Summary: A Series of Vignettes, Katsuki Bakugou POV

Author's Notes: I'm relatively new to the fandom, having read the comics a few years back, and then knowing I had to wait to see the anime. Man, do I love a character like Bakugou. This guy is a fountain of layers. The proverbial angry onion.

*Spoilers for Season 6 anime and Manga 285 onwards*

1. Barricade

'I'm tired,

I've been waiting for you

I'm so tired and

I need to lay down

But you're

Travelling high speeds

And you're fast

Too fast to chase anymore

You're too fast to chase anymore

I'm tired

I've been waiting for you

I'm so tired and

I need to lay down…'

'Highspeeds' by Elliot Moss

Katsuki Bakugou looks down at the piece of paper in his hands, watching as his palms twitch with sparks as the weakened material begins to crumple at the edges of his tense grasp. He slumps his back with a heaviness against the window pane that braces him, sitting widthways on his bed, vaguely aware of the fact that he can't set fires in his room, as much as the impulse dances like the light in his eyes. Sadly, any amount of explosion could set one off, especially with such willing words laying like quick kindling in his hands. He frowns at the dull fact echoing in his mind, letting go of the letter to roughly swipe his left hand down his comforter, drying off the moisture before switching hands to do the same with the right one. He exhales slowly, his attention focusing on the paper once more, crimson flecked eyes scouring the scrawled characters that quietly await his attention.

-I can never thank you enough for saving me, Kacchan. For keeping my secret. For helping me with my power. I know you think that you owe me, and maybe you did. But not anymore. You've finally become the friend I'd always hoped you'd be-

He pauses, swallowing the lump in his throat, emitting a characterful hiss of air to funnel out through his nose, his features sharpening with that feral glare as the words turn something asinine within him. Something still partly buried out of unwillingness to fully accept it.

Friends.

Why does the concept still gripe at him?

After everything that's happened, to them, to all of them, they should be friends. Hell, he wants them to be, deep down, but still underneath all of that sentiment is still a blind, blocked out refusal. Like it sits wrong, or at an obtuse angle inside of him. Like it would cause more discomfort than release if he were to succumb to the concept.

He winces slightly, his side aching with a remembrance. An aftereffect of the battle. He pauses, using one hand to lift his t-shirt, the other still clutching the letter with a stubbornness.

He is marked now, in more ways than one. His skin mottled and discoloured from a decision that came from far deeper within him than anything else experienced in his rather short life. Buried farther than any skin and bone and sinew can reach; into somewhere lost and buried and yet so pure and unrelenting and so, so very vibrant, that it eclipses his naturally ornery nature. The decision had grown slowly over time like ivy through every doubt, reservation and refusal until it had physically pulled him, not only into the line of fire, but directly in the place of a person, with the desperate urge to save them at all costs. Save him. That guy. Mister fucking moment...

He shrugs off the twang of sad bitterness that hangs in his chest, sniffing as he drops his shirt, snatching the letter back level to his eyeline.

-And I can't let you risk your life for me. I know you would, but it's too much for me to bare-

A fire rises in him then like a Phoenix. The audacity of such a thing. Why does his sincerity always smack of such tainted arrogance, he thinks to himself.

He sighs then, allowing his fury to abate at once. Deku-Izuku's, he corrects, intentions have always soured savagely in his mouth for reasons he still can't fathom. He had tried to redirect them at times, knowing deep down that the little pipsqueak was only ever pure of intentions, pure hearted even, knowing that any lean towards the contrary was just the leaking tar of cynicism in Katsuki's own broken psyche. That an accusation of anything other than virtue was a tactic to disarm his own self from the truth…Katsuki felt something. He'd been feeling things for a while. Every time it was different. Today? He...misses him. Three days and yet…it was true enough. He misses that mess of green hair and wide eyed wonder. His non-stop chatter; his blinded optimism and the selflessness that seemed to wash the room out was now absent, like lost energy around Katsuki's own hollow seeming form.

-Look after the others, Kachan. Be the leader that I know you are-

He sneers then, pushing the paper aside.

"Asshole…" He mutters to himself.

This is Bullshit, he thinks. The entire saga was rotten bullshit. Upping and leaving them all? Leaving him? Leaving everything behind to go play the big lonely vigilante hero? Bull-shit.

But it was so entirely Izuku Midoriya. He was the epitome of a walking comic strip.

To hell with that. He was still Katsuki Bakugou.

Deku had told him to be a leader.

So, like a god-damned leader, no matter what the cost, he would lead. Lead them all right to him,

And bring him home.

Where he belongs.

And put up a barricade, so the fucker can't get out…

'I can't concentrate

If I keep seeing your face

Showing up in tea leaves

Lit up on my TV

I can't stand up straight

Under your gravity

So I lay awake with my eyes closed

What the hell am I doing here in the golden dark?

What the hell am I doing here in the golden dark?

Feeling like I'm someone else who looks the part

I built up barricades to block my heart'

'Barricade By Elliot Moss'