Chapter Text
Staring up at the massive Quirk Hazard Safety Seminar banner, Nanami feels like she’s walking into Alcoholics Anonymous. Though she might have to attend that meeting too if this goes as boring as she suspects. One glance at her mother’s assistant still watching her from the car tells her there’s no chance of escape.
Letting out a sigh that could rival Shoto’s world-weary monotone, she pulls open the doors and struts inside. If she’s learned anything from the unhealthy amount of hours spent stalking Best Jeanist’s HeroTok, it’s that if you’re going to do something, you do it in style. Suffering included.
The room is dark, damp, and giving off major Tartarus vibes. The man standing by the podium sending the students fearful glances like he’s expecting one of them to shank him mid-sentence, really drives the image home. To be fair, the kid with porcupine quills dripping green mystery fluid is a tad intimidating (she absolutely wants to befriend him), but he’s also knitting a scarf and humming that new Present Mic song.
Three security guards for that? Bit dramatic, honestly.
Looking around the room, she’s not even sure half these kids should be here. A lot of them are mutants, like Porcupine Dude and one girl who has katanas for fingernails (and can apparently sneeze butterflies?), but still has better posture than Nanami ever will.
The only real hazard here is the government’s definition of ‘hazard.’ Then someone across the room cackles and sets another person’s hair on fire just by glaring at it.
Okay. Maybe one or two of them belong.
Giving that particular disaster a wide berth, Nanami nabs a seat in the back with a pout. It’s not fair that she’s here. Her quirk isn’t nearly as badass as the arsonist’s and her mutation is internal, so she doesn’t have cool-ass hair like Porcupine Dude either. She’s, perish the thought, normal.
How lame.
Now she’s stuck listening to the wimpy HSPC goon discuss quirk misuse prevention and public liability training. He might as well just say, ‘My name is Ukai-sensei, and if you walk out of here without getting arrested or wanted by Musutafu, I’ll call it a win.’
Just when she thinks this whole thing couldn’t get worse, he decides the best way to teach the ‘at-risk youth’ is to have everyone reenact the incidents that landed them here. All so Mr. Nervous Breakdown can demonstrate how they should’ve handled it.
As humiliating as it is to put on a play like she’s in pre-school, Nanami is vibrating in excitement at watching this clusterfuck go belly-up. Front row seats to a bunch of unstable tweens acting out their greatest crimes and quirk disasters?
Fuck. Yes.
Hopefully someone gets hurt and she can try out that new cauterizing technique she learned! Bouncing in her seat, she scopes out the room for a demonstration partner. There, across the group circle, is a scowling boy with murder in his eyes, furiously texting on his phone like he could reach through the screen and strangle whoever’s on the other side.
Perfect, she thinks. That one looks like he bites.
Approaching him is like trying to pet a demon dog from hell with the way he curls his lip at her and snarls. Her smile widens. He bares his teeth. She takes that as his welcoming grin.
“You look like the scariest motherfucker here, let’s be friends.”
Hell Hound shoots her a nasty glare and turns back to his phone ignoring her. Texting about some suicidal extra with Deku-level delusions and a frontal lobe made of styrofoam, asking to be friends like this is a fuckin’ Disney movie.
Oh, this is going to be sooo much fun, Nanami smirks in amusement. Does he really think ignoring her will make her run away with her tail tucked between her legs? She’s best friends with Todoroki Shoto. That doesn’t happen by being sane.
The look of disgust he shoots at her when she slides into the seat next to him makes her want to pinch his cheeks and coo.
“The fuck? You got a death wish, dumbass?” Blondie growls and Nanami meets his sharp red eyes daringly, tauntingly.
“Hmm, not really. That’s actually why I’m here. Natsuo says my brain-to-mouth filter is broken and it’s gonna get my ass beat—”
“I’ll blow your fucking ass up right now, you shitty extra!”
“Kinky. Anyway, he told me that I should befriend the meanest looking son of a bitch in the room so that when I do piss somebody off, they’ll defend my cute ass instead of helping them beat it.” Nanami says it casually, nodding like it’s an inevitable outcome—she opens her mouth, someone tries to sucker punch her in the face.
