Chapter Text
My Dear Copycat
The hot-headed blonde with a fiery reputation from Class 1-A had decided to take a walk into town while everyone else got all giddy over their new dorm rooms. They were all moving their stuff in and getting things set up for the new year. Bakugo couldn’t cope with all the excitement and shouting. He did feel happy to be there and understood the benefits, however, right now he wanted to be anywhere but there. He needed some peace. Most of his stuff was still in boxes which gnawed at him to just get it done, but the volume of his classmates was louder and more irritating.
The sun had already started to set, and it was beginning to get dark quickly now. The streetlamps were slowly coming on, one by one and the air started to cool. He plunged his hands deep inside his black cargo shorts that came below his knee and walked like he had a purpose. He had his hood pulled up and headphones in blasting rock music to tune out the world. His hood hid his identifiable spiky hair and kept the chill off him. He just wanted to be alone, the last thing he wanted was to be recognised – he had started to get public attention quite often now since the Sports Festival and unlike the others, he did not enjoy it.
He had reached an area of town where the streets were still quite wide, but storefronts were becoming more common, and their windows created a warm light on the pavement ahead of him. His mind began to wonder about the future and his fight to become the number one hero. He went his whole life thinking it would be easy, but now he wasn’t so sure, and it ticked him off. Why was Deku so…strong? He gritted his teeth, out of all the people he had ever met, it would be the quirkless weakling from his childhood that would make his life harder.
Bakugo was stopped dead in his tracks when a girl with long red hair launched herself out of an alleyway between two buildings and grabbed hold of him. She tumbled as she tried to run again but Bakugo grabbed her arm, her face was one of fear as she tried to get away from whatever was inside the alleyway. She jerked her arm away which only caused her to fall to her knees. He pulled his headphones out of his ears and tried to assess what the hell was going on.
He looked to the alley as two scrawny guys stepped into the light, geez, no wonder she ran away. The two guys looked like they hadn’t washed in weeks, they wore scruffy clothes that seemed too big for them and oversized jewellery. Low-life thugs, he ridiculed. The guy on the left had his right arm reaching out, it was roughly three times the length that it should be and it moved fluidly like a tentacle with a hand on the end. The thug retracted his arm and it went back to looking like a regular arm. Bakugo’s eyes narrowed, his hands still calmly by his side but twitching for a fight. He had to avoid a fight or else he would get into trouble, but if they attack first what else could he do? “Hey man, sorry for the fuss. Our friend here has had a little too much to drink and is being…err…irrational,” spoke the man of the right, “we were just going to take her home.” They leered, they both seemed so confident and eager to have to girl back, who was now cowering behind Bakugo still on the floor, her handbag had since fallen and its contents spilt out. Her eyes were wide with fear, and she shook her head. Bakugo did not need his acute senses to realise that the girl was neither drunk nor had been drinking and that these two low lives were lying through their rotten teeth.
“I don’t think she wants to go with you,” his hands come up a little more, he hoped for a fight and gave a toothy smirk, his hands began to spark as they took steps closer. The popping noise was music to his ears.
One on the left stopped and grabbed his friend, recognising who was before them. “It’s him man…the crazy one from the Sports Festival…he’s insane!” He took steps back in fear as he tried to pull his friend along.
This only boosted Bakugo’s already enlarged ego, he pulled his hood down and laughed, “you better listen to your friend, I’m just itching to blow something up,” he growled as he took steps closer to them, leaving the shaking girl unattended. Not that it mattered, it only took three small steps and the two men ran off. Too scared to face a well-known UA student and Sports Festival champion. His arms slumped, almost disappointed and he blinked. “Well, that was unexpected,” but probably for the best. He turned on his heel to look back at the girl, she didn’t appear to be from around here.
“Thank you,” she bowed her head, her accent was strange. Definitely not from around here. She clutched her flowy skirt in her fists so hard it turned her knuckles white. She made a move to start picking up her things that littered the pavement but she was too shaken and her eyes were teary, making the task nigh impossible. With a roll of his eyes, Bakugo kneeled and helped.
“You’re welcome.”
Once everything had been picked up and placed back where it should be, the two teenagers straightened. The girl put her handbag back over her shoulder and gripped it tightly, trying to hide the fact she was still shaking a little. “I really appreciate your help. I don’t want to think what would have happened if you weren’t here,” she gave him a genuine smile and tucked her long silky hair behind her pale ears. It wasn’t something he got very often, and it pulled on his chest. This was so new. Bakugo could not quite place where her accent was from but her Japanese was still pretty good for a foreigner. She appeared to be mixed race, part Japanese and Caucasian - he wondered where she was from. She had big green eyes and long hair that seemed to reflect the light around them. It was a deep red and fell smoothly down her back, it seemed impossibly shiny and straight almost wig like. If someone told him it was a wig, he would believe them and try to pull it off.
