"Wise men put their trust in ideas and not in circumstances." - Ralph Waldo Emerson

Kirishima was starting to really regret the open design of his hero costume.

Not that it was normally a problem. The cold usually didn't even bother him that much in the first place, and pecs and abs were also manly as fuck, but it was currently absolutely freezing outside and between that and the sense of dread rolling in his stomach, he hadn't felt this uncomfortable in his own skin in a considerably long time.

This particular internship, as short as it would be, had been a best-case scenario for him, second only to interning with Crimson Riot himself. Kirishima wasn't the biggest Best Jeanist fan, but the guy was still an amazing hero and the redhead was personally honored to be interning at his agency.

No, what had him nearly in the best kind of hysterics a few days ago was that both Bakugou and Midoriya would be interning there with him. He knew that Bakugou wasn't all that fond of Best Jeanist, but Kirishima was just happy to finally be working so closely with his best bro on the field, and Midoriya was such an amazing hero-in-training in his own right. He couldn't be more thrilled to be teamed up with them, even if he remembered Uraraka mentioning the shitstorm that hit when she interned alongside the two of them.

There was an unspoken truth amongst the students of Class 1-A concerning the 'worst wonder duo'. Wherever they went, trouble followed right on their heels, and whether it was a blessing or a curse, if you were tagging along, you were very likely going to get caught in the middle of it.

Today was no exception.

Kirishima nervously rubbed at his forearms, lightly biting his lip as Best Jeanist and Edgeshot gave orders to their sidekicks and the other interns. The city landscape was nearly blinding white, a huge snowstorm blowing through just in time for such a predicament. At least he could still see the warm puffs of air that left his lips and blew away in the frigid air. Off to his left, Midoriya was watching silently while Bakugou began to pace impatiently.

"What were their demands?" an intern from Ketsubutsu asked nervously.

"Don't worry about that." Edgeshot ensured him. "We have everything under control. Just keep a level head."

It had been just as the storm was blowing in that a hostage situation was reported, a group of villains breaking into a small office complex and taking an unknown number of civilians captive on the top floor. The heroes had little to no information on the situation, all cameras being taken out and leaving them practically blind. At this point, the hostages' conditions were completely unknown. Kirishima grounded his teeth in frustration, ignoring the warm liquid on his lips.

"You have got to be kidding me." Best Jeanist suddenly hissed, hand leaving his communication device as he turned to Edgeshot. "Intel was right. Another group of villains is trying to escape from a bank on the other side of town and a fight has broken out. The heroes there are outnumbered and requesting backup."

Edgeshot cursed. "In that case, I'd recommend taking a small group and meeting up with them. We have plenty of heroes with capable quirks and emergency personnel here to handle this."

Best Jeanist didn't seem all that thrilled to leave this particular scene, but he simply nodded. "Very well."

And this was where Kirishima began to feel conflicted.

Perhaps it was the high-stress situation, or maybe it was the cold getting to him, but either way, he was starting to find himself torn between staying here to deal with this situation or help the heroes trying to apprehend the villains at that bank. Glancing over at Bakugou, his expression seemed unusually hard to read, half of his face buried in his costume's turtleneck and hands discreetly stuffed under his armpits to keep them warm. He was scowling harshly, his steely eyes constantly flicking between the building and Best Jeanist.

Taking a deep breath, Kirishima pulled his scattered thoughts together. Considering the number of lives that were in immediate danger here versus the trained, experienced heroes fighting at the other scene, it seemed rather obvious to Kirishima what the right choice was. As heroes, saving civilians should come first.

That was easy enough to figure out. They needed to stay here, his gut flaring and roiling for him to remain planted in this very spot that he was standing.

Midoriya held his hands together and breathed warm air onto them, somewhat muffling his voice. "We should go to that bank."

Kirishima blinked dumbly. Midoriya's face was red from the cold, his wild windblown curls streaked white with snow. His jaw was set and his eyes were bright, far too sure for a situation like this. Kirishima could see Bakugou watching the freckled teen warily, as if he was analyzing him.

Kirishima's chest tightened, every instinct in his body screaming against leaving the scene. "What do you mean? We can't just leave!"

