Notes:
Huge thank you to The Aura King for reading through and giving me the confidence I needed to post this! And to all my other friends who have been absolutely, wonderfully supportive.
Please let me know what you think, good or bad. I super appreciate all forms of feedback! Thanks for reading!
-.-.-
Mister Fahrenheit
By MaethoMixup
Chapter One: Red Flag Warning
-.-.-
She punches like All Might.
Not like Deku, a poor imitation of victory, too much teeth and smiles and posturing. No, she falls from the sky like the Earth is meant to shatter, like it's meant to bow to her will and crumble into servitude. She takes a step forward and, fuck, Bakugou knows she's unstoppable. There's a brick wall behind her eyes and that's not crumbling. It's the only one that isn't.
There were buildings here once, just a minute ago. The people had already been evacuated, but there's no longer homes for them to return to. The fires could be extinguished, asphalt relaid, concrete rebuilt into houses, but four corners and a planter on the side aren't homes. Only years of memories can create those.
And like a storm, in the blink of bright light and a thunderous roar, her fist had flattened a neighborhood into a crater of bricks and livewire. Broken water pipes spew from the fringe inwards, and Bakugou hears radio chatter warning the heroes around him to be careful.
"I can't get close!" Kaminari shouts through his earpiece. Bakugou sees him on the other side of the wreckage between Jirou and Koda. Scientists cower behind them with their instruments raised to the wormhole sputtering within the clouds, tendrils leeching and gurgling on the atmosphere like a parasite, growing more ravenous now than in the last month it had blocked the city from the stars. Darkness stretches from the center, swirling around where she'd fallen from.
The ground still quakes, or maybe that's just him, limbs shaking in anticipation. He raises a hand and clenches it into a fist when he can't stop, shaking. Wanting. The shiver snakes down his spine, all the way to his toes.
A siren blares, loud and continuous. Reinforcements will arrive soon, he knows. He should wait for them. That doesn't stop him from walking over glass shards to the edge, from wanting to feel the air pressure implode into a tidal wave again, crashing and suffocating all at once, because it reminds Bakugou of him, the idol of his childhood whose battles he'd watched on repeat every night. He can see All Might in the way she concentrates on her surroundings, crouched and ready to continue her warpath. Her gaze takes him in and skips him over, stops and stares at the crowd of white lab coats, then glances up at the swirling vortex as it shrinks with each passing second, wisps extending too far from the center.
"No," she breathes out. He can't hear it at this distance, but he can read the panic in her jaw and watches her throat flex, gulping down whatever other words she'd thought to say. Her knees bend further, her arms stretch to steady herself.
She's about to jump, Bakugou can tell, to fling herself back to wherever she had fallen from. He doesn't know if she can reach it, doesn't want to find out, so he moves. He blasts off the ledge to soar his way towards her.
"Bakugou!" Jirou yells, nearly lunges in after him, but Koda holds her back, says something about water and backup and dangers that only make Bakugou grin.
"Fuck off," he tells them, and then he's there, feet finding purchase on a rock and slinging his body at her. His open palm connects with her face. Flames explode across her skin, engulf her startled gasp and burn pink hair to blackened threads. "And fuck you." His weight shifts sideways and he uses a leg to kick her off balance.
Her charred image hits the ground and shatters into scattering smoke, and in her place a pipe lands with an innocent thud.
Bodies don't burn into pipes.
"What the—" There's a foot on his back, pressing in and pushing off like he's a goddamn springboard. He reaches for her ankle on instinct, but she's already halfway to the clouds, arm outstretched, desperate.
"Naruto!" she screams, begs the sky to hear her, demands the vortex to answer with every furious swipe of her fingers, then she's falling — again, but this time she's not turning. Her back faces the ground.
Bakugou stares at her back, waiting.
Waiting.
