Limerence
(Fall)

More time passes, as it's apt to do. The sticky somnolence of summer fades into the cool crispness of autumn, and the world itself heaves a sigh of relief.

It's frighteningly appropriate. Autumn is a season of transience, the liminal space between summer and winter, and Katsuki too feels as though trapped in a state of flux. If asked, he couldn't put a finger on what it is that doesn't sit quite with him. He's still at UA, so he's not stuck between UA and America quite yet. His resolve remains strong and unbroken, and yet …

And yet.

And yet something slipped into place that night, the hot August night he spilled part of his soul to Uraraka as they bathed in the washed-out light of the TV. Part of his soul, but not all, as there were – and still are – things that he can never – and will never – tell her.

His feelings are a distraction, after all, and they're a distraction he doesn't need to put on her as well.

But that doesn't change the fact that things have changed between them. At least, hyperaware of her as he is, he thinks they have. He's sure they have.

She pairs up with him for partner work just as often as she does Iida nowadays, be it for academics or training exercises. She sometimes sits with him and Eijirou at lunch. Her eyes seek his when they're all hanging out in the common area of the dorms, and she's always there with a quick rejoinder to his remarks.

He suspects she's been using him as a crutch since losing Deku to Half n' Half. He has to admit, it's convenient – after all, there's no one else Deku is less likely to be around. It pisses him off, but he doesn't really mind it. It's a contradiction in and of itself, but how can he bring himself to care when it means she's paying attention to him? She's paying attention to him, and he basks in the attention in a way he probably shouldn't.

But he's Bakugou Katsuki, and no one tells him what he should and should not do – least of all himself.

"Bakugou, did you get those reports turned in? If not, you should get that done soon."

Katsuki looks up from his desk to see Edgeshot's secretary, Barricade, looking down at him. He glances back at his computer with its word document pulled up to the front. Right, he had been working on the write-up of his latest villain encounter before he had gotten lost in thought.

"I'm almost done," he growls, hitting a few keys forcefully. "I'll have them done in an hour, at the latest."

"Awesome. Thank you!" the woman chirps, and Katsuki grits his teeth. It's been a long day already, what with school and all, and he's not in the mood to deal with the woman's cheeriness.

She walks away, and he types out a sentence with a sigh. He knows that documentation and paperwork is an important part of hero work, and that means he'll write the best reports out of everyone here, but he hates it. There is absolutely nothing more tedious than paperwork.

Clackity-clack clack clack.

His phone buzzes against his leg, and it pulls his attention away from the reports again. He glances up to make sure Barricade has truly moved on before pulling it from his pocket. It's not that they're not allowed to use their phones during work, but he did just promise to have the reports done in an hour.

… They can wait another few seconds.

Katsuki's heart threatens to leap out of his throat when he sees it's Uraraka who texted him, even though that's something they do now. Apparently. It's been months, and it's still weird – until now, the only people he had texted on a regular basis were Eijirou and his dad. But Uraraka had gotten his number from Eijirou shortly after That Night, and opened with some bullshit about how if he was gonna tell her about America, he'd have to get used to texting.

He didn't, and still doesn't, have the heart to tell her that he's really not planning on keeping touch with anyone once he leaves, save for maybe Eijirou. He won't be able to move on while he's still tied to the past, and that's the whole point of going to America in the first place.

But he's greedy and selfish and he'll take what he can get, so he continues to text her like there could actually be something between them.

Of course you didn't have trouble with it, the text reads, you're you.

You're you.

You're you.

She's only talking about the English test they'd had in Present Mic's class that morning, but his mind fixates on those two words. 'You're you.' He's dying to ask what she means by it.

He doesn't.

I'm sure you did just fine, he replies instead. Now fuck off, I have to finish this report in an hour.

Her reply is instantaneous. Good luck!

Distantly, Katsuki wonders what she's doing with Thirteen today. Is she also stuck in the doldrums of paperwork? Or is she having more fun than he is? He wants to ask, but he does still have some semblance of self-control.

