This is a Dad Might and Kacchan fic. Don't like, don't read!
Everyone else... ENJOY. :)
Vulnerability
"Bakugo-shonen!"
The shout was distorted, blending into dreams of chaos and doom. A confused, Apocalyptic emergency which he couldn't understand, though he knew he needed to fix it...
As Kacchan grasped for the details, they darted out of reach, leaving only a vague impression behind...
And he realized he was lying flat and... When had he fallen asleep?
What time was it?
Why was it so hard to wake up?
"Bakugo-shonen!"
Oh...
It was not exactly the first time Kacchan had passed out. But it never got less unpleasant.
And waking up was always the worst part.
Nevertheless, Kacchan scrabbled for consciousness. It felt like digging himself out of a grave. Because the darkness wanted to drag him down but he wouldn't be swallowed, not ever.
And there was only one person who called him Bakugo-shonen.
"... happened?" Kacchan croaked out with an effort.
All Might dropped his head with a deep sigh of relief, blonde hair waving against Kacchan's gray uniform jacket.
"All Might," Kacchan said, getting just a touch more volume.
He felt a rush of gratitude that All Might was here - then felt guilty about that for some reason he couldn't place.
His thoughts were a scattered mess.
Whatever had knocked him out had been bad.
He felt like kuso and couldn't see properly: his vision was blurred and fractured on the left and obscured on the right. Moving his eyes hurt and nothing within his field of vision, besides All Might, was even remotely familiar.
It was dark.
He didn't know if that was because of an actual lack of lighting or his own injury.
"Where are we?" Kacchan asked, trying to remind himself that the world wasn't actually shifting and jumping underneath him.
Probably.
"There was an accident," All Might said. He took off his suit jacket and wiped gently at Kacchan's face.
The right side of Kacchan's vision cleared somewhat and he saw red on the yellow jacket sleeve.
Oh.
Blood.
Well... That couldn't be good.
"I hit my head," Kacchan put together, struggling to sit up.
All Might pushed him gently back down, one hand cradling his head and neck.
Right... Head injury.
Immobilize the spinal cord.
Triage 101.
Being a Pro Hero wasn't just about defeating villains.
So Kacchan didn't fight back as All Might said, "Stay still, Bakugo-shonen."
But Kacchan had started to process the situation they were in: no sign of buildings, very little light. All Might's golden hair was coated in dirt. Kacchan looked for any signs of injury in the hero, any telltale red. Thankfully - and Kacchan breathed his own sign of relief - All Might seemed to be fine.
For now.
Because rocks and broken chunks of pavement were strewn about everywhere in a way that Kacchan was very familiar with.
"Explosion," Kacchan said. Not quite a question, practically a statement.
He could hear the sporadic sounds of pebbles falling and settling around them now.
Too varied in volume to be soothing, but strangely reminiscent of white noise.
Almost like rainfall... But far more dangerous.
"All Might," Kacchan said, turning on the glare that always made the idiots cower. "We can't stay here. You know that."
All Might looked uncomfortable but they both knew that Kacchan was right: this was hardly All Might's first disaster area, after all.
"Help will be coming," All Might pointed out.
"We can't wait for that," Kacchan retorted. "It's not stable and we don't have any access to the surface. We need to get somewhere safer. You need to let me get up."
"Ok," All Might agreed reluctantly, "but we're going to check your status before we do that. How's your head?"
The pain was a dull throb, sharp at the edges.
"Hurts," Kacchan grunted curtly.
"You have a nasty cut," All Might informed him. "We'll wrap it up in a minute. Any other pain anywhere, Bakugo-shonen?"
Kacchan had to admit that he wasn't sure: the pain in his head was drowning everything else out. All Might carefully checked him from the feet up, making certain Kacchan could move his toes and fingers, systematically examining him for broken bones.
Kacchan answered the questions and tried to piece together what had happened...
It was a complete blank.
He knew that was because of the head injury, but it was frustrating. He needed to know this... How could he respond to the situation if he didn't know what the situation was?
"Can you see?" All Might asked then.
"Kinda," Kacchan grimaced.
His vision was still blurry, and as fragmented as the ground around them. It all looked like a puzzle someone had put together wrong. Trying to focus on any part of it made him dizzy and nauseated. Kacchan closed his eyes against it.
"Do you know what day it is?" All Might said next.
"Of course I know what day it is!" Kacchan snapped, and then realized he had to guess. "Tuesday?"
"Thursday," All Might told him. "Do you remember what happened?"
"No," Kacchan admitted. "Nothing. I have a concussion, don't I?"
Again, it wouldn't be the first time.
Though the others had been mild.
This didn't feel mild...
"I think so, yes," All Might confirmed. "But no broken bones and no signs of spinal injury. We're going to have to risk moving you."
"I know," Kacchan said, biting back a curse. "That's what I said."
The whole place could collapse on top of them at any minute and then where would they be?
Neither one of them could get out of that, not in their current state...
Kacchan gulped down the guilt and terror.
He could spend time blaming himself for that later.
"It's fine," All Might smiled. "I'm going to lift you now, ok?"
Kacchan screwed his eyes shut, knowing this was going to be bad. "Just shut up and do it, All Might."
The pain was enough to split his head open and he wasn't sure if it was that or the whole world spinning which prompted the sudden surge of nausea. Kacchan vomited onto the rock floor while All Might tried to keep him steady.
He gasped for breath and nearly passed out again while he thought about how humiliating it was that he had now thrown up in front of the Number One Hero twice.
Between the fiery pain in his head and the violent dizziness, everything gained a static fuzz for a while.
When Kacchan came around again, they were moving, his right arm draped over All Might's bony shoulders, All Might supporting him with an arm around his waist.
Kacchan tried to walk but he could barely pick up his feet.
All Might, with his one lung, with all the irreparable damage he had endured saving the world from All For One... With no Quirk...
All Might was dragging him to safety.
It was all wrong, pathetic and weak...
Kacchan felt the self-hatred rising, worse than the pain and the roiling contractions in his gut, and tried harder to hold himself upright.
He cursed under his breath at the less-than-passable results.
"There should be a service tunnel here somewhere," All Might said optimistically. "We can meet the rescue teams there."
They hadn't trained in rescue operations yet, but Kacchan supposed it made sense that All Might would know a potential escape route in an urban disaster scenario.
His Japanese debut had been a large-scale rescue operation, after all.
Kacchan flashed back to that video. He'd memorized the thing; he hadn't had much of a choice, sitting there in Deku's room, doing his homework while the nerd watched it over and over and over…
And over...
"He's already saved a hundred people! That's crazy! It hasn't even been ten minutes!"
