A/N: Kacchako Week, Day Two: Domiciliary! This one is actually going to be a two-shot or maybe even a three-shot and will DEFINITELY include the prompt "Stars" and maybe the prompt "Unity." We'll see.

Quiet Gratitude

Bakugou Katsuki marched into her apartment like he owned the place.

Stepping out of his shoes and kicking them into the closet by the door, he didn't spare Uraraka a glance—she, with her hand still on the knob and her mouth half-open in a question that got stuck in her throat.

He strode through the open kitchen to the left and into the living area beyond it, dumping his backpack on the small dining table behind the couch like he'd done it a hundred times before.

Only once he'd pulled the folder from inside the bag and spread the contents on the table did he turn to Uraraka, still at the door, to give her one of those looks that said 'move your ass or I'll move it for you.'

"What—"

"Villain," he said, jabbing a calloused finger onto the papers before him. "Case file. Keep up."

"Keep up?" she asked, finally closing the door and trailing after him. "I didn't realize we'd started."

He sighed heavily through his nose, like a bull before a matador, as if she were the one wasting his day off. As if she had been the one to show up at his apartment unannounced with only vague explanations and a bad attitude.

"My shitty partner didn't want the case, so I told Ryukyu I'd do it by myself."

A bold move, Uraraka thought, her eyebrows flicking upward. She'd been brought on as a sidekick at Ryukyu's agency right after graduation, Bakugou several months later when no better offers were made. Even as his technical superior, Uraraka wouldn't have the gall to just tell Ryukyu that she was going to do what she wanted. Then again, that was probably why Bakugou was always the one hogging the spotlight.

And yet.

"How does 'doing it by yourself' bring you here?" she asked, the corner of her mouth twitching up just slightly because she already knew the answer. He would never say it in so many words, but he needed help.

As suspected, he shot her a look and didn't bother with an answer.

"How did you even get my address?" She went to the tv and turned it off, resigning herself to an afternoon spent with Bakugou instead of the relaxing one she'd had planned. Grabbing her coffee, now cold, from the low table in front of the couch, she plopped down in a chair at the rarely used dining table instead and pulled one knee up to her chest.

"Asui."

"Tsuyu," Uraraka corrected automatically, and Bakugou 'tched.'

Pythagoras, her grey and orange tabby cat, dashed from the bedroom (where he'd taken refuge when Bakugou's demanding knock had scared him out of a nap) and jumped into Uraraka's lap.

Bakugou spared the cat a single, disgusted glance and said to Uraraka, "You would."

She stuck her tongue out at him and scratched Pythagoras behind the ears.

"Anyway," he half-growled, shifting some of the papers around until he found a sketch of a man, probably in his early thirties, with unkempt black hair and blue-grey eyes. "Recognize him?"

"No…"

He pulled out photos then, surveillance cameras from shops and ATMs mostly. They weren't great quality, but in all of them, there was man who at least resembled the sketch.

"Each of these photos," Bakugou said, laying them out in front of her one by one, "was taken the day before the League of Villains attacked these locations. Mostly petty crime, but this was where Toga's gang attacked Suneater and Blitz on their regularly scheduled patrol."

"So you think this guy is somehow setting up for the others to commit their crimes?" Uraraka asked, taking the last photo from the pile: a camera on the corner of a lesser city block that she recognized from the news—Suneater and Blitz had fought off Toga, Twice, and some other Leaguers that Uraraka wasn't overly familiar with. They made it out, but by the time backup arrived, Toga and the others had gotten away.

Bakugou shook his head, and the annoyed grimace he gave her was the closest he ever really got to saying 'I don't know.'

"Any ideas as to his Quirk?"

"Nothing," Bakugou said, running a frustrated hand through his hair and finally sitting down.

He had no clue how out of place he looked, with his sleek athletic pants and tight-fitting, name brand, black tank top, among her hand-me-down furniture and next to her in her shorts and t-shirt that had been washed so many times it was nearly impossible to know what their original colors had been.

