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When Bakugou comes back to Yuuei after All Might and the other heroes rescue him, Uraraka gives him a big, tight hug, and Bakugou doesn't know how to feel about that.
"Bakuuuu!!"
Before Bakugou can tell Uraraka to fuck off, she nearly crushes him in a tight embrace. Her strong body presses up against him and he suddenly feels weightless - and uncomfortable because he never lets anyone hug him. But Uraraka lets go as quickly as she grabbed him. Still, Bakugou feels weightless. Actually, he's pretty sure his feet aren't touching the ground.
"What the shit."
"Sorry Bakugou!" Uraraka says, clapping her fingers together and releasing her hold on him. His feet hit the ground with a thud. "That sometimes happens, I slip up when I get distracted, I – we're just so glad you're safe!"
Bakugou scowls. “’Course I’m fine.”
Why would you be glad? he thinks. It’s not like he’s friends with Uraraka or anything. Apart from their battle at the sports festival, they’ve barely said two words to each other. He only knows her because she’s strong - that much was apparent from the sports festival, no matter what all those other bastards said about her being ‘fragile’- and has bad taste in friends. She hangs out around Deku and that Engine kid all the time.
Not that he’s been paying attention - Bakugou’s just observant.
Uraraka must be like Deku: the kind of person who thinks they have to help everyone out, caring about everyone, even if they obviously don’t want to be helped or cared about. That’s why she’s glad he’s safe. Because of some superficial obligation or some shit like that.
Probably. But then why did she correct herself with “we” when she clearly was going to say “I”? It didn’t make sense.
It takes all of Bakugou’s strength not to explode when the rest of his class start fawning over him. “Fuck off! Fucking hell, I’m fine!” he shouts, but they ignore him, which pisses him off even more.
Bakugou’s fists are nearly about to explode when Aiwaza walks in, staring at Bakugou intently. That dickface thinks I can’t control myself, Bakugou thinks with a frown. “What’re you staring for?” he barks at his teacher.
“Calm down, Bakugou, you just have something in your teeth,” Aizawa says with a sigh. “Everyone sit down - class has begun.”
The class disperses into their seats, and for the rest of the period, Bakugou anxiously runs his tongue along his gums, turning the question around in his thoughts: why does Uraraka care?
A week passes, and finally, Bakugou can’t stand it any more. At first he thought it was stupid to mull over something as meaningless as why Uraraka would say “I” rather than “we,” but Bakugou Katsuki doesn’t bother with stupid things. So it must be important.
After class, Bakugou follows Uraraka home. Just for a little bit - until they’re alone. He doesn’t need any of those dickwards from class interfering.
He hurries around the corner of the next street so he can step out in front of her to block her path. “Hey.”
Uraraka jumps in surprise. “Oh! Bakugou, you scared me.”
Might as well get right to the point. “Why did you say you were glad I was safe?”
Uraraka tilts her head. “What - um - we all were! You’re our classmate, and we care about you…?”
He clicks his tongue impatiently. She’s saying “we” again. But he wants to know how she could care about him at all with their history. “What about you? Shouldn't you hate me? I beat you in the sports festival.”
Uraraka shrugs. “You won fairly, because you were better. And you treated me like a real opponent - like I was strong.”
“You are strong,” Bakugou barks. “Those fuckers are fucking idiots if they can’t see that.”
Uraraka looks down to the side, so her hair covers her face. “You really think that?” Bakugou thinks she’s blushing, but that doesn’t seem right - why would she be blushing?
“Duh. You probably could have beaten half the shitheads with a lesser quirk than mine. And Hair-for-Brains said you took down that villain at the forest camp, too.”
She was definitely blushing now. Bakugou felt his cheeks start to redden, too. He scowled at the erratic heartbeat in his chest. Stupid.
“Deku admires you, you know,” she says after the beat of silence.
“I don’t want to talk about De - ”
“I admire you for the same reason!” she interrupts. Bakugou has half a mind to bitch at her for interrupting him, but she doesn’t give a moment’s rest. “Braving through that time with the villains, standing up to them like that...I never could have gotten through that like you did!”
It’s not the first time someone has said that to him the past week. He’s getting tired of hearing it, especially because of what most of them were implying. “I bet you thought I was going to side with those fuckers. You did, didn’t you?” Bakugou mutters.
Uraraka frowns. “Of course not.”
“But why? I’m not stupid - everyone else think I’d fit right in with their crowd, and they’re probably right. ”
Uraraka places her hand on Bakugou’s shoulder. He flinches in surprise, but she doesn’t move her hand. She looks straight into his eye and says, “I know you’re not stupid, Baku. But you are stubborn. No one can convince you to do something you don’t want to, and you said you want to be a hero. So…I had complete confidence in you.”
