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Katsuki knew he was a cruel child. He knew he’d been messed up in the head by several things that twisted the way he interacted with the world. Losing his best friend to quirklessness, their teachers promoting his abuse, and then… Katsuki spent a weekend somewhere he absolutely should not have been. He’d still been himself before that weekend. He had an attitude, and a temper, all thanks to his quirk. But he hadn’t been cruel before that weekend. He hadn’t needed an outlet to his anger, frustration, and unresolved trauma.
It was easy to look back on, hindsight is 20/20, right? But in the moment, he’d been a teenager, he’d been too stupid to know what to do, and he couldn’t even say what was wrong. He couldn’t tell anyone what happened because every time he tried, his tongue twisted painfully. It wasn’t fear that silenced Katsuki. It was a fucking quirk.
Somehow, after years of trial and error, he’d repaired the damage he unleashed on his own life after that weekend. He’d repaired his friendship with Izuku, he'd even reached out to a few of the other classmates he’d bullied and offered apologies. After his fight with Izuku on Ground Beta where he let everything out that he could, he’d actually started making progress towards a brighter future. Katsuki just wanted to forget the past, and move on.
But the past refused to let him go.
Last week, Katsuki had been kidnapped by the League of Villains during summer camp. At first, he thought it was just some shitty group of rag-tag assholes that saw his brashness and thought ‘that kid would make a good villain’. Katsuki expected that. Actually, it was laughable to think he’d never get called a villain. But after only a few hours with the League, they’d brought in their silent benefactor, the power behind the group - the real villain controlling all the strings.
All For One.
The very same person he’d spent a weekend with as a kid. Katsuki hadn’t known his name back then. He’d only known one small, dark room, and the masked face of a gigantic man who made Katsuki hurt and scream and bleed. But the second he ducked under the doorway, Katsuki had stumbled back, lost his footing, and collapsed on the ground, screeching into the muzzle the League had placed on him.
“Oh come now, Katsuki. You can’t be that startled. We’re old friends, aren’t we?”
Katsuki’s stomach revolted. He scrambled to the toilet and hurled what little contents he’d managed to force past his twisted tongue this morning at breakfast. He dry heaved for what felt like an hour before his body finally calmed down and he could sit back against the side wall of the stall, his feet crunched under him as if he could make himself into a tiny ball that could vanish from existence.
Aizawa had sent them an email this morning before classes. It told them all they were being debriefed by the Commission today, unexpectedly. They’d already given statements about the raid, about their knowledge of the League and all the previous attacks. So what else would the Commission ask? Would they ask the class if any of them knew the League before their first attack at the USJ? Aizawa had warned them they’d have Detective Tsukauchi with them - a truth quirk. They couldn’t lie. But Katsuki couldn’t even tell the truth because of whatever quirk All For One used to keep him silent.
Even when he’d been in that warehouse hideout last week, his tongue had contorted itself into a knot when he tried to beg for his life, to be let go, to just be left alone. But no words even came out. Nothing worked. He could only scream and sob into his muzzle and beg in his mind. But what good were tears to a man who only wanted power and control? What use was begging for your life to someone who no longer saw the value in human life outside of their quirk?
“You’ve grown up so much since the last time I saw you. And you’ve done so well with that quirk. I’m so glad I was able to salvage it for you. Genetics is a delicate game, as I’m sure you remember.”
Yes, he remembered. He remembered every horrible word that man said to him when he was barely twelve years old.
All For One had taken him on a weekend he was supposed to be with friends for a birthday party. He never made it to the party. Katsuki later found out that a fake call had told his friend’s parents that he’d been sick, but Katsuki’s parents never found out about the call, they never knew Katsuki had been missing. No one knew he’d been missing - and since Katsuki couldn’t speak about it, the nightmare stayed with him, and him alone.
He kept talking about genetics, about how Katsuki’s quirk was interesting, fascinating, twisted and awful. The doctors and analysts had already warned him there was a chance his quirk would deafen him eventually, and that if it ever evolved, migrated into his blood, he could risk permanent nerve damage or even death if made a mistake. But what All For One told him was so much worse.