But the thought would never cross his mind—not when there were villains to hunt down, so Uraraka pulled her short hair into a ponytail and began rummaging through the sparse information he'd brought with him.

"Is there a map?" she asked after a moment. "You know, pinpointing the locations of these sightings?"

"Everything I've got is here, shit-wit," he said, leaning back in the chair and rubbing his eyes. "I was up all night just getting this together."

Uraraka held up a finger and hopped out of her seat. "I bet I've got a city map here somewhere…"

She went into the kitchen and began digging through the drawers where she kept letters, cards, old newspapers, magazines, anything paper that she didn't want to recycle. And sure enough, under a stack of holiday cards from Yaomomo (she sent cards for every occasion), Uraraka found a bent and slightly faded map of the city that she'd bought when she moved into her first apartment after getting into U.A. In another drawer, she found a black marker and brought both items back to Bakugou.

"All right," she said, stacking up the pictures in order to make room for the map, which she unfolded and spread across the table. Bakugou sat up straight as she did so, but it was then she noticed the bags under his eyes, the tired set of his mouth. Even his hair didn't seem as spiky as usual. "Want some coffee?"

"No. I'm not tired."

Uraraka returned to the kitchen and began to heat water, popping her own cold coffee in the microwave as she did so. The counter was all that divided the kitchen from the living room, and Bakugou gave her a sour look over it.

She'd seen him do this before—work himself until he dropped. He was so desperate to move up from sidekick to hero to number one that he often forgot to take care of himself. This time, at least, he'd asked for help (as much as Bakugou Katsuki could ask another person for anything) and she thought it might be the least she could do to keep him from collapsing.

But she also knew that Bakugou would never accept someone helping him purely for the sake of it or—gods forbid—because they thought he needed it, so she returned his glare as she scooped instant coffee powder into an All Might mug.

"You came here, remember?" she said, adding a bit more edge to her voice than she would've with anyone else. "We've got a villain to track and I'm not going to have you holding me back. So drink the dang coffee or leave."

She had one hand on her hip and the other stirring the hot water into the cup, and Bakugou, for once, couldn't out-glare her, so he sighed and clicked his tongue, but made no further protest.

He did give her a skeptical look when he saw the grinning face of their former teacher on his mug, but before he could comment, there was a knock at the door. Pythagoras jumped into Bakugou's lap only to be shoved back to the floor, and Uraraka ignored them both as she went to see who else could possibly be at her apartment.

"Oh! Mrs. Takahashi!" she exclaimed upon opening the door to her squat, middle-aged neighbor. The woman was kind and big-hearted, and often invited Uraraka over for dinner when she knew the young hero was short on money.

"Kaiya, dear," she said, as she did every time Uraraka addressed her by her family name. "I heard raised voices and I wanted to make sure everything was—oh. Oh my."

Uraraka felt her face make the jump straight to fire engine red as Mrs. Takahashi peered around her and spotted Bakugou sitting at the dining table.

Before she could even begin to explain, the older woman was clapping her hands and grinning like Christmas came early.

"I didn't realize you had a guest! And such a handsome one!"

"It's not like—"

"I hope you're not planning on giving him that instant coffee you always buy!" she hissed, though the effect was lost as she was still loud enough for Bakugou to hear. "Where did you meet such a man? Is he a hero, too?"

Mrs. Takahashi was working herself into a world of her own design and all Uraraka could do was stand there and wonder if Bakugou would explode her head if she asked him to. She might not need him, honestly, with as hot as her face was getting—her brain could be oozing out of her ears from the heat.

"Um—"

"I'll go make some snacks for the two of you, okay?" Her eyes were bright as she peeked around Uraraka, who was trying to take up as much of the doorframe as possible, to get another look at her 'guest.' "I'll be back, Ochako, dear."

"You don't have to—" But Mrs. Takahashi was already half-skipping back to her own door and Uraraka pressed her palm over her eyes and sighed. "Thanks...I think."