"He's the coolest hero!" Deku had enthused, dancing up and down in his chair and clicking eagerly to restart the video for the umpteenth time.
Kacchan may not have chosen to sit and rewatch the same video a thousand times, but he had to agree.
They'd both loved All Might, both looked up to him all these years.
Kacchan had vowed to live up to their hero, even to surpass him.
Because All Might had always surpassed every expectation. There had never been another hero like him. He broke every record, shattered every limitation.
That's what it meant to be the best hero… To always win, no matter how impossible the odds.
And here Kacchan was... He couldn't even save himself.
Kacchan gritted his teeth, and the resulting metaphorical explosion of pain behind his eyes made him gasp as his knees buckled beneath him again.
"You're doing great," he heard All Might say through the haze.
Kacchan knew that was a lie.
He was not doing great.
This was pathetic.
He'd finally thought he was on his way to being a hero... Finally thought All Might could eventually come to respect the person he would become one day.
He was trying so hard: not just training, getting physically stronger... He was trying to grow in other ways, too... Because All Might said it was important.
He was talking more, listening to advice, working to not push everyone away, going to this stupid Remedial Course with stupid Half and Half instead of doing whatever it was that Deku and Kirishima were doing in secret...
But what good was any of that work, all of his attempts to improve himself, if he had to be rescued from such a simple injury?
Kacchan felt a bad taste in his mouth that had nothing to do with losing the contents of his stomach earlier.
There was no other way to look at it.
He was failing.
The certainty of his inadequacy flowed over him, vile and sticky, pulling him down to where he'd always known he truly belonged...
All the fighting, all the running... He could never break away from that knowledge.
"Bakugo-shonen!"
Kacchan jerked his head back up awkwardly from the nightmare, startled by All Might's deeply-concerned gaze, inches away.
"Huh?" Kacchan asked, head still swimming.
"You need to stay awake," All Might told him.
Right.
Concussion.
It was getting worse, harder to think...
"I know," Kacchan said quietly, dragging his combat boots through the rubble with an effort.
"You're doing very well in the Remedial Course," All Might said conversationally.
Kacchan snorted. He knew All Might was trying to keep him talking, but he didn't much like the topic the man had chosen.
Kuso Remedial Course...
But though Kacchan felt the whole thing was a waste of his time, he knew that wasn't the point.
And as All Might had told him, he'd get out what he put into it...
Kacchan was starting to understand that much of what he'd learned growing up didn't translate well to adult life, let alone to being a hero.
Not surprising, considering his main teacher had been Bakugo Mitsuki...
All Might had also told him that he needed to give the teachings of others the benefit of the doubt.
It was much harder than it sounded.
He was starting from so far behind everyone else, even people like Deku...
"I know it's frustrating, being behind your friends," All Might said.
"Even though you were always behind me…"
Green eyes and plaintive shouts to "Wait, Kacchan…!"
"Why is it that you became strong but I…"
Why was I…?
"Bakugo-shonen!"
"'M awake," Kacchan mumbled as he came back to the present. He was losing it. "How much further?"
"Not far," All Might said confidently, and Kacchan had no way of knowing if it was the truth.
He could barely keep his eyes open now.
At least the pain was better...
"Bakugo-shonen," All Might's voice startled him awake again. "You need to talk to me, you can't fall asleep."
Kacchan groaned. "Tired," he said.
He knew he sounded pitiful but he had never wanted anything as much as he wanted to go to sleep right now.
"You know, Midoriya-shonen told me all about you before I gave him One For All," All Might said with the proud, sappy tone he always reserved for Deku. "I even read what he wrote in his notebook about you."
"Which one?" Kacchan almost asked.
He was pretty sure he'd appeared in most of Deku's hero notebooks...
That was hindsight, though.
He'd never realized at the time just how much attention the kid had been paying all those years.
Kacchan didn't say any of that, though. He just scoffed.
"Nerd..." he muttered, heart rate rising.
Deku still had that effect on him. It was practically Pavlovian at this point.
The kid was stressful. He'd never had any sense of self-preservation and he always showed up at the worst times.
Kacchan wondered where Deku was right now...
Off on his secret mission with Kirishima and Uraraka, probably.
It made absolutely no sense that Deku was getting sent on secret missions while Kacchan was doing this humiliating Remedial Course just to catch up.
Especially now that Kacchan knew the real story: what, Deku had gotten his Quirk less than two years ago and all these idiot "heroes" thought it was a good idea to send the blatantly self-destructive nerd into who-knows-what?
Kacchan had worked for years to master his Quirk.
Kacchan had studied hard and aced every single test.
He'd kept his record clean and his eyes on the future.
And Deku?
Deku had always been behind… Always right behind.
Running and panting to keep up, shouting from behind for Kacchan to slow down.
Last to finish the tests, his scores neck-and-neck with Kacchan's at the top of the class.
All big, shining eyes and useless dreams.
And then he got One For All and proceeded to do exactly what he had always done: let his sentimentality and impracticality literally hurt him.
That day at the Sports Festival, Deku had thrown the match and injured himself permanently in the process.
Those scars would stay with him forever.
Half and Half talked about it like it was admirable...
Everyone else thought it had been scary.
Kacchan thought it was stupid.
He hadn't known at the time how Deku had a Quirk all of a sudden, but he had known that that was a dumb way to use it.
All of those times Deku had thrown himself in front of one of the kids Kacchan or someone else had been bullying, taking the punches and never learning to fight back…
All these years later, he still thought that was heroism.
And these idiot teachers were rewarding that.
Granted, Deku had improved significantly. He hadn't even broken anything recently.
But once an idiot, always an idiot.
Kacchan was better than that. At least he knew how to take care of himself.
Whatever Deku was doing, he felt he should be there too.
He deserved that. He'd earned it.
What had Deku done to prove himself?
Listening to his own labored breathing counterpointed against All Might's, Kacchan felt a lot of things... An entire, frustrating, tangled mess of emotions.
But mostly, he felt left out.
"Not fair."
It was a second before he realized he'd said it out loud.
"You'll catch up," All Might assured him, half-lifting the teen over a large rockfall with a grunt of effort.
The whole class had gotten their provisional licenses.
Everyone except him and Half and Half.
At least there was that, Kacchan thought... Even with all that power, look at where Half and Half had ended up.
In the same embarrassing Remedial Course.
That made Kacchan smile a little, even through the pain.
It didn't make it less of a failure, but there was a certain satisfaction in seeing the class' golden boy fail too.
And honestly, it was kind of nice to have the company.
