Chapter Text
It was inescapable. The rot of the city, the stench of villainy, the filth of the diseased. Diseased? Oh, certainly. The wretched affliction of want. And no matter where Katsuki went, he could smell it. Even over the smell of his own flesh, the trailing, ashy scent of nitroglycerin, the aftertaste of his own sparks lingering on his palate. This was his chosen eternity, after all. Put the hand forward. Put the hand forward. Put the hand forw—
“Look!” exclaimed an voice from behind him, and Katsuki grimaced, pausing his despondent walk over to the nearest bar for a half second. “It’s Dynamight!”
Even after his shift, everyone expected him to be the people’s hero. Public property, owned by the populace, on the ever-tight leash of scrutiny. He didn’t fucking like that. At all. Maybe if he’d still been the boy he’d been back in UA six years ago, he’d have snapped at the little shit to shut the fuck up and run to his mother… but alas. Time had given him a certain amount of patience, and some ill-earned wisdom. Even if he wasn’t going to turn around and greet the kid, he didn’t have to face the world with such rancid bitterness anymore. No need to snap at anything and everything, regardless of reason. Especially kids who didn't know better.
I would never have been the same though, he thought irritatedly, though the blonde had now come to terms with the fact he'd been an abnormal child. A distasteful presence in the lives of many, a parasite, a tick, the yawning maw of a predator one had come to see as a pet, a friend. A lot of growing up and maturing and having his mistakes beat into him had taught him to be remorseful, and to be quieter. To hold his rage in reserve.
Should've learned that sooner, bastard.
Katsuki sighed, kicking a loose pebble on the ground as he walked along to the nearest hero bar, the chatter of excited noise fading off into the distance. Usually he and Kirishima would have gone for a post shift drink together, especially if it was as bad as the one today, but the red-haired hero had been caught up in report work with the agency and just told Katsuki to go on without him. So here he was. Both gauntlets held in one hand, the other hand stowed in his pocket as he strode down the street. His hero suit was a little tattered, but considering the fight he’d had just an hour prior, that might have just been a miracle.
But then again, everything was a miracle now. Why was he even a hero? He didn't care. He didn't have that same ego, that same entitlement, that same goddamn self respect. He sure didn't care about all the runts on the street, even if their deaths felt like a punch in the gut every time he carried their bodies out of a battlefield. What, like that didn't kill him every time? Cradling the head of a child in his arms, boneless limbs, unstaring eyes, a vessel so devoid of life it was a river run dry, the death of a thousand in one. Flower bloomed too soon, crushed under the boot of a lowly thing it had once yearned to become. Why, why, why did Katsuki think like this? Why did he collect flowers for graves he'd never visit, for holy sites the priest would never let him pray at? Why did church bells ring in his mind in place of the sirens he was so used to mauling the air? God, he was drenched in blood.
His suit was pristine though. Always pristine. He wished it would get a little dirty now and then.
“Seriously… they need to start doing something about these knife type villains,” he muttered to himself, remembering the glint of the blades as they’d converged on him again and again. A million small knives, combined with some sort of homing quirk, and he had barely evaded being cut to strips multiple times. It was a particularly vexing quirk, because it was damn near impossible to get close enough to the bastard shooting off those knives in the first place. He’d had to call in at the agency so someone could just power his way through and beat the villain to a pulp, and that had been proper humiliating. Even though Bakugou Katsuki, aspiring number one hero, prided himself on not asking for help… it was still required from time to time. And technically he hadn’t really asked for help if the red-headed fucker, Kirishima, had shown up on his own.
Katsuki sighed, running a hand through his spiky hair as he walked up to the usual bar. He’d been growing his hair out for the past year, wanting a bit of something new in his look, and it was finally reaching in long, spiky locks to his neck, a definite change from where they usually stayed till his ears—
The blonde stopped in front of the dark building, lights unusually dimmed.