Suddenly, Bakugou’s stomach turns and he feels unbalanced and...taller. “Uraraka.”
“Yes?”
“Put me the fuck down.”
“Oh, sorry!”
She returns him to the ground, but the weightless feeling doesn’t go away completely. His heart still feels like it’s floating in the clouds, and Bakugou doesn’t know why. And it’s pissing him off.
Uraraka looks at him questioningly, waiting for him to say something. But he said everything he wanted to, and he wants to just walk away but he can’t with her staring at him like that, it’s making his face burn again.
Bakugou finally growls, “I’m going now,” and takes off in the opposite direction.
“Oh - bye, Baku!” he hears her call. “Try not to get captured again!”
Bakugou grates his teeth at her teasing. He shoves his hands in his pockets and fights the urge to look back.
He can’t stop thinking about her and her stupid hug, and it’s fucking annoying.
She said that she had complete confidence in him. That was more than anyone else had said, and she had sounded so sincere about it that it made Bakugou’s toes curl. As irritating as she was, with her fucking compliments and fucking kindness and that fucking blush - he can’t find it in himself to be mad at her.
He adjusts his route home to coincide with hers. He tells himself it’s a shortcut, even though it takes five minutes longer than usual to get home.
He doesn’t talk to her, of course. Why would he want to? She’s annoying. So he keeps his distance, trailing behind her far enough away so that he doesn’t seem like a creepy stalker or something. Or, he tries to.
One day, on their trek home, she stops in the middle of the road.
Shit.
“Bakugou, I know you’re following me.”
Fuck.
He starts to head in the other direction, but she calls out after him, “You can...join me? If you want?”
He should just blow her off, or walk another way, but his feet are already carrying him towards her before his head can catch up. “How did you know I was there?”
“You’re not as discrete as you think.” Uraraka says with a smirk. “Plus, I learned a lot from Battle Hero Gunhead during my internship.”
They walk down the road in silence while Bakugou debates whether or not he should ask more about her internship. It might be useful information, but it's not like he needs it. Should he ask anyway, just to be polite? He immediately shakes the thought from his head. Fuck no! Polite has never - and will never - be Bakugou Katsuki’s style. It’s a waste of time pretending to be nice to people who don’t give a shit about you anyway.
But Uraraka said that she did give a shit - she didn’t say it exactly like that, but she had the same sentiment.
“Hey, Baku - ”
“Don't call me that,” he snaps unthinkingly. He notices Uraraka bite her lip and adjust the straps on her bag awkwardly, and mentally scolds himself. “...it sounds stupid,” he tries to clarify.
“Sorry, Bakugou,” she says dejectedly. Bakugou feels insanely guilty, not that he should because she was just being stupid if she felt bad, because Bakugou didn’t mean anything by it. She’s just being stupid.
A sideways glance shows her head hung beneath a curtain of her hair. Bakugou almost yells in distress. If it was her fault, why does he feel like the guilty one?
Suddenly, a trail of darkness skates his vision, pulling him out of his thoughts. Black smoke...black mist! Bakugou pushes Uraraka to the side and fires an explosion at the cloud. The cloud parts for a moment before compressing back together.
"It's that shithead from before!" Bakugou yells, glancing back at Uraraka. But she's looking up past him, in wonder and horror.
"Black Mist," she mutters. Bakugou whips around to see the cloud has expanded outwards, blocking off half the sky and the street in front of them with a smoky black wall.
"Well well well, if it isn't the young Bakugou, and the little girl from before."
Bakugou growls. "What kind of line is that, fuckmunch?" He's sick of this shit. All these villains that think they have a chance to get him on their side are so fucking arrogant and goddamn idiots if they think he'd want to join them after all of this.
“Won’t you come quietly this time?” Black Mist’s voice echoes through the smoke.
Bakugou grits his teeth together and angrily sets off an explosion from each hand, the reaction force knocking him into Uraraka. They tumble over each other in a pile of limbs.
“Grab my hand,” Uraraka says as she scrambles out from under him. She yanks his hand up before he can reply.
“Let go, bi - ”
“No! We can’t let him separate us. If you let go, he'll warp us apart and take you away again.”
She has a point. He really doesn't want to deal with these shitheads again, and he doesn't want her getting in the way when he blows this fucker away, so he locks his fingers in hers, and hopes she doesn't mind the sweat.
Black Mist surrounds them completely in a tunnel of darkness, isolating them from the rest of the street, and starts to close inwards. They press their backs against each other while Bakugou readies his free fist.
“Your heroes may have infiltrated our base, but the villain alliance is still as strong as before. We could be stronger with your help, Bakugou.”
“Fuck off! Like hell I'm going with you!”
