U.A.'s corridors were never silent, yet that night the air felt padded, like sound itself had been exiled. Security lights pulsed along the floor in a dull rhythm. Uraraka walked barefoot, uniform jacket half‑zipped, her armband slipping down. She told herself she was patrolling. She knew she was lying.
The wind from the open training field carried the metallic scent of ozone and burnt sweat. Bakugo had been training again; she could hear the echo of detonation in the distance — quick bursts, then the hiss of cooling plasma. It was his way of thinking. Explosions instead of words.
Ever since the League's last attack, everyone had frayed around the edges. Midoriya talked less; Bakugo growled more. And Uraraka — she dreamed. Not heroic dreams anymore, but feverish ones. She'd see herself floating above a crater, eyes black with power, the world small and trembling beneath her.
She told no one.
When she reached the gym, the doors were peeled open like the ribs of something vast and dead. Bakugo stood in the center, shirt hanging off one shoulder, skin shining with heat. The concrete around him spider‑webbed and smoked.
"You stalking me, Round Face?" His voice was half threat, half invitation.
Uraraka wanted to sound brave. "You're not supposed to train alone this late."
He smirked. "You here to report me?"
She meant to say yes. What came out was, "You'd like that, wouldn't you?" It startled him. Startled her more. The edge in her tone wasn't obedience; it was challenge.
Bakugo stepped closer, the air vibrating off him, not quite explosion — tension trapped before detonation. "And what if I would?"
For a moment, the world pressed inward. Her gravity quirk wavered involuntarily, the room tilting like it bowed to him. Energy licked between them, electric and wrong.
Then a voice slid in — low, smooth, too composed.
"Uraraka? …Bakugo?"
Midoriya's shadow stretched across the doorway, taller than his frame should allow, eyes catching the pale green of emergency light. He looked like someone who hadn't slept in days — or didn't need to anymore.
"I was looking for you," he said quietly, to her, but his gaze lingered on Bakugo's bare shoulder. "You shouldn't be here."
Bakugo scoffed. "Neither should you, nerd."
But something in Midoriya didn't flinch the way it used to. He stepped inside, movements deliberate, almost… graceful, a darkness clinging like a second uniform. His analysis notebooks were gone; instead he carried a small black glove — support gear customized, veins of silver tech running up his wrist. It hummed faintly, like a living thing.
"I've been studying gravity interactions," he said. "Uraraka — your quirk distorts space. You ever wonder what happens if someone amplifies that distortion?"
She was dizzy before understanding why: his tone carried command now, subtle as breath. Bakugo noticed it and bristled. "Cut the creep lecture. We're done playing scientist."
Midoriya's eyes flicked to him. "You think power's a game, Bakugo. You detonate it until everyone looks away first. But what if they don't?"
He took another step. The glove pulsed. Uraraka could feel her quirk tug against itself, an outside gravity intercepting her own. She staggered; Bakugo caught her instinctively, hand clamping around her arm. Sparks scattered along his palm, dim but alive.
For a heartbeat, all three were suspended in each other's orbit — aggression, fear, something unnamed. Midoriya's voice was almost tender:
"She doesn't fall, Bakugo. She gives in. There's a difference."
Bakugo's grip tightened; his breath ghosted near her ear. "You talk too much, Deku."
Uraraka wanted to speak, but the room was spinning. The pull between them felt sentient, like the planet itself had exhaled. Her quirk clawed for release, desperate to lighten the mass. Instead, it bent inward, pooling heat around her skin.
The lights flickered out. A single explosion lit the gym in amber flare — Bakugo jerking away, shouting something half‑lost. When illumination steadied, Midoriya was standing alone by the shattered wall, glove dim. His expression was almost peaceful.
Uraraka gasped; her wrist still burned where Bakugo's hand had been, small scorch marks like a brand. She felt gravity everywhere now — in her stomach, her chest, her thoughts.
Bakugo looked at her with something she hadn't seen before. Fear? Maybe awe. "What the hell's happening to you?"
Midoriya smiled without joy. "Awakening," he said. "Or corruption, depending on what side you stand on."
He turned toward the exit. "I can show her how to use it. You just burn things until they hate you."
Bakugo snarled and ignited both palms. "Say that again."
But Uraraka stepped between them, palms outward, quirk humming through her fingertips. "Stop."
There was weight in that word — literal, metaphysical. The explosion died mid‑flare; Midoriya halted mid‑stride. For an instant, she wasn't weightless at all. She was center. Gravity herself.
And it thrilled her.
When she finally spoke, her voice was steady. "Teach me," she said to Midoriya. Then, softer, almost to herself, "Both of you."
Neither answered, but the silence felt like consent.
Outside, dawn was still hours away. Inside the gym, the air shimmered with leftover heat, like desire accidentally exposed to the open.
Uraraka looked down at her hands and wondered which of them would ruin her first.