Work Text:
Heavy breathing echoed throughout the quiet battlefield. The grey snow soaked up the sound the same way it did the blood and viscera of the bodies that didn’t contribute to the noise.
When he had decided the downed bodies in his sector weren’t getting back up, Bakugo slung his flamethrower onto his back again, and bent over to wash his hands in a small patch of relatively clean snow. None of it was objectively clean, infused as it was with the nuclear ash that thickened the air and dimmed the sky, but Bakugo’s carrier status made that the better alternative to having his hands smelling like fuel and burnt remains.
“Is everyone alright?” Ponytail asked the group. Bakugo scoffed. If anyone was going to get seriously hurt by this group of low-level thugs, they had it coming anyway. It was better they be taken out now to keep from holding everyone back.
Noise trickled back to the area as the twenty or so--Bakugo didn’t keep track--kids checked themselves over and began to chatter amongst themselves, crunching over the snow in search of friends and lost weaponry.
Bakugo was satisfied to see the members of his gang get straight to the point, exploring and patting down bodies in search of anything useful or interesting. At least he’d managed to teach them something.
He hadn’t always been part of this dumb group, it used to be just the five of them, and before that, Bakugo made it fine on his own (and before that, in a time where his memories got hazy, maybe his parents, his mom carrying him on her back as she marched through the everlasting cold and taught him the best places to aim when scorching someone).
Now, though, he was stuck babysitting a bunch of amateurs who really thought they were all going to survive this by being friends or something. It was no surprise this had been the ninth attack on them this week. Traveling in such a huge group of idiots in the most overrun part of the country was asking for trouble. And all of it for the sake of goddamned Deku.
“Hey, check this one out. I think she’s an adult,” Kaminari’s voice piped up from somewhere behind him. Bakugo grit his teeth. Just because his gang was better than this whole group of morons didn’t mean his gang wasn’t also composed of a bunch of morons.
“It’s probably just a weird mutation,” Earphones said, walking past Bakugo and towards Kaminari, playing with the chords she always kept wrapped around her neck.
Bakugo headed towards Kaminari as well, walking behind Earphones, and couldn’t help but keep glancing at her signature accessory. He’d never asked, but there was no way those things actually still worked (if they ever had at all), and as he watched the wires press against her skin he couldn’t help but notice, not for the first time, how easy it would be to reach forward and strangle her with them. He couldn’t figure out why no one in the group ever pointed that out to her. Hell, he didn’t understand why she couldn’t figure it out. She’d be half-way tolerable if Bakugo didn’t have to stare down that stupid vulnerability every time he looked in her direction.
The big kid who actually knew how to cook was already crouched beside the body with Kaminari when Bakugo got there, hands pulling back her lips while Kaminari used the glow coming from his hands to better illuminate the examination. The conclusion proved Bakugo’s point about Earphones usually being at least somewhat competent.
“Nah, look back here. She still has a tooth growing in,”
“Oh,” Kaminari said, shoulders slumping.
“You really should have known. She doesn’t even really look like an adult,” Jiro said.
“Well, I, mean, compared to everyone else…”
“Stop talking bull and get back to work,” Bakugo barked instead of letting Kaminara try to justify his stupidity.
“It’s not bull,” Kaminari whined, but he got up and sulked off.
“It kind of is, dumb-dumb,” said Jiro, following him.
“Tell Dumb Hair that if there’s even a little of his own blood on him, I’m burying him,” he shouted after them. Kaminari paused, turning back a little.
“You’re still on that? It’s not like it hurts him, he’s a Regen and he doesn’t feel pain,”
“Did I ask for your lame opinion? Just tell him what I said,” Bakugo snarled. Kaminari shrugged and lifted a hand in acknowledgment before walking off with Jiro. As he turned, he wrapped his threadbare jacket tighter around himself, the hot exertion from the fight wearing off. It made Bakugo hyper-aware of the fact they needed to get to some sort of shelter before darkness set in.
Their chances didn’t look good, though. As far as he could see in any direction was nothing but bodies and snow, the trudging marches of different gangs etched into the malleable landscape. No landmarks or hints to ruins or even, being incredibly optimistic, some form of civilization made themselves apparent through the icy sheets.
