A/N: Thank you.

Epilogue is posted as well so don't miss it!

Enjoy.

The fire that raged below the surface was almost out of control, burning up everything inside Bakugo, contained only by his better sense.

He exuded anger in nearly every sense of the word, and no matter what he tried, he couldn't quell it. He lay awake most nights, tossing and turning, unable to sleep. He'd tried working out for some sort of relief, but the attempts were futile.

Bakugo had been in a state ever since his date with Camie.

The class had picked up on it, as he was given a wide berth everywhere he went the week following "the incident" (how he'd heard it called by the extras). The first person who tried to speak to him about it had gotten a piece of his wrath, and no one dared to mention it since.

He felt overly aware of all the little things around him, like Sparky's side glances, or Deku's mutterings, the wag of tail douche's tail. They worked their way inside his head, building up until he had a splitting headache.

It was all just so annoying.

When they were dismissed to get changed for hero training, Bakugo was first to leave the classroom, putting as much distance between himself and other people as possible. He was the first to change, the first to the training ground.

There was a course set up with various faux villains linked to different obstacles. Each obstacle, he observed, seemed to test a different set of skills: quick thinking, defense, safety and rescue, combat.

He had been hoping, no, looking for one-on-one fights, but at least he could bust up some robots, and maybe his headache would dull. The prospect of going all out against the dumb hunks of metal raised his blood pressure a touch.

Aizawa sat atop one of the cement blocks of the course, waiting for the class to show up. Cementos was off to the side, having been the creator of the course. Once they all were accounting for, Aizawa jumped down, calling attention to the start line.

"Today you will be running an obstacle course. Within each part, you will have certain requirements, whether it is save the citizen, defeat or evade the villain, keep damage to a minimum, or recover an object. Throughout this term, with the year coming to an end, you've had to deal with more than most other classes, so this sort of course should be challenging, but not outside your capabilities."

Todoroki looked to him, and Bakugo knew he was thinking to their provisional license test next week. Their extra classes had finally come to and end, but neither of them had time to slow down. The coming test was all he had been thinking about this week.

Aizawa continued, "Fifteen of you will be in the course as obstacles, while five of you will be going through the course. This is the rotation. Find your position and read your instructions."

Everyone was assigned their starting positions and spread out to assume them. Bakugo was among the last group to go along with Deku, frog girl, Kirishima, and tape arms. The impatience to go, to do something, overtook him, and when he was finally given the go-ahead to start, he ran to start the course.

He took the obstacle course in strides, and among the first couple blocks, he took out four faux villains. As the robots crumbled around him, it wasn't enough. Nothing was enough to hold it all down. Control came through adrenaline, and he moved on. He had to beat them all, everyone in his way.

He knew Icy-Hot was up ahead from watching everyone go before him, and Bakugo prepared for an ice attack. Fighting alongside Todoroki in their extra classes had given him more insight into the other boy's fighting style, the uses of his quirk, than almost any of their hero courses. Old habits die hard, and though his ice was much faster, Bakugo was ready. The ice nearly encased his foot before he shot over it.

"Too fucking slow, again!" Bakugo shouted.

Upon seeing Icy-Hot as he flew over the ice, all resolve in him stattered, and his body moved before he was even aware of his ill-intent. Bakugo charged Todoroki, speed like lightning boosted by a blast behind him. He raised his right arm—a big right hook—and let off an explosion to knock Todoroki on his ass.

Shoto's reactions were quick, however. Just as Bakugo got close, he swiftly turned his left side to the blast and kicked the underside of the grenade, sending the blast up over his head. Within a split second, Todoroki kicked again, this time aiming for Bakugo's head.

Momentum brought the two together, and Bakugo was only just able to block Icy-Hot's kick before it sent him flying into the side of the concrete. His shoulder took the brunt of the collision with the obstacle course wall, but before the pain set in, Bakugo was up on his feet, shooting off towards Todoroki again.

"What the fuck was that, you half-and-half bastard?!"

"You thought I wouldn't fight back?" Shoto said.

"Wouldn't be the first time," Bakugo seethed.

He'd never actually seen Shoto fight hand-to-hand, since the fucker heavily relied on his stupid quirk, but as Icy-Hot took a stance, there was a dark look in his eye that challenged Bakugo's advance.

The complex fabric of Aizawa's capture scarf wrapped around his body in such a way it pinpointed all his vital areas. With a move he couldn't see, Bakugo was ripped backward through the air, pulled by the scarf, and slammed onto the ground.

Pain rocketed throughout his body and shocked him out of his instant in rage. No sooner had he hit the ground was he maneuvered to his feet again. The erasure of his quirk followed the glare from Aizawa, and he said one word, pointing towards the main building of the training ground.

"Move."

The reins of Aizawa only relaxed enough for him to walk, and his body shook violently as he did. Once the two of them reached the main building, Bakugo was pulled into an extra classroom and forced into a chair, where he was finally and completely released from the capture scarf.

Hot adrenaline pumped through his body, and he quickly stood up again, screaming as he did. He didn't know whether he felt he could let it out, or he didn't care if he did, but all he had tried to suppress, to keep inside him, came rushing out at once. He screamed a slew of curses, every one he could think of in that moment, to the point where it was nonsensical. The string ended on one word.

"Fuck. Fuck. FUCK!" He kicked aside the chair, screaming until he literally couldn't breathe.

