Work Text:
It’s three in the fucking morning, and Katsuki is so goddamn tired. He glances around his room one last time, then throws his pack over his shoulder and heads for the balcony.
Katsuki looks over the edge; no one’s there. As expected, but still.
Better safe than dead.
Katsuki’s seen far too much death recently.
Katsuki takes a deep breath, just one, then swings his leg up over the balcony. This isn’t the safest way to leave the building, but it’s the only one that’ll let him avoid anyone else. They’ll find his empty room in the morning and by then he’ll be halfway to Tokyo. It’d be better if he could use Explosion to soften the landing, but that’d wake the extras, and Katsuki can’t have that.
Even if they didn’t argue against him leaving to find Deku, they’d insist on coming along with Katsuki and he can’t have that.
So Katsuki shifts his pack one more time, then swings his other leg over the rail and drops .
He tenses in anticipation of the impact, but then something weird happens. Something whacks him across the face, and suddenly, he’s floating.
A hand stretches out towards him and Katsuki is met with the concerned face of Uraraka Ochako.
Katsuki debates using his quirk to escape, despite the fact that it would wake everyone else up, but before he can think it through Uraraka is grabbing his hand and pulling him onto her balcony.
“What are you thinking?” she demands.
Katsuki scoffs, “I was planning to fly to the moon. What do you think I was doing, asshole?”
Uraraka crosses her arms. “It looks like you were trying to sneak out.”
“Wow, you’re a real detective,” Katsuki snarks. “Why’d you bother stopping me if you knew what I was doing.”
“Wait, you are sneaking out?” Uraraka asks incredibly. “You, Mr. Eight-O-Clock bedtime?”
“Fuck off,” Katsuki rolls his eyes, then adjusts his pack and grins. “Thanks for the help, Round Face. Now I’m that much closer to the ground.”
“Oh no, you’re not getting away without explaining yourself!” Uraraka demands.
Katsuki scoffs, “What, like you’re gonna stop me?”
“Like you want to waste the time fighting me?” she retorts. “Even if you won, everyone would wake up. You’d be stuck here.”
Shit, she’s right.
“Tell me what you’re up to and I might not call a teacher,” Uraraka bargains.
“Fucking fine,” Katsuki groans. “I’m going after Deku, alright? That bastard’s up to something and I’ll be damned if he fights Handyman and his League of Assholes without me.”
“You’re going after Deku?” Uraraka starts in surprise.
“Did I not just say that?” Katsuki asks rhetorically. “Keep up.”
“How’re you gonna find him? He could be anywhere right now,” she points out.
“Yeah, but I know Deku,” Katsuki says. Uraraka gives him a look and he reluctantly adds, “I’m gonna start at Jakku and look for clues there. I’m sure there’s something.”
“That’s pretty far to travel all at once,” Uraraka says. “Could you really handle that all at once?”
“Course I could!” Katsuki exclaims. “Still, just because I’m an asshole doesn’t mean I ain’t prepared, Cheeks! I’m gonna stop in Osaka.”
“Smart,” Uraraka nods approvingly. Katsuki groans when he realizes how much of his plan he revealed.
“You better not tell anyone about this,” he warns.
“Oh, you don’t have to worry about that,” Uraraka grins.
“What do you mean by that?” Katsuki demands.
Uraraka stares at him like it’s obvious. “I’m coming with you!”
Katsuki snorts. “Yeah, right.”
“I am,” Uraraka insists. Katsuki starts to argue but she cuts him off, “If you don’t let me come with you, I’ll yell and wake everyone up. I’m sure you don’t want that, right?”
“You wouldn’t dare,” Katsuki glowers.
Uraraka smirks, “Oh, I would.” She takes a deep breath and yells, “GUYS-”
Katsuki slams his hand over her mouth and hisses, “Fine, you can come with me, but shut up!” Uraraka grins triumphantly. “Grab your shit and let's go.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Uraraka sighs even as she throws her things into a pack.
Katsuki pauses as the realization hits him like a truck. “You were going to sneak out on your own, weren’t you?”
Uraraka crosses her arms defensively. “So what if I was?”
Katsuki tilts his head. “I don’t get it. Why do you wanna come along with me if you had your own plans to find Deku?”
“It’s smarter to stick together, and besides, two heads are better than one!” Uraraka exclaims. She holds her grin for a moment, then falters. “Besides, you know Deku as well as I did, and we’re gonna need everything we’ve got to find him. Even All Might hasn’t found him!”
“Sure he hasn’t,” Katsuki mutters.(With One For All shared between them, Yagi is never in the dark about Deku’s status. He might not know his exact location but Katsuki would bet anything that Yagi knows exactly where the shitnerd is.)
Uraraka looks at him curiously and he thinks shit . He didn’t mean to say that aloud. “It can’t be too hard,” he says with a false bravado. “Deku’s pretty predictable.”