A glint of conflict flashed through Midoriya's eyes for a moment, his determination wavering for a single millisecond, and Kirishima's resolve strengthened. "We're heroes, man! We save, right? We gotta save these people!"

"I know, but..." Midoriya glared at his sneakers for a moment, as obnoxiously red in the white blizzard as Kirishima's own hair. "But the heroes at the bank need help, too."

"The civilians should come first!" Kirishima stressed. "They need all the help they can get! We gotta save them! It's the right thing to do! I can feel it!"

"Edgeshot is leading this operation!" Midoriya responded. "He's a very capable hero for this kind of scenario, and they already have plenty of backup here! They can spare a few hands!"

Kirishima was almost in shock. "So you're just going to leave them here?!"

"I'm trusting the other heroes here to handle it!" Midoriya said, his voice growing firmer in his decision despite the slow dimming in his eyes. "There are plenty of heroes still here!"

"Not if a bunch of us leave! And we don't even have sure numbers! There could be a whole syndicate in this place for all we know! Besides, there are capable heroes at the other scene, too!"

Midoriya seemed to consider this, a heavy frown on his face. Kirishima pressed on. "Civilian lives need to come first! Win to save and save to win, right man?"

Bakugou startled as Kirishima suddenly turned to him, his own eyes burning from both the strong resolve churning in his stomach and the biting cold nipping at his face. "As much as I hate it, every hero signed up for this knowing that they'd get hurt so that the civilians wouldn't! That's the point!"

He turned back to Midoriya. "I can feel it in my gut! We need to save these people! They need us!"

Midoriya curled into himself, but he held eye contact. "And... And I can feel it in my gut that the other heroes need backup more than the heroes here do! I'm being serious, Kirishima! We have to go!"

Kirishima felt almost dumbfounded, watching as Midoriya fought tooth and nail to stand there and fight for this decision. It almost hurt. "Innocent people might die! We can't take that risk!"

"What about pedestrians at the bank, though?! Someone has to run it!"

"If it was another hostage situation, they would have said so!"

"The other heroes still need help! They're in trouble!"

"These civilians are in trouble!" Kirishima snapped, the stress, fear, and cold finally getting to him. "We, as heroes, need to rescue them!"

"Edgeshot has it handled!" Midoriya was bouncing on his heels. "We'd be more useful at that fight!"

"But we need to stay!"

"No, we need to leave!"

"We can't! We need to stay here and help! Innocent people are going to die!"

"I- But we-!"

A third voice suddenly cut in. "We should go to that bank."

Both boys jumped, wide, stunned eyes swiveling to Bakugou. Hot breath escaped from beneath his turtleneck, lost in the curtain of white surrounding them as he aggressively rubbed his rapidly cooling hands together to fight the freezing cold turning his ears and nose red. His expression was still unreadable, as was his weirdly level tone of voice. "We'll be more useful there." the blond reasoned.

Midoriya stared at him in shocked silence for a moment, mouth agape before he regained his composure. Kirishima watched in real-time as the slightly wavering resolve suddenly built itself into a towering wall that not even All Might himself could punch through. "Listen, Kirishima. I know that leaving is a risk, but so is staying. They need our help!"

Maybe it was the environment getting to him, or maybe it was that twisting and bubbling in his stomach nailing his feet to the ground, but there was suddenly a surge of frustration roaring through him. He knew it was petty, that slight edge of betrayal in his mind as he met Bakugou's eyes, but the mental image of the bodies of innocent men, women, and children strewn about in a bloody heap on the floor was nearly sending him into hysterics.

"You can't be serious!" Kirishima exclaimed, terror for the lives at risk in that building seizing his heart. "You're just gonna abandon these people!? They need us!"

"The hell are you yelling at me for!? There are plenty more heroes here who can handle this sort of thing!"

"But what if they need us?!" Kirishima yelled. "I wouldn't be able to forgive myself if I left and something happened where I could have made a difference!"

"That goes both ways!" Midoriya added. "The other heroes need us, too! We need to save them!"