Bakugo looked up, trying to tell where the sun was. Ponytail, who knew how to read and once got her hands on some old books, claimed that once upon a time people could use the stars--glowing pinpricks of light in the night sky--to navigate. Whether that was true or not (and it definitely sounded like bull), the point stood that these days even the sun’s position couldn’t always be accurately gauged through the permanent ash clouds. The group’s only way to track their progress towards Yuuei came from Iceskates, the obnoxious loud guy who had an old compass he constantly told everyone was, like the useless skates he carried everywhere, given to him by his brother.
Everything Skates said, though, Bakugo took with a grain of salt, because he also claimed his brother had been twenty at the time of his death, and Bakugo had never heard of any non-mutant getting that old (his mother certainly hadn’t). Hell, even people with radiation-resistant mutations had only really started to be born around the same time as Bakugo. The oldest of them he’d ever met was the fifteen-year-old guy in the group with the three extra arms, and he was only about three years older than Bakugo himself.
Pushing through a snowbank, Bakugo headed towards where he could see Ponytail and Skates, along with freakin Deku, standing in conversation.
On his way, he passed Feathers, hair covering most of his face like always as he ruffled through the scorched jacket of one of the thugs Bakugo had fried. He pulled something metallic out, studied it, and then stuffed the probably pointless knick-knack into his bag with the rest of his collection. Not that Bakugo cared, but that bag of junk was going to get Feathers killed, the way it weighed him down.
“Oi, we need to get moving,” Bakugo told the gathering when he’d gotten close enough. Now he could see the four of them had gathered around Tail, Frenchie, and Skinless. The last two, apparently, injured, which only confirmed his opinion of them as the weakest links in the group. Frenchie startled and put a hand to his glowing navel, where blood pooled against the fabric of his shirt.
“I’ll be fine, really,” he said, as if Bakugo had asked. Bakugo scowled and turned to the other two.
“Hagakure was shot,” Tail said from his position propping up Skinless… Hagakure, whatever.
Bakugo took stock of the girl, eyes trailing down the foggy gelatin-like coating that was supposedly her skin and muscle tissue, most turned nearly translucent from cell-damage. This and her crumpled up shirt meant Bakugo could almost plainly see the tops of her wriggling small intestines, trying to hide under a fleshy yellow curtain that descended from the thick tube of her larger intestine. Pressed on top of the intestine, the near translucent pouch of her stomach sat pulsating with churning fluid as it crushed her last meal, surrounding organs slipping against each other as trails of blood crisscrossed over them like worms.
Of all the mutations Bakugo had seen over the years, she and Mina were definitely two of the most messed up.
Still, all this made it easy to see, when his gaze traveled down to her legs from where a wooden stick protruded, where the metal arrowhead scraped against the edge of her glowing blue shinbone, tangled in the delicate web of her panicked blood vessels.
“You’re a Regen, aren’t you?” He asked, moving up to her face. The contours of her skull gazed back at him, skin superimposed on top, one non-translucent eye meeting his. She nodded, esophagus scrunching up with it.
“Then what’s the problem?” He looked back at Tail. “You can see where the damn thing is, just pull it out and let her heal herself,”
“I’m afraid it’s not that simple, Bakugo,” Ponytail said, chewing on her thumb.
“Why not?” he demanded.
“The arrow is barbed. If we pull it out she’s going to bleed a lot and her leg will be really damaged,” Deku spoke up, voice soft, like he thought Bakugo was an idiot. Bakugo’s skin heated up and he resisted the urge to punch his radioactive fist right into Deku’s non-mutated face. He knew Deku was the first positive trail of that vaccine that was supposed to save the world or whatever, but it was still in the stages where physical contact from a Carrier like Bakugo would probably kill the damn nerd. Honestly, if Bakugo hadn’t made that promise to All Might all those years ago...
“I thought we just said she was a Regen. Who cares?” he said instead of poisoning Deku.
“Well not all of us can be Momo or Kirishima,” Skinless burst in. “I don’t heal that fast, I’ll bleed out.”
Bakugo stared for a bit, considering this. He shrugged.
“Then tough luck.” He looked at Ponytail and Skates. “It's getting dark, we need to get moving,” he repeated. The rest of the losers listened to these two. Not that Bakugo cared about the rest of them, but being caught out in the dark made anyone who glowed an easy target. Dumb hair would be annoying if something happened to Kaminari. Plus Kaminari’s hands were useful sometimes when they needed emergency light.
