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."
Kurogiri sniffled, and Harper felt like doing the same. Kirishima was gone and that hurt, but her and Bakugo weren't the only two grieving. She'd gotten a dose of Mr. Aizawa's all-encompassing sadness and she couldn't even begin to imagine what their classmates were feeling. Dealing with Kurogiri's wailing and Tsukauchi and Sansa's poorly-concealed horror had left her feeling more and more drained, which wasn't great considering she and everyone else was running on empty right about now. So yeah, this was going to suck, but she also... she did want to see them. She did want to see them okay, and talk to them, and hug them too. Because they were still here and even though Kirishima wasn't, she was so damn glad no one else had lost their life.
Harper half-heartedly steered Bakugo towards the door. He did most of the work with his arms, stubborn and really wishing he wasn't in this 'goddamn stupid ass useless fucking geriatric torture device'. Kurogiri had warped all of her belongings... somewhere on campus. She didn't fucking know. Tsukauchi had apparently packed them all up for her, so she supposed they were drifting around here somewhere. Harper wasn't a material enough person to care. Since her brother, possessions had only ever seems replaceable when put next to real people. That was even truer now.
The doors were large but oddly welcoming in their own way, propped open to make it easier for students to move their belongings in. Kurogiri kept a hand on her shoulder as she and Bakugo stepped through the threshold, the A/C immediately pouring cold air down on their faces. Harper went still as her quirk was hit with a wave of thought. The tired girl inhaled sharply. Her classmates were all here, anxiously loitering in what looked like a common-type area. Her heart ached a little in a sad, warm way.
"They love you and you love them. Let them know that."
Mina spotted them first and immediately went silent, eyes stretching wide and pooling with near instant tears. The emotion that washed out of her made it harder to breathe, and damn. Maybe Harper did have tears left. The pink teen nudged Ochako, whose head whipped in their direction. Harper swallowed, one of her hands moving and clamping on Bakugo's shoulder. He didn't try to shrug her off, body stiff. Very helpful, honestly. Super supportive.
"Bakugo! Harper!" Hagakure shrieked, and the group went silent as she crossed the living room in what felt like a fraction of a second, throwing herself at Harper. Harper released Bakugo and allowed herself to wrap her friend up in her arms, taking a shuddering breath as Hagakure's body shook. Or maybe Harper was the one trembling. Neither could tell. "Oh my god. Oh my god. They're here. They're okay. They're alive. They're both alive."
"I love you. You're a good friend." Harper told her, voice muffled from where it was smushed against her shoulder. Hagakure's laugh was teary, and she released the brunette in her arms, pulling back to take in her appearance. Harper blinked the wetness from her eyes as best as she could.
"I love you too." Hagakure's voice came out a little higher than usual. "Harper and Bakugo. They're here. Oh my god, she's okay, he's okay. They-- I was so afraid--"
Mina was tackling her next, and Harper hugged her back. She looked her in the eyes and told her the same thing with startling firmness, grasping her upper arms and staring at her with so much surety that Mina couldn't doubt her even if she wanted to. Mina told her the same thing and hugged her back, sobbing the entire time. She'd been close to Kirishima too, and Harper felt an familiar ache in the pink teen that she'd felt in herself too many times to count over the past few days. She hugged Mina a little longer than she had Hagakure before Ochako was piling onto the pair of them. Harper turned and told her too, and Ochako laughed in a tearful way, telling her the same thing back with a brilliantly sad smile.
Harper told Ojiro as he wiped his eyes after their hug, and Tokoyami and Dark Shadow—the latter of which lifted her a foot off the ground as they sobbed. She told Momo and Jiro, who both hugged her at the same time and responded in like, Momo squeaking out how happy she was that Harper was alive. She moved and held Izuku tight and told him too, and he sobbed a wet spot into her shoulder that was probably going to stain. She held him until he was ready to go to Bakugo, his shoulders shaking hard, and a wail escaping him as he was dragged into a hug by his childhood friend.
She told Sato in no uncertain terms, hugging him even as he struggled not to cry. He was silent as he hugged back, and Shoji was much the same way, encasing her in his many arms and murmuring that he was so happy she had made it out, and that he was sorry he hadn't done more. Harper was sorry too, but that's not what he needed to hear so she didn't say it. She was sure he knew already anyway. Tsuyu was next, so quiet and morose, her big eyes overflowing with hot tears that she didn't bother trying to wipe away. Harper told her too, and Tsuyu croaked it back with a scratchy throat and a broken apology that she didn't need to give. She pulled Shoto, who acted like he'd never been hugged before in his entire life, into a hug and told him she loved him. He nodded after a moments pause, seeming tense. As unused to it as he was, she could tell he felt the same and just didn't know how to show it. She looked him in the eyes and he seemed to understand that she knew on some level, and that was enough for her. As long as he knew.
Aoyama drowned her in his tears, wailing that he loved her before she could get the words out. She told him the same thing, not minding the glitter that rubbed off on her clothes or the way he basically collapsed onto her in his distress. She told Koji who whispered it back, his hug warm, firm, and not as sharp as Harper thought it would be. She even told Mineta, with a side note that he was still a dirtbag. He didn't even try to disagree with her, nodding in total agreement as tears leaked from his eyes like water from a broken faucet. Harper was pretty sure it was the first time she'd heard him without a single perverted thought. She would've punted him if he'd had even one.
Iida was hanging back as the class all began to fall into what Harper was doing, hugging each other and expressing their love, seeming to understand what had spurred her to do it so suddenly. She didn't stop in her stride. She wrapped him in a tight hug without hesitation, telling him that she loved him and it was all going to be okay. He tentatively hugged her back, his entire form trembling horribly in her grasp. She squeezed his large frame as best she could. He squeezed back, seeming to steady himself in a way he wouldn't have been able to at the beginning of the year. Ochako and Izuku came over to see him soon after, capturing him in a group embrace of their own.