Bakugou huffed. "I'm not gonna make your decisions for you, but Deku and I have made ours. Are you coming with us or not?"

Kirishima looked between them with wide eyes, almost feeling ganged up on. Best Jeanist was yelling something to Edgeshot in the background, but Kirishima didn't hear a word of it. Midoriya let out a sigh. "Kacchan, I'm gonna go talk to Best Jeanist. Wait here!"

"Don't tell me what to do!" Bakugou shot back at the greenette's retreating form, tapping his foot and breathing warm breath on his hands.

"Dude, you really can't be serious." Kirishima begged, his heart pounding in his chest as heroes began to position themselves around the seized building. "We can't leave them. This- This feels wrong! You can't do this!"

Bakugou didn't respond to that, only glaring up at the building for a moment before pointedly turning away. Kirishima's frustration grew. "You're just gonna leave them for the fight?! Is that it?!"

Kirishima regretted his words as soon as they left his mouth, a pang of guilt washing over him as Bakugou spun around and glared at him. "Look, Deku may be an idiot, but as much as I absolutely hate to admit it, I trust him!"

Kirishima deflated. "But you don't trust me?"

At the time, even as the blonde's eyes widened a fraction, Kirishima hadn't even realized the position he'd just put him in, too fixated on the entire situation and the odd sense of betrayal as his friends prepared to leave the hostages behind, almost as if they were completely turning their backs on them.

They're supposed to be heroes.

"Kacchan!" Midoriya yelled. "The fight's getting really bad! We have to go right now!"

Bakugou glanced over at him, his eyes fiery with anger, before looking back at Kirishima one last time. It could have been the cold, but Kirishima shivered under his gaze, red eyes aflame while steam rolled off of his clenched fists. For the first time since they got there, Kirishima got a full view of Bakugou's face, his teeth bared in a dangerous snarl and eyes narrowed into slits.

He simply huffed. "I'll see you later, Kirishima."

And he took off, the sudden blast of heat from his explosions leaving comfortable heat rolling past him and into the blinding storm. Midoriya was right with him, the rest of Best Jeanist's team not far behind, and Kirishima was forced to stand there and watch as the flashes of orange and green slowly disappeared into the white expanse.

"Red Riot!" someone called, one of Edgeshot's sidekicks approaching him. "We're planning out our infiltration and need you over here now!"

With a sharp intake of stabbing cold air and one last moment of staring off after his classmates, Kirishima nodded to himself, his own resolve hardened, and turned on his heel. His own personal turmoils could wait. He had people to save.

Because that's what heroes do.

"When you make a mistake, there are only three things you should ever do about it: Admit it, learn from it, and don't repeat it." - Bear Bryant

He fucked up. Kirishima fucked up royally.

And here, curled up in the remains of his hero costume with a heavy blanket around his shoulders and watching emergency medical personnel wheel off heroes, sidekicks, and interns alike, that fact just seemed to become more and more undeniable in his mind.

It had been a trap. The supposed hostage situation had been nothing but a setup by a larger organization of villains trying to thin out the pro heroes' defenses and take out as many as possible. As soon as the first heroes entered the building, the whole damn complex exploded, everyone on the ground either shielding themselves or fleeing from the spray of glass and debris that rained down on them. Kirishima had at least been right about one thing, and it was that there were way more villains than they'd been expecting. What he'd been completely wrong about was that there wasn't a single civilian in sight.

The resulting fight had been grueling, Kirishima pushing his quirk to its absolute limit and fighting tooth and nail to protect as many of his fellow interns as he possibly could. Of course, it'd been for naught, since he's still so slow and some of the villains were so heavy-hitting that he was forced to use his unbreakable form constantly, which ended up tanking his endurance throughout the battle.

And the cherry on top? The whole point of this ruse was to keep as many heroes away from that fucking bank as possible, a trick that he'd fallen for hook, line, and sinker.

From what Edgeshot had told them, the fight at the bank with Best Jeanist's group was over, the heroes coming out on top and just barely stopping the robbery. The villains were all successfully defeated and taken into custody. Meanwhile, the heroes here at the fake hostage site managed to capture a measly three. The rest of them had escaped, and were definitely going to be back for more. Who knew how many innocent people were going to suffer in the future because of it.