Uraraka shrugs in what might be agreement.
“Anyways,” Katsuki grunts, “Let’s get going. I wanted to be out of here fifteen minutes ago.”
Uraraka nods and slings her pack over her shoulder. She follows Katsuki to the balcony, and she quietly asks, “How do we want to get out of here? I can make you and our packs float and you can carry me, if you think that’d work.”
“Because you can’t float yourself, right?”
“Not without some serious drawbacks,” Uraraka confirms.
Katsuki drags a hand over his face and sighs. “Alright, then. We’ll go with your thing.”
Uraraka looks like she has some sort of comeback ready but she leaves it alone, and Katsuki is thankful. They’ve lost enough time already.
Uraraka slaps a featherlight hand to his bicep, and Katsuki frowns at the odd loss of gravity. He’s never spent much time working with Uraraka in order to get used to it, and she’s not exactly using it in a friendly manner when they spar.
He takes another moment to get used to it, then grunts, “Hop on, Round Face.” She groans at the nickname but does so.
Katsuki crouches and prepares to leap over the railing, but Uraraka’s voice stops him. “Hey, pass up your pack.”
“Oh.” Katsuki hadn’t realized he was holding it. “I can hold my own damn pack, you know.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Uraraka sighs. “But you need your hands free in case we need a quick escape.”
Katsuki rolls his eyes but passes up his bag as asked. It’s not like he’ll need his hands, though. Yuuei isn’t so paranoid that they’d set alarms for people leaving the building, right?
Right?
Katsuki is eating his words not thirty seconds later.
He’d made sure Uraraka was holding on tight, then launched them both over the balcony. He’d streaked across the grounds for a total of six seconds.
Suspended in motion.
Then he’d crashed into the wall and braced himself on all fours.
That’s when the alarm went off. Because of course.
“Fuck,” Katsuki swears. He pushes himself roughly half a foot off the wall, then thrusts his hands downwards and sets off Explosion. They’re propelled into the air, and Katsuki can feel Uraraka’s grip tighten. He laughs, once, then shifts his hands the other way and blasts them downwards over the wall.
She lifts up off his back for one moment before gravity brings them both crashing back downwards. After that he aims his hands down and releases a few explosions to soften their impact.
Three feet from the ground, Uraraka lets go of Katsuki and shouts “Release!”
They land on the ground with a tumble and lay dazed for a moment. Uraraka picks herself up first and Katsuki, not to be outdone, grabs the fallen packs and blasts into the forest.
Uraraka flings herself forward with her quirk, perfectly timing her fall so that she lands on Katsuki’s back. He stays upright, somehow, and blasts them forward another few feet before he deactivates his quirk and shrugs Uraraka off.
He chucks her bag in vaguely the direction she’s going, she rushes ahead to catch it, and they race through the forest on quick, silent feet. Yuuei can’t catch them if they don’t know where to look, and even the little bit Katsuki had used his quirk earlier has set the school at a disadvantage.
“Round face,” Katsuki calls quietly. Uraraka makes a small sound to indicate she heard him, and Katsuki says, “We’re gonna split up and you’re gonna meet me at the Moonlight All-Nite Diner on the corner of sixth and Mayberry, got it? I’ll distract them.”
Uraraka hesitates for a moment, then gives in. “Fine.”
Katsuki’s glad she agreed. He isn’t trying to slight her, he knows from personal experience how strong she is, but he has more maneuverability in the air and she can only use her quirk on herself for so long.
Besides, now he gets a chance to antagonize Aizawa with no repercussions.
Katsuki grins.
Bring it on.
--
Ochako races through the forest, dodging scattering squirrels and ducking under wayward branches. She wishes she’d gotten to stay behind and fight, but Bakugou’s plan makes sense.
He’s louder- insanely so- and his quirk is flashy enough to draw the teachers. They’ll assume her and Bakugou are sticking together and that’ll be their mistake. Bakugou will escape- Ochako doesn’t know how he plans to do that but she’s no less sure of him.
Her part seems ridiculously easy, in comparison. Get out of the forest and meet Bakugou at the Moonlite All-Nite Diner.
That’s all there is to it- or at least, all there should be- but something goes wrong. Of course it does.
If Ochako listens closely, she can almost hear Fate laughing in the distance .
Ochako’s about half a mile from where she last saw Katsuki, as best as she can tell. She’s nearly out of the woods, she can see the light ahead, and of course that’s when she runs into Aizawa-sensei.
Shit.
Ochako takes a sharp turn to the right, hoping to divert her path before she’s spotted, but it’s too late. Aizawa-sensei runs towards her near-silently and Ochako barely avoids the reel of capture weapon sent her way.
Aizawa is erasing her quirk, which is unfortunate. It’s always her go to plan. Thankfully, she has another option.