Kacchan could certainly think of far more annoying people he could have been stuck with...
Though, naturally, he would have literally died before admitting that.
He had a flash of memory then: the car flying into the air, a wall of ice sliding out of nowhere to whisk Half and Half and Present Mic away while Kacchan and All Might flew in the other direction.
Kacchan had expertly controlled their landing and then...
Then...?
Chaos.
"All Might..." Kacchan said slowly. "What happened?"
All Might sighed. "We were on our way back from the Remedial Course. There was an explosion under the street, and then more. Do you remember?" he asked hopefully.
"A little," Kacchan said. "Half and Half..."
All Might smiled. "I think Todoroki-shonen and Mic-kun avoided the worst of it, yes. I'm sure they're looking for you right now."
Kacchan didn't much like the way that had been worded, as if he was the only one here who needed rescuing.
"Don't need their help," he growled.
Half and Half would be so smug if he helped to dig them out.
"We all need help sometimes," All Might responded.
"So why aren't they looking for you?" Kacchan snapped.
All Might paused. Kacchan watched out of the corners of his eyes as the hero's mouth opened and closed soundlessly like the koi fish in the pond outside Aldera.
"I'm sure they are," he said eventually.
Kacchan would have rolled his eyes if the pounding in his head had allowed it.
"Stop preaching," Kacchan said, his head a little clearer with the adrenaline rush of anger. "They're looking for you. You need rescuing, not me."
Kacchan felt All Might droop, like an unwatered plant wilting in time-lapsed video.
Something stuck in his throat.
He hadn't meant for it to come out like that...
He'd meant... What had he meant?
Kacchan's emotions were all scrambled up and by the time they came out of his mouth, they never said quite what he had meant them to...
That wasn't just the head injury; it was simply an ongoing problem.
"You don't even have a Quirk anymore!" Kacchan said, and then realized that was worse, so he hurried to finish the thought, though he was uncomfortable with what it implied. "You shouldn't still be doing this anymore, saving people."
Saving me... he thought.
"It's not your job," Kacchan tried to explain, his voice tight. "Not anymore."
All Might had stopped walking and was staring at him with wide, sad eyes. Kacchan broke away with a snarl because it still wasn't coming out right.
"It's not safe," he gasped, wanting to shout, remembering it wasn't a good idea in a cave-in.
He remembered Camino, remembered the crowd screaming All Might's name…
Remembered screaming with them, alongside Deku.
"Don't lose..."
It was unthinkable, but in that moment... He truly hadn't been certain that All Might would win.
And watching All Might fight a battle which could have been entirely avoided if Kacchan had just been better, if he'd been stronger, if he'd done his part instead of getting kidnapped like some stupid extra…
It should have been fine, right?
All Might could beat anyone.
But watching All For One's unthinkable power, seeing how he wielded it with such precise savagery…
Kacchan had felt a new fear as that battle unfolded.
"You can't die, All Might," Kacchan said. He locked his knees to keep from falling and shut his eyes because it felt like they were about to burst right out of his head from the pressure behind them. Like that kid in their third year at Aldera. "Not because of me!"
Kacchan had never been good at saying the right thing, putting his concerns and insecurities into words... He hated trying to do it because he always messed it up.
Why did he have to do this now?
Oh, right...
Because his hero was right here, staring at him like Kacchan had just torn his heart right out of his wounded chest.
He saw it still, that look, even with his eyelids blocking it out.
All these years, Kacchan had thought that Deku's teary, green gaze was the worst punishment.
Turned out, All Might had him beat in that department as well.
What kind of a monster am I?
The thought came from nowhere, unbidden, as Kacchan's thoughts often were.
A constant internal monologue of words and images and ideas he had no control over.
Fighting was the only thing that made his mind behave: focusing on the moment, on the strategy, the movement, the win.
Outside of the battle zone… Well, with nothing else to fight, his mind fought himself.
And somehow, that was when other people started getting hurt.
Kacchan took a shuddering breath, remembering that as unfamiliar as this new war was, he couldn't give up.
Especially when it was All Might.
Kuso...
He needed to fix this.
But he didn't know how.
Kacchan felt hot tears streaming out of his eyes and told himself that it was because of the physical pain, of how much his head hurt, how the vague shafts of light cut like knives…
Not because he was scared and sad and nothing had made any sense for a long time and kuso, why was nothing he did ever good enough?
Kacchan cursed and rubbed at his eyes without thinking, stifling a scream at how it made his head ache worse.
"It's my turn," Kacchan protested in helpless frustration.
He remembered a rock hurtling towards All Might's head...
His fault.
Remembered Camino... All Might fighting and winning...
But at such a cost.
Society's Number One Hero, lost, vulnerable...
His fault...
He saw the near future, a horrifying vision of a powerless All Might trapped and crushed because Kacchan was weighing him down, when he should be the strong one now...
He'd destroyed the Number One Hero and now All Might still needed to save him.
His mother's voice echoed in his head: "It's your fault to begin with for being so weak...!"
She wasn't wrong, never quite wrong...
Never wrong enough to banish completely...
"You're right."
All Might's voice broke through the spiral.
"Huh?" Kacchan asked, leaning into All Might's bony hands despite wanting so desperately to stand on his own.
"You're right," All Might repeated. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have worried you. I was trying to spare you the burden of being strong right now. It's a hero's job to reassure everyone, right? But you're not just anyone, Bakugo-shonen."
"How is lying to me and risking your life reassuring?" Kacchan demanded. The broken breaths made it more petulant than angry.
All Might didn't answer but he reached up to brush a long finger against the makeshift yellow bandage. "Do you remember how you got this?"
"You ripped up your stupid jacket!" Kacchan said impatiently. "Stop talking to me like I'm an idiot!"
"No, I mean how you hurt your head," All Might clarified gently.
Kacchan thought back but it was still just a blur.
All Might went on, discerning the answer before Kacchan had a chance to answer. "Not surprising. I was going to tell you once we were out safely, but you should know now. You saved me, Bakugo-shonen. You saw the collapse coming and protected me, at your own expense. You reacted as fast as any Pro Hero I've ever seen." He smiled, blue eyes glowing through the half-light and he looked so...
Kacchan was afraid to even think it.
"I know it's not official just yet," All Might said, "but you are already a Hero, Bakugo-shonen."
Kacchan's already-compromised vision blurred over with tears, and he trembled with the effort of controlling his rebelliously-weak muscles.
Kuso...
He did not feel like a hero...
And if it had been anyone else saying this, he would have dismissed it without a thought.
But this was All Might.
And All Might was never, ever wrong.
This was the very foundation of reality.