Kirishima curled up even tighter, wrapping his arms around his numb, sore legs and shoving his ice-cold face into his knees. In the end, he didn't save anybody.

The storm had finally let up, leaving just a few stray snowflakes dancing across the dark, cloud-covered sky. The blaring lights of emergency vehicles and the surrounding buildings undamaged by the earlier blast lighting back up were especially bright against the snow blanketing the streets, assaulting his tired eyes. In the heat of battle, adrenaline pumping through his veins, Kirishima had forgotten how cold it was that evening.

"Kirishima." a familiar voice spoke, making Kirishima jump.

He spun around, his eyes meeting his teacher's. "Aizawa-sensei? What are you doing here?"

Aizawa sighed. "I was told what happened and was asked to come meandering into the frozen wastelands to deal with the aftermath. You kids are just trying to get both me and yourselves killed, aren't you?"

Kirishima averted his eyes, hanging his head. He was unbelievably sore, his body aching terribly from unbreakable. Another intern was rolled into an ambulance and he almost sobbed.

And then icy dread like the air around him shot through his heart. With wide eyes, he spun around to face his teacher. "Are Midoriya and Bakugou okay?! I haven't been able to reach them! Maybe their communication devices broke? Please, tell me they're okay!"

Aizawa eyed him for a moment, Kirishima's heart sinking as the silence stretched on. He sighed again, raking a tired hand through his hair, and the redhead's heart plummeted. "Seriously, you kids... They'll both be okay. They're both either in or are heading for the hospital right now, but they'll be okay."

Despite the positive outlook, Kirishima still felt something inside him break, thousands of scenarios running through his head all ending in how he could have prevented it. Perhaps it was a villain attack that he could have blocked, or a dangerous fall that he could have cushioned. Slowly getting to his feet, head hung low, the young hero in training followed closely behind his homeroom teacher.

"But you don't trust me?"

"I'll see you later, Kirishima."

Some shield. Some unwavering horse, finally getting a chance to fight alongside his best friend only to leave him to fight on his own and get hurt because of it. He wondered how much pain he could have prevented.

In the end, Kirishima didn't save anybody.

"Success is not final, failure is not fatal: It is the courage to continue that counts." - Winston Churchill

The bright fluorescent lights of the hospital were no better than the flashing lights at the crime scene.

Kirishima kept his head down as he followed closely behind his teacher. From what he understood, Edgeshot had asked that he get healed along with everyone else, but something about a healer seeing him when they could be seeing someone who really needed them made him feel sick to his stomach.

The next few minutes were hazy at best, blurred over by the growing sense of guilt gnawing at him, but he was being led to his room soon enough. From what he did gather, he'd be staying overnight, just to make sure that he was at one hundred percent and wouldn't have to deal with any lasting soreness. He'd apparently really done a number on himself in that battle, but Kirishima couldn't care less. Obviously, it hadn't been enough.

Meanwhile, Bakugou and Midoriya had fought for their lives.

It had been all-out war. Despite having a smaller amount of villains, they were their organization's best fighters, with quirks enhanced by the cold weather. Several heroes got speared by ice, while others were suffering from frostbite and might lose fingers and toes. Midoriya ended up getting his leg crushed by ice chunks and was forced to overuse his quirk again, breaking most of his fingers. If Bakugou hadn't intervened, then Midoriya might have messed up his arm, which was damage that could have easily been permanent. Whether or not he'd be able to become a hero afterward would have been in serious question.

Bakugou, meanwhile, managed to completely singe his hands and took a blow to the head, fighting the latter half of the battle with a fucking concussion. Kirishima had also overheard the nurses tell Aizawa that his shoulders were in bad shape, due to quirk overuse, but none of that was what made Kirishima's stomach drop and tears threaten to cascade down his cheeks.

No, what nearly killed him inside was that Bakugou had also been partially blinded. A particularly well-aimed attack hit him directly in his left eye, nearly knocking him clean off of his feet and leaving behind more than just a black eye. The healers were going to look at it, and the prognosis looked promising, but there was still a minuscule chance that his vision might be permanently damaged. Aizawa was honestly just upset that he'd risked fighting without being used to the lack of depth perception, but Kirishima was still shaken.

