Notes: I will admit that I think these next two chapters are on the slower side, but I couldn't skip over them. Bakugou's reaction is a lot more explosive than when I write (former) Class A's reaction in the next chapter, but I've still got some favorite parts of this. Like the compare/contrast between Bakugou and Deku in this chapter and Todoroki stealing the scene in the next one. Plus, they set up for some MAJOR confrontations chapters five, six, and seven. Oh yeah, I'm that far ahead already. Enjoy!

"I can be a hero and a villain all in one night."
― Chelsea Sedoti, As You Wish

It took longer than Uraraka wanted to admit for her to pull herself up from the ground where she'd crumpled into a ball after Deku had walked out. She could still smell him, feel the warmth of his lips on hers and the tight grip on her wrists. When she finally stood up and looked down at them, she could see the bruises already forming on them, the marks that stood out noticeably as fingers. Once she started moving though, she couldn't stop and she almost forgot the note in her haste to rush out the door.

The first person she called, just as Deku had predicted, was Bakugou, but not for the reasons that Deku had said. He thought that she needed someone to hold her up, but she'd been doing just fine on her own. However, after realizing that she'd never even asked him how he was alive, she had come to conclusion that Deku was also fixated on Bakugou. It wasn't just her. He had come out of hiding - or the villains he was working for (being controlled by?) - after being confronted with hers and Bakugou's strange friendship.

Which was something that clearly displeased him on a furious level that she didn't know what to do with. She'd never had to deal with a jealous Deku before, much less one that seemed close to spiraling into violence at the drop of a pin. All of which made Uraraka think that while Deku proclaimed to not wanting to hurt her, Bakugou was in danger. No that he'd ever think that of himself, but they knew the extent of Deku's power.

It was not something Bakugou could shrug off.

As soon as she got in her car, Uraraka called Bakugou's cell. As she waited for him to pick up, she caught a glimpse of herself in her rearview mirror and winced. She looked terrible, like she'd gone on a bender. A part of her felt like she had. She was still shaking, even if her mind had stopped screaming.

Deku was alive. He was alive. And apparently he was killing villains in her area like some sort of twisted love letter to her and also to benefit his new companions.

Bakugou finally answered, sounding grouchy as ever. "Uraraka, why the fuck are you-?"

"Where are you?" Uraraka demanded, blazing right over him in what was normally his way.

Her explosive interruption took him off guard so much that he answered, "At the agency," without hesitation. Go figure he would go out day drinking and then go right back to work the next day like it was nothing. Then he seemed to gather himself. "Why do you sound like you're a second away from losing your shit?"

Because I am losing my shit! Uraraka's mind screamed.

"I-I can't explain it over the phone," Uraraka told him. This was something that had to be said in person. Her mind was going a million miles per hour as she tried to match it with her car. She would say that she was driving like Bakugou, but Deku had always warned her about her bad speeding habit. "I'm coming there."

"What-?"

Uraraka hung on him. No sense in dragging it out over the phone. He'd get over it the second she told him what was going on. My god, who else did she have to call? Tsu for sure and then Todoroki next. She needed Tsu's straightforward mind and support and Todoroki deserved to know immediately as well. He'd seen Deku's fall into the ocean. He'd seen Deku die. He had to know that Deku was alive.

He had to know that Deku was a villain.

It took Uraraka twenty minutes too long to get to Bakugou's agency. She practically slammed into a parking spot and had barely pulled the key out of the ignition before she was bolting through the doors. The wait at the front desk to confirm her identity was unbearable, but at least Bakugou had had the foresight to warn them about her coming so they didn't have to call him. She'd been to the agency he worked at a few times, so she knew where she was going without thinking.

When she saw him, Uraraka came to a skidding halt, her entrance loud and surprising enough to catch more than a few eyes, including Bakugou's. The second his red eyes latched onto hers, she stomped towards him, giving him little time to narrow his eyes and say, "Ura-" before she grabbed him by the wrist and dragged him to the nearest room, which turned out to be a large supply closet.

"What the fuck, Uraraka?" Bakugou demanded, ripping his wrist out of her grip. He was only wearing half his hero costume, which probably meant that he wasn't actually scheduled to work but came in to do paperwork and provide backup if needed. "Do you have any idea what this looks like?" She did not - she didn't care - but all that running and panicking had caught up with her and she was trying to breathe. "For fuck's sake, you're gonna give everyone the wrong-"

"Deku is alive!" Uraraka exploded and then gasped for air again. She hadn't been ready, but she had needed to get the words out as fast as possible.

