Chapter Text
Professor Aizawa glared down at them. Bakugou lay wrapped in bandages on one of Recovery Girl’s beds, with Uraraka sat next to him in a plain black chair. Bakugou glared right back at his teacher, the fire in his red eyes only slightly diminished by the clear fury in Aizawa’s. Uraraka, on the other hand, refused to meet his gaze, but the determined expression on her face spoke volumes none the less.
“You could be incarcerated for this,” Aizawa deadpanned.
Bakugou’s fists whitened as he clenched the sheets.
“You’ve been out of school for almost three months, two of which you had to spend in an ICU. you cost the school and the city billions of yen in property damage and cover-up work. You caused hysteria on the scale of a full-blown attack by the league of villains. And, most importantly, you recklessly endangered your own life and the life of your classmate.” Aizawa’s eyes flicked momentarily to Uraraka as he finished his reprimand.
Bakugou’s gaze fell, ashamed.
Aizawa held up his pointer finger. “One chance.”
Both pairs of eyes shot to him, eyebrows rising in intrigue.
“I know about the secret training that led up to this,” Aizawa continued, ignoring the blush spreading across Uraraka’s face. “I’m going to give you one shot to prove that you can still be heroes. One shot to prove that the early morning training and naps in my class were worth it,” he shot a look at Uraraka, serving only to turn her a deeper shade of cherry.
“When you’re healed you two will fight Midoriya and Todoroki. Prove to me that your training accident was worth it. The hero world doesn’t have room for idiots who hurt themselves.”
“WHAT THE FUCK,” Bakugou raged. “The explosion was my fuckin’ fault. Kick me out if you want, but don’t drag her into this shit too.”
Before Aizawa could respond, Uraraka slipped her hand into his, quieting him. Aizawa was taken aback by the steadfast look of determination she shot him. The fire in her eyes from the sports festival had returned, with a vengeance.
“We’ll win,” her voice was quiet.
“We’ll win, and show you just how strong of heroes we can be,” she was louder this time.
Bakugou's frown was replaced with a wild maniacal grin, If nothing else, he trusted in her strength. “I’ll be out in a week, and then we’ll wipe the floor with that shitty nerd, and his boyfriend.”
I smile spread across Aizawa’s face. “Do what you need to, or you’re both out.”
After the professor left, silence hung in the room.
Bakugou reached for his phone.
“What are you doing?” Uraraka asked, handing it to him.
“What it takes,” he replied, fiddling with the touch screen before pressing the call button.
Another brief silence punctuated by the ringtone.
Put the phone on his leg and switched it to speaker mode.
“Hell-”
“It’s me, I need to speak to the person who designed costumes for me and Uraraka.”
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Uraraka was no stranger to the flat concrete field of gym gamma, but stepping onto it with so much at stake, it felt alien to her.
Or maybe that was just the new costumes. Both of their costumes had changed. Each taking inspiration from the other. Uraraka's helmet had extra plates of plexiglass folded elegantly underneath the original design. A utility belt sat snugly by her hips. Her boots and wrists had grown toroidal housings for reaction wheels, a design feature her costume shared with Bakugou’s.
Bakugou’s costume hadn’t changed as much as hers, metal plates lay hidden in his collar, and his reaction wheels had been integrated smoothly into his gauntlets.
He stood next to her, any hint of bravado or anger was long gone from his face. He had only one goal win, win with her at his side.
Her hand brushed his, faintly and quickly; His own shot out like a viper, entangling their fingers. They shared a comforting squeeze. He wouldn’t ever admit it, but he was nervous.
She helped.
Across the field stood Midoriya and Todoroki, their monochromatic hero suits standing out against the gray of the arena. Briefly, Uraraka wondered if they knew how important this fight really was.
Her thoughts were interrupted by the wail of a siren signifying the start of their match.
With the flick of a switch, the plates in her helmet came down, there was a hiss of pressurized air as her head was encased in an airtight cocoon.
She waited a moment, two, three. Her heart sank.
Was this it? Was all the planning for nothing?
Her doubts were squashed by the rhythmic hum of air filters and the cool breeze of processed air against her face. The suit worked. For now.
Still, hand in hand with Katsuki, she placed her splayed fingers on her chest, and they were both weightless.
Just in time to leap over a column of flame from across the field.
Bakugou pulled her into him, sticking his free hand out behind them and launched them forward with an explosion. The reaction wheels in their suits whirred to life, correcting their course as they shot towards their opponents, and setting in motion the first step of an elegant plan.
It took Todoroki less than a second to erect a shield of ice in front of himself and Midoriya. The slanted glassy surface of the meter-thick wall a sudden barrier to the oncoming pair.