“Where’s Bakugou?” Aizawa-sensei asks, leaping effortlessly over a tree branch.
“No.. idea!” Ochako grunts, picking up a rock and chucking it at him. Guess all that strength training is coming in handy, eh? Aizawa-sensei is forced to grab the rock with his capture weapon and cast it to the side, and Ochako takes the opportunity to dive deeper into the forest. She only makes it a few feet or so, but in the dead of night, when you can barely see three centimeters in front of your face?
Ochako might as well have made it a meter . Which still isn’t much, admittedly, but still. It’s progress!
Ochako lightly taps herself and winces as she feels the weightlessness- and the nausea that comes with it- set in. She’s been training with her quirk recently so she’s not in danger of vomiting for a while, but that doesn’t mean she feels good.
Still, she knows it's the right decision when Aizawa-sensei heads to the left of her position. She floats between the trees, lightly pulling herself along with every passing branch. It’s slow going, but it works for a while.
Aizawa-sensei catches up with her once more, but this time Ochako’s prepared.
“Eat this!” she yells, chucking another, larger boulder at him. Aizawa-sensei doesn’t raise his weapon in time and instead has to dodge before he gets bludgeoned. Ochako would say that she feels bad, but really? She doesn’t.
Aizawa-sensei came after her first, and while she’ll probably be taken aback by her actions later, right now it’s
eat or be eaten
.
Ochako can’t afford to be dinner.
--
“What took you so long?” Katsuki snaps, nearly breaking the plate with how hard he stabs his eggs. Somehow, he arrived an entire half hour before Uraraka did, and he’s pissed .
Uraraka rolls her eyes and snaps, “Well, sorry that Aizawa-sensei came after me! I could barely move! Do you have any idea how hard it is to evade someone whose talent is finding people that don’t want to be found?”
“At least you were lucky enough to get a fight,” Katsuki gripes, rubbing his palms together and releasing a few sparks. “I didn’t even get to hit someone!”
That isn’t to say he didn’t meet someone, however.
Yagi, the sentimental old bastard, had volunteered to come after Katsuki.
He’d been all geared up for a fight when the old man'd said, “I’m not here to stop you, just divert the teachers’ attention.” Katsuki scoffed. Yagi placed a hand on his shoulder and said seriously, “I know you’re going off to find Young Midoriya, and while I have too many responsibilities to go with you, you know my number. Contact me if you need anything.”
Katsuki scuffed his feet on the ground and scoffed, “Like I’d need your help, old man!”
Yagi smiled fondly and said in a grave tone, “There may come a time when you change your mind. Just know that I’ll always support you.”
Katsuki looked away and scowled. Then he muttered, so quietly that his own ears could barely hear it, “Thanks.”
Yagi smiled a bit and tousled Katsuki’s hair. “Take care of yourself and Young Uraraka, you hear?”
“Fucking duh,” Katsuki scoffed. “‘s not like Round Face needs me to take care of her, though. She can do that on her own.”
“Of course,” Yagi agreed immediately. “I’ve seen her fight. Still, you need to look out for each other. You’re just kids.”
Katsuki rolled his eyes and shoved his hands deep into his pockets. “Yeah yeah, whatever.”
They both turned around when they heard an oddly loud branch crack from several feet back.
“All Might! Did’ya find them?” Vlad King’s voice rose from the trees.
Yagi whirled towards Katsuki in a panic and shoved a small, black box at him. “Take care, Young Bakugou.” He yelled over his shoulder, “Nothing over here, Vlad. Maybe he went south?”
Katsuki hadn’t stuck around to hear the rest of the conversation.
And that led him to now . Stuck in a shitty diner with even shittier food, Uraraka staring at him as if he’s some sort of gremlin.
Finally, she groans, “Whatever. Just- finish your food so we can leave, alright? It’s already four in the morning, we need to get going if we’re gonna make it any reasonable distance while the roads are quiet.”
Katsuki rolls his eyes and stabs another mouthful of eggs with his fork. “You think I didn’t plan for that? I’ve got a route mapped out- lots of forest traveling. Think you can handle it?” he challenges.
Uraraka slams her hands on the table, fire in her eyes. None of the customers bat an eye. “Of course I can! Dumbass,” she mutters, slouching back into the booth. “Still, hurry up. We wanna get going before they set up a perimeter.”
“Yeah yeah.” Katsuki finishes the last of his eggs, then pulls out his wallet and slides ten yen under the glass cup. He glances away and it disappears. Perfect. He swings his pack over his shoulder and slides out of the booth. “Let’s go.”
Ochako swings her own pack over her shoulder, and they set out.
Once they’re on the road again, it’s quiet.
They jog alongside the freeway, careful not to stray too far from the road but wary of being spotted and reported.
Katsuki runs in front for the most part; partly because he’s always in front and partly because he knows where their route diverges from the freeway.