Bakugou blinked and then furrowed his brow into a deep scowl. "Are you still drunk?"

"What?" Uraraka returned his scowl. "No!"

"Well did you take something? I mean, if you're hallucinating, we should probably get you to a hospital. I can't believe that you'd be so-"

"I didn't take anything, Bakugou!" Uraraka exclaimed, absolutely furious by his assumption. Granted, it wasn't that unreasonable. She was the one spouting off that her dead boyfriend was alive. But said dead boyfriend had been in her living room a little over thirty minutes ago and she was starting to freak out. "Deku is alive! He was in my goddamn living room! He-he-"

He'd kissed her. And she'd kissed him back. Gods, she had thought she knew how much she'd missed him until that moment when he was right there, holding her, pressing his lips against hers. It had been so long that maybe she had started to forget, which ashamed her. He clearly hadn't. The passion hadn't left him one bit. If anything, the months apart where he had been very clearly not dead had intensified things for him.

Bakugou grabbed her by the arms, enough to snap her out of the daze she'd fallen into, but not hard enough to hurt her. Not hard enough to cause bruises like the ones on her wrists that she was hiding with a long sleeve shirt. She didn't even want to know how he would react to that. She didn't know how he would react to this. His eyes bore into hers with an intensity that she hadn't seen in Deku's. It made her feel sick again, Bakugou this close to her, just as Deku had been. He felt warmer. Maybe it was his quirk.

"You didn't just dream it?" Bakugou asked her, again in that uncharacteristically quiet voice from last night. "You said that you sometimes thought you saw him…"

Uraraka shook her head. "He was sitting in the chair, just waiting for me. I don't know how long he was even in my apartment. He…" Oh, great, the tears were staring to come back. Who could blame her though? It was one thing for Deku to come back from the dead; quite another for him to do that and also apparently be working for a new and improved League of Villains. "It was him, Bakugou, but it wasn't. There's something wrong with him - something wrong with his head." She forced herself to be still. "You have to believe me."

"You're not making any sense," Bakugou told her. "We saw him die almost a year ago."

"He's back and there's something wrong with him!" Uraraka exclaimed. "Fine, if you don't believe me" - she dug the note out of her pocket and held it out to him - "look at this."

It was the piece of paper that he'd written on this morning next to the breakfast he'd made her. He took it from her and looked down at it. At the top of the paper was his handwriting, Eat this!

And below it, in Deku's careful penmanship: Thanks for making Ochako breakfast, Kacchan!

There was a few seconds where Bakugou didn't react at all and she was afraid that he thought that she had faked the whole thing somehow, like she'd learned how to write like Deku and forged this note. But then he crumpled the note in his hand and she had to grab his fist to keep him from letting off an explosion and burning it. For some reason, she couldn't stand the idea of burning Deku's writing.

Bakugou raised his free hand and covered his eyes, a pained scowl on his face. "Deku - that fucking, little shit." After a while, he pulled his hand away and looked down at her. She was still holding onto his fist, leaning in close to him so that she had to tilt her head up to look at him. "He's been gone for months. Of course he's not himself. What the fuck? Where the fuck was he? What was he doing?"

Here was the kicker, the thing that Uraraka knew would amount to a kick and a punch to his gut. "He...he kept rambling on about how 'they' wouldn't let him see me." Bakugou gave her a look that said to continue and she swallowed despite her mouth being dry. "The League of Villains, Bakugou. They brought it back - and I don't know how, but they got a hold of him and...and he's a part of them."

"Are you fucking shitting me?" Bakugou snapped.

"You remember how I was telling you that it's been strangely quiet in my sector for a while?" Uraraka didn't even want to think about it. All the heroes thought that they'd just been doing a good job - that their hard work had paid off and was acting as a deterrent. Meanwhile, there had been even more violent crimes happening under their noses. Sharks eating sharks. Crimes being perpetrated to commit crimes. Her lips trembled. "He told me that he was killing villains to make me happy - to get them out of the way for me and the League."

Bakugou just stared at her like she had two heads and honestly she didn't blame him. She wasn't doing a good job at explaining things. A few minutes ago, Deku had been dead and gone and they'd gone out to mourn him on his birthday last night. Now he was alive and apparently a bad guy? Uraraka would've had trouble wrapping her head around it if not for the fact that he'd broken into her place to talk to her. Was it breaking in if he'd lived there before? His name wasn't on the lease anymore.

