The next morning Bakugou headed to the agency early to get in a quick workout. Making his way to the gym he could hear someone else using the punching bags. Tch, there goes my morning again, Bakugou thought as he walked through the doors. Moving past the weight equipment he was surprised to see a familiar purple braid and long sleeved workout shirt.

“Good morning,” Kia said, lowering her fists.

Bakugou nodded before heading over to the treadmills. Picking one closer to where Kia was training Bakugou started a slow jog. Putting in one of his ear buds he turned his music on. He watched as his new partner struck the punching bag noticing her movements were fluid and precise. She’d had a lot of training in hand-to-hand combat.

Kia kept punching a series of hits her mentor had taught her in high school focusing on just working her muscles. “Do you always stare at others like that?” she asked Bakugou, giving the bag a last hit.

“Only when I’m studying their combat skills,” Bakugou replied.

“You want to know what I’m capable of.” Kia turned towards him. “Don’t suppose you would care to find out first hand?”

Bakugou stopped his treadmill. Smiling, he turned off his music, “I thought you would never ask.” Stepping off the machine, he started stretching out his arms. “You sure you are up for this?” he asked walking over to an open mat.

Kia shook out her arms and moved over to face him. “You just worry about yourself, B,” she replied, taking her stance.

Bakugou examined her stance and found it was solid, with her hands and arms positioned well to protect her face and sides as need be. She was in a defensive position and waited for him to make the first move.

Bakugou dropped into his fighting stance, “Gym rules, no quirks for hand-to-hand.”

“Don’t want to be paying to fix this place again now, do we?” Kia teased.

Bakugou moved forward bringing his right arm around in a big right hook. Kia ducked, dodging his swing as she moved to kick his feet out from underneath him. Bakugou jumped back, avoiding her attempt to knock him down. She then lunged at him, throwing in a punch of her own. Bakugou sidestepped to avoid her punch but, Kia whirled to meet him and threw in a combination that had Bakugou stepping back. Deflecting her blows, Bakugou continued to advance while throwing in punches of his own.

Kia avoided them all and moved back out of his reach. She aimed a kick for Bakugou’s shoulder. He caught her foot in one hand. Quickly, Kia twisted her body pulling her foot from his grasp, landing on her feet and hands. Bakugou kicked, missing his partner as she tucked and rolled away from him, landing back on her feet.

“Not too bad Sunshine. You’re fast,” Bakugou said, crouching back down into a fighting stance.

“Your reflexes are amazing,” Kia told him, darting in towards her partner.

They exchanged blows with ease, each deflecting the other as they danced around on the mat. Suddenly, Bakugou grabbed Kia’s wrist as she aimed a punch at his face. Twisting her arm around behind her back, he aimed a punch for her side, which she caught with her other hand.

“What are you going to do now?” he asked with a smirk.

“Play dirty,” Kia replied, as she stepped into him. Letting go of his arm, she brought her hand to his chest and softly tranced down the hard muscles all the way down to his abs. Startled, Bakugou’s hold on her other arm loosed and Kia used the opportunity to break his hold, spinning out of his reach.

“I guess you are a normal man under that big ego,” Kia laughed.

Gritting his teeth, Bakugou took after her without holding back as he tried to gain the advantage. Kia ducked and twisted, making sure to stay out of Bakugou’s grasp. Finally, after what Bakugou thought was too damn long, he got a hold of one of her wrists. Twisting her into him he grabbed her other hand.

“Don’t think I will be falling for that again,” Bakugou gloated.

“No, this time I think I will just have you fall for me,” Kia replied.

“What?” Bakugou said as he felt her hook one of his legs. Kia shoved him backwards, causing them both to fall with her landing on top of him. Kia pulled herself up to straddle his stomach and hold him down. Bakugou still had a hold of her wrists and Kia locked her hands around his in turn.

“Looks like we are at an impasse?” Kia said smiling down at him.

“I don’t think so, Sunshine,” He replied, bucking into her and rolling over. However, he underestimated the strength of her grip on his wrists and found himself falling face first into her chest, their hands pinned beneath their combined body weight.

“Uhm, are we interrupting something?” a voice interjected.

Kia and Bakugou let go of each other, scrambling to untangle themselves from their current position. Two other heroes from the agency stood there staring wide-eyed at the two.

