A/N: Tensions finally boil over.
"It's gotten colder lately," Uraraka shivered as she walked into the dorm. "I'm worried about my parents."
"Do you need a place to stay during winter break?" Yaoyorozu questioned, her brow knit in concern.
"No! No, no, no, I could never," she hurriedly objected, waving her arms in an almost panic. "I'm fine at home, Yaomomo, I just… need to bundle up when I go."
"Be careful not to catch a cold," Iida instructed. "I can let you borrow an extra coat if you need."
"I've got hot drinks," Ashido volunteered. "And Satou makes really good hot chocolate."
Leaning into her, Uraraka huffed a sigh from her nose.
"I hope Midoriya-kun is okay, kero," Asui hummed thoughtfully. "His pain gets worse in the cold."
"Deku has chronic pain?" Ashido questioned.
"Yes. His hand." Asui tapped her chin.
"I hope he's okay," Hagakure quietly echoed.
"Stop worrying about that damned nerd already," Bakugou scoffed, brushing past two of the girls as he walked in. "He chose to leave; he can deal with a little cold. Focus on yourselves for a change."
"We are, Bakugou," Ashido reminded with a frown. "Is it really that bad to worry about him?"
"You're putting way too much thought into whatever that nerd is doing." He tilted his head up, staring at them over his nose. "He's capable of caring for himself. As far as we're concerned, he's not worth wasting time on."
"What is your problem, Bakugou?" Uraraka demanded, her raised voice catching the attention of the other students in the lobby.
"What's my problem? What's yours?" He retorted, glaring at her.
"Why are you so negative about Deku all the time? You never have anything nice to say! We get it, you hate him! Do you have to constantly remind us of that?" She finally exploded, pointing at him with a seething sneer. "I know you're upset that you can't bully him anymore but would it kill you to keep it to yourself? I know I can't speak for everyone but I for one am really damn tired of your bad attitude!"
"Uraraka!" Iida balked, while Yaoyorozu cupped a hand over her mouth in shock.
"Whine whine whine!" She continued as if they hadn't spoken. "You always complain about everything! Group projects, assigned seating, who you're partnered with for exercises! You can never just be content! You always treat the rest of us like we're worthless nobodies when you never bring anything good to the class yourself. Just because you have a powerful quirk doesn't mean you get to be so damned stuck-up about it! Yaomomo can create things from her own body but you don't see her being haughty about it! Tokoyami has a living being for a quirk but you don't see him treating anyone else like garbage because of it! Why are you the only one that matters here?"
"You don't know anything about me, so stop talking about things you don't understand!" Bakugou shouted back, yanking his arm out of Kirishima's concerned grip. "Don't touch me, loser!"
"I understand plenty! You're the one that doesn't get it yet!" Uraraka retorted. "I understand that you're a horrible person who needs a serious reality check! I understand that Aizawa-sensei should've suspended you until you could understand that we all need to work as a team here!"
"You take that back!" With a roar, he lunged at her with explosions rippling in his palms.
A wall of ice between them stopped him in his tracks. Todoroki stood in front of her with a thunderous expression.
"Of all the people to lash out, I should've expected you first," he snapped. "Uraraka may be upsetting you, but she's right. You need a reality check if you think you deserve to be here."
"And you do?" The blond cackled derisively. "Newsflash, Nepotism Baby, I've got more skills than everyone here. If there's anyone that deserves to be top of the class it's me, and I didn't need Daddy's influence to get here!"
"My father has nothing to do with your bad attitude. I admit, I was a bad team player when school started, but I had to wake up and accept that being a lone wolf was just going to stifle my chances of succeeding. All you've done is brush off our attempts to befriend you. Why is it so surprising that nobody else is standing up for you now?"
"I know he's out of line, but hey, c'mon," Kirishima tentatively spoke up, "we all know that's just how Bakugou is. He's just… prickly."
"C'mon, Kiri," Ashido sighed.
"No, seriously," he insisted. "Bakugou can be nice."
"To you," someone else spoke up. "But to the rest of us, he's nothing but mean."
"I don't know about you, but I don't want to be classmates with a bully," Uraraka snapped from behind Todoroki, wiping her eye. "You can't even bring yourself to pretend to care about anyone?"
"Why are you so annoying?" Bakugou groaned. "Shut up. You don't know anything about me or the nerd. Deku's sooner gonna be dead than alive with All For One on the loose. I'm not being uncaring, I'm being realistic. Stop daydreaming and start accepting that he's gone."
Uraraka's face fell, and Todoroki stepped in front of her with an icy glare when she began to cry.
"You of all people should know not to speak like that. That's not realistic at all."
"Well what in the hell am I supposed to say?" He yelled. "Excuse me for not wanting to waste time telling you that I told you so later!"
"It's only been a few weeks, not a year. There's plenty of reason to believe he's still alive, least of all that we would have been told as such already given how hard we're looking. Instead of being so cold, you could at least stay quiet. I know you constantly deride Midoriya but you're not just disrespecting him, you're disrespecting All Might. You're abandoning them both just because you never care to be optimistic?"
"I don't have to take this from you," the boy seethed. "You're more pointless than I thought."
"And you're more like Shigaraki than I thought," Todoroki retorted. "No wonder he thought you'd make a good villain."
Bakugou saw red.
"My expectations were low for both of you, and yet you continue to surprise me," Aizawa snapped at the two boys sitting before him, still restrained in his capture weapon.
"Todoroki," he looked at the largely unrepentant boy. "I know you're concerned about your classmates and I know that tensions are high right now, but bringing up the summer camp incident was unacceptable. You of all people should understand the effort that went into bringing him back - and the sacrifices made on everyone's parts."
"And Bakugou." He turned to the still-seething blond. "I have largely overlooked your explosive temper all year, and that's on me. Despite being almost finished with your first year of high school you still need to learn to control your temper and your quirk, as well as de-escalate arguments without resorting to violence. I have gotten complaints about your flippant attitude from several different sources throughout the year and I've come to the decision that you need some adjustments if you want to finish the year here."
"Both of you will be serving after-school detention for the next two weeks for unwarranted quirk usage in the dormitory as well as fighting. You will not only be cleaning up the damage but will be assigned extra schoolwork to do."
Both boys looked like they wanted to argue, but Aizawa's glare made them back down. "Bakugou, I will speak with the principal and your parents about what should be done and I'll get back to you on it at a later time."
With a wave, he let go of them and dismissed them. "Go back to the dorms. You're under house-arrest for the rest of the evening."
Without another word, both boys left the room.
Todoroki paused as soon as the door was shut, giving Bakugou a frosty stare. "If anyone has the right to be worried, it's not you. Let Midoriya's actual friends handle things from now on, and keep your negativity about him to yourself. We'll find him and All Might ourselves. Without you."
"I was never worried about that moron, so you don't have to worry about that," he snapped back with a glare. "He can rot for all I care."
Hurrying past the prodigy, his hands clenched into fists, and in the frigid winter air his eyes burned from the moisture prickling at the corners.
A/N: I've always, always wanted Uraraka to call out Bakugou for being such a little bitch in the beginning of the manga. Now that he's had his heel-face turn I suppose most of this isn't that relevant anymore, but it's still cathartic to get all of those frustrations out about him - and next week, finally touch on the untreated PTSD, unacknowledged past abuse, and emotional anguish he feels.
I know, I know, that's cruel to unload on him and hold back on his defense, but I've gotta keep some interesting parts in reserve. Rest assured: this book will not be a huge waterfall of Bakugou bashing. The worst of it is, thankfully, over.
Anyway, please tell me what you thought!