Notes:
Shout out to all the people who had such amazingly kind words to say about the first chapter! I was really overwhelmed and truly thankful for each and every comment and review. Y'all fucking rock!
All the location names in My Hero Academia are references to Star Wars, which is such a neat idea, so I'll be staying true to that theme as I expand the world a bit more.
-.-.-
Mister Fahrenheit
By MaethoMixup
Chapter Two: Two-Tone Attention
-.-.-
Her feet hit the linoleum, hip resting against his veneered cabinets, both hands outstretched and clearly visible, palms facing up in surrendering politeness. "Welcome home?" she says, more question than heartfelt, more sarcastic than he appreciates.
If Bakugou had invited her into his home, if he'd allowed her to eat his ice cream like they're friends, he might grin, answer with a laugh, but she's wearing his clothes and standing in his kitchen and he's furious. He drops his bag and slams the door closed because if he's going to commit murder, he's going to do it right. No witnesses. No blood on his goddamn chicken wings.
He'll have to reheat them. Just another crime to add to her ever growing list.
His shirt is too big for her, collar low and dipping off one shoulder, hem dangling nearly to the bottom of his red gym shorts. Her hair is held back by one of Kirishima's headbands — the orange one that was never in style, but somehow matches everything he owns. He'd left it here before the city went to shit and Bakugou hasn't seen it since.
He doesn't want to think of what else she'd found while snooping through his apartment. Not because he has anything nefarious to hide. It's a matter of principle, and Bakugou likes his privacy to remain private.
As if reading his thoughts, she smiles like her face is reassuring. "I only used what was necessary, I promise."
He points to the carton beside her. "Since when is ice cream necessary?"
She rolls her eyes, gives up on being polite too quickly for a criminal caught squatting in his home. "It's vanilla. There's not even chocolate chips in it, or — or fudge. If anything, I did you a favor."
"A favor," he deadpans. A fucking favor.
He's too pent up, cooped up for days, anger a wildfire waiting for tinder and he wants to see her burn. His teeth snap shut and he's throwing her over the counter and through the serving hatch before she can smell the mango habanero coating his chicken and insult that too.
The spoon clatters to the floor and she lands on her feet, because of course she does, and holds her hands up, says, "Calm down, I'm sorry! I'm just here to talk," like she has any right to a civilized conversation while she circles around his coffee table.
His favorite mug sits on a cork coaster near the remote and a tea bag floats innocently inside it. Still warm. Reminds him painfully of what he hasn't been allowed to drink all week. The volume on the television is turned low, newscasters discussing the local heroes, and his comforter lays piled on the couch like she'd leisurely watched the citywide manhunt from the safety of his living room.
While he had been quarantined, poked and prodded with needles under the glare of cameras and face masks.
His fingers clamp around the closest object: an All Might action figure given to him eons ago on a Christmas eve spent with friends. From Mina, he remembers, as a gag joke he hadn't found funny.
She'll forgive him one day.
"Oh no," the woman says, eyes growing wide. "Don't you dare — "
Bakugou raises All Might, aims, feels heat fester between skin and plastic and rockets the toy from his palm towards her shocked expression.
His shoulder jerks back; pain shoots across his chest as burningly intense as his quirk, and he coughs to relieve the sudden pressure, clutching at his shirt and bandages to lift the material from their suffocating grip. He feels weak, like he hasn't since the day he fell into the river and Deku's hand reached out, since the days in the academy when he became stronger, better than his peers, but so did they, always striving to be the number one hero despite that spot belonging to only one person, and it's Bakugou. It's always been him. He was born to be the best, his quirk is proof of that.
He still thinks that, a little desperately.
So this scrambling to keep himself steady, using the wall to pretend he's not ready to collapse, spawns that feeling again, that sinking dread and burning fury — and fear. Not of her, because he doesn't cower, but of himself. Of what he isn't, right now. In this moment with his ego vandalized by his own morality.
This doesn't feel like how a hero should.
"You're being unreasonable," she says from beside the gaping, crumbling hole in his wall, frazzled frown cutting across her lips, sleeve singed and smoking.