The final nail in the coffin was a casualty. Someone had actually died in the fight. Someone was dead, and the first thought that ran through Kirishima's mind was if he could have saved that hero if he was there. He reached his room near tears, the nurse opening the door and leading him in while Aizawa left to help with cleanup.

"I told you, hag! I'm fucking fine, alright!?" a familiar voice yelled, making Kirishima jump. "It's just my hands and face! I've had way worse than this! Get off my back-! An improvement, oh, real mature!"

When Kirishima had walked into the room, the first thing to greet him was a perfect view of the left side of Bakugou's face, his left eye and the area around it completely covered with white patches and gauze. The gauze was also wrapped tightly around his forehead and, to Kirishima's horror, his entire neck.

A phone pressed to his ear, Bakugou's head slightly turned in the redhead's direction, his working eye barely glancing at him before it slightly widened and he looked away. Just by the way his head moved, Kirishima could tell he was rolling his eyes at whatever his mom was saying. "Ye-... Yeah, yeah, sure. ...Okay, I ge- I- MOM! I get it, okay?! Just...calm down, alright? I'll see you tomorrow and you can bitch at me then. It really isn't that bad."

Another long moment of silence as Kirishima was hooked up to an IV, practically interrogated by the nurse, and left to his own devices. If there was any consolation to this, his bed was to Bakugou's right, so despite the gauze around his forehead, neck, and hands, it looked much better on this side than all of the bandages around his damaged eye did.

Bakugou let out a long, annoyed groan, pinching the bridge of his nose. "Yeah, uh-huh, sure, just go to bed, already. It's getting late. And tell dad, too. We both know how he can be. ...Yeah. ...Yeah, exactly! I'm pretty sure that's the one thing we both agree on. Dad's shitty sleeping habits."

Bakugou winced, his mother's bark of laughter filtering through the speaker loud enough for Kirishima to hear it clearly. "...Uh-huh. Yep. Got it every time you said it. I'm not an idiot. ...Oh, fuck off! ...Yeah, yeah, okay, I get it. Good nigh-...Go- Good n- GOOD NIGHT, MOTHER."

He hung up on her mid-sentence, a long-suffering sigh escaping him. "Weird old hag." he muttered to himself. "Always flip-flopping between nagging and not giving a shit. Make up your damn mind."

Kirishima chuckled awkwardly, earning a raised eyebrow from the ash blonde. He tried to keep his head down, not wanting to risk seeing the left side of his friend's damaged face again, and he suddenly remembered that he'd been about to cry, his vision blurring and his clenched fists shaking against his bedsheets. The silence that fell between them was heavy and uncomfortable, but Kirishima just couldn't find the words.

He wasn't paying attention to how much time passed, but it was a while before he heard shifting in the bed next to him. "If you're wondering where Deku is, he's in a different room so they can deal with him sooner rather than later. He lost track of one of the villains like an idiot and got his leg completely smashed." There was a low growl. "What a moron. At this rate, he'll fuck up his legs like he did his arms."

Kirishima only nodded along numbly, too busy wallowing in his own guilt and self-pity to fully pay attention. It was already too much just to look at his best friend's face, let alone hear about what actually happened to Midoriya. He couldn't help but wonder how Midoriya's mother was doing. Such a sweet lady didn't deserve to be fretting over something like this, especially something that Kirishima himself could have stopped, had he been there. The giant white patch on Bakugou's face was enough of a reminder of his failure as a shield.

He wondered if there would have been no casualties if he'd gone with them. He wondered who that person's family was. Were they married? Did they have kids? Were their parents still alive? What about their friends?

How many innocent people were going to suffer in the future that this very person could have saved?

"Kirishima." His voice was firm, but not biting. Kirishima suddenly realized that he'd actually started crying, tear tracks freely running down his face, and quickly curled up to hide from the other's observant gaze. "Kirishima, you're thinking out loud."

