"Deku?"
Midoriya stood there on his porch, with a lopsided grin that lacked any real mirth and with his eyes just a bit too wide. Blood dripped from between his fingers that he had pressed to his side and sprayed from between his teeth with every heaving breath.
"Wanna play hero, Bakugo?"
His grin faltered.
He swayed like grass in the wind, his skin a shade lighter than the moon shining down on the quiet neighborhood, and before the shocked hero could respond, green eyes rolled to the back of his head as his knees gave out from beneath him. He would have crumbled into a pile had Bakugo not shot forward wrapping his arms under Midoriya's keeping him from hitting the ground.
"Midoriya, what's wrong? What happened to you?"
Whispers of breath and a weak heartbeat were the only reply.
Why was Deku here in the middle of the night? How had he even known how to find him, where he lived? Was this some kind of trap? Bakugo looked around wildly, searching for signs of anyone. Anything.
"If you're out there you better show yourself before I blast your ass into the next century!" He yelled out in warning to the deserted street.
Somewhere a dog barked.
Deku began to slip in his grasp and he huffed as he readjusted his grip. He could feel warm wetness seeping through Deku's shirt and sliding against his arm. Shit. If this was some kind of elaborate ruse to get into his house it would just have to be dealt with later. He could take care of himself well enough, but the green haired man unconscious in his arms definitely couldn't. Bakugo tucked one arm behind Midoriya's knees and lifted, carrying him like a child across the threshold, careful not to jostle him. He kicked his front door shut behind him as he disappeared into his house with one of the world's most feared villains in his possession.
...
Bakugo fell heavily in his work chair beside Deku who lay silently on his uninjured side on the steel medical table he kept in his "office". It truthfully looked more like a doomsday bunker what with all the weapons and equipment he kept down there. Bakugo normally used the basement as a place to make tweaks to his gauntlets since the walls there were reinforced concrete and could handle an occasional accidental blast, a fact that infuriated his neighbors, not that he gave a damn.
However tonight it had been converted into a makeshift hospital. An underground hospital that held a dangerous criminal. He had had to handcuff Midoriya to the wall using chains riveted several feet deep into the wall and had needed to remove the wicked looking blades that Midoriya had strapped to chest far out of reach in case he came to before he could start working on him. Bakugo knew the cognitive dissonance he felt right then, something he used to believe would fade with time, would never change.
Now that Midoriya had stopped bleeding all over his basement floor Bakugo had a chance to really pause and think about what the hell had just happened. He watched as Deku's chest slowly rose and fall like the tide, the scars scattered across his skin like ripples in the waves. Bakugo wasn't formally trained in medical rescue, that hadn't been where his studies had taken him, but after learning the basics and choosing to take care of his own wounds himself often enough he felt confident in his abilities.
Midoriya had a slim but deep laceration that started on his back between his ribs and curled like a beckoning finger around his side down to just above his hips. If it had been caused by a blade it had been handled by someone experienced, that much was obvious. Whoever or whatever had done this would have nailed half of Midoriya's vital organs in that one stroke had they gone a centimeter deeper. The wound was still devastating enough on its own and had spilled so much blood he was surprised Midoriya had had the strength to pound on his door as hard as he had.
Bakugo had needed to cut the once white shirt off of him, careful not to aggravate the wound further. The clothing peeled away from Midoriya's blood-soaked body, scarlet strands stretching between the cotton and his skin almost refusing to let it part. It currently lay abandoned on the ground, the fabric turning brown and stiffening.
Bakugo prided himself on having learned to maintain his emotions when he was on duty as a hero. Could shut out distractions and personal grudges and vendettas. But all his training swirled into a writhing unintelligible mass in his mind and his hands couldn't seem to still. He had needed a few attempts to get the stitching started correctly, but the tremors persisted.
He had almost broken down completely when he had looked at the unconscious face of someone he had once considered one of the only people on earth who truly understood him. Now that Midoriya's expression wasn't contorted into a smile that showed a few too many teeth and Bakugo couldn't see the dullness behind the faded green of his eyes, he almost looked the way he remembered him all those years ago. He thought he had known Midoriya better than most then too, but clearly things had changed. Bakugo grit his teeth, begged his hands to stop shaking and finished closing him up.