It’s a good thing Shoto forced her to learn how to dodge. At least that was his reasoning for throwing snowballs at her for an hour with Natsuo. Not that she believed them, their smiles were too wide to be innocent, but she probably deserved it after…well, everything she did before the age of eight.
Still, she considers the fact she rendered the foul-mouthed boy in front of her mute as a win. Sometimes you have to out crazy the crazy to befriend someone.
“I’m not really into masochism and my ass is like the third best thing about me after my dimples and my charming personality, so I figured I’d try his advice out. Whaddya say? Friends?”
“Drop dead in a ditch where the cops’ll never find you.”
“Yeah, you’ll do just fine.”
“DIE!”
The explosion nearly takes her head off and her eyes sparkle in excitement. Maybe she is a masochist? She’ll have to ask Shoto. He’ll probably sigh again, but maybe he’ll come around when she tells him that his dodge training paid off.
Naturally, the loud blast had everyone in the room ducking under their chairs, even the security guards decided it was every man for themselves and dove for cover. Fat load of good they are, she rolls her eyes and calls out, “It’s fine! We’re just practicing our scene and got carried away! Unfortunately, no one is dying or gravely injured, so you can carry on!”
The other ‘misguided youths’ scowl at them for the interruption, including the girl with the Medusa quirk (though her stare is always venomous, so it’s hard to say if she’s mad at them or impressed), and start chatting again like nothing happened.
Ukai-sensei, on the other hand, peeks out from behind the podium with only his wide, terrified eyes and a crooked toupee visible. Nanami shoots him a playful wink and an innocent wave, making the man practically jump out of his skin with a squeak, diving into a guard’s arms as if she’d just dragged her thumb across her throat.
Rude. He could’ve at least waved back.
Turning to the boy again, she teases, “See? Now you have to be my friend because when they find me in a ditch, the first person they’re going to suspect is you.”
Nanami’s words make him slump back in his seat muttering curse words she’d sell her soul to learn the meaning of under his breath and clenching his jaw like he’s physically restraining himself from committing a felony. Pfft, with the way he’s acting, she’d almost think he was taking the safety seminar seriously and trying to behave like an upstanding tween with decent emotional regulation…
Ew. She’s going to have to snap her new friend out of this goody-two-shoes mindset. If she can corrupt Shoto, then an explosive blonde with anger management issues should be a cake walk.
Nanami simply hums while eyeing her demonstration partner and casually brushes ash from her singed hair. “Listen Boom-Boom Boy—wow, that glare is lethal. I’d think your quirk was making people wanna die inside with a look if you hadn’t almost blown me up.”
“Do you ever shut the fuck up?”
“No. Didn’t we just go over this? I have no off-button. Keep up, Detonator Daddy!”
Grabbing her by the shirt, he pulls her nose-to-nose and threatens, “Call me that again and I’ll detonate your liver!”
Nanami eyes his other hand, crackling with the promise of pain, and immediately mimes zipping her lips. Blasty smirks like a smug bastard and shoves her back into her seat with an umph. In the two minutes since she approached him, he’s already pinpointed her biggest weakness: being quiet. She’s gotta hand it to him, his plan to get rid of her is incredibly effective. The simple idea of keeping her mouth shut for the rest of the seminar has her squirming tirelessly in her seat.
Looking around, it becomes pretty clear that they’re the only pair not working. Everyone else is begrudgingly practicing their performances. Well, them and a small group of older kids in the corner that seem to be passing around a metal tin and playing with a lighter. She almost gets up to ask what they’re doing (it looks much more fun than sitting in silence), but she can practically hear her inner Shoto sighing.
(“Nana, if you get arrested…no more head pats.”
“That’s an abuse of power!”
“It runs in the family.”)
The mere thought has her butt glued to her seat. Eyeing the feral blonde out of the corner of her eye, she decides it’s much safer messing around with him instead. He’s more bark than bite anyway…most of the time.