What if it had been one of his friends? What if the villain that got the jump on Midoriya had finished the job? What if the hit to the head that Bakugou took had been fatal? What if it had been one of them?

"It wasn't, Kirishima."

Would he have been able to live with himself if he'd let one of them die?

"Kirishima."

No wonder they didn't trust him. He shouldn't even trust himself.

"HEY, SHITTY HAIR!"

Kirishima nearly shot out of his bed and straight into the ceiling, his heart trying to pound its way right out of his chest. He spun around towards the voice's owner, his breath hitching, and immediately felt the color drain from his face.

At some point during his spiraling descent of self-loathing, Bakugou had literally crawled out of his bed, dragging his IV drip along with him to Kirishima's own bedside, and was now standing right over him, his own fists shaking at his sides and his face almost purple with rage. "The hell is your problem?!"

The white bandages suddenly stood out even more.

With grit teeth, Kirishima quickly turned away, fighting down the bile threatening to burn his throat. In the grand scheme of things, he'd barely been hurt at all. He didn't really have much reason to cry.

And yet, he couldn't stop.

After a moment of quiet stillness, only broken by the occasional sniffle, he heard a loud huff, followed by a chair squeaking across the floor. Kirishima almost felt bad, remembering that Bakugou's shoulders had been of concern among other injuries, but he knew better than to try and move it for him. After everything that's happened in such a short period of time, the last thing that Kirishima wanted to do right now was offend him.

More shifting and another sigh. "You're really that torn up about all this?"

Kirishima chanced a glance at him. Bakugou had moved the chair so that he was staring straight ahead, angled so that Kirishima could only see his right side. He couldn't help but wonder if he'd stared at the patches for too long and either outed his guilt or made Bakugou feel self-conscious about it. Knowing the guy, he had a feeling that the former was more likely.

Arms crossed, Bakugou glared up at the ceiling. "Well? You gonna say anything?"

"...What happened to your neck?"

Bakugou turned to him sharply, his visible eye narrowed dangerously, but he looked away just as quickly. "That has nothing to do with this."

Kirishima folded in on himself. "I just want to know what happened."

"Doesn't mean you have to."

"Dude, I'll find out, eventually. Just get it over with."

Bakugou growled in irritation, his hand roughly scratching at his scalp. "Fuck's sake... Look, I just got distracted for a moment and the villain had a particularly strong grip, alright? It's not a big deal... Okay, it was Deku who got him off of me and I'm still pissed about it, but other than that."

"Oh." Kirishima's grip on his bedsheets tightened. "Nobody mentioned that."

"Because it's not a big deal."

Kirishima's face contorted in despair, regardless. He hated how hard it had been during this entire ordeal to keep his emotions under control, and in a way, it also scared him.

How was he supposed to be a hero if he couldn't even keep himself together?

"So," Bakugou suddenly said, stopping Kirishima's train of thought before it could even get derailed. "I overheard some of the extras who were at the hostage setup earlier." He jutted his thumb at the doorway. "They stopped right over there and I heard just about every word of it, they were so obnoxious."

He leaned back in his chair, a look of annoyance marring his features. "They were loud, too. Wouldn't shut up and let me sleep. Honestly, would it kill them to not yell about everyth- Shut up."

Kirishima nearly choked on the words at the tip of his tongue. Bakugou sulked, but still barreled on. "Anyway, these two dipshits wouldn't shut up. They were going on and on and on about messing up and letting their guards down like complete imbeciles and how that one intern with the red hair 'totally saved their asses'."

Kirishima looked up at him so fast that he nearly snapped his neck. Bakugou wasn't looking at him, still staring straight ahead. "They just wouldn't shut up about how that one kid who could harden his skin was 'so cool' and how determined he was to save as many of them as possible. They were saying that no heroes were killed by that trap because of that one guy who seemed to be completely indestructible. I think one of them was talking about asking him to be a sidekick at their agency once they have one. I doubt it, though. He's out of their league."

"Okay, dude. Enough with the flattery."

