Chapter Text
It’s 2 A.M. when Bakugou decides to have leftover spicy ramen.
He doesn’t do it by choice - he has a 6 A.M. run on the docket; do you really think insomnia was in his plan? - but he can’t sleep, so what else he is supposed to do? Lie in bed all night like a dolt? Besides, spicy food is comforting.
He trudges through the common area, wiping his sweaty hands on the fabric of his track pants before yanking open the fridge door with more force than required. His narrowed eyes squint even more as the fridge's light touches his face. He finds the leftovers almost instantly, as expected. Everyone knows by now not to touch his stuff.
He grabs the bowl and tosses it onto the counter, some of its congealed contents sludging over the side. The impact of the bowl isn’t loud per se, though it would certainly disturb anyone in the immediate vicinity. Good thing no one’s stupid enough to be here at this goddamn hour-
“Who’s there?”
Bakugou’s eyes snap toward the couches, where he’s only now noticing the faint light of a desk lamp. There's a shuffle of movement as whoever is there rises from her seat. He’s not startled - he doesn’t get startled - but he’s surprised.
No, he doesn’t give a fuck about synonyms, thanks for checking.
He only has to wait a moment before the tell-tale chubby cheeks inform him of exactly who he’s dealing with, and by the look on Uraraka's face, she’s almost as startled, ahem, as surprised as he is. She’s wearing a pink baggy t-shirt with pajama shorts, her chubby little legs half hidden with long, fuzzy, slipper socks.
“Oh, Baku-” she decides the middle of his name is a good time to yawn, which pisses him off even more, “-gou, what are you doing up?”
“Not trying to talk to you, Round Face,” he snaps, his voice groggier than he intends. He grabs his bowl and shoves it into the microwave.
“Jeez, not a night owl huh?”
Bakugou doesn’t respond.
“But actually,” she continues, much to her impending doom, “you don’t strike me as much of a morning person either.”
“Does it look like I’m in the mood to chat?” His shoulders come up like a cat with its hackles raised, his fingers instinctively curling as if preparing for a fight. “Leave me the hell alone.”
Uraraka seems to get the message, but instead of looking alarmed, her mouth tucks to the side in dismay.
“Okay,” she says, shrugging, then returns to her desk. Bakugou notices she has their physics book open.
With the disturbance gone, he jabs his fingers at the microwave buttons, setting the proper time for his ramen. He watches the bowl turn in a circle as his food reheats. It’s silent, save for the thrum of the microwave and the occasional flip of a page.
“You failing or something?” Bakugou grunts, despite himself.
Uraraka's head snaps up and her mouth forms an ‘o’ of surprise, as if she didn’t think he would speak to her. He wishes he hadn’t.
She gives her head a little shake, her side bangs swishing. “Oh! No. Physics is my best subject actually,” she grins with a bashful head scratch. “I’m just trying to perfect an idea for our practical next week. I think it will help develop my Quirk.”
As if to prove her point, her face scrunches up in determination, and she clenches both her fists in front of her.
Bakugou gives her a look, his eyes narrowing and his jaw jutting out in a way that contorts his face into looking far uglier than it is. The microwave beeps to announce the completion of its job, but the sound falls on deaf ears.
“You can’t perfect your Quirk by reading a book,” he says incredulously, with just the right amount of edge in his tone.
“Well, maybe not entirely, but you can get a lot of great ideas!”
Bakugou rolls his eyes, wondering why he bothered to continue the conversation. He wrenches the microwave door open and pulls out the bowl, dragging a seat to the opposite side of the room as Uraraka.
He figured shoveling spicy ramen into his mouth would have signaled he was done with her, but if anything, she seemed even more eager to gab.
She turns her chair in his direction, an action that disturbs him. “Oh, come on, isn’t there something you wish you could be better at? A move or a combination or something?”
“What’d you say to me?” Bakugou spits, a few stray pieces of ramen flying from his mouth.
Uraraka winces but doesn’t seem perturbed that she basically just insulted him right to his face.
“I’m just saying, if there’s a maneuver you want to get better at, I could probably give you a pointer.” She gestures to her book. “I’ve been reading all night!”
“You think I’d want to take a pointer from you?”
