Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Observational notes in which the subject, (hereby known as Kacchan), is studied. Kacchan is a powerful but occasionally volatile being, (see Campos #14 Section B, Campos #15 Section D for additional research. Upon consideration, notes prior to #14 on the subject may be biased or nonfactual.) Kacchan has been subjected to many habitats and environments for long-term observation of quirk, behavioral changes, and finally, will be observed in one-on-one scenarios with other individuals.

Early notes indicate that large groups will overwhelm and overstimulate the subject into violent and/or passionate actions, but little knowledge is recorded on small groupings or one-on-one interpersonal interactions. Observationalist Izuku Midoriya (hereby known as M.) has experienced the subject’s behavioral changes and continues to take steps needed to ensure survival and optimum positive interaction with Kacchan, but over time, many steps have proven unnecessary to maintain. Observationalist M. notes a correlation between emotional growth and behavioral changes, and therefore this hypothesis dictates further study.

Izuku tapped his pen against the page a few times before chewing on the nib absently. This would be a very dangerous experiment, if he were to get caught. He could see it in his mind’s eye, a notebook being ripped from his hands, an indignant “Hah!?”, and then a countdown to run. At least, that would have been middle school Kacchan’s reaction. Izuku couldn’t deny that the once explosive bully had… softened, in some aspects. Not that he would ever dare say that aloud, in fear of reverting him back to his old ways or something. He was still the abrasive jerk that he had always been, still so confident and sure of himself, but… there was an underlying care for the people around him that he couldn’t quite hide, when you knew where to look.

And, he didn’t want to brag or anything, but Izuku was kind of a Kacchan expert.

It had started out as an accident, really. Izuku had stayed up late researching heroes that focused their fighting styles on their legs. Iida had been a great help when he was first learning, but Izuku had never been the type of person to take one lesson and be satisfied with the results.

So maybe he stayed up a little later than he usually did, delving deep into his favorite hero Sub-Reddit, making a list of heroes who primarily used their legs, thighs, or feet for fighting. It had started as a simple list, with maybe a sentence or two to summarize the user’s quirk and how they adapted it to kick-based combat. But then it occurred to him that he should also be looking into wind and air-pressure based quirks, and heroes that utilize compressed air in the way that All Might had recommended he do. And of course, after that, he had to draw a venn diagram to log all of the heroes that fell into both categories (a surprising few but not as many as he would have guessed).

He then cross-referenced the first list with another that included those that utilized their arms, but relied heavily on their legs, and then read a few dissertations on air-pressure quirks. So, maybe he also went down the internet rabbit hole to research each individual, and grabbed some of his old notebooks to update some of the information on the heroes he had already documented, pulling them from their water-proof case under his bed. Maybe he hesitated before grabbing Campos #13, the charred edges glaring at him almost as harshly as the one who charred it in first place.

Maybe Izuku gave the notebook in question a frown, before decidedly picking it up and leafing through it. It had been a long time since he’d opened this one in particular, the hurt and disappointment swirling in him like the koi in the pond he’d fished it out of. Some of the ink on the pages was blurry and water logged, and he took the time trying to decipher it, before huffing and tracing over the notes.

It was interesting, holding Campos #13 again. It marked one of the worst and best days of his life, where he’d felt his dreams slip away from him with a single phrase from his idol, then nearly watched Kacchan die-- before he felt his legs moving, his backpack sliding off his back to be thrown in the sludge villain’s eyes, his short, stubby fingernails scraping and scrabbling at the slime, desperately trying to maintain eye contact with the terrified red gaze. In all the years they’d known each other, he could count on one hand the number of times Kacchan had looked scared, and each one shook him to his very core. Kacchan should never have to be scared, if Izuku could help it. Even if he didn’t want Izuku’s help, he’d never walk away if his best friend needed him.

It had been a long time since he had thought of Kacchan his best friend. The thought startled him, and he instinctively curled his writing hand into a fist, accidentally shoving his pen deep into the page.

With a jolt, he realized he’d left a thick ink blot on the paper, and hastily grabbed some tissues from the box on his desk to clean it up. He watched as the ink blot grew larger, and he grasped at air, glancing frantically up at the now-seemingly empty tissue box, and the ink-stained remnants of the tissues in the waste basket next to him. Groaning, he tried to mop up the excess with his fingers, and wiped it on his pajama pants. He would hate himself for it later, but that was future Izuku’s problem. Clothes were replaceable; his Campos notebooks were priceless.