“Bakugo, we’ve just explained the problem,” Skates said in his annoying squeaky voice, arm cutting through the air. “And even if we could do so comfortably, moving Hagaku--”
“I never said anything about carrying her,” Bakugo said. “Leave her,” he finished.
Chaos erupted, everyone protesting and accusing him of garbage like his suggestion didn’t have the highest probability of getting the most people out of this mess.
Bakugo rolled his eyes. This was exactly the kind of stuff he meant. A buncha bleeding heart idiots. To his surprise, Deku’s voice cut through the protests. What he said, though? Less surprising.
“We’re not leaving anyone behind, Kacchan. That’s-- That’s not how we do things… but I guess you haven’t changed.” Deku frowned at him and it pulled and tugged at Bakugo’s nerves.
“You still whining about that?” Bakugo said, ignoring the gross tightening feeling in his chest. “You survived, congrats, Deku. But that was dumb luck. I made the right decision then--” he glanced at Skinless-- “and I’d do it again.”
“Then it’s a good thing it’s not up to you, you--you mean jerk!” Uraraka shouted at him from a good six feet away, apparently having been listening in.
“Ya? How about you come say that to my face?” Bakugo asked, baring his teeth. Uraraka’s hands fisted, but, predictably, she didn’t move.
If Skinless and Mina had the most extreme mutations Bakugo had seen, Uraraka had the worst side effect of being a Carrier. Most Carriers were, besides being immune to the radiation that clung to them, completely normal humans, sometimes with small mutations. Some, like Frenchie and Kaminari, glowed a little from parts of their body. A few had a little something extra: Bakugo could collect enough nuclear waste from his sweat and blood to fuel his flamethrower, Mina’s blood and spit were violently radioactive.
Uraraka played on another field, so radioactive that her very proximity made people immediately lightheaded. Her presence made even Carriers and Regens feel like they were about to float right up off the earth.
Great for battle. Not so great for interaction with allies. Especially not with Deku for whom nobody wanted to tempt fate by testing the limits. They needed Deku alive when they got to Yuuei so the lost ‘vaccine’ could be reverse-engineered from his living cells. No one wanted to be the one to accidentally kill him and really mess up the world… that is, more than it already was, allegedly.
He’d almost respect Uraraka if she wasn’t such a wuss about it, though.
“That's what I thought. I’m listening if anyone has any better suggestions. Anyone?” Bakugo asked.
“Guys, maybe… maybe he’s right,” Skinless said, hiding her face behind her stringy hair.
“Hey, don’t even say that. Bakugo’s just mean!” Tail said, shooting Bakugo a pathetic attempt at a glare.
“We’re not doing that, Kacchan,” Deku said again, eyes alight with the new fire he’d developed sometime between now and when Bakugo first left him to die. Back then, Bakugo thought that was what he wanted, for Deku to grow a spine and stop being the weakest link. Now, though, that edge to Deku’s expression, like Deku finally understood where they all stood, combined with the same sappy optimism as always only made heat rise into Bakugo’s throat.
“Listen, Deku. You were given one thing to do, and it’s not to save every bleeding loser between here and Yuuei. You need to get to the compound without being torn apart, and that’s it. Nighttime is coming. Skele-glow over here is our most obvious Glower. Ditching her before we all become neon lit targets out in the open is good for everyone. You gonna doom the world over some idiot who can’t fight?”
Deku, the nerd, stared back at him. A brisk wind flew around them all, carrying the iron smell of blood and rot infused with the ever-present crackling ionization of fission.
“M-midoriya,” Skinless spoke, “He’s… isn’t he right? You can’t risk everyone because of me.” Her voice trembled, but at least she wasn’t being a total wimp about this.
Tail began whispering denials to her again. Everyone else stayed quiet while the chattering and rummaging of everyone else continued around them. Bakugo hoped they were getting the full picture. It was time to move on, to survive. There was no point in weeping about it.
“If.. if I may. There is another option,” Ponytail spoke up. Everyone turned to her.
“Of course, what is it, Yaoyorozu?” Skates asked.
“Well… we can’t pull the arrow back because of the barbs. But… wouldn’t it do less damage if we were to push it the rest of the way through?” She asked, fiddling with her hands.
Frenchie’s face scrunched up, Skates dropped his hands, Uraraka gasped. Skinless and Tails shared a look.
“It’s a good plan,” Deku said, face hard. He turned to Skinless. “What do you think?”
She took a few deep breaths, bottom of her glowing ribs peeking out from under her shirt with the expansion.
