Notes: This got a little out of hand. I was given the prompt "Don't you dare look him in the eye" + Kacchako. I wasn't quite sure what to do for this, but eh, it turned out alright. Yeah, I skimped on the action because I was feeling lazy, but it's something at least. Grown Kacchako being heroes is my jam so here ya go. (Can you all tell how much I loved working in the service industry?)

Disclaimer: I only own my loathing towards working in restaurants. I was this close to being a villain in the making.


It was a beautiful night. The stars were out, not a cloud in sight, and there was a gentle breeze that took away the mugginess of the summer air. People were laughing as they walked the streets, the lights of the city offering promises of fun and relaxation. Content hung in the air, blanketing the night, putting everyone at ease. It made it feel like nothing in the world could go wrong at this moment.

Uraraka should have known better than to trust it, but for once, she had wanted to rest in the hope for a peaceful night.

It wasn't often that she and Bakugou could afford the time to go out for an evening dinner and have the night to themselves, even if she now had the money for it. Their jobs as pro heroes was a constant thing. It didn't stop once they took off their costumes or when they left the office. It stayed with them even after they clocked out. A heroes job was never done.

On top of that, Bakugou had his own hero agency to run and only at twenty-two. He'd put his phone on silent, but she could it buzz on the table. He had long since given up on trying to answer it discreetly when they were out like this. Not that she minded. She was insanely busy as well, but he had a lot more on his plate.

He didn't apologize as he answered yet another text and she didn't expect one, coolly sipping on a glass of wine. She was proud of him. He'd done so much since graduating from U.A. to better himself in every way. How could she be upset with him for that? His goal to the top had come far before she had entered the picture. It was a part of who he was. It didn't make her feel any less important in his life. The fact that they were here now, eating dinner outside of one of their favorite restaurants - that he had gone out of his way to make time and space for her alongside his goal - meant everything to her.

So taken in by the relative peace of the night, the explosion from inside the restaurant caught both of them off guard for once.

It was so strong that it shattered glass, the force of it blowing tables and chairs aside. Uraraka and Bakugou threw themselves out of their chairs and on the ground instinctively. She touched the table and floated it above them, Bakugou grabbing the stand and holding it above them like an umbrella to protect them from falling debris. It cracked as broken brick peppered it, but neither of them were hurt thanks to her quick thinking. Once he deemed them in the clear, he stood up and shoved it to the side. She deactivated her quirk and raised herself next to him.

"What the hell was that?" Bakugou demanded as he ran towards the burning restaurant.

"Was it a kitchen accident?" Uraraka asked, immediately focusing on the other patrons. Many of them were on the ground, injured and terrified. She wanted to focus on getting them out of the area as quick as possible in case there was another explosion. Luckily, with her quirk, all she had to do was give them a tap and she could carefully pull them to a safe distance.

Bakugou scanned inside the restaurant with narrow eyes. "I don't-" He was cut off by a thin red laser, which he narrowly managed to dodge by rolling to the left. When he rolled into a crouch, he snarled and pushed back his sleeves. "Definitely not an accident." It was a villain. Somewhere inside that restaurant, there was a villain lurking, hidden by the flames and broken debris. "Get these civilians out of here! I'll handle this asshole."

Some heroes might not have liked being stuck with rescue duty, but Uraraka knew that it was an important part of hero work. Not only that, her quirk enabled her to be much more efficient at it than Bakugou, who was known for his offensive quirk. Quite frankly, she could save these people better than he could. They'd both learned to acknowledge their quirk's strengths and weaknesses over the years, especially when they worked together as Uravity and Ground Zero. By doing so, it made them much stronger.

She trusted Bakugou to take care of things on his end. So she got to work.

There were more injured civilians than she'd realized. Some of them were so hurt that moving them had to be a delicate process even for her. It was taxing work, lifting fallen rubble off of people and ordering less injured civilian to put pressure on the more terrible wounds of others. Sweat ran down her body, creating paths through the grime and ash on her skin, and blood was trailing down her shin from where she'd skinned her knee from diving on the ground. Even worse, she could hear the sounds of the fight raging behind her and it sounded like there was more than one villain.

It wasn't long before other pro heroes arrived on the scene, but it wasn't soon enough. She barked at them to assist Bakugou and then pulled a few others to help retrieve the civilians as the other first responders arrived. An explosion that she recognized as one of Bakugou's rocked them from behind, nearly forcing her to her knees again, but she pushed herself back up.

"Take care of the rest!" Uraraka ordered. "I'm going in!"

She was wearing a red dress not fit for combat and flats with none of her support gear, but she didn't care. They'd promised to have each other's backs no matter what. She ran into the building, ignoring the heat from the flames, but was met with a shocking sight. There were multiple people attacking Bakugou, most of whom looked to be dressed like regular patrons of the restaurant, but what was truly shocking were the two heroes fighting him as well. She'd just sent them in here to help.

"What are you doing?" Uraraka demanded in a scream. She grabbed one of them by the shoulders, ripping him off the ground with her quirk activated on him, but when she turned him to face her, she was only met with a vacant gaze, like he wasn't even seeing her. It reminded her of the look on a person's face when they were under Shinsou's brainwashing quirk.

"It's not them!" Bakugou shouted as he dodged an attack from what looked like a civilian. He was roughed up more than she'd originally thought, his clothes tattered and burned, and a gash on his face. "There's a villain with some sort of brainwashing quirk that makes them go berzerk!"