Katsuki was smart enough to bring a camel backpack- there’s a built in straw. Uraraka, on the other hand, has to stop every half hour or so for a water break.
It’s on one of these breaks that she pulls two bags of chips from her bag, and who is Katsuki to refuse?
(Katsuki shoves the trash into his bag when they’re done. Even if they’re on the run, that doesn’t have to make them degenerates .)
The sun is high overhead when they finally reach the small town of Osaka, eight hours after they leave Yuuei. It’s a small town, barely populated enough to be counted as that. There’s barely anyone out and about, which is perfect.
Katsuki drops his pack to the ground and leans against the wall. “I’ve already got a motel room rented, we’ll head there first and-”
“No,” Uraraka cuts in.
“Hah?”
“I’m hungry, Katsuki! It’s been two hours since we last had anything, and I’m starving. There’s a mochi place right over there, too! It must be fate!”
Katsuki scoffs. “ Fate would be finding Deku here when he’s probably off in Jakku or Jedha or somethin’. This is just coincidence.”
“Fate, coincidence, who cares?” Uraraka shrugs. “I just wanna eat.”
“Yeah, yeah, me too, but we’ll get something from a vending machine,” Katsuki says dismissively. He bends down to grab his pack again and turns onto the road. “The motel’s only five minutes from here.”
“Really, Bakugou? You want to get dinner from a vending machine ?” Uraraka asks incredulously. Katsuki turns to argue only to see that she’s still standing at the beginning of the road.
He groans and snaps, “Come on, Cheeks! We need to get to the motel before they give our room away to someone else!”
Uraraka freezes. “Shit, you’re right. Let’s go!”
“So that got you moving?” Katsuki scoffs, but jogs to match her pace. They reach the motel in a matter of minutes, and it’s somehow shittier than what Katsuki was expecting. Uraraka strides right in though, so Katsuki doesn’t falter. (He’s absolutely giving this place a shitty review on Yelp when this is through.)
Katsuki had the good sense to buy tickets ahead of time, so they breeze right through the check-in, and the geezer who apparently runs the place doesn’t seem inclined to sell their information to anyone, hero or otherwise.
Katsuki kicks the door open and throws his bag onto the bed in the center of the room. Then he pauses.
The bed. Bed.
“Why is there only one bed?” Uraraka, mind-reader that she is, echoes Katsuki’s thoughts.
Katsuki groans and falls back onto the bed. “Must’a forgot to call the motel and switch to a two bed room.”
“Well, let’s just call them now and get it switched!” Uraraka exclaims.
“That’s not how it fuckin’ works,” Katsuki snarls, annoyed at himself. “It costs money to get an extra bed, and we’re not exactly rich.”
“Shit,” Uraraka curses.
“Exactly,” Katsuki sighs. “We’ve got other stuff we need to save our cash for. We’ll just…” he trails off.
Uraraka groans and throws her own bag onto the bed. It nearly hits Katsuki in the face. “We’ll just have to share the bed, then.”
“..What?”
Uraraka rolls her eyes. “And you call Denki stupid. We’re gonna share the bed, dumbass.”
Katsuki nearly chokes. “What the fuck?”
“Bakugou,” Uraraka starts, then stops. “Whatever. Can you have this crisis later? I’m hungry.”
If Katsuki weren’t so dumbfounded, he would’ve laughed. As it is, he simply rifles through his pack for a moment, then shoves some yen in his pocket and pushes past Uraraka, who barks out a laugh and follows after.
Their stop at the mochi place is quick and quiet, and they’re leaving not half an hour later.
(Uraraka is fiercely protective of her mochi, it seems, and she’d scarfed them down at an impressive speed. Katsuki had sped up to match her, and well. Let’s just say that Katsuki didn’t leave with any of the admittedly few yen he’d brought.)
By the time they return to the room, Katsuki’s all but forgotten about the bed issue.
“Fuck,” he curses.
Uraraka groans and says, “It’s not a big deal, Bakugou. Unless you want to pay for an extra bed, we’re sharing this one.” Katsuki considers it for a moment. At least until Uraraka adds, “Only a coward would take the easy way out, though.” Uraraka wisely jumps into the shower before he can retaliate. (Literally. She didn’t even take her clothes off until she was already in.)
Katsuki stews on it for a bit more, but his choice has ultimately been made. He flips back onto the bed to wait for his turn to shower, but exhaustion overcomes him first.
Uraraka walks out of the bathroom to a sleeping Bakugou Katsuki taking up the far side of the bed.
She sighs, annoyed that he’s taken her side of the bed, but it really doesn’t matter. She brushes her hair and changes into pyjamas, then climbs into bed on the side opposite his.
They start out separated, but when they wake up in the morning, they’re entangled in each other’s arms.
It’s better than either of them could have imagined.