VOID [Katsuki Bakugo x OC]

Rule #8: Mom's the Boss

♪

"You're not gonna try to make out with me or some shit, right?"

Settled into Beijing in the muddled, pre-dawn hours of the morning, Katsuki Bakugo watched as a pajama-clad Cadence climbed onto his hotel bed--the one closer to the door, in case of intruders, not that that would deter any airborne villains from coming in the huge window that took up their entire far wall--with her laptop precariously balanced in her hand.

She scoffed at him, visibly disgusted that he'd even mentioned the idea of them kissing. "Ew. No. I just want you to start teaching me how to be confident like you... you nasty," Cade grimaced as she punched him in the arm, "Now listen, I told you I'd help you too, yeah? This is that, so watch." She'd been busy pulling up one of Bakugo's many villain battles, one from a few months prior, and pressed play.

They sat shoulder to shoulder and watched as Katsuki fought a villain with a dragon-like quirk: scales, claws, wings, fire breath... the whole shebang. In the video, the two exchanged blows, blew some shit up, the typical Dynamight-related stuff. When it was over and Past Bakugo successfully apprehended the villain, Present Bakugo clicked his tongue in satisfaction and smirked. "So? What did ya think, Blue? Badass, or what?"

He internally punched himself.

Was he trying to impress her in his own weird, Bakugo-esque way?

If so... why? Why did he want her approval so badly?

The new nickname didn't even faze her. "So? So???" Cade gaped, leaning forward to stare eye-to-eye at her bodyguard. "Kat, You could have finished that fight five minutes earlier."

No... No way.

Katsuki's knee-jerk reaction was to yell, to fight her tooth and nail, but something in the back of his mind said that maybe... maybe she was right. "Let's say that's true somehow, which is damn near impossible," he grunted, pulling his knees up to his chest and propping both arms on top, ignoring Cade's irritated scoff and exaggerated eye-rolling, "What would I have done any fuckin' differently? I had a good-ass plan and I executed it perfectly. Case closed, motherfucker."

"Okayyy, except think of all of the extra shit you wrecked in that five minutes, Kat," Cade huffed, counting on her fingers as she listed the next part, "You broke an apartment building, which likely resulted in mass relocations and insurance fees at the minimum; the villain destroyed a city bus, which isn't cheap to replace and would come out of the taxpayers' pockets; and you both wrecked an entire city block. Cars, landscaping, pavement, streetlights... all gone. You could've saved your agency - and the people of Japan - millions, if not billions in damage by defeating that guy only five minutes sooner."

A beat of silence passed between the two of them as Bakugo wrestled down his immediate response to explode in Cade's face. Her data and examples were all sound. She wasn't trying to make him feel guilty or rile him up... She seriously was trying to help. And by doing so... she proved that she really believed he'd return to Dynamight someday... unlike the rest of the world... or even Katsuki at that moment.

So instead, Katsuki swallowed his pride...

And he said, "Show me how."

♪

Katsuki woke to sobbing.

He hadn't heard Ine Yamaguchi enter the room, or when she slapped Cadence across the face to wake her. He hadn't even heard when Ine wrenched her daughter from her bed by a fistful of hair, her bones collapsing to the carpet with a sickly thud.