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A tired holiday tune blared from an open window of the apartment building several floors below his perch on the roof. He crouched there, grinding his teeth against the music as it grated against his eardrums—snow and bells and holiday cheer.
Tch.
If the songs were honest, they'd talk about heightened crime rates and heroes pulling double and triple duty to keep up so that everyone else could enjoy themselves in peace.
Not that Bakugou, of all people, cared about extra work. All the better, really—more chances to prove himself and get out of his shitty gig as a sidekick at Ryukyu's agency—but the blocks he'd been assigned had been frustratingly quiet all night.
Growling to himself, he gave the streets another meticulous sweep before looking to the roof of the adjacent building. Uraraka sat atop it, legs hanging carelessly over the edge of the red brick, and nursed an old can of flat soda that had to be frigid in the night air. She'd been quieter than normal, thank fuck. They'd been paired for patrol more and more lately and her constant chatter sometimes made him want to explode his own ears.
Sometimes, it wasn't the worst thing in the world.
But he wouldn't admit that out loud.
She didn't have to talk for him to guess that she wasn't there by choice. Holidays were a time of contention in most agencies, many holding some sort of lottery to determine which heroes would have to patrol. And sidekicks always, always got shat on.
But that didn't mean they could slack off on the job.
"Quit moping," he growled across the street between them, clicking his tongue as he noticed a disturbance down below. It was almost midnight and snow was falling idly, but he had a clear view of the convenience store and the hulking figures inside it. "Convenience store on the eighteenth block—"
But Uraraka was already moving, dropping to the ground with ease and looking up at him like he was keeping her waiting.
Tch.
He followed, dropping down on the fire escape landings in quick succession.
"Two villains," Uraraka said when he landed beside her. "A third outside around the corner, probably with some sort of Quirk to get them out. The store clerk and one other civilian are visible from here, but there could be more."
Bakugou nodded without looking at her, his eyes glued to the villains inside as he tried to make out what their Quirks might be.
"They look like casual villains to me," she said, giving Bakugou a sideways look that he felt rather than saw. "The usual strategy?"
"Let's fucking go."
But he didn't move, staying crouched behind the trash bin as Uraraka stood, cracked her knuckles, and walked straight through the front door.
Grinding his teeth, he waited, breath fogging the the air in front of him. This plan was solid and always worked, but knowing that didn't stop the itch to be the one walking into that convenience store and wrecking those villains' asses.
That was the point though. Villains saw him and got desperate—they would fight back tooth and nail off the bat, usually injuring civilians and causing collateral damage. But Uraraka...her they underestimated. Every godsdamned time.
Even if they knew, even if they'd seen her take down villains many multitudes stronger than they would ever be, even if she had been one of the most sought-after sidekicks from their graduating class, even then, there was always that moment of hesitation in the face of her.
Fucking morons, all of them.
He didn't even get the satisfaction of seeing the looks on their half-wit faces when they realized they were in deep fucking shit.
He kept his eyes on the third villain as Uraraka made quick work inside. One of the two slammed open the door, and Bakugou got a glimpse of Uraraka inside pinning the other to the ground, but the one running was in bad shape. He was big, easily twice Bakugou's size, with some sort of transformation Quirk—one arm, shoulder dislocated, hung at his side, fingers melded into some sort of crude knife. He ran toward the getaway villain, but Bakugou was on him before the sound of his explosion could even echo through the alley.
Bakugou's combat boot slammed into the back of the villain's head as he flew through the air toward them. The villain dropped, but Bakugou landed, rolled, and launched himself at the escape artist.
But the villain disappeared before his eyes.
Bakugou flew through the air where the villain used to be and looked around wildly, but the only other person in the alley was the large man Uraraka had already mostly disabled. He looked at the spot where his teammate had been seconds before in horror and fear, eyes darting back up to Bakugou before turning tail and running like a fucking coward.