As he semi-unsuccessfully transferred the ink on his hands to his wrinkled pants, his mind wandered back to that day. Sitting beside a silent, still Kacchan as Izuku was berated for his meddling, he’d been unable to slow the hammering of his heart. He’d barely heard a word that the Pro Heroes had said, couldn’t stop himself from glancing at the blonde seated next to him. He’d never seen that look on Kacchan’s face, and he hadn’t known what to make of it, then. For all the time he’d spent studying the other boy, filling up with pride at every manic grin and every overwhelming success, he’d never seen such an expression before. Not that the Pros really noticed; they didn’t know him like Izuku did. It was a thin but effective mask, his quiet indifference, but Izuku knew that it hid a myriad of emotions that Kacchan had no way to sort through. Usually, his default was anger, when he couldn’t sift through the overwhelming amount of feelings that bubbled up his pale throat, but this time, he’d shut down. His face was blank, carefully schooled and hiding the pure terror that he’d felt only minutes before.

And of course, the cherry on top of the absurdly intense day he’d had, All Might had found him, apologized, and offered him One for All, marking the beginning of his grueling ten-month training program. With all of the information that he’d been given that day, he still couldn’t help but think of Kacchan as he went to sleep that night, those terrified eyes staring back at him.

Though he hadn’t seen it until further examination, that was maybe the day that Kacchan had started to change. They were minute, nearly impossible to spot, but the changes were there. He didn’t talk to his lackeys anymore, kept his head down at school and scribbled his notes quietly. Though he didn’t shy away from answering questions, he never started any conversations. He didn’t eat lunch in the cafeteria anymore, just disappeared at the sound of the bell, and Izuku was never able to track where he went. His old friends still posted on social media, but he was never in any of their pictures, and his own account sat untouched for months, though Izuku still saw him liking photos of some of the hero accounts that everyone followed.

He never outwardly engaged Izuku again, except that one day where he’d cornered him the outside of their school and insisted that Izuku not pursue going to UA, but by then, Izuku’s tenuous grasp on his dream had solidified into an unbreakable, indomitable will to succeed. That was the second time in his life that Izuku had been unable to read Kacchan’s expression, as the blonde had dropped the front of his shirt and backed away, silent.

Maybe that’s where his interest in Kacchan had started. Maybe…. Maybe it had never stopped. It’s not like Izuku would ever admit it aloud, how much he thought about Kacchan. Don’t get him wrong, he’d always express how highly he thought of the other boy, his strength of spirit and his commitment to excellence, how he couldn’t settle for anything less than the best. He was Izuku’s symbol of Victory, greatness personified, but everyone knew how amazing he was. So it wasn’t like he was out of the ordinary for thinking that.

Sure, he had been a bully, brash and abrasive, blinded by his own ego, but Kacchan was smart. When he got to UA and saw how strong his classmates were, he didn’t have the time to do anything but focus on being the best. Through the years, his more harsh tendencies were eventually stripped away and replaced by an enviable, single-minded focus. Kacchan was always looking forward, and he was the North Star, a guiding point that Izuku would do everything in his power to surpass.

Looking at the clock, Izuku balked at the red 3:23 AM that stared back at him. Whoops, he thought. I should just finish up my notes and then I’ll see if I can get a little sleep before school. Just a few more sentences, and then I’ll rest.

Which brought him to his current predicament, a loud, blaring alarm in his ears as he stared at the screen. Had he really pulled another all-nighter? He hoped All Might wouldn’t notice. Luckily, he didn’t have another meeting with his mentor until Wednesday, so he could catch up on sleep in the next few days.

The clock read 6:01 AM and he rubbed at his bleary eyes before finally clicking the off button. He was used to snoozing it for the next hour, but there was no way he was going to get any sleep before he had to get up, anyways. He figured a quick morning jog, some coffee, and getting to class early for once was his only option.

Izuku trudged around his darkened room in a haze, somehow made it through a short jog, and showered off the sweat and tiredness. He wondered if Kacchan took a similar route through the grounds or if he focused more on an upper body work-out in the morning. He’d have to ask him.

It took Izuku twice as long to put on his uniform and get himself out the door. It was still quiet in the dorms, the first signs of everyone waking still not due for a few minutes more. He stopped in the kitchen and poured himself some of the coffee from the already made pot, pleased to find it was still hot. Usually it was cold by the time he was awake and out the door and he just dealt with it. He sent a silent thanks to whoever had brewed it and sipped at the scalding liquid before tying his laces up and heading out the dorms’ entrance to the school.