So…
He really didn't have much choice but to accept it, no matter how wrong it felt.
And the voice went quiet, just for a moment.
"I don't remember," Kacchan muttered, feeling the tears escape despite himself.
All Might was still smiling as he blinked them away.
"I do," he said simply. "I owe you my life, Bakugo-shonen. You said I shouldn't die for you. You're right. But I can't allow you to die for me either. Get it?"
"You're saying..." Kacchan paraphrased blearily. "I saved you already and you're just repaying me."
All Might nodded with a grin. "Today, we work together to get out of here. Tomorrow, you go back to protecting me. This is just another obstacle for you to overcome on your way to your future. You're going to be the Number One Hero, right?"
"Yeah," Kacchan pouted sulkily. He knew All Might was talking down to him but he couldn't be bothered to care at this point. "Me. Not Deku."
"I know," All Might smiled. Not his Hero Smile, with its fixed air of showmanship. Something more fragile, more personal. "Ok. First, let's get out of here. Together. Two Number One Heroes."
"Shut up," Kacchan muttered, refusing to react to the warmth he felt at those words. He let All Might take his arm again, go back to supporting him. He stumbled, leaning into the frail man next to him, knowing he would have fallen if he had tried to stay upright on his own for one more second. "You're just saying what I wanna hear."
"It's still true," All Might pointed out.
"You're still being a freaking hero..." Kacchan muttered, resisting the urge to swear.
"Old habits, I guess," All Might shrugged, causing Kacchan to hiss in pain. "Sorry."
"Stop apologizing," Kacchan said, and this time he did curse.
"S-" All Might started, and then stopped himself. "Ok."
Kacchan shook his head slightly, the pain a dull, distant throb as the adrenaline started to fade.
In those last couple of years at Aldera, Deku was always cringing and apologizing and it rubbed him the wrong way...
Some days, everyone reminded him of Deku.
But All Might really kept doing the most annoying Deku things...
If the hero suddenly pulled out a notebook, Kacchan was going to explode something: head injury, cave-in or not.
Deku and All Might... It seemed like a recipe for disaster in a lot of ways.
No wonder the dumb little nerd had no idea how to use his Quirk.
Though he'd gotten a lot better...
Still, Kacchan was pretty sure he got some credit for that, considering.
What with all the stalking.
But the nerd still had a long way to go... He stopped too much to congratulate himself and All Might didn't seem to be helping in that department…
Didn't they understand how important this legacy was?
How much Deku was carrying for all of them?
"You and Deku have been spending way too much time together," Kacchan muttered, feeling the darkness dragging him back down.
But... It felt so comfortable now...
"Idiots..." Kacchan heard himself slur.
"Bakugo-shonen!"
"Mm?"
"Wake up!"
"Mm..."
"He's laughing!"
"It's fine now. Why?"
"Cause you're here..." Kacchan muttered with a smile.
And that was all he remembered for a while.
When he woke up again, he was in the UA Nurse's Office.
That was confusing for a couple of seconds.
But his head was clear and didn't hurt anymore.
Nurse Lady had healed him with her gross, kissy Quirk, of course...
There was a chair next to the bed, empty.
Kacchan stared at it for a few moments, remembering...
"Tomorrow," All Might had said.
It all seemed like a nightmare, edges frayed and smudged out with black.
But he knew it wasn't.
The door opened, and All Might walked in.
The real All Might. The Quirkless, injured All Might.
The only one that existed since Camino.
Kacchan swallowed the guilt.
It was still a struggle, comprehending how much All Might had hidden all these years for the sake of maintaining the integrity of the Symbol of Peace.
Heroism demanded sacrifice, however. And it stood to reason that the Top Hero would sacrifice more than anyone.
His health.
His personal life.
His entire future.
Heroes stood alone... The good ones, anyway.
That's what Kacchan had always believed. What he had learned from watching All Might.
Now, All Might was telling him that wasn't true at all.
And... Looking at his hero, struggling on his own, neglecting his own well-being, throwing himself into danger as if he could still survive anything...
Kacchan didn't have much choice except to believe that was true.
And if even All Might needed other people...
Well, unfortunately, that meant that everyone did.
It left a prickly feeling in Kacchan's gut whenever he thought about it, much like the burning in his arms when he had overused his Quirk.
He didn't like it.
But he had to live with it.
Had to train himself to familiarize himself with the discomfort until he got stronger.
As he had with everything else.
All Might was holding two cups of tea, looking uncomfortable. Like he was burning himself carrying it.
The fidgeting reminded Kacchan of Deku and annoyed him.
"Put it the hell down!" he shouted impatiently.
All Might jumped, spilling a little of the tea and cursing in English before carefully setting the cups down.
Kacchan just steamed silently as All Might settled into the chair, shaking one hand to cool it and looking pleased as if he hadn't just burned himself. "Feeling better? You slept for a long time."
Kacchan shifted under the attention. "Yeah, fine." He gave the hero a cutting look. "Did they check you out?"
All Might seemed startled by the question. "Oh, yeah, I'm fine." He gave a thumbs up. "Clean bill of health. Relatively speaking," he added with a grin.
Kacchan frowned. "Does Deku laugh," he asked, "when you say stuff like that?"
All Might looked down at the tea in his hands, shifting his fingers on it to avoid the heat. "No… No, he doesn't."
"Good," Kacchan told him. "Because it's not funny."
"I know," All Might said quietly. "I'm still getting used to... Needing people."
"What the hell kind of excuse is that?!" Kacchan shouted, startling the hero again.
All Might just stared, mouth agape.
"You got those injuries, what, six years ago?" Kacchan glared. "And you're just figuring this out now?! What has that stupid, hero-worshipping, enablist nerd been telling you for the past year and a half?"
"I mean..." All Might at least had the decency to look ashamed. "Midoriya-shonen doesn't yell at me..."
"Yeah?" Kacchan demanded. "Well, he should have been. And I'm not kuso Deku, so don't expect me to put up with the same garbage with an idiot smile plastered on my face."
There was silence for a few seconds during which Kacchan bolted his hot tea in one swallow and pretended he didn't feel weird scolding the greatest hero of all time.
"You shouldn't call Midoriya-shonen names," All Might said eventually.
Kacchan glanced over at the older man. There was a stern foundation beneath the patience.
"Fine," Kacchan grunted. "I'll try. And? What about you?"
All Might rubbed at the back of his neck awkwardly. "I'll try to be more careful."
"Not good enough!" Kacchan growled.
"It's not?" All Might asked in obvious alarm.
"Absolutely not!" Kacchan glared. "You need to start taking better care of yourself, dammit!"