He blinks. Concrete dust and debris settle over his apartment and the street below, sun too bright now that only the wind separates them from the sky. Street noise filters through, civilians yell into phones.
"Why would you do that?" she asks. Her — his — fuzzy slipper taps a footprint into the carpet. "It's not like I had many options after your people labeled me a villain for existing despite it being their fault I'm even here!"
"You destroyed Raishi Ward!" he sputters, struggles to stand upright. His broken ribs ache and groan against the pull of gravity, sink into the deep space below his sternum. "And my wall," he adds out of spite. "That's pretty fucking villainous."
Her jaw drops. "Are you blaming me for dodging?"
Bakugou snarls, wants to say, "Yes, I fucking am," but she holds up a hand to cut him off. He doesn't have enough breath to protest. "Don't answer that. There's no time to argue." She snatches the remote and raises the volume on the news.
"Reports are coming in of an explosion near Takodaka Station — " A livestream flickers on screen from one of the cellphones pointed at his apartment, then flashes over to a reporter trailing behind a hero draped in black cloth and darkness and heading to their location. "Tsukuyomi is en route!" the man cheers into his microphone.
"Your information network is incredible," she mutters almost to herself before dusting off her — his, still his damn it — clothes and kicks the slippers from her feet. Her gaze turns to him, glides from his copper eyes to his gunmetal scowl to his wheezing, exploding chest with calculated ease. "But your healthcare needs improvement. Typical."
"Fuck," he breathes, tries to step forward, "off."
She rolls her eyes again. "I'm leaving, don't worry. Not trying to get captured."
Strolling past him with a wink, she enters his bedroom and exits wearing a different one of his shirts — a black tank with U.A. blazened on the front — and her blue sandals and the belt she'd been wearing the day she arrived. Blood stains the fabric of both, but Bakugou doesn't see any sign of previous injuries on her pale, unblemished skin.
"Any tips on how to avoid him?" She jerks her thumb at the screen where Tokoyami's shown flying over rooftops, using Dark Shadow as wings.
Bakugou sits on his ruined table because it hurts too much to remain standing, and glares.
"Right," she says, drags out the vowel. "For your information, I'm not trying to hurt anyone, but I'm going to protect myself. If you tell me, I won't have to fight him."
Bakugou understands little about her other than annoying as fuck, but he can read between the lines. She's more powerful than Tokoyami, and though she doesn't know that, she's confident enough to guess it. And she's not wrong. He has the evidence fractured within him.
He glances back at the television. There's a chance another hero was dispatched, and if that's the case, he should delay her departure until they have the manpower to finally detain her. But Tsukuyomi regularly conducts nighttime patrols, his cloak and public persona designed to absorb moonlight, to become every criminal's worst nightmare, so his appearance during the day speaks volumes. The heroes are stretched thin. There's not enough presence in this area to match the power she wields.
Tokoyami doesn't realize what threat awaits him, likely assumes something benign in comparison to her — not that much compares except a man long past his prime, Bakugou thinks. And if he discovers her, Tokoyami won't give up until he's pummeled into becoming more creature than man, and more mangled than both.
"Sunlight," he rasps. "Keep away from dark areas. That's where — " he coughs, " — where he's strongest. Tends to stick to alleyways when he, fuck. Don't fucking break my ribs next time. Fuck."
One of her brows raise, mouth quirked, but she doesn't apologize. Lets him continue.
"Ambush tactics. He'll attempt to force you into an underpass," he finishes.
She nods. "Stick to the main streets then, got it. Easy enough."
Walking to his cabinets, she opens the one above his sink and takes out a box of granola bars, stuffing all six into her pockets even as he sputters obscenities from behind her. "Shush," she tells him and whirls her hair into a ponytail using the headband as a faux scrunchie. "If I steal from you, I won't have to steal from someone else. Think of it as doing your civic duty."
He wets his lips, wants to argue. Thinks instead to call bullshit on her logic, but there's no hostility in her posture, no devious aura enwrapped around her body. Only a deep-seated worry he can't attribute to anxiety. She's too cocksure for that.