But now that he was done sewing the pieces of his old classmate back together like a ragdoll he wasn't sure what his next move should be. The obvious thing to do would be to call his agency, tell them he had Deku and let them come arrest him after years of chasing him across the country. They would probably never get an opportunity like this again. He would be praised, maybe even get a raise and his agency would most likely be awarded with more funding. The world would be able to sleep a little more peacefully.
He rubbed his tired face and ran his hands through his hair groaning.
But this was also a chance to talk to him, to get answers to questions that had been plaguing him for the past few years, ever since they had graduated UA together, the day right before he had vanished. He could finally ask why. Why after everything he had done, all the work he had put in, all the blood, sweat, and tears he had poured into the groundwork of his being, had he become exactly what he had once pledged to give his life to fight against?
Bakugo's gaze drifted down to the scarred hands resting on the cool steel. Raised skin ran from his forearms, down to his wrist beneath the heavy cuff and around to his knuckles, a faint remembrance of the blue lightning-like energy that used to explode from his fists.
No one knew if Midoriya still had One-For-All. Ever since he had returned from his year-long disappearance he had never been seen using it in battle, but had also never alluded to having passed it on to someone else either. He had cultivated it throughout his school years, strengthening his power and sharpening his skills until he could hold his own with the best of them. He had been given multiple invitations to join some of the most prestigious hero agencies across the globe before their final year at UA had even ended and society as a whole had pegged him as being well on his way to becoming the next number one hero. And yet, for some reason, he had chosen to throw it all back in their faces.
Bakugo had stayed awake for more nights than he would ever admit staring at the darkness festering in his bedroom ceiling and wondering if it was his fault. Was there something he missed? A sign he should have seen? Something he could have done or said that would have changed everything?
Midoriya had gone missing the day or two after graduating and when he finally resurfaced he had completely metamorphosed into something no one could recognize. Gone was the green uniform and the bright red shoes. Instead he and a few of their friends' first glimpse of Midoriya was of him standing atop a steel plated truck that had crashed into a hospital where a high profile villain was being held before being transferred to a prison. The back door of the truck had slid up and lower level villains swarmed out; some filing into the hospital while others had started fights with the first heroes who had shown up on scene.
He had worn a white button down shirt with the sleeves casually rolled up to his elbows, black tie perfectly centered and with a black vest wrapped snuggly around him. Black dress pants and dress shoes completed his new look and if no one had known any better it would have seemed like he was on his way to a job interview. Bakugo and a few of the others who had been there had cheered when they saw him, excited to see Deku back in action. But when he had reached for the two machine guns crossed behind his shoulder blades and his black gloved hands had aimed them directly at his old schoolmate's heads everything they thought they knew about Midoriya disintegrated instantly.
What had unnerved Bakugo the most about that day was the smile that soon became plastered across the world in Most Wanted ads. The smile that said even though Midoriya knew exactly what each member of his graduating class could do, he was unafraid of them. Was so confident in his abilities that he brought nothing with him but the firearms in his hands. The unsettling smile that stretched itself across his boyish face but never fully reached his eyes. The smile of someone who knew he wouldn't die. Who knew he couldn't.
That had been one of the hardest fights of Bakugo's life. He'd had to hear the confused and distressed cries of his friends as they tried and failed to talk Midoriya down beneath a hail of bullets. Had to watch the betrayal pour down their eyes. Had felt the impact of not only fists against flesh but of the world collectively holding their breath, tensing like a flexed muscle.
Midoriya had been impossible to pin down. His mind working faster and ten steps ahead of whoever was after him. And he was blindingly fast, nimble and inhumanly strong; moreso than he had ever been. Yet there had been no tell-tale blue and green flashes that told Bakugo he was using the power of his gifted quirk. The danger that he posed was all him and it was all very real. It had finally become real to them the second Midoriya had closed his hands around Todoroki's throat, unflinching at the flames that erupted from the other boy's skin and slammed him face first into the street. Later, when asked why he hadn't attacked Midoriya with his full strength right then and there, Todoroki had grimaced and said, "It was, Deku."