"But -"
"No!"
"I -"
"Shut up!"
All Might sighed. "Ok. You're right."
"I don't know what you think is so 'heroic' about running yourself into the ground for no reason," Kacchan grumbled, getting out of bed and looking around for something that wasn't a hospital gown. "Where the hell are my clothes?!"
"Oh!" All Might said, standing and presenting a neatly-folded pile of dark clothing from the next bed. "Aizawa-kun gave you the rest of the day off. And your classmates were all very worried about you. Kirishima-shonen didn't want to leave last night after he dropped these off."
Kacchan had a horrific if momentary vision of nineteen idiots in the hallway, ready to ambush him as soon as he walked out the door.
All Might, shockingly, actually read his expression correctly. "Don't worry, we sent them back to the dorms."
"All of them?" Kacchan asked after a pause.
"Yes," All Might nodded. "I'm sure you already know which ones were the most resistant."
Kacchan did, and was relieved that there wouldn't be a teary Deku, anxious Kirishima, or inscrutable Half and Half lurking out in the hallway.
Kacchan nodded. He'd have to face them all later, of course, but he was thankful for the reprieve.
He pulled the privacy curtain closed so he could get dressed.
"They're in class now," All Might continued, "so you'll have a couple hours of peace before they all get back. Aizawa-kun sent the day's work over so you can catch up. Although you'll have time on the weekend. I'm sure he would understand if you needed another half day off."
"He wouldn't and you know it," Kacchan scoffed, noting that Kirishima had picked out his favorite skull t-shirt. Weird Hair had been worried. "He doesn't coddle us like you do and I never asked for special treatment."
All Might got very quiet then, though Kacchan didn't notice until the silence had dragged on long enough to become uncomfortable.
"What?" Kacchan demanded, pulling the curtain back with a vicious yank.
"Special treatment..." All Might mused. "I think you all deserve special treatment." He spread his lanky arms helplessly. "Doesn't everyone?"
Kacchan crossed his own arms and scowled darkly. "You need to start practicing what you preach. Do you even hear yourself?"
"Huh," All Might laughed gruffly. "You're wiser than people give you credit for, Bakugo-shonen."
"Save it," Kacchan grumbled, cramming his fists angrily into the jacket sleeves. "I know that stuff works on Deku but I don't need your damn compliments," he lied.
"Ok," All Might agreed as they started walking back toward the dorms. "But I can't promise I won't speak my mind sometimes. And you're going to need to get used to praise eventually. As the Number One Hero."
Kacchan felt that thrill again, deep inside. Something he'd thought his parents had killed long, long ago. Still alive, somehow, after all these years. Starving but never surrendering.
It was an uncomfortable feeling and he wasn't sure he liked it at all.
But he was pretty sure he needed it too much for that to matter.
"Great," he mumbled.
He felt a skeletal hand pat his shoulder, staying there to rest a moment longer than necessary. Unexpectedly weighty for being so fragile.
All Might pulled his hand back before Kacchan could get uncomfortable enough to break away. They walked the rest of the way in silence, Kacchan pacing his steps carefully so that All Might could keep up without struggling.
Neither one of them acknowledged that they both knew this.
"Thanks," Kacchan said quietly as they stopped in front of the Heights Alliance steps. "For saving me. Don't expect it to ever happen again."
It had already happened far too many times, with far too permanent results.
"I don't."
Kacchan snuck a furtive glance back over his shoulder. All Might was smiling warmly.
Kacchan might have interpreted that as pity or condescension a few months ago. But he was starting to relearn that.
And with All Might... There was no chance it was pity.
Everyone was beneath All Might, always had been. He still saved them and he didn't do it out of pity. He did it because he wanted to. Because that's what heroes did.
All Might was the best hero, in every way. And Kacchan had always wanted to be just like him, as far back as he could remember.
But the more he tried to improve, the further back he seemed to slide.
Or maybe he just saw more clearly how far he still had to go.
Today - yesterday, he corrected himself… He wished he could think of that disaster as a one-off. But he'd had so many failures lately. And no matter what he did, they just kept happening.
Everyone kept telling him that it was ok, that he was doing well, that he didn't need to be perfect, but...
Wasn't anything less a failure?
… Just by definition?
It wasn't as if he wasn't trying to understand, but... Wouldn't they say that anyway?
It's not like any of them would ever be Number One.
So it sort of ended up sounding like they were just trying to make themselves feel better...
Or at least, that's what the self-analyzing voice that lived inside his brain liked to point out.
"Bakugo-shonen."
Kacchan blinked and turned halfway. He'd forgotten All Might was still there for a minute.
"All heroes get hurt protecting others sometimes. I should know."
Kacchan closed his eyes briefly, seeing Camino again.
All Might on that giant screen, protecting everyone.
Undefeated.
Everyone cheering.
Deku crying.
"It's different," Kacchan said.
He'd gotten hurt by being stupid and slow.
All Might, by saving the world from All For One.
By...
"Not your fault," All Might had said.
Kacchan forced himself to stick with the reason he was allowed to think about.
Either way, it seemed wrong to compare his failure with All Might's impossible win.
"You should be proud of yourself," All Might said.
"Tch."
Kacchan hated when people did that, told him to be "proud" of a bad score, of a "mixed" result.
That wasn't how success worked.
It was all or nothing.
Especially for heroes.
Almost saving someone didn't cut it.
Almost winning was the same thing as losing.
And yesterday? He couldn't even remember what he'd done wrong in order to fix it next time and it was aggravating.
"How many people did you save yesterday?" All Might asked.
Kacchan turned again to frown at the hero. All Might had a thoughtful expression on his expressive face.
Kacchan didn't answer.
He hadn't really saved anyone, despite what All Might kept saying.
But he didn't turn away. All Might was going somewhere with this.
"How many did you lose?" All Might asked next.
Kacchan looked sideways, making a face. He had to admit, that was a better number.
All Might smiled, all dazzling teeth and kind, sunken eyes. He raised a triumphant fist. "One hundred percent success."
Kacchan shoved his hands into his pockets and faced All Might. "You could have gotten hurt dragging me out. I didn't finish the job. That's a failure."
It was a question.
A request.
A plea.
All Might blinked, brow furrowing seriously. "Do you know what you did wrong?" he asked after a minute.
Kacchan wanted to shout back that of course he didn't, he could barely remember the accident, let alone what had happened after.
He really had to be sure to never get a head injury again.
Since he couldn't think of anything to say at a lower volume, Kacchan just gritted his teeth and kept quiet. Because that was one of things he was working on.