Her gaze darts down and there it is. Concern. For the injury she gave him.
"I would kill you if I could," he grumbles, more resigned than angry, but almost positive he means it.
She shrugs, opens his door. Smirks like he'd told a joke and flips back a stray strand to dismiss it. "You had your chance," she says and dashes into the hall without looking back or saying goodbye.
Not that he'd expected her to but, fuck.
-.-.-
His apartment becomes a crime scene, and then they quarantine it after Bakugou gives his statement to the police, biohazard signs and fabric sealing his apartment shut within the time it takes to evacuate the fourth floor entirely.
Which means he's officially homeless without extra clothes, chicken wings, or sanity, and it's all her fault. Or the scientists', Bakugou doesn't care who takes the blame.
It's someone's fault and it's certainly not his.
"Am I hurting you?" the medic asks, pulling back his palm from Bakugou's bare chest with a worried frown aimed at whatever expression Bakugou is making.
Something murderous, probably. He doesn't bother masking his frustration.
"Just get on with it," he says instead of correcting the man's assumption.
Iced eyes glance at the lone scientist perched nearby, watching them with a clipboard in hand, but his yellow-sparked fingertips press down, gentle. "I apologize, my quirk is unable to mend bones without a significant drain, but everything else will be in working order before I leave. Strenuous activity is not recommended."
Bakugou grunts out a response, feels another shock thrill through his muscles and sink deep into his lungs, pulsing like electricity and grounded as if by wire.
Several minutes pass before Tokoyami walks down the apartment stairs to where Bakugou sits in the front lobby, chair tucked beside the mailboxes. A policewoman escorts him over and returns to her post on the bottom step.
"Ground Zero," he greets, pulls down his hood to reveal a plume of dark feathers and nods at the man kneeling on the ground. "Medic Man, I'm glad you're permitted to assist us on this dark day."
"Me too," he murmurs, but doesn't otherwise stray from his task.
Tokoyami takes a moment to regard Bakugou, makes him squirm under the scrutiny until his arms straighten and become stiff at his sides, and he bows deep at the waist. "I bring you my deepest regrets. I was unable to find her."
This is why Bakugou avoids him. Too much gloom and doom and politeness. "Cut it out," he mumbles and averts his gaze. "I don't care."
Though he's relieved she evaded him, Bakugou can't say that out loud. Too many curious ears, and he'd left his involvement out of the police report. His reputation wouldn't survive if that information was made public.
Tokoyami straightens, beak a grim line like it always is, shoulders squared and ready for the apocalypse. "I've made the necessary calls. Though my failure weighs heavily upon me, all available personnel will centralize upon this location. She will be found before the sun sets."
"Yeah, fine. That's — " Bakugou pauses, heartbeat a sudden war march across his splintered rib cage. He has to ask, "All available personnel? Even from neighboring sectors?"
"Of course," he says, proud of himself when he shouldn't be. "Central wants this situation taken care of swiftly considering — "
The entranceway swings open and all Bakugou hears is a loud wail, then, "Kacchan!"
His vision floods with green-coated, bulky muscles and wild forest hair, white cape a whirlwind behind him. Deku leans over Medic Man, arms flailing like he doesn't know what to do, like he wants to hug him and the only thing preventing a gross violation of personal space is the hero between them.
"I heard she attacked while you were sleeping!" he shouts, and Bakugou gives Tokoyami a betrayed glare. "Are you okay? Are you hurt? Do you know where she's headed?"
"What kind of stupid ass, grapevine gossip is that?" he growls out, pulse racing, anger rising on waves of pure annoyance. Electricity still ripples against his core, teases at his quirk. Makes him want to burst. Makes him want to fight, to prove he's not weak.
Deku has All Might's quirk, but he doesn't punch like him. Just a mockery able to fool everyone but Bakugou into believing he's the new symbol of peace.
She's not that symbol either. Can't be, as a criminal. But if Bakugou can beat her, he can beat anyone.
