Chapter Text
“Impressive,” the wannabe boss sneered, leaning over you, his filthy blood dripping on your cheek from his brow. Tobacco smoke curled from his mouth. “But I’ll break you, missy.” His thumb dragged agonizingly slow over your busted lip, sending a sharp sting through every raw nerve. “Tell me. How close are you to giving up?”
You flailed like a helpless fish on an abandoned beach, surrounded by glass shards, spilled alcohol, and crushed cigars. You jerked your arms and legs against the leather belts, each held tight in the fists of this weirdo’s lackeys. Pinning you down to the table and restraining you were the first things they’d done after subduing you like an animal.
Smart.
Because the broken bottle you’d shattered on their boss’s head would've pierced someone’s flesh.
The woman straddling your thighs yelped at your thrashing fury and slammed a hand down on your chest to steady herself, knocking the breath from your lungs.
Snickering filled the room in a chorus of mockery and taunts. The damn pig enjoyed your struggle the most. Probably getting off on it too.
“You could skin me alive, and I wouldn’t even flinch,” you snarled through the blood pooling on your tongue, then spat it in his face. “You’re pathetic. Is this all you’ve got?”
“Hold her head,” the boss ordered one of the women seated on the couch, watching. Then he took the hand of the one straddling you and twisted the ring on her finger, so the chunky stone faced down. “Slap her. Don’t stop until I say so.”
Hands gripped your skull. The silver ring glinted ominously before she raised her hand and struck, putting her pitiful strength into it. No remorse. No fear. Just glassy eyes and obedience.
She whimpered as pain cramped her palm. Honestly, the sound hurt more than the slap.
You focused on the tragic emptiness of her gaze, timing your inhales to the impact, exhales to the brief pause between them. Your facial muscles quivered. Your cheek felt wet. The ring’s gem must’ve split the skin. Damn blood, it was trickling into your ear.
Again. Again. Again.
“Stop.” The wannabe boss caught the woman’s arm and shoved the other woman away. “One last one,” he said softly. “Put your everything in it.”
You served her a bloody smile. “You heard him. Do your best.”
She did. So hard your head snapped to the side, one quiet gasp hightailing it from your throat. Static crept into your vision, and for a moment, you saw triple. You spat the blood once more, starting to hate the coppery sting on your tongue.
“Feeling like being a good girl now?” The wannabe boss bent to catch your eyes. “Ready to tell me everything?”
You licked the sanguine drops from your lips and swallowed loudly. “No, but here’s a tip.” You raised your head, inching closer to his face. “Kill me, and your boss will find out you robbed her of a jackpot. My Quirk is perfect for her business, you see.”
He snorted. “We move on to bluffing now?”
“I walked in here all by myself. Would I do that without a worthy bargaining chip?”
“Negotiation?” he muttered, straightening as he began to pace, humming to himself.
You blinked the blurriness away and tunneled your mind into the facts, into the cold-blooded logic of your situation, into the silent confirmation this idiot had just handed you on a silver platter.
Your Quirk wasn’t gone, but temporarily suppressed by whatever was in that dart. It had been thirty minutes since then.
“I’m not a fan,” the wannabe boss said, then slammed his hands down beside your head, rattling the glass shards scattered on the table. “But I’ll do it, if you entertain us for the rest of the night. Break, missy, and I’ll change my mind.”
Your Quirk should return soon. So by the time it did, these losers would be fully convinced you weren’t a threat anymore. You needed that. You needed them to let their guard down—unbuckle a belt, loosen their grip, make one mistake.
You inhaled deeply, then ever so slowly exhaled through your mouth.
Fake it…until you make it.
“Alright. Deal,” you replied dryly. The first flicker of surprise cracked across his face. “Go on. Continue.”
While they got off on your torture, you’d bide your time. You could do it. You could endure it. That young girl still holding fort inside you survived six years of torture; you’d never dare undermine that by fracturing at the hands of rotten scum.
Besides, Ayumu would worry if you vanished like this. And you had a Quirk trafficking ring to dismantle.
In all honesty, you should’ve already considered what would happen if you were taken out of the picture before you ventured down this path. Ayumu wouldn’t be able to handle the situation alone, and the authorities would fumble through their protocols.