He doesn't fancy himself a good person, but he's a good hero, and if he let's a villain die because they're too stupid to land on their feet twice and fight like a proper asshole, then his rankings could drop, or worse: probation. And being forced to twiddle his thumbs instead of prowl the streets sounds like a one way ticket to — fuck. What do people do when they're not kicking criminals into jail cells?
Drink, he decides on. He could go for a beer after the massive let down this turned out to be. He had charged in looking to punch All Might in her stupid, grim face, not save a damsel in distress, which he doesn't fucking do, doesn't fucking want to do.
She lands in his arms and he hates every goddamn second that she stares past him, eyes glued above them.
"The wormhole closed!" Kaminari says. "Are you — Bakugou what's going on? Is this a — Jirou what is he doing? He's not responding."
"Maybe he's bewitched?" she offers.
"That's not her quirk," Koda quietly reminds them as if they know something about her abilities other than punches hard and maybe pipe-related. There's no reason she couldn't charm him, though he's not. There's too much adrenaline boiling in his gut, too much need to win against unbreakable walls. Bricks are still there, behind her wide gaze, just not built for him. Like there's a threat out there more terrifying than his explosions and it's hard not to be insulted.
She blinks, finally, and pulls herself back to reality with a shuddered breath. Finds metal-clad arms under her legs and shoulders, but she doesn't struggle. "Why did you catch me? I thought you were trying to kill me," she says with a hint of danger still wrapped around herself, like murder is more common than decency and he's the one with his head screwed on backwards. It makes him question where she's from, but she's speaking the same language, and maybe that answers less questions than he'd thought considering the vortex she'd come through.
Only then does he notice the blood trailing from her hairline to her ripped, red shirt. Not caused by fire, but by a weapon, something piercing. One cheek is yellow as if someone had managed to punch her, and it pisses him off that it wasn't him.
"So?" he asks, gives a pointed look at the rubble he stands on and the sewage bubbling between cracked concrete foundations. The sirens are louder now, more insistent. Closer.
Glancing up, she freezes. He can feel her stiffen in his hold. "Oh."
"That's it?" he growls. "Just — oh?"
"I thought it was a trap." She shrugs like demolishing three city blocks is a reasonable response to anything. "Then you caught me, and. Well, I'm not sure why you did that. You didn't have to. I was hoping to — Well. I had a plan."
"That didn't look like a plan. Besides," he huffs, mouth trying to twist into something of a smile. "Saving people is what heroes do." The Academy's teachings come quickly even two years after graduating. It's easier to parrot textbooks than to explain the deeper truth; he doubts any woman enjoys hearing about how punchable her face is.
The yellow there bothers him. He wants to darken it purple in a real fight, not this bewildering sham.
"He's quoting Heroic Deeds 101!" Kaminari nearly shrieks into his microphone. "Bakugou! Is this code? Do you need backup?"
"Blink once for yes," Jirou supplies helpfully.
"He's blinking!" There's the sound of commotion near the scientists, but Bakugou ignores them and especially Koda, who's mumbling dumb shit again.
The woman snorts. "Definitely not a trap."
"No," he agrees. His eyes map out a trail down her neck and across her slim shoulders, along her arms and past her chest to her abdomen. The blood doesn't stop at her neckline. Gashes coil along her bare skin, barely covered by what's left of her clothes. "We weren't expecting you."
"But the portal?" she asks. "Were you expecting that?"
"It's been here," Bakugou responds easily, wary still. "You create it?"
She shakes her head. "No. No, not me. I was thrown into it. It was — There was no time. Had to disrupt it somehow." Her voice comes unraveled, hitching once, but she continues with a lopsided smile and a distinct lack of humor, "We thought I could make it back through in time."
"Ground Zero," a new voice says as they connect with their radio frequency. "This is the police. Are you able to restrain her?"
Koda responds for him, "She's not hostile, sir. Not since she fell. And she's injured."
"She's extraterrestrial. Could be dangerous even without meaning to be," another person chimes in. A hero. Bakugou doesn't recognize the voice.