Bakugou was so much faster it was pathetic, and he slammed into the villain's back and forced him to the ground, twisting both arms behind his back and holding him there as the police arrived at the scene.
—
Bakugou leaned against the wall near the door of the convenience store as the clerk—a small, wide woman with frizzy black hair and skin like silver scales—thanked Uraraka profusely. He crossed his arms, tapping a finger impatiently on his bicep, and counted down in his head: thirty more seconds and he would drag Uraraka away. They'd resolved the situation and now they had better shit to do than hang around.
But, for once, Uraraka willingly extracted herself from the conversation, walking up to Bakugou with a half-smile that was too tight to be genuine.
Not that he cared.
"You're bleeding," he said, jerking his chin toward her shoulder, where the fabric of her costume was torn and a small cut shimmered in the yellow light pouring out from the store windows.
"Oh, right," she said. She brought her hand up, fingers tentatively touching the blood and pulling away so she could examine it. "I let him catch me off guard, but I don't think the blade was poisoned. He wasn't very skilled with his Quirk; he barely managed to make the knife to begin with."
"You're better than that."
"Yeah, yeah," she said, waving her hand as if to brush him off. "I'm a little off tonight."
"A little off can get you killed."
He wasn't sure why he bothered to say it. She knew, but there was that annoying desire to speak when she was around that he couldn't get used to. His tone woke something in her, brown eyes blazing as she looked at him, and a smirk tilted across his mouth before he could stop it.
"I know," she insisted, and she looked like she might say more but a freezing wind whipped down the street, bringing with it thicker snowfall.
"We won't be able to see shit in this," Bakugou said, hands flexing in irritation and glancing at his watch—1:22. They'd fought their way through midnight and then some.
Uraraka nodded, eyes flat again as she wrapped her arms around herself. "We can go find somewhere to sit and listen to the comms."
—
The diner was American-style, open 24/7, with harsh overhead light, gaudy holiday decorations, and overstuffed red booths with laminate tables. It was mostly empty, save for a few university kids packed into one of the booths by the window.
Bakugou picked a table several down from them, growling to himself at having to wait inside. There was even less chance of finding trouble when they were stuck with what was being reported. He yanked off his single grenadier and tossed it into the seat before pushing himself into it.
Uraraka took off her helmet and slid into the booth across from him with none of her usual bounce, like some of the playful light in her presence simply went out. She looked idly out the window, her eyes glassy and far away and it made Bakugou want to scream.
Why was her solemn quiet getting under his skin more than her usual sunshine chatter? It was a break in routine, that was all. And he hated breaks in his routine.
"No holidays for heroes, huh?" the server, a woman who looked to be in her thirties, asked as she slapped two menus down on the table. "Well happy New Year. Anything you want is on the house tonight."
"Just coffee for me, please," Uraraka said, and Bakugou raised an eyebrow.
"Cream and sugar?" asked the server.
"No, thanks."
"And for you?"
"Same."
"All right, I'll have those out in just a second. I'll leave the menus in case you change your minds."
Once she left, Bakugou turned up the volume on his comm-watch and slouched back against the booth, crossing his arms over his chest and focusing his stare on a rip in the fabric of the seat beside Uraraka's head.
Silence.
It hung heavy in the air, broken by the buzzing of the fluorescent lights overhead—painfully loud as he obsessively checked the comms, waiting for something, anything, to get them back out on the streets.
The server returned with the coffee and Bakugou downed his in gulps, the searing heat on his tongue a welcome relief to the itch to speak. To ask why Uraraka wasn't talking, why she wasn't drinking her own coffee, why she didn't go for the offer of free food when Bakugou had never once known her to turn down something free.
His eyes drifted to her face—round pink cheeks and big brown eyes. Her bottom lip was rough and chapped as she chewed on it and a thin white scar glistened along her jaw from her fight with Toga at the end of their third year at U.A.
He tore his eyes away and cleared his throat, glaring out the window at the snow that dared to fall even faster beneath his gaze. Tch.
