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“I don’t fucking care. I’ve never cared. So why can I not get that image out of my god forsaken mind? Like a fucking blister, it’s raw and won’t stop nagging me.” The words were for himself. Spoken to the empty echo of his room, door tightly locked.
If you’d asked him before that moment – he would have insisted that he didn’t. Until he saw it.
Uraraka had been sparring with Todoroki, learning to redirect his fire harmlessly away in hand to hand combat. It was something each of them did to learn how to deal with a fire quirk. And in a last ditch effort to beat Todoroki, the girl had lunged at him, letting the fire catch her side so she could throw off his balance with a roundhouse kick. Quickly followed by a pounced attempt to restrain the boy – she was unsuccessful, but the move was well performed. Todoroki was careful in his retaliation – he only burnt the side of her shirt exposing her midriff from braline to hem.
That’s when he’d seen it -the mark that’s on her side. Only a portion of it was exposed, because part of must be hidden under the bra. He knew the shape intimately. Visible on the gravity girl’s side was ¾ of the curve of a full moon – detailed with craters, the sloping line that ran from her hipbone to the moon. A black ink, dark lines finely etched. His brain filled in the missing pieces, behind the full moon would be a single firework. Like an explosion. As if the line leading to the moon was a trajectory and the firework an explosion of something that burst through the moon. A snapshot of the moment before the moon split into a thousand slivers, pierced by the impact.
Mina assaulted Uraraka, as she helped the girl to her feet. “Is that your soul mark? It’s so pretty and intricate!” Mina traced the line from Uraraka’s hip to her braline.
Uraraka panted. “Yeah. I think it’s beautiful.” She beamed. “Though, I have no idea what it means.”
Kirishima noticed Mina’s oogling and of course shitty-hair would recognize it as well. He turned his sharp gaze to Bakugou. Internally screaming, he gave his best friend a “If you fucking say a word I will murder you” expression. Kirishima just blinked slowly, as if confused.
Bakugou was confused himself. Why? How? What the fuck was the universe thinking?
Kirishima leaned over, whispering. “Dude. This is awkward.”
“Don’t breath a fucking word.”
“Are you going to tell…”
“No.” The word as sharp off Bakugou’s tongue as Kirishima’s teeth.
As fate would have it, Bakugou and Uraraka were paired for hand to hand combat training and he found himself drinking in the girl. Absorbing information he’d only noted and dismissed previously - Her dedication. Her willingness to be involved in a fight instead of being a long range hero or dedicated rescue-only hero. The sheer creativity she put into her quirk usage to toss herself around like a cannonball instead of a regular person.
“You can do better.”
He practically spat the words at her after tossing her back into a wall. The impact knocking the breath from her. She scowled and doubled down her efforts, eyes as bright and hot as Todoroki’s left side. Bakugou actually had to guard to deflect her attacks. And in the end, she still managed to faceslam him into the ground one good time. Crushing his smile in an instant before she could catch it alighting his features.
-
Everyone knew Uraraka hung out on the roof when she wanted to be alone. She’d make hot chocolate and go up there to stare up at the night sky. That’s where he found her tonight. Staring at the moon as if it held the answers – or at least comfort, maybe.
“Hello, Bakugou. Did you need something?”
He voice was calm and assertive, but welcoming. She was laying on her back, hair spread in a halo about her.
He sat a comfortable distance away from her, but had yet to speak. Reclining back on his arms and gazing out at the moon. The silence slipped thick between them, but not suffocating. Not until she turned her eyes upon him. He felt her glance, but did not return it.
“Do you believe in that soulmate shit?”
She traced the line on her hip absently.
“Believe? Yes. Do I think it is the seamless love affair that most people assume it to be? No.”
He narrowed his eyes at her. She sighed.
“Having a soul mate is supposed to be the most understood you’ll be in your entire life – right? Like that one person who can always support you, and really know you. Know how to push you to be better. How to pull you through pain. They change the shape of you into something else. But that can’t be easy, you know? It’s not like you can just look at someone and say “well, we’re meant to be together so this will definitely work”. Because it doesn’t. Being soulmates doesn’t work just because you have the tattoos. You still have to work to build that connection. And people forget that. They just… assume. I don’t know. I’m rambling. I just think people ignore the value of the connection and the development of it because they expect it.”
“Are you nervous about it?” His eyes were back on the moon.
“Strangely – no. I’m comforted by it. I… still have nightmares from the Overhaul operation.”She clenched her hands into fists, released a long sigh. “I feel so weak to admit it, Bakugou, especially to you, but ever since the mark appeared I find that tracing it will calm the panic attacks. Maybe it’s the sheer force of knowing that there’s a human out there in the world that will accept a weak person like me and maybe even love me for what makes me weak. It just… helps.”
He let the silence return. Turning her words about in his mind searching for – something. Sincerity, maybe?
Her voice cut through his mind, “Did you come up here just to ask that?”
He furrowed his brow at her returned attention, her fingers having pulled up her shirt to expose her torso to trace the bottom portion of the mark.
With a nod, “ I don’t know anyone else who has theirs.”
“ “They appear when you are most likely to die.” I got mine the night of the Overhaul operation. Did you get yours when you were captured by the League?”
He winced, but nodded.
“Deku has his, as well. He got it on the Overhaul operation.”
He raised an eyebrow.
She looked away.
“They aren’t the same. As much as it hurt to see, I kinda knew it already.”
“Thought you two were shoved so far up each other’s asses it would be inevitable.”