Uraraka turned around and shut the door, her face still hot and glowing as she looked at Bakugou, who was draining his coffee in gulps and, she thought, pretending that he hadn't heard anything. He set the mug back on the table and looked into it with a frown.

"That tasted like shit."

"You get used to it."

He gave her a look and she sank back into the chair beside him, content to go along with his supposed moment of deafness.

"Okay, not really," she admitted, exasperated because she was so flustered. "But it's cheap!"

Something seemed to dawn on him then, and he gave her apartment a sweeping, analytic glance that he hadn't bothered with at first. It wasn't in the best part of town, and certainly not as nice or spacious as his apartment (which she'd been to once when Kirishima came up with an ill-conceived plan to throw Bakugou a surprise birthday party). The windows were open and the fans on, even though summer still clung to the late September air and she should probably have the air conditioning running.

And for once, Uraraka was glad that Bakugou didn't really care about other people because he didn't comment on any of it, just grabbed some of the photos and tossed her the marker.

"The first sighting I could find was in July, near the 37 block downtown," he said, holding up the picture while she found the spot on the map. She circled it and wrote the date from the timestamp. "And the next was near Ryukyu's offices. That ATM outside that shitty ice cream place, you know, the one with—"

"Pickle-flavored frozen yogurt?" Uraraka finished, her nose wrinkling in disgust.

"Yeah."

"I know the place. Hado loves it."

"The fuck?"

"I know," Uraraka said, laughing a bit. She and Hado were partners, and there had been many times when the older girl wanted to stop in that shop for a treat after work. "She loves everything though, so I guess it isn't saying much."

Bakugou snorted and picked up the next picture. "This is some street camera I couldn't get an actual location on. But in the background there, doesn't that look like—"

"Heights Alliance."

"From the back, yeah."

"The closest shopping district to U.A. is about half a kilometer south of campus. Which, judging by the orientation of the building…" Uraraka paused, using her fingers to test angles on the map. "Would put that camera somewhere between here," she drew a small dot on the first street of the shopping district. "And here." She put another dot several streets down and connected them with a circle.

She looked at Bakugou and was surprised to see something like relief flitting across his face, but he worked his features back into a scowl when he noticed her looking and 'tched.'

"I like geometry," she said, fighting a smile because that was probably one of the reasons he came to her in the first place. "Shut up."

They were almost done marking the map with Mrs. Takahashi knocked on the door again. And Uraraka sighed and threw Bakugou an apologetic glance that he ignored as he took the marker from her.

She'd barely turned the knob when the older woman pushed through the door, grinning widely and heading into the kitchen with tray of tea and sandwiches.

"So are you going to introduce me?" Mrs. Takahashi whisper-shouted.

Uraraka brought her hands up in front of her face and waved them back and forth. "That's really not a good idea—"

"Nonsense, sweetie, I'm sure he's wonderful!" She put a hand beside her mouth, as if that would somehow prevent Bakugou from hearing any of it. "I mean look at him! And if you're comfortable dressing like...well like that around him, it seems pretty locked down to me!"

For the second time that day, Uraraka was stunned into standing in place with her mouth hanging open, and Mrs. Takahashi walked right up to Bakugou like he wasn't a fire breathing rage monster and introduced herself.

"Call me Kaiya," she said, grinning ear to ear and close enough to Bakugou that Uraraka genuinely feared for the woman's safety.

So Uraraka thought she'd actually managed to melt her own brain from embarrassment when Bakugou simply said, "Katsuki. Thanks for the food."

Mrs. Takahashi squealed like Aoyama on costume upgrade day at U.A. and practically danced out of Uraraka's apartment.

Uraraka stood in the kitchen and stared at Bakugou like he'd grown an extra head. A polite, reasonable extra head.

"Chill, you fucking weirdo," he said in a 180 turn back to normal. "I figured that would be the fastest way to make her leave."

Uraraka blinked. He wasn't wrong.

"What, you think I can't be fucking polite?"

