Chapter Text
"Do you ever say shit you don't mean when you're upset?" Kacchan asks.
He's propped up on the couch and facing Izuku, pillows arranged in a manner to keep his torso straightened and well-supported. Kacchan's appendectomy had been open surgery by necessity, which pinned two more weeks onto his total recovery time.
(it's almost surreal, catching a rare glance of the small patch of gauze over the similarly small incision on the side of kacchan's torso. it looks so insignificant. kacchan could have died, really died, but all that's left is what must be a thin, scabbed line by now. at least he can trust kacchan to be as stringently exacting with his post-care as he is everything else–)
"-I said OI," Izuku hears and jerks his head up from where he'd been staring distractedly in the general direction of Kacchan's stomach. The man himself is glaring at Izuku, looking distinctly unimpressed.
"Whatever," is all Kacchan says to follow up, then sullenly drags his searing gaze back down at his tablet. "Forget it."
"Sorry, I–" Izuku hurriedly attempts to backtrack, scrambling over his unspooled thoughts to wind them back to the point. "Bakugou-san, I'm aware that this entire situation is extremely emotionally charged for you. I may not like what you say when you're angry, but I can understand it. In all honesty, I've found working through these things with you has been incredible for reframing the things I myself always considered as given–"
"Fuck off about me," Kacchan snaps irritably. "All you ever do is bullshit about me."
"It's not bullshit," Izuku says, but just like Kacchan's anger, Izuku understands why that would be Kacchan's first reaction. "It's– you were asking about me?"
"Just forget it, Deku."
Izuku quiets for a long moment. Not to forget it, obviously. He wants to find the right way to say what he means.
"I mean what I say when I'm upset," Izuku offers, keeping his voice soft but level. "But sometimes I'm– the way I– I notice a lot. About people. So the things I've said, well. There's things people don't need to hear about themselves or their situation, and sometimes when I get upset I say them."
"Yeah," Kacchan says. He's looked up from his tablet to the ceiling, now. He sounds contemplative.
"So– I guess I can't regret telling the truth," Izuku says, but still shakes his head as he does. Kacchan just watches from the edge of his eyes, his chin still tilted upwards. "But there are times when I've regretted how I did very deeply."
"Yeah," Kacchan repeats. He sounds weary as Izuku feels, just remembering the aftermath of his own wins that were fundamentally losses from over the years. It doesn't happen often, and Izuku tries so hard to control himself when he can tell he's that sort of upset. He knows just how deep his capacity to harm can be.
(and it only ever increases, that ability within him. after all, it's much the same skillset he uses in his capacity to help. that's another thing he's thought about a lot.)
"I do," Kacchan says abruptly, very fortunately cutting off Izuku's wandering line of thought before he can again nearly ruin this small sliver of Kacchan's vulnerability he's cautiously exposed. "When I'm– whatever. Angry. I say shit like– I don't mean it. Not everything. Some of the shit I say. Sometimes."
"I know," Izuku says.
"Whatever will make them– will make them go away, I guess," Kacchan continues, looking to the side now. "Sometimes it's true but sometimes it's just– whatever nasty bullshit that will make them go away."
"I know," Izuku says again. "I may not think it's, well, a good way to do it, and I'd like you to get better about that, but– I know. I've known it from the start."
"Yeah," Kacchan gives a long, harsh sigh. He scrubs the palm of his hand down his face. "Guess you would."
"Is there…" Izuku starts before he trails off.
"You said something," Kacchan says. His tone is entirely neutral. He can manage that, sometimes. It always has the unintended effect of being viscerally more terrifying to Izuku than most anything intense that Kacchan shows, because Izuku knows Kacchan and Izuku knows Kacchan can be many things but Izuku knows if Kacchan cares enough to bring it up then Kacchan has never been neutral about it. "Before."
Izuku considers this. Kacchan's given him nothing to go on, and all he can come up with is more nothing. "And I should… apologize?" he floats tentatively.
Kacchan's face remains perfectly, worryingly blank, made all the more eerie by the sudden complete stillness that Izuku knows is Kacchan's tell when he's tensed. "Fine," he says brusquely, "Accepted." Then he pulls up his knees and plants his tablet on top of them, right in front of his face, and stonily returns to his reading.