“You should probably call the police to come to take you home,” he was so matter-of-fact. He just wanted to head back to the dorms but he had to make sure she was safe. That is what a hero does, right?
She blinked, “oh…I suppose you’re right. What…what is the number?” He was shocked, how could she not know what the number for the emergency services was? “Sorry, I am new here. I arrived here this morning from London. So…erm, I don’t know what or where anything is.”
Bakugo sighed, “follow me,” this was part of the hero duty he did not enjoy all that much – interacting with the public. Just give him something to hit and/or blow up. Bakugo had taken her a little further down the street to a café that was still open and spoke to the employees for her, who in turn phoned the police. There was a whole fiasco that night, the two waited in the café for the police to arrive and both gave their statements. The police appealed for any more witnesses in the area and descriptions of the two felons. It had taken a couple of hours to wrap up the dealings with the police before they were both taken home in separate vehicles. He realised during the short journey back to the dorm that he never got the girl’s name, shame, she was cute. Ah well. He didn’t like to distract himself with girls, his path was much more important.
When Bakugo arrived at the dorms, he quickly received taunts about being bought back in a police car on the first day. “Shut up you idiots!” he bellowed as his friends laughed at his expense. The laughter was broken when the girls returned to the common area and talked the boys into the bright idea of judging everyone’s rooms. “Oh hell no…” I am not being part of this “I’m going to sleep,” he gruffed to Kirishima. While everyone was distracted by the room competition rules, Bakugo made his escape to his room.
The class of 1-A had a few days to settle into their dorms before they were sat in the classroom again for the first time following their summer ‘break’, waiting for their teacher, Mr Aizawa to drag his feet through the door. The recent villain attack at the camp still had everyone on edge, especially the school administration and the public were not happy with the school’s lack of apparent safeguarding. All except the students themselves, who were as excited as ever to be back and as dormmates no less.
Bakugo was staring out the window in deep thought, ignoring his class chattering away as they did every morning. It was another beautiful day outside as summer was not yet over, and he looked forward to being out there again. Feeling more at home out in the heat than inside the airconditioned building. He didn’t even have his air conditioning on inside his dorm room, which Kirishima and Kaminari would not stop complaining about during the five minutes they were in there to bug him.
“Everyone take your seats! Class is about to start!” exclaimed Tenya Iida…again. Waving his arms around despite the fact everyone was already at their seats, which returned a few jibes his way. But they did all stop talking as the classroom door at the front of the class opened and Mr Aizawa walked in, only this time he bought someone else with him. Bakugo and everyone else examined the newcomer, way too young to be another teacher. Only then did he realise the girl stood at the front, eyes down watching her shoes wearing a school uniform and had long shiny red hair now pulled up in a tight ponytail and full fringe. He scoffed, she looked so weak. He blinked, almost double-taking Wait…what was she doing here?
Most in the room seemed to be happy to see a new face, Mineta and Kaminari couldn’t help but leer of course. Bakugo could hear Mineta mutter obscenities to himself. Little creep.
Mr Aizawa cleared his throat, “We have a new student joining us, say hello to Miss May Hata,” the class greeted her in unison, some of the girls more eager than the others. Particularly Mina who seemed rather excited to have another girl in the class. “Tell us a bit about yourself.”
She looked at him, almost surprised and back at the class, all of them eagerly staring at her. She swallowed and spoke with a nervous voice, “hi…there, I am May Hata, please call me May. I am from the UK and arrived in Japan a few days ago. I haven’t been here for a long time, so please forgive me if I get anything wrong,” she looked down at her feet again, almost ashamed. “My er…my hero name is Copycat and my quirk is Imitation. It is an honour to be here and meet all of you.” She gave a big smile then, and the pleasantries’ with the class ensued which Bakugo ignored and went back to looking outside. “Nice to see you again,” Bakugo was pulled from his thoughts yet again as May walked past his seat to head to an empty chair at the back of the class.
Mr Aizawa cleared his throat again and started his lesson. He spoke about the provisional hero licenses they should have worked towards at the summer camp but didn’t for obvious reasons, and then went on to the ultimate moves. Bakugo grinned, he was eager to show off.