You needed something, or someone.
“I want her arms bare.”
Bakugou.
He could be that someone. This situation was deeply personal for him, so he’d pick it up right where you left off.
Unless he was involved.
Ignoring the cold pressure of a blade sliding under your sleeve, you closed your eyes with a sigh and let go, fully embracing the quiet of the world. This might be your only chance to experience life through a dimmer lens, like everyone else.
How weird. Abnormal. The nuances were missing.
You decided you didn’t like it.
Incomplete, like a roughly outlined sketch, like a story told halfway.
You peeked through your heavy lashes as your head lolled to the side. Red pooled lazily under your cheek, trickling off the table’s edge. Unhurried.
The smell and taste of iron spiced the air. Faint. So delicate, your drained heart startled at the anomaly.
The spotlights overhead reflected off the crimson surface, tiny, luminous dots.
More glitter than stars.
Beautiful, but somehow wrong.
Something twinkled, and it took your brain a moment to register what it was. The wannabe boss waved a pocket knife in your face, then licked its pristine tip as if a bead of your essence was right there. His mouth moved, spewing a string of words you refused to hear, your insides revolving that his vile saliva would soon invade your bloodstream.
On and on, his blabbering continued on mute.
Your lack of reaction seemed to piss him off, but didn’t he realize the game was one-sided from the start? You agreed to be the board, not the player, too. Would’ve been if the level weren’t mediocre to the marrow.
Damn his face. Could it disappear? Too close, and reeking of alcohol and ash.
A smoking hand appeared out of nowhere, clamped around the loser’s throat, and yanked his stupid face away. You couldn’t help the burst of stunned laughter that escaped you. Incredible. Were you just granted a wish?
The table vibrated, and your body shook with it, but the intensity left much to be desired. Your brows furrowed when it didn’t happen again. Anticlimactic.
Shadows flashed on the wall in front of you, their silhouettes caught in the red, sparkly splash beneath your cheek. They moved fast. In a blur.
Fell.
One was left standing.
More red entered your vision. A different kind. Different shade.
Pleasant warmth pressed against the sides of your face, gently lifting your head, the touch humid. Summer kissing your skin.
The red moved with urgency, hypnotizing you with its perfect hue and the rosy flecks surfacing from its depths whenever light dared to venture in.
And it had a voice.
It said your name, the one your parents gave you.
How?
You looked nothing like yourself right now. Your disguise was flawless. But the voice, rough and strained, carried anguish. Haunted notes that trembled in your ear, stirring something in your voluntary dormancy. Something that felt just like the thing that always messed with your heartstrings when he was involved.
That thing lived because he did. That thing loved his existence more than it did your own. That thing inscribed his name onto itself and chanted it like sacred gospel, worshiping despite the war you brought to its border.
Bakugou Katsuki.
Bakugou fucking Katsuki.
Katsuki.
Katsuki.
Katsuki.
Maker. Ruler. Ender.
The force behind your void. The reason wishes were obsolete. The denied truth you breathed in and out every day like a drug, getting high on doomed vapors.
“Fuck, just…leave me alone,” you murmured, getting fed up with him popping up uninvited in your head. You had to play your cards right, trick these losers and escape, not hallucinate Katsuki.
“Never.” The red kindled with relief, and you felt the light taps on your uninjured cheek. “Come back to me. C’mon.”
As you slowly blinked, a resigned smile crested on your face. The illusion spoke. It must’ve been pretty what the losers were doing.
“Oi.” Another round of gentle smacks. Your nose wrinkled at the insistence. Something wet pressed against your already sweaty forehead. Something hot brushed your lips. “For their sake, snap outta it, Truthie. Need you to stop me.”
A plea and a threat wrapped into a murmur that drifted into your ear, but it was his nickname for you that fractured the fantasy. And somehow, as part of the cosmos's joke and its love for timing, the curse lifted off your senses too.
Everything exploded at once. Your body, your mind, your heart seized in tandem, and you sucked in a breath like it was the very first one. Torrid pain devastated your nerves as your senses reconnected to maximum capacity to the world, but it barely registered.
