Mind Boggled

Chapter 71

Third person pov

Harper gripped the handles of Bakugo's wheelchair, the pair of them staring uncertainly up at the dorms. The silence between them was amiable but tense, their apprehension clear. Kurogiri loomed behind the brunette girl, more anxious than ever before, his hands hovering right above her shoulders ready to grasp onto her in case of emergency. Harper could only find it reassuring after what happened, and Katsuki was in the same boat, even if he wouldn't dare say it out loud. 

Whatever's to come is going to be a shitstorm wrapped in another shitstorm. This is a change they're really not super ready for but both know they probably need. The dorms are a good thing in the most awful of ways-- a security net and reassurance that they wouldn't have had otherwise, even if that means facing their hysterical classmates for the first time after the kidnapping, and even if that means having to... having to go on without certain people there anymore. Fuck, Kirishima would've thrived here. He would've loved the community feel that came with the dorms and the closeness to his friends. With him here, Harper could've loved it too. Maybe she still could if she really tried, as cynical as she is.

"Let them in. They want in." 

Easier said than done, but she couldn't really shove Kirishima's last words off. Especially not with all the sense they made, even in her emotional standstill. It seriously... she didn't know how she felt. Fucking awful, but like she couldn't quite cry anymore. Like she was just done, and couldn't quite bring herself to break down any more than she already had.

"This is going to be total ass." Bakugo noted in a tone damn near nonchalant. And yeah, that was about right. "They're all going to be doubting me because of my shitty foot. It doesn't mean shit. I'll still blow them all the hell up. I'm better than them even like this. This won't keep me down for long. I could knock them all on their asses with no feet at all if I damn well pleased. Call me Pompeii because I'll fuck their shit and no one will survive."

"Yeah." Harper agreed quietly, choosing not to note that not everyone actually died at Pompeii. Call her self-centered, but she was sort of more concerned with how the literal fuck she was supposed to come clean about her super invasive mind reading quirk that she'd been hiding since her arrival here. Emotionally, she felt like she had a vaguely numb standpoint about the whole thing. Was that healthy? Probably not, but neither is getting fucking kidnapped and then listening to your best friend's thoughts die out in front of you after they saved your life and took a hit for your sorta-pseudo-brother-or-whatever-Dabi-is.

Nezu still needed to talk to her, she knew, so she was going to put it off at least until she knew what he had to say. Harper wasn't looking forward to seeing the rat that all that much, but you know. She was really, really hoping whatever he had to say was about Sero or Stain. She had received no news on them whatsoever aside from what she'd learned at the hospital, and aside from her phone call with Sero, which had left him and her both sobbing. A request to contact the tape-using teen again had been met with a clueless, slightly-desperate stare that told her Tsukauchi had absolutely no idea how to reach him. It had panicked her, and she'd been trying everything to get a hold of him. Where the fuck was he if not the precinct? 

"A-Are you sure it's safe?" Kurogiri eyed the building, mist wavering and hands clamping down on her shoulders. Dude had turned from helicopter to full on fighter jet. She couldn't inhale without him standing over her making sure she didn't choke on her own breath. "She was supposed to be protected at UA's camp but she wasn't, so surely that means this cannot be a safe place to live either. She has been fine at Tsukauchi's apartment. I see no reason why she must come here. I don't like this. This is not ideal."

"Is anywhere?" Harper asked dryly. Bakugo twisted around specifically so he could give her the stink-eye, especially when Kurogiri's mist flared in an obnoxious way that made them both feel cold enough to shiver a little. Harper sighed as though the weight of the world was on her shoulders. "Yeah, it's fine. Way safer than Tsukauchi's apartment, anyway."