Rumpelstiltskin
"Wait- please! I-"
Ochako looked around curiously at the men ushering her into the dark, damp-smelling room. They looked like guards, locking her arms in place between them as the pleading, bedraggled man reached for her. He looked kind of like her dad? If her dad had ever been starving to the point where his elbows jutted out from the thin fabric of his sleeves.
"We shall see the worth of your words when the sun rises, miller!" Another man standing off to the side with a proud, puffed chest pointed at Ochako, a ring glittering at each of his knuckles. "You have 6 hours to turn the straw into gold!"
She stumbled into the room, barely catching herself on the opposite wall as the door shut with an audible slide of a lock.
Unlike the last place she was locked in, there were no windows or stray items that could be used to aid in her escape. It was a small room with only a flickering lantern illuminating the pile of straw and rickety spinning wheel in the middle of the wooden floor.
No, that wasn't quite right.
There was a dark spot in the corner, shifting and… breathing.
Ochako let out a shaky gasp as it approached her. Stretching at an alarming rate that threatened to overtake her if it were to go on any longer, the shadows all at once fell away to reveal a hunched Bakugo. Or, something that closely resembled him.
There were a myriad of small differences that would otherwise go unnoticed if it weren't for their strange combination. The slight upturn at the tip of his nose, the way his ears came to a point at the top, the outward bowing of his legs. It was like someone had the plans to construct a person and then fudged the details.
To her relief, his annoyed groan was ever the same. "What is this now?" He examined himself with his spindly hands, roaming over his oddly short torso with a scowl that twisted his facial features even further.
"Are you hurt?" Concerned by the purplish hues of his fingernails, Ochako gently took one of his hands in hers, effectively stopping it from pulling at his hair that was openly defying gravity and sticking straight up. She quickly let it go when he jerked back and lit his palms on fire.
"Fuck yes!" He grinned with glee, revealing all of his crooked teeth in their wiggling rows. "What about you?"
Quickly recovering from the fact that he had reacted so violently to her touch, Ochako pressed her fingers together and shook her head dejectedly when she stayed rooted to the earth. "I don't think it's technically your quirk that came back. You're not exactly… human here, Bakugo."
That didn't seem to bother him, too excited about regaining his power to care about his appearance. "Don't give a fuck. Let's blast outta here!"
"This whole place is made of wood and straw." Ochako motioned around them, being the voice of reason in the face of Bakugo's blind excitement. "What if you burn us down with it?"
He scowled and crossed his arms like a petulant child. "Why would the story give me this power if it didn't want me to use it?"
Ochako hummed in contemplation. "Can you do anything else? Like do you think you could turn the straw into gold?"
He gave her a strange look, not unwarranted as it was a strange request, but indulged her by swiping at the pile with a frown of concentration. It was hard to tell in the low visibility of the flame, but the dull yellow of the straw transformed into a shimmery sheen that could only come from precious metal.
"So this is what we gotta do to get outta this place?"
"Y-yeah, I think so." Ochako rubbed her arms in an attempt to hide her half-truth. The king did want her to conjure up the gold, that was true. But she wasn't sure how much longer she could keep up the pretense that she had nothing to do with the stories progressing.
They have already had to sacrifice their lives, declare one another as their choice for a spouse, and fallen into multiple… physical situations. Who was to say the next time wouldn't be worse? One might ask what could be worse than dying, but Ochako knew better. The whole reason why she had been resisting revealing her feelings for Bakugo was because she wanted to avoid heartbreak. But maybe that wasn't where they were headed after all.
"Actually…" She started off hesitantly, gulping when his eyes flitted to the side to look at her as he continued to work through the pile. "I kind of have an idea for leaving this place for good. Getting back home."
Bakugo tossed the strands of newly made gold to the ground and perked up in anticipation of her plan to finally leave this strange string of worlds.
"But first, umm…" Ochako twisted her hands nervously. "What…"
What do you think about me?
What am I to you?
What would you say if I told you I liked you?
"What 'what'? Spit it out!" He urged impatiently.
"W-well," She stammered out, eyes trained squarely on the crack on the floor by her right foot. "What, ah, what do you think is going on between us?"
"... What?" Ochako peeked up at the blonde to see that his mouth was hanging open, more in shock than ignorance.
