Chapter 8

Chapter Text

What the hell?

The last thing Mic had expected to see was a student sitting at his desk two whole hours before school started. But the time wasn't the most startling part of it.

"Bakugo," he called, indicating with his head for the student to follow him to Recovery Girl's office. "What happened, kid?"

"Got what I deserved," Bakugo mumbled, damn near breaking Mic's heart.

"How did that happen?"

It was clear that Bakugo did not want to share.

"Got kicked out. Deserved it though."

Shota was going to have a meltdown. He'd told Mic last night that he believed the Bakugos were obviously busy but decent parents and that Katsuki would be in good hands. Shota was rarely wrong about people.

"Bakugo," Mic said, wanting to stand in front of the kid and halt their slow progress to the infirmary, but Bakugo looked on the verge of collapse. Coming to school in this condition was very likely not something he'd planned but had simply happened through muscle memory. "You look like you've had the shit kicked out of you. Did your parents do this?"

"No," the kid said, looking down at his feet. "Someone else."

"You're not going to give me a name, are you?"

Bakugo shook his head, his steps wobbling off course with the motion. Mic moved a little closer just in case the kid was about to faceplant into the carpet. The last thing he needed was more injuries. Mic would have called for the medbots if he hadn't been certain Bakugo would refuse to get on the stretcher.

Thankfully the infirmary wasn't far from the hero-course classrooms, and Recovery Girl was in her office catching up on paperwork.

"Bakugo," she said, her voice filled with alarm. "Mic, help him onto the bed. I need to get some scans."

Twenty minutes later Mic was pretty sure he was going to DJ punch someone into next week when Recovery Girl explained the kid's injuries and suggested a possible cause.

~*~

"What is Midoriya Inko's quirk?" Mic asked as he slammed open the door to the teacher's lounge.

"Mic?"

"Her quirk. Look it up on the register. Now, please!"

Shota knew his husband well, but he'd honestly never seen him this angry. He glanced at their son, worried that he might react badly to seeing his beloved Papa acting like some of the foster parents he'd been subjected to in his life before being adopted. Fortunately Hitoshi looked more worried than frightened. He was aware of what happened yesterday since it was the reason he was transferring into 1A next Monday.

Shota turned toward his computer, logged into the quirk registry, and quickly located the listing for Midoriya Inko.

"She has a mild form of telekinesis, able to pull small objects toward her."

"Small objects like eyeballs and kidneys," Mic said through gritted teeth.

"What?" Shota asked, startled.

"Eyeballs and kidneys and other internal organs, veins and arteries all damaged. If the kid hadn't come to school super early he probably would have died on the way."

"Midoriya Inko attacked Bakugo?"

Mic shook his head angrily. "Kid won't say who. Just says he deserved it."

"That's bullshit!" Hitoshi said vehemently.

"Right there with ya, kid," Mic said, reaching for their son to give him a reassuring hug. "Bakugo is mostly healed thanks to Recovery Girl, but we've documented all of the injuries and gathered the forensic evidence. We'll know for certain who did it once Naomasa comes to interview him later this afternoon."

"But if Bakugo won't press charges…"

"It's okay, Toshi," Shota said. "He's a minor so his parents can do that for him."

"Yeah, there might be a problem with that," Mic said, tiredly. "Bakugo says his parents kicked him out."

"But they seemed fine yesterday—well as fine as anyone can be with their son embroiled in such a horrific situation. They were distraught but protective of Katsuki. What changed?"

"I'm guessing Midoriya Inko is what changed. She probably hung up the phone from you, headed for the Bakugos, convinced them that Katsuki killed Izuku deliberately, and then waited for the kid to be alone so she could attack him."

Hitoshi looked horrified. "That's um…"

"Probably not actually how it happened," Mic said, "but grief can make people do crazy things."

"So Midoriya's mom could go to jail?"

"Depends on the actual circumstances," Shota said, wrapping an arm over his son's shoulders to give him a side hug. "Naomasa is one of the best detectives I've ever met." Mic nodded his agreement. "He'll figure out what happened and make sure justice is served."

"And if it does go to court the judge will take into account the circumstances leading up to Mrs. Midoriya's actions."

"Nedzu is not going to be happy at the extra media attention this will generate," Shota lamented.

"Will he get mad at you for reporting it?" Hitoshi asked, his worry very clear.

"Nope, not even a bit," Mic said, trying to sound upbeat.

Hitoshi didn't seem convinced.

"Nedzu is a professional hero," Shota said. "Just like the rest of the teachers at UA. We all know that the right action is rarely the easy action. We couldn't call ourselves heroes if we chose to overlook someone else's suffering just because it made things harder for us."

"Is that why you adopted me?" Hitoshi asked, the insecurities left over from eight years in the foster system raring their ugly heads.

"Yes and no," Shota answered honestly. "As heroes we would never have left you in the situation you were in, but bringing you home as part of our family was because it's where you belong."

"Huh?"

"Forgive your dad, kiddo. Some things can't be explained in just a few words."

"Can too," Shota said, a wry smile stretching across his face.

Mic poked his tongue out at him, both to be childishly annoying and in the hopes of putting a smile on their son's face. "What he means is… you clicked." He snapped his fingers softly. "From the moment we met you we knew that you were going to be family." Mic traced a finger over the faded scars on Hitoshi's face and then used the same finger to trace over his own. "You just clicked."

"And he says I'm bad with words."

"Hush," Mic said with a small smile, and then he started to sing a lively song with lyrics in English. Something about family and getting up to sing, sing, sing…

~*~

"He looks like hell," Nana said, taking in the dark circles under Bakugo's eyes.

"He looked worse an hour ago," Midoriya said, obviously upset to see the results of his mother's drunken rampage. "I'm glad Recovery Girl was able to use her quirk."

"If Bakugo hadn't been in good physical condition before…" Banjo winced. "…well, before everything she probably wouldn't have been able to heal him as much as she has. Saved his life by the sounds of it."

Nana glared at Banjo, but the guy just shrugged.

"I have a question," En said, looking around at the other vestiges. "How are we here? All Might is still in bed."

Nana nodded in agreement. Poor Toshinori was struggling with everything that had happened yesterday. The stress was playing havoc with his injury and his sleep had been fitful and broken. There was a chance he was going to sleep through his alarm, and even if Nana could wake him, she wouldn't. The kid needed rest.

But that didn't explain how they were somehow also following Bakugo Katsuki.

"Is it possible Midoriya willed One for All to him?"

"Don't think so," Midoriya's vestige said with a shrug of his shoulders.

"Even if he did, we'd be seeing things differently. Our perspective is changed with Bakugo," Yoichi said, frowning as he apparently tried to parse what that might mean. "We're following him, not a part of him."

"Maybe we're a ghost," Banjo joked, "and we're going to haunt the kid to his dying day."

"That's actually a pretty solid theory," Yoichi said. En and Hikage both nodded in agreement

"Maybe that's my quirk," Midoriya said with another roll of his eyes and a helpless shrug. "Ghost." He huffed in irritation. "Bakugo once told me to take a swan dive off the roof and pray for a quirk in my next life. Looks like I got the last laugh." His laughter was a little too sarcastic to be genuine. "Just my luck. I spend my life being beat up and excluded for not having a quirk and my afterlife with a quirk no one will ever know about."

"Except," Nana said, trying to tamp down on her excitement. "You're a ghost with other quirks. Quirks we can teach Ghost-you to use."

"Holy shit." Midoriya's eyes widened with his understanding and then he giggled happily. "I'm gonna be a hero!"