Chapter 7: The Pot and the Kettle
"Of course, it was you, why wouldn't it be you," Jasmyne spat as she stepped out of the staircase vestibule onto the breezy roof and caught sight Bakugo standing there. "What now, felt like bitching at me in private instead of making a scene for once?"
Bakugo had had every intention of being as polite as he could when he slipped that note into Jasmyne's locker, but her immediate hostility upon seeing him brought his signature scowl out. "What the hell is your problem? Why do you have to act so damn hostile the second you see me."
"Are you kidding me," she snapped. "Look at the pot calling the kettle black."
"Jesus Christ I just wanted to talk to you," he snapped back. "You ever think I'm so hostile with you because you act like a raging cunt every time you talk to me."
"Oh please," she scoffed, trying to stall time while she figured out a response. "Have you ever thought that people talk to you like this because you're a raging asshole with a superiority complex."
"You need to get some better comebacks," he scoffed. "You think that's the first time I've heard that insult? Or that it's the worst insult I've heard?"
"You know for someone who touts himself to be the main character, you think you'd be smart enough to realize that with that many people telling you the same thing maybe you should make some damn changes."
"God you are so fucking infuriating! All I wanted to do was check on you and make sure you were okay. Obviously, you're fucking fine if you're acting like this."
"Oh please," she replied with a roll of her eyes. "You're expecting me to believe that you cared about someone else long enough to want to check on them. Or did you just feel the need to kick me while I'm down like you did in Endeavor's office."
"What the actual fuck are you on," he asked incredulously. "What the hell about what happened in Endeavor's office made you think I was pitying you?"
"Oh please," she scoffed. "That whole 'it was my fault, she looked exhausted' bit? I'm expected to believe that wasn't a veiled crack at me and my abilities as a hero."
"What skills!" he shouted. "What abilities! You talk bit about having this super powerful quirk, but you can't even use it properly. If you could do half of the shit that you pretend you could, you would have seen that asshole coming."
Jasmyne didn't have the chance to respond to his comment though. In her anger and frustration, she went to slam her fist into the wall of the vestibule. On its impact though, an explosion went off seemingly out of nowhere and sent her flying across the roof. All she could hear was a deafening high-pitched whine rigging through her ears. All she could see were hundreds of blinding white specks dancing across her eyes. Neither of those things stopped her, though, from feeling the hard concrete of the roof underneath her tearing into her skin as she bounced across it toward the edge.
But none of that came close to the searing pain on the right side of her body. If she was able to think more clearly, she would have realized that her entire right arm and the right side of her face and neck had been burned nearly to a crisp. She couldn't even form a coherent thought in her head due to the pain, much less make any attempts at trying to stop herself from flying off the roof.
She was about to go over the ledge, just as Bakugo launched himself towards her with several much more controlled explosions of his own, catching her in the nick of time. His hands, of course, had no choice but to grab onto all her newly formed burns and she cried out in pain.
"Shit! I'm sorry! I just grabbed – I didn't think – God fucking damn it," he placed her down against the ledge and gave her a second to catch her breath while he looked over her injuries. Apart from the burns and scrapes across her body, Bakugo could clearly see a giant lump swelling on her head, and on top of that her burnt shoulder was dislocated, which was another problem in and of itself.
"Alright," Bakugo said trying to pretend he had some semblance of his composure when inside he was freaking out. "Alright I know this is going to hurt, but the first thing we have to do is relocate your shoulder." He pulled his shirt over his head and balled it up before putting it into her good hand. "This is going to hurt like a bitch but just bite down on this and scream."
Jasmyne didn't have the energy to fight with him and did as she was told. She shakily put the shirt up to her mouth with her good hand and was momentarily distracted by the unexpected, sweet banana smell that permeated her nostrils. She didn't have much time to process that though as Bakugo was already getting to work on her arm.
Being careful not to jostle her too much and trying not to put too much pressure on her burns he grabbed onto her arm, his right palm resting in the crook of her elbow and his left hand grasping her right. Without a word of warning, and before he could talk himself out of it, he flexed her arm out straight while pushing it up into the air. Neither of the two could hear the pop as the joint settled back into place over Jasmyne screaming in pain, despite the shirt muffling her cry. She wasn't sure what really hurt more, the act of relocating her arm or the pressure of Bakugo's hands on her injuries.
Her vision started to go dark, and the pair were both sure she was going to pass out. Bakugo held her by the shoulders trying to keep her steady, all too familiar with the drawbacks of a close impact explosion, trying to figure out what he could do to help her. He could carry her down to the medical wing, but the movement could potentially put her into shock faster; it was already clear that her body was in the early stages of it. He could run and get one of the medics but that would take time, however short a time it would be, and he couldn't risk leaving her up here by herself in case she passed out.
