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In the basement of an abandoned apartment complex in one of the rougher neighborhoods of Musutafu, Midoriya watched the still form of his childhood tormentor through the eye slits of a mask. The leaky pipes of the condemned building dripped steadily, marking the slow passage of time like a metronome.
Midoriya waited with an outward show of patience, resisting the urge to check his captive’s restraints again. The sedative he had slipped the ignorant hero should be wearing off any minute now, and Midoriya wanted to be in place when he awoke. The bindings holding Bakugo’s arms together around a concrete pillar were his own design, and he had tested them against explosions much more powerful than what Bakugo could produce even on a summer’s day. In a chilly basement they would be more than sufficient.
Deciding the appropriate dosage on any drug was always a bit of a guessing game. Midoriya had studied Ground Zero’s news clips religiously to estimate the man’s weight, and he believed he had determined it within a few pounds, but metabolism was unique to each individual and each quirk. When Bakugo had showed up to the café covered in sweat from a recent fight, Midoriya had made a split-second judgement and added another half gram of sleeping powder to the hero’s drink.
Hopefully that would not turn out to have been a time-wasting mistake.
A low groan escaped Bakugo’s slumped form, erasing Midoriya’s idle concerns in an instant. It was time to get into character. Act 2, scene 1, start.
Bakugo swore under his breath and pulled his knees underneath him, groggily rising to a sitting position. “What the-” he mumbled as he lifted his head. His eyes met Midoriya’s and he froze.
“YOU!” he shouted after a shocked half-second, earlier befuddlement disappearing. Predictably, this raspy scream was followed immediately by the largest explosion that Bakugo could produce without prior exertion or any of his support items.
Midoriya had cuffed Bakugo’s arms together from forearm to wrist, leaving just enough space free below his shoulders to allow for the concrete pillar at Bakugo’s back. The position left Bakugo completely unable to direct his explosion, and so all that it accomplished was a small hole in the concrete floor. Very small.
“FUCK!” Bakugo screamed. The cuffs, as they had been designed to, absorbed most of the thermal energy of the attack and raised to a blistering temperature. Midoriya could smell burning flesh, though he couldn’t tell if it was a real scent or a memory.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” Midoriya said, smiling behind his mask. “The temperature will drop in a moment, but not back to baseline. Every time they’re heated, they’ll reach a higher thermal peak. You could very well burn your own arms off.”
“Fuck,” Bakugo repeated eloquently. He seemed to have understood the situation, though, as he didn’t attempt another explosion. He grit his teeth and breathed a few wheezing gasps before he had himself under control. “What do you even want with me, Laplace?” he asked with a thin veneer of calm. “It’s not like you to do your own dirty work.” After a moment of thought he donned a strained smirk. “Is the man who killed All Might coming out of the woodwork to take down the future #1?”
Midoriya snorted. “Hardly. The next #1, after Endeavor burns himself out, will be Miruko. Her popularity will struggle initially due to certain cosmetic similarities to myself,” he gestured at his rabbit mask, “and she will declare me her archenemy. It will be a convenient platform, though it will force me further out of the shadows than I would like. I haven’t decided yet whether to use it to start a civil war.”
Bakugo scoffed as the cuffs cooled and his pain levels receded. “Miruko? Not Hawks? What, you think you can kill him as easily as you killed a quirkless old man?”
Midoriya shook his head. “His reputation as a hero will go down when the Hero Commission does. If he survives the backlash, he’ll most likely join the League of Villains.”
Bakugo rolled his eyes. “Sure, sure. The all-knowing Laplace and his predictive algorithms. Like I believe in that shit.”
Midoriya shrugged. “Believe it or not, it makes no difference. All actions have consequences somewhere down the line. That much is obvious.”
Bakugo pulled a scowl of disgust. “Screw this monologue. Answer my question. Why am I here? You didn’t kidnap the great Ground Zero just to talk philosophy.”
Midoriya felt a shiver of anticipation climb his spine. “Maybe that’s exactly what I did. You have a lot of potential as a hero and I just hate to see you squander it, Kacchan.”
“...Kacchan?” Bakugo echoed, and the blood drained from his face.
Midoriya reached up and detached his mask, lowering it. “You wouldn’t listen to Laplace, but maybe, just maybe, you might listen to an old friend.”
Bakugo’s hands lit up with another explosion, and then he was on the floor, screaming in agony.