"So what do we do?"

Bakugou landed a solid punch on the guy he was fighting with and the guy dropped to the floor like a sack of flour. "Knock 'em the hell out."

The hero that she had a hold onto started to claw at her, so she threw him up through the hole in the ceiling, sending him floating somewhere in the upper levels of the building. It wasn't a knock out, but it took him out of commission until she released her quirk and then he'd probably have a one hell of an unpleasant landing. She was able to touch another civilian and threw him across the room. She winced when his body collided with a wall, but released her quirk, dropping both of them. It wasn't their fault and she hated it when civilians got stuck in the crossfire, but they were being used as weapons right now and she and Bakugou couldn't just not defend themselves.

Before she could trade blows with another person, a voice commanded, "Stop!" and everyone froze. Uraraka looked over and saw that one of the heroes had Bakugou by the neck with two hands while tentacle-like ropes had a hold of his wrists, pulling them high above his head. She moved to help when that red laser was shot in between them, forcing her to a halt. "Did I not say stop?"

As Uraraka swung her gaze in the direction of the voice, Bakugou managed to rasp, "Don't look at him! His quirk is activated by connecting eyes!" and she jerked her head away at the last second, catching a glimpse of a man in a white kitchen uniform.

"Oh, you ruined the surprise," the villain huffed. He sounded young, around the same age as them. Was he actually a part of the staff of this restaurant? "That should be expected of a hero like Ground Zero. No fun at all."

"You call this fun?" Uraraka asked, feeling out of sorts since she couldn't face the villain head on. She could sort of see him out of the corner of her eyes, but she kept her focus on Bakugou, who was staring back at her as well. His face was getting redder as the mind-controlled hero squeezed his neck tighter. Uraraka's breath hitched in her chest.

"Working for this shithole certainly wasn't," the villain complained. "I felt like a slave back there."

"Maybe you should've just quit instead of attacking and hurting innocent people," Uraraka told him.

Bakugou wheezed a little, an angry smirk cutting across his face. "If you can't take the heat…"

"Oh, I'm out of the kitchen, that's for sure." The villain hopped over a broken table towards her. He tried to slide into her view, but she turned her head away. "And who do I find out here but the famous Uravity and Ground Zero! Eating dinner together no less! Are you two like together or something?"

"Stay away-" Bakugou's yell was cut off by him gasping for air.

The villain stayed just out of Uraraka's reach. "I could get him to stop, you know. It's pretty simple. People are so easy to turn. It's like they want the control taken from them." He kept circling her, trying to get her to make eye contact, so Uraraka closed her eyes. She felt so ridiculous. All she needed to do was land one hit on him. She could do that. "I could also have his throat crushed. That would be fine by me. He's kind of an asshole. What do you see in him?"

A hero. A future. There was a lot she saw in Bakugou, but she wasn't going to tell this punk any of that. He really was just a guy throwing a temper tantrum over a job he hated.

"I'll tell you what," the guy said. "I'll let your hero boyfriend live. All you've gotta do is look at me." She could hear the grin in his voice now. "C'mon, Uravity, let me see those pretty eyes of yours. I've had such a shitty week. Chef is relentless. Well, he's probably dead now, but that's not the point. You are. We can have so much fun together tonight! Come on. I want you to see me."

"Don't you dare look him in the eye," Bakugou gasped with great difficulty.

Uraraka let out a shaky breath and softly said, "I do see you."

"Oh yeah?"

"Yeah, you're some nobody who thinks he's hot shit, but can't even be bothered to do his own dirty work," Uraraka told him. "You were in the kitchen tonight, right? No wonder my food was sub par. A child could cook better than that. And this? It's obvious that you're too weak to fight on your own."

"I'll show you weak," the guy snarled, stepping forward to grab her. She heard him step on glass behind her and spun out of his way before he could snatch her. As he stumbled forward due to his own momentum, Uraraka opened her eyes and tagged him with her quirk. He yelped as his feet slid out from underneath him. She grabbed him by the back of his white jacket and threw him hard up in the air so that he smacked into the ceiling, releasing her quirk and letting him fall to the ground hard, knocking him unconscious.

As soon as he was out, everyone under his control snapped out of it. The pro hero squeezing the life out of Bakugou realized what he was doing and hastily let go of him. Bakugou's hand flew to his throat, but he pushed the hero away when the man attempted to apologize. He wiped at the blood on his face and walked through the rabble towards her. He nudged the unconscious villain with his boot and let out a disgruntled huff.

"Are you alright?" Uraraka asked, lifting her hands so that she could see his throat.

"I'm fine," Bakugou replied in a raspy voice. "Stupid prick. I hate disgruntled employee villains." His eyes moved from the villain to her face, no less intense but not angry. "Get him out of here."

The hero that had been choking Bakugou moments ago handcuffed the villain and did as he was told. Seeing as how they had been out for a nice dinner, neither of them were equipped to fully detain anyone. Water began to rain down on them as first responders attempted to put out the fire and the two of them worked to pull out the rest of the unconscious victims out of the building.

It had been a night that neither of them had expected - a night off turned into work as usual. Uraraka was exhausted and more than a little bruised, but when Bakugou slipped his hand in hers as they waited for the police to take their statements, she found herself relaxing and leaning against him. At least she hadn't been alone. Neither of them had been. And that was why she never got upset when Bakugou prioritized his work. Because she was a part of his world as much as he was a part of hers and they were a team.