The nitroglycerin was already in his blood, he just didn’t have the ability to create such large explosions yet. But he would, pretty soon. That’s why All For One took him; to change his quirk. There were very few quirks that could be problematic to him, very few in the world, actually. One of these, as they’d later learned, was One For All. The others? Fire based quirks. Katsuki now knew that’s why he’d brought Dabi to his side, a secret Katsuki was muted from revealing as well. The chance to ruin Endeavor and gain a more powerful fire quirk that might be problematic? Too easy, too perfect. Two birds, one stone. The youngest Todoroki already hated his fire side, that problem was already solved. Endeavor ruined a whole family line of flame quirks and All For One barely had to lift a finger.
But Katsuki? A boy raised with loving parents, a fantastic quirk, and all perfect prospects to become a pro hero that could one day present a real problem for villains? Absolutely not, he wouldn’t allow that to happen. But he couldn’t take Katsuki’s quirk, it would clash too poorly with his stockpile, it would burn through him, eat him alive; that’s what Katsuki had extrapolated after all these years, and seeing him a second time. So instead of taking it, he altered Katsuki’s quirk. He twisted Katsuki, tortured him and devolved his quirk to keep the nitroglycerin trapped in his sweat glands, so he couldn’t unlock secondary or full body explosions, not until much later in life, or maybe not at all.
Katsuki had been made into a gelding before he even got a chance to run. It made him into a vile creature full of anger and resentment. He resented Izuku for simply existing, because he didn’t have a quirk, so he could never be taken advantage of. He’d never have to live in fear of what that horrible man could do. He’d never be taken, he could go about his life ignored and safe. So Katsuki chose Izuku as his outlet, and it was so easy to do. It was so fucking easy.
It was the only outlet Katsuki could find that wouldn’t cause him physical pain…even if it had caused him horrific mental and emotional anguish.
The bathroom door clattered open, startling Katsuki out of his thoughts. Kirishima came wandering in with his toiletries bag, always the last one to grab a shower right before class.
“Whoa - hey, Bakubro - are you good?”
“Yeah.” He rasped out through an acid-worn throat. “Think the eggs were off.”
Kirishima clicked his tongue. “Damn, that sucks, man. Can I do anything?” Katsuki shook his head. “Alright, well, you might want to get ready or you’ll be late to class - and Sensei already said there’s no skipping today, sick or not.”
“Yeah. I fucking got it. Just get your shower.”
The red head titled his head, a confused expression on his features. He’d likely never heard Katsuki so…quiet before. Even while cussing, Katsuki’s voice was almost timid after emptying his stomach into a toilet. Eventually, Kirishima satisfied his confusion and shrugged the situation off so he could head down the row of stalls and around to the shower stalls.
Katsuki used the stall to stumble himself up to his feet. He waited until the shower turned on to flush the toilet and brush his teeth; his toiletries bag was still on the sink counter. Slow, methodical movements kept Katsuki from falling over. He knew his mind was trying to dissociate, but he fought as hard as he could to keep himself grounded in reality.
If he allowed himself to float away, he wasn’t sure he’d come back this time…
Katsuki blinked. He was sitting in class, with no memory of how he got there. His heart jumped, skipping several beats as he struggled to remember all the steps that led him from the bathroom to their classroom. His classmates all chatted quietly around him, questions about today’s lessons and their coming debrief about the League. A tap on his shoulder made Katsuki jump, his quirk crackling on the desk.
“Sorry, Kacchan.” Izuku pulled back. “I just- I was gonna ask if you’re okay, you just seem…tired?”
“I’m fine, Nerd.” He couldn’t say anything, even if he wanted to, anyway.
That’s what made this mess so horrible. Katsuki could not physically talk about what he knew, but they’d know he was lying if he tried to say anything else but the truth, and he couldn’t say the truth, and around and around it would go. They wouldn’t believe him. They’d think he was lying. They’d think he was the reason the League found them at camp, they’d think his kidnapping wasn’t a fluke.
They’d think he was the UA traitor.
And wasn’t he?