Still smelling burnt hair in the air, Nanami tries to keep her mouth shut. She really, truly, honestly tries (she doesn’t try at all), but who is she to pass up her last ticket to some fun?
“...Hypothetically, if you did detonate my liver, and I survived the initial trauma, how much of it do you think would regenerate? Like, are we talking full organ function or partial compensation through hypertrophy?”
Bakugou turns so slowly it’s like watching a jack-in-the-box ready to spring, or in his case, spontaneously combust.
She beams at him, blinking doe-like eyes she may or may not have practiced in the mirror. It’s the same innocent look Fuyumi wears when she asks if you’ve eaten dinner yet and somehow makes you feel like an orphan if you say no. Her angelic gaze is so strong, it has Shoto and Natsuo trained to confess instantly even if they did nothing wrong.
Nanami hopes that she’s pulling it off right. Last time she tried, Ryuu thought she was possessed and ran off crying. Apparently, purity looks abnormal on her.
“I mean, I’ve read studies on hepatic regeneration, but none of them account for explosive trauma. This could be groundbreaking!”
He stares at her like she’s grown a second head, making her bite her lip to keep it from smiling.
“Y’know,” she adds, “...for science.”
Nanami holds his gaze seriously for a moment, but one look at his face, red and riddled with judgement, has her bursting into uncontrollable snorts. He punches her shoulder, making her wince, and looks away, glowering like the poster child for teen angst.
“For fucks sake.” he scowls before pausing, as if he hates himself for what he’s about to say. “Names Bakugou Katsuki, dumbass. Call me that Boom-Boom shit again and I’ll fucking kill you.”
He might’ve growled it out like a threat, but it lacks the heat it had earlier. Besides, Nanami is an expert at speaking tsundere and emotional constipation, so she can hear the amusement in his voice no matter how hard he tries to hide it.
Holding back a victorious smirk, she very carefully does not make a comment about being allowed to use his name or about their newly trending friendship status. She already wore him down, no need to scare him off. He’s shy.
“Deal, but only if you stop calling me dumbass. The name’s Wakatsuki Nanami. Better memorize it, so you know what to write in your Death Note.”
Bakugou huffs and glares straight ahead, the smoldering kind of quiet that says ‘I'm only tolerating your existence because murder is illegal.’
Nanami props her chin in her hand, watching him with idle amusement. “Soooo…what’d you do to end up in hell’s group therapy circle?”
He side-eyes her like she just asked him if he knits baby socks in his spare time. “Broke some dipshit’s arm.”
“...On purpose?”
“It was the damn extra’s fault! The creep was takin’ pictures up skirts on the train. Not my problem if he didn’t listen when I said to delete ‘em.”
Nanami lets out a low whistle, deeply impressed. “Who knew you had a heart of gold under all that profanity wrapped in emo angst, Ba-ku-gou~”
Bakugou’s scowl turns into a full-blown snarl. “SHUT THE HELL UP! YOU DON'T KNOW SHIT ABOUT ME! I'M GONNA BE THE NUMBER ONE HERO!”
"Alright, geez. Say it, don't spray it."
She almost worries he’ll go back to ignoring her when he jabs a finger at her and sneers. “You’re probably here for annoying people into a life of villainy.”
“Nah, my mom signed me up because she thinks I ‘lack boundaries’ and ‘abuse my medical training.’” Nanami says with air quotes and the world’s most unimpressed expression.
He raises a brow, curious, if still a little pissed. “What the hell does that mean?”
“It means I ran an underground healing ring and poisoned a guy.” She shrugs, “...Okay, ‘healing ring’ might be overselling it. I just patched people up when a villain pancaked a whole shopping district and the hospitals were overwhelmed.”
“You poisoned your fucking patients?”
“Fuck no! Just one guy with loose lips.” Nanami waves off and relaxes into her seat. “I may or may not have injected him with laxatives using my quirk and told him it was aspirin. But, to be fair, he had just ratted me out to Endeavor who then tattled to my mother like a lil bitch.”