Katsuki was here, in the flesh. Hunched over your body, nose to nose with you, staring from under his black cap with the kind of look you’d only ever seen in movies when people found each other again. When time suspended, and space surrendered, so the moment belonged to them and them alone.
You’re here, you wanted to say, but your throat remained tight as air wheezed in and out of your lungs.
You were still disoriented, struggling to catch your breath, when instinct fired before thought. Adrenaline pounced on your nerves, a rabid beast that knocked Katsuki aside, pulled you off the table, and hurled you at the loser who aimed his knife at the one man you’d probably tear the world apart for.
Sweat and blood drizzled from your face onto the wannabe boss’s frozen as you straddled him, breath ragged, fingers digging into his wobbling jaw—Katsuki’s work, you assumed. Your heart pounded, each beat like a punch into your ribs, and you swallowed hard, twice in quick succession. A pained hiss slipped out with the second.
Angered voices, like a riot, sounded in the hostile air. Boots stormed into the room. There were shouts and accusations and threats, one more frenetic than the other. Rapid stomping as a large shadow fell over you, followed by a series of grunts and thumps that sent a violent shiver down your spine.
Your fingers unfurled from the wannabe boss’s throat as the double doors slammed shut and locked with a click, and you stood, swaying on your feet. An arm came around your waist, pulling you flush into another body, taut with tension, primed for fight, and radiating heat like a furnace.
Katsuki.
Katsuki? When did he stop being Bakugou in your head?
You twisted to look at him, and your knees gave in as reality burrowed deeper. “You’re h-here. And…and you—you saved me. Actually saved me.”
Hiding that disbelief wasn’t possible when it changed things. He knew who you were, so…if he were a villain, working with Miyuki under Madam, wouldn’t he have joined that loser to break you? Wouldn’t he have made sure you could never escape?
“‘Course I did. How’s that a surprise?” His chest rose as he inhaled. Caved in on the long sigh he let out. “We ain’t got time. You trust me?”
Your eyes fell to his hands, to his bloodied knuckles and the faint smoke curling over them as beads of sweat dripped to the shiny floor from his fingertips. It wasn’t just you he could snap in two, bare hands or Quirk, but whatever he wanted. Destruction lived under his skin, chained by the mass of muscles and mental fortitude, redefined to serve the good, the right, the just.
“Can I?”
Katsuki was undoubtedly flawed, but the roots of his heart had to be sublime. You wanted to believe that.
“Yeah. Yeah, you can.” The back of his hand tipped your chin up, so you had no choice but to meet the promise packed in his stare, resolute against the backdrop of muffled screams and thudding fists. “Not a single one of those bastards gets a breath in your direction anymore. Mark my word, Truthie.”
The double doors burst open, and the boss’s minions rolled in.
How wonderful reassurance was when it came from him, but it bore down on your chest, and you couldn’t breathe under that weight. Shame overruled the frail desire to accept his protection. You failed by not being quicker on your feet, by not fighting smarter, by not reading body language better, by not expecting their women to join the fray.
By not being stronger.
You smiled, though it didn’t strain your cheeks, didn’t crinkle your eyes, and stepped around him, squeezing his forearm in passing. You wouldn’t be a liability, let alone his.
“What are you—”
But you were already on the move, snatching a metal rod out of a minion’s hand and slapping another into rigor mortis.
“Trusting you to have my back.” Your voice rang clear, steady, even as pain swarmed your insides like a hive of furious wasps. It doesn’t hurt. It really doesn’t. “This is my mess. I’m not letting you fight it alone.”
“What the hell? You outta your mind?” Katsuki’s indignation followed you out of the VIP room. He was at your side, blasting a point-blank, controlled explosion in a minion’s face. “You ain’t in any state to fight. The only reason you’re even movin’ is adrenaline.”
Your Quirk found its next target, paralyzing his nervous system. “I don’t care.” You whacked the guy closing in from the side with the metal rod, then glided past him, hand brushing his stubbled face. “I’m no damsel.”
“Who said that? Goddamn it, woman!” Katsuki’s elbow crashed into a temple, fast and ruthless, as if to emphasize his rising rage. “Can’t you let me deal with it? I got you, for fuck’s sake. You know I do.”