Katsuki had no way of knowing if his kidnapping was more than just Shigaraki’s interest in Katsuki’s attitude. He had no way of knowing if the League truly wanted to recruit him, or if All For One had taken a personal interest in him further than just his worry about Katsuki’s quirk being a problem for him in the future. Was there something deeper to this? Was Katsuki a traitor without knowing? Could they have put some kind of tracker on him as a kid? Was all of this; All Might’s retirement, Izuku getting One For All, the class attacks, everything - was this all Katsuki’s fault in some way?
Izuku’s chair creaked but he didn’t respond to Katsuki’s grumbled words. Instead, he sighed. It wasn’t just a sigh, though. Izuku and Katsuki had long ago learned to understand each other through non-verbal queues. Izuku understood Katsuki’s language of grunts, and Katsuki understood Izuku’s expressive noises. He only sighed like that when Katsuki was being an ass, and knew he was being an ass. It was a sigh that said ‘can you at least try to act like my friend like you claim to be?’. Guilt swelled in his stomach, ate away at the back of his throat, or was that actually just his stomach acid still sloshing out of his stomach?
The classroom door opened. There was no more time to think about this mess, there was no more time to try and find a way out, not that Katsuki had been trying too hard to do that anyway. Through was the only way out of this, and Katsuki knew it would lead to a pitiful outcome.
“Alright Hellspawn, listen up.” The class shut up and sat down as always when Aizawa walked in. “This is Miwa and Kusagawa from the HPSC, and you are all familiar with Detective Tsukauchi. They’re here to ask you all some questions about the Kamino raid as well as the other villain attacks you’ve all been involved in.” He offered the men folding chairs at the front of the room which had been set up in advance. “You are all familiar with the Detective’s Lie Detector quirk, but Miwa and Kusagawa also have quirks that they may need to use if your memory isn’t too good, or Tsuki lets us know that you aren’t telling the truth. I don’t expect any of you will lie, but if your memory is murky, especially those of you who were injured, it can come across as untrue.”
Tsukauchi put his hands up for a moment, before the class could think too hard about what their teacher just said. “No need to panic, kids. This isn’t an interrogation. It’s just a debriefing. I know you’ve all done this before. But after Kamino, we’re trying to find out who may have come into contact with these villains and how they might have gotten so much information on all of you. There could be buried memories, incidents on the street you may not have ever noticed, things like that. So that’s why we’re here.”
The four men at the front of their room all sat down and the one they’d called Miwa opened a laptop. Kusagawa pulled down their projector screen. Both Tsukauchi and Aizawa made weird looks when he did that, so they didn’t even know what was going on, either. That didn’t seem good. But this was the Commission, they didn’t tell anyone what they were doing, did they? Miwa spoke as he typed on his laptop, but he never looked up.
“My quirk allows me to project memories if I focus on a person, and they focus on that memory, kind of like re-watching an old home video. Kusagawa’s quirk allows him to detect previous quirk use, or active quirks that a person may be under. His family is the main reason we have quirk diffusion tests to check for latent quirk use, which can be a great help when assessing criminal cases as crime evolves along with quirks.”
“It’s a pleasure to meet all of you.” Kusagawa bowed politely. Miwa did not, he didn’t even greet them politely. “As my associate said, we’re just here to see if there’s anything that may be buried in your memories that could help us figure out the League’s next move, and why they’re so dead set on your class, pardon the pun.”
No one laughed. Instead, the creaking of old school chairs and the crunch of someone biting their nails filtered through Katsuki’s mind, far too loud. He stared at the top of his desk, still sooty and black from his earlier startle. He carefully wiped the soot stains from his desk and onto his pants, not caring if it ruined one of his uniforms. After all, UA hero students ruined a lot of uniforms. What was one more?
“Kacchan…” Izuku whispered.
Katsuki grunted softly. Aizawa was talking again, going on about something to do with the Kamino raid that Katsuki didn’t want to hear, so he ignored it for now.
“What if…what if they find out about OFA?”
Shit. Katsuki hadn’t even thought about that. Well, he’d briefly thought about how it might very well be Katsuki’s fault that Izuku had broken so many bones over the years, and him getting OFA might also have been Katsuki’s fault - somehow - but he hadn’t thought about the secrets that could be revealed by their resident cinnamon roll caving to interrogation.