All Might walked closer until he was right at the foot of the stairs. "You forgot to prioritize your own safety while saving me," All Might told him. "Being a hero... The way you and I mean it..." He reached up to squeeze Kacchan's shoulder, just for a second before his arm dropped back down. "You're right. It's unforgiving. It's practically impossible. To never lose anyone." All Might sighed, scratching at his face with one long finger, blue eyes going somewhere far away.
Kaccan looked down at his hero from his spot a couple steps above. "But you haven't, right?" he asked quietly.
All Might looked back up, startled.
"I was pretty sure but..." Kacchan shrugged. "I asked Deku," he admitted.
All Might gave a small, sideways grin. "No one I could get to in time, no. But there were times when I had to choose. Not whether to save someone or who to save..." All Might hastened to add in response to Kacchan's skeptical frown. "But how to do it."
It took Kacchan just a couple seconds to put it together, what All Might was trying to say.
"I get it," Kacchan said slowly. "I took myself out to save you. That's what I did wrong." He growled disgustedly at the parallel that came to mind. "Just like freaking Deku..." he grumbled.
Calculated risk was one thing. That was part of the job.
But winning by destroying limbs, by knocking yourself out, by putting yourself in a position where you needed to be saved by others?
There was nothing heroic about that.
If he was reacting like Deku... He was going in the wrong direction.
"You still won," All Might pointed out hastily, "but you can win better next time."
Kacchan considered this.
It almost quieted the self-blame.
"And Bakugo-shonen," All Might said then. "I'm very proud of you."
Kacchan froze, eyes wide as his hero smiled up at him.
You shouldn't be, said the voice in his head.
I have so far to go...
I keep screwing up...
I couldn't even get my Provisional License...
Everyone else did.
Even Deku...
With an effort, he ignored all of that and tried to accept what All Might had said.
If he's so proud of you for failing... Maybe he's not such a great hero... the voice said then, with the vicious desperation of a predator in its death throes.
And this time, it sounded just like his mother.
But the thing was... Kacchan knew that wasn't true.
He knew All Might was the best hero.
If All Might truly was proud of him... And even the possibility hurt like he'd swallowed something with a thousand sharp edges... But if that was true, then despite everything Kacchan had learned and everything else he believed...
He had done a good job.
Kacchan turned away reflexively as his eyes blurred over with tears. He wiped them away and paused, one foot on the next step towards the dorms.
"Hey, All Might," Kacchan asked, "when's the last time you ate?"
"Uh," All Might said vaguely, "I should probably eat soon."
Kacchan took a deep breath, summoning all of his meager reserves of patience and resisting the urge to point out that that wasn't an answer.
"I'm gonna make some food," Kacchan grunted instead. "If you wanna eat here."
"Sure!" All Might said. "Thanks."
Kacchan just shrugged defensively and continued inside.
"Not too spicy this time, ok?" All Might said nervously from behind him.
"Huh?" Kacchan bristled, his integrity offended. "Too spicy? Who's cooking this meal, you or me?! Don't tell me how to balance flavors, All Might!"
All Might agreed, though he didn't seem particularly reassured.
The dorms' common area was blissfully quiet as they entered and All Might didn't interrupt while Kacchan cooked.
The comfortingly familiar sounds of vegetables being chopped and meat sizzling were the only sounds for a while.
Kacchan made a small bowl for All Might, a much larger portion for himself.
"Itadakimasu," All Might said.
Kacchan just started eating, shoveling the food into his mouth in a way Auntie Inko wouldn't quite approve of.
He paused to glare over his bowl as All Might took a bite. "Too spicy?"
"No," All Might said sincerely. "It's delicious."
Kacchan just grunted and went back to eating. He had been confident in his seasoning choices but it felt good to file that away in the Wins Pile.
As the school day wound to a close, Kacchan washed the dishes while All Might dried them and put them away. Kacchan portioned out the remainder of the food for All Might to take home and eat later.
"Thanks for the meal," All Might said.
"Don't you dare let it go to waste," Kacchan warned, handing the containers to All Might.
"Yeah," All Might agreed with a nod. "I won't."
There was silence for a few seconds while a concern surfaced in Kacchan's brain, winding tightly around his thoughts and suddenly squeezing with a deathgrip.
"Bakugo-shonen?"
Kacchan's gaze flicked back up to his hero.
"What's wrong?"
"Were they after you?" Kacchan asked quietly. He felt the familiar beginnings of panic.
This was the danger, the double-edged sword of speaking his thoughts aloud: if he kept them inside, they destroyed him.
But if he asked and the answer was what he had feared…
Facing that confirmation seemed utterly terrifying each and every time, although the uncertainty was equally unbearable.
Trapped.
Suffocated.
All Might stared back at him uncomprehendingly for a moment before his face cleared.
"No," he said. "They weren't after either of us. They didn't even know we were there. This wasn't your fault."
Kacchan nodded, feeling a wave of relief as he started breathing again. "You're sure?" he checked, voice unsteady.
"Yes," All Might smiled. "It was a bank robbery and the villains destroyed the roads to avoid capture. We were just in the wrong place at the wrong time. So were they, it turns out. They weren't expecting Present Mic to be in the area." He lifted one hand to rest heavily on Kacchan's head, fingers laced through his hair. "Ok?" he asked somberly.
"Yeah," Kacchan said.
He wondered, not for the first time, how he could ever properly live up to this man's legacy…
But All Might said he could.
That was the plan now: help Deku master One For All, push him past his limits until he was worthy of what All Might had entrusted him with.
And then Kacchan would prove himself against that standard.
That was what he would be.
That was the kind of hero All Might was.
It wasn't what Kacchan had imagined for his life. Things had taken a very strange turn indeed.
He hadn't ever had any reason to suspect that All MIght's power could be passed down, let alone that Deku would be chosen as the heir to that power.
The path he had envisioned for himself before the UA entrance exam had been much… Lonelier.
Solitary.
Much more certain.
It hadn't been messy or confusing.
That had been no accident: with brutal, painstaking precision, Kacchan had trimmed away everything unnecessary and unrealistic. Focusing on the goal alone.
Leaving everything and everyone else by the wayside.
That was how things had been meant to turn out, just before he'd gotten into UA.
But the thing was, the dream had used to be far less realistic, a long time ago...
When he and Deku had been kids, sitting there in Deku's room, dreaming and planning for the future while they watched All Might's latest victories together…
Well, that future had looked a lot like this.
Deku had never given up on it, though Kacchan had.
Somehow, Kacchan had been wrong.
Secretly, as upsetting as it was to learn to deal with a world where the impossible dreams of two five-year-olds could become reality… Kacchan wouldn't have gone back to what he had expected.