Taking it as a good sign that he didn't seem completely unaware of what she was getting at, she pressed on. "I think these stories are forcing us together. So I was wondering… how much of it is… real for you…" Her voice came out incredible small by the end, but it was all she could manage.
Bakugo grit his teeth and swiped at the pile of straw, sitting back down on the floor with his back turned to her. "I don't want to talk about this." He grumbled and stubbornly devoted his attention to that task rather than engage in the conversation.
"So there is a 'this'?" Ochako asked, feeling that swell of hope fill her chest once more. Him wanting to push aside the topic could only mean there was something to avoid.
"I said I don't want to talk about it!" The straw in his fist crumbled to ashes in an instant, which might've been discouraging to most anyone else, but Ochako was never one to be easily intimidated. Otherwise, she never would've gotten close enough to Bakugo in the first place.
She approached him slowly, like the wild, unpredictable creature he was. "Because I'd like for there to be." Crouching beside Bakugo, his shoulders blades raised and tense like a hidden pair of wings ready to unfurl at a moment's notice to whisk him away, Ochako leaned forward to try and read his face. "A this. Us."
"You're just saying that because of this fucked up book. Once we ditch this place, you'll go back to normal." He spat out bitterly.
This was it. This was her chance.
"You mean the normal where I was already crazy for you?"
Ochako couldn't stop the small smile from forming on her face. She had dreaded this moment for so long, struggling to bury her feelings down, that she never once stopped to consider that bringing it to light might actually be a joyous occasion. Like sunlight glinting off a long hidden treasure.
Though, it might as well have been some kind of supernova imploding the earth by the way Bakugo seemed to have stopped breathing.
"Bakugo?" Ochako placed her hand on his bicep to gently shake him. "Are you ok?"
"You…" He croaked out, removing her hand from his arm by the wrist. "You like me?"
Ochako slipped out of his grasp to thread their fingers together. "I do." She squeezed, hoping he'd know how sincere she was being. Not just because she wanted this to work so they could get out of this place, but because now that she let it out, she couldn't imagine holding back anymore. "A lot. And it's ok if you don't like me back-"
"If I don't like you back? Are you blind or just an absolute idiot?"
"E-excuse me?" Ochako tried to pull back her hand, but was tugged back immediately. His words were so biting and overbrimming with frustration that it was hard not to interpret it as meant for her.
"How could you not see what a fucking wreck I've been this entire time?"
"You? A wreck? What about me?"
"What the hell are you talking about? I put my mouth on you!"
"Because you were a wolf and you were hungry! Me on the other hand, I've been practically throwing myself at you at every opportunity! Look at what happened in the bed!"
"If that's considered hunger, then I've been fucking starving all-" He snarled before stopping abruptly like a hiccup. "You did that on purpose?"
"Ummm, kind of? Like I didn't plan to, but I did?" Embarrassed to have to explain herself, Ochako almost didn't catch what he'd said right before. "Wait. Were you about to say that you feel like… eating me all the time?"
The couple were now nose to nose, close enough to feel the heat radiate off their reddened cheeks. Ochako's wide eyes flickered down to his lips and she could swear he did the same. But before she could confirm what her hazy brain might have seen, he dissolved into the shadows, gripping her calf with just enough pressure to root her to the earth one moment, and gone the next.
Left alone in the dim, eerily quiet room with thousands of golden shards surrounding her, Ochako gasped to herself.
He liked her!
Not only that, he desired her.
No wonder Bakugo ran away. He wasn't known for avoiding confrontation, but this was one he couldn't have possibly prepared for. Ochako was lucky in that she got to choose how and when to share how she felt. She never could have imagined that in the process, she'd be taking away his choice as well.
"Time's up!" She jumped at the voice accompanied by the abrasive knock at the door, stepping backwards at the king's entrance and wincing when her heels hit the wall.
"Let's see if you truly made good on your dear old father's promise." The king took in the sight of the room greedily, fingers wiggling gleefully at the substantial amount of gold scattered across the dirt floor. "I had hoped to punish him for his hubris, but this… is truly a talent to be rewarded."
Ochako had hardly had a couple minutes of interaction with this man, but she could confidently say she didn't want any kind of reward from him.
"You shall marry my firstborn son!" The man gestured half-heartedly to the door to usher the prince forward, eyes still trained on his newfound riches.