The comm pinged again and Bakugou opened the notification so fast the server behind the counter jumped, but it was just a follow-up on the convenience store fight. He growled and closed the message before looking back at Uraraka. She fidgeted with the handle of her mug, staring blankly into the cooling coffee.
"Oi," Bakugou snapped. The word seemed to echo between them as Uraraka dragged her eyes to his. "Just...fucking...talk."
"W-what?"
The tips of Bakugou's ears burned as she looked at him with questioning eyes, and her surprise seemed to help her focus.
"Usually I can't get you to shut up," he said, wanting to punch himself for the way he suddenly couldn't meet her stare. The quiet is driving me insane.
"Oh...um…" she muttered without a trace of her usual fire. "Just lost in thought, I guess."
"Bullshit."
"What?"
Bakugou leaned forward, his elbows on the table, and that familiar challenge she often ignited in him sparked to life. "You heard me. Don't give me some shitty excuse."
Her mouth pulled down in a frown that made a crease between her eyebrows. "It's not an excuse, I—"
"Something's up and it's making you act all...weird." His face and ears grew warm again and he turned his head away, clicking his tongue in annoyance at himself for noticing. "Just forget it."
Silence dragged, tight and grey and heavy. From the corner of his eye, he saw her running a padded finger around the rim of her mug.
And still the snow whispered violently against the window.
"You volunteered for tonight, didn't you?" Her voice was quiet, and Bakugou's eyes slid back to hers to see her looking down.
"Tch."
"You always volunteer to work holidays... Don't you...don't you want to spend time with your family?"
Her hands tightened around the mug and her shoulders curled inward, her eyes still downcast in a way that was so un-Uraraka that it made Bakugou want to yell or explode just to get a rise out of her.
"Maybe once I'm not a fucking sidekick anymore," he said. Until then, he'd work every hour he could.
"What if...they aren't around anymore when that happens?"
"Huh?"
"My dad is dead, Bakugou." The words were out of her mouth like a gunshot and her eyes finally pulled themselves from the table to meet his. Hers were flat and dull and full of iron, and something in Bakugou cracked a little in response.
What the fuck?
He didn't know how to respond to her declaration and so he said nothing, waiting in impatient silence for her to continue.
"At the end of our third year," she said. "Heart attack. Just...out of nowhere."
Bakugou didn't know why Uraraka was telling him this. He had never really been the sympathetic type. And yeah, the fact that that happened sucked. Bakugou...couldn't even imagine it, but...he didn't comfort people. He didn't...he wasn't…
The hollow look in her eyes stung. It made his blood feel thick in his veins, like his heart wasn't functioning like it was supposed to.
It made him want to reach inside his chest and squeeze, as if that would make it work again and stop the fucking ache.
"Last year was our first New Year without him," she went on. She spoke to him, but even Bakugou could tell that the words were for her. Maybe she'd never said this out loud before. Maybe she needed to process the same way Bakugou did—everything pouring out all at once when he let things build up to breaking point.
"New Year was always our favorite. We'd stay in and make lots of food and play board games all night, just the three of us. And last year...my mom and I just…" Her voice cracked and Bakugou realized she was trying not to cry. He shifted in his seat, positioning himself so the the people at the table behind him wouldn't be able to see her—Uraraka wouldn't want them to, if she weren't too lost in her own memory to think about it. "But last year...my mom and I...we just...we couldn't…"
Bakugou's comm pinged and they both flinched. The notification was for two sections down from theirs, and he 'tched' as he silenced it, looking back to Uraraka with a frown.
"This year I thought a change of scenery would be nice, you know? And I always promised my parents I'd take them to Hawaii...so I bought tickets for me and my mom," she said, letting go of her mug to run the thumb of her right hand over the pads of the fingers on her left. "But then I lost the lotto and had to work. My aunt went with my mom instead, but…"
"What the fuck? Why didn't you tell Ryukyu?" Bakugou asked, his voice harsher than it maybe should have been. "She wouldn't have put you in the lotto in the first place with a story like that. Fuck."