Harper turned to the last in the group, and her tears fell. Her heart broke for the millionth time. It hurt.
If anyone was Kirishima's best friend, it was Kaminari. Kaminari hung out with Kirishima almost as much as she had, always over at his house, talking to him during class, and pairing up with him in training. After Sero's departure in the middle of the Sports Festival, Kirishima and Bakugo were really the only ones he hung out with, along with Mina when she wasn't with the other girls in class. Kirishima's increased escapades with her had taken some of the redhead's time with his electric friend away. Bakugo was hard to deal with without Kirishima there to mediate, and Harper hated that she'd left Denki floating like that, bouncing aimlessly between classmates. She knew that it wasn't really her fault, and she knew Kaminari hadn't seen it that way and still didn't, but it was still a regret she couldn't shake.
He was staring at her, and he looked so broken. Tears had torn tracks down his cheeks leaving them wet and his eyes were puffy, his hair so disheveled that she couldn't see the bolt in it anymore. Harper could see the exhaustion lined in his face as she approached.
Harper had gotten to see Kirishima one last time— had talked to him. Kaminari hadn't gotten that kind of closure or goodbye from his friend. None of her classmates had, but Kaminari was the one most deeply effected. Kirishima was the friend of a lifetime. He and Kaminari had clicked from day one, and Kirishima had never belittled or poked fun at Kaminari the way some of the others in 1-A had, unintentionally and not. Kirishima has been incredibly important to him, and now he was... He was gone.
"Kaminari." Harper breathed. She reached out for his hands and he met her halfway, grasping them in a white-knuckle grip as tough she were the only thing keeping him rooted here. Brown met gold, and they were both crying. Kaminari had been waiting for her since he got the news, she realized. She should've come sooner. "I love you, and I am so sorry."
Kaminari choked out a sob and pulled her into a hug that she reciprocated tenfold, his face finding her shoulder and hers finding his. He gripped the fabric of her hoodie tight, gasping for air between his choked sobs. Harper clenched her eyes shut and held her breath as his brain seemed to run through memories of Kirishima, things he'd said and did, his laugh, the way he smiled. It was like hearing him again, in a fractured, tragic way that made her want to hold onto Kaminari and never let go. He was so hurt. They both were. If anyone understood what she felt, she knew it was without a doubt him.
"I-I love you too." Kaminari choked out. "I-I love you. It's n-not your fault. N-Never your fault."
"You can't blame yourself."
Harper hiccuped, holding him tighter and trying to calm her strung heart. Kurogiri flickered behind her, her shadow even as members of 1-A came up and hugged him too.
She didn't hear Kaminari's music anymore. It only made her cry harder.
~~~~
Harper was halfway down the hall to Nezu's office when she heard it. She dropped Kurogiri's hand and took off dead sprint. The warp gate shrieked and rushed after her, jabbering hysterically and immediately falling into waterworks as she skidded to a stop in front of the rat's door and threw it open.
"Harper!" Sero was out of his seat and leaping over the small sofa in seconds. One of his arms was in a cast, and he had a quirk-cancelling band around his visible wrist. His eyes were wide and a little wild, made crazier by the deep bags under them. "She's alive. She's okay. Fuck, fuck, she's here. She's okay."
"Sero!" Harper collided with him, eyes wide. Kurogiri's hands fell on her shoulders again, but she could hardly focus on it as her quirk soaked the tape-user in. He'd been radio silent for days now. Where the fuck had he been? She'd thought something had happened to him when Tsukauchi couldn't find him, but he was here and alive and okay. "What are you doing here? Where the fuck have you been?"
The last time she'd talked to him had been when she was in the hospital, and they'd both been crying at the time, which seemed to be a common theme these days. She'd told him that she loved him and thanked him profusely, and he'd sobbed through the phone and blubbered about being friends and how she was alive. The last thing she'd said was a promise that everything would be okay, and then the line went dead. She hadn't gotten to talk to him very long. Her concern had grown steadily because as a former League of Villains affiliate, he'd been in real danger of the Hero Commission coming for him, either because they perceived him as a threat or just to get rid of what they thought could be a future problem. To see him here...
"I may have boosted his media presence and gave some... nudges towards his brief sports festival performance." Nezu hummed, drawing her attention to him as Kurogiri scooped her up and away from Sero, hissing like a rabid cat the whole way. Sero growled back just as fiercely, relief replaced by something more hostile. "The media now believes he is a former UA student who had a previous medical issue he recently recovered from, and that he will be returning. The commission can't touch him without coming clean about who he actually is. They don't want to do that whilst there's such unrest over All Might, so it really works out quite nicely! Well, there were a few other issues, but those are inconsequential!"
Harper stared at the rat for a moment before taking another look at Sero. He was wearing a UA uniform. Nezu sipped his tea with a smile. Harper decided she took it back. Maybe she didn't love Sero.
"You're my chaperone. We're going to be roomies! Me, you, and warp fuck. Won't it be fun? A happy little family." He cooed at her obnoxiously. Yeah, let's boot the love thing. "Fuck. Thank God. I don't trust any of these morons to watch this goddamn idiot. And this means... I get another chance. To be right. I want to be right, for my sister and for Harper. I can save people. I can."
"My quirk lets me read minds." Harper stated. Kurogiri gasped as though he didn't already know. Sero's expression dropped like a stone in the pond, his eyes narrowing at her.
"You bitch."
Nezu chuckled into his tea as Sero lunged and Kurogiri began to shriek.