The bar was closed, sign turned in, and Katsuki scowled at the sight. “YOU FUCKS CAN’T DO A SINGLE THING RIGHT!” he yelled loudly at nobody in particular, despite knowing logically that the place was closed because of the recent alert that had gone off for this area just two hours prior. It was a common thing on the new RedAlert app now, designed to tell civilians what areas to avoid where there was an active villain situation occurring. Kicking violently (and irrationally) at the door with a scowl on his face, Katsuki sauntered off. Damned pussies. Can't deal with a fight or two, he thought. Irritated, he pulled his phone out his pocket, tapping open RedAlert. An app launched last year by some kids in Shiketsu high from their support department, it had blown up insanely quick, allowing civilians to report and see which areas were active battle zones. And though it saved a lot of lives and prevented needless death, it was also such a nuisance when a whole block was shut down. And he just needed a fucking drink.
Shouldn't be that fucking hard to have your shit together and brace for conflict, he thought bitterly. Damned extras.
A pause.
God, he took too many pauses now. Hesitating where he never had before, and speeding ahead where he would've taken his time.
I'm a hypocrite. So what, if they don't want to die? I don't want them to die either.
...Right?
Katsuki shook his head, breaking out of his new reverie. Three years on the job, and he'd starting thinking too much. Always about himself, though. He thought far too much about himself far too often, this new loop of guilt and anxiety and self doubt that had been placed about his brow like the crown of Heaven. Shackled around his ankle like the caress of Hell.
Whatever, who cares. I just... need a drink. I should check the app again.
Either way, there seemed to be general alerts for a lot of his usual nearby places, so with a frustrated snarl, Katsuki stowed his phone back into his pocket. He’d have to just go to some random place then. Whatever. He just needed one drink before heading back to his apartment where Kaminari would inevitably be on his ass about something or the other. The short circuit bastard was always whining bitchily about the damn chore charts. As though putting up with his zippity ass wasn’t already a whole chore in and of itself.
★ click this link and play on loop for the rest of the chapter for better experience.
Katsuki had ended up walking to some random karaoke club nearby, hoping to at least down something high in alcohol content. Sure, you couldn’t expect much from a dingy place with flickering neon lights, accompanied by the slightly tinny noise of music spilling over through doors and loud warbling from drunken strangers… but the extremely pungent smell of whiskey in the air told him he’d definitely be able to secure a strong shot of something. Even if that something landed him in ER... which had become a common habit for the blonde, especially after going pro, with only a few of instances being for alcohol poisoning. That had been distinctly surprising, because ever since their class had graduated, almost all of Katsuki's friends had become alcoholics when not on the clock. He had a distinct memory of hitting the clubs pretty much every other night back in their prime, when they'd all just started their careers. A few choice drinks and playing fast and loose with his company back in those days had also led to Katsuki discovering some previously untouched aspects of his identity.
Like the fact he was very, very much gay. Yay for pride.
Pride indeed, like I'm not a coward hidden under this mantle of respectability, he thought absently, playing with the clasp on one of his gauntlets.
The main lounge was packed full of people, loud pop music blaring from speakers very precariously balanced on stools on the main stage, the stink of sweat very much apparent in the un-airconditioned room. Katsuki scowled, pulling up his cowl, praying to god some drunk bastard wouldn’t find it funny to walk up to him right now. He’d long since learned the more pissed he looked, the less likely randoms were to bother him. Less likely to give him good ratings too, but who cared. As long as he saved their ungrateful, snivelling asses from villains, it didn’t matter, and really shouldn't matter in his very un-humble opinion. He hadn’t become the number forty two hero in just three years out of nowhere, after all.
As if those feeble rating even matter, he thought to himself tiredly, mind somehow accommodating the constant swing between self deprecation and general hate for everyone, with relative ease.
The music was irritating, and the cheering crowd gathered around the stage even moreso. Who even sang in the main lounge of a karaoke bar, after all? Just rent a damn room for an hour. Idiots. Sometimes when Kirishima and Pikachu dragged him along, Katsuki would oblige in heading to karaoke places with them to meet the rest of their friends… but never garbage establishments like this. It was always some private booth where they could all fuck around in earnest. Pretty much all of them were rock-heads, a fact not fun to advertise when amidst the general public. Not very fun to hear whispers from little girls tugging at their mother's sleeve and going "Mommy, why is Dynamight shaking ass right now?"
