She wouldn't have noticed him at all if her coworker hadn't pointed it out to her.
"Look, look! He's here again."
"Who?"
Akari, her coworker pointed a blonde man out to her. He looked vaguely familiar but Tsuyu couldn't place him.
"He shows up every other Thursday, and he spends most of the afternoon sitting around, doing nothing. At first, I thought he was dating one of the girls, but nobody knows him. So now I think maybe he likes someone here but is too shy to say something, which I don't understand why since he's so handsome." Akari whispered excitedly and Tsuyu watched him, trying to figure out why he didn't seem like a stranger.
"Why do you think he has to like someone? Maybe he likes the animals." Tsuyu shrugged. Akari had a bad habit of obsessing over romance and office gossip.
"No normie would like fish so much to come here five weeks in a row." Akari stared at Tsuyu skeptically, and the green-haired woman shrugged. It wasn't her business, and she didn't want to pry into a guest's personal life.
Tsuyu continued with her rounds, supervising the well-being of their guests and the wildlife. She liked walking around the aquarium in the afternoons, since sitting around in her office all day was too stifling for her.
As she circled the room, she couldn't help but be mindful of the blonde guest, and her eyes kept going back to him. It was only once she got a good look at his face that she realized who he was: the strange man who bumped into her and asked her about orcas.
Satisfied that the mystery was solved, Tsuyu was ready to move on to their artificial coral room when her eyes rested upon a couple. The woman looked uncomfortable and the man looked angry. She had seen situations like that a few times, a date went wrong, an argument over anything. She believed that she shouldn't intervene in other people's business, but there was something about the way the girl hugged herself and the closed fist of the man that made her wary.
Tsuyu started walking towards them, wondering if she could distract and defuse well enough when the blonde man beat her to it. He rudely bumped into the man, drawing his attention. Tsuyu rushed over, afraid the situation would escalate as the two men stared each other down. However, before her eyes the once aggressive man turned soft and walked away, seemingly afraid. The girl followed him looking shocked, and Tsuyu looked at their blonde regular.
His glare was intense fire and his scowl promised hell, yet Tsuyu was not afraid of him. Despite how angry he looked, she felt deep down he had no intention of harming anyone there.
"Are you alright?" Tsuyu asked him, drawing his attention to her. He turned the glare on her, but it immediately softened, leaving only warmth yet no fire.
"Uh yeah." He brought his hand to his hair, shuffling his already messy hairstyle.
"Please don't go picking fights with other guests." Tsuyu playfully scolded him and he scoffed, shoving his hands into his pockets.
"A fight? A weakling like him couldn't beat me if I was asleep."
Tsuyu raised an eyebrow at his self-confidence, but as she looked at him properly, she realized his words rang true. Beneath his shirt were strong, well-defined muscles, framed by wide shoulders and strong legs. She could agree with Akari's assessment, this man was extremely handsome and could have anyone he wanted.
"I should head off, my shift starts soon. See you around, Asui." He turned around to leave, but Tsuyu reached out and grabbed his arm. His eyes trailed down to where her hands wrapped around his wrist and widened.
"How do you know my name?" She wasn't about to let some stalker besmirch her workplace.
"It's on your badge. Asui Tsuyu, a marine biologist." He pointed towards her chest and Tsuyu suddenly felt silly. Blushing she let him go, apologizing for her mistake. "I'm Bakugo. Bakugo Katsuki." He blurted out. Tsuyu looked at him and nodded, watching him leave with an odd feeling inside her.
Since then Bakugo's presence was impossible to ignore. He always appeared every other Thursday, arriving and leaving at exact times, like clockwork. His position in the aquarium changed every time, but every time their eyes met, he sent her a small smile.
Not one to be shy, sometimes Tsuyu sat with him, chatting about the different species of marine life that surrounded them, which he always listened to intently, occasionally asking questions and clarifications in obscure terms or strange characteristics. Within a month, Bakugo quickly became Tsuyu's favorite person in Tokyo.
.
.
.
Bakugo unceremoniously kicked open the door, striding in without a care for the meeting he had just interrupted. Todoroki Shoto fixed him with an annoyed glare, but Bakugo didn't care. He would be part of this mission no matter what.
"Dynamight-san? What are you doing here?" One of Todoroki's sidekicks asked him, and Bakugo crossed his arms.
"I'm going to be part of this operation. Continue the briefing." He sent Todoroki a serious look, and the scarred man nodded once, understanding that this was important.
Once the meeting was over, they talked silently to each other as they stood by the window, watching their target. Behind them, the hustle of people running around obfuscated their talk.
"Why are you here?" Todoroki knew Bakugo well enough to understand there was something more to this. He usually respected the hero agency's divisional borders, especially Deku's and Todoroki's.
"I'm a fan of the place." Bakugo's face didn't possess a frown, glare, or scowl. He was completely serious.
The moment he heard that terrorists had infiltrated the Tokyo aquarium holding guests and staff hostage, he set off immediately. He was a top 3 national hero, nobody would reject his help, and there was no way he wasn't storming that place.