Not for anything.
"I won't let you down, All Might," he promised in a low voice.
"I know you won't," All Might responded with a fond, toothy grin. He moved his hand, ruffling Kacchan's hair just slightly. A tentative motion, as if he wasn't certain how it would be received but couldn't quite help himself. "Bakugo-shonen."
The moment ended as the doors slammed open and nineteen teenagers entered the dorms, led by Kirishima, Ashido, and Kaminari with Sero close behind.
"Bakugo!" came the shout from multiple voices at once.
Kacchan tensed up and All Might jumped, coughing up a small amount of blood as he backed away, making room for the chaos which instantly descended to surround the teen.
"Dude, are you ok?" Kirishima shouted, concern written all over his face.
"I'm fine!" Kacchan shouted back.
"We were so worried!" Ashido wailed, pushing her way in front of Kirishima.
"We all were," Ponytail contributed hesitantly from the back of the crowd, one hand holding her other arm self-consciously.
Kacchan turned from on to the other aggressively. "I said I'm fine, shut up!"
"Bakugo-kun!" Glasses said too loudly, hands nervously chopping at the air. "I am extremely relieved to see that you've recovered!"
At least he was keeping his distance. Kacchan appreciated that.
Glasses wasn't an idiot.
"You get into a lot of trouble, Bakugo-chan," he heard from behind him.
"Shut up, Frog!" he whirled to address this rather insulting observation.
The amphibious girl shrugged, unfazed.
Unfortunately, Kacchan couldn't exactly say she was wrong…
That kind of stung.
"Dude, Kirishima was freaking out like, all day!" Dunce Face put in.
"Of course I was!" Kirishima readily agreed, unabashed, tears in the corners of his eyes. "My bro was in the hospital!"
Kacchan always wondered how Kirishima could be so open about things like that.
He really respected that.
"We saw it on the news," Soy Sauce said. "The street looked like…" He paused, and Raccoon Eyes very belatedly and unsubtly stepped on his foot. "Ow. Like an earthquake hit it," he finished.
"Did you fight any villains?" Dunce Face grinned, pushing to the front of the group.
"Of course he didn't, don't be stupid," Earlobes glowered.
Kacchan turned towards the back of the room, feeling a several pairs of eyes on him.
Deku and All Might were talking.
Undoubtedly about him, from the way Deku met his gaze.
Well. There was nothing he could do to avoid that situation.
He saw Uraraka standing a discreet distance away from All Might and Deku. She had her eyes on him as well, silently questioning.
Kacchan gave her the slightest nod and she nodded back and immediately went about her business, accepting this without all the uproar of the others.
"Should have known you'd be ok," Ashido interrupted fondly, knocking Kacchan on the head with a soft, pink fist. "No one has a harder head than our Bakugo."
"Get off me, Raccoon Eyes," Kacchan grumbled, shrugging gently away from her.
"Hey, you cooked?" Dunce Face had gone from sniffing the air to inspecting the clean dishes. "Is there any left?" he said, homing in on the covered leftovers on the counter.
"Hands off, Dunce Face!" Kacchan sparked a warning explosion in his general direction and swiped the food from under his nose. "That's not for you!"
Ignoring Glasses' frantic requests to limit Quirk usage in the common areas, Kacchan shoved the dishes towards All Might.
There were several people in the way…
Kuso, why was this place always so crowded? Didn't any of these idiots have anywhere better to be?!
A dark bird shape swooped in out of nowhere and lifted the dishes from Kacchan's hands, transferring them easily to All Might.
"Arrigato," All Might smiled. Dark Shadow gave a thumbs up and vanished.
Kacchan wondered how much Bird Brain could hear and see from wherever he retreated to inside Bird Boy.
Hopefully not everything. That would be very annoying.
"Awww, so rude…" Dunce Face whined. "I'm hungry."
"Get your own food! It's not my job to feed you!" Kacchan protested irritably.
Earlobes, for some reason, found this hilarious.
Probably just because it was Kaminari.
But that didn't explain why Sero and Ashido were trying so hard not to laugh.
"Hey, Todoroki!" Kirishima shouted, spotting Shoto wandering past like a two-toned ghost.
"What?" Half and Half responded.
"Aren't you going to say anything?" Kirishima asked sincerely. "Weren't you worried too?"
Half and Half's distant stare landed on Kacchan for a moment, analyzing. He shrugged slightly. "They told us he would be fine."
"Ehhhh, that's it?" Raccoon Eyes demanded with a pout, dancing over to lean close to Todoroki. "Weren't you worried about your friend?"
"We're not friends!" Kacchan corrected that misapprehension, very loudly, just for the record.
"I'm glad you're alright, Bakugo," Todoroki added after a moment's thought.
"No one asked you, Half and Half!" Kacchan growled.
"Ashido did," Half and Half responded.
Kacchan pointedly ignored this. Half and Half was on a never-ending quest to annoy him and get the last word.
Kacchan still wasn't entirely certain why.
He was pretty sure Half and Half just had a very perverse sense of humor.
"Hey, Weird Hair," Kacchan said quietly as the crowd finally began to disperse into smaller groups. "You good?"
Kirishima gave a wide grin and a thumbs up. "I am now!"
Kacchan just frowned at him, unconvinced.
Kirishima rubbed at the back of his aggressively-gelled head, glancing away with an apologetic smile. Like he was trying to make Bakugo feel better about how worried he'd been. "They wouldn't let me in to see you. And on the news, it looked real bad…"
The message sat heavily in the air between them, as it had over this entire reunion, though no one had said it out loud.
Camino.
"They should have let you in," Kacchan said eventually.
He made a note to talk to sensei about setting up some kind of list, in case of emergencies. Since those seemed to keep happening.
He didn't want to be flooded with idiots every time he skinned his knee, but...
Keeping Kirishima out? That wouldn't do anyone any good.
Besides, Kirishima had never judged him yet, and he'd seen Kacchan at his absolute worst.
More than once.
"Man," Kirishima groaned, breaking the silence. "I think I failed the quiz today."
"Sensei gave you a quiz today?" Kacchan glared. And here he'd thought Aizawa was smarter than that. He let loose a small explosion. "I'll kill him."
"Don't kill anyone," Kirishima interjected with a laugh that was only slightly nervous, "he told me he'd let me retake it."
Kacchan shrugged, backing off. That seemed fair.
They watched Sero and Ashido arguing with Kaminari for a few moments.
"They were all worried," Kirishima smiled. "It takes a lot to put you out of commission, Bakugo. And they're still not over the last time, you know?"