"They're right," she says, and his attention snaps back to her and that wall. He reads the threat she's not saying like it's sprawled across her skin. Like it's graffiti, multicolored and complex. His grip tightens on reflex.
"I definitely could be dangerous." Her eyelashes flutter teasingly so. She's still slack in his arms, hands tucked in at her sides, one caught between her hip and his chest, but he's not sure it matters.
"So," she continues, "are you able to restrain me?"
"Ground Zero, do you need assistance? We have the area surrounded."
Bakugou doesn't need to look up to know that the police stand on the perimeter, heroes in front and ready to strike. He sees their flashing red-blue lights reflect off the waters, hears a barking of orders and an answering ripple of tension. Helicopters chirp overhead, likely reporters, though they shouldn't be here. Area access to this sector is restricted, ever since the day the sky opened up.
"You gonna surrender peacefully?" he asks, because he's willing to fight, wants her to say no so he can test his strength against hers and prove he's the best, but she's injured and alone and a fight's not worth having if it isn't fair.
He's not sure if that matters either. She's not blind, she can see she's outnumbered and still there's a cocky tilt to her head as she nods at the scientists. "I know their kind, even if the rest of this world is a bit different compared to mine. I have no interest in becoming their test subject."
A science experiment; that's exactly what she'd become. Just like this neighborhood after the evacuation one month ago. The men and women in white itch to know more about the wormhole and where it leads to. A human — at least, he assumes she's human, bleeds red and feels human — must be a jackpot for them. Their movements are frantic as they wait behind his team.
But that's not his issue and he certainly can't sympathize with a villain on live television, no matter where she came from or why she punched the world upon landing. "Sounds like a no," he says, fingers clamping down harder, rougher. Enough to leave fingerprint shaped bruises where they touch.
"Sorry," and she doesn't sound sorry; not even a little, as her posture stiffens, "but I can't get home if I'm quarantined. No guarantee they'll let me go."
Bakugou nods because he understands, because it buys him a second to think before she's dynamite in his arms, tangling a hand in his shirt and another in his hair, snaking legs around his waist to get at the pressure points in his neck. Shouts bounce from the police to the heroes, sound distorted through the blood rushing in his ears, adrenaline still white-hot and sizzling, ready to ignite.
He lets himself tip forward. For a moment, with nothing but air and noise around them, their gazes lock, brows furrowed. Yellow taunts him.
His fingers brush her cheek, like a whisper. A promise. With his other, he grasps her elbow.
Then her spine slams into jagged rocks, breaking her hold, and he grabs her diamond-dotted forehead and smashes that down too, just in case her previous wounds weren't enough. Her grin cracks into a snarl, moment broken, everything haywire, everything perfect.
Sero circles around to flank them.
Bakugou dodges a knee and blasts off near her head, blinding her with dust and sudden sound. She blinks and stands, stumbles. Her balance catches, a teeter totter on two legs, but she lunges at him without direction, punches the air and the force knocks him back.
Tape wraps around her biceps to keep her anchored before she can follow through. "Got her!" Sero cheers, and clearly he's only just arrived or else he would've known to be more careful, to not give her a connection to grab at and pull. Her grip squeezes the bindings, knees bent, and she swings him like a bat to snap him off her. He flies in the opposite direction.
Bakugou doesn't hear a crash, assumes he's fine. There's no time to look; her heel creates a fissure spanning the width of the battlefield and in a blaze of smoke, five of her rush toward him.
His explosions pop one clone and Kaminari's shot of electricity is enough to burst another, but there's a blur of black, a flicker of heat, and she appears at his side. He hears a crunch when her fist connects and now — now — she looks sorry, like breaking his ribs is a necessity she hates, but it's an emotion flashed between a flurry of motion and Bakugou caves in on himself, hunches around the pain, and then she kicks and he soars into the carcass of an apartment building.