“Nothing to it, Nerd. Your quirk is unrelated, so there’s nothing to lie about.”
“But-”
“It’s unrelated.”
If they were going to ask about connections prior to the Kamino raid and the USJ attack, Izuku’s quirk wouldn't come up. Tsukauchi and Aizawa knew some of what was going on with All Might and Izuku, and One For All. They might not know the whole story, but they should know that his connection to the former number one isn’t a danger. Even if the ultimate reason for All For One to come after them was Izuku’s quirk - Katsuki knew it wasn’t the only reason, he was damn sure of that, so they should be able to get Izuku out of this unscathed.
Katsuki on the other hand? There was very little chance he was getting out of this without some kind of trouble coming up. But it was too late to stop it, and he couldn’t say why it needed to stop anyway, so he just had to hold on for dear life, and hope they understood it wasn’t Katsuki’s fault.
“Alright, let’s begin.” Miwa squinted at his computer. “We’ll start with the USJ attack. Had any of you ever seen Kurogiri, Shigaraki, or that Nomu prior to the events at the USJ?”
Easy, easy, right? Everyone answered no. Tsukauchi nodded his assent, they’d all told the truth. Good. That wasn’t hard. It was true. Katsuki had never seen them before, so far, so good.
“Have any of you interacted with any villains prior to your attendance here at UA? This could be public incidents you were a bystander for or if a villain ever attacked you personally.”
Most of the class said no. Four students said yes. Aizawa stepped in.
“Bakugo and Midoriya were a part of that sludge villain incident before classes started, and I believe Ashido and Kirishima were confronted by a villain who was bullying their friend halfway through middle school.”
“Is this true for you four?” Miwa asked.
They all said yes. Tsukauchi nodded. Katsuki wouldn’t have escaped that question without Aizawa’s help, not by a long shot. Still, he couldn’t let himself hope this was over too fast, or he’d slip, and he’d fall down a fucking rabbit hole, right into his doom.
“The students who were involved in the Kamino raid, please raise your hands.” They did. “Have any of you ever seen those villains before, not counting the USJ or other League attacks?”
Katsuki’s whole body froze. No one should know the League outside of the USJ and subsequent attacks, but that’s not what he was asking. All For One had been there. He wasn’t asking about the fucking League, he was asking about their background leader. Everyone else said no, and Tsukauchi nodded, but Miwa noticed that Katsuki hadn’t spoken. He turned to the blonde hero student and stared him down.
Do or die, Katsuki. If he said no, Tsukauchi would know he was lying. If he said yes, there was a 100% change the quirk silencing him would activate and he’d be writhing in pain in seconds. Either way, he was in a trap, stuck between a rock and a hard place, and he’d only managed to get through a few questions before this nightmare exploded in his face.
Katsuki turned slightly, just enough to get Izuku in the corner of his vision. The nerd had this worried look which was burning holes into the back of Katsuki’s skull.
“Sorry, Nerd.” He muttered, too quiet for anyone else to hear. A sharp intake of breath sounded behind him, too soft to startle anyone but Katsuki. There was nothing he could do to stop this. There was nothing he could do to protect his best friend but play distraction, and maybe try to lie his way out of this. If they were focused on Katsuki, they would keep asking questions to the class, right? Maybe that was his best option.
“No.”
Tsukauchi’s eyebrows shot up for only a split second before his face relaxed. He considered Katsuki for a moment, as if he couldn’t understand the reading his quirk was offering before finally shaking his head.
“That was a lie, Bakugo.” Miwa stood up. “Answer the question again. Have you ever seen the villains at Kamino prior to any attacks on your school?”
“No.” He insisted.
“You’re lying.” The Detective finally spoke. “Why?”
“I’ve never seen them before.”
“Bakugo - you’re still lying.”
Miwa’s hand slapped the desk. “If you do not explain yourself right now, you’ll be taken into custody.”
The classroom exploded around him. Several students came to his defense, which actually shocked Katsuki quite a bit. It took Aizawa and their class president together to get the whole class to calm down, sit down, and be quiet again. The whole time, Katsuki and Miwa had been having a staring contest with no clear winner.