But, before she could fully lose consciousness though, she felt a warm rush of energy flow through her body different from the searing flames of her burns. As it traveled down across her body she and Bakugo watched as a faint purple haze surrounded her and her skin seemed to be growing itself back at a rapid pace. The blisters faded and the skin went from red to pink and back to white, with just a few faint scars to show that a burn even existed in the first place. Even those scars, though, disappeared after a few seconds.
"Okay," Bakugo said as the haze dissipated, letting his mind catch up before deciding to speak. "So, I guess that's the healing quirk Izuku was talking about. Are you in pain?"
"Um…." Jasmyne's throat was raw from the smoke that the blast created, but after a quick check of her limbs she concluded that was the only holdover from the blast. "Yeah, I think I'm fine. Where the hell did that even come from."
Rather than answer, Bakugo grabbed her hand, held it up to his face and took a deep breath in. "Bananas."
"Uh…what?"
"You copied my quirk stupid."
"Oh…. Oh," she exclaimed as the realization hit her. "Wait what the hell does bananas have to do with it?"
"Glycerin is a naturally forming sweet substance made by fats," he explained. He realized he was still leaning over her with a death grip her arms as he said this but quickly let go and sat next to her against the ledge. "It doesn't stop being sweet just because of a few extra nitrogen atoms being added to it. To most people it smells like bananas. My quirk is that my body produces a nitroglycerin like substance which I can use to spark an explosion, so I know what one of them looks like."
She nodded in understanding and looked down at her hands. "I don't even remember copying it; I never went looking for it when I was in your mind."
"Don't get mad and explode at me again," he responded warily. "But you don't have a lot of control of your quirk. You may have grabbed onto it without realizing it. Or it could have organically transferred over when you took over my head the other night."
"I didn't take over your head," she snapped back. She heard a popping sound and looked back at her hands to see tiny sparks dancing across her palms.
"Breathe, stupid," he said catching sight of the same. "You're going to get yourself killed if you don't calm down. Anger makes your blood pressure rise, which makes your body hotter, and you start to sweat more. All of that means bigger explosions and I'm not gonna stop you from falling off the damn roof this time." He waited for her to take a few deep breaths and for the popping to subside before continuing. "Whether you think you did or not – or whether you intended to or not – is irrelevant. The fact is you did. I would know; I was on the receiving end of it."
Jasmyne bit back the snide comments that were forming in her head. He was being civil, and he had kept her from falling off the roof. But even with that she couldn't help herself from saying, "I have plenty of control over my quirk, thanks."
"Oh, really? Okay." He stood up, walked about ten feet away before turning back to face her. "Go ahead prove it to me then. I give you full permission to read my mind, just keep dodging me."
Before she could ask what he meant or even let out the smallest of protest, he launched at her full speed. Jasmyne was sure he wasn't going to throw out any more explosions in her direction, but she also was pretty sure he wasn't going to hold back the punch he was planning to give her.
She rolled out of the way just in the nick of time and Bakugo stopped just short of punching the ledge of the roof. He pivoted around and lunged at her again, trying to land a kick on her head. She ducked and rolled away again, barely missing his foot as he swung it farther around to try to get her.
"Are. You. Crazy?" she exclaimed, jumping out of the way of another attack. "I just almost died; this can't be good for me."
Bakugo swung his fist out, barely grazing Jasmyne's face as she jumped out of the way again. "If you have control over your quirk then you should be able to activate it whenever you need to," he said. "That means pulling out any quirks that can help, including the healing quirk so your body doesn't shut down on you."
Jasmyne jumped to her feet and ran across the roof at full speed trying to put some distance between the two of them. She took the opportunity to do as he said and focus her quirk on his mind, trying to read just his thoughts so she could figure out what his next move would be. The second she found something concrete, suddenly all she could hear was loud screaming.
The son of a bitch was literally screaming in his head so she couldn't pick up on his thoughts.
Okay, she thought. Plan B. She scoured her own mind trying to find a quirk that would be useful in this situation, but she was coming up empty. After eighteen years of being around people with nothing but power up quirks, and two weeks of isolating herself from her classmates, her stockpile of quirks was incredibly limited in this situation. She had Aizawa's Erasure but that would just stop his quirk, it wouldn't stop him.
She heard two blasts from behind her and realized Bakugo was going to close the distance between her much quicker than she could react to him. In desperation, she tried to tap into his quirk and set off her own explosion, to no avail.
"No come on," she cried out. "You just almost killed me why aren't you working when I need you!"
Suddenly, Bakugo was in front of her. As she tried to pivot, he grabbed her by the shoulder and stuck out his foot to trip her. She fell back and shut her eyes to brace herself for the headfirst landing she knew was coming but didn't happen. She felt her ass hit the ground, but her head and most of her upper body had been cushioned by the fall. She opened her eyes and saw Bakugo's stark red eyes staring back at her; he'd caught her as she fell and was cradling her head in his hand. This close to him she could smell that same sweet banana smell from before and she mentally kicked herself for letting herself even think about that.