Midoriya waited a moment for the heat in the cuffs to decrease to its new baseline before sighing. “Now Kacchan, you really must keep a hold of your temper. I’d hate to return you to Auntie with permanent damage.”
Bakugo panted against the concrete floor, sweating enough with the pain that the next explosion threatened to be truly spectacular. Eventually, he found his voice, his curiosity overcoming his pain. “Deku?” he asked with a rasp.
“I think you will find that my name is Izuku Midoriya,” the villain admonished casually.
Bakugo took a deep breath and pushed himself back up into a sitting position against the pole, master of his pain once more. “Whatever,” he hissed. “You really set up that whole café meeting just so you could, what,” understanding flashed through his eyes as he put the pieces together, “drug my drink?”
“Yep,” Midoriya replied, popping the ‘p.’ “Your pride is your biggest weakness, Kacchan. If an old friend reached out and claimed to be a devoted fanboy I knew you wouldn’t refuse a meeting.”
“And then who jumped me in the alley? Your worthless ass couldn’t take me, even once I was drugged.”
“Oh, just some friends of mine. People who believe in my vision for society.” Midoriya waved dismissively. “Turns out most people can be persuaded when provided with reasonable arguments.”
Bakugo laughed uproariously at that comment, only stopping with a wince when his shaking shoulders jostled his burns. “Oh yeah, terrorism is totally reasonable. Killing All Might after he had already lost his powers? Makes total sense.” His nose scrunched as fury took over his face. “Listen, Deku, I’m not interested in your idiotic villain goals. You’re just fucking evil and the heroes are going to bring your ass down.”
"Hmm. Am I evil?” Midoriya tilted his head, considering. “I do what I want regardless of whether that hurts other people. You do what YOU want regardless of whether that hurts other people. Morally, how are we different?"
Bakugo growled. "You can't honestly compare burning your dumb notebooks to--"
"Oh no, Kacchan, I'm not referring exclusively to our personal history.” Midoriya was quietly pleased that, despite his professed disinterest in Laplace’s reasoning, Bakugo had taken the bait and jumped on a chance to argue. “Were you aware that Ground Zero has the highest civilian casualty rate of any pro hero? The Hero Commission doesn't advertise the fact, but last year more civilians died in incidents where you intervened than in uncontested villain crimes in all of Musutafu. You are actively increasing mortality rates!" Midoriya delivered the last with an almost gleeful tone.
A flicker of shock passed Bakugo's features but he responded with heat, "Someone's gotta take down the big bad! Of course people die when someone like Geten comes to town! That's why he's gotta be stopped!"
"Of course. And if Ground Zero collapses an inhabited apartment building in the process, well, that's just how the omelette gets made."
"It's a battle scene! Stuff is going to be dangerous! You can't stop someone seated in the splash zone from getting wet. That's why rescue heroes evacuate that shit!"
"Oh and losing uninsured property definitely didn't ruin any families' lives."
Bakugo opened his mouth to counter but Midoriya raised a hand. "Setting that point aside for now, you claim that a certain amount of civilian casualty is unavoidable."
Bakugo, irritated about being interrupted, stubbornly refused to confirm this. Midoriya paused for just a moment and continued unperturbed.
"So, Ground Zero can't avoid civilian casualties because he's such a big star having big, important fights. Strange that Endeavor, who as the #1 hero attracts high profile villains in greater numbers than yourself, actually has LOWER casualties. This is the man, note, that last year created a scandal by being caught on camera saying that during a mission civilians should 'just stay out of his way.'" Midoriya shook his head and clicked his tongue disapprovingly. "Really, Kacchan, are you taking pot shots at the poor things? I know you call them 'extras' but the cast isn't infinite."
Bakugo was staring at him, mouth screwed shut in a stubborn scowl. Time for Midoriya to change tack and see if he couldn't stir up a little wind. "Of course, Endeavor isn't exactly someone to aspire to. He still has the highest civilian casualty rate besides you. Plus he beats his children."
Bakugo winced.
"I'll never understand why that's the one that gets to people. Sure, he's caused hundreds of deaths and billions of dollars’ worth of property damage. Sure, he failed to cooperate with the new generation of heroes in ways that prompted a new dark age of quirks. But also he hits kids. I mean sure, add that to the list. I suppose it is a special case, though, since not every child abuser has their child commit suicide in such a public manner."
Midoriya is watching carefully and is not disappointed when Bakugo’s posture curls in slightly at this.