Okay, well, no kid would say that. But still. What happened in those rooms was between MCR, Katsuki, and the rest of his friends, who'd been sworn to secrecy with a very valid, totally not fucking bogus blood pact. Or whatever that bitter red stuff had been that they'd been drinking out of Mina's flask.
The club might've been garbage, but at least the bar service was quick, though that was probably because whatever they were serving was very carefully toeing the line of what could be considered safe for human consumption. Probably failing a lot of health and safety standards too. He’d barely been sitting for a minute before the bartender had asked for his order and duly supplied a disgustingly potent concoction passed off as a highball. Hm. Well, whatever it was, at least it was high in alcohol content. Nobody cared for the messenger, if the message was well delivered with the right amount of fuckall.
Downing the glass, not even pausing to grimace at the rancid toilet bowl flavour, he gestured for another. The bartender, who seemed to have picked up who Katsuki was in the past half second or so, scrambled to pour out another glass of the filth. As though knowing you were serving someone important changed the quality of the swill you were passing off as alcohol.
The blonde paused to scowl at the marble countertop for a moment, before reaching ahead and snatching the whiskey. “This highball tastes like unfettered ass,” he muttered, and the bartender blanched even further. “Er— uh—” the man began stuttering, and Katsuki just rolled his eyes before sliding off the stool. Glancing at his phone, he walked off to a hopefully less crowded corner of the bar, solidly ignoring any and all curious looks thrown his way. Though (mercy of all mercies!) the obnoxiously bad rendition of Pink Pony Club that had been blaring through the speakers had finally faded off into static, it was still unbearably loud in there. There seemed to be a bit of a scuffle at the stage that Katsuki didn’t pay much heed to as he sat down in the least weird smelling armchair to the side of the room.
Why does everything here smell like piss or ass? he thought, disgruntled. It's a karaoke bar, not a fucking whorehouse.
He paused, taking a thoughtful sip of his drink. Well, even if it were a whorehouse, it would definitely be a gay one, considering you can't smell any vagina in here.
The speakers crackled back to life again, and thankfully, the music was less irritatingly loud this time. In fact, the score was far slower and smoother, possibly an older song. Tch. None of these extras know what real music is, Katsuki thought, irked as he took a sip of his drink. Listening to this garbage, as they know what the true soul of anything is. They eat like pigs, drink like pigs, die like pigs. And act as though they've been cultured. I wonder how they'd feel about their lives if they knew the true horrors out there, the things heroes have to sacrifice and—
Pause. This was the kind of embittered thinking both Kaminari and Jiro were always warning him away from, constantly reminding him where the motivations and thoughts of a hero were supposed to stay. But Katsuki had long since accepted... he didn't have a hero's heart, not really. Not in the way... not in the way he used to. That phantom in Katsuki's mind. A ghost of a past long since gone by. The green eyed boy with too much to say and far too open arms. The boy Katsuki hadn't heard word of for over half a decade, and still couldn't spend a single day without thinking of.
Deku.
Katsuki groaned, taking another sip of his terrible whiskey. No, he was not about to get into this right now. Not the time, not the place. Really not the place. Was hating himself every night before going to sleep not enough? Seriously? Whatever. Surroundings. Focus on my surroundings, he thought annoyedly, gaze drifting back to the speakers blaring up again.
The intro for this new song was… nicer. The voice of whoever was singing was smooth, and though they were clearly tipsy, it wasn’t too horrible to listen to. In fact… it was giving the blonde a weird sense of… hm. Nostalgia. Almost as though he’d heard the voice before. Was it someone he knew, maybe? The voice of an old colleague, perhaps? There was a ridiculous amount of people that Katsuki was forced to meet every single day, and he often chose to willfully forget about ninety percent of them. But he felt pretty sure he knew who this was, even if he couldn't quite place it. The richness of the person’s voice seemed off putting, and it had a melodic quality that made him feel this extremely all-encompassing sense of deja vu. Like memories of back home, jogs in the lane, the whispers of youth following close behind. It felt like being twelve again, on that balance beam of a life that was truly his. Not whatever he was living now. Not this unbalanced, thrown off sham of an existence, a meaningless pit of blood and alcohol and bad quality cigarettes.
