Word Count: 3800+ (oneshot)
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.
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.
dededos
theartofmadeline
jacobvanloon
blakekathryn
annaxmalina
vaporwave
