K.BAKUGO X READER (Cover art by me)
In a life where I'd be safe in one moment and on the brink of death in another, I realized that he was the only force that could ground me. Of all the people in the world. My volatile co-worker. My menacing rival...
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part two
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When I first moved here and joined the agency, me and that blonde idiot weren't so chummy. We still aren't, but that's beside the point.
On my first day, when I showed up with a box of my things, he was already at my cubicle, sitting on the desktop like he owned it, glaring me down like I'd burned up his house.
"Hey extra," he'd called me. "This is MY desk. Go get another."
"They told me I was taking this one." I brushed past him, putting down my box. "So, can you move your butt? Thanks."
"Who the hell do you think you are?!"
"Your replacement. You got promoted, right? Shouldn't you be happy?"
"No!" he slammed his hands on the tabletop, rattling the cubicle. "YOU have MY desk!"
I wasn't having his nonsense on my first day. I knew who he was. I thought it would've helped me control my anger towards his belligerence. He'd performed a national duty. He was a global hero. And at that moment, he was pissing me off.
So, when Bakugo offered to, "Fight me. Whoever wins, keeps the desk," I agreed without hesitation. That was a stupid choice on my part.
He didn't know what my quirk was, but it didn't take him long to figure it out. After flashing around the training room and landing the 13th punch to his blind side, he lost it. The training room was coated in black soot, my face included as it was shoved into the hard, plastic training mat.
"You're dead! Look at you! Weakling! I could snap your limbs like twigs! And you're my replacement? What a joke!"
Bakugo's direct supervisor had watched the whole thing. She wasn't a fan of his informal introduction. Even after I lost, I kept the desk. But Bakugo didn't see it that way. From that day on, he'd show up every morning to harass me, or – as he put it, so he didn't receive probation – 'check on' me. He'd pick at the plants I'd put on the shelf. Rearrange the stopwatches and hourglasses I'd keep in the corner. Read my paperwork and complain about my sloppy handwriting. At first, I thought it was to torment me. But one day, I saw him with a frantic look in his eyes. He slipped into my cubicle, ducking his head. I went to press him but then I watched as a line of visitors passed by, carrying posters and notebooks, wearing tacky hero merchandise.
"So, there's an actual reason you come here?"
He frowned. "Yeah. To remind you of your place, weakling."
I grinned knowingly. He could make up whatever excuse he needed. I wasn't going to fall for his untouchable façade.
From that point on, he just kept showing up. Morning after morning, I'd see him at the coffee shop, hiding in a facemask or sunglasses or a dark ballcap. He'd bother me after work to train, to prove the same point over and over again. One day, he dragged me with him to go have lunch with his UA friends. I took advantage of getting to meet and have lunch with some of the world's greatest young heroes. They're a really nice bunch. They were surprised at first. Bakugo had talked about having an 'annoyance' but they were expecting a menacing, wrath of a girl. Not someone forgettable like me. The red-haired one, Kirishima, I didn't owe him a thing and yet, he took me under his arm right away. I didn't know how the blonde-haired idiot scored such a kind best friend. It baffled me at the time.