“IT WAS AN ACCIDENT!” Bakugou yelled at them. The two heroes turned and hurried off to the far side of the room to escape Bakugou’s rage.

“Oh my, I think the great Ground Zero is blushing!” Kia said, trying to step in front of Bakugou to look.

“Shut up!” Bakugou hollered, storming towards the door.

“Aw, are you embarrassed that you stuck your face in my--” Kia started to tease, but found herself cut off by his rage once again.

“SHUT UP!” Bakugou roared, leaving the gym. He could hear Kia laughing the whole way to the locker room, the blush he felt across his cheeks making him slam the door on his way out.

Kia left the gym and headed to the women’s locker room. Grabbing an extra set of clothes, she headed to the showers. She stepped into a stall, turning the water on cold. Her heart was racing and she could feel the heat in her cheeks. What is wrong with me? she thought, I’ve ended up in awkward positions before and never felt like this. She had teased Bakugou because there was no way she was letting the chance to mess with him get away. After washing her hair and body she stepped out, toweling off before pulling on a pair of jeans and a long sleeved shirt.

Making her way to the office, she opened the door to see Bakugou already working on entering written reports into the computer. He was in full costume except for his gauntlets, which sat beside his desk.

“Are we patrolling again today?” Kia asked, sitting down at her desk.

“Yeah, where is your costume?” Bakugou growled, not looking up from his computer.

“Getting fixed, they said it should be done by nine,” Kia told him, looking at the clock. It was almost 8am. Looking back at him, Kia sighed. “I’m sorry I teased you. I know it was an accident, just don’t let it happen again or I will have to kick your butt.”

“I’d like to see you try,” Bakugou said, glaring up at her with a smirk.

Kia rolled her eyes before turning to the stack of papers on her own desk. At a quarter to nine, she left to go get her costume from support. While walking there, Nina, Best Jeanist’s assistant, called out from behind her. “Wildside, how are you doing?” she asked.

“Good, how are you? It’s Nina, right?” Kia stopped and waited for the woman to catch up.

“That’s right! How are things going with you and your partner?” Nina asked.

“Eh… off and on,” Kia replied.

“I’m impressed you are getting along with him even a little bit. He can be difficult to handle most of the time,” Nina said.

“I’m determined to gain a footing here, so I’m not going to let his yelling scare me off,” Kia replied.

“So, how is looking for an apartment going? Jeanist said you were staying at a local hotel,” Nina inquired.

“Finding something else isn’t going very well, actually. I haven’t had a lot of time to search, and the hotel is getting expensive,” Kia frowned.

“Well, I will keep an ear out and let you know if I hear of anything! We should exchange contact information,” Nina told her.

“Thanks, I really appreciate it,” Kia said pulling out her phone and putting in Nina’s contact number. “Sorry to cut our chat short, but I have to go and get my costume so I can meet Ground Zero for patrol,” Kia told her.

“No worries! I will see you later, ok?” Nina said, putting away her own phone and walking off down the hall while Kia turned and headed off to get her costume.

Nina headed down to the hero offices were she had to drop off some paperwork to a few of the heroes. As she passed by Ground Zero and Wildside’s office, she paused and decided to knock on the door.

“Come in,” Bakugou called from inside.

“Sorry to bother you, Ground Zero, but I have a quick question for you,” Nina said, opening the door.

“What?” Bakugou growled, still scowling at his computer.

“You live in a nice apartment complex not too far from the agency, don’t you?” Nina asked curiously.

“Yes, what of it?” Bakugou asked, looking up at the assistant.

“Do you know if there are any apartments available?” Nina asked innocently.

“I know the one next to me is open. Why do want to know?” Bakugou questioned.

“I’m just helping out a friend. Could I get the manager’s number from you?” Nina replied.

“They better not be annoying. I don’t need another shitty neighbor,” Bakugou said, pulling out a slip of paper and jotting down the number.

“They aren’t, I promise,” Nina said, taking the paper from him with a slight bow.

Bakugou turned back towards his computer as Nina exited the room. Walking off down the hall, she pulled out her phone and sent the apartment manager’s number to a hero she knew was looking for a place. Giggling to herself, Nina walked to the next office.