There was a crowd around the singer, and said crowd was exceptionally silent, another thing that was extremely intriguing for Katsuki. Who could possibly be singing to have rendered such a previously raucous group of drunks silent? Must be some really hot guy or something, he thought, disgruntled, seeing the way both the men and women around the stage seemed enraptured. Simple minded freaks. Downing the battery-acid reminiscent drink in one gulp, he chucked his gauntlets on the chair. They likely wouldn't get stolen in the half minute he left to see who the fuck was warbling away, so he didn’t have to be much worried about that.
"No, you can’t do a thing… to stop me… now…"
Katsuki strode up to the stage, outwardly bored and unbothered, despite this weird sense of urgency creeping up his spine. He didn’t know why, couldn’t possibly pinpoint it. Maybe it was because the high alcohol content of the sewage water whiskey cocktail was fucking with his head? But no. That wasn’t it. The world felt like it was about to end, and it most likely was, because Katsuki’s gut instinct had yet to fail him. Ever.
He pushed through the crowd of swaying drunks, not pausing to apologize despite the insults and squealed profanities thrown at his back. Bakugou Katsuki was not a man who apologized for taking up space, and certainly not for invading that of others. So he soldiered through. The neon lights were blinking, blinding, flashing far too hard despite the gravity of the song that felt like it was being played out in the very thrum of his heart—
"No you can’t do a thing… to stop me… now…"
God, who could possibly be singing? Why, why was he feeling like this? Like someone had wrapped their hand around the muscle of his heart, pressing it into a fist, playing with the delicate seams of his arteries and veins? Like heart surgery of the worst kind, because he was fully conscious and entirely unable to object to this violation of his flesh.
"Days can be lonely, nights dreams come true. Making love with somebody… exactly like you…"
God, no.
No, he was mistaken. Was Katsuki going blind? Was he just too drunk? Had he finally lost his mind? No, this couldn't be. No, impossible. Impossible.
No, no, no.
He’d pushed to the front of the crowd, front of the melody, because really, whoever was singing was putting their soul into it. Their whole heart, all of it. A push and pull of tragedy, of passion, a thread of something he didn't understand, and now Katsuki had seen who it was. Green hair he never thought he’d see again, beautifully soft eyes meeting his for just a fraction of a fraction of the smallest portion of a second, that gaze that seemed to haunt his worst nightmares, a boy who was his first mistake, his last regret, his forever shame.
...
Deku.
"No, you can’t do a thing… to stop me…"
Katsuki couldn’t help it. Some chemicals won't meld together well, reactions not sanctioned, allowances not made. His mind was a whirlwind, thoughts mixing in ways they shouldn’t, couldn’t have before, memories and guilt resurfacing like rancid bile up his throat and—
Oh, he really couldn’t help it. Katsuki immediately hurled at the foot of the stage, much to the disgust of everyone screeching and scrambling away from him. The singer on the stage went abruptly, hauntingly silent. And even as he vomited his guts out, Katsuki wanted to turn his face up, meet those green eyes again. Beg. Beg to hear him sing again. Beg for forgiveness. For absolution. For everything to undo itself, for mercy from his own cruelty. Oh, how could he begin to explain how much he was full of regret? How he hated himself for the way he had treated Deku— no, Midoriya— for all those years.
A pause. A long pause. A slight tremor went through the hand he held over his mouth, head bowed, spiky blonde hair falling over his eyes. Did he recognize me? he thought, a flash, a drop in the bucket, a yawning wound of regret. God, I hope he didn’t recognize me. This is a mistake, a mistake, a mistake—
“Kacchan?”
Oh, oh god no.