So instead, he rolls his eyes and shoves his phone back into his pocket at the same time he shoves his heart back into its designated spot in his chest. Speaking of self-control, he really needs to get all … this under control before it gets somebody killed.

Namely, himself.

But that's neither here nor there, and he quietly resigns himself to a dull afternoon of paper-pushing.

The grass is always greener on the other side.

In the midst of the battlefield, Katsuki almost misses the paperwork. Almost. The adrenaline rushing through his veins and his quirk pulsing through his hands is a heady feeling he wouldn't trade for the world, but at least when he's doing paperwork he doesn't have to worry about his fuck-ass friends getting hurt.

"Ground Zero!" Uraraka's voice rings though his earpiece. "Behind you!"

He whirls around, an explosion already crackling in his palm. It catches the villain in his dumbfuck face, blasting him clear down the road. The villain struggles to push himself up, but collapses back onto the abused concrete and doesn't move.

Katsuki looks up, squinting at Uraraka's figure silhouetted against the sun. The small jets on her gauntlets and boots fire occasionally, keeping her stabilized. He grins at her, tosses her a jaunty salute in thanks, and bounds off to formally subdue the villain before he can get distracted.

He looks back at her once he has the cuffs on the guy. She settles atop of one of the nearby high-rises and releases her quirk, granting herself a brief reprieve as she watches the fights in the streets. She's beautiful, up there on the roof. No, that's not the right word. Majestic, perhaps. She watches over the fight in the streets like she's their guardian angel, untouchable and peerless, and yet …

… and yet he knows she's frustrated to all hell about not being down there with them.

He rips his gaze away. Truth be told, Katsuki isn't even a hundred percent sure about what's going on. Edgeshot's agency got a call a few hours ago about a large-scale villain attack, and here they are. From what he overheard Edgeshot and some of the other pros saying, even they're not entirely sure what the purpose of this attack is.

But either way, it's their job to stop it.

"Ground Zero," Edgeshot says, materializing next to him. "You're with me. Come."

Katsuki hands the subdued villain off to the authorities, then makes to follow the pro. "What's the situation?" he asks. "Do we know anything else yet?"

"Their goal appears to be to create as much chaos as possible," Edgeshot replies. "We have reason to suspect that they are just a distraction, and we're working to ascertain what the true threat is."

"Ten thousand yen says it's the League," Katsuki growls. His palms crackle at the thought. "They've been too fucking quiet."

"Be still," Edgeshot chides him gently. "You are not the first to suggest the possibility, and I would not bet against you."

Katsuki bridles against the reprimand, one that he's heard far too often in the two years he's been interning with the Ninja Hero. "So what are we still doing hanging around here?" he demands.

Edgeshot shoots him a level look. "Our assignment has not changed. We are to protect Nabu City – Endeavor, Hawks, and Mirko are looking into the League of Villains."

Of course Deku would get to go after the League while he's stuck here on cleanup duty. But hero work is hero work, he tries to tell himself. What he's doing is just as important as what Deku is doing.

It doesn't help.

"We've got movement," Uraraka's voice breaks into his ear again. Edgeshot pauses as well, so she must be on the wideband channel that broadcasts to all the heroes in the area. She names a street a couple blocks over. "Two villains, one woman and one man. The man appears to be elastic and the woman looks like she starts earthquakes when she steps. There are a few civilians in the area – I'll be on standby to help get them out."

"Copy, Uravity," Katsuki hears Edgeshot reply, although it doesn't come through his earpiece. "We've got it. You're our eyes in the sky now that we've lost Hawks – keep up the good work."

Katsuki sees her nod up in the distance. "Edgeshot and Ground Zero have it covered," she states over the wideband.

Edgeshot turns to him. "Well," he says, "you heard her. Let's go."

Katsuki doesn't need to be told twice. He's off like a rocket, and Edgeshot zips along beside him. Together, it doesn't take them long to reach the street where the villains are.