"It's honestly a shame. I think the two of us could have been friends under different circumstances. What did you tell him, 'Take a swan dive off the roof and hope you get a better dad in your next life'?"
That got the rise Midoriya was looking for.
"You don't know what the hell you're talking about," Bakugo screamed, struggling anew against his bonds.
"No? I don't know what it's like to be bullied by you for years on end without hope of escape? I don't know what it's like to be told that I'm not enough over and over again?"
"He wasn't like you! You're a weak fucking Deku! He was strong. He was… supposed to be strong."
There was a brief pause filled only by the distant drip of leaking pipes.
"I suppose I was the stronger of us in the end," Midoriya mused.
Bakugo huffed a sharp laugh, his moment of vulnerability disappearing. "You may think you're big shit now but you're the same useless Deku. There's nothing strong about you."
"Oh?" Midoriya asked, tilting his head. "I seem to be the captor in this particular prisoner's dilemma. No risk, all reward if I've read things right. And I usually have."
"Just because you've got fancy tech to hold me with doesn't make you strong." He gave a demonstrative tug on his specialty restraints, gaining confidence on this surer ground. "You never took me down. You just lied your face off and got a bunch of stronger mooks to jump me once I was drugged."
"End result, you are sitting in a dripping basement, I can gloat to my heart's content. I win, you lose, no?"
"Like this counts as a win," Bakugo grumbled dismissively.
"Oh, I see, this doesn't count. Because, what, I didn't throw down a gauntlet and challenge you a duel? I’m sorry, who did you want for your second?"
“You don’t fucking get it.”
Midoriya shook his head. “No, I don’t think I do. Maybe you should explain it to me.”
Bakugo grinned derisively. “Someone like you could never get it.”
“Someone with more than two brain cells?”
“You know what I mean!”
“I suppose I do. I don’t see what relevance that has to your bizarre standards for competition or the status of our,” he pulled a wry face, “‘rivalry.’”
Bakugo looked away, examining the leaking plumbing as if it held more interest than the villain in front of him. “Forget it. You didn’t understand when we were kids and you don’t seem to have wisened up since.”
"No, Kacchan, let's do this. You think you're better than me because you have a quirk?" Midoriya prompted.
"Does that really have to be spelled out for you? Still?" Bakugo shouted. "When will you get it in your head that you're fucking useless?"
Midoriya’s response was immediate and full of caustic bitterness. "Wow, you can explode things! You know what else does that? A bomb. And I know how to build a bomb, Kacchan!"
He calmed slightly. "I can buy nitroglycerin from any chemical supplier. I can use the spin wheel on a 5 cent Zippo lighter to ignite it. I can mix the active and inactive parts of C4 and then throw. This special skill that you have that makes you so VERY suited to be a hero can be replicated by anyone with library access and $20."
He gained momentum, warming to the theme. "People climbed out of the mud without quirks, learning to hunt with spears and keep predators at bay with walls. Once our tools progressed beyond the need to fear the natural world, we spent four thousand years coming up with better and better ways to kill each other, using nothing except what we could think of to make. This latest evolution of human DNA is a step backwards for our deadly potential, honestly. Not a quirk exists that can match a hydrogen bomb."
His voice had turned quiet in the last sentence and Bakugo opened his mouth to interrupt. "What the hell does that--"
Midoriya looked up sharply, reminded of his audience. "You're not special, Kacchan!" he shouted, rage allowing him, for once, to compete with the other boy's volume. "You're a cat with bigger teeth."
Midoriya paused to take a breath and Bakugo bared the aforementioned articles. Midoriya huffed a small laugh and continued in a more measured tone. "Your main, headlining advantage is making explosions with your hands. I'd call that a striking personal quirk. My most noticeable quirk is muttering when I'm thinking too fast. You've certainly noticed it before based on some of your old denigrating comments. What can I do, though? What's my advantage? I can make and execute long-term plans. I can persuade enemies and rally allies behind a banner. I can read a situation and tell not only whether I hold a winning hand, but the exact moment to show my cards."
Bakugo was staring at him, blinking, so Midoriya risked leaning close enough to speak softly. "I have life skills, Kacchan. You have a utility belt with one tool on it."
Midoriya knew what it looked like when a prisoner was getting ready to spit in his face so he quickly withdrew, exiting the room with a smile on his face and not another word.
There were things that Ground Zero needed to understand. In the meantime, let ‘Kacchan’ choke on his pride and his saliva both.