Work Text:
Uraraka Ochako had only been transferred into the Tokyo field office for one week when they assigned her her first solo mission. She was nervous about making a good impression, but also incredibly proud of herself for being trusted with the responsibility of working without backup. It was a simple job: some infiltration here, some extraction there, easy. She was familiar with most of the equipment she’d need to use and even got to requisition her very first small explosive device. Which brought her to the office’s resident demolitions expert, Bakugou Kastuki.
She could feel her nerves building in her gut as she rode the elevator down to one of the basement levels. Agent Kirishima had given her directions and helpfully explained the office was remote not only because the nature of the work done there was often loud and potentially dangerous, but also because Bakugou himself was, in his words, “a bit antisocial.” They had been in the same training class as recruits and Kirishima proudly declared himself Bakugou’s closest friend in the office.
“More like only friend because no one else can stand the asshole,” Agent Ashido had quipped over her shoulder. Ochako liked Ashido. She had been the first person to introduce herself to Ochako on her first day and they became fast friends.
“Same difference,” Kirishima had shrugged. Ashido sighed.
“Seriously, Uraraka,” Ashido warned. “Bakugou doesn’t know how to have a conversation without shouting or swearing and he has no patience for small talk.”
“He’s not all bad,” Kirishima interjected. “He just has his issues like everyone else.”
“He has a chip on his shoulder because they suspended him from active field duty when he nearly blew a big case by losing his temper,” Ashido explained. “So now he just hides out by himself in demo all day and delights in making field agents’ lives hell if he decides he doesn’t like them.”
“He’s really good at what he does though,” Kirishima said with a reassuring smile. “He’ll make sure you get what you need. And nobody could hate you. Not even Bakugou!” Ashido didn’t look convinced. “Probably.”
Ochako was not reassured. This was someone she was likely going to have to interact with often and she didn’t like the idea of getting on his bad side. She took a deep breath as the elevator reached the correct floor and turned towards the demolitions lab. As she got closer, she could hear loud heavy metal music playing at full volume. This Bakugou clearly liked to take advantage of having the most isolated office in the building.
She paused briefly at the heavy doors labelled “DANGER: LIVE EXPLOSIVES,” working up the last of the nerve she needed. She made sure her dress shirt and jacket were buttoned properly and smoothed her pencil skirt. Making sure her outward appearance was put together always helped calm her inward emotions. Ochako made one last check that she didn’t have a run in her tights before finally pushing open the doors and stepping inside.
The music was much louder on this side of the doors and there was a faint scent of something sweet in the air. The room was clean and mostly clear of clutter save for a few work tables along the walls. The back wall was lined with some heavy duty looking lockers equipped with keypad locks. She craned her head around trying to locate the man she was looking for and spotted him hunched over a work table in the far corner of the room.
Ochako stopped in her tracks. Kirishima and Ashido had spent a good twenty minutes arguing back and forth on Bakugou’s particular merits or lack thereof, but neither of them had mentioned that he was stupidly hot.
Bakugou was blond, his spiky hair shaved on the sides in an undercut that was definitely not agency-approved. He also seemed to have foregone the dress-code standard button down shirt, jacket and tie, clad only in a black sleeveless undershirt which showed off his muscular shoulders and biceps. His gaze was focused on the project in front of him, though she couldn’t see his eyes through his protective goggles. She took a moment to make sure her face was composed and her jaw wasn’t on the floor before making her way over to him.
“Excuse me!” Ochako had to raise her voice over the music. Bakugou did not look up. He was focused on soldering some wiring in place with a small torch. She considered just waiting for him to finish, but she did want to make sure he knew she was there at least and not just secretly watching him like some weirdo. She cleared her throat.
“Hello!” she tried again louder. Still no response. The possibility occurred to Ochako that he was purposefully ignoring her. That would match up with Ashido’s low opinion of him. Deciding to find out one way or the other she moved around the work table to put herself in his line of sight, bending at the waist to look him in the face.
“Agent Bakugou!”
“Keep your panties on, I fucking heard you.”
He flicked the torch off and finally looked at her. So he was ignoring her. Ochako thought she should be more annoyed but all she could think about was how well his voice matched up with his appearance. Gruff, but sexy.