"Tell me everything," Bakugou said slowly, "from the beginning."

So Uraraka did, as carefully as she could. Every time she started to derail, Bakugou would stop her by either touching her hand or saying something. She told him how Deku had just said hello like it was nothing. She told him how upset Deku been over Bakugou being a part of her life, though she didn't mention how jealous he'd seemed. Maybe she had been reading into it too much. She told him everything that he'd said about the League and how he'd killed villains for her, like some twisted vigilante. She told him how Deku had said that he was never going to leave her and then-

Uraraka blushed. "And he, um, he kissed me."

"He what?" Bakugou clenched his fists.

"It's like to him nothing has changed," Uraraka said, "like he was never gone."

There was a beat where they just stared at each other and Bakugou said, "Like you're still his."

"Um, well…"

Bakugou leaned forward, putting a hand against the wall next to her head so that he towered over her and she pressed herself back against the wall. Despite him crowding her, she didn't feel threatened, not like she had when Deku had cupped her cheeks and looked her over. "Are you?"

Uraraka frowned and glared up at him. "My dead boyfriend came back to life, broke into my apartment, and told me that he's become a villain and killed people to get my attention. I don't know what the fuck I am."

That seemed to appease him or snap him out of whatever fog he was in. Bakugou pulled away from her and ran his fingers through his sandy blonde hair. It was already a mess, like usual, but him tugging at it made it worse. He didn't seem to know what to do with his hands though and he started to pace in the small space of the closet as his brain went into overdrive.

"Shit, this is… This is so fucked." Bakugou rubbed his face. "We've got to… Fuck!" He fist slammed into the door, putting a slight dent into it. Uraraka didn't flinch. "I don't know what we're supposed to do. We can't just sit on this." He turned to face her. "Have you told anyone else?"

"No," Uraraka said, "I came to you first."

Bakugou nodded. "Okay, well, we need to… Shit, should we just call everyone from our class? What's the fucking protocol for shit like this?" She didn't know, hence why she had come here to him. "We need to call Todoroki first. I'm sure you'll tell Tsuyu and Iida and I'll let Kirishima know. Fuck, this is going to be bad." He groaned. "Why couldn't Deku…?" That was a sentence he couldn't finish. "We'll get a hold of everyone - tell them we need to meet. I don't care if they're on their fucking deathbed; they better get healthy and show up. No excuses. This is some serious ass shit."

As Bakugou talked, Uraraka could only nod her head in agreement. She had known that she would be the one to call Todoroki. It was expected of her to talk to Tsuyu, but Bakugou hadn't spoken to Todoroki since Deku's funeral as far as she knew. There wasn't any need for them to stay in contact without Deku in the middle. Uraraka had tried her best, but had come to the conclusion that without Deku, there was nothing to bridge the two. Deku had been like that for a lot of people. Their group had never been the same without him. He'd been the glue.

"Uraraka, are you with me? Are you listening?"

She closed her eyes. "It was him. It was what I wanted and he…" No, she wouldn't cry again. She wouldn't. "He was so off and I was scared. I've never been scared of him before, but I knew that if I made one mistake, that would be the end of it." She brought her hands up to cover her face. "He promised he wouldn't hurt me, but-"

Without warning, Bakugou grabbed one of her hands and shoved back her sleeve. "What the fuck?" He did the same with her other wrist and then held them out so he could see the bruises as plain as day. "Did he do this?" She didn't want to admit it, but she bit her lip and he knew. "What do you call this then?" He gripped her hands tighter so she couldn't pull them away and hide the bruises again, but not tight enough where it hurt. "If this isn't hurting you-"

"He didn't mean it!" Uraraka exclaimed, knowing damn well how foolish she sounded. "It's not him!"

"He still did it!" Bakugou countered furiously.

Uraraka jerked her hands away from him and he let them slip out of his grip. Just as quickly though, despite glaring at him, she threw her arms around his middle and he pulled her into a hug. She wasn't going to cry, but she needed this. She was terrified. She didn't know what to think; she didn't know what to do. What was wrong with Deku? What had happened to him? She should have been able to save him. She should have been stronger. She should have been quicker.

"This is so fucked up," Bakugou sighed into her hair.

A mirthless laugh tumbled from Uraraka's lips. He didn't even know the half of it, but she couldn't tell him that he had to be there in order to know the full extent. She had a terrible feeling that Bakugou would find out soon enough. She didn't think this Deku was the kind to let sleeping dogs lie. That was what scared her even more.