Uraraka shrugged, looking down at the table again in a way that made his hands twitch, wanting to reach out and make her hold her head up like she usually did.
"I guess I just thought it wouldn't be fair to try to get out of it...and the odds of being chosen weren't that high…"
"That's dumb."
"That's mean." Good, at least her eyes sparked back to life just a bit.
Uraraka sighed, blowing a strand of hair from her face and tilting her head back to look at the tiled ceiling. "I didn't want to make excuses for myself... I want to be a hero too, you know."
"But that's—"
"What?"
"I don't fucking know! Stupid."
"How is it any stupider than you volunteering all the time?" She was looking at him, finally, her hands clenched into fists on the table and her eyes bright with challenge.
A small smile twitched at the corner of Bakugou's mouth at the sight, but he forced it down. "Because I could choose to stop volunteering anytime I wanted."
"Not true. You're so obsessed with becoming a hero that you'll work yourself to the bone! It's like you don't know who you are without this."
"As if you're any better!"
"What?"
"We're both here, aren't we?"
The silence that followed that was different—charged, heated, like they stood at the edge of something looking down. They stared at each other across the table for a long, electric moment.
Uraraka breathed out hard through her nose and looked away from him, but this time she was clearly thinking of what to say, rather than drifting back into her own head.
"I promised him."
"What?"
"My dad. I promised him that I would become a pro hero. I couldn't risk a demerit on my record for being unwilling to work."
Someone else might tell her that this wasn't the end-all-be-all. That there was more to life that this.
But there wasn't. Not to him.
"Then stop moping around and be a fucking hero."
Uraraka opened her mouth as if she might argue, but closed it again, narrowing her eyes a bit as she studied his face. He hated it, the way he always felt so exposed beneath her gaze.
But instead of finding a flaw, she nodded. "You're right."
It was Bakugou's turn to study her—mouth set in determination, eyes brimming with tears but full of familiar fire. The sight pleased him more than he was willing to admit.
"You're right. It's...hard...to be without him, to have to see all the holiday stuff going on that we used to love to do together. It...hurts...and I don't think it's ever going to not hurt...but you're right. He wouldn't want me...slacking because I'm too caught up in what I'm missing."
"Damn right."
"Hey...Bakugou?"
He raised an eyebrow at her to prompt her on. She did that thing again—eyes dragging over his face as if she could see every thought he'd ever had—and Bakugou almost looked away. But he didn't.
"I know lots of people think you're crazy...and, you know, obsessed…" She smiled faintly, echoing her own words from only moments before as her face grew slightly pinker. "You want to be number one at the expense of everything else and I think it...it's really admirable."
"Huh?" Bakugou asked before he could stop himself, feeling his own ears burn.
Uraraka met his eyes and waved her hands in front of her face, which was as red as the booth she sat in. "I only mean...I just…" She fumbled for a moment before taking a breath and bringing her hands to rest on her cheeks. "I think you're really cool, Bakugou. The way you never let anything stop you or deter you...I'm just glad I get to work with you, is all. I'm sorry that I said you didn't know who to be—"
"Tch."
"I mean it!" she said, leaning forward in her chair, resting her elbows on the table, a look on her face that said I'm sure. "It's okay to be only this. It's what All Might was, you know?"
"I fucking know," Bakugou said, but his voice lacked its usual sharp edge. He didn't need the affirmation. He'd known for a long time that his single-mindedness was the same stubborn streak that got All Might to where he'd been.
But it went for Endeavor too, and even though he'd made it to number one, it never really meant anything. Not in the way it had for All Might.
His comm pinged again and he looked to see it signaling 5 o'clock, the end of their shift.
"Come on," he said, pushing himself out of the booth and strapping his gauntlet back on.
Uraraka nodded, her face going a bit blank like she'd realized again where they were and why they were there. She shook her as if to clear it, standing and grabbing her helmet.
