Bakugou spat at me "Can't believe I'm telling you all this shit, IcyHot."

"Well, you're doing it. I guess you'll have to believe," I told him. He tilted his head as if I'd said something nonsensical.

"What is your goddamn deal?!"

"Stay focused, bottom feeders!" Gang Orca yelled at us. Bakugou huffed at me and glared once again.

"OK. I lost to Deku in that stupid test. Bet it made you feel good to win that one, huh IcyHot?"

"We'll do that on my turn. Now it's yours."

He sighed. "Whatever. I lost to Deku. End of story."

"What's up with you and Midoriya anyway?"

"None of your business."

"We're supposed to be talking through these things, not just listing them."

"What the hell good's that gonna do? You're not a goddamn psychiatrist, neither am I."

"Well, it's what Gang Orca told us to do." I stiffened my jaw. "And I want my license. So I'll go next. I lost to Yaoyorozu in the Quirk Assessment tests. I placed below her, even though we started from the same place. That is a failure to be the best. But I've chosen not to resent her for doing better, because she's a friend of mine. And I appreciate the challenge of having to do better."

This only seemed to annoy Bakugou more. "Ok. Well, I want Deku to do better too."

Oh. I see. It's a competition. "Is that why you're always so harsh on him?"

"Who's harsh? My own mother says harsher shit to me than I've ever said to Deku."

I stared at him. "She does?"

"Sure! If the living room's a damn mess, or I speak out of turn, or fail at school, or get kidnapped by goddamn super villains, I get a hell of a lot worse talking to than Deku ever got from me!"

I'd never thought about it, but from the sound of it Bakugou came from a harsh home life. He seemed to realize how it sounded and looked away. "But whatever."

"I never knew your mother was like that…"

"From the sound of it, she's a saint compared to your old man."

Well..."That's not a high bar."

"OK, well you go now."

"We just did me. Your turn."

"Fine." He scrunched up his face. "Back at the USJ, I didn't beat those villain creeps in time."

"All Might had trouble with them. Even I did."

"That's arrogant as shit, IcyHot."

"I know my strength. I'm nowhere near All Might, but I know my combat capabilities."

"Well, so do I. And I should've been able to beat those creeps."

"Exactly. They're creeps. The League of Villains. They're a bunch of pissed off bastards looking to cause trouble." He actually clenched his fists. "Blame them for trying to kill us, not us fro nearly getting killed."

"Like you don't blame yourself for not beating them when you had the chance."

I smiled again. "Of course I do. And even more for not…" I stopped. Kamino. He wasn't looking at me again.

"OK, my turn. I lost to you and Deku in the Sports Festival."

Guess he doesn't want to talk about it. Avoiding it. Just let it go, if he doesn't want to talk about it. "You beat me."

"Only cause you gave up."

I took a deep breath and decided now was the time to say it. "I'm sorry."

He blinked at me. "Excuse me?"

"I'm sorry I threw that match. I was too wrapped up in my own problems back then to hear what you and Midoriya were trying to tell me. And I ended up treating you both with disrespect. That's something I admire about you, Bakugou. I realized later on that when you were fighting Uraraka, you were showing her respect as an equal. I didn't understand it at the time. But you and Midoriya deserved at least as much from me."

"Well, Deku got what he deserved," he huffed at me.

I felt like I had to justify myself at least a little, or at least tell Bakugou it was nothing personal. "He said something to me that…for a moment changed my mind."

"What'd he say?"

I was surprised Bakugou actually asked. "He told me my power was my own, and not my father's."

"Took you that long to figure that out?"

I smiled again. Bakugou's bluntness can be oddly comforting sometimes. "Even then I didn't quite get it. As you saw. I hope you can forgive me for that."

He looked angry again. "You wanna be number one? Then you better bring your best, every time. Don't get hung up on what other people think. Doesn't matter if I 'forgive' you or not. Go be better for you."

You're actually encouraging me, and I felt myself smiling again. "Right. I suppose…" And it dropped. "What bothers me even more is that…afterwards, when All Might gave us our medals, they chained you up because you were angry with me. I could've stepped in, taken you aside so we could talk or have a rematch or something…but I just like them tie you up on TV. And that's apparently what Shi-"

"Whatever," he cut across me. "Throwing a tantrum's on me, not you. Don't go acting like you're responsible for every goddamn thing."

Just let it alone. It's not your business. Don't bug him with - "You're avoiding it." It slipped out.

"Of fucking course I am."

I sighed. "I used to avoid this." I placed my fingers on my left side. "I spent a long time avoiding it. Avoiding Mom. I didn't even visit her until after I lost to you. And then I avoided thinking about her and my old man until that wind hole reminded me about it. Because I'd been avoiding it, it took me over. And now I'm here." Here in this gloomy place. "Avoiding confrontation only makes things worse. And avoiding things isn't really your style, Bakugou. You're not afraid of fighting the strongest villains in the world. Are you really going to run away from this?"

He looked like he wanted to hit me. He sucked it in. "Fine. You wanna talk about Kamino?"

"Yes. I have to. We're talking about failures. That's one of mine."

He stared at me. "Yours?"

I took a deep breath and looked away from him. "When you and Tokoyami were marbled that that villain, there was a moment when Shoji and I - when we were able to grab you two. He caught Tokoyami. I almost had you. But that villain with the patchwork face got you first. I was just a second too slow. If I'd been faster, All Might wouldn't have had to…" Deep breath. "Go there."

"That's moronic. It's my own damn fault for getting kidnapped in the first place."

So you've been blaming yourself too, huh? "Don't blame yourself."

"You just said it, IcyHot. The goddamn Sports Festival footage was the reason those creeps went after…and that's on me. So forget about it. And hey, take your own damn advice and remember it's the goddamn patchwork villain creep and the rest of the fucking league's fault for being kidnapping assholes. Got that?"

"You didn't deserve to get kidnapped."

"Well you didn't get me that way."

A moment of silence, then a small breath of release. "I guess that's the big one. Failure wise."

"Yeah. Everything else feels kind of trivial."

"Can't change the fucking past," Bakugou snapped out loud. "Just what comes next."

"Agreed."

"So you give your all in fights. Got it?"

"Yeah. And you quit being so hard on yourself."

"Sure."

We were silent now, and the room was starting to quiet down. Gang Orca clapped his hands together and everyone turned to him.

"Now that you've admitted your failures, you've found what you've done wrong before. You will have found behaviors - actions - mistakes you have made - and you will discover the best method to correct them. That is what you will conquer while you are here. The mistakes of the past, so they do not become the same mistakes in the future."

He strutted around, glaring at us all. "You will reflect on what you learned about your partner, and next time you will provide your partner, based on what they have told you, a list of what they must do to change their behavior. Think about what they can do to avoid making the same mistakes in the future. You will bring that to next week's course. For the rest of the day today you will do physical training."

Good. That'll come more easily.

"With no quirks."

no quirks...

"You will make it across the obstacle course set up around the perimeter. Any quirk use means you will have to return to the start and begin again. Your goal is to complete it without quirks in less than half an hour. Once you've done so you can move on to quirk training. You will do this course every session until you are able to do it in that time. Understood?"

Great. Try and make it across without my quirk, and listen to whatever crazy regime Bakugou is going to give me? This really is making us go the hard way.