"No, I–" Izuku hastily scrabbles through this entire conversation, looking for what he's clearly missing. "Bakugou-san, you can't hold me responsible for what I've said if I don't know what sort of said we're talking about. But I never want to upset you–"
Kacchan immediately cuts Izuku off. "You didn't." The tablet blocking Izuku's view of his face doesn't budge. "What you said. It didn't. It just–" he cuts himself off, now.
He doesn't offer anything more. Izuku tries to think of what he can say. He'd at least like to be able to see Kacchan's face. But Kacchan hasn't loudly stormed out of Izuku's office. That means the conversation isn't really over, not unless Izuku's the one who wants it to be.
Izuku takes the moment he's been provided to shape the next step down the sliver of the path Kacchan's still left open. Kacchan's the one with the innate predator's instincts that thrive through his sudden, direct attacks. Izuku has his own strength, and that's his observation and long-term planning.
The more he learns of Kacchan's language, the better he's been able to get through to him.
Ever since their confrontation after Kacchan's surgery, Izuku's landed on a very key method to coax Kacchan out of the unassailable fortress of his endurance.
Kacchan's dug his feet into the deep hole the whole world pushed him into, and it's kept him standing through every next hit that's always intended to harm. It makes him very, very intractable when it comes to direct removal.
But not all removal has to be direct.
Izuku doesn't really get anywhere with Kacchan when he only engages with Kacchan's thoughts from his side, not Kacchan's. That's a fundamental mistake. Kacchan is the way Kacchan is because ultimately, Kacchan is incredibly adaptable.
He has to be. It's all he's ever had to survive.
That means that when Kacchan's own intractable viewpoint is expanded, when he's given the leeway of an opened space to start shifting about his thoughts himself… Kacchan will more often than not make the start to dig himself out, instead of just determinedly digging down further against all the best efforts of others to help him up.
Izuku hazards a cautious guess. "If it's– I do mean it when I say you don't owe me for any of– anything."
Kacchan just tchs.
"But if it's– whatever you consider to be breaking even, if that's important to you, we can– you've done so much work for us already, Bakugou-san, and after we win this case–" (-and they will, whatever izuku has to do, anything, they will–) "–I'd like your help with other cases, in the future," Izuku says. He's careful to keep it light. "I'd like to keep getting help from you. I enjoy working with you."
Izuku is able to catch the bare moment of Kacchan's true reaction where Kacchan's tempted to ask him why, actually, Izuku does.
Every day, Izuku can feel himself get a little faster at picking up the glimpses of Kacchan's ever-tumultuous urges he then firmly shoves deep back down again. It's still not long enough to read if that's from a droll curiosity to tease or one of his grim desires to see himself flagellated this time, so Izuku opts not to push it further.
When Kacchan's only answer is a sharp "We're not talking about that," Izuku wholeheartedly thanks his senses there.
Izuku licks his lips nervously. Don't engage, just expand. "Which part?"
"After," is all Kacchan says, entirely curt. But he's finally lowered his tablet just enough for Izuku to see his eyes again, even if it's just to level a razor-sharp warning glare.
"All right. The team always takes time off of the job after big cases," Izuku replies neutrally. "There'll be plenty of time to figure after out, um… after."
"Ladies and gentlemen, our One For All recipient," Kacchan deadpans.
"Ouch, Bakugou-san."
"So deny it, bitch."
"Now you're just salting the wound because you think it's fun."
"Are we just gonna spit obvious facts at each other?"
Izuku laughs, but he can recognize he's being distracted from his true motive.
"I want to know what it was, Bakugou-san," Izuku prods, careful to keep his tone only curious and far, far away from anything like cajoling. "What I said. I'd like to talk about it. Even if it doesn't matter to you, the things I say to you matter to me."
"You said you thought we were friends," Kacchan says. He manages to keep it from coming out a rush. He still can't tamp down on how the words burst out of him from where he's kept them bound inside, even as he immediately tries to play it back down to entirely apathetic. "When you were– throwing that fucking tantrum after surgery, you said you– I don't fucking know," he finishes irritably. "Something like that."
And the moment Kacchan's fixating over and clearly has been since the start clicks into Izuku's focus from what admittedly in his own recollection is largely a haze of upset, ratcheting fear, hugely inconvenient revelations, and then also some yelling and crying.
("and if we're friends like I think we are, you don't have to understand me to understand why I'd want to.")
Izuku's breath catches sharply. Oh. Oh. Oh, this is incredible.
Oh, he is going to have to be so very, very careful.