Uraraka gently handed Bakugou a copper cone from inside her utility belt, activating her quirk on it as she did so.
Bakugou took it and wrapped his hands around it as if preparing to fire off an AP shot.
“AT SHOT!” Bakugou screamed through the rushing wind. Detonating the nitroglycerin reservoir behind the cone.
In an instant, the cone inverted, transforming into a lance of copper plasma that pierced the ice wall with all the difficulty of a hot knife through butter. The ice wall did have some effect on the copper, however, as what shot through the other end of the wall was not a stream of plasma but a collection of liquid copper globules.
Midoriya had just enough time to dodge sideways before the red hot balls splashed into the ground where he’d been standing, hissing angrily as they stuck to the concrete and cooled.
Smoke, soot, and steam enveloped Todoroki, as Bakugou used his quirk to forcibly widen the hole made by the AT shot. Midoriya ran to assist his partner, but was stopped short as a motorcycle-sized chunk of ice hurtled towards him; Uraraka’s handiwork.
Two glowing orange hands shot forth from the smoke that gently swirled around Todoroki, he willed himself to dodge. Too late he realized that it was not an attack at all, merely Bakugou disengaging.
The flash and the bang served to stun Todoroki long enough for five small pads to come to rest on his back. He was blind, deaf and falling, for how long, he didn’t know, instinct had long since taken over.
Todoroki’s panicked fire blast was cut short, as Uraraka threw him head-first to the ground. His head bounced off the stone floor with a resounding crack. Uraraka saw his pupils balloon to the size of dinner plates, as cognizance left them. She knew what came next.
She silently thanked her rescue training as she turned Todoroki’s unconscious body sideways allowing him to empty the contents of his stomach in a yellow puddle next to him. Then she pulled a modified SAM splint from the belt at her waist and wrapped it around his neck and back, keeping them supported and straight. She floated herself and her classmate out of the arena, where recovery girl graciously accepted him. The battle was in Bakugou’s hands now.
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Class 1-A collectively winced at Uraraka’s merciless takedown. Behind them professors Aizawa and Toshinori stood, flanking principle Nezu.
“Since when could Uraraka fight like that?” Kirishima murmured through a grimace.
“It appears as though she learned much during her internship, it would be unwise to underestimate her,” Iida agreed.
“Nah, she was scary before her internship, y'all just didn’t notice,” Mina interjected.
The principal gently tapped one clawed finger against his chin, pensively. “Yes, they certainly are dangerous.”
“You figured it out didn’t you,” Aizawa said, glancing down at his boss, eyebrow raised.
“Yes, I did.”
“Figured what out?” Mina, Kaminari, and Kirishima chorused, their attention turned from the screens.
“You’re familiar with the with the training accident that caused Bakugou’s absence for the last semester, correct?” Aizawa asked.
“Bakugou took himself out with a big explosion, right?” Mina recalled, pushing her finger against her chin. “I guess that’s what he gets for waking up so early to go practice unsupervised.”
“He took himself, most of the school, and most of the woods out,” Kirishima amended.
“Oooooooh yeah! We’re gonna tease him about that when he gets back” Kaminari chuckled.
Kirishima gave him a light punch for that.
“What you may not have known, is the events leading up to that explosion,” Aizawa began.
“First off, Bakugou was not alone in his 4 am training sessions. He trained with Uraraka.”
Once again, all of class 1-A’s heads snapped from the screen to fixate on Aizawa as a chorus of “Uraraka?”’s filled the room.
“Uraraka; I never would have guessed,” said Momo, her brow furrowed with confusion.
“She confirmed it after bringing Bakugou to the infirmary after the explosion.”
“If she and Bakugou were training together during the explosion, how come Bakugou was so injured while she’s fine, ribbit?” Tsu asked.
“We believe that Bakugou used his body to shield her from the blast,” Aizawa answered.
“I understand that Bakugou has fast reflexes, but she barely had a scratch. To provide such effective shielding would have taken time.” Iida pointed out.
“Time they would have had if the detonation was not accidental” Nezu answered.
“But young Uraraka confirmed that the explosion was accidental,” Toshinori protested.
“No, both she and Bakugou called it a training accident. I think they weren’t referring to the explosion, but the events that lead up to it.” Nezu explained.
“Elaborate please,” said Aizawa.
“If Uraraka wanted to blend her close-combat fighting style with her quirk, a situation where Bakugou remains weightless without the use of his quirk for an extended period of time could be created,” Nezu began. “Without the active use of his quirk, and without gravity to pull his sweat from his body, it’s not difficult to believe that nitroglycerin would fall from his body and dissolve into the air.”