But he's not dead. Landing on snapped wood and hacking out a cough, forcing himself to stand — it sucks, but he should be dead. The destruction around him is proof enough of what she's capable of. At full strength, one punch and there wouldn't even be bones left for his family bury.
So she's going easy on him. It would piss him off more if he had a death wish, but he doesn't, because, fuck. The dead can't enjoy shit. They can't shove a piece of railing to the side and step out ready to be kicked again on the off chance they might be lucky enough to smash her face in, too.
He pulls himself free and a sea of heroes and their quirks surround the epicenter now, blocking his view with wild lightning and fire. He recognizes most of them. Todoroki, he notes, created a glacier towering over one side of the crater, a hole the size of a truck torn into it, shards breaking off onto the battlefield.
" — clones dealt with — " says a man, voice exploding through radio static.
" — disappeared — "
Then Jirou's voice rings out, "She burrowed underground, heading west!"
Her ear snaps back into place and the heroes surge in the indicated direction, following her lead. Bakugou starts after them before catching sight of red, gelled hair and he turns fully to see Kirishima's concern glaring at him from across the ruins. He teeters, torn between Bakugou and the manhunt, worries his bottom lip as if wanting to say something inappropriate like, "Are you okay?" or "Do you need help?" Instead, he points to an ambulance and mouths, "Get in the van," before sprinting off alongside Fatgum.
Bakugou considers ignoring him. He presses a hand to his sternum, fingertips testing his cracked bones. The pain is manageable, he's fought with worse, but the kickback from his own quirk means one wrong angle and a rib could be knocked into any one of his vitals.
Letting out a harsh, angry breath, he stomps his way to the van.
-.-.-
He's quarantined for a week. A week inside a hospital room below ground level, no windows or visitors or internet access, stuck on a mattress with more springs than foam, counting the petals on the floral wallpaper until he comes to the conclusion that the doctors are attempting to drive him insane.
He feels it, too. There's somewhere between a hundred and a thousand flowers on the wall opposite his bed. Each day his total changes as they waltz in carrying needles and machines, claiming this would be the last test. Just one more, and it'll all be over.
"She might've left an infectious agent on you, from the other side," they had said through the thick masks of their hazmat suits, repeatedly, like a mantra to every one of his questions. His clearance level should be high enough to get a decent answer or two, but their lips stay tight and their eyes stay greedy.
They don't find anything. When the week's over, they run out of excuses and set him free.
Bakugou kicks the entranceway open and Kirishima stands on the other side, leaning against a lamppost. He wiggles a plastic bag at him.
"Tired of hospital food yet?" he asks with a cheeky goddamn grin, full of sunshine and sagging relief, and it's the most welcomed thing Bakugou has ever seen.
He snatches the bag and peers inside, lets his mirth color his expression. "Chicken wings," he breathes out, then in, to smell the spices. "Fuck."
"I'll take that as a yes." Kirishima laughs, claps him lightly on the shoulder and not his back. "You want to eat here or back at your place? You look like you could use a shower, too."
"Home," Bakugou agrees. The sterile cloak of death and medicine still feels suffocating even without the glitz of fluorescents enveloping him. "Don't want to see this shithole again."
Kirishima tilts his head, glances between Bakugou and the smooth grey lines of the facility behind them. Thumbs catching the hem of his pockets, he rocks back on his heels and hums. "Sero and Koda get out tomorrow, though I'm sure they'll understand if you're not here to greet them."
"No," Bakugou growls. He starts towards the bus station, expects Kirishima to follow and refuses to care if he doesn't. "Take Mina."
He falls into step beside him. "Can't. She's on a press junket until Saturday. She sends her regards."
"Fuck her regards," he says, more harsh than he means to, makes a face, puts on a grin to try and seem a little less laid bare. His steps come quicker, his legs move faster. Kirishima keeps up.