Collapsing to the ground, he tried to regain his breath, but it caught in his lungs, and a bit of dizziness set in. When he finally sat back, his face and neck were flushed bright red.

"God dammit… What the fuck is wrong with me?" he managed, his voice hoarse.

Aizawa never took his eyes off him, but let him get it all out. After a moment or two of nothing but silence, Aizawa spoke.

"This ends here. Now." His teacher crossed his arms, and Bakugo met his eyes. "I should expel you. Send you packing. At least stop you from testing for your license next week."

Bakugo took a deep breath, his body lurching at Aizawa's words.

"Don't make me do that. I don't actually want to. You have the potential for greatness. Let go of the childish antics, and pull it together. Be better than this."

Bakugo ran a frustrated hand through his hair, his shoulder tweaking at the motion, and his thoughts circled around the one thing he'd been avoiding all week: Camie.

The sinking feeling in his gut pulled him down further, and he looked to his boots. He was overcome by a different emotion in that moment, something he'd only recognized in himself in himself once before.

Finding a strain of confidence, he attempted to roll out the tension in his shoulders. "I need to fix something…"

"What you need to do is go back to the dorms until I figure out what to do with you."

Bakugo glared up at Aizawa but backed off when he was met with a cold stare. Picking himself up off the floor, he did just that.

There was a knock at the door later that night, and Bakugo only answered when he heard Aizawa's voice come from behind it.

Bakugo crossed his arms and leaned against the door, ready for the news. He'd spent all night thinking about what it would actually mean if he got expelled. While part of him believed it wouldn't happen, he was too skeptical to think the backlash from earlier wouldn't come down on him tenfold.

Aizawa cleared his throat. "I have some business out west tomorrow evening. The train leaves at four thirty, and we will talk about your punishment on the ride home."

Bakugo narrowed his eyes a touch but nodded, fighting the tingling sensation that worked across his limbs.

Tomorrow, he would see Camie.

The second chance, all the chances he was given were not lost on Bakugo. As he walked through the school gates of Shiketsu a step behind Aizawa, he only hoped he hadn't used up all the forgiveness people had for him.

Was that why he was here? Forgiveness?

The word stirred within him.

Aizawa stopped near the faculty room. "I'll be finished with in twenty minutes."

Bakugo nodded and looked down at his phone. Camie said she would still be at school that evening for some group project, and they would have a chance to talk. After getting some stupidly muddled directions, he finally found the classroom she was in.

Heat rose on the back of his neck as he pushed open the door and saw a whole group of people there, Camie's friends among them. The moment Yuna saw him, she turned her arm into a knife and glared heavily. Camie looked up from the part of the project she was working on and adjusted the hat on her head.

Bakugo kept his composure as best he could, but the heat seemed to creep around his neck to his face. "Uh… hey."

"Hey, Bakugo," she said politely.

The use of his formal name took him more by surprise than he was expecting, and his explosive tendencies clawed at his insides. He was just "Bakugo" now.

She excused herself from the group and stepped outside of the classroom with him. "This way."

Camie took them to an empty classroom down the hall and leaned against the front desk. Bakugo closed the door behind the two of them, and the room fell into an uncomfortable silence. Silence wasn't something they usually had a lot of between them.

Breaking that silence was both necessary and daunting.

"I didn't mean what said last week," he started.

Camie, who had been fiddling with her skirt, looked up at him. She searched for sincerity; he expected a scoff. It's what he would have given her had she said it.

"Then like why say it?" Her tone wasn't mean or vengeful. There was a touch of sadness about it.

Why had he said it the way he had? He leaned towards ignoring the question but found it impossible as he met her gaze. "It was a reaction."

"A reaction," she repeated, less satisfied this time.

"Look," Bakugo said, "You aren't my weakness."

"Yeah, I knew that already—"

"But you are a distraction." If he was going to be honest, he had to get her to see it the way he did. It was the only way he could make this all right.

She paused, foregoing the quick remark she had sitting on her tongue.

He took that as a green light. "Not a bad one. A great one. Sometimes, you're all I think about."

Camie bit her lower lip, fighting a small smile.

"The problem with that is it's distracting me from my bigger goals. I want to be number one. There are a lot of people I have to get through to take that spot, you being one of them."

She nodded along briefly, moving her arms around herself in a hug.

Bakugo forced himself to meet her eyes again, though when he did, he was glad. He'd missed the light in them, how they were always observing. "What I said was out of line, and I'm sorry. But there are things I need to focus on over you. That's all."

Camie processed all he said for a moment, taking a deep breath.

"Number one, huh?" she said finally, lifting off the desk.

She took a few strides and threw her arms around him. Like habit, his hands moved to her waist, but the need to pull away from her never came.

She kissed him hard, running her hands up and down his shoulders as she did.

His stomach flipped, a feeling he wasn't sure he'd ever get used to, and the comfort there was in kissing Camie spread around his body. As their kiss came to a natural end, Camie hugged him quickly, leaning into his ear.

"When you become the number one hero, hit me up." Camie gave him a quick peck on the cheek and stepped back.

"Goodbye, Bakubabe," she said and left before he could respond.

Bakugo was left standing in the room, confused. The conversation had been so quick, so short, logic spoke out against the trip being worth it. But something else, the little inkling sitting where he shoved most of his feelings said otherwise. Seeing her had left a sense of elation throughout him.

This wouldn't be the last time he saw Camie Utsushimi, and he was okay with that.