"Hey, Bakugou?"
"What now?"
"Happy New Year."
Bakugou didn't respond as he led the way out into the dying storm. The snow fell slowly again, drifting lazily from the grey sky as if it had all year to fall.
They walked in silence the blocks back to Ryukyu's office building for their debriefing. There were families making their way outside to watch the sun rise on the new year, university students stumbling drunkenly back home, and the crisp, empty promise of of something fresh in the air.
Uraraka walked beside him, her head held high again, moving with a renewed purpose that he knew had nothing to do with the changing of the calendar. A strange warmth settled in his stomach, out of place but not unwelcome with the blistering cold around them.
They reached the building as the grey sky melted into a muted pink of winter dawn, and Bakugou rolled his eyes at himself as he stopped outside and looked up the at the top of the multi-storey office.
"Float us."
"What?"
"Do it, Uraraka."
"Okay…"
She reached out and tapped his shoulder, floating them both, and he took her hand and slung her onto his back like they'd done a hundred times in fights. It took only one blast from his palms to send them rocketing upward, reflecting in the windows as they passed. Bakugou grabbed the railing on the roof as they reached it, flipping them onto the roof and signalling for Uraraka to release her Quirk.
She did, then stood and brushed herself off, looking at him with her brows furrowed in confusion. "Bakugou...what…?"
His ears burned again, but he took her by the shoulders and turned her around, showing her the perfect view they had of the sunrise over the beach in the distance.
Standing behind her, he couldn't see her face, but her spine tightened in surprise and she took a step forward that seemed almost involuntary.
Bakugou had seen more sunrises than he could count, and this one was nothing special. Clouds still drifted heavy through the air, dulling the colors and turning the sun into a hazy ball of fuzzy light. But Uraraka took her helmet off and walked toward it, a cold breeze ruffling her hair as she stared, and when Bakugou stepped up beside her, he saw her mouth hanging slightly ajar, drinking in the sight like she'd never seen anything like it.
He blinked and looked away, still feeling the warmth in his veins that he didn't want to think too much about.
This silence contained that same sort of warmth—quiet embers instead of cold walls or fiery challenge. It was...new.
It was long but didn't feel that way, and Bakugou took a moment to just breathe and watch it with her. He'd never cared much for holidays. Most people took them as an excuse to slack off, and while his family was fine, they'd never really been so close that Bakugou felt it was missing out by not being there with them.
But this...it felt good. Fresh. Like they'd stepped across some invisible barrier in that diner.
Tch. It could be worse.
Once the sun was high enough that the dawn colors faded, Uraraka turned to him, tears rimming her eyes again.
"Oi, don't fucking cry on me," Bakugou said, taking a step away from her.
She didn't listen, and tackled him with a hug so tight that he had to take a step back to brace himself.
"Thank you, Bakugou," she said, face buried in his chest enough to muffle the words.
"I didn't do—"
"Oh hush, yes you did."
Bakugou's face was hot again, his heart thumping a bit faster than it should at her proximity.
He wished he could say that was totally new, too, but she'd always had a way of giving him a rush. Of course, it was usually more from adrenaline than...whatever this was...
He didn't know what to do with his hands and settled for patting her on the head, and they stood like that for longer than he expected.
"Hey, Uraraka?"
"Yeah?"
"Happy New Year...or whatever."
She pulled away enough to smile, and there was still sadness deep in her eyes, but it was surrounded with bright determination. "Maybe next year we can volunteer together."
His heart flipped, but a smirk tugged at the corner of his mouth as he raised a challenging eyebrow at her. "As if I'll still be a shitty sidekick here next year."
"I don't plan on being here either," she said, stepping back and crossing her arms to meet his challenge. "But pros still do patrols."
"I'll be there."
Uraraka nodded, leading the way to the door that would lead them down from the roof. "Maybe we can start a new tradition."
Bakugou never cared for holidays, but for once, it sounded like a celebration worth looking forward to.