Chapter Text
The sound was satisfying.
Crack.
Not bone. Just the hollow thud of a skull meeting metal. Shoe lockers. The cheap kind that dented if you looked at them wrong.
Midoriya went down like a bag of wet laundry. His knees hit first, a wet slap on the concrete; then his palms scraped across the floor as he caught himself. His notebook flew away in different directions, as if they too wished to escape the situation. Noises of pages crumpling under someone's heel were nothing more but background noise.
Bakugo didn't see whose foot had trampled upon Deku’s work. He wasn't looking at the notebook.
He was looking at the blood.
Just a little. A split lip. Maybe a cut inside his cheek from where his own teeth betrayed him. Midoriya touched his face with trembling fingers and they came away red.
Pathetic.
The word settled in Bakugo's chest like a second heartbeat. Familiar. Comfortable. Right.
"Hey, who knows?" He crouched down, not close enough to be mistaken for concern, just close enough for Midoriya to flinch. "Maybe you'll get a quirk in your next life."
Someone behind him laughed. Tsubasa, maybe. Or the other one, the tall kid with the glasses. Bakugo didn't care. The laughter was just background noise, along with the noise of the papers tearing. A chorus agreeing with the only opinion that mattered.
Midoriya's eyes were wet. Not crying yet. The tears hadn't fallen. But they were there, swimming in those too-big green irises, and Bakugo felt something curl in his stomach.
Not guilt.
Satisfaction.
"Figure it out quickly," he said, voice dropping to something almost gentle. Almost kind. That was the worst part, he'd realize years later—how soft he sounded when he said it.
"By taking a swan dive off the roof."
The laughter swelled.
Midoriya's tears finally fell.
Bakugo stood up. Brushed off his pants. Turned his back.
He didn't look back.
He never looked back.
Not then.
________________________________________
Present moment.
________________________________________
The word didn't wake him because he'd never been asleep.
Bakugo stared at the ceiling of his dorm room. The dark was thick, familiar, and suffocating in a way that felt almost like comfort. 2:47 AM, according to his phone. He'd been lying here for hours.
Not thinking about middle school.
Liar.
He was always thinking about middle school. About the blood. About the laughter. About the way Midoriya's tears had fallen in slow motion, each one a small reaction for every big deal-out of pain.
Guilty.
He sat up. The movement was mechanical. Joints cracking, muscles stiff from lying still too long. His hands moved before his brain caught up, he was out of bed, reaching for the desk drawer. The one with the magazine with women in weirdly revealing costumes, a gift from Mineta. Tucked between the pages he never looked at—the pages he knew no one else would look at, his fingers brush against his blade.
Small. Sharp. A utility knife from his support kit. He'd filed down the safety guard months ago.
He held it in his palm and watched the faint light from his window catch the edge, unsure if what he was seeing was crusted blood or the warning crimson of rust.
Not tonight, he told himself.
You said that last night.
Tonight is different.
You're already holding it.
He rolled up his sleeve.
The scars caught the light first. Old ones, white and silver, layered over each other like the rings of old trees he’d seen in history class. Then the healing cuts from three nights ago, still pink, still tender. He traced one with his fingertip and felt the familiar pulse which met him.
Not yet. He wasn't ready yet. The blade rested against his skin without pressure, just a cold promise.
He thought about tomorrow's training session. About the gauntlets. About how good it would feel to push his quirk too far and let the heat find whatever wounds he made tonight.
Together, he told himself. The cut and the burn. Always together.
He pressed down, watching the droplets dance in the moonlight.
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The Next Morning (Training Day)
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A couple hours later Katsuki Bakugo drags himself to the locker room. Only Bakugou and the cicadas were up, and when entering the locker room, he was met with the silence he was used to. He liked it that way.
Bakugo stripped off his casual wear he had put on in haste, after he realized he’d bled through his long sleeve pyjama shirt. He stood in front of the mirror for a moment, just a moment. Never a second too long. His arms were a mess; he could feel the heat of the wounds beneath. Fresh bandages wrapped around his forearm, hiding last night's work. Three cuts. Clean. Deep enough to last, “shallow” enough to not sustain nerve damage.
He touched them through the gauze.
There.
Then he strapped on the gauntlets.
The padding pressed against the bandages. He felt the wounds shift, compress, settle into place. The leather and metal encased his forearms completely—from wrist to elbow, nothing visible, nothing suspicious.
He flexed his fingers. The gauntlets creaked.
No one can see.
He walked to Training Ground Beta.
The sun was high. He'd told Kirishima he needed "extra reps" and to "stop fucking following him around." Kirishima had laughed it off, “so manly, Bakugo, training on your day off—” and let him go.
He started slow.
Small explosions. Warming up his palms. Testing his range. The gauntlets absorbed the heat like they were designed to, protecting his arms from the backlash.
But in this moment, protection from his heat is the last thing he wished for.
He pushed harder.
The explosions grew larger. Louder. The air around him shimmered with heat. Sweat dripped down his face and soaked into his costume. His palms were raw—he could feel the skin blistering even through the calluses.