It had not gone unnoticed that more and more aggressively fearsome villains took to the streets after having worked under him. It was not an uncommon fear that he could single handedly upend hero society as a whole if he wanted. It was not an unusual topic of conversation when his friends gathered around to ask questions in hushed voices. Midoriya had gone from the favorite on the world stage to steadily becoming one of the most feared names in history.
How could anyone fight someone they couldn't catch? How could anyone catch someone they couldn't fight? More often than not Deku wasn't there when one of his destructive plans took place, but it was a common story to hear on-site heroes tell of hearing a childlike laughter that slithered through the air from an unknown origin at the location of disaster. The times he was there however, he would suddenly appear in the center of the chaos he had created like the eye of a storm, smile that deranged smile and the next moment he would be gone.
That was how it went for 3 years.
...
The last time Bakugo had seen him had been months ago. He had received a call about a hero agency going up in flames that was currently on the verge of total collapse. A terrible exploding boiler accident they said that had taken out major support beams in the basement of the building. He was needed to help with the rescue operations as the sector he patrolled was close by and he could get there quickly.
He remembered arriving and blasting up ten stories to start at the top and work his way down, stopping only to hoist people out of the wreckage. He had been carrying about four people on his back and in his arms when he had kicked down the door to an executive office to check for more survivors. He nearly dropped them all when he saw Midoriya seated in the large leather chair, his feet comfortably propped up onto the mahogany desk in front of him.
"I know, I know," he said smiling and holding his hands up, "I'm not authorized to be in here. But come on, this chair looked so authoritative how could I not try it out?"
"You did this?" Bakugo asked, eyes watering, whether from the smoke or disappointment he couldn't tell.
Midoriya tilted his head as though he had no idea to what he was referring to.
"This?"
The building shifted and let out a loud groan, the window panes snapping at the new angle as glass from the floor to ceiling windows behind Deku burst into the room. Bakugo ducked back out of the doorway narrowly avoiding getting himself and the people in his care lacerated. Midoriya didn't flinch, his grin still fearlessly in place. Bakugo stuck his head back into the room grimacing at the way the added weight he held was making him tremble, at least, that's what he told himself.
"This isn't how it was supposed to be, Izuku!" he yelled over the sound of the flames licking at him through the ceiling, "This isn't who you are! Don't be such a fucking idiot!"
The teasing grin immediately fell from Midoriya's face and he stood abruptly kicking the chair away, the seat falling through the shattered window and crashing into the street below. His voice was steel; cold and emotionless.
"You never knew who I was."
One of the women in Bakugo's arms began to cough violently. The self-assured smirk returned, slipping back onto Midoriya's face as easily as though it had never left. He buttoned the two buttons of his vest as calmly as though he were going into a corporate meeting.
"Better go take care of that, Bakugo."
Midoriya took a step back and then another, his arms spreading to either side of him. His heels passed the edge of the window and Bakugo's eyes grew wide.
"Izuku, don't-!"
In the next breath he was gone.
"Damn it," Bakugo muttered before coughing.
There was no way he could go after him, not when lives were on the line, and it would be too late to search for him after bringing them to safety. He could hear cables snapping as smoke coated his lungs and clouded his vision. The weight of his responsibility and duty pressed down on his shoulders and overflowed from his hands and he could no longer tell the difference between the taste of ash and regret. As he turned away from the window and ran in the opposite direction he wondered if Midoriya couldn't either.
...
Bakugo stood and began to pace back and forth, his bare feet slapping against the concrete floor. He would be in a hell of a lot of trouble if he didn't report in. He would probably be in trouble already for not calling in immediately and not just letting the shorter man die. But how could he? How could he be expected to function as normal when the biggest headache of his existence presented itself on a silver platter solving all problems but also creating new ones?
He slammed his fist against a shelf along the wall, its contents crashing heavily to the floor.
"This is so damn frustrating!"
"You're telling me."
Bakugo tensed and slowly turned to find two bottle green eyes locked on him.
"All I wanted was some information and the asshole takes a meat hook to me," Midoriya said shakily leaning up onto his elbow, "Abysmal customer service honestly."
The chains rattled against the metal tabletop and it was then he looked down at the cuffs around his wrists and followed the links circling behind him to where they were riveted into the wall. Midoriya looked back at Bakugo with a smirk.
