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kaen-ace-of-diamonds · 4 years

Text

Restraint

Word Count: 3800+ (oneshot)

[AO3]

Genre: Angst With A Hopeful Ending

Characters: Bakugou Katsuki, Bakugou Mitsuki, All Might, Shigaraki Tomura, Midoriya Izuku (mentioned)

Summary: Bakugou Katsuki has always thought of himself as a force of nature: more than human, pure fire and fury, meant to burn stronger and brighter than anything else. He hadn't expected that the world would have so many ways to smother him instead.

Written for the @forceofnaturezine!

Warnings for panic attacks, suffocation, and self-hatred.

~0~

He is primal, explosive fire and thunderous sound, and he was never meant to be restrained.

“You’ve been like that since the day you were born, you know that?” Katsuki had appreciated Mom’s gift of a punching bag for his room, but he could do without her strutting in unannounced while he was busy with it. “Kicking and fighting and being fuckin’ relentless.”

Sure, he knows. He hears the story all the time, usually around his birthday: about how he had given his mother hell right from in utero — no matter how much amusement Mom puts into the words, it’s still what’s being said — and then been born too early and had to struggle for weeks just to breathe on his own.

Every year he gets older, the more details — the more memories of fear and preemptive grief — his parents let slip. He knows that it all adds up to one thing: if he weren’t the strongest, he wouldn’t be alive right now.

Katsuki doesn’t think to so much as look over his shoulder at Mom in the doorway, just keeps dutifully pounding away at the bag. The sound of the tape on his fists against the thick fabric has even gotten into his dreams lately, and it doesn’t pause for an instant now.

“You gotta take a break and cool down sooner or later. Look, it’s gotten dark, aren’t you even going to turn the light on?”

His fists are a blur in front of him. “Did you need something?”

“You need food, hero. Dinner’s ready, I made those fire noodles you like. Take a breath and come on.”

He grunts in response. Mom snickers, taking it as a yes, and he hears her footsteps going down the stairs. Right now he doesn’t feel he can stop his arms from moving any more than a normal human could stop a lava flow. And he doesn’t want them to stop moving; the burning in his muscles is pain and life and strength. But he knows that if he’s not down in five minutes it’ll mean a fight.

So with considerable effort, Katsuki does stop. There’s pins and needles from his fingertips to his shoulders. His heart still pounds like a racehorse’s, pulse in his ears. Sweat soaks his hair, his face, his workout shirt, and he can smell the traces of nitro in it. He closes his eyes — no darker there than in the room around him — and breathes it in, listening to the ringing in his ears.

He guesses this is what peace feels like. Contented exhaustion, as his power is built and maintained.

Katsuki takes a long, deep breath, and opens his eyes.

~0~

He had never seen the Sludge Villain coming. It would take him several years to stop kicking himself for his lack of awareness.

How dumb had he been, skating through elementary and middle school thinking he was stronger than anything? That he was enough?

Katsuki has never known anything so disgusting in his life as the mass that engulfs him, not quite solid or liquid. It moves like viscera with a mind of its own, it feels hot and sticky like vomit, and it smells like he’s had his face shoved into raw sewage.

This was the scenario he’d always fantasized about: having some villain pick a fight with him, underestimating him, and then absolutely blasting them away with a laugh and a wild grin. Impressing the heroes. Being a hero.

But he can’t move, let alone use his Quirk. He can’t even breathe.

Oh, god, he can’t breathe.

Katsuki tries. He’s struggling harder than he ever has in his life against the sludgy body forcing its way into his mouth and throat, his ears, and his nose. His blood is on fire, veins constricting and muscles fighting to spasm for lack of air. He’s sure that any second his heart will burst open. Muffled and distant, he can hear explosions, screams, and destruction in the villain’s wake.

Destruction. That’s what he and his Quirk are. Right now he wants to wield it more than anything, but to have it wrested from his hands and used like any common villain would...it makes him want to scream with sheer rage.

(Terror as well, and helplessness — but those are the things he can never acknowledge himself capable of feeling, even in the grip of death.)

His eyes feel like they’re about to burst like grapes from the pressure. His mind can no longer even race with thoughts of escape, it’s slowing, fogging up, as white tendrils snake in on the edges of his vision. He isn’t burning up anymore, he is simply sinking...fading, into death and into obscurity...

“KACCHAN!”

Even with his inner ears blocked up by sludge, that screeching voice manages to pierce straight through.

His eyes slowly roll to the side, and he still can’t see very well. But he’d recognize that bug-eyed green blur scrambling towards him anywhere.

