Disclaimer: Do not own.

I know, I know, you're probably thinking, "BakuMomo? What a weird ship!" but I thought this was a cute idea and had to write it.

Enjoy!

Bakugou Katsuki liked to make a point of not associating with his dumb classmates. They were annoying, or at least, most of them were. He wasn't antisocial, he just had more important things to think about than sappy shit like friends.

Honest.

But sometimes, their stupid shenanigans ended up dragging him into the fray anyway, whether he wanted to be involved or not.

Which was how he'd ended up in a situation like this.

There he was, walking down the street in no particular direction, feeling pissed off for no particular reason. The streets were fairly quiet at this time in the afternoon, a pleasant breeze tugging at his hair and clothing. His hands were shoved deep in his pockets and his face was furrowed in his usual, angry scowl. Someone (his mom, probably) told him he shouldn't scowl so goddamn much or he'd get early onset wrinkles. Like Bakugou gave a fuck about something so stupid, he'd scowl as much as he goddamn wanted, thank you very much. How else was he supposed to let people know to stay the hell away and not bug him without blowing them up if he didn't scowl? Prance about smiling all the time like that idiot Deku or Uraraka?

Like hell.

His mind was on the training he was planning to do the next day, his palms tingling just a little with anticipation, when he heard a loud whistle pierce the air and his head snapped up.

Perhaps it was just coincidence that the first thing he saw was her, but it somehow didn't feel like one. Down the street, a familiar silhouette caught his eye, her shoes scuffing lightly on the concrete. But he'd recognise that big, spiky ponytail anywhere. Ponytail had obviously been out shopping with the other girls in Class 1-A, otherwise there'd be no need for her to have those shopping bags hanging off her arm. She was filthy rich, after all, and with a Quirk like hers, shopping was basically solely a leisure activity for her.

Normally Bakugou wouldn't have given much thought about what Ponytail was doing. But then he noticed the guys across the street, three idiots who were staring at Momo…or, more specifically, certain aspects of Ponytail that made guys turn into complete idiots. Not only that, but they were apparently under the impression that Ponytail simply walking down the street was invitation to yell things at her. Bakugou heard the shouts very clearly and each disgusting syllable that tripped off their tongues stoked his infamous temper, bit by bit;

"Damn, baby, where you going?" the first idiot shouted, apparently thinking himself terribly original and his two cronies decided to join in with equally uncreative lines.

"Fuck, have you seen those tits?"

"I'd definitely do her."

"Hey, don't ignore us, baby! Talk about fucking rude! What, you think you're better than us, huh?"

Ponytail had her head down and was walking faster, her head down, shoulders hunched. Bakugou could see her hand squeezing the strap of her purse from where he was standing and her teeth were sunk into her bottom lip. Bakugou felt his hands curl into fists.

Just what the hell was she doing?

Ponytail was the one who beat him in every test, the one who beat everyone in every written exam. She was the one who had the guts to state everything he did wrong in the Heroes vs Villains exercise and be damn accurate about it to boot. She was there with stupid Deku, Kirishima and the others to save his ass during the disastrous field trip. Perhaps he wasn't the best at showing it, but when it came to Yaoyozoru Momo, Bakugou certainly had respect for her.

So how dare she stand there, taking that shit from a bunch of extras like them and not say a word back? True, she had no way of knowing what kind of Quirks they could have, but there was a limit to how much playing it safe you could do. Wasn't this the girl who beat Aizawa? You'd never know it right now by looking at her.

It pissed him off.

And when Katsuki Bakugou got pissed off, there was no hesitation (he was working on it, but still.) Clenching his jaw, Bakugou strode into action, stomping down the street with a positively thunderous look on his face.

"OI!" he barked.

The men paused, glancing in Bakugou's direction with obvious reluctance to draw their eyes away from Ponytail, eyebrows arched. The indifference only served to move Bakugou faster, his back teeth aching from gritting them so hard. Just who the fuck did these D-list idiots think they were?

"Yeah?" one of them drawled, looking over at Bakugou like he was of minor importance.

Big mistake.

"Get your fuckin' loser asses out of here and quit gawking over a chick that's half your damn age. Makes me sick just lookin' at your ugly fucking faces."

That got their attention and had Bakugou not been in a mood of sheer outrage, he would have laughed at the ridiculously dumbfounded looks on their faces. Momo herself was also staring at him as though he'd suddenly dropped out of the sky, but he supposed an expression of comical astonishment was a vast improvement over looking like she was going to burst into tears.

"What did you say, kid?" one of the men spat, his eyebrow twitching.

Bakugou sneered.

"Did I fucking stutter? The next thing I'd better here from your sorry asses is an apology to her. Or…"

He curved his fingers and let a few explosions go off in his palms – nothing too extravagant, but flashy enough to get his point across well enough. It was certainly a worthwhile sight when he saw even the leader, the biggest of the three, had a flicker of fear in his eyes.