After what was probably too long for hugging - but Uraraka had really needed it - Bakugou pulled away from her and said, "We're going to need more proof than this note."

Uraraka pondered it for a moment and then a light bulb went off in her head. "He left out the front door! I've got a security camera out there that takes pictures of everyone that gets in its view."

"You installed it like I suggested," Bakugou said, as if he hadn't actually believed she would.

She hadn't at first when he'd told her six months ago. She had thought it was stupid and pointless. But after Deku's death, all of her friends had wanted to take more precautions on protecting herself, as if Deku alone had been the deterrent for anyone to come after Uravity. She'd one it a few months ago on a whim, but so far it had only caught awkward pictures of her friends and an embarrassing amount of food delivery people.

Uraraka stared up at him. "I don't know what I'm supposed to do now."

"Shit, shit…" Bakugou pressed the heel of his palm against one of his eyes. "We need to take some time off. This shit is big. But we can't tell anyone outside our group yet. I...I don't know. Just send some messages out. I've gotta talk to my boss." He opened the supply closet door, ignoring the looks of everyone in the office, and dragged her out. He put his hands on her shoulders and looked her in the eyes. "Stay here. Don't do something stupid."

To be honest, she couldn't move if she'd tried. An overwhelming sense of nothingness threatened to wash her away in the wake of her telling Bakugou what had happened. Outside of telling their friends, she didn't know what to do. She had a feeling that Deku would find her first and that both terrified and exhilarated her. Now that he wasn't in front of her, she was desperate to pull him back and try to make him see reason, but a small part of her knew that the second she saw him, she would do no such thing. She was too scared of breaking whatever piece of him remained sane.

I should've searched for you longer, Uraraka thought desperately, even though she knew it was futile. Tsuyu had been the one to pull her away when his body had never been found despite their best efforts. They hadn't even had a body for his funeral, which made perfect sense now since he hadn't been dead.

A loud noise from the head honcho's office startled Uraraka out of her thoughts. She heard Bakugou shout, "That's not the case at all!" and then some more muffled, angry noises. Every other hero and sidekick kept shooting glances at her and then the closed door until Bakugou practically kicked the door open and stormed out, forcing them to pretend as if they were busy working.

Bakugou wasted no time in leaving, grabbing her gently by the wrist despite the tension in his body, and dragging her into the elevator as he growled, "Let's go, Round Face." There was no time for Uraraka to respond, only follow him, as she staggered into the elevator and then watched the doors shut. As soon as they were alone, he let go of her and turned to face. "Did I hurt you?"

"Huh?" Oh, the bruises on her wrist. Uraraka shook her head. "No, it's...it's fine."

"I bought us some time." Bakugou looked away. "Did you call your agency?"

Of course he was on top of things. Uraraka was having trouble figuring out what was up and what was down. As they walked out of the building, she called her agency and made up an excuse that her grandma was dying and she needed some time out of the office. The fact that her grandparents had already passed was not something that they knew, so they told her to take the time that she needed. Bakugou seemed pleased with the outcome, but there was still a grim expression on his face.

The next step was sending a group message. The two of them stood in the parking lot, debating each other about what to say, until they finally settled on something. Uraraka noted that she had more people while Bakugou stuck with the main people in his crew at school.

Meet at Bakugou's tonight at 8. Extremely important. Dire situation.

Bakugou had wanted to add that they would be fucked up if they didn't show, but Uraraka had disagreed. Already the text was too short to give an idea of what was going on, but their class was smart. They'd had texts like this sent out to them before, like Deku's location ping concerning the Hero Killer back in their first year at U.A., so everyone knew that when a mass group text was sent out like this, it was serious, especially if Bakugou was part of it. He hadn't been happy about using his place as a meeting place, but considering hers had been broken into, it was the best option.

As expected, on the way back to her apartment, Tsu called. "Ochako, what was that text about?"

"I can't explain it over the phone," Uraraka told her, rattling with nerves. She could see Bakugou's car behind her. No way was he letting her go back to her place alone to check the surveillance camera. She didn't think Deku would be there - he'd told her that he was busy and needed to go to work - but the idea of her going alone had nearly sent Bakugou off the deep end. "I just need you to be there."

"Does it...have something to do with you and Bakugou?" Tsu asked almost cautiously.