Someone like him should be running away from this monster, as far as those stupid red sneakers could carry him. Especially after everything Katsuki has done to him to push him away, to hurt him, Deku should not be the one charging full throttle to help him, heedless of the villain that could tear him apart from the inside out even faster than it was killing him —

Katsuki can’t even tell what he’s feeling when thick tendrils of sludge fire at Deku, or when they’re hit by a bellowing comet that breaks him free (it takes him a long, dazed few moments to recognize it as All Might, up close and personal). He’s crouched on the street, eyes wide and bloodshot, dripping in sweat and sludge. He isn’t not sure whether it’s disgust or horror or indignant fury that’s making him tremble, on the verge of throwing up.

He walks home by himself, keeping to shadows and back roads, thankful that he had kept enough of his wits about him to escape before the press descended on the scene. They’ll find out his name, of course they will, but he won’t willingly give them anything. The sun is setting by the time he makes it back to his house.

Neither of his parents are home, in the one bit of good luck he’s had today. Katsuki still sneaks in through his bedroom window: no way does he want to track any smell or residue through the house for his mother to detect.

He has his own bathroom, and he has always been comfortable with that. But for the first time, he flinches hard when the shower door shuts behind him. He can’t stand looking at his own body, bruised and dirty and weak, with the light on. If he turns the lights off, there’s a churning in his gut that he can’t stand.

He can’t put a name to it that feels correct. So he decides to just chalk it up to shame and humiliation at what had happened: things that he’s already resolved never to reveal of himself to anyone else, and that will pass from him if he just fights harder. For the rest of the night, he wills himself to ignore the tightness in his chest, the spinning in his head, and the shakes all over his body.

This time, he can push the whole thing down, and pretend it never happened.

~0~

The next time, he doesn’t have a choice. He is put on full display.

Fuck this fucking festival, is the only coherent idea in his brain. The rest is a burning red river of indignant anger, drowning his thoughts and suffusing his body. All he wants to win, he wants to be on top. But he’s not some...cheating glory hound, willing to accept victory through a fluke.

What fucking Half-and-Half had done with their fight was a mortal insult. He wants to indisputably earn what he has, on his own, and he won’t accept less.

What’s so wrong with that? Why did he have to be turned into a joke for it?

He knows he looks like a rabid dog, howling and foaming at the end of its tether — he feels it — but he can’t help it. He might have been able to, even with the chains restraining him to the first place podium by a pole, locking his limbs into place like so much heavy sludge...but for the muzzle.

There’s air holes in the damn thing. Filters and shit. But half his mind and all of his body are convinced that he’s suffocating again. That his failure has meant death, as it has all along. No matter how much he bellows and thrashes, adrenaline flooding his veins, it doesn’t trick his system out of believing that.

The stadium around him is a blur, tinged in scarlet. Katsuki can’t properly make out the hundreds of faces surrounding him, but he knows in his gut that all of them are jeering and laughing at him. His heart pounded so hard it ached.

He should have expected All Might to be the only one to show mercy. (He refuses to think of pity directed at him, and he’s glad to see that the famous smile isn’t one bit strained.)

“Oh, now...this is a little too much.”

He can’t even feel relief when his face is freed from the muzzle. His first reflex isn’t to gulp in air, but to protest his being cheated: “To win first place like this, it’s nothing! It’s not enough to make me number one!”

If All Might is at all perturbed by that, it doesn’t show. “Society will acknowledge you as number one, young Bakugou, whether you do or not. Even if you only think of it like a scar, take this medal, okay?”

It occurs to him that All Might could be too optimistic, he thinks bitterly, standing there like a fool with the gold medal hanging from his jaw. Society will not see him as an object of glory, only mockery. Nobody will take him seriously or let him forget it.

And as per the norm for times like this, he can’t tell whether his old lady is proud of him or disgusted by him.

“You know, your grandparents called while the end of the festival was airing.” Mom leans into the living room, holding the landline phone in one hand and wearing her usual wry grin. “They don’t usually watch ‘hero shows,’ they said, but they had a lot of fun watching you.”

Katsuki grips the arm of the couch tight as he lounges against it. “Yeah? They liked the end?”

“You bet, kid.” Mom sits down on the couch next to him, picks up the TV remote, and turns down the volume on the world news. “Grandma’s hoping you decided to keep the gold medal after all.”

His heart starts thumping again. “Bet she thought it looked cute.”

Her laugh goes straight through his head, like a flurry of needles. “Yeah! You should check out some of the videos going around online of the festival, people are really talking. You’re gonna be a popular guy, Katsuki!”

His palm slams so hard on the arm of the couch that something cracks beneath the upholstery, and he just barely bites back a snarl of red-hot anger as he jumps to his feet. “I don’t have to listen to this shit.”

“Hey!” Mom’s voice goes up a few octaves with indignation as he storms out. “Katsuki! What the hell’s the matter with you, come back here!”