According to the pattern of these stories, it should've been Bakugo who appeared. But instead of a broad-shouldered, self-assured, blonde who she wouldn't have entirely minded claiming as a husband again, a brunette boy with the same bulbous nose as his father and an altogether scrunched demeanor came into view.
No, this couldn't be. "I won't! You can't make me!"
"You can't defy me. I own you and this entire kingdom!" And with a flourish of his fur-trimmed cape, he left with a hoard of guards trailing behind, dutifully listening to his cackling plans for the gold.
"Please!" Ochako hurried to the prince, who looked at her timidly, and infinitely more kindly than his predecessor. "We don't even know each other! We can't marry!"
"I'm sorry, I can't go against my father. He expects a child, an heir, in the upcoming year." Even his voice was meek. "And there's only one being powerful enough to defeat him."
"Then let's go find this… being!"
"He can only be evoked by name, that's how you call him into a deal with you. But no one knows it."
There was no doubt about it, it had to be Bakugo.
He was no longer human and had incredible powers, including one that had already impressed the King, though he didn't know it. Bakugo could stop this awful deal from happening.
But in order to do that, she would have to call on him by name.
"I know his name." Ochako tried to stand up taller, as if she wasn't feeling her bones turn to jelly at the thought of calling Bakugo so intimately.
"He trusted you with his name?" The prince looked at her in a mixture of awe and fear.
It wasn't exactly trust that gave her the opportunity to learn his name. But she sure was banking on it now, trusting, hoping, he wouldn't mind her using it for the sake of them getting through this story.
She also wondered if there would be a way to ask if she could keep using it afterwards.
"Take me to the King. We're going to stop this."
Rather than lead her to the throne room, the prince remained a few steps behind her, guiding with a small, nervous voice and shaky fingers in the right direction. After leaving the cell, trekking across the palace grounds, and winding through seemingly endless halls, they arrived at an expansive room similar to when Ochako chose Bakugo as her husband a couple stories ago.
Hopefully he'd play along again like he did that time.
"I see you're here to discuss the wedding preparations! You women are so predicta-"
"There will be no such thing." Ochako took satisfaction in the king's dumbstruck face, having rarely been interrupted. "I demand you release me, and your son, from this arrangement."
"You demand?"
"Or you will meet your end."
"You have no power here!"
"Perhaps not. But I call on Katsuki Bakugo!"
As soon as the name left her lips, like a bird taking flight into an endless sky, he shimmered into the space in front of her. His chin tapered off at a sharp point and his eyebrows sat atop a prominent ridge, but it was still Bakugo, simmering with rage under the strange, physical form.
"I'm sorry for using your name." Ochako reached out to make sure he knew how important this was, before remembering how well, or not well, the last time she touched him turned out. "But I need your help."
His oddly wide-set eyes scanned the room for dangers, body releasing most of the tension when he didn't find any visible threats. "You could take any of these shitty fighters on. Whaddya need me for?"
Her immense gratitude towards his faith in her abilities sent goosebumps prickling down her arms. "The King is trying to marry me off to his son so we can produce a child. Do you think you coul- oh. Alright."
It turned out that was enough information for him, because Bakugo immediately whirled around to lift the king out of his seat in an inhuman burst of speed. "Call off the marriage or I bring this whole fucking castle to the ground. Now."
"Y-y-you're- I will not be commanded by a-a-a demon! I am KING!"
"Not anymore, fuckstick!" Bakugo stomped wildly, producing cracks with every slam of his foot until the ground opened up into a chasm that swallowed the red-faced man futilely clutching onto his sinking throne.
By the time his wails had died down, the room was empty of his guards, servants, and the prince. No one was present to hear Bakugo cackle and yell out, "Bow down before your new king!"
Only Ochako remained, laughing at how fitting the role looked on him. He didn't need any fancy garments, a crowd of followers, or even a crown. Even as a demonic gremlin creature, he knew how deserving he was of this esteemed position.
"Oi, Uraraka!"
Ochako wiped away the moisture collecting around her eyes from laughing so hard and cleared her vision in time to see Bakugo descending from the steps that used to lead up to the throne, hand outreached for something.
"Hmm?" She breathed slowly through the cramping in her stomach.
"You wanna be my queen?"
Speechless, Ochako approached him slowly as the familiar, sparkling lights appeared around them. But even as it overtook their surroundings, it paled in comparison to the brilliant shine of the smile on Bakugo's face when she accepted his hand.