Reunion
The Doctor counted nearly 6 minutes until either hero in her sick lab moved.
5 minutes and 47 seconds, to be exact.
347 seconds.
In those 347 seconds, a lifetime of thoughts swirled around either hero, and for 347 seconds, neither knew how to process it.
"Everyone loves Uraraka,"
Bakugo remembered Kirishima saying that once, and remembered Midoriya saying he didn't really know her that well if Bakugo thought everyone loved her.
He guessed that was kind of true to an extent, but he didn't really know what Midoriya and Uraraka had been through in order for him to make such a statement. The kind of love Midoriya had for Uraraka couldn't have been like this, there was just no way.
But maybe love was a relative thing. Maybe it had different properties based on the user, maybe the terms and conditions were highlighted differently for each reader. Whatever it was, Bakugo was sure no one would ever love her like this. Like he did. Whatever she did to him and Keigo weeks ago, whatever she said on their dates he couldn't really remember, it was all surface-level bullshit. Aside from all that mess and drama and total lack of adult communication, Bakugo kind of realized that in this period of almost three months, Uraraka was the most human person he had met, and he went to school with her for 3 years.
Everyone loved her because no one had the guts to be like her. No one wanted to wake up on a Monday and slap on a happy face just to get kicked in the stomach 2 hours later. No one wanted to look their best and smile for the city of Tokyo just for its citizens to turn around criticize every fiber of their being. No one wanted that shit, but Uraraka did it every day. She sat there in the conference room and made blunt statements, sometimes out of pure curiosity, sometimes out of boredom. She had unflattering hero pictures on the internet, and once one of her 'Uravity' toys had to be recalled once her fans realized the bodysuit she was known for could be taken off the doll. No one had shit like that happen to them, and the way she handled it among other things let Bakugo know that she was in fact, just another person like he was.
He admired that about her, that and her physical attributes.
But right now, she didn't look like that woman everyone loved. She was tired, half-insane, worn-down, and on the verge of losing it all. It took him 347 seconds of thought to come to the conclusion that this was the most accurate reflection of who he knew her to be, and Midoriya's statement had finally clicked.
Now that he did know her, he didn't think he'd ever forget her.
"He's not that bad, Bakugo, I mean,"
Tsu's words rang through Uraraka's head as she wavered, trying to stand still. She kind of remembered Kirishima giving her the same notion that the benefit of doubt was needed when dealing with someone like Bakugo, but she didn't really know why.
She didn't really like to give people the benefit of doubt in all actuality, it was kind of an excuse for the shitty things that shitty people did. For a long time, Bakugo was one of those shitty people who did shitty things in their free time.
The benefit of doubt was kind of strange however, because Uraraka was nice enough to give people a second glance after the first impression wore off, even if she didn't really like to do so. And under the impression that Bakugo was a hot-headed, foul-mouthed, insane barbarian posing as a hero, Uraraka really doubted he was anything more or less complex.
Maybe first impressions were a trashy way to judge people, she thought. Was Bakugo all of those aforementioned things? Yes, and nothing short of it. But did that mean that was all there was to him? No, not really. Uraraka kind of figured that when the tough guy act thinned out on their dates she couldn't get out of her head, or when he showed hints of rationality when it felt like her world was falling apart. The complexity of his character was something different, something weird, something...authentic.
Uraraka supposed everyone hated Bakugo because everyone wanted to be Bakugo. Everyone wanted a super flashy, super versatile quirk. Everyone wanted to be the top of the class, recruited at the finest agencies, and be a mentee to the old #3 hero in their first year of high school. And Bakugo did that, with little to no hiccups in his way. Everything he wanted, he got it, and on his own terms at that. What made him realer than most over-achievers was that he kind of didn't give a shit after the achievement was achieved. He already knew he was going to do it, and the thin line between cockiness and extreme self-awareness was something no one could ever distinguish with him. When Uraraka compared her multiple failures to his miniscule ones, she could admit she felt a bit smaller. But with someone like Bakugo, you either had to work harder or admit you just sucked ass.
That was an admirable trait, she couldn't deny.
But right now, she could see his failures, his abandoned dreams, his failed hopes. She could the part of himself he so desperately tried to overcompensate for, the side of himself that made sense why he competed with Midoriya for most of his adolescence. 347 seconds later, she realized:
Tsu was kind of right, he wasn't all that bad. He was trying.
It had been 360 seconds now.
6 whole minutes.
Somewhere in those 13 seconds, they found each other.
1 second for their brains to yell at them to move.
5 seconds for them to actually feel their bodies pulling at each other like opposing magnets.
Another 7 seconds for them to cross the seemingly endless void that had once been a one-way mirror.