He found himself at the door to Class 2A’s room, relying on muscle memory to get him there. If a villain had attacked him in this state, he would probably be toast, he thought with a bit of shame. But the coffee was helping his awareness, so he was able to stop himself from barging into the room, hearing raised voices at the edge of his periphery.

It sounded like Kacchan, but who was he arguing with? Iida, maybe? They were both the earliest risers and the first ones in the classroom every morning. This didn’t surprise Izuku, because he knew Kacchan went to bed before everyone else in the dorms, citing his reasons as “I just don’t want to hang out with you stupid extras anymore,” and “I run out of patience with you fucks every night at 8pm on the dot and you don’t wanna see what happens next.” Then he usually stomped out of the room, not before punching Kirishima in the arm and sort of ruffling Izuku’s hair, sort of pushing him off the couch as a form of goodnight. He couldn’t stop himself from beaming every time it happened, and Kacchan always paused to look at him before sneering and booking it out of the room, flipping everyone off as he went.

He was a lot quieter in the evenings, after classes were done and it was time to study. He didn’t study in the common room often, but when he did, he was a solid form in the corner, his back to the wall and his legs sprawled out on one of the tables, three books in his lap. He never wore his glasses in the common room, which was odd, but Izuku knew he had them-- he’d interrupted Kacchan studying in his room enough times to see him whip the offending accessory off his nose and behind his back.

Come to think of it, he didn’t really study with large groups at all, besides when he was roped in to tutoring the self-proclaimed Bakusquad, but he could be found in deep, quiet conversation at his table in the library with one or two of their classmates at a time.

Izuku was pulled out of his stream of consciousness from another violent shout from the classroom, and he sighed quietly. It was probably better to wait out the argument than to barge in. At least then it could maybe be resolved before class started and not have the two students (primarily Kacchan) stewing all day.

Izuku sank down next to the door and pulled out a pencil to continue his observations from the previous night, and idly thumbed through the daily hero news. He tried to tune the conversation out, and reached for his headphones but came up lacking. He must have left them on his desk from studying last night. Man, all-nighters really fried his brain. Still, as much as he tried to keep his ears closed, snippets of the argument reached his ears. From what he could tell, it wasn’t about anything in particular, but that was nothing new. Iida was always reprimanding the explosive blond for his general behavior and rudeness, and Kacchan almost always started a fight because of it.

What really caught his attention was when the argument got quieter, and a level of tension rose so high that Izuku could practically feel it coming out of the classroom in waves. There was a scuffing sound, and Izuku could see Kacchan in his mind’s eye, hands in his pockets, slouched and kicking lightly at the floor, while Iida stood tall, hand in its perpetual chopping motion. What he heard coming from Kacchan surprised him, though.

“Look, Glasses, I know you don’t like me. And I sure as hell don’t like your goody-two shoes attitude…” He heard a scoff, and Iida attempted to interject, but stopped for an unknown reason. Izuku shuffled closer, hoping to catch a peek inside the crack in the door, but couldn’t see either of them.

Kacchan continued, “But I get it. I get how important all this is to you. You have a reason for being here and for trying so damn hard and I respect that. You wanna make your brother proud, you wanna bring honor to your family, and you wanna be a hero that people can rely on. We’re never gonna see eye to eye, exactly, because we’re just too fucking different, but I guess that I just… shit, whatever...” He dropped off at the end of the sentence, and Izuku could hear the moment that his words caught up to his brain. He thought he could make out the sound of Kacchan shuffling away, only to be stopped by Iida’s voice, far more gentle than it had ever been, in regards to the blonde.

“Bakugou, I am certainly surprised at the turn this conversation took. May I take a moment to respond?”

There was a grunt of indifference and a mutter of, “Do whatever you want.”

Iida paused, and there was a heavy silence in the classroom that had Izuku’s heart pounding for an unknown reason. He knew he was hearing something somewhat private, but he couldn’t tear his focus away. Iida began, his voice authoritative and stern naturally, but it had softened somewhat in the span of a few minutes. “I have never heard you say you respect anything, and I know that it is not easy for you to express your feelings. For that, I am grateful that you attempted to meet me halfway. It just shows that your growth since first coming to UA has been tremendous,” he added, and now it was Kacchan’s turn to scoff.