“Oh okay,” was all she could think to say. She tried to school her features into a polite smile, but it probably came across more nervous than she wanted.
Bakugou’s gaze followed her face as she stood straight again and he actually took her in for the first time. He seemed to assess her for a moment with an unreadable expression on his face before reaching over to his left and grabbing what looked like a small remote. With a click, the music stopped.
“Who are you?” Bakugou raised to his full height as his attention shifted to her. He was at least a head taller than her. He removed his goggles and she could now see his eyes were a deep crimson color. It suited him perfectly. He tilted his head as his gaze trailed over her from head to toe and back up again to her face. She thought his eyes had paused ever so slightly on her hips but she might have imagined it. Ochako couldn’t help but fidget under his intense stare.
“Uraraka Ochako. I’m new.” Ochako introduced herself with a bow, relieved to not have to strain her voice anymore.
“Yeah I fucking figured that,” he cut her off with–was that a smirk? “I’d remember that round face.”
Round face? She couldn’t tell if that was meant to be an insult or not. He set the torch down and cleared whatever he had been working on off to the side of his work space.
“I’m sorry to have interrupted you.” She chose to let the comment go for now and focused her attention on his momentarily abandoned project. “What were you working on?”
“None of your business,” Bakugou said dismissively. Ochako clenched her jaw. She was starting to understand why he had all of one friend. He wiped his hands on an oil-stained rag. “Why are you here?”
“I was just being polite,” Ochako grumbled. Ashido had said he hated small talk. She shouldn’t really be surprised that he hadn’t even bothered to introduce himself back.
“You’re wasting my time, Pink Cheeks.” Bakugou tossed the rag away and crossed his arms over his chest, emphasizing his biceps even more. It would be attractive if he weren’t being so rude.
“I just told you my name. Uraraka,” she huffed. Of course the best looking ones have the worst personalities. He clicked his tongue.
“Yeah, I heard you.” He slowly made his way around the work table, keeping his arms crossed and his eyes on hers the whole time. “What I didn’t hear was what you actually need from me.”
He stopped right in front of her and she had to crane her neck up to look at him. He was definitely smirking at her now but if he was trying to intimidate her with his superior height, it wouldn’t work. She would also absolutely not be distracted by the fact that he smelled faintly like burnt cookies. Ochako squared her shoulders and held his gaze.
“I have a requisition. Aizawa should have sent you the particulars.”
“I’m sure he did.”
“So do you have what I need then?”
Bakugou raised an eyebrow at her as his smirk grew wider. Ochako didn’t understand what was so amusing to him. She crossed her own arms and gave him an unimpressed glare. He leaned down so his face was level with hers.
“Anyone ever tell you you’re cute when you try to look intimidating?”
Ochako blinked. Did he just–did he just hit on her?
“I–you–what–” Ochako sputtered, her face heating and likely turning an embarrassing shade of red. “Excuse me?” Ashido and Kirishima hadn’t warned her about this possible turn of events.
Bakugou just chuckled and damn, the man even laughed in an attractive way. Ochako internally slapped herself. She was annoyed at him and definitely not attracted to him right now.
“Damn, Cheeks, you fluster easy. Thought all you field agents were supposed to be good under pressure.” He pulled away from her personal space and walked over to one of the big lockers on the back wall and punched in a code to unlock it.
Ochako let out a frustrated breath. She had been told he liked to mess with field agents and kicked herself for falling for his dirty trick so easily. She was also dismayed to learn his shoulders looked just as good from behind as they did from the front.
“You’re messing with me.”
“Obviously.” He grinned at her over his shoulder. “Someone would have definitely told you you’re cute before.”
Ochako wasn’t going to take his bait again, no matter how nice his deltoids were.
“Can you just give me what I requisitioned?”
“And people call me impatient.” Bakugou pulled out a small device from the cabinet and carefully closed the heavy doors. He set it down on a clear space on his work table and reached behind him to rifle through the drawers of what must have been his desk. It was too littered with various tools and schematics to tell.
“That’s it?” Ochako’s knowledge of explosives didn’t extend much further beyond what she’d learned in basic weapons training, but the device wasn't quite what she expected.