The Doctor watched them collide, no words, no crying, no ragged breathing. Just two bodies that smacked together, and collapsed shortly after. Their weak bodies just laid there, trying to decide if this was reality, or just an extension of the infinite nightmare they had endured for the past week. Either adult expected themselves to be ripped apart at a moment's notice, and with each second passing that confirmed this was reality, they held each other tighter.
For a reunion, the Doctor expected it to be emotional for them, not for her.
"Are you...crying, Ma'am?" SoothSayer asked from behind her. The Doctor quickly swiped her eyes, and turned around. In her emotional state of being, she slightly pressed the button that released all the doors in the lab, meaning to shut off her monitor systems. She reached back again to shut them off, neither villain realizing what she had done, then she stood tall before the SoothSayer.
"What?! No, I was not crying you old bag! What are you doing here?!" She yelled, completely caught off guard. She looked down at the older man, who was holding two petri dishes brimming with moving flesh.
"In your absence Ma'am, I took it upon myself to finish the job you started." He grinned slowly, pushing the moving blobs towards her. "While you were busy playing matchmaker, I was playing God." He said lowly.
The Dcotor backed away a few steps, bumping into her systems. "W-What are those things?" She asked him. Looking closer at the blobs, she found tiny hairs and even a small eye twitching on one.
"I took their flesh." SoothSayer started eagerly. "When you drugged them and they passed out, I took samples. I grew them myself, the way you taught me." He smiled.
"What...?" The Doctor breathed out.
"They're the children." He whispered. "Twins, dare I say."
The blobs twitched around, growing sentience with every passing second.
"We have to get out of here." Uraraka spoke first. She lay on top of Bakugo after running into him, the past few minutes spent taking in each other's presence. Her mind turned back on like a switch had been flipped, and she was desperate for escape.
"We have to kick ass," Bakugo croaked out, his heart set on vengeance for witnessing the breakdown of Uraraka. Uraraka, on the otherhand, wanted to escape as soon as possible and let someone like Keigo handle it, witnessing the breakdown of the man below her.
"We need to leave, look," She said. She weakly pointed at the now open door, and tried to lift herself up.
"It's an invitation to getting us killed." Bakugo peered at the door as best as he could.
"Well...how else are we gonna exact revenge if we don't leave this shit-hole?" Uraraka rolled off of him and slowly stood, using the nearby wall to steady herself. Bakugo looked at the woman standing above him clearly worn-out and burnt-out, standing as proud as she did going into any other mission. This prompted him to stand despite his aching body screaming at him to keep lying down, and he threw her arm around his shoulder to support her.
"...I guess you're fucking right, Cheeks." He sighed.
They hobbled outside of the isolation chambers to find many of the lab doors open, people of all shapes and quirks running around half-dead or completely insane. They ducked past the extremely violent, and looked pitifully at the ones so out of it they couldn't move, and took in the scene before them.
"There's no way that psycho Doctor did this willingly," Bakugo said lowly, coming to the conclusion these were all patients loose. Nurses ran around, trying and failing to capture all of their volatile subjects.
"Right..which means we find our way out and get Keigo." Uraraka breathed out. Something about that statement made Bakugo tense, and he grabbed her tighter.
"No, it means we fight and take care of this shit on our own. We have the advantage here, Ochako." He demanded.
"What advantage, Katsuki? I can't even use my quirk without falling out, and I'm pretty sure you've passed your limit already. We need help." She pleaded. Bakugo looked down at her, and he thought to himself, This isn't the woman I know. He sighed and took her face in the midst of pure chaos, and looked her square in the eyes.
"Uravity never needs help. I told you to never concede a while ago, and I fucking meant it. Got that?" He said bluntly. Uraraka looked at him for as long as the moment would allow, and swallowed whatever was left in her dry throat.
"Kat-" Bakugo cut her off immediately before she could spew and sort of self-doubt.
"No buts, Cheeks. Now get yours out there, and show me why I love you."
A recovered Midoriya stood beside Hawks back at the agency, watching the two dots they came to know as Bakugo and Uraraka move around what they still assumed to be their apartment. After a week of send a team to scout out the entire apartment, Keigo had come to a near last resort asking Midoriya to help him figure out the location of their teammates.
A week of no sleep, shitty coffee, and 24/7 monitoring of 2 dots he honestly thought were dead at one point, Keigo slammed his hands against the desk in abrupt realization, feathers flying out everywhere.
"What is It?!" Midoriya exclaimed.
"You healed enough?" Keigo asked him quickly, throwing on his coat.
"What-"
"Doesn't matter. Get ready to mobilize in 20. I know where they are."