“It’s whatever, Glasses. Just didn’t want you thinking I don’t respect hard work when I see it. We’ve all fucking grown since first year, haven’t we? S’nothing special if we all do it,” he said, but Izuku secretly thought he sounded a bit pleased.

“Well, in that case, I shall have to show you how much I have grown when we next spar! I look forward to seeing your progress in the near future, Bakugou! I hope that I can be a worthy opponent and that you shall not hold back on my account!”

“Ugh, shut up, I never hold back,” he grumbled, but there was a grin in his voice that made Izuku match it with a smile of his own. Kacchan really had grown so much! He never would have been able to express his respect for someone else so easily in first year, but he really had improved leaps and bounds. It was especially obvious when he wasn’t surrounded by everyone else, and he didn’t default into shouting. Izuku was pretty certain it was just a defense mechanism at this point, because most of his yelling lacked the bite that it had in the past, coming off prickly more than anything else.

Izuku looked down and had to stifle a yelp when he realized he’d been taking notes this whole time. He’d been trying to curb his impulse to mutter for a while now, and he’d taken up writing again in hopes that he wouldn’t interrupt class anymore. Not to mention how much trouble he would get himself into if he started muttering in the middle of a mission and got himself caught because of it. He was so used to writing in his stream of consciousness that it had become a bad habit of his to write anything on his mind when he wasn’t fully focused on the task at hand. He had to sift through his class notes more often than not and make a clean copy, without his musings and ideas in the margins. His habit of speaking aloud wasn’t fully gone, but taking notes definitely had helped.

To his chagrin, he must have filled the full page with thoughts on Kacchan’s talk with Iida, and how it just showed Kacchan’s overall improvement in holding a conversation. The scribbles were legible, but just barely, and he muttered an apology to Gran Torino for ruining his page in the hero notebook. He tore out the offending Kacchan page and placed it in one of his new Campos books (#16, an early Birthday present from his mom).

Now that he thought about it, his old notes on Kacchan might be inaccurate to the present day hero-in-training. He certainly wasn’t like the middle schooler that Izuku had written about in his notebooks before #13, and even since they’re gotten into UA, there were distinct changes in his fighting style, improvements and adjustments to further perfect his moves. The same could be said for his personality, really, and how he interacted with Class 2A. He’d started out with a hot-tempered dismissal, writing everyone off immediately (except for Izuku, he was always boiling over with rage at anything to do with him). Now, he acted irritated and angry, but his friends were able to brush it off easily. No one seemed to act like it hurt them or anything. Really, Kacchan hadn’t said anything that had hurt him in a long time. The worst times were when Kacchan said things that were false about himself, and about being weak. Those times, it tore deep into Izuku’s chest and every move felt like he’d punctured a lung. But that was because he knew better. He knew Kacchan was greater than anything.

With this newfound revelation of exactly how much the blonde had changed over the years, Izuku realized it might be due for a whole new page. But he couldn’t go into research mode without more information. He wouldn’t want to write anything that wasn’t correct, or have to go back and fix any mistakes he made. So maybe… he would just have to observe Kacchan for a little longer, to really understand exactly what’s changed, and maybe why. To do so, he’d need a notebook for his observations.

Taking out a Sharpie, he wrote on #16 “A Study in Kacchan” and sat back on his heels. He didn’t know why he felt the urge to do this again-- he hadn’t had a detailed analysis on the other boy for years, but something tugging at his gut told him he needed to. He needed to understand, to inspect the evidence, to be able to find the correlation between Kacchan then and Kacchan now. What had changed? He’d gotten into his dream school, he was top of the class, and training to be a Pro Hero like he’d always proclaimed he would. What was the outlier in Kacchan’s otherwise flawlessly successful plan?

Izuku would just have to find out.

Subject is willing to express respect for those he deems deserve it, and encourages them to continue to push themselves towards greatness. This is in direct opposition to Kacchan's previous understanding of respect, as far as Observationist M. can conclude, where it appeared that he had little to no respect for authority, peers, or otherwise “extra” individuals in life.

Kacchan has always been able to observe strength and power, but in the past, had attempted to neutralize others’ strength, taking it as a threat. He now seems to have an understanding that he has potential allies and can utilize their strength while still building on his own. This is a hard-won lesson.

In the margins beside the more polished notes, there are a few messy scribbles.

Kacchan respects Iida + is understanding the need for friends/allies = Making more friends!!?!?!!?

“Nothing special if we all do it”---- Kacchan respects the growth of the WHOLE CLASS?!

Does this include me?
Further investigation needed.