“There a fucking problem?” Bakugou paused his rifling to fix her with a hard glare.
“No! It’s just–um–small?”
His face relaxed and he laughed again.
“You’re not blowing up a building, Cheeks. Trust me, it’s plenty big enough.” He made sure to lace his words with just enough innuendo, which Ochako chose to ignore, and went back to his search.
That was when she realized it. If he knew she wasn’t blowing up a building, that meant he did know what her assignment actually was. Which meant he’d known the whole time who she was and why she was there. She let out a frustrated sigh.
“Do you always give newbies the runaround treatment?”
She noticed his lips curl into a small smile.
“Gotta entertain myself somehow.”
Bakugou seemed to have found what he was looking for in his maybe-desk and pulled out a stack of papers which he placed on a clipboard fished out from the mountain of documents in front of him. When he turned back towards her he paused, as though he was thinking about his next words.
“Well, they don’t all get the same treatment.” His eyes flitted to hers and he winked. “The other extras don’t look like you do in a pencil skirt.”
“That’s not going to work again.” Ochako narrowed her eyes at him. She knew he was just trying to get a rise out of her. “Besides, this skirt is perfectly within the dress code.” Her skirt was a little tight, but hardly to a scandalous degree.
“I’m sure it is,” he licked his lips and Ochako had the brief impression of feeling like cornered prey, “but you can’t hide those curves from me.”
He let his smouldering gaze rest on her hips for a long moment before returning to her face. She was only able to maintain eye contact for a few seconds before she felt her face flush again and she looked away with a huff. Damn him. She somehow played right into his hands. Bakugou chuckled.
“All right, all right. Enough foreplay. It’s time for the real fun,” he said with a playful grin, handing her the clipboard and a pen. “Paperwork.”
For once in her years long career with the agency, Ochako was actually thankful for paperwork. Like most agents, she hated the tedium of endlessly filling out case files and liability forms and all the rest, but now it was a welcome break from whatever bizarre verbal sparring she was currently engaged in with Bakugou. It didn’t stop her from sneaking peeks at him while she thought he wasn’t paying attention though.
Bakugou was carefully packaging the device into a lead case whenever her eyes inevitably flitted over to him every so often. He really was quite handsome, with a strong jaw and annoyingly perfect skin.
“Eyes on your own work, Cheeks.”
Of course he’d noticed her subtly observing him. Ochako rolled her eyes and returned her attention to the mind numbing work of checking boxes and filling out case numbers so she could officially have the equipment she needed relinquished to her. When she finished, Bakugou was already done packing up her device and had returned to tinkering with the project he’d been working on when she came in.
“All done. Can I have my bomb now?” Ochako held out the clipboard. He looked down at it but didn’t move to take it.
“Nah, I think you forgot something,” he said with a cheeky grin.
“Agent Bakugou,” she sighed, “I may be new to this office but I have been an agent long enough to know how to fill out forms.”
“You didn’t put your phone number down.”
“Really?” she scoffed. He may have been good at catching her off guard so far but she refused to be flustered by such a cliche move.
“Cheeks, you can keep pretending you haven’t been checking me out since the moment you walked in here,” he held up a finger as she opened her mouth to refute him, “or you can write down your damn number and go out with me next Friday.”
Whatever she had been about to say died in her throat. Was he actually being serious? She searched his face for signs that he was teasing her again. He just grinned at her expectantly. She had a small urge to turn him down just to wipe that smug look off his face, but against her better judgement Ochako quickly jotted her phone number in the bottom corner of one of the forms. He went to take the clipboard from her but she yanked it back before he could.
“One date. Dinner. You’re paying.” She gave him a cocky grin of her own and handed over the clipboard. He gave a low whistle as he tore her number from the page and put the small piece of paper in his pocket.
“You’re on, Agent Uraraka.”
“Nice meeting you, Agent Bakugou.” Ochako picked up the device and turned to leave, making sure to put a little extra sway in her hips as she walked to the door. When she exited the elevator back on the level where her office was located, she felt her phone buzz with a text message. She pulled it out and saw it was from an unknown number. She couldn’t help but grin as she read it.
See you and that perfect ass on Friday, Cheeks.