“ So did we…. “ She let the sentence gather condensation in the night. “But he doesn’t get me the same way I do him. He doesn’t see.” The emphasis on that one word could have kept an army of poets up late into the night. “And I think that maybe I want to be seen and understood more than I wanted the soulmark to reveal that my crush was lifelong. Deku is amazing, but as I’ve stepped back I’ve realized that he doesn’t fill the spaces I need in my soul.”
Bakugou let the silence settle between them. Knowing he should fill it, but filling his mind instead.
“ I’m rambling. I’m sorry. I know you don’t care. What about yours?”
A shrug, “Kinda like you said, it brought me comfort, but not understanding. It just sort of feels like a fucking burden.”
She turned to him then, propping up on one elbow to edge a small smile in his direction. ”What shape did yours take? Mine looks like a shooting star pierced the moon, fireworks behind it. It’s so much more beautiful than I thought it would be… They must be beautiful too.”
The spark in her eyes trembled and he was drawn to it. Inexplicably. Leaning forward on instinct.
But he caught himself, hardened his tone, “Is beautiful what you really want?”
“What do you want?”
Another shrug, “Strong. Capable. Reliable. Comfortable, but fucking driven.”
Meeting his eyes, she didn’t back down for a moment, though he knew his expression was fierce, “ I think all of those things are beautiful, Bakugou.”
He stood and walked to the edge of the roof, propping his elbows on the wall and staring out across the expanse. Squishy toe-bean fingertips lightly ghosted against his arm. She’d joined him to stare out across the sky.
“Can I see yours?” A gentle squeeze on his arm, but he didn’t shove her away like he usually would with anyone this close to him.
“ No.”
Voice lower, an exhale on the breeze, “ Do you hate it?”
Slower, he replied, “No.”
“Then are you ashamed or… “
“Fucking hell, woman. I’m not ashamed.” Her hand left his arm.
“Sorry.” She pulled back from him then, putting distance between their bodies. He felt her turn to walk away. He snagged her wrist, holding her eyes. Searching. The moment stretched long past decent.
“What are you looking for, Bakugou?” Again – she did not waver.
He huffed, dropping her hand, and then facing away from her and began pulling his shirt up in one smooth motion. He tossed a quick look back at her – she was watching. A puzzled pout on her face. He pulled his shirt all the way over his head and off. Laying it on the concrete wall. His hands gripped the stone, eyes boring into the moon.
A small gasp behind him, then a finger tracing the same line she was so familiar with up his spine, circling the moon and detailing every intricate line of the fireworks just to the right of his spine. One of her hands curled gently around his side, the other pressed into the flat of his shoulder blade. So when he felt the sensation of something soft touching him it took his brain a stupidly long time to realize that she was pressing tiny kisses up the curving line to where it disappeared in the middle of the moon.
She wrapped both hands around his stomach, hugging him from behind and resting her forehead against the moon on his back.
His voice cracked, weak and vulnerable.
“Uraraka, I’m not… “
“ Hush.”
Hesitantly, he lifted a hand off the concrete wall to cover hers. Pressing his fingers into her palm and squeezing gently.
“Bakugou…” her exhale warmed his back, drifting down the length of his spine. “Thank you for telling me.”
He rubbed at her hand. Bored new craters into the moon with his gaze.
“Why? I’m not stupid, Uraraka. Why would you be willing to want me? Fuck. Why would you even accept me? I’m not exactly the type of person you gravitate towards.”
“ You see me.” He stopped breathing, inhaling again only when she regained her momentum, “ I think you’ve seen me since first year, since the sports festival. And I already know you’re going to be a fantastic hero.”
“I could turn out like Endeavor.”
“No. “Her voice was so firm it startled him. He turned to face her, not caring that he was shirtless or that her arms were wrapped around him. Her eyes were fireworks.
She took his hands again. Threading her fingers through his with such a genuine expression it felt intimate.
“You’re nothing like Endeavor, and you know it. You would never do that to people. You would never breed with someone just to create children with strong quirks to beat your rival. You’d beat him your own damn self and you wouldn’t hurt other people in the process. You’re angry and difficult and unrelenting – but you’re not a monster.”
His fingers flexed involuntarily, “The league sure as hell thought I was monster enough. And everyone else here, too.”
She chuckled a tiny bit, the sound escaping her in puffs. She moved one of his palms into the space between them, staring at it palm up as she traced his hand with her fingertips.
“Maybe you are a monster, Bakugou. You have perfect grades, you’re the top of the class, you learn every new thing effortlessly, and while your quirk is strong by itself the way you manipulate it makes you ten times stronger than it could ever be alone. In different hands, your quirk would be much less capable. A destructive bang instead of a force of propulsion.”
She looked up at him then, her hand slipping to his cheek to trace the arc of his bones with her thumb. She chewed on her lip a bit as she readied the next words.
“But you’re a monster on the right side. And they’re just jealous. And maybe….” She leaned in too close. His eyes locked on hers. “Maybe one day you can be the monster beside me and we can be the gatekeepers that hold back the fucking desperation that preys upon this world. Together.”
She tilted her head and kissed his cheek. The press of her against him warm and inviting, enveloping in the way a blanket wards off the cold.
She turned away from him, putting space between them once again and he found himself leaning towards her as she let her hands release his.
“Goodnight, Bakugou.” A flash of a smile over her shoulder, just for him.
He snatched her wrist again, drinking in the question in her eyes.
“This…” He waved at her side. “It’s just a mark. You’re not compelled to… feel anything. To be anything… to me.”
“Nor are you. We have plenty of time to choose. There’s no need to rush.”
She slipped away from him, but at the door turned around.
“Bakugou, I can’t complain about the view, though.”With a wink, she slid inside. And the blush that crept across his cheeks was left unobserved.