A mailbox suddenly slips out of the fog, flying straight at them. Bakugou’s fist explodes to meet the mailbox mid air, blowing it out of the tunnel of smoke. “That the best you got?” He’ll battle it out, just like before, shooting explosions into the smoke until he finds Black Mist’s true body -
Uraraka tugs his hand, “Baku, I have a plan - ”
“I don't want your help! I don't need it!”
“I don't care!” she shouts. “I didn't ask if you wanted it - I'll fight by your side as long as I'm still standing!”
A garbage can materializes above Uraraka’s head. Bakugou barely has time to yank her aside before blasting his elbow against it. The can shoots through the cone of darkness, creating a hole in its wake, but before Bakuogu can jump through Black Mist fills the opening. “Fuck!”
Uraraka pulls his hand down, her face inches from his own. “We don't have time to argue so just listen!”
She should be terrified, and even though her lip trembles, her eyes are cold and determined. It sends a jolt through his spine - she looks almost scary.
For once, he can't bring himself to argue. He nods briefly and deflects a stream of mist trying to grab at them while she whispers her plan in his ear.
“Now doesn't seem like the time for romance, children,” Black Mist teases.
Uraraka pulls away from his ear and squeezes his hand. “Got it?”
Bakugou nods, and sends a giant explosion behind him, knocking down the telephone pole Uraraka told him was there. She jumps up and touches as it topples over, stopping it in mid air.
A giant black hand reaches for Uraraka and Bakugou leaps in front of her to deflect it with an exploding punch. “Grab it!” he yells as he fights off Black Mist’s creeping tendrils of smoke with consecutive blasts from his knuckles.
Out of the corner of his eyes, he sees her grab the floating bar. She starts twirling in in her hands. A gust of wind comes off from the pole as she starts to turn it faster, its weightlessness enabling her to spin it so fast, it looks like a solid circle. Black Mist’s attacks struggle to reach Bakugou as the wind speed pushes him back further and further, diffusing his thick wall of smoke.
A glint of silver catches his eye. It hovers twenty feet above them, uncovered by the blast of wind. With a smirk, Bakugou blasts himself off the ground and captures the silver collar in his hand.
“Oh dear…” the villain says in a defeated voice as they fall back down.
Right before he hits the ground, light fingers touch his leg and his momentum stops. He floats to the ground, his harsh grip on the silver collar threatening an explosion at any moment, and Uraraka releases her quirk.
The mist recedes into a cloud around Bakugou's fist, revealing a crowd that had gathered while they had been fighting.
“Oh my gosh, are they okay?”
“They defeated the villain!”
“Are those Yuuei kids?”
“Hey, yeah - it's those class 1-A kids again!”
Uraraka pales and holds her stomach. “I think I'm going to throw up.” She thrusts herself behind a tree and Bakugou cringes at the tell tale sounds of barf.
It's only another few moments before the police appear. Someone must have called them while they were fighting. Bakugou hands Black Mist off to them. “Make sure you do your fucking job right and keep this shitty cloud locked up.”
Once the police have taken a handle of the situation, Bakugou joins Uraraka. She's sitting against a tree (is that the one she threw up behind?), looking less queasy than before.
Before he knows what he's doing, he’s standing in front of her and sticking out his hand.
Uraraka smiles gratefully and takes it, and he pulls her up to her feet.
“If you're expecting me to thank you, you're wrong,” he tells her. He didn't need her help getting rid of that bastard. She just would have been more of a burden if he didn't let her help.
Uraraka smiles. “I'm not expecting anything of you.”
Suddenly her hands rest on either side of his face, and she guides his head down until their faces are even. Bakugou gulps. He hates when people touch him, normally, but Uraraka’s hands feel delicate and soft on his cheeks and it’s actually kind of nice. “It's enough that you're safe, this time,” she says. And then she swiftly kisses his cheek.
Shocked, Bakugou nearly jumps a foot in the air - only he's floating. Again.
“Oh!” She touches her fingertips together before Bakugou can say anything. “Sorry, Baku - I mean, Bakugou!”
Uraraka drops her head, staring embarrassingly at her feet.
And that's when Bakugou realizes - she kissed him. On the cheek, but still. That means - she likes me. That would explain her adorable - adorable? - blushing, why she cared that he was safe, why she insisted on fighting with him. She likes me. He can’t explain why that makes him so happy, but it does, and Bakugou’s cheeks explode in blush and he has to bite his lip to keep from grinning.
Uraraka takes a step back, and Bakugou realized how long the silence stretched out. Say something, stupid! He quickly spits out, “... you can call me Katsuki. If you want. I guess.”
Uraraka’s sudden smile is more brilliant than any explosion Bakugou could make. “You can call me Ochako, Katsuki!”
His heart thumps loudly when Ura - Ochako takes his hands in hers. The walk down the road together, Ochako swinging their hands back and forth, and Bakugou thinks that maybe it isn't so bad to have someone fighting by his side.