Katsuki does not, grinding his teeth and clenching his fists all the way back up to his bedroom. Whether she’d meant to make fun of him or if she really was clueless, he doesn’t care. The darkness stifles him when he opens his door, and he can’t stand it; he turns the lights up so high they sting his eyes.

His trusty punching bag waits in the corner of the room. Without bothering to tape his hands up, he drops into a grounded stance and pummels it mercilessly, picturing nobody in particular, but with mocking laughter in his head. He doesn’t know how long he’s at it, trying to lose himself in the exertion and pain, but when he’s done, both the leather and his knuckles are bloody.

Both his head and his chest feel like they’re being squeezed in a vice, his body slow and weak. Isn’t there anywhere he can turn that will let him breathe? Anyone who will acknowledge him as a powerful hero instead of something pathetic?

For once, nothing he tries can calm him, only stokes the fires stronger. He feels like he could burn the whole world down if he simply chose. He could. He could...

~0~

...But he wouldn’t. Of course he wouldn’t. His shame has caught up with him. There are things his fire can’t touch.

Like the rest of the world, he blames himself for everything that happened, every domino that fell as the result of his weakness. Everything because he hadn’t been fast enough, smart enough, strong enough. Because he lagged behind the others, in every way. He thinks fleetingly that if his last thought is that image of their backs, he’ll die ripping his throat in a scream of fury.

Hardening sludge? Chains and a muzzle? Nothing compared to the damn magician’s compression spell. It’s like having plastic wrapped tight around his face, like being trapped at the bottom of the ocean, like...nothing he could have imagined. He can’t think of words, only of how awful it is.

Even when he’s been released from it, that doesn’t mean he’d been freed. Dabi’s hand, still burning hot and smelling of smoking flesh, is gripping his neck. Thirst for heroes’ blood radiates from him like heat, and Katsuki has no doubt that if he makes a wrong move, that hand will crush his throat like a soda can. As it is, he can barely choke out his warning to Deku, let alone imbue it with the ferocity needed to repel that idiot, racing to reach him again without a thought for himself...

At the other end of the portal, Katsuki only has time to register gold light and the scent of whiskey, before strong hands from both sides are grabbing him, and his back slams into the solid steel back of a large chair.

Before he can even protest, his hands are locked into another metal box, and he hears several small sounds of buckles clicking shut. By the time he gets his bearings enough to jerk forward — the insides of the box heating up fast as he tries and fails to use his Quirk — he’s strapped in tight.

“There you go, kid.” That smoke-smelling hand is palming his head back, with a sharp smack of skin on skin. “You won’t mess around anymore, right?”

What he wants to do is get fired up, break free and unleash hell on every villain here. But he reflexively freezes instead, once it fully sinks in that he is alone and surrounded by the League of Villains.

“Leave him alone, Dabi.”

Shigaraki Tomura is leaning against the bar, sounding for all the world like this is a casual meetup between friends. Katsuki remembers how this guy had trapped Deku in place at the mall, four fingers around his throat in broad daylight, and knows that he could kill him just as casually. Just the thought makes him dizzy with fear.

Every villain in the room is staring at him, seeming to loom over him, and he feels suddenly very, very small. Between waxy white fingers, Shigaraki’s small red eyes are burning a hole into his own.

“You can relax, Bakugou Katsuki. We’re not the torturing types.”

“Most of us, at least,” Toga Himiko cuts in, playing with a knife. “But if we wanted to kill you, you’d be dead already.”

He forces himself to speak: “So what d’you want, then?”

“Well...to create a scenario that would help us both out, honestly.” Shigaraki turns on the bar’s TV, flipping every couple minutes between news stations. “Listen to how they talk about heroes. About you.”

As time drags on, anger bleeds through his fear. The way this asshole rambles on about society, justice, corruption, heroes, as if he has any right, as if he has a point...

And those eyes are still looking down on him, expecting him to jump on board with it all.

“We’re planning on winning. You like winning too, right?”

Outwardly, Katsuki is as still and quiet as a mouse before a fox. He can’t help but tense as his hands are freed, and he momentarily worries that they’ll sense his intentions. But he shouldn’t have: the bastard doesn’t see it coming at all when a nitro blast blows that dumb fake hand right off his face.

It’s a relief to feel the words spill freely from his mouth:

“Basically, you mean, we wanna hurt people, so please be our friend, right?”

He’s no one’s fucking friend. He’s realized that, and he’s braced himself to fight on his own no matter what tried to hold him back. The fire is roiling deep in his gut.

“Don’t bother.”

His smiles don’t come easily. But he can just barely remember a time when they did: when he had been small and newly powerful, and a mere glimpse of All Might smiling on TV filled him with the same fearless pride.