He already knows he can beat Deku.
"That's not what I told Uravity," Tokoyami quickly defends.
"But she did injured you." Deku gasps at Bakugou, at his naked torso, finally discerning the scene through his needless, unwanted concern. His brows furrow and he evaluates the bruise splattered from his throat to his abdomen, darkest point in the vague shape of a fist, but no longer swollen.
"This happened last week," Bakugou snarls, but as always Deku doesn't listen, too caught up in thoughts and theories.
"And Ochako said your apartment is quarantined?" he continues without pause. "Do you need a place to stay? Our home is always open to you, you know that. And we'll be your bodyguards! Since the villain seems to be targeting you. Which, did she say why? Do you know what she wants?"
Bakugou counts to ten, fails, starts again.
"Tsukuyomi," he barely manages to say, "did you call Red Riot?"
"He was the first," he confirms.
"Good." Bakugou shoves the medic away from him, snapping the connection, not caring if he was finished. Stands, storms past all three of them despite Deku's blubbering — or in spite of it, because he and the woman both deserve it — and shoves the door open to leave.
The scientist runs after him, fox features awash with panic. "You can't go! We have to run more tests!"
And Bakugou wants nothing less than that, refuses to have their machines attached and beeping even a minute more than the week he's only just escaped from. Rejects the very idea, because one test means twenty, and twenty means a hundred. And she didn't specify how many, so he thinks he knows the answer: somewhere close to infinity.
A trash can rests next to the entrance, near the police barricade but not beyond the tape. He picks it up and jams it against the astragal molding, metal rim tucked under the doorknobs. Through the glass he sees them slack jawed, confused, and he flips them off because the gesture brings him a sense of comfort he sorely needs. Like it's armor, something bulletproof.
"This is really immature, Kacchan!" he hears Deku say, but it's the best he's felt since leaving the hospital, and he has no plans on going back.
-.-.-
"I'm not saying I agree with Midoriya, but that was kind of immature," Kirishima says when he enters his own apartment and finds Bakugou face first on top of his bean bag chair, empty beer can beside him. "And you drinking isn't helping my opinion here, just so we're clear."
He sighs and steps around the shoes Bakugou left in the hallway, drops something Bakugou can't see from his angle near the floor. Feels his stare cut from across the room. "Dude, you're injured and laying directly on your broken bones. If your goal is to make me worried, I promise you, mission accomplished." Kirishima moves closer, hovers somewhere near his feet. "Can you at least roll over so I know you're not dying?"
It's a reasonable request, so Bakugou complies and drops back into the divet his weight had carved out hours ago. "I only had one. It's all you had in the fridge."
"Is this before or after you went to buy more?" he asks, too all-knowing for his damn good.
"After," he admits. "I tried buying a six pack on the way here. Turns out I was shirtless. Wouldn't sell it to me."
"Because you stormed off without thinking. Again." Kirishima picks up the can, throws it in his recycling bin before falling cross-legged beside him. "Wanna talk about it?"
He focuses specifically on the vaulted ceiling and not his friend, who waits patiently with puppy dog eyes even as time ticks purposefully by. When his hesitance verges on rude, he relents. "Are you gonna make me feel like shit if I don't?"
"You already feel like shit," he points out. "You want me to go first? I have some news you might like." Bakugou shrugs, so Kirishima shifts closer, cups a hand around his mouth and proceeds in a near whisper, "We know how she found your apartment."
At that, Bakugou rises to his elbows and fully gives him his attention. He's in his Red Riot costume, boots and pads missing, sweat gluing his bangs against his forehead.
Kirishima leans back and reaches into his pocket, pulling out a slim piece of plastic and setting it in Bakugou's lap. "You didn't lose your hero license, she stole it. We found it on your nightstand. Her fingerprints are all over it."
He picks it up and squints at the surface like it holds more than that one answer. All he sees is his own glowering picture and his personal information scrawled under it in neat lettering. "Why did they let you take it if it's evidence?"
