A/N: This one's from January 2017 (wow). Man, I really used to write these two in every scenario I could think of back in the day. Sometimes they're madly in love, sometimes they're fighting, sometime they're dying. Like, I was all over the place. Good times though.

Summary: They rarely fought. But this…this was different. This was real. This was raw, wild and ugly. This was untempered emotion boiling to the surface and this…he didn't know how to deal with this. He didn't know how to fix it or how to make it better.

Disclaimer: I do not own Boku no Hero Academia, Kohei Horikoshi does.

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Prompt 27: Courthouse

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Bakugou's knuckles are bone-white around the steering wheel as he speeds into the night. Despite the streetlights lined along the streets and illuminating the road, the darkness presses against his heaving chest, suffocating him with the merciless weight of silence. The silence – deafeningly loud and stifling – broken only by the steady rumble of the car as it speeds along the road. The silence: it's killing him, it's choking him – each second by agonizing second – as she refuses to talk to him, to acknowledge him, to even fucking look at him and worse, he doesn't even know why!

"Slow down!" Bakugou snaps back to reality at the sound of Ochako's frantic voice. It's the first time she'd spoken to him the entire car ride from picking her up from the airport and he lets out a relieved breath.

"I'm going at the speed limit," he starts to argue but a quick look at the speedometer says otherwise. He eases on the gas. "There."

She doesn't say anything in response and instead lets the earlier silence settle back between them. Frustrated, he jerks the steering wheel a little too strongly as they pull into their driveway and shoves the gear into park.

"You coming?" Bakugou looks at her as he pulls the key out of the ignition and pushes his door open. She makes no motion to leave the car and still refuses to look at him, with her hands clutching her duffel bag and her eyes stubbornly looking out the window. He lets out an angry "fuck!" before pulling his leg back into the car. The car shakes as he slams the door shut.

"Ochako, what the hell is the problem?!"

They rarely fought. Even when they argued it was mostly playful and nothing too serious. She had the patience of a saint and they'd been together for far too long for her to really take any his tantrums seriously. But this…this was different. This was real. This was raw, wild and ugly. This was untempered emotion boiling to the surface and this…he didn't know how to deal with this. He didn't know how to fix it or how to make it better.

Her shoulders rise as she takes in a trembling breath before sighing.

"You sighing doesn't mean a fucking thing!" He roars, exasperated with the silent treatment.

"Well, clearly, neither do I."

He blinks in confusion. "W-what? What the hell does that even mean?!"

She groans and rubs a hand across her temple. "Katsuki," her voice is so tired, so resigned, so hopeless, "just…nevermind…"

"Tell me!" There's a desperation coloring his voice and a panicked skip in his heartbeat that is entirely unlike him. Fuck, he hates this: the confusion, the uncertainty, the anxiety swelling deep inside of him.

She lets out a humorless chuckle and looks at him. "Now you want to talk? Why? Why should I tell you? Even though you!" She jabs an accusing finger at his chest as she leans toward him,"never listen!"

They stare at each other for a few heavy-breathed moments, before he looks away with a "hmph".

"Well, here I am," he leans away from her and back into his seat, "you've got my full attention, angelface. I'm fucking listening now!"

Her eyes sweep over across his face, reading him, examining him before finally, "no." A silent tear streaks down her pinked cheek as she turns away from him and, with a shaky breath, slumps back into her seat, "not like this."

"Not like fucking what?!" His hands curl into shaky fists, palms slick with nitroglycerin sweat, "stop talking in fucking riddles and just spit it out!"

"My dad!" She intends to keep her voice steady, to stay strong, but it instead breaks with a watery sob. Angry at herself, she hiccups and quickly wipes away at the tears that had managed to escape. "My dad," she says again through ragged breaths as she looks into his crimson eyes, "my dad was in the hospital for two weeks. A whole two weeks and not once did you visit, phone in, or even send a text to make sure he was ok!"

"You called me and told me he was fine!" He argues, eyebrows furrowing in confusion. How could this possibly be about that? "It's not like he was about to fucking die!"

"It's my dad!" She cries out and her face crumples with a sob, "my dad! M-my whole world and I-I-I!" She stutters as her breath catches in her throat, "I just thought maybe you'd care? Just a little? Even if it was just for me, I-I thought you'd care!"

She buries her face into her hands and doubles over her lap, shoulders trembling with her broken sobs. "I was so scared and you weren't there!" Her voice drops to a whisper, small and strained as she asks him, "why? Why weren't you there Katsuki?"

The whisper of her voice demanding, "why? why? why?" echoes painfully in his mind as he watches her fall apart, tears falling and heart bleeding. What could he say? He didn't know? He didn't think? He didn't realize?

"Ochako," he slides a hand over her hunched shoulder, "dammit, what the hell do you want me to say? I'm sorry?"

Ochako jerks away from his touch at this and glares at him before turning to look back out the window. That godforsaken silence is back, filled only with their haggard breathing and the palpable anger emanating from her. There's a glint of light as Ochako toys with her engagement ring, sliding it up and down the length of her ring finger as she seems to mull over his words. Her shoulders shake with another sigh and he hears her sniffle.

"No…because I know that you're not, Katsuki," she slides the ring off and sets it on the dashboard before choking out, "and that's what hurts me the most."

She swoops toward him and he's stunned silent by the chill of her lips against his cheek.

"I love you," she swears and his heart drops at her voice.

It promises farewell.

"O-Ochako."

It promises goodbye.

"Ochako!"

And before he knows it she's gone and he watches her walk away from the car, away from their home, away from him; the train of her white coat whipping in the winter wind like a flag of surrender.