It’s an imperfect imitation, he thinks as he bares his teeth and forces his lips to stretch wide, and it doesn’t convince him. But maybe it’s enough to convince the League that he's still that fearless, proud, and unyielding, despite how much like a trapped animal he feels.

“I’ve always admired All Might’s victories. No matter what anyone says, that will never change.”

Shigaraki’s expression is blank. But the self-preserving part of Katsuki’s brain, small as it is, notices that the look in his eye is considerably more unhinged. Oh, well: he had been risking himself from the moment he blasted the stupid fuck. He’ll fight himself free with U.A.’s distant blessing, their belief in him and his ideal strength.

They went through all that trouble to mount a huge attack, and all they got was me.

His smile pulls upward, turning lopsided and feral. Despite his spotless record, there’s plenty of people who think he’s nothing but trouble; the U.A. interview had proven that well enough. So he’ll put that to good use. All Might’s victories...weighing the odds, he doesn’t stand a good chance of pulling one of those off. But he’ll do it anyway. He will. He will —

He’s as shocked as any of them when the world suddenly stops for a moment, and then shatters when the man himself bursts through the brick wall, taking instant control of the situation by his very presence. Katsuki is swept away in the strength his idol exudes, without even trying.

Since becoming his student, Katsuki has gotten used to looking All Might in the eyes. But this time feels different. “I’m sure you were scared, but you did well bearing it. It’s okay now, young man!”

All at once, his throat constricted. He feels the ridiculous expression his face is contorting into, and blusters something to save face — heroes do not get scared — but he can’t deny that right now, he’s admiring All Might more than ever. This is a true victory, it has to be.

Then the Nomu appear.

Everything is ruined as easily as it was relieved. Out of nowhere, he’s choking and panicking, cold and thick sludge filling his mouth, throat, and chest again. He blinks, and the golden bar is replaced by darkness and stone. No, not stone: wreckage. And this man...

He spends maybe thirty seconds in All For One’s direct vicinity before All Might charges back onto the scene. But they’re the most horrifying seconds of his life. The faceless man emanates just as much power and certainty of victory as his hero, that takes Katsuki’s breath away, that by all rights he should idolize. But where All Might exudes warmth and protectiveness, All For One exudes ice and venom, lust for the destruction of everything around him.

And destroyed everything is. The scene that plays out before his eyes is more like a nightmare than reality. All Might fights and wins, of course, as he was supposed to do. But to see him battered and bleeding, all the vitality and strength sucked from him, is beyond anything he could have imagined. Even after it’s all over — while he’s being questioned by police, while Mom throws her arms around his neck, both crying with relief and loudly lambasting him for worrying her like that — every part of him is numb.

Katsuki had thought he understood. But he’s been entirely clueless...entirely powerless.

It is all his fault. And the realization feels darker and colder than anything else.

~0~

He sits alone on his bed, letting darkness fall around him.

In hindsight, he doesn’t know what the hell beating up Deku was supposed to have done for him. Prove his own power? Get answers? Free him somehow, from all of this?

Chains, hands, muzzles, filth, fear...so many things had trapped him, restrained him, smothered his fire, when all he wanted was to burn the brightest. That’s what he’s meant to do, isn’t it? What he’s been doing since he was born?

Being relentless is exhausting. And for the first time in his life, he wonders how long he’ll be able to keep it up. Forever?

Of all the things that hold him prisoner, he doesn’t want himself to be one of them. That is a weakness he can’t fathom. But something has to change. If he can’t figure out what it is...then maybe it’s time to see if someone else can.

“Young Bakugou?” He still isn’t used to seeing All Might like this: shoulders hunched, body shriveled like a scarecrow, blue irises small and sharp like candlelight. “What’s the matter?”

He lingers in the doorway of his teacher’s office, not sure how to word it. “It’s...nothing really, it’s just...do you ever get, like, these feelings in your chest? Tight, and...squeezing? Like you’re trapped? Not all the time, I’m not sick or anything, but...sometimes?”

He half-expects All Might to laugh at him. But he listens intently, and speaks very seriously once Katsuki is done. “That sounds familiar, young Bakugou. Sit down, tell me more. When did you start having these feelings?”

Katsuki sits down on the couch, surprised to find that the words finally leaving his mouth make him feel...lighter. Warm in his chest, like sparks floating up from a fire. Like he’d felt when Kirishima had called to him, reached out his hand to free him from that nightmare scene.

(Nobody’s friend? What bullshit that had been.)

Deku, damn him for understanding him so well after all, had known that that was the only way he could abide leaning on somebody else. It still feels strange...but it’s a start. And maybe it really is something he needs.

He’s only human, after all.

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