“I will ask you one more time; have you seen any of those villains prior to the attacks on your class?”
Katsuki sighed. There was no point in dragging this out. He wasn’t as good of a liar as he thought he was.
“Yes.”
Miwa held up a hand to silence the room before it could erupt. “Which one?”
“I can’t tell you.”
Several students gasped. Izuku was currently fighting with himself to stay in his fucking chair, and Aizawa was staring at him with horror-stricken features. Tsukauchi just seemed concerned that something this monumental came out in a simple, ‘standard’ debriefing. Nothing about this felt standard to Katsuki. Nothing he’d said so far had activated the quirk, but he knew it wasn’t far off. He could feel it twisting the bottom edge of his throat.
Before Miwa could lose himself to what was clearly an anger issue, Kusagawa stepped in and placed a hand on his partner’s chest.
“You mean that literally, don’t you? You can’t tell us.” Katsuki nodded. “Is something preventing you from speaking about it?”
Again, he nodded. Kusagawa rounded the desk quickly. Katsuki stood up to try and back away, which only led to his chair ramming into Izuku’s desk while their Commission representative stormed over to him with a deep look of concern on his face.
“Please - don’t!”
But a hand still slotted into place on the side of his head. The second it made contact, Katsuki screamed. Pain rattled through his skull, sliced down his throat, his tongue twisted violently, further than ever before. Blood pooled in his mouth, his hands sparked little explosions.
It lasted only a second, a split second was all it took for Kusagawa to get the ugly picture he needed. It left Katsuki hanging over his desk, blood pouring from his panting lips, tears streaming down his face. The Commission suit backed up slowly. Izuku was at his side, asking too many questions. Half the class had gotten up or were trying to get to him. Katsuki could barely see through the pain still crippling his body.
“What the hell is this?!” Aizawa shouted as he grabbed Kusagawa. “What did you do to my student?!”
“Nothing. I hadn’t even activated my quirk. This…this quirk is something I’ve never seen before. It’s literally twisting his tongue to prevent him from speaking, strangling him. I’ve never seen a quirk so advanced used on someone so young…this is torture.”
Katsuki could have told him that…if he could have told them anything. His body limped sideways. Izuku caught him, put him back in his chair. Someone offered him a towel, held it to his still bleeding mouth. The pain had mostly subsided, his tongue was uncontorted in his mouth, but still bleeding from several places. Izuku was crouched in front of him, searching his hooded eyes, as if he could find the answer somewhere behind the exhausted, strained, burst vessels in Katsuki’s eyes.
“Very well. Kusagawa, sit down. We’ll try my quirk.”
“Absolutely not.” Aizawa barked. “If you cause my student any further pain, I’m reporting this to the Commission president directly.”
“The president would agree with my plan. My quirk should not cause him pain. It does not require direct contact, nor is it the kind that would interact with other quirks. He only has to focus on a memory and it will project through me.”
Katsuki shook his head as much as he could. There was no way he could speak right now without spitting up blood. He’d swallowed too much of it to begin with, his stomach was rolling in a bad way. He pleaded with his eyes, begging Izuku to do something, anything.
But there it was - betrayal. It had found a home in Izuku’s eyes. He was scared. He was scared that Katsuki had something to do with the attacks. Everyone always saw him as a villain, and he was - he knew he was - but he had always believed Izuku would be there. Izuku had never run, not even at the height of Katsuki’s bullying.
Please. He begged in his mind. Please, not you, too.
Izuku pressed a gentle hand to his chest. “Just show us. I know you didn’t do anything wrong, Kacchan. I know you didn’t do anything to deserve this kind of torture. Please, just show us.”
But he didn’t understand! He didn’t understand why Katsuki didn’t want to tell them, even if he could have. Katsuki didn’t want to relive that memory. He didn’t want to relive the single most horrific moment of his life. Tears sprang to life again, but he could see it in the eyes of everyone around him - they all wanted to know.
No. They needed to know. Because without knowing, they’d never trust Katsuki again. They’d never believe that he wasn’t betraying them every minute he existed in their class. They’d never trust him with casual conversation, they’d never come to him with math problems, or their shitty attempts at English. They had to know, or they’d consider him a traitor before he’d even been accused or charged.