"That will be the one and only time I pull back when we're fighting," Bakugo said in a low voice. "You need to be better than that because I'm not going to be able to save your ass every time you get in a bind."
"Is that why you didn't save it this time," she quipped rubbing her lower back."
"Can you take nothing seriously," he replied with a sigh. He made sure that she was sitting in a steady position before pulling his hand away from her head and sitting down in front of her.
"I am taking it seriously," she said. "You're the one who attacked me two minutes after I almost died."
"Do you think a villain is going to give you time to breathe in the middle of a fight?" Bakugo countered. "Do you think they're going to have some sort of sportsmanship and give you a few minutes after you take a particularly bad hit? That's not how the real world works princess, you need to get over yourself and come to terms with the fact that however good you were in the U.S you're not that good here. The sooner you get that through your head, the sooner you can actually start getting better."
"First of all, I'm not princess," she snapped. She took a second to recompose herself before continuing. "And I wasn't some hot shit semi pro in the U.S either. Surprisingly, I didn't have a lot of people around to help me figure this stupid power out."
"Not all that surprising, given the state you're in," he quipped.
"You know for someone who was whining that I was being a bitch just a few minutes ago you sure make it hard to not be a bitch," she chastised. Bakugo looked like he was going to laugh but thought better of it and gestured for Jasmyne to continue. "Look I didn't come to UA because I wanted to be hot shit, or even because I want to be a hero. I came here because I'm eighteen years old and quite obviously have the quirk control of a toddler as you so kindly pointed out."
"So then why won't you let anyone help you," he asked.
"I a-" she started before Bakugo cut her off.
"Don't give me that," he said with a wave of his hand. "You've been here for, what, two weeks? This is your technical third day as a work study student. You immediately volunteered to go into the lion's den and be our eyes – not…that it was a terrible idea, but definitely not the smartest. Stop me when I'm getting something wrong here."
Jasmyne's expression darkened. "There's no substitute for experience when learning a skill," she argued.
"I agree," Bakugo replied with a nod. "But usually, the experience is backed up with at least the slightest hint of basic knowledge."
"You're certainly talking a lot for someone who doesn't even know me, Bakugo."
"Oh? Are we back to Bakugo? I thought I was Katsuki now," he quipped with a smirk, bringing a blush to Jasmyne's cheeks. "But that's a conversation for another time. I wasn't the one who walled herself off just because she didn't like that other people had a trauma."
"That not - !"
"Jasmyne that's exactly what you did," he insisted with a stern expression. "You don't get to tell the rest of us how we process our trauma. People died, because of that man. I almost died because of him." Bakugo raised a hand to his chest, resting it against his heart. "Good people gave up their lives to save us – to save me. That's not something that just leaves you, and the fact of the matter is, you took it personally. Why that was, I don't know, but you did. I know I can be an asshole sometimes…most of the time…a good majority of the time, but our classmates, they're all good people. And we all can help you manage your quirk. You have a friend in Izuku and that's a very good start, because if anyone can help you manage a quirk like yours its him, but you have a twenty-three other people in that class who can also help you; there's a lot of moving parts with your quirk and the more people helping you the better and all you need to do is ask."
Once again, Jasmyne was left speechless and without a leg to stand on. As the words came out of Bakugo's mouth, she saw for the first time her hand in her isolation, and it made her stomach turn. If she had done it here, then who's to say that she hadn't done it back home. She'd come all the way around the world for a fresh start, away from people who she'd thought were the problem just to find out that maybe it was her the whole time. Where was she supposed to go from here?
"If anyone has some experience with trying to right a past wrong, it's me," Bakugo said softly. He turned away from her, not quite able to look her in the eye as he admitted this. "It's hard but not impossible, and honestly what you've done doesn't compare to what I did. Just put some work into it."
Swallowing her pride, she lifted her head and asked, "Can you help me. Please."
"I can't help you fix your relationships Jasmyne," he scoffed, meeting her gaze again. "That's something you have to do on your own."
"No," she replied, shaking her head. "I know that, but that's going to take time. Can you help me with my quirk training."
"I'm probably not the best guy for that," he admitted. "I mean, I know I'm amazing and all but I'm not going to pull my punches just because you're new."
"Wow," Jasmyne replied, sarcasm dripping off every syllable. "So humble. Your humility knows no bounds."
"That's, me Humble Hero Dynamight."
Jasmyne rolled her eyes but pressed on. "I don't need someone to take it easy on me. I need someone who's going to push me, who's going to make me do the hard work. Someone to yell at me when I'm being a bitch, and despite the fact I hate you, I have to admit it's very obvious that you're going to yell the loudest."
"You're such a bitch," Bakugo joked without his usual bite, even throwing Jasmyne a bone, and smiling at her. "You're going to hate me even more when we actually get started. Tomorrow morning, 4am and I don't want to hear any complaints."