"What? No!" Well, it kind of did. Uraraka had gotten the impression that Deku wanted to make sure that Bakugou was out of the picture. How, she wasn't for sure. "Tsu, I can't talk about this right now." She closed her eyes. Weak, she was weak. She wanted to tell her best friend. "It's…it's more complicated than that."

"It's okay. I understand, ribbit." Tsu had a way of getting to the point of things that Uraraka struggled with, this being one. She accepted what Uraraka said and would wait. "I'll see you tonight."

Uraraka desperately wished everyone else could be that easy. Because they had sent a group text and both of them had been stupid enough to put each other in their texts in case one couldn't respond, her phone was blowing up. People were demanding answers, sending shitposts that she knew would piss Bakugou off, freaking out, and making wild assumptions that somehow seemed more logical than the truth.

The only time that Uraraka paid attention to it was when Bakugou sent out a text, URARAKA IS NOT PREGNANT! It had her raising her eyebrows, but no one texted after that, so it at least had the desired response. Gods, she hoped Deku couldn't get a hold of these messages. Judging from the way he'd reacted to Bakugou sleeping on her couch, the idea that she might be pregnant with his child would send Deku on a rampage.

Uraraka clenched her steering wheel tightly. She didn't know what would send Deku off the rail, but she had a bad feeling that if it had to do with Bakugou or her, it wouldn't be good. She thought to call Bakugou to tell him to hang back just in case they were being watched, but she knew that he wouldn't agree no matter what. She had a feeling that her alone time was going to be at an all time low. It would limit the chances of a hero turned villain popping up on her unannounced.

She parked reasonably slower at her apartment than she had at Bakugou's agency. He was not so slow. However, she noticed that when he got out, his eyes surveyed the area and he had his hands palm out like he was ready for a fight. Like he was waiting for Deku to pop up and to explode him. He was being cautious, she knew, but it made her feel only tired.

Deku wasn't around. He was off doing...villain work. Uraraka wouldn't have been able to say how she knew except that she did. He was a part of her, even now that she didn't wholly recognize him. She knew.

The walk up to her apartment to check on the computer that dealt with the surveillance was eerily silent. Bakugou spent the whole time looking out of the corner of her eyes while he made sure Uraraka was only one step ahead of him in case he had to grab her or something. She could tell that he was defending her and it irritated the hell out of her, but she said nothing. It was a stark difference from last night when he had carried her up the stars, his body tense but his touch soft. It was hard to believe that had been less than a day ago.

When she went to open the door, Bakugou swung an arm around her to pull her back and said, "Hold on. Let me check it first."

But Uraraka was too tired and worn thin to deal with that, so she shoved him off of her and exclaimed, "Would you stop it?" and then barrelled into her apartment with him sputtering angrily behind her. Of course there was no one in here. Deku was gone. There wasn't a single trace that he had been in here. She'd remembered to release the floating bowl right before she left, letting it fall into the sink. Sitting down at her desk, she opened up her laptop and pulled up the surveillance program.

Her heart leapt into her throat the second she found Deku's picture. Judging by the way he was looking directly in the camera, a big grin on his face and his hand held up in a friendly wave, he'd known about it and had gone out the front intentionally. It was almost a sweet picture, except for the fact that everything about it felt wrong. There was an off tilt about the way he held himself, leaning slightly to the left as if off-balance. She almost reached out to touch the screen, but then pulled her hand back.

Behind her, Bakugou stared hard at the screen. One of his hands was gripping the back of her chair so tight that his knuckles were white and he was leaning over her, his chest brushing against against her back. She felt when he growled low under his breath upon seeing the picture, but when she glanced back and up at him, there was an unreadable expression on his face. She couldn't tell what he was thinking and it made her shrink in her seat.

"He's still a damn nerd, even now," Bakugou grouched, reaching over her to print the picture. Uraraka flashed back to when Deku had done the same thing to write the note, like both had forgotten her personal space. It felt different though; her skin wasn't crawling. "It's like he's toying with us."

Even though the image felt wrong, Uraraka thought she could see hints of her Deku in him, like the real him was peeking out below the surface. It gave her hope that she could save him - or maybe she was just kidding herself. She couldn't stand the idea of giving up on him though. She felt as if she'd done it once already, accepting his death when she should've kept on looking for him. He'd been out there - who knows what being done to him in order to twist his mind - and she'd just lived her life. She'd done nothing to save him.

She wouldn't do it again. Uraraka swore that she'd go to the ends of the earth if it meant saving Deku. She didn't care what anyone else thought.