Fine.
If that’s what it took for them to believe he was innocent, he’d relive his worst memory. If not for the class, then for Izuku. Izuku, out of everyone, deserved to know what had shaped Katsuki, what had made him into this monster of a man. He should know why Katsuki had become so cruel, so hateful. He deserved to know why Katsuki couldn’t handle emotion, and confinement made him lose his mind.
Katsuki nodded to Miwa.
“Bakugo.” Aizawa insisted. “If someone has used a quirk on you…”
But he just held up a hand to his teacher. There was no avoiding this. One way or the other, the Commission would take what they wanted, and they wouldn’t care if Katsuki was offering permission or not. So he might as well offer it, so they knew he was compliant.
“Everyone out.” Their teacher ordered. “Wait in the hallway, Iida, go tell Present Mic I need him to watch over you.”
“Yes, Sensei!”
But before Izuku could get up, Katsuki grabbed his wrist and shook his head. Izuku looked up to Aizawa, a question on his lips, left unsaid.
“If he wants you to stay, you can stay. Are you sure, Bakugo?” The teen nodded. “Very well. Miwa - when they’ve left, you can begin.”
Izuku pulled a chair over so he could sit next to Katsuki. The blonde put his head on Izuku’s shoulder, and the shorter teen brushed some hair from his face, resting his head against Katsuki’s as he did. They rarely showed friendly affection, but Katsuki was too tired to be brutish and off-putting. He just wanted to get this over with.
Aizawa and Tsukauchi moved to stand by the door, speaking to Present Mic quietly when he arrived a moment later. Once the door closed and the blinds were drawn, Miwa activated his quirk after asking Katsuki to focus on the memory he’d been hiding.
So that’s what he did.
~
Katsuki’s eyes cracked open. Exhaustion weighed down his limbs. When he tried to lift them, he found shackles on his wrists, loosely attached to the wall behind him. His ankles were chained, too. Everything ached like he’d just been put into a tumbling dryer and set to spin for hours on end. The room was dark, he couldn’t see anything around him - just the chains, the stone floor, and the cinderblock wall he was attached to.
“Hello?” He called out, confused. His voice echoed back to him distorted and weird. “Is anyone there?!” Once more, the sound bounced back, but higher pitched, fear seeping into his bones as well as his voice.
“Good. You’re awake. Now we can begin.”
The voice that erupted from the darkness was booming, deep, emotionless. Katsuki didn’t recognize it. Where was he, anyway? He was supposed to be with his friends at a birthday party. He was supposed to be at their house, playing games and eating birthday cake. Instead, he was trapped somewhere, with a horrible voice he wasn’t sure was real.
But just when he’d started thinking maybe he was imagining all of this, or stuck in a dream, something moved in the darkness, shifted with the scratch of chair legs on the stone flooring. Katsuki scooted back, pushing himself into the wall behind himself. Hands out, he tried to fire off his quirk as a threat, a warning, but nothing happened.
“Oh, don’t worry. I’ve given you a suppressant for your own protection, and mine.” The voice sighed. “Pesky things, fire quirks. They’re more dangerous than we give them credit for. The thing about fire - so long as it has fuel and space to move, it will never stop. Pesky thing about people with fire quirks - they’re exactly the same, and I cannot abide that.”
“Wha-what - what do you want with me?! I haven’t done anything! I barely know how to use my quirk. I’m not dangerous yet.”
Katsuki had never once in his life shown his own fear or weakness, not until this moment. Alone, in the dark, where none of his friends could see him break, Katsuki fell apart. He’d just turned twelve, and though he’d been trying so very hard, his quirk was just too dangerous. He’d hurt himself, and his parents, and his best friend Izuku, and he was terrified it would hurt more people, too. So yes, he understood this man’s words, but he didn’t want to believe them.
“I’ll learn. I promise! I’ll learn to control it, and I won’t evolve it. I’m not going to hurt anyone with my quirk ever again.”
“You will.” The voice replied. “But I think that has more to do with who you are, rather than what your quirk is.”