His relationship with Tsuyu was progressing slowly, but it was evolving into something far beyond a simple attraction to a pretty girl. He genuinely enjoyed spending time with her, listening to her talk about the things she liked, smiling at her poor jokes, and admiring her pragmatic views. He hadn't yet shared his hero identity with her, but he wanted to, it simply hadn't come up yet.
"Be honest. We're friends." Todoroki chastised Bakugo a little, and the explosive man sighed.
"There's someone important to me that works there," Bakugo admitted. Todoroki nodded and took out his phone, quickly calling someone. Bakugo frowned in confusion but recognized the voice that picked up. "Midoriya, we need you at the aquarium."
It was perhaps overkill, to unite the top three national heroes for the rescue mission. Just one of them was plenty, but the three together was bad news for the enemies.
"The hostages are being held on the first floor here. Most of the terrorists are concentrated here, with a large pile of c4." the intel was provided by someone with x-ray vision.
"I'll secure the hostages. You two can handle the rest. I'll guide them to this back entrance here." Bakugo pointed towards the service exit, where he had met Tsuyu for the first time.
"Sounds good." Deku and Todoroki agreed, and they set a ten-minute timer.
As Bakugo made his way to the rooftop, he felt his heart beating fast. He hadn't been this nervous since he was a high schooler. In a way, he felt that this was the most important mission he had partaken in in a really long time. With the help of a small explosion, he blew open the lock of the rooftop door, gaining entrance to the aquarium.
Todoroki and Deku would storm the terrorists in three minutes, and Bakugo could only anxiously make his way to where the hostages were. He thanked his familiarity with the place, which allowed him to sneak through undetected, but he frowned when he noticed that there were a couple more enemies around the hostages than he expected.
"This one here tried to be a little hero." One of the men kicked a hostage, who was tied down to the floor. "Maybe we should make an example out of you, huh? Show those heroes we're serious. What do you think they'll do if we kill you in front of them?"
Bakugo narrowed his eyes, his muscles tightening in anger and preparation. The palms of his hands were already smoking, but he hadn't heard the signal yet.
The terrorist bent down to grab the hostage he had been talking about, and as the man shifted to the side and leaned down, Bakugo could clearly spot the familiar green hair, which was tinged with blood.
At that moment Bakugo became the devil incarnate. He was white fury and hot rage, and his prey was marked. The agreed plan was gone from his mind, replaced only with the desire to destroy and hurt.
He ran forwards, arms flying forward to take hold of the shocked terrorist. His attack was so sudden, the man's comrades barely had time to react before Bakugo's sinister smile blossomed.
"Die, scum." He growled. Bakugo knew his quirk was destructive and could genuinely hurt people, but this time the occasional guilt he felt whenever he used it against another human was gone. He released all the fear, anger, and frustration on them, hurting them, making them feel the same fear he had.
Once he was finished he could hear the familiar sounds of others fighting nearby, but his mind was still not in the plan. Kneeling next to her, he helped her sit up, taking note of her appearance. Her nose was bleeding, she had several cuts around her arms and face, and her white shirt held the footprint of the man that kicked her.
She blinked slowly at him, and he feared a head injury.
"You ok? Can you stand?" Concern laced his voice. She nodded slowly, and he tried helping her up, but her legs trembled too much for his sensibilities. Looking at the other hostages, he remembered the agreement he had with Todoroki and Deku.
Bakugo slowly eased Tsuyu back into a chair, and returning to the other hostages, he began undoing their ties. "Alright people, help each other up, I'm taking you all to safety." Confident that they would be able to stand and move, he returned to her side, gently picking her up in his arms. "Let's go, follow me, stay quiet."
Bakugo led them through the maintenance hallways to the cargo exit, keeping a nervous eye for threats. Tsuyu rested limply in his arms, and he couldn't help but fear that she had been seriously hurt. When he saw the door to the cargo exit, he began to accelerate his step. Without caring for the door, he kicked it open, startling Todoroki's sidekicks, who were all waiting for them.
Ignoring all of them, he headed straight for the parked ambulance, where paramedics were waiting.
"She was injured by the fuckers. I suspect a concussion, maybe some internal damage, I don't know, but she needs to be rushed to a hospital immediately." He deposited Tsuyu on top of the makeshift cot inside the vehicle.
"Dynamight-san!" One of Todoroki's sidekicks called to him, and he frowned.
"What?" He asked brusquely. Bakugo wanted to make sure Tsuyu made it to the hospital, not hear some stupid report he didn't care about.
"Reports indicate that Deku-san has been injured in battle and Shoto-san is struggling to fight them all by himself." The sidekick looked terrified by the glare that Bakugo sent him. Growling, he stepped off of the ambulance, fixing his gloves around his arms.
"You! Make sure she gets to the hospital and is treated urgently or I will break all your bones. Twice." Bakugo pointed a menacing finger to the shaky sidekick. Next to him, the paramedics began sweating. Everyone in the business was well aware of Dynamight's infamous temper tantrums but experiencing it first hand was still the subject of nightmares.
Bakugo began running back to the Aquarium and jumped, taking flight. He knew the main room had a glass ceiling and he'd enjoy getting a literal drop on his enemies. They had hurt the one person he cared about in this world, and he'd personally make sure none of them ever saw the light of the sun again.