Water Under a Bridge || BkDk || MHA

(Chapter 1) Bakugo's Regret and Apology

A/N This story contains heavy spoilers for MHA this chapter alone contains spoilers up to Dekus vigilante phase. Alsooo all images are not mine!

---

**Bakugo's P.O.V**

**Flashback to when they were kids**

The air was hot and sticky as the sun beat down on my skin. I could hear cicadas all around, their annoying buzzing filling the air.

I marched ahead of a bunch of extras, chanting as we used a fallen tree to cross a river.

Deku was there, of course. He would never stop following me around like an annoying gnat. He was always so obnoxious; everything I liked, he had to like too. He was a quirkless nobody who should have known his place, so why was it that when I fell in the river, I saw him?

"Are you alright?" Deku slid down the side of the river bank and waded up to me.

All the other extras knew not to look down on me, and yet he held out his hand as if I would need help from someone like him!

I hated how his round emerald eyes were wide with concern and how his eyebrows furrowed with pity. I hated his stupid round face with a bunch of splotches he called freckles. I hated the way he kept thinking that we were equals or that we were even friends.

I stormed out of there. I was perfectly capable of picking myself up. I wasn't some little baby. From that day on, I never forgave him. It was one thing for a quirkless nobody to follow me around because he knew how great I was, but to look at me like I was someone who needed saving!?

**Current Time**

The sounds of fighting and chaos all around me brought me back to the present.

That's how I thought of Deku for the longest time. As a thorn in my side, a small hurdle I had to overcome on the path to being the greatest hero in the world.

So why was I throwing all of that away, my perfect future, to save a damn nerd? It was like I had no choice in the matter. I saw Deku about to be killed, and my body simply moved on its own.

Over the course of a year, I had gained a sort of respect for Deku. He wasn't the little kid who could be pushed around anymore. Even though that pissed me off a lot in the beginning, I was starting to see him as an equal, as a rival, even as a... friend.

When I saw All for One's quirk about to skewer Deku, I thought back to that damn river. So many nights I had laid awake thinking about shitty Deku and that river, but this time, when I thought about it, something changed. All the other times I had rejected Deku's hand, but this time I reached back.

I flew across the sky in a blinding explosion larger than I had ever created before. I thought I would be too late to protect Deku but I made it just in time.

The quirk went straight through my body in four different places, puncturing vital organs. I let out a cough, blood splattering everywhere. When All for One retracted his quirk, I felt my lungs start filling up with blood, and I quickly began fading out of consciousness.

Before I fell to the ground, I saw Deku. I had never seen such rage on his normally soft and easily flustered face.

The corner of my mouth turned upwards in the slightest of smiles as I felt a little sympathy for All for One. Give that sick bastard hell, Deku!

As I plummeted out of the sky, I lost consciousness, and I just hoped my sacrifice would not be in vain.

**Time Skip**

**Bakugo's P.O.V**

Deku had left U.A. with only a stupid letter revealing the secret of his quirk to the rest of Class 1-A. Everyone was shocked, but not as much as me. Even though I had already known about his quirk, I had never thought Deku would just leave.