"So these handcuffs new or is this some kind of kink thing?"
"Shut up," Bakugo muttered.
He knew he shouldn't be reacting to anything Midoriya said. He had gone through interrogation training and he had to dig deep to keep some semblance of his professionalism.
Midoriya shrugged, "I thought it was funny."
He slowly started to push himself up into a sitting position.
"Careful dumbass," Bakugo said unable to help himself, "you're gonna open your stitches."
Midoriya smirked at him.
"Easy dad, I'm a big boy. It's not the first time I've nearly been severed. Although, it is the first time it's been by a man so it was a learning experience."
"Who was it, Midoriya?"
Bakugo couldn't imagine who he had gone to see who had managed to do that much damage to him when pro heroes had to run themselves ragged just to get a punch in.
"Oh Bakugo," Midoriya said bringing a finger to his lips, "You know I don't kiss and tell. Besides, I made sure he left with a few less bones than he came with."
Bakugo frowned. He didn't like the image that conjured in his mind. What was he even doing wasting time like this? What could he hope to get out of keeping him here? The longer he kept Midoriya chained to the wall, he knew the more dangerous the situation was likely to get. He walked back to his chair and pulled it closer to Midoriya but still out of reach of the chains.
"So what do you do?" he asked raising an eyebrow.
Midoriya wore a scandalized expression.
"Oh Mr. Hero are you propositioning me?"
"Stop playing stupid."
The smile was back and although it wasn't as intense as it usually was, it still made Bakugo's skin crawl. Midoriya kicked his legs over the edge of the table to properly face him. However, his captive stayed silent. Bakugo felt uneasily like he was the prey instead of the predator and he hated it.
"Did you take my daggers?" Midoriya asked patting himself on the chest, "They better be someplace safe. They're my favorite ones."
Bakugo knew better than to answer.
"Damn, how am I gonna explain that I lost 'em?" Midoriya asked feigning disappointment.
Bakugo knew he should be taking the nonsense Midoriya said with a grain of salt until proven otherwise, but he honed in on that phrase as though he were threading a needle. There was someone else behind the scenes.
"Who do you work for?"
Midoriya rolled his eyes.
"Wow, that was just like in the movies we used to watch as kids," he said sarcastically, "Remember, Katsuki? Those were good times."
"Don't call me that," Bakugo growled, "We're not friends."
"Ahh, but we're not enemies either, Katsuki," Midoriya said unfazed, "If we were, you would have called your agency to come arrest me."
"What makes you think I haven't?"
"Response teams take an average of 5.2 minutes to answer a call made in the suburbs," He pointed to the new scar along his abdomen, "So unless you closed me up in world record time you didn't call in shit."
Bakugo clenched his teeth.
"I should've just let you bleed out on my doorstep."
"But you didn't," Midoriya shot back.
Bakugo steeled himself. He had to be careful. He couldn't keep feeding into this banter; this back and forth that was so undeniably familiar and made his chest ache in a way he hadn't felt in a long time.
"Who do you work for? I won't ask again."
Midoriya let out an exaggerated sigh.
"Why do I have to be working for someone? Hmm? Do you honestly believe me to be so incapable of causing my own trouble?"
Midoriya began to kick his bare feet back and forth, occasionally reaching his toes out towards Bakugo, testing his captor's patience.
It was child-like.
It was out of place.
It was grating on Bakugo's nerves.
For someone who had once looked Uraraka in the eyes as he stomped some policeman's head into a street curb shattering his jaw, his behavior was awfully docile. These standard softball questions would get him nowhere. He needed to hit him with something closer to home.
"What happened to One-For-All?"
Midoriya looked down at the floor as his feet stilled, his curls drooping forward to hide his expression.
"What happened to One-For-All, Midoriya?" Bakugo asked again more forcefully.
"I wish I'd never heard of it."
Bakugo blinked.
"What are you talking about?" he asked leaning forward, elbows on his knees.
"That damn quirk," Midoriya mumbled, "The only thing it ever did for me was make me a target."
"But the League of Villains doesn't exist anymore," Bakugo said confused, "In the end you were fine."
"Fine?" Midoriya said darkly, "I've never been fine."