“And I got you! What of it?” A trickle of blood snaked into your mouth from your nose. You wiped it away. “It’s either together, or you stand the fuck down and watch.”
The snarl that tore free from his chest couldn’t be described as human, stunning both you and the wannabe boss’s lackeys.
“Then I gotta finish ‘em off before you can get close.”
You gasped when he roughly grabbed your upper arm and shoved you behind him, making your legs trip over each other. Your back hit the door frame of the VIP room with a sickening thud, and you groaned at the lightning pain zapping your spine.
“Over my dead fuckin’ body you fight in here.”
You had no time to react. Light exploded from between his hands, blinding everyone within a radius. A beat later, a high-pitched roar tore through the club, like a jet engine taking off. Your ears rang. Disorientation rammed into your skull. And so, you were benched.
Forced on the sideline because he couldn’t handle fighting beside you, apparently. Damn bull-headed bastard said fuck no and chose to kick you out of the mess you willingly walked into.
Did he think you were weak? Or maybe he just didn’t trust you to watch his back. Or was it something else entirely?
When clarity returned, you heard the panicked screams, the pained shouts, the pleading groans. Thick clouds of smoke rose to the ceiling, carrying his scent. You shoved off the door frame, pulse thundering, and staggered to the railing, wincing as your body reminded you of its state.
Below, people ran for the exit.
Then there was him.
On the first floor, Katsuki drove his boot straight into someone’s gut, knocking the guy into another. They tumbled down the stairs, their grunts drifting upward like the heat wave left by his Quirk.
He jumped down, landing clean on his feet, and prowled five steps forward before stopping. Looked around. Scrutinized the men left standing.
Unimpressed.
His expression was the epitome of a wasteland.
“Who’s next?” He didn’t need to yell.
The music had stopped. The lights no longer danced. The nightclub was buried in lethal silence. A graveyard created out of your shameful failure and his raging stubbornness.
Your fingers clung to the railing, stiff with everything you shouldn’t be feeling.
Fascination with the way he carved a path all by himself, conquering both through action and presence. Those who weren’t unconscious, or close to it, gave him a wide berth. Maybe they knew who he was, maybe they didn’t. But instinct understood: the smart move was to distance.
An insistent flutter that started in your stomach and moved. Lower, between your unsteady legs. Higher, in the center of your heart. Around you, riding the violent atmosphere where you were untouchable because he wouldn’t allow it.
The taboo of your connection when his gaze dragged up to nonchalantly meet yours.
You weren’t aware of your knees giving out, crumpling to the floor in a heap of ragged breaths and full body shivers. Only of your mind trying to make sense of the last few minutes.
This was the inevitable consequence of meeting face to face, and to you, it was clear as day that Katsuki had no intention of returning to the time before. If you tried, he would search relentlessly until he found you. Chase until he caught you.
Which was exactly what you’d wanted—Dynamight’s sole target to be you—but under different circumstances. These weren’t it.
It no longer mattered what fueled him. It no longer mattered that he’d drifted from the imposed rules. Katsuki being here meant one thing.
“You little bitch.” A harsh voice slurred behind you, from the VIP room. “Got in here and ruined the business. Did this to me!”
He’d poked the vipers’ nest, putting himself in danger that demanded you dive in headfirst, and let them inject the lethal poison into your veins instead. You were the one who stirred them in the first place, anyway.
That same voice bellowed again, swinging between threats to make you regret everything and promises to kill you because even your dead body, apparently, still had its uses. All while its owner remained oblivious to the vicious menace below.
Locked. Loaded. And with liquid nitrogen for blood.
Boom.
The wannabe boss sounded like he was wheezing and choking at the same time. You dared a look over your shoulder. His body was splayed on the floor, with Katsuki’s boot planted firmly on his sternum.
“It’s not worth it,” you intervened before Katsuki got any ideas. “Let’s go.”
You grabbed the railing and tried to stand. He clicked his tongue and marched toward you, steps heavy, angry. Then he scooped you into his arms.
“Don’t argue. Not a good idea to push me right now.”
“I won’t.”