As if The Flaming Hypocrite hadn’t caused most of the fucking property damage himself, Nanami rants in her head.
Bakugou exhales hard through his nose, eyes caught somewhere between disgust, amusement, and reluctant respect. “Tch. You belong here more than half these shitty extras.”
“Not fair!” she pouts, offended. “I’m 99% sure there’s a law about snitches getting stitches. As a law abiding citizen, I was well within my rights!”
It’s quiet for a moment as they begin the most judgemental staring contest of her life. He doesn’t smile, but at least he doesn’t blow her up again either. Progress!
“You’re fuckin’ insane.”
“And yet you’re still sitting next to me. Awww. You do care.”
“I know a damn good place for a ditch if you don’t shut the fuck up.”
They fall into a silence so bizarrely comfortable it feels like an alliance forged in war crimes and mutual felony charges. Bakugou stretches one leg out, arms still folded across his chest like a lion who’s grudgingly decided not to eat the tiny gremlin gnawing on his tail.
Before Nanami can test the limits of her new explosive toy further, Ukai-sensei calls for everyone to settle down so they can begin the reenactments, and she shares a look with Bakugou that says they’d both rather follow through with her liver experiment than do amateur theatre.
The first few performances start off pretty tame, much to her disappointment. Bakugou even falls asleep at some point, or at least she thinks he does. Any time she tries to poke him awake, her survival instincts have her freezing just before she can touch him.
It’s absolutely fascinating.
She entertains herself by waving a hand in front of his face and inching her finger closer and closer, just to see at what point her life flashes before her eyes.
The answer: as soon as she lifts her hand.
Her working theory? His predatory instincts can sense bullshit the second someone dares to think it. A glance at his athletic frame warns her he’s fast enough to strike before she may even try to follow through.
Nanami decides to provoke him anyway.
Right as she’s about to boop his nose, his hand whips out and snatches her wrist. She doesn’t even have time to say ‘what the—’ before he yanks her sideways and the chair she was sitting on dissolves in a puddle of hissing goo.
Following everyone’s stare toward the stage, her jaw drops in horror at the sight of Porcupine Dude scuffing his shoe like an embarrassed pre-schooler caught goo-handed. As if he hadn’t just spit balls of acid out into the crowd. In her shock, all Nanami can think is–.
Damn it! I missed the best part of the seminar!
Bakugou glances down at her, a feral little smirk curling the edge of his mouth. “Keep tryna poke me, and next time I’ll let natural selection do its fuckin’ job.” he drawls, clearly way too pleased with himself. Nanami scowls like a cat that just got sprayed with a water bottle.
Somewhere behind her, Ukai-sensei is passed out cold. Most likely faking it, judging by the tears streaming down his face. Across the room, the arsonist is now standing on a chair, rallying half the class in a full-blown mutiny against the HSPC guards, while the older kids slip out the back door giggling in a cloud of smoke.
But Nanami notices none of this. Too busy glaring at Bakugou’s stupidly smug face and the firm grip he still has on her wrist. Then her eyes widen in realization. “Wait… wait, wait, wait!” She leans in conspiratorially, eyes sparkling. “You saved me. Does that mean…”
She gasps and Bakugou’s smug grin drops into a warning scowl, already bracing for whatever unholy level of bullshit her next three words will unleash.
“We’re friends now!”
He immediately recoils and drops her wrist like she has an infectious disease. “THE FUCK WE ARE, MALPRACTICE BARBIE!”
“Too late. Bond forged. It’s canon,” she chirps, already plopping into the chair on his other side and scooting way too close, as if she wasn’t almost melted like a popsicle a minute ago.
It’s honestly on her for not seeing his next explosion coming—or maybe she did. It’s just hard to resist fate when it’s got zero impulse control and biceps like his. She can only shrug and blame her weakness for blondes.
…Or she could blame Natsuo.
After all, he’s the one who said to befriend the scariest motherfucker in the room. Yeah, this is definitely his fault.
Nanami knew she should’ve befriended Porcupine Dude instead.