Bakugo's eyebrows drew close together as he looked down at the ground, his hands coming to rest on the back of his neck. What had happened to him? What darkness had sunk its claws so deeply into him that his very soul dripped with its ink?
"You know, I did learn a very important lesson with One-For-All."
"And what's that?" Bakugo asked.
When he raised his head he saw Midoriya's face mere inches away from his. The smile was gone.
"People don't care about other people."
Bakugo reflexively pushed away from him, the chair legs scraping against the ground. Midoriya howled with laughter while Bakugo felt unbelievably stupid for reacting the way he had. What was wrong with him? It was then he noticed the position Midoriya was in. He had jumped off the table, the chains around his wrists kept his arms yanked behind him but allowed him to lean forward as far as he could go. How had he managed to do that so silently?
"People don't care about helping others!" Midoriya yelled, teeth bared, "They only want other people to think they care."
"You cared you idiot!" Bakugo yelled back.
"I cared about being accepted! I just wanted people to stop telling me to jump off the school roof!" Midoriya screamed, "I just wanted it to matter if I fucking died, Katsuki!"
He pulled against the chains holding him back, the links clanging against each other and Bakugo balled his hands into fists.
"You mattered to us! To all of your friends who you stabbed in the fucking back!"
Midoriya laughed an angry laugh.
"Tell me, Katsuki. Would you have given a damn about me without One-For-All?"
Bakugo made the mistake of pausing for just a beat too long.
"That's what I thought."
Midoriya dragged his tongue along the front of his teeth licking away the dried blood from behind his lips.
"You're right that things would have been different if you had never attended UA," Bakugo confessed, "But that doesn't change the fact that you did." He was determined to meet Midoriya's withering gaze head on. "You let the whole world know who you were and they loved you for it."
There were a few seconds of silence between them.
"Loved me?" Midoriya said softly, "Don't make me laugh." He was quiet again. He stepped back until his hips pressed against the table, his fingers gripping the edge. "You all only loved what I represented."
Bakugo cautiously stepped forward but didn't sit again. He had let nostalgia cloud his judgment and soften him in the face of a villain. No matter what their past held, Midoriya had set fire to all of it. He couldn't allow it to happen again.
"What are you fucking talking about?" He asked trying to bring back an air of authority to their conversation.
Midoriya crossed his ankles as he fully leaned against the table.
"Do you remember how many classes I attended our last year in high school, Katsuki?"
If Bakugo's memory served him correctly, Midoriya hadn't been around for much of their last year together. It had been at the height of his popularity. News stations, hero agencies both foreign and domestic, celebrity talk shows; they all begged for a moment of his time. He had been the pride and joy of UA and anyone who knew him could be heard boasting of the one time they had bumped shoulders with him in the halls. Of course everyone in their class had been super proud of him and excited for his future. Then again, none of them had really seen much of him that year either. He had done most of schoolwork while out on the road.
"Only a handful," Bakugo answered.
"Exactly," Midoriya said nodding, "Everyone was too busy passing me around like a prize goat."
Bakugo could remember the rare phone call between them back in those days. Midoriya had always sounded so exhausted, so lonely, so annoyed with what he was being asked to do.
"Kachan, I don't even feel like I'm being treated as a hero anymore," Midoriya had said, his voice dragging as though it were walking through water, "And I can't even talk to you guys hardly at all either."
"What do you wanna talk to these losers for anyway?" Bakugo had responded trying to lighten the mood, "Besides, you are a hero. Whether those asshats recognize it or not, we both know who you are."
"I don't think I do," had been his last response.
His final nail in the coffin.
Bakugo remembered Midoriya staying uncharacteristically quiet while he had continued to spout all the reasons he was better off. What was it that he had said? It came with the territory. He should feel grateful that he was being afforded all these opportunities. He should enjoy it while it lasted. God, it sounded so insensitive now.
"Well, could you blame them?" Bakugo asked crossing his arms, "Everyone was losing their shit since they thought they had found their future Symbol of Peace."
Midoriya slammed his fist into the tabletop making it ring.
