or two, longer if she’s in a particular mood and obviously it depends on what I did. No dinner, lunch or breakfast has always been a classic and they both like to take stuff if they don’t approve or if they need leverage to get me to do important stuff.” It’s all pretty normal stuff.

When he looks up, it’s to meet wide, concerned, angry and horrified (?) -why do they look so horrified, it isn’t too bad- eyes.

“That’s-” there’s a pause as Aizawa contemplates his words. “-terrible. And so so wrong. You don’t deserve that kid, they are so wrong for ever doing that.”

Katsuki can’t fully agree with that. 

No one can fully agree with that.

His brows furrow. “Hmph.” he folds his arms over his chest as he looks down to the side, hair covering his eyes so he can blink the dampness away. Fuck off alright, this just..isn’t fun in any way and it’s kinda hard. He’s never told another being, let alone an adult , this much before. 

He needs to clear his throat before continuing: “It’s not usually so bad. They aint even home half the time and besides, they don’t care about shit as long as they don’t find out.” Hopefully this will wipe the horrified-ness and at least some of the concern off of Aizawa’s face.

Or, welp, maybe it won’t . The man just looks more exasperated and his eyes are still filled with concern, bone deep exhaustion and there’s definitely still a smidgen of horror in there. 

Katsuki honestly, just doesn’t get it.

This is making him So. Fucking. Nervous. 

Why does his sensei look like that? Aizawa never looks like that.

And also, why isn’t he saying anything? He should be saying something, right?

Okay yeah nope, fuck . Y’know what? This was a mistake. Biggest, stupidest fucking mistake he’s ever made. Bad idea, bad-motherfucking-idea. Can he still take it back? Shit shit shit he shouldn’t have gotten his hopes up. Maybe if he-

“Kid. Look at me.” He really doesn’t want to  “Katsuki, breathe.” Oh shit, is he not breathing? “You’re alright. Listen to me, I’m not going to ever let you go back to that house.” 

Really? 

And oh, Aizawa’s closer now, he’s moved to sit in the chair next to him. When did that even happen?

The man continues: “Katsuki-” he turns his head so Aizawa doesn’t have to strain his neck just to look Katsuki in the face. “-I’m proud of you.”

What??

Maybe he lets the confusion show on his face cause Aizawa continues: “Thank you for telling me about this, I can and will get you out of that household now and you stepped up and made it that way yourself.”

That.. doesn’t really make any sense.

“I will be doing everything in my power to make sure you are safe, and you need to know that you did good telling me about this. I don’t know what the road ahead is going to look like yet, I’m not going to lie and say that it’ll be easy, but know that we will get to the end of the road and when we do, you won’t ever have to worry about your parents again. Okay?” 

He doesn’t think he’s ever heard so much emotion in his sensei’s voice.

“The road is gonna be hell. My parents fight me on everything, and they fight dirty .” It’s a warning. He doesn't want to drag Aizawa into this without at least giving him a warning.

“I’ll handle it kid, I promise.”

… Aizawa never makes any promises.

Dammit, he’s really putting a lot of trust in this man.

No going back though.

“...Okay.“ 

His sensei lets out an unexpectedly large breath. “Good.” The man’s shoulders relax slightly, only a bit of tension falling away: “I’m going to be making some calls. If you’re okay with it, I think it’ll probably be best if you stay with us for a while. I’m sure Hitoshi and Shoto wouldn’t mind and you know Eri adores you.”

“You sure you want that?” Fuck , that came out a little too fast, a little too unsure.

Aizawa closes his eyes for a brief second before black meets red again: “Yes Katsuki. We care about you, we’d fucking love it.”

Uhm, wha- why- ho-, di-did he hear that right? Did his brain just pull a Denki and short circuit?  

What the fuck is he supposed to say?

“Oh and by the way, before I go make these calls, you should know that I got a call from the cops about what happened on Friday this morning.”

Oh no, oh fuck. 

Why the hell is this being brought up now? 

“Two of the three people who attacked you woke up. Cops haven't been able to question them yet but they’re alive, just like I said they’d be. Doctors are positive that the last person will wake up soon too.”

Holy shit, he’s not a murderer.

“I’m not a murderer?”

“You’re not a murderer. Congrats kid.”

Huh. 

There’s silence as Katsuki processes that information, Aizawa stays right where he is.

And honestly, his brain can only think of one thing: he’ll be rubbing this in his mother’s face first chance he fucking gets.

What can he say, he’s a petty and spiteful bastard.

The silence drags on for a bit longer, until Aizawa straightens up and looks at him again: “Before I go do this, I was actually curious about one thing.”

Does he want to know more ?

“Where’d you get the knives from?”

Oh, uhhm… What kinda question is that?

He stands up, Aizawa’s gaze follows him, he pulls his sheepsfoot blade and bushcraft knife out of his left side pocket, and sets them down on the table so Aizawa can see. He swiftly grabs his throwing knives from his right side pocket, sets those down on the table as well, grabs his ballistic knife from his hidden pocket and the simple combat knife that he keeps strapped against his ankle, puts those down too. Next he slides his hawksbill off of the clip he keeps around the back of his waistband and lastly, he takes his butterfly knife out of his right pocket. He flips the thing around once for good measure, and cause it’s just fun to do, before setting it down on the table next to the rest. 

“Not sure where I got all of them from exactly, I’ve had them for a while so I don’t really remember, but think I found this one-” he points at the combat knife “-in an abandoned house in the woods. Some dude with a mohawk that I met at a bar gave me this one-” he points at his ballistic knife “-after he lost a bet at like 3am. I just bought these two- '' he points at sheepsfoot and bushcraft knives “-at a store I think, and I know a guy who I got the throwing knives from, I got some other knives from them as well, good quality for sure. Do you want me to hook you up or something?”

He bets Aizawa’s gotta know a guy himself, but why else would the man be asking? 

“I-” he hears what’s gotta be about the 100th sigh of the day escaping Aizawa’s lips “No. Just- this is on me, I shouldn’t have asked, just nevermind, forget I said anything.” the man stares at the table for a second longer before standing up: “I’m walking away now.”

Alright, weird. 

Aizawa’s never gonna make any sense to him.