“Okay,” she said, straight to the point.
Nobody moved.
“I suppose one of us must do it,” Skates said. Ponytail nodded.
“I can’t touch her.” Deku frowned, frustration lining his face. It was true, though, Skinless was way to radioactive for Deku to take the chance of being in contact with her blood. Frenchie looked like he was going to throw up, and Tails seemed to be stealing himself.
Bakugo didn’t have time for this bull.
“Pink cheeks!” He called. Uraraka jumped.
“I can’t--” she started.
“No, I’ll do it. You come hold her so that she’s not moving around and being a pain about it,”
“Oh! Good idea, Kacchan!”
“Shut up, nerd! You coming?” He turned back to Uraraka. She hardened her expression and marched forward through the snow.
“Um, Deku…” she paused a second.
“Oh, right!” Deku backed up, jogging about ten feet away before turning back to the group and nodding.
“We should go as well, to avoid fainting and being distractions,” Skates said to Frenchie. It was excessive, they only needed to be a few steps away, but whatever if it got them to leave. “Will you be alright?” Skates turned to Yaorozu.
“Yes. My cells regenerate fast enough to repair any radiation damage, even Uraraka’s,” she said. “I will see this through.”
Bakugo rolled his eyes as he kneeled, tugging Skinless’s leg forward.
“Hey!”
“Watch it!” Tails said.
“Shut up.”
Against his will, Bakugo discovered that the creepiest part of Skinless was that her skin still felt like skin, leathery and covered in chilled goosebumps from the cold. Higher up, around the wound that bled gooey blood, however, her temperature rose until it burned around his exploratory hand.
His thoughts twirled a bit as Uraraka finally approached, avoiding touching Tails while carefully placing her hands on either side of Skinless’s head.
Under Bakugo’s hands, the girl went mostly slack, small groan creaking out of her throat. In contrast, Tails went stiff, face scrunched together as he tried to focus. Bakugo did the same, far enough away at the end of the leg to avoid the worst, but still getting a little dizzy. Whatever. He didn’t need a ton of brainpower to stab someone.
“Are you going to be okay, Bakugo?”
“I’m fine, pink cheeks.” Uraraka frowned.
“This isn’t about you. If I’m too much, we could always get Todoroki. He can numb her with his right hand an--”
“Don’t bring stupid Half an’ Half into this. I’ve got it. Now shut up and let me do it.”
Uraraka scowled but did as told, grip tight on Skinless’s head.
Someone kneeled next to Bakugo, Ponytail, come to inspect the arrowhead.
“Hagakure’s skin provides some advantages here,” she said. “We are able to see her largest blood vessels and thereby avoid damage,” she said.
“Whatever. You ready?” Bakugo asked. Skinless just groaned again and Bakugo took that as a yes.
The weight of her foot sitting solidly on his lap, Bakugo wrapped one hand around her calf and the other around the shaft of the arrow. Keeping an eye on the thin cables of the arteries, Bakugo pushed.
The arrow was high quality, because the resistance wasn’t too bad. Bakugo likened it to skinning a good mouse using some sharp scrap metal. Not ideal, not easy, but certainly doable. He wondered if he’d be able to salvage the arrow after this, might come in handy.
No one else seemed to realize their luck, though, least of all Skinless, whose ringing shriek sunk into the ashen snow starting falling around them.
“Oh my god,” Tail said, hands tightening around Skinless’s arms, causing tiny vessels to pop under her skin in the shape of fingerprints.
Her thick warm blood continued to ooze out of the wound, leaking down her leg and sticking to Bakugo’s hand as it pressed against the entry-point.
“Tilt- Tilt it a bit to the left, Bakugo-san,” Ponytail said, not taking her eyes off the procedure even if her face blended in a little too well to the snow.
Bakugo shook the arrow, forcing it right so that the tip would go left. Skinless’ scream shuddered into a gasp. A shiver crept up Bakugo’s arm as the unpleasant feeling and scraping her bone echoed through his body.
“Hell,” he mumbled, adjusting his grip as it slid with the new resistance. “Ponytail, hold her leg for me,” he ordered. Ponytail shook but didn’t protest as she put both her hands around Hagakure’s ankle, replacing Bakugo’s grip. He used his new freedom to place his palm on the top of the arrow and push down with better leverage.
This time, the scream gurgled in Hagakure’s throat.