"Tch…you're just a kid…" he said, disdainfully, but Bakugou knew when he said it that he'd already won this stupid, not-even-a-thing argument. If the guy really was strong enough to deal with him, he'd have demonstrated a Quirk by now. "She oughta be flattered…"

"Bakugou-san," it was Ponytail's voice, just behind him. She'd come over to try and smooth things over? Che, it wasn't like he was planning to do damage. Much. "Really, this isn't necessary…"

"The hell it ain't!" he retorted over his shoulder, because he wasn't going to let this go, even if she'd rather avoid a brawl with citizens. His head whipped back to the creeps and his brows furrowed further. The scent of smoke grew thick in the air as his palms smouldered, little explosions bursting in his palms like little exploding suns. "Apologise."

The silence stretched long and tense and Bakugou couldn't – not did he want to – suppress the maniacal grin on his face as he pictured driving his knuckles into the leader's face. He'd seen the smug, lascivious look he'd seen when he was looking at Ponytail and had wanted to forcibly wipe it off his face from the second he'd had the misfortune to lay eyes on it.

"Sorry," the guy muttered, and his flunkies echoed an equally subdued apology, "Didn't mean nothin' by it…uh, we'll just…"

Despite Bakugou being 'just a kid', they got out of there pretty damn quickly, heading down a side street and glancing resentfully over their shoulders back at the pair of teenagers, looking remarkable like petulant kids themselves. Bakugou only dropped his fighting stance when they vanished from sight, then felt a hand rest fleetingly on his shoulder.

"Bakugou-san…I…thank you," Ponytail - Momo – said, looking a little flustered. Still, there was a smile ghosting her lips, which somehow eased the disappointment of not being able to actually fight those idiots.

"I didn't do it for you," Bakugou was quick to point out, though he didn't quite meet Momo's grey eyes when he said it. "Guys like that piss me off. That's all."

Momo didn't look very convinced, but she was gracious enough not to push the issue, a sparkle of something akin to wry amusement in her eyes. However, Bakugou couldn't stop himself from blurting out,

"Why the hell didn't you stand up for yourself, huh? You've faced worse than those fuckheads, idiot. Tell them to go fuck themselves!"

Momo looked at him with a fleeting expression of surprise, then she glanced to the side, a hand reaching up to pointlessly smooth her long bang of hair out of her face before it fell back again.

"I suppose I've simply…grown used to it," Momo admitted, after a few moments as she tried her best to compose her answer. It wasn't a problem she imagined Bakugou had ever had, thus hindering his ability to understand and emphasize. If anyone spoke to him in such a way, that person wouldn't walk out of there unscathed. "And I may not like it, but it seems like if I tried to fight back every person who said things about how I looked, then I would never get anything else done. Sometimes, it seems wiser to ignore such behaviour, to just continue on, do your best and try not to let the words get to you. I suppose that makes me a coward, doesn't it?"

She shook her head and Bakugou scoffed.

"Tch. I didn't say that."

Truthfully, Bakugou would spend every moment fighting a thing like that if he were subjected to it for even a day. But he held his tongue, for once. He was learning to pick his battles more and more, these days, and he knew that this was something Momo had most likely dealt with since she'd hit puberty, so how she handled it was her own choice. No doubt normally, she was far better at shrugging off the stupid things people said, but it had caught her off guard, on a nice day out with her friends. Sometimes, an everyday unpleasantness can be unbearable if you're unprepared. In truth, he'd never be able to deal with it the way she did. He knew that.

"Come on," Bakugou said, abruptly, wanting to escape from the peculiar silence and uncomfortable sentimentality – not that he'd ever admit to being uncomfortable, of course.

"Pardon me?" Momo blinked at him, watching as he started to march down the street.

"I'm going this way anyway. I guess I can walk you home or whatever," Bakugou grumbled, shooting a look at Momo over his shoulder, red eyes burning in the late afternoon light. "Hurry up!"

Despite herself, Momo almost wanted to laugh at him. Bakugou Katsuki wasn't always the easiest person to get along with, but travelling home with him by her side held its own peculiar kind of comfort. So, with a gracious smile, she quickened her pace to join the grumpy blonde at his side, shopping bags rustling gently in the crook of her elbow and her steps falling in time with his own.

"It's nice of you to let me walk with you, Bakugou-san," Momo commented innocently, though her lip twitched with amusement as his shoulders hunched defensively. "I appreciate it."

"I'm not nice," he snapped, though she saw a telltale redness of his ears and so took no offence at his usual confrontational tone. "And walk faster, willya!?"

Momo merely cast him a wry look out of the corner of her eye and decided to simply enjoy the walk, even with a moody pout on Bakugou's face, it did nothing to dampen the mood or sink her lifted spirits.

And for Bakugou…well, maybe every once in a great while…it wasn't so bad to get involved.