He ignored the signs, the signs which desperately were signalling his brain to stop. The way his quirk was running too hot. The way steam was starting to rise from the seams of his gauntlets. The way his arms were beginning to ache beneath the armour.
More.
He let out a massive blast—bigger than he needed, bigger than was safe without a warmup, bigger than was safe for his current physical state. He felt the recoil shudder through his entire body.
The gauntlets grew hot.
Then searing.
The heat seeped through the padding. Through the bandages. It slowly caressed its way till it found the vulnerable lines he'd carved into his skin at 3 AM—turning the searing touch into something indescribable.
He felt everything.
The wounds hissing. The edges curling, blackening. Blood that hadn't fully clotted beginning to simmer beneath the gauze. Old scars—the ones he thought were finished—splitting open along their seams, revealing layers of burnt tissue underneath.
The pain was indefinable.
Hot and sharp and deep and warm.
That same terrible warmth spread through his chest. The one that made him feel, for just a moment, like he existed. Like he was here. Like he was paying a debt that had no end but at least he was paying.
This is what pushes me, he told himself. This is what makes me stronger.
He kept training.
________________________________________
The Aftermath (Back in the Locker Room)
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He stopped when his arms went numb, when he was afraid that any more pushing someone would pick up an interest about the erratic training he was participating in.
The training ground was empty. The sun had shifted—he'd been out here for hours. His gauntlets were smoking, the metal too hot to touch with bare skin.
He walked back to the locker room, not daring to let his arms swing with the natural pace of his body.
The bench was cold against his legs. He sat there for a long moment, breathing, not thinking, just existing in the aftermath of pain. The hours had blurred together, and he was once again left with the rising pain as adrenaline wore off
He unstrapped the gauntlets, and they came off slowly. He had to use his shirt to pull them off, the metal had gotten that hot. They hit the bench with a heavy thunk and rolled to a stop.
His arms were a disaster.
The bandages were ruined—singed, soaked through with blood and something else. Something oozing, yellow and something that smelled so foul he felt his head involuntarily recoil. He peeled the bandages off carefully; some fused to his skin making him sit through the sound of his flesh tearing. Each strip of gauze revealed more damage.
The cuts were no longer clean lines.
They were blistered, raised and weeping, the edges cauterized by the heat. The skin around them was mottled red and black, fresh burns layered over old scars. The scars themselves... Bakugo casted a short glance towards them, to notice thar some of them had split open. The white lines he thought were finished had torn along their seams, revealing pink tissue underneath. Scar upon scar upon scar.
He touched the deepest one.
The pain was still there. Muted now, but present. A low thrum that synced with his heartbeat.
There, he whispered. Still there. Still me.
He cleaned the wounds in silence. It took longer now—some of the cuts needed real bandages, strips to hold the gaping ones closed—not just loose wraps. He did it methodically, mechanically, like maintenance on a machine he didn't love but couldn't afford to lose.
________________________________________
The Evening (First Interaction After Training)
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Dinner was loud.
Class 1-A filled the common room, scattered across couches and floor cushions, chopsticks clashing against bowls. Kaminari was telling a story about something stupid. Mina was laughing too loud, the type of laughter that never became background noise. Kirishima was nodding along, rice bowl in hand, his eyes scanning the room like he was looking for someone.
Bakugo slipped in through the side door.
He grabbed a protein bar from the kitchen, enough to be left alone; and headed for the stairs.
"Bakugo!"
Kirishima's voice shouted out. Of course.
He turned. "What."
"You missed dinner again." Kirishima was already crossing the room, concern poorly disguised as casual interest. Kirishima had once read that concern wasn’t a manly emotion, and he has tried to characterise himself as the definition of nonchalance ever since. "You good? You were training for, like, four hours."
"I'm fine."
"You said that yesterday."
"Then stop asking."
Kirishima's eyes dropped to Bakugo's arms, to the sleeves, to the gauntlets he was still carrying, to the way he was holding them just slightly too carefully.
He doesn't see, Bakugo told himself. He can't see. The gauntlets cover everything. The sleeves cover the rest.
"You look tired," Kirishima said finally, breaking the silence which was making Bakugo’s brain rattle.
"I'm fine."
A beat. Kirishima's jaw tightened—he wanted to push, Bakugo could tell. But he didn't. He never did. He just nodded and stepped back.
"Okay. But if you ever wanna talk, or... I don't know. Eat dinner with us, or something… You know where to find me."
Bakugo said nothing. Just turned and walked up the stairs.
Behind him, he heard Kirishima sigh.
Good, he thought. Keep sighing. Not like he’s smart enough to do anything else about it.
He reached his room, closed the door, and locked it.
The protein bar went in the trash. He wasn't hungry.
He sat on the edge of his bed and rolled up his sleeve.
The bandages were already spotting through, red seeping through white. He'd need to change them again before bed.
He looked at his arm.
At the cuts. The burns. The scars layered over scars.
There, he thought.
He didn't know if that was a comfort or a curse anymore.
Maybe it was both.