Silence. Bakugou looks up and Kirishima is scratching at his cheek, bashful smile turned away from him. "Midoriya cashed in a few favors. Turns out being a top five hero has some perks."
Bakugou tilts his head, restrains his criticism, knows better than to interrupt.
"And," Kirishima stretches out the word and ends it with a chuckle, "I may have caused a distraction for those we couldn't convince to help us. But if anyone asks, your lamp had it coming. Totally threatened me, you should've seen it."
His breath loosens all at once. "I always knew that lamp was up to no good," he muses, receives a laugh and sharp-toothed grin that's hard not to reciprocate.
"Well," Kirishima says, slaps his thighs twice and springs to his feet, extending his arms high to crack his back. "You hungry? I noticed the chicken wings by your door. Sucks they went to waste." He maneuvers between his oversize armchair and the wall, careful of the mural of haphazardly taped newspaper clippings and ducks under his archway. Opening his fridge, he pauses. "Oh, you had my leftover pizza."
"Sorry," Bakugou mutters from the other room.
Kirishima waves him off. "You needed it, don't worry about it. I'm going to make something for myself though."
Heaving himself up, Bakugou peers around the corner at what Kirishima had dropped in the entryway, sees a bag of clothes and knows those were smuggled from his apartment too. He smiles, can't stop himself even if he's tempted.
He moves and falls into a kitchen chair only when his softness steels into indifference, but knows he owes him an explanation. Owes Kirishima too much today to stay silent.
"She blamed us for the wormhole." At Kirishima's bewilderment, he sighs, runs his fingers through his hair. Dust and grime get caught under his blunted nails; he still needs a shower. Smelling himself under the guise of stretching doubly confirms that.
Bakugou tries to clarify, "Not us, but someone here. On this side. Said they're why she's here."
"I guess it's possible," Kirishima says, frowning at his frying pan. "That might explain the list we found." He turns on a burner before taking out his phone, types in his passcode, clicks on an icon and tosses it towards Bakugou. He catches it easily. "Her handwriting is worse than mine."
A picture of a notebook greets him, open to the first page. It lays on his countertop, close to where she'd sat, and he doesn't recognize it as one of the few he owns. He swipes through the other crime scene photos, curious until he goes one too far and sees a gym selfie, snorts, then finds the list again.
"All hero names," he says, reading what she'd written. The majority were there on the day she fell, either as apart of his squadron or on a team patrolling nearby. "And why the fuck am I highlighted?"
"No idea. Clearly she thinks you're involved somehow."
"Or not involved." He zooms in on the only other name covered in yellow marker. "The day Koda summons a wormhole is the day I eat my own shit."
"Don't be so vulgar, dude. Gross. You're going to make me lose my appetite." He makes a face over his shoulder, but returns to cooking, melting butter and shuffling past him to grab an utensil. "Or it could mean she's literally targeting you and Koda," he says. "Like an assassin."
"I would be dead if that were true," Bakugou reminds him. "Today, if she had wanted — " His voice hitches high and stops, and he grabs the table to steady himself.
Earlier, she hadn't even retaliated. Bakugou was too busy fighting off death to realize that during their ceasefire conversation.
"That asshole," he fumes, slaps his palm on the hardwood sharp and loudly.
Kirishima startles and drops his spatula on the stove. Sets a packet of bacon to the side and frowns. "What? Who's an asshole? The villain?"
"Yes!" he snaps. "She was being friendly!"
"But you just said she's an asshole."
"Exactly."
"I'll be honest," Kirishima says slowly, "I'm getting really mixed messages here."
He exhales a fume of frustration, knees jittering. It sounds ridiculous even as he says it, "This fucking woman thinks I'm her friend."
A sudden, tart laugh flushes Kirishima's cheeks, and he wipes under his eyes, calms himself, glances at Bakugou and laughs again. "I'm never going to convince the police of that. That's — Wow. Why on Earth would she think that?"
"I don't know," Bakugou huffs, curling his fingers up and feels heat swirl just under his palm, "but I'm going to kick her ass to find out."
-.-.-