City air breezes by, mixed with smoked gasoline and street food. Compared to the stale churning of air conditioning units, he savors each breath. Breathes deep, lets the warmth uncoil through him.
The flowers here are real. If he was alone, if Kirishima wasn't hovering by his shoulder, ready to help like Bakugou needs it, well. He might sniff the roses, the ones sitting pretty in a cafe window. He might stand on the sidewalk and not move until sunrise, just because he can. Because there's no locked door and three cameras keeping him from doing whatever it is he wants.
"Your ribs okay?" Kirishima asks once they're further from the hospital.
"Healing." He glances down to where Kirishima's eyes had fallen. Bandages peek from under the collar of his shirt. "I'm off rotation for another two weeks."
He whistles in appreciation. "She really did a number on you."
Bakugou grunts, doesn't want to acknowledge it or her or those fists.
A hand latches onto his elbow and Kirishima pulls him to a standstill. "We didn't — Don't look at me like that. You saw how many quirks she had. We lost her in Kiyashi Ward. She blended into the shopping crowd."
And if that's not another kick to the gut, he doesn't know what is.
"She was injured," Bakugou says, because there was blood, everywhere. He remembers sharp lines spiraling down her body and pinholes freckling her skin. Remembers red on his palms and the sinking dread when scientists wiped it into test tubes.
Injuries should weigh her down, slow her pace, but it's been a week and she's still a fugitive. Bakugou feels anticipation crawl back into his limbs.
"I know," Kirishima snaps back and grimaces. His voice lowers, softens. "If we had Hound Dog with us, maybe we could have tracked her, but we only had Jirou. She couldn't pinpoint her. Too much — " he waves his hands to the pedestrians rushing by them, " — noise."
He sighs, scuffs the pavement as they continue walking. "She was sighted downtown twice since then, one was a clone. Other escaped."
Bakugou frowns. "A distraction."
"Yeah. She's likely found somewhere to hunker down, maybe an abandoned building, or maybe she had a target in mind." He shrugs. "We're on high-alert."
The bus stop greets them when they round the corner, and they stop. Bakugou peeks sideways at Kirishima. Stress lines crease at the edges of his eyes; they weren't there before the wormhole, and they weren't this deep before it closed. Bakugou wonders if they're reflected on his own face.
"What time are you heading over tomorrow?" he asks.
Kirishima blinks like he's blindsided, then grins, leaning forward. "I knew it!"
"Just tell me the time," he huffs. "I need to go to Central first. I lost my hero license during the fight."
He nods. It's not the first time it's happened. "Meet me at Kaminari's whenever you're done there. We'll all go together."
"You didn't even —" need me, he nearly shouts, but the Red Riot theme song cuts him off.
"Sorry!" Kirishima snatches at his pockets and fumbles with his phone, cringing at the name flashing on the screen. "I need to get back to the office. I was technically only on my lunch break."
He snorts. "Yeah? When did that end?"
"Doesn't matter!" He laughs, backing up a step. "See you tomorrow!"
Bakugou watches him leave until the crowd swallows him whole and turns back to wait. The bag crinkles in his hand, still warm, but no longer steaming.
The bus is as crowded as it always is, teenagers filling the aisle, chattering loudly, and businessmen sitting down with briefcases held tightly on their laps. His stop isn't far. He gets off with a group of women and turns right, walking past houses until his apartment building comes into view.
He checks his mailbox before taking the stairs, flipping through bills and little else, stuffing the envelopes into his back pocket and takes out his keys. The fourth floor has floral wallpaper too similar to the hospital's, and he moves faster, nearly sprints to his door and flings it open.
"Oh shit," he hears as the door swings wide.
On his kitchen counter, legs dangling and a spoon in his last tub of ice cream, sits the woman wearing his clothes, pink hair smelling of his shampoo, jaw dropped like she hadn't expected him to walk over his own goddamn threshold.
"Well," she says, setting his ice cream down. "You're home early."
-.-.-