𝔄𝔫 ℑ𝔫𝔣𝔦𝔫𝔦𝔱𝔶 𝔄𝔴𝔞𝔶 | Katsuki Bakugo x OC

Chapter 28 - Fate's Hand

Hina woke up with a start. Her eyes spilled rivers of tears, her breaths leaving her in a hurried, erratic pace as her hands clutched the blanket in a vice grip, making her knuckles white from the pressure. She was hyperventilating. She couldn't breathe, couldn't think, too overwhelmed from the deep vibrato voice from her nightmares echoing in her skull, tormenting her mind.

It was the warm scent of a campfire and the earthy essence of sandalwood that cleared her misty vision, helping her breaths puff out evenly. Then a thumb circling on her shoulder helped purge her fear from her mind, replacing it with a buzz of feeble yet tangible tranquility.

Another hand, quite bigger than her own, was dipped into the bed right next to her leg, holding the weight of the alpha on the bedside.

She clasped a shaky, clammy palm on the hand, trying to focus on the heat exuding from it to calm down.

But it was the deep, hushed rumbles from the alpha's chest that helped her finally escape the storm of her befuddled, horror-ridden haze.

"Firework." The sound ricocheted in her mind, chasing the other voices away. "You're safe."

She looked up, finding a pair of deep cardinal-red pools, the little purple specks in the center pulling her in the beguiling gaze even further.

"Firework?" The hand on her shoulder was now cupping her jaw, wiping away the tears. "You there?"

She squeezed the hand holding his weight before letting it go and wiping her tears with the back of her hand. "I'm okay." She murmured with a broken rasp, nodding more to convince herself than him. She hated feeling so small, so vulnerable as she did at that moment. So she kept up the strong face, kept up the appearance that she was okay.

But no matter how hard she'd try to hide her true emotions with a stony barricade, her perfume gave her away, the nodes bittering and souring with every tick and tock passing by.

Bakugo sat on the edge of the bed, his free hand now bringing her temple right under his chin. Her ear was pressed against his chest, the steady rhythm of his heartbeat lulling the final erratic thoughts into a murmuring peace. His arms encased around her with warmth and an apparent protectiveness Hina could recognize.

"It's okay to not be okay." His voice, which sounded different to Hina with her ear pressed in his chest, was low and deep, so much more comforting than it usually was. "You can let go."

She returned the embrace, her hands grasping the fabric of his muscle tank while burying her face in his chest. Her tears darkened the bright vermillion of his tank to a rustic velvety red. And even though she tried to maintain the façade that she didn't need comfort from a nightmare she had too many times to count, delicate sobs wracked her lungs.

Her small cries ignited a fierce rage in Bakugo. It consumed him, his body almost vibrating from the angry heat of just imagining what the villains had wrought, had voiced to have her so tormented. He knew bits and pieces. He knew the extent of their experiments from the dead people found in the oceanic warehouse, understood the horrors of what Dabi  instilled in her from the minimal explanations she'd provided. When he heard those confessions of hers, though, he wasn't as invested in her, wasn't so devoted to her as he was now.

However, he couldn't dwell on such thoughts; not when he could feel his pheromones contorting into a bitter musk that was much more menacing and foreboding like when he battled villains. Something that Hina could not handle right now.

After what could've been a handful of minutes or a pair of hours, Bakugo spoke out with his voice hushed, his chin resting on the crown of her head.