"That's such bullshit, Katsuki! I know it and you know it!" He took two steps forward before he reached the chains radius. Venom dripped from his voice as he hissed, "I was their Signal of Virtue. I was a godamn child. I was their obedient, pliant, cymbal-banging monkey they could parade to the rest of the world so they could say, 'Look! Look! Here's a walking caricature of everything we pretend we are. He'll take care of all our problems so we don't have to.' And it was all because of that damn quirk!" The smile slowly returned, "Well, now they don't have to worry about that anymore."
Bakugo stomped forward and grabbed his prisoner by the chin forcing him to look him in the eyes. He didn't give a damn that he was within Midoriya's reach.
"What. Happened. To One-For-All?"
Midoriya began to giggle and the sound wormed its way uneasily into Bakugo's ears.
"It's gone."
Bakugos expression darkened and his grip on his old friend's face tightened.
"What did you do?"
"I gave it to someone who would use it for actual good."
Bakugo faltered.
"You what?"
Midoriya yanked his head out of Bakugo's vice-like grip and headbutted him directly in the nose, laughing as Bakugo cursed as he stumbled backwards holding on to his face.
"There was a boy who I found online asking for a hero to come save him from his parents," Midoriya said calmly as though nothing had just happened, "Apparently they enjoyed beating the shit out of him. But that's not the kind of exciting call heroes respond to is it, Katsuki?"
Bakugo blew blood out of his nose trying to breath and angrily looked at Midoriya's condescending stare with watering eyes.
"Still," he continued crossing his arms and looking off at the far wall, "It was the last heroic thing I ever did."
Bakugo dragged the back of his hand across his face again, red smearing across his knuckles.
"Midoriya," he huffed, "Don't tell me you gave a child One-For-All to kill his parents."
"I did."
"Jesus Christ!"
They would have to find this child. The power he held could have devastating consequences if Midoriya ever chose to get to him first. Especially if that child felt he owed him a debt of gratitude. Midoriya seemed to know exactly what was going through his old classmate's mind.
"You don't have to worry about him," he said hopping back up onto the table turning to sit facing the wall, "He's dead."
Bakugo quickly stood.
"You-"
"Before you pop a blood vessel no I didn't kill him. He killed himself," Midoriya said waving his hand behind him dismissively, "Blew not only his parents to fucking pieces that's for sure. "
Bakugo could feel his blood pressure rising and ground his teeth together in a furious scowl.
"You may as well have killed him with your bare fucking hands!" he accused, "You knew exactly what would happen to someone who used One-For-All who wasn't physically ready!"
Midoriya slowly turned his head to face him.
"You're right."
Bakugo's blood ran cold as he watched green eyes drag their attention back to the chains attached to the wall. Midoriya, the boy who he had grown up with, had trained together with, who had inspired society on a global scale; he had just admitted to killing a child. And he had said it with such an expressionless face. A deadpan voice. Remorseless.
"Thank God your mother's dead."
It had slipped out before Bakugo could stop himself. Midoriya went rigid.
"What did you say?" he whispered.
It was too late to take it back, and right now it would be a lie to say that Bakugo cared about his feelings.
"Is that why you got rid of your uniform? So you wouldn't be reminded of Inko who is probably rolling in her fucking grave at what you've become?"
"Shut up, Bakugo," Midoriya mumbled.
"And if All Might knew what you would do with his power," Bakugo continued, "He would have let that slime villain kill you under that bridge where you met. He fucking should have!"
"Shut up, Katsuki!" Midoriya yelled sliding off the table and landing hard on the concrete.
But he couldn't, not when Midoriya could be so calloused. So much for keeping a cool head.
"You like to think you fucked us all over by turning villain," Bakugo said walking right up to the table and leaning into Midoriya's space, "But the truth is you're exactly the same as you were in the beginning. You're some quirkless boy who runs away from his fights and should have taken that dive off the roof the first chance he got."
The only sound in the basement was Bakugo's heavy breathing. He had inadvertently gone back to Ground Beta in his mind. Back to the time when the only way for him and Midoriya to talk was with angry screaming and fists. For a moment, he had forgotten.
A sickening crunch echoed against the reinforced concrete walls.
"Midoriya?"
The sound happened again, snapping in a way that Bakugo instinctively knew was unnatural and making him stand up straight backing away from the silent boy against the wall.
"Midoriya?"