“Good.” He turned for the stairs as you looped your arms around his neck, forehead resting against his jaw. “Just so we’re clear, you’re in deep shit. I don’t care about your excuses or lies. You’re gonna give me the truth, even if I gotta force it outta you.”
Your hand fisted into his sweaty, heat-soaked hoodie, and you hated how the damp sensation was perceived as comfort, safety, and something else you wouldn’t dare name. How your body relaxed at feeling his powerful heartbeats. How the urge to touch him in ways that would feed your very soul surged as adrenaline ebbed.
Hands in his hair. Fingertips on his scars. Nose along his jaw. Mouth at his pulse.
Tremors rocked your body—equal parts the forbidden thought and the aftermath of what had just transpired—and you bit your tongue to hold back the pathetic whimper clawing its way up your throat.
It doesn’t hurt.
But it did.
Your face throbbed, the wound on your cheek pulsing white-hot. Your muscles ached from overuse and forced restraint. Your head felt trapped between two steel plates, the pressure steadily building.
And your heart. Your bruised, stupid heart lamented under the weight of denial.
“What the fuck are you doing, you imbeciles?! Stop them if you value your life!” the wannabe boss screamed.
“This piece of shit,” Katsuki growled, rounding on the loser still barking orders from the third floor.
Next thing you knew, you were slung over his shoulder, his arm banded across your thighs, blinking dumbfounded at the suddenly tilted world.
At his…ass.
“W–what are you doing?”
“Makin’ up for not rearrangin’ his bones.”
Heat blazed past your legs, followed by the sharp crack of exploding glass. Your eyes widened as you reached back for his bicep and used it as leverage, together with the last of your strength, to raise your upper body enough to see what in the world he’d done.
“Oh, no. No, no, no,” you whispered like a broken mantra. The bar was on fire, devoured by the flaming beast spilled alcohol birthed. “What have you done?”
This was ten levels of bad. The authorities would be alerted and storm in. An investigation would follow—and they might find something that led too close to Madam…and to Katsuki, once witness statements started piling up.
How many people had a Quirk that could blow things up the way his did?
His name would be one of the first to come up. Of that you were sure, and anger burned too hot, too fast inside your gut.
Your hands clutched his shoulders, fingers digging through the fabric of his hoodie the moment he righted your body.
“Do you have any idea what you’ve done?” you seethed.
“The cops ain’t gonna find a trace of you,” he replied, sparing you a look down his nose that set your teeth on edge. “While you were busy goin’ feral on that scumbag’s ass, I took care of it.”
Cold air rushed over your sticky skin as he marched out of the club and into the night, but your fury wasn’t cooling. A crowd had gathered around, murmurs and whispers passing between them like Breaking News. Distant sirens blared, ratcheting your nerves tighter with every wail.
“You’re such an impulsive, reckless hazard,” you hissed, one hand on his cap as you tugged it lower over his eyes.
He scoffed. “You’re welcome.”
Your palm pressed to his scarred cheek, covering yet another clue that would give his identity away. And Katsuki had the audacity to lean into your touch, glaring like you had blackmailed him into nearly blowing up an entire club to settle the score with your torturers.
People rushed past, ignoring you both. Gratitude pinched at your heartstrings, and you tore your gaze from him with a quiet huff, letting it drift across the agitated red-light district that, not too long ago, buzzed with the energy of partygoers. Your personal circus had collapsed; you’d failed as its puppeteer.
All because one wild card had stepped onto the board of his own volition.
The next step hit you like a sledgehammer, changing the course of your thoughts. Old layers peeled away like a snake shedding its skin.
Your thumb stroked over his scar gently—back and forth, back and forth—and you felt his torso expand as his breaths deepened. His muscles bunched, arms locking tighter around you.
He was a force, in and out of battle. But that didn’t mean he was uncontainable.
You brought your eyes to his, shadowed by the cap, and stared. He stared right back, carrying you effortlessly through the alleyway leading to the main street. Nothing around you registered anymore. Time dilated as resolve made its lair where denial fought to live.
Katsuki had stripped you of the chance to fight for yourself, at his side. So, you would return the favor by chaining him to inaction, at yours.