"Well, that statement is pretty good proof—"

Bakugou pushed himself up from the table and came to stand beside her. He plucked a sandwich from the tray and studied it as he said, "I choose not to bother with stupid shit like that because it's usually a waste of everyone's time. Things would be better if people just said what they wanted and got it over with."

"But in this situation it was to your benefit to be nice."

"Yeah."

"Why do you want to be a hero?" The words came out before she really had a chance to think about them, but since she was probably going to implode from embarrassment at any moment, she might as well go out with a bang. "I mean...do you want to save people? Or do you just want to be the best at something quantifiable?"

Bakugou popped the sandwich in his mouth and grabbed the whole tray to bring back to the table with him. "That falls under 'small talk,' and 'small talk' falls under 'politeness.' And we've still got work to do."

Uraraka really didn't consider a question like that to be small talk, but she was thankful enough that he hadn't completely offended her favorite neighbor that she didn't push the issue.

When they finished marking the map, they both sat back and stared at it for a moment.

"Er…" Uraraka began, blinking a few times in the hope that maybe she was missing some crucial pattern. "Does this...mean anything?"

"Other than that this guy is fucking erratic? I don't think so." He looked as perplexed as she felt, though he was clearly trying no to show it as he dragged the map further toward him and hunched over it, his usual uncharacteristically good posture forgotten in his frustration.

"Okay, new approach then," said Uraraka. She took a sandwich from the tray and spoke through a mouthful of bread. "A lot of these instances occurred near pro heroes offices—or U.A.—so what about the ones that didn't? Is there something that connects those to heroes somehow?"

The new train of thought energized him a bit and flipped through the photos again, dividing them into two piles.

"We know this one fell on Suneater and Blitz's patrol route," he said, taking the top image from the smaller stack and adding it to the larger. "And the first responder to this attack was Mt. Lady, who was at a hair appointment in the salon on this street."

Uraraka jotted notes on the backs of the photos as he talked.

When he finished, they had a pro hero for each attack, and Uraraka sat back in her chair and let out a breath.

"So it's possible that our suspect is confirming that heroes will be on the scene before the attacks happen, but why?"

"And whose side is he really on?" Bakugou asked. "Because he could be confirming that heroes are there so that people don't get hurt, or he could be planning on taking heroes down or—"

"Or showing incompetence in the pros," Uraraka said quietly. An image of Stain flashed across her vision and she met Bakugou's eye. He'd never really talked to any of them about what happened when he'd been captured by the League of Villains in their first year, but every once in a while he'd mention something about how some of them were trying to mimic the hero killer. "Maybe...maybe they're trying to create civil unrest by showing that even with pro heroes, villains still end up doing whatever they want most of the time. We can't be everywhere, and even when we are there—"

"The villains still get away."

"Yeah."

"That doesn't explain what our suspect's Quirk is or why he's always the one there."

"Well maybe we just need to catch him in action."

Bakugou raised an eyebrow. "The odds of that happening are utter shit. They could attack a lot more people while we play stake out."

"Maybe not," Uraraka said, tapping a finger to her chin in a gesture she'd undoubtedly picked up from Tsuyu. "Look at the names and the dates."

Bakugou did so, his eyes widening in realization. "He's working his way up through the hero ranks."

"Mhm. Mt. Lady was the most recent, and she's what? Eleven?"

"Ten."

"So Ryukyu's coming up soon. I bet she'd give us her schedule if we asked."

"And then what? Stalk her?"

Uraraka wanted to mention that all of this was his idea in the first place, but he hadn't come to her for whining or excuses.

"Well, yeah. I've got a long range scope Hatsume made me after that thing with the tree. It's worth a shot."

"Fine. We start tomorrow."

—

Bakugou was sulking in the lobby when Uraraka and Hado returned from their patrol.

"Ryukyu said she'd assign a higher level sidekick to watch out for the suspect," Bakugou said by way of greeting, standing and steering Uraraka back toward the door with a hand on her arm. "She gave me access to the video footage from the cameras that save that kind of data, so we need to go through it and—"

"Stop for a second," Uraraka said, planting her feet and resisting his pull. He did stop, and let go of her arm with an annoyed look on his face. "I've got to, you know, write my report and shower and change and get my stuff."