Two years ago, he would have rushed in without taking more than a moment's heed of the situation. In his time with Edgeshot, he has learned to take a little longer and analyze the scene before him. What he loses in time, Edgeshot had told him once, he makes up for in lack of stupid mistakes.

Katsuki takes this advice with a grain of salt, but that's neither here nor there.

Uraraka was right. One man is indeed extremely bendy, and one woman causes the ground to shake with every step she takes. She stomps hard, and rubble begins to fall from the buildings around them. The civilians cower, and Katsuki knows that Earthquake Bitch is their first priority.

"I've got Earthquake," he growls. "You get Bendy Straw."

He's insubordinate: an intern – not even a sidekick – doesn't usually give orders to a pro. But he's worked with Edgeshot for two years, and they know each other pretty well by now. When Edgeshot doesn't countermand him, he knows he's been given the green light.

"Keep your wits about you," Edgeshot warns him, and then he's gone. Bendy Straw yells out in pain, and that's Katsuki's cue.

He needs to get Earthquake's feet off the ground.

"Hey! Earthquake Bitch!" he cries out as he blasts himself down the street. "Eyes on me!"

That pulls her attention away from the civilians cowering before her, and they scramble away. One limps slightly, like he sprained his ankle.

"Uravity, three civvies heading your way. Uninjured save for an ankle, the fucker."

"Copy," Uraraka replies. "Prepare for extraction."

He sees her floating in his peripheral vision, but he keeps his gaze locked on Earthquake Bitch. She opens her mouth to say something, but he never finds out what. He isn't here to talk. He's here to win.

And save, but mostly win.

She stomps her foot, but he's already off the ground. He shoots toward her with a shout of "DIE," a habit he never really broke. Explosions brew in his palms, but she's too quick. She ducks, and his blast shoots harmlessly over her shoulder.

She counters with a punch of her own, and that's when Katsuki realizes her quirk isn't Earthquake, it's Shockwave, and her feet aren't the only epicenters he's got to watch out for.

The hit rattles his bones and bruises his brain. He can feel a headache brewing, and he wouldn't be surprised if she'd just given him a mild concussion. No matter – he's suffered worse.

"You bitch!" he screams, "I'll end you!"

She grins. "I'd like to see you try."

He doesn't have time to recoup – Uraraka drops down into the street away from the fight, laying her hands on every civilian who crowds around her. He doesn't know what the goal of these villains is. Are they just here to create a harmless distraction for the League? Are they here to sow as much death and destruction as possible in the process? He doesn't know, and he can't find out.

The next few minutes are an interesting back-and-forth of blows between two people who cannot let the other's hands touch them at all costs. Katsuki lands a few hits, but Earthquake Bitch does too. On the Richter scale of headaches, his is at least a 5.0 and climbing.

On the edge of his consciousness, he's aware that Edgeshot has long since subdued Bendy Straw. Uraraka has lifted the civilians up and out of harm's reach. Distantly, he hears the fighting going on elsewhere in the city. He knows that Eijirou is out in this mess, and he's sure that most of their class is as well. They're spread thin – this distraction was definitely a 'quantity over quality' type of gig.

At long last, he deals a finishing blow and knocks Earthquake Bitch out cold. Hopefully she'll have a headache as bad as his when she wakes. Katsuki tries to ignore the embarrassment he feels at having taken so long to defeat her, but it's difficult. The street is nothing more than rocks and rubble, a consequence of both her shockwave quirk and his own explosions.

Uraraka has moved on – after all, she's serving the entirety of Nabu City now that Hawks is gone. Katsuki feels her loss acutely, but he shoves it down and buries it beneath his desire to defeat these villain fuckers.

"Let's go see what else we can do to help," Edgeshot says. And they do.