And just like that, the cheery expression drops from her face. She swallows heavily and turns back to the desk. She mutters something into her textbook. Something along the lines of, “Right. I know it doesn’t mean much, coming from the fragile girl.”
He actually hadn’t meant it that way, so it’s her own fault for taking it so personally. Still, Bakugou... vaguely recalls his classmates making comments about her 'frailty' after he kicked her ass in the Sports Festival. But duh, of course he kicked her ass. He would kick anyone’s ass.
But it's not like it was that easy to kick hers.
“Don’t have a freaking pity party,” Bakugou says uncaringly. He shovels more ramen into his mouth and chews garishly when she doesn't respond. He swallows, and then adds, “Well, if you’re gonna bring something up, then just spit it out.”
Uraraka turns to him with another baffled look, like he’s blown away all of her social expectations, and he wishes she would stop. Fucking. Doing. That.
“Okay!”
And then she’s plopping her physics book in front of him and sitting her ass in the chair next to him, scooting it into his bubble, and she smells like a fucking rainbow, and gods, he’s so exhausted.
“Well, let’s see! Since you have an explosion Quirk, you can do all these quick, powerful bursts that catapult you much farther than you can regularly jump,” she states the obvious as she twirls one side bang with her index finger, pointing the other at the book. “I noticed during training how you can even keep from touching the ground for almost a full minute!”
“Tch. If you’re impressed by that, you’ve got some pretty weak expectations.”
Uraraka is either too enveloped in what she is saying, or she ignores him. “But I think if you have a launching point, maybe the side of a building or a part of elevated ground, you can use your kinetic energy to keep your momentum going!” When he stares at her blankly, she presses on. “An object in motion stays in motion, so if you’ve already built up momentum before you release your Quirk, you can stay in the air longer than if you release it while standing still.”
It’s...not a bad idea. It’s basic as hell, probably something he should have thought about first, but there’s no way he’ll admit that.
So he just shrugs. “Whatever.”
If Uraraka's put out by his indifference, she doesn’t show it. She blabs at him for a couple more minutes, then finally takes the hint and bids him good night. When she’s gone, Bakugou notices his shirt has a pink fuzz on it, and he slaps it away as if it’s a wasp.
He stands up, dumps his empty bowl into the sink, and crosses his arms, his face turned downward in thought.
He knows he should go to bed...but now he’s intrigued.
He finds himself in Gym Gamma, doing exactly as Uraraka suggested. It takes the rest of the night, but he can stay airborne for almost three minutes when the first rays of the sun appear. He hasn’t had this kind of jump in progress since he first started at U.A.
The next morning, the skin under his eyes is gray from lack of sleep, but his grin is cocky. He shoves past one of his peers and scans the classroom. He finds Uraraka sitting at her desk, her back to him, chatting with Deku and Glasses. Her hands are in front of her, and she’s doing that clenchy thing with her fists again, so Bakugou knows she’s probably excited about something stupid.
He trudges up to her desk, and his approaching proximity is enough to instinctively startle Deku and warrant an eyebrow raise from Iida. After Uraraka studies her friends’ expressions with confusion, she rotates her torso to look at Bakugou. By this time, the entire classroom has gone silent; all eyes on the confrontation that will maybe, most likely, inevitably unfold.
Bakugou doesn’t give compliments. He also doesn’t care about the stupid problems of others. He probably wouldn’t even be over here if her suggestions hadn’t worked and if she hadn’t looked so freaking put out about thinking he had implied she was fragile in the first place so-
“You were great last night,” he grunts.
Uraraka's eyes go as round as her face, and he guesses they don’t call her Pink Cheeks for nothing - well he doesn’t anyway - because they’re on fire. Deku makes some strangled noise in his throat that dies before it even manifests, and Iida looks positively baffled.
“What the hell-” Kirishima half-laughs, half-blurts somewhere in the background, and is quickly elbowed by Ashido.
Bakugou, oblivious to the bomb he’s just dropped, shuffles to his desk, roughly moving a chair out of the way with his hip. He plops down, the ghost of his cocky grin still on his face as he recalls his triumph from this morning. His expression is another unfortunate misinterpretation.
And so it began.