“W-what?”
“It’s alright, Katsuki - just take a deep breath for me, okay? You will have such a glorious fire quirk someday, and though you may rise from the ashes I make of you today, the burning comes first. For that, dear boy, you must be brave.”
Before Katsuki could respond, a hand materialized out of the darkness and grabbed his small frame. The hand was bigger than his head, almost bigger than him, or had he imagined that? It grabbed into him, covering half his face and his left side. Pain erupted along his spine, from the base of his skull right down to his tailbone. Katsuki screamed. He didn’t know how to do anything but cry and thrash against the chains holding him.
The pain didn’t stop, even when the hand dropped him back onto the ground. Katsuki wheezed air through his lungs, vision blurry and cutting in and out every few seconds. He pawed the ground uselessly, his limbs drunken and sloppy from the pain that made moving his legs impossible. His skull had been split open like taking a bite out of an apple. He whimpered every time he tried to move his body.
Why was this happening? Had the doctors decided his quirk was too destructive? Had he evolved it without knowing and now he was having it shut off permanently? Did his parents even know he was here? Where was here, anyway?
“These modern day doctors don’t know much, and it’s sad they missed such vital information.” The voice sighed, but it came out slurry and hissing to Katsuki’s ears. “Your quirk didn’t start in your hands. It started in your blood and migrated to your hands when it manifested. Your quirk has already evolved, and that’s what makes it dangerous, to you, and everyone around you - but more importantly - it makes you dangerous to me.”
Katsuki huffed a few breaths. “I don’t…I don’t know you.”
“No. But you might someday. You have a shining future as a hero, Katsuki Bakugo. I have quirks that allow me brief glimpses into what a person may become. The issue is that if I allow you to keep your quirk as it is, you will become quite the problem for me.”
Finally, the monster appeared before Katsuki, crouched down. He lifted the boy’s head off the ground. Katsuki came face to face with a black mask that shone in what little light poured down through the small, barred window above Katsuki. The mask was faceless, eyeless, almost flat but for a nose bump. How could he see out of that? Tubes and wires protruded from it at all angles, leading back into the darkness. But even with a mask on, Katsuki somehow knew this man was smiling.
“It’s just a shame I can’t take it for myself. Explosion is such a useful power.” A sigh came out hissed again, and now Katsuki knew why it sounded weird. Smoke plumed around the mask when he let out his breath, as if the mask had breathed for him. “So, instead, I’ll have to devolve it manually, and block you from trying to evolve it again, at least for a long time. If you do, you’ll put enough strain on your body that your heart will give out, and you’ll die. Do you understand me?”
“No…why? Why are you doing this?”
“I told you - because you’re going to be an annoyance in the future, and I don’t like flies buzzing around my head when I’m trying to make a point.”
Katsuki’s body thudded back to the stone floor with a painful crack of his shoulder. He groaned, coughed up blood, and finally just gave into the pain. His eyes blanked out again, blackness filled his vision, the man’s voice echoing around his head as he was once more tossed into a screaming, agonized existence.
“This will hurt you a lot more than it will hurt me.”
~
Katsuki didn’t remember being moved, but he woke up in the infirmary with Izuku beside him, clutching his hands hard enough to make them white between his knees. He wasn’t looking at Katsuki, he was glaring at the ground with eyes hard enough to cut stone, or maybe the emeralds they were made of. Katsuki had never seen Izuku this angry. He’d never seen Izuku truly lose himself to his emotions, not like this.
When his weight shifted, Izuku’s eyes darted up to him. There were tears, but they’d fallen without a single cry, without a sob or shake of the teen’s shoulders. Izuku had been so enraged he’d spilled his emotions without actually sobbing like he normally would. Izuku was such a softie with his heart on his sleeve. It almost hurt to see him like this.
“Izuku-”
“Don’t.”
“You don’t know what I was going to say.”
“I do.” Izuku finally unclenched his hands and leaned back in the chair. “You were going to apologize, right?” Katsuki glanced away for a moment, unable to admit it. “You were going to apologize for being a violent child. But I’ve seen what made you violent. I get it now.” He took a few shaky, stuttering breaths. “You didn’t hate me. You were jealous. I didn’t have a quirk, and you’d been made to believe yours was so problematic someone had to sear it from your bones.”