She gestured back into the building and Bakugou's eye twitched. The bags beneath them were darker than the day before, and Uraraka wondered how late he'd stayed up after he left her apartment. But of course, to ask would make it look like she was worried about him, and he wouldn't stand for such things.

"Cool it with the Rage Aura," she teased instead, an old joke that mostly served to irritate him further. "Give me an hour."

"Forty-five minutes."

"An hour. Where do you want to meet?"

"I was going to go back to your place. There's a shit ton of construction next to my building and it's irritating as fuck."

"Then I'll meet you there in a hour," Uraraka told him, wondering when exactly he'd become so comfortable inviting himself over.

"Fine. Give me your key."

"What? Why?"

"So I can go ahead and get started, shit-wit."

Uraraka sighed, knowing that this compromise would at least appease him to some extent, so she pulled her apartment key from the small pocket in her boot and handed it to him.

"It um...it gets a little jammed," she said, feeling awkward again at the quality of her living situation. "It helps if you bend it a bit to the right."

"Yeah yeah, get going already. I can figure it out."

Uraraka turned and began making her way back to her desk, but another thought had her whipping around to face him again with a hand on her hip. "And be nice to Pythagoras!"

"To who?"

"My cat."

"You're a fucking weirdo, Uraraka." This, though, he said without much bite as he turned on his heel and left the building.

—

Uraraka almost had a heart attack as she walked down the hall to her apartment and a hand flew out of the neighboring unit and dragged her inside.

"Mrs. Takahashi," Uraraka gasped, putting a hand on her chest as she stared at the small, grinning woman. "What are you doing?"

"He's got a key."

"Huh?"

"Your Katsuki. You gave him a key to your apartment!"

"My...what?" Uraraka's brain felt like it was swimming through mud. The words 'your' and 'Katsuki' were not words that made sense together in the way Mrs. Takahashi said them.

But the older woman was, once again, on a different planet and completely ignoring Uraraka's confusion. "Dare I ask if you've set a date for the wedding?"

Uraraka's whole body turned red, like she'd been dunked in a vat of boiling water, and her tongue was thick and heavy as she tried to form the right words, but all that came out was a weak sort of "Wahh?"

"Too soon? I know kids these days are a bit more...open. Lots of young couples are moving in together before getting married, so no judgment from me, dear!"

"But...I don't—"

"Just so long as you're safe, hun. As cute as you are, we don't need any little Ochakos running around just yet."

There was definitely steam coming out of Uraraka's ears at that point, but fortunately, her phone started ringing in her bag. She fumbled with it, hands shaking a bit, and when she did finally flip it open, it was to none other than the man of the hour.

"Oy, you're late!"

Uraraka glanced at her watch, her tongue unsticking itself so she could argue with him. "By one minute! Keep your hair on."

She hung up over whatever he was going to say next and turned back to Mrs. Takahashi, who was, if possible, grinning even wider.

"Can't wait to see you, can he?"

"Something like that," said Uraraka, groaning internally at the fact that she was, at some point, going to have to explain all this and likely break the older woman's heart. So, for the moment, she just shoved her phone back in her bag and said, "I should get back."

"Have fun!"

Something like that, Uraraka repeated to herself.

When she walked into her apartment, she almost laughed.

Bakugou was sitting on the couch, a takeout container in one hand, a pen in the other, with a video going on the tv and another on his laptop on the coffee table. He scratched notes in a notebook with the same manic intensity as Deku while his chopsticks hung half-forgotten from his teeth and his wide-rimmed black glasses (which Uraraka had seen him in a grand total of two times) slipped down his nose. Pythagoras lounged across the back of the couch behind him, as blissfully oblivious as Mrs. Takahashi to the Rage Aura.

"Yours is in the fridge," he said, again forgoing any expected form of greeting as his eyes flitted from one screen to the other to his notebook and back again.