Midoriya turned around. The dullness returning to his eyes, his mouth a hard straight line, and with a loud clang of metal against stone the cuffs that had restrained him fell uselessly against the wall, empty. Bakugo got into a fighting stance. He supposed he shouldn't be surprised that breaking his own bones was still his old best friend's worst habit besides that notorious mumbling.
Faster than he thought possible Midoriya kicked the table across the room and Bakugo narrowly managed to jump to the side to dodge it as it slammed against the opposite wall. But those 2 seconds were all Midoriya needed. That inhuman speed that had made him so frustrating to chase could do the rest.
He made for the stairs and reached the steel door that blocked his exit at the top. Bakugo gave chase, grateful that the door to his little bunker would slow Midoriya down. Only, when he made it to the stairs, he saw the door mangled and a breath away from falling off its hinges, broken through as easily as though it had been made of paper.
"That shit's expensive you fucker!" He screamed as he followed the destructive path Midoriya left through the mangled sheet metal, his destroyed kitchen and completely removed back door.
He showed to a stop as the night air hit his skin. Midoriya had stopped running, and instead was calmly walking across the backyard as though he hadn't a care in the world. Bakugo wanted more than anything to run after him. But what then? Midoriya was clearly faster than him. What's more he wouldn't be able to use his quirk; his explosions were far too destructive to use in the suburbs where a single one of his blasts could level his neighbor's houses and kill everyone inside. He would cause unnecessary destruction and deaths without the promise of capturing the green-haired idiot. Damn, it was frustrating.
"You came to me!" He yelled out.
Midoriya paused but still had his back turned to him.
"You said…you said you knew none of us cared about you," he said, uncaring if he woke the whole neighborhood with his shouting, "But you came here anyway."
This time Midoriya did turn around, the moonlight reflecting on the glassy green of his eyes and highlighting the ridges that circled his shirtless body. The smile on his face was not the one the world had come to associate with fear. Bakugo swallowed. It looked like the smile he associated with childhood. Almost normal.
"You knew. You knew I would help you," he continued taking a few steps towards his old friend, "You wouldn't have come if you thought I didn't care, Izuku."
Midoriya walked back to Bakugo, his toes digging into the cold wet grass of the lawn. Bakugo, cautious but feeling stupidly optimistic continued walking as well meeting him halfway. As he looked down at the annoyingly cherubic face of one of the most important people in his life, Bakugo felt a million years of regret fill his bones and an overwhelming sadness that threatened to spill from the very pores of his skin.
It was his fault.
Somehow it was, he knew it.
He knew his class knew it every time they looked to him with questions, 'What happened to Deku? You were the closest to him how could you not know?' He knew Inko had known it every time she used to call him asking if he had heard from her son. He wanted to press his palms to his head and ignite his thoughts, blow his own brain to ashes and let the guilt steam out of his ears to disappear in the wind.
Midoriya tilted his head slightly, looking more like a puppy than a villain who regularly had blood that didn't belong to him buried in the beds of his nails. Maybe this was an opportunity to talk to him where he would be honest instead of playing whatever part he had given himself when he had been wearing the handcuffs.
"Deku?"
Izuku lifted his scarred and broken hand pressing it against Bakugo's chest. He could feel the strong steady pulse beneath his fingertips.
Always strong.
Blue and green light began to branch out like veins around his hand swirling around his forearm and intertwining between his fingers. With one final smile he looked up into Bakugo's widening eyes and sighed.
"I said shut up, Kachan."
With the sound of a thunderclap Bakugo was blown back into his house exploding through the wall and landing with a crash through his dining room table. He grumbled and slowly sat up rubbing the back of his head. Through the hole he had created he could see his backyard, the spot where a second ago he had been standing with Izuku. It was empty. He was gone. Again.
He laid back down, wood from his splintered table prodding against his spine. He would need to call his agency and he just knew he would get ripped a new one. He also knew he would have to turn in the weapons he had confiscated from Izuku he had hidden in his basement. He frowned. He would also need to replace his doors, dining table and whatever else the dumbass had broken during his great escape. Leave it to Deku to show up unannounced and cause him so much trouble. He closed his eyes and breathed.
In that moment right before he had been launched, the way Izuku had looked at him, a faded version of who he had once been, it was enough to make him believe there was still a chance. A chance to make things right.