"Flattery-!" He turned to him again, eyes blazing, and Kirishima was finding it easier to look at the patches of gauze. "First of all, how dare you! Second, I'm telling you exactly what I heard! That's it! You want me to describe them to you!? Fine, and then you can tell them to fuck off and not holler at each other outside of someone's damn hospital room!"

Kirishima couldn't help but laugh at Bakugou's genuine show of anger for even suggesting that he would do such a thing as compliment someone. Yeah, Blasty. Sure. The squad would totally believe that one.

Bakugou only softened his glare somewhat at Kirishima's reaction, going back to staring off at nothing. Kirishima hadn't expected him to speak up again. "I think that was Deku's one miscalculation."

Kirishima jolted, staring at him wide-eyed as he explained. "He tried to convince you to come with us, but I think the reason that the casualties were as low as they were was because you didn't. Nobody expected it to be a setup and go to all hell, so I'm sure there were plenty more rookies and idiots in there who let their guard down and had their asses saved by you, and hopefully gained a few brain cells in the process." He shrugged. "Hindsight's twenty-twenty, I guess."

Kirishima felt something warm and fuzzy bubbling up in his chest, a smile slowly creeping onto his face. In that moment, he couldn't help but feel maybe just a bit lighter, as if maybe, just maybe, his best had been enough. As if in some way that he might never truly know, he did make a difference.

It felt nice.

"You know, Blasty," Kirishima chuckled. "You can be a really great friend when you want to be."

"Say that to my face, asshole. I dare you."

Kirishima cackled, looking up at the ceiling and feeling as if Uraraka had used her quirk on him and he could float right out the window.

"You're just gonna leave them for the fight?! Is that it?!"

"But you don't trust me?"

And then his smile fell. "...Um, hey, by the way."

Bakugou didn't look at him, but Kirishima knew he was listening. "I'm sorry for what I said. I didn't mean to make it personal. I was just frustrated."

At first, the ash blonde didn't even know what he was talking about. It took a solid few seconds before it seemed to click. He scoffed. "Who cares? Not like it matters, anyway."

"It still wasn't very manly of me. I guess I was just... I don't know if I'd say I was jealous, but..."

"Jealous?" Bakugou questioned, his one visible eyebrow raised in scrutiny. "Jealous of what?"

"Heh. This might sound weird, but it was about Midoriya."

"The fuck? Why?"

"Well," Kirishima gripped the bedsheets over his lap tightly. "I guess... I guess it was because of how easily you trusted him over me."

He shrugged, complacency washing over him. "I mean, I don't blame you. He was right. The villains would have technically won if you'd listened to me."

Bakugou suddenly looked...oddly conflicted. Kirishima waited patiently as he fought for the right words, staring off at nothing in blatant frustration and glaring as if he could intimidate the walls into giving him the answers.

"It's..." he finally started. "It's hard to explain. As much as I absolutely loathe saying it..., I know him...and he knows me. We've known each other for years, and even though there have been...rough patches, the nerd knows more about me than I do and I can catch so many little nuances from him that it drives me fucking nuts. I could write an entire essay on why I took Deku's side today that doesn't involve a single word he said."

He suddenly snorted. "Look, it doesn't matter. If I could help it, I'd much rather team up with you than anyone else any day."

Even Kirishima could tell that his own smile was blinding. "Aww, dude! Coming from you, that's practically a love confession!"

"I take it back! Get the fuck away from me!"

Kirishima wheezed, throwing his head back and letting out the ugliest laugh he'd ever heard in his life. With a grin splitting his face in two, he gave his friend's uninjured back a hardy pat, earning an annoyed grunt and a smack over the head for good measure.

It would be several minutes later that a nurse would walk in on them arguing about the most random shit they could possibly think of and politely usher the explosion quirk user back to his own bed. Honestly, Kirishima didn't mind all that much, now much happier living in his own skin and able to apprentice just how beautiful the snowy landscape outside their window was. It became rather quiet in that hospital room as the late-night hours crept on and the world just kept on spinning.

It still wasn't as easy to sleep that night as he'd been hoping, but at least he wasn't alone.

"Friendship isn't about who you've known the longest. It's about who walked into your life, said 'I'm here for you' and proved it." - Unknown