The fight lasts all day. When they defeat one wave of villains, another is hot on their heels. Most of them aren't particularly strong, but they're numerous. Katsuki finds himself separated from Edgeshot not long after they leave Bendy Straw and Earthquake Bitch, but that's just the way things are. He bounces between hero teams, fighting alongside Eijirou at one point, then Glasses, then Frog Girl and Acid Breath. He's sure there were a few more of his classmates that he saw, but it's all starting to blur together. All he knows is that he ends up back with Eijirou at some point, and together they take down Knife Hands McGee.

The whole time, Uraraka either floats overhead or perches on nearby rooftops to keep a birds-eye view on things now that they've lost their bird. She alerts them to several ambushes. She pulls civilians out of the way. She's thrown up at least once that he's been witness to, and he's sure that it wasn't the first time or the last time. But she works through it, refusing to let it slow her down.

She's going to be all over the news tomorrow, if she hasn't already been today. Katsuki wouldn't know – he's been out in the field all day. She deserves it – deserves to have her face plastered up on the TV like Deku's had been that one night.

His own palms are burnt and blistered to all hell from overuse of his quirk. The veins in his arms are throbbing, and he lost his grenadier gauntlets hours ago. He did stop to pop a couple painkillers for his headache, but if they helped at all, it wasn't enough to do him any good. The throbbing has turned to a sharp, splitting pain, but he still can't stop.

"I think this might be it, boys and girls," Uraraka attempts to chirp through his earpiece, dragging him from his thoughts. She only succeeds in sounding as strained and exhausted as the rest of them. "I'm not seeing any new villains crawling out of the woodwork, and given the pattern up until now, it's been long enough that I should be seeing them. Finish up here, and we can call it a day."

Beside him, Eijirou cheers. Uraraka's laugh comes through the wideband, and Katsuki realizes she's hearing more than just Eijirou. His heart lifts at the sound, and he looks up to find her. She floats high overhead a block over. She's been their guardian angel throughout this fight; a savior, and – he suspects – a much-needed morale booster. Almost a mascot of sorts, but 'mascot' sounds too shallow. She's so much more than that. A figurehead, perhaps.

They let their guard down too soon.

Katsuki doesn't see who does it. He doesn't know which villain it is, or who's supposed to be watching said villain. All he sees is the rubble arcing through the air at a ridiculous speed, its aim good and true. Distracted as she is, she doesn't see it until it's far too late.

"Uraraka!" rips from someone's throat. Distantly, he realizes it's his own.

She looks down at the cry. Down, not back, like she should have, and it's his own damn fault. He should have been clearer with his warning, but he wasn't thinking in his panic. Now, there's nothing he can do but look on in horror as the rubble connects with the back of her head.

There's nothing he can do but look on in horror as she loses consciousness. As she loses control of her quirk. As gravity pulls her wayward child back into her embrace and Uraraka begins the plummet toward the cold, hard, unforgiving Earth.

"Bakugou, go!" Eijirou shouts, giving him a push. "Go, GO!"

There's a desperate note in his voice that matches Katsuki's own, and it shakes him from his stupor. He takes off a split second later – his burnt, blistered, bare palms be damned. All that matters is her. She's all that matters. Always has been.

His heart plummets with her, dead-set on making a nest for itself somewhere deep within the pit that's opening up in his stomach.

A little more, a little more.

Above and beyond.

Plus. Fucking. Ultra.

But as much as the cold sweat he's broken into and his subsequently clammy palms aid his quirk, it's not enough. Bloodied fingertips brush over padded pink ones, leaving sanguine streaks in their wake, but it's not enough. She's too far … too far … too far too far toofartoofartoofar and it's not enough and he's

Out.

Of.

Time.

He needs one more blast. One more blast, and he can get close enough to wrap his arms around her and wrench them around so that at least he'll hit the ground first. But when he calls his quirk up again … all he gets is a crack and a sputter and a wisp of smoke and his hear s.

He's failed.

Fuck … fuck … fuck fuck fuckfuckfuck –

He hears the rev of an engine and the rhythmic pounding of footsteps, but then he hits and all he knows is the pain pain PAIN that follows failure –

And then the blessed darkness takes it away.