Katsuki didn’t know how to answer that statement. He’d wanted to apologize, yes, because now Izuku knew what happened. He must have remembered that moment in their lives when Katsuki changed, the moment where he ‘came back’ from a weekend away, and their world imploded. Katsuki became the monster that destroyed their lives.
“They uhh-” Izuku cleared his throat. “They called in a specialist from the Commission who was able to remove the quirk that was silencing you. They also were able to prove you had no other quirks affecting you. You were cleared of all negligence in the attacks.”
“I wasn’t the leak.”
“No. The League might have more interest in you because of your quirk, but they weren’t using you. You were convenient, and people already saw you as a villain. They’re still questioning the rest of the class.”
“Mmm…”
“Don’t do that, Kacchan.”
“What? I’m not doing anything.”
“You’re brushing me off. I’m sure being unable to talk about this probably made you unable to talk about anything, and I get that now, but I wish you’d try.”
“What is there to say, Izuku? What do you want? You won’t let me apologize and you’re right - everyone does see me as the villain. I was your villain for a long time.”
“Just talk to me, Kacchan. The quirk is gone, please, just talk to me. Why did you never- why, why didn’t you tell me something was wrong? We could have- I don’t know- done something. We were best friends, I would have believed you.”
“I didn’t believe myself.”
Izuku opened his mouth to speak but nothing came out. Katsuki had managed to get himself to sit up in bed, hands limp in his lap. Recovery Girl must have healed him, his tongue didn’t hurt, his throat wasn’t sore anymore.
He didn’t want to talk, but he’d just said the most damning thing that had come out of his throat all day. Katsuki had not, for a long time, believed that any of it was real. He’d bottled it all up inside because he couldn’t speak about it, and wondered if it was all a dream. But the anger was there, the frustration and rage all stuck in his chest because he had no outlet for this horror he’d endured, even if he didn’t fully believe it had happened. There was no proof but for the quirk strangling his tongue, and since he couldn’t even validate that - how did he know he wasn’t just a cruel bastard with anger issues and a great imagination who didn’t want to relive his worst nightmares?
“I believe you, Kacchan. Not because of anything I saw, just because you’re my best friend. I believe you. You’re not a villain. You never were. You were hurting, and you had no way to ask for help.”
Katsuki sighed. “I tried…more than once. But the quirk never reacted the way it did today. It never twisted me so bad I bled before. It just choked me, cut me off. I just couldn’t talk. So I gave up trying. I thought I’d earned it, especially after I started getting angry at you for no fucking reason.”
“Can you-” Izuku leaned over and offered his hand. Katsuki took it on instinct alone and Izuku smiled. “Can you please tell me next time something happens? I don’t care what it is. Big or small. Please, tell me. I want to be able to help you next time, if there is a next time.”
“Okay.” Katsuki squeezed his best friend’s hand. “I promise.”
When the door to the infirmary opened, Katsuki saw relief on Aizawa’s face, a faint grin that he only wore on special occasions. Maybe today was a special occasion.
“You look better.”
“I feel better, Sensei.”
Aizawa snorted. “I think that’s the first time you’ve called me that. Maybe that quirk was twisting your tongue in a lot of ways.”
“Maybe.”
“Well, you’re free to go now that you’re awake, RG’s quirk ran its course and the Commission cleared you, and the class, and they’ve just left.”
“So I’m not in trouble?”
“Why would you be? It wasn’t your choice to hold that all in, and it wasn’t your fault some bastard took an interest in your quirk for his own gain.”
Izuku lifted a hand. “Why do I feel a ‘but’ coming, Sensei?”
“Ever the perceptive one, Midoriya.” He turned back to Katsuki. “But - you will be speaking with Inui-san about this, and he’ll be having a talk with your parents. This is…big. You aren’t in trouble, but you do have some stuff you need to work through, and we can’t avoid that. This wound has festered long enough, kid. It’s time to start healing it.”
Katsuki tried to force a smile out, and it sort of worked. “Yeah, I think I’d like that.”