“Additionally, nitroglycerin can be incredibly toxic to the body if absorbed. I think that Bakugou was forced to use his quirk to detonate a large amount of aerosolized nitroglycerin after accidentally putting Uraraka into shock with nitroglycerin poisoning. Furthermore, I think he is trying something similar now, Throughout this fight, Bakugou has only used his quirk a total of three times. Also, Todoroki, the only one capable of burning away the nitroglycerin was their first target,” Nezu continued.
“So young Bakugou plans to hold off young Midoriya until he can finish the fight with one decisive blow?” Toshinori asked, slamming his fist into his open palm.
“Actually, I doubt that,” Nezu replied, raising his paw. “Bakugou had to have a lung replaced, and surgery for a tension pneumothorax, and he had a lifetime to adapt to his quirk. The dissolved nitroglycerin will remain reactive in body cavities like the lungs, even after inhalation. He will most likely just wait until Midoriya succumbs to the nitroglycerin poisoning.”
Toshinori’s face darkened. “So young Bakugou is refraining from using his quirk because…”
“Because doing so would likely send a string of explosions down Midoriya’s mouth and nose and turn his chest cavity inside out.”
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Bakugou couldn’t keep trading blows with Deku. Without his quirk or his weight, he was at a severe disadvantage, and while the reaction wheels in his suit gave him excellent maneuverability, they didn’t provide a solid enough platform to throw punches from.
Luckily, he wouldn’t need much more time. Deku was already slowing, his movements more open and less focused. He was starting to punch like a drunk.
And yet, the persistent bastard refused to fall. With each clash, Bakugou had to put more and more distance between them. He was beginning to wonder how many more of those kicks he could take.
Bakugou shook the doubt out of his head and redoubled his attack, cocking his fist for a right hook.
Only this time Deku’s stance was different, his stance was open, and he held one arm out in front of him, almost like a cannon. Then, a wave of compressed air shattered the reaction wheel on his left ankle. The others whirred desperately to compensate, but it was too little too late. Bakugou crashed unceremoniously to the ground, scraping the skin off his back and shoulders.
Deku may not have figured out their plan but he knew enough to know he could beat Bakugou on the ground.
This was it.
Bakugou had lost. His dreams, and more importantly, Uraraka’s dreams were dashed. Once again he’d let himself, and her down. Deku was almost on him now.
That damn Deku…
...Hit the ground like a sack of bricks.
Bakugou and Uraraka reacted simultaneously. He rushed towards his unconscious opponent’s body, while somewhere in the distance she pressed her hands together and yelled: “release!”
With weight returned to him, picking up the smaller boy wasn’t hard.
As much as he hated Deku, Bakugou was a hero first and foremost, and heroes don’t kill their classmates, even if they wanted to, occasionally.
Outside of gym gamma, recovery girl was waiting with an IV and medicine. Nitroglycerin poisoning was rather easy to reverse. He dumped the limp boy at the older woman’s feet and left to complaints of his choice of technique
“At least he didn’t break any bones this time,” he spat back.
Then, his eyes fell on her, Uraraka, more beautiful in victory now than ever before. She practically barreled into him wrapping her arms around his neck. All the stress of the past months oozing out of her as she pressed against him.
He rested his chin on her head, returning the embrace. “You’re awfully happy for someone who just helped me kick the shit out of her friends,” he teased.
He felt more than saw her pout against him. “I did more than help, and they’re both tough, they can handle it.”
Bakugou snorted in a half-laugh. She was right.
“You definitely fucked up Todoroki good,” Bakugou admitted. “‘Bout time someone cut him down to size”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“‘Means everyone’s gotta start treating you like a badass, Cheeks”
“My name’s Uraraka, stop with the nicknames,” she complained.
“Make me,” he shot back.
In one fluid motion, Uraraka took half a step away from him, grabbed the collar of his costume with all five fingers and slammed her lips into his.
For a moment, Bakugou was ramrod straight, as if still expecting an attack, then, he relaxed into the kiss returning it with matched hunger. He was not about to be bested in the ring of tonsil hockey.
Their tongues crashed together, each vying for dominance in the other’s mouth.
Eventually, the need for oxygen overcame their desire to trade saliva, and the kiss broke, leaving both hot and panting.
“I guess you can call me Ochako,” she amended.
“Ochako,” he tested. It felt good to say.
“Yes?” she answered, cocking her head to the side, and smiling at him sweetly.
“Put me down.”
“Oh, right, sorry.”