"Huh," Kacchan grunted.
He wasn't sure anyone would ever really be over Camino.
Still, Kacchan really didn't like the idea of other people worrying about him.
But apparently, that was just part of the deal.
It seemed no one was exempt from that.
He still wasn't quite sure how he'd gotten roped into feeling responsible for so many idiots.
He realized Kirishima was staring at him. He didn't look upset, or like he expected anything back.
Just smiling, like all was right with the world again.
"It's not fun, is it?" Kacchan asked quietly, avoiding the red-haired kid's gaze. "Not knowing."
It took just a moment for Kirishima's eyes to widen as he realized the parallel. "I'm sorry, bro," he said earnestly, face painfully guilt-ridden. "I'll tell you when I can!"
As usual, that wasn't what Kacchan had meant at all.
He tried again.
"Just don't…"
"What?"
"Don't die, Weird Hair," Kacchan mumbled. "I'm not getting stuck with these idiots."
Kirishima made a face that was hard to decode, then punched his fists together. "I won't let you down!" he said with fierce determination.
Kacchan frowned, already wishing he hadn't asked. "Yeah, you'd better not," he responded. "Thanks... For the clothes."
"I got you, bro!" Kirishima said cheerfully, thankfully leaving it at that.
Towards the back of the room, Iida was desperately trying to quiet everyone down, to no avail.
The common area was in absolute chaos.
Ball Head was screaming, tied up in Frog's tongue for some offense or another; Raccoon Eyes was perched on the counter, kicking her feet and laughing at the top of her lungs while Dunce Face and Soy Sauce talked over her; Uraraka and a couple of the other girls had set up some kind of girl conversation on the couch, which they seemed determine to continue despite the noise; Deku was having a conversation with Twinkle Toes which seemed to be alarming him for some reason, though it was hard to tell with Deku… He always kind of looked like that.
All Might had left at some point.
Kacchan really couldn't blame him.
"All of you…" Kacchan growled. Kirishima took an instinctive half-step backwards just before Kacchan raised the volume several notches. "SHUT THE HELL UP!"
This worked for all of about two and a half seconds. Iida only had time to push his glasses up on his nose, looking impressed, before Ashido threw her arms in the air and shouted, "Ahhh, we're so glad you're back, Explosion Boy!"
"Hey, dude, you tried!" Kirishima shrugged as the noise quickly resumed almost exactly its former levels.
"I'm going upstairs," Kacchan said, giving up.
He made it to the elevators before he heard footsteps behind him.
He knew who it was before he'd even turned around.
"Kacchan."
"What?" Kacchan sighed.
"Um…"
"Spit it out, nerd," Kacchan said wearily.
"All Might said…" Deku hesitated, "how you saved him."
Kacchan just shrugged. "So?"
They were doing better but Kacchan wasn't ready for a Deku Conversation right now.
Unfortunately, the thing about Deku was that you didn't get a choice.
You couldn't avoid him and you couldn't shut him up.
Kacchan would just have to endure.
"It's... A good thing you were there," Deku said.
"Yeah?" Kacchan asked with a glance behind him. "He wouldn't have been there at all if it weren't for me."
"I guess," Deku frowned.
Kacchan took a deep breath and straightened his shoulders. "I don't like it."
"What?" Deku asked.
"He's…"
Fragile.
Mortal.
Kacchan couldn't even say it. It just sounded too wrong.
He tried saying something else. "He's not going to learn, is he? To be careful."
He avoided the green gaze, trying not to show the train of thought which had led him there.
That there was another person who had never learned to be careful, who kept rushing into danger and getting hurt and brushed it off without ever thinking of a new way to do things.
And that person was standing right in front of him.
"Don't leave it all up to me, k-" He stopped himself. "... Deku. I don't want to be responsible for that. It's not fair."
Kacchan looked up to see if his childhood friend had understood. Deku nodded, eyes wide and unreadable.
It hadn't been the right way to say what he meant.
The only two times All Might had been in danger recently had both been Kacchan's fault.
And Deku had saved All Might at Gym Gamma, it wasn't as if he wasn't doing his part.
But Kacchan couldn't say what he meant.
That he was scared...
All the time.
That he worried about what could go wrong, his brain constantly spinning round with countless worst-case scenarios.
That he was just one person and he was dangerous.
That he didn't want to do everything alone.
That he needed help.
Kacchan couldn't say any of that...
Especially not to Deku.
Just looking at the kid still made his blood pressure shoot up several points.
Those big, innocent eyes, all trust and… Well, he still wasn't sure but Deku and All Might insisted that it was admiration.
Kacchan didn't like that much.
He wasn't anyone's hero...
Not yet.
Most of all, he couldn't tell Deku to be more careful.
What he had managed to say would have to be good enough for now.
Deku could deconstruct it in one of his notebooks.
Kacchan turned away to go to his room.
"Kacchan."
"Huh?" he breathed.
"I'm glad you're ok."
Kacchan just grunted wordlessly in response and walked away.
He closed his door and settled at his desk with the textbooks and list of assignments Kirishima had left for him.
His phone was there with the books and he opened the newest text, from All Might.
Apologies for leaving without saying goodbye. You know I'm always here anytime you want to talk. Thanks again for saving me.
Kacchan put his phone face down on the desk and groaned.
He didn't want to talk. All Deku and All Might ever did was talk.
They had so many feelings.
And somehow, it was so easy for them, turning their emotions into words, chatting about their insecurities and fears like they were discussing the weather.
He wasn't saying they were wrong for wanting him to say more out loud. He wasn't saying it wasn't helping or that he didn't feel less angry and alone.
But it was hard.
Kacchan had done enough talking for today. Right now, all he wanted was for everyone to leave him alone for a while.
Kacchan spent about ten minutes trying vainly to focus on his textbooks before he realized that that wasn't quite right either.
He didn't want to be alone…
He wanted to hit something.
Kacchan left his books and went to the room next door.
"Hey, you busy?" he asked when Kirishima answered his knock.
"Nope!" Kirishima said, brightening up like Kacchan had made his just day by asking.
"Wanna fight?" Kacchan growled, a little of the anger slipping out early.
"You bet!" Kirishima grinned. "Ready when you are!"
Sure, talking and feelings and personal growth might be important… But Kacchan had always had his own ways of dealing with stress.
They might not always be enough but that didn't mean they didn't have their place.
"Hey, Weird Hair," Kacchan said as they walked towards the training gyms. "I'm going to beat you into the ground."
"Cool!" Kirishima smiled brightly.
The End
Thanks for reading! I have a Dadzawa fic next, so stay tuned! :) 3