Crunching footsteps approached from every direction, drawn in by the noise.
“What’s going on?” Tounge’s voice croaked from a distance.
“Is he hurting her?” Half an’ Half asked from the same direction.
“No, Kacchan’s helping,” Deku explained, seeming to keep them from coming any closer. Bakugo filtered out the unnecessary sounds. At the very least, he could trust his gang to keep an eye out for any more attackers.
Something popped underneath his hand. Hagakure gasped. He’d pushed past the bone. His grip relaxed as he slid back into the relatively easy give of tender muscle.
“Break, I need a--” Hagakure’s teeth bit into her lip. Bakugo didn’t stop.
“Hey, stop! She said--”
“She’s wrong,” Bakugo interrupted Tail.
“Oh god, it hurts,” Hagakure sobbed, like everyone couldn’t already tell.
“No kidding,” Bakugo growled out. “We can stop and leave you here to die if you want. So survive instead. You don’t have another choice.”
She closed her mouth and reached over to grab onto Tail’s thigh.
“Shhh, he’s right. You’ll live and that’s what’s important,” Uraraka said, rubbing her hands on Hagakure’s head, causing the girl to sway and relax again.
Bakugo navigated the arrow around another large tube of thrumming blood and pressed the arrowhead against the thick layer of skin on Hagakure’s calf. He let go with one hand at a time, wiping the blood on the snow. Then he grabbed near the top of the arrow with both fists.
“Hold on tight,” he told Ponytail, not giving time for processing before he raised his torso and quickly contracted, stabbing downwards with his full strength.
Blood gushed out the bottom, globs of it reaching downwards like the sugary sap they’d once collected from a huge red tree. Hagakure, however, only grunted before falling quiet again.
Reaching underneath the leg, Bakugo got a grip on the base of the arrowhead and pulled, leading the shaft through her flesh until the whole arrow came out the other end fully intact.
“Done,” he said, cracking his neck and standing up with the weapon still in his grip. As he’d suspected, the tip was sharp and craftsmanship noticeably admirable even with the goop sticking to it.
As he stepped back, other people moved in crowding Hagakure with frantic questions and support while Ponytail had the brilliant idea to actually plug the wound.
“Is she going to be okay?” Kirishima appeared at Bakugo’s side, putting a hand on his shoulder.
Bakugo shrugged, glancing at Kirishima and checking for signs of past damage. The idiot was one of the most effective Regen’s he’d ever met, but that, combined with his lack of nerves on the surface of his skin made him a reckless bulldozer of a fighter. He was clean, though, no blood.
Suspicious.
“You’re training double tomorrow,” Bakugo said.
“Huh?! Why? I’m clean!” Kirishima said, pulling back.
“Idiot. You washed yourself off, which meant you’re trying to hide the evidence,”
“Aww,” Kirishima pouted. “I thought it would work,”
“You saying I’m stupid?”
Kirishima laughed. Bakugo rolled his eyes and looked back up at the sky.
“Okay, can we go now?” he shouted into the crowd.
“Hey, man, just give her a minute,” Kirishima said.
“We don’t have a minute. We’re worse than sitting ducks in pitch darkness, with all the three neon signs in the group, her included. We need to see if we can find shelter, and if not we have to find a way to set up a defensible formation,”
“Bakugo-san is right,” Ponytail said, standing up. Hagakure made a motion, and Tails and Skates lifted her from each side, Uraraka standing at a distance once again.
“He is,” she said. She turned to Bakugo, the muscle of her cheek contracting on one side, pulling back her lips and heightening the blue glow of her teeth. “Thanks, Bakugo,” she said.
“Whatever.” Bakugo shrugged and turned away. “Just don’t hold us back. We better not have gone through the trouble of saving your life for nothing,”
“Right. I’ll live, no matter what,” she said.
“That’s the spirit!” Kirishima answered, before following Bakugo as he marched away.
“That was a cool thing you did there, real manly,” he said. Bakugo shrugged again. “...and, I don’t think you would have done it if you didn’t think it was worth it. Like, maybe you actually like these guys?” Kirishima elbowed him a few times, being annoying as hell.
“Shut up, dumb hair,” he growled.
They walked for a few more feet.
“... They’re not total weaklings. If they’re not idiots, they might even survive out here,”
“So what you’re saying is that they’re strong!”
“No! They’re just… more durable than I expected, is all.”