Uraraka dropped her bag on the counter and noticed a new appliance, fresh out of the box, sitting next to her thrift shop toaster.

"Bakugou... Did you buy me a coffee maker?" she asked, annoyed that he thought she needed it, but also a bit amused. "Instant coffee isn't that bad."

"I had a spare," he grunted, still not bothering to look her way. "My bat-shit crazy mom couldn't decide on a brand so she bought me two. And yes. It is."

She rolled her eyes, but smiled a bit because the King of Explo-kills cared about the quality of his coffee.

Not that he actually went by that name, but she liked to use it in her own mind because he was such a giant dork and he'd always tried so hard to hide it.

She grabbed her matching takeout container from the fridge and settled down onto the couch beside him, kicking herself a bit for making an effort to change into her nicer leggings and tank top this time—he was wearing a pair of baggy sweatpants and an old black skull t-shirt that she remembered from high school, one that was nearly coming apart at the seams with age.

"This one," he began, unconcerned with everything but the task at hand as he gestured to the video on his laptop. "Is that street behind U.A. And that one's the big bank ATM downtown."

"So we're just waiting for him to show up and see if he uses his Quirk?" Uraraka asked, popping open the cardboard container and digging in. How Bakugou knew to get her chicken udon with no mushrooms and extra broccoli was beyond her, but she didn't press the issue as she tucked her feet beneath her and focused on the screens.

There were several hundred hours of video footage across the different cameras, and they quickly discovered that their suspect showed up at the scene more than once prior to the attacks, meaning they had to actually dig through each one for every sighting.

It was going on three in the morning when Uraraka, bleary-eyed and frustrated because they've barely made a dent, decided to call it a night. She kicked out a grumbling Bakugou and made him leave everything with her so that he could actually get some sleep for once (because, she told him, he was useless to her if he was exhausted). He protested, but eventually did as she said, and Uraraka fell into bed dreading that she had to be up in four hours, but also glad that she had something other than boring patrols to dedicate her time to.

—

They fell into a routine—Uraraka provided the place, Bakugou provided the food, and neither acknowledged the fact that the other was helping. To say something would break the balance, undo the dynamic, and Uraraka, for her part, was content to let it be.

They didn't talk much, just spent hours and hours and hours together on the couch sorting through mostly useless footage, occasionally stopping to laugh at a weird person using the ATM or an awkward interaction on some unimportant street.

And Mrs. Takahashi continued to imply, and Uraraka continued to ignore.

—

It was a week into their research and they were still empty-handed. Uraraka was so tired, but unwilling to admit defeat another night in a row, so she pushed herself just a bit longer, sipping on her instant coffee (she refused to use Bakugou's coffee maker on principle—it was his, he was just keeping it at her apartment) and blinking away the blur in her eyes.

Then, a weight slumped against her shoulder and she froze.

Bakugou had fallen asleep.

On her.

Bakugou had always been an in-your-face type of person, but in-your-space was a different matter altogether. He outrighted flinched when people touched him half the time, so this…

This was new.

If it weren't for the bags beneath his eyes she would've woken him, but he'd been burning both ends of the candle for so long that this was probably his body's way of finally telling him enough. And she couldn't argue with that.

But still. The fact that he'd allowed this—given in to weakness, he would say—surprised her. Was he really so comfortable around her that it didn't bother him? When had she crossed that invisible hurtle between bothersome acquaintance and...friend?

She would never say it aloud, but she was touched.

Wide awake with her thoughts spinning like a merry-go-round set to hyperdrive, Uraraka shifted, just slightly, pulling the laptop and notebook closer to her side of the table and continuing to work as Bakugou snored lightly against her shoulder.

The next morning, she awoke on the couch, having at some point been lulled to sleep by Bakugou's even breathing. She sat up and blinked at the light filtering through the window.

Bakugou was gone, but there was a fresh pot of coffee waiting for her in the kitchen.

Uraraka smiled, because it felt a little like a gift and a little like a thank you.

And it all felt a whole lot like trust.

Will probably go through and edit again later. Right now I'm tired.