Chapter Text
Fucking ow.
That’s the first thing he thinks.
It’s not very poetic, all things considered, but it’s there.
His eyes are crusted over or something. He hurts.
It takes a few seconds for his other senses to load back in. There’s this awful pressure in his skull—he hasn’t even tried to look around yet, but he feels how dizzy he is. His ribs fucking—fuck, his fucking ribs. Fucking busted, probably. He’s laying on his side. He’s nauseous. His back aches. White-fucking-hot.
Katsuki really, really wants to be asleep again.
His hearing fizzes in a second or two before he can slip away. It catches his groggy attention.
Heavy, wet breathing, and a choked-off voice: “C-come in. Please. Someone, come in. This is Midoriya Izuku. Bakugou Katsuki and I are t-trapped—”
He cuts himself off, just as Katsuki realizes his head is pillowed on Izuku’s thigh.
Izuku breathes hard. “—Under a building. We’re under the building. Come— please, come in, he’s—”
He’s trying to keep his cool. Katsuki knows the shake of his voice well enough to decipher whatever the fuck is happening. His thoughts are moving maple-syrup speed, but Izuku he knows. He’d know Izuku anywhere.
He tries to say as much. He opens his mouth to speak, but the first syllable makes pain pain pain spike up in his head, and he ends up groaning low and long.
Izuku goes tense all over. “Kacchan?”
Katsuki tries again. It feels like his tongue has a mind of its own, because he can’t move it right.
“T’ fucki’ loud,” Katsuki whispers at last.
It’s true. Each syllable out of Izuku’s mouth sends a new shriek of pain through his skull.
But Izuku’s here, isn’t he? He’d never do anything to hurt him on purpose.
“Kacchan,” Izuku whispers too, and he sounds amazed. Close to tears. “You’re okay.”
Fuck’s that supposed to mean?
Katsuki slurs a close approximation to that and gets his palms under him. The ground is unfamiliar, rough and textured. He pushes himself up, aiming to get a better look at the idiot’s face.
Lifting his head from Izuku’s thigh makes the pressure a hundred times worse, though, not to mention the flare up in his fucking ribs, so he groans again and drops back down so his forehead hits his leg. Motherfucker.
Izuku instantly presses his scarred hand against the back of his head to support him, and Katsuki notices he’s touching the base of his neck, threading through the baby hairs there, instead of the tender bump he knows is pulsing at his crown.
“Careful,” Izuku whispers. His voice is still tight. He sounds very upset. Did Katsuki do something wrong again? It’s so hard to think.
Izuku’s leg is warm. Izuku is going to keep him safe.
“You hit your head really hard,” that sweet voice says softly. “You gotta stay awake, okay? The Pros are on their way to get us out.”
Katsuki latches onto the word he knows. Voice even more muffled, now, he says, “’M a Pro.”
Izuku chuckles wetly. His fingers soothe at the muscle at the back of his neck. “Not quite, Kacchan.”
Katsuki wrinkles his nose. That sounds fake. “Y’r a Pro?”
Izuku breathes out very slowly. He’s taking a lot of time to compose himself. When he speaks again, he sounds even closer to tears. “Kacchan, you—”
Something buzzes, sharp like static. Izuku jolts.
“Hello?” Izuku gasps.
“H’llo?” Katsuki answers.
Izuku’s touch to the back of his neck gets a little harder. Katsuki’s eyes flutter.
The static sound again, and then— “Bak-g-?”
Izuku sobs out loud. It’s like all the breath leaves him at once in the relief of it.
The sound teases a memory from the back of Katsuki’s brain: the woman under the rubble, so overwhelmed to have help after being so scared she wouldn’t get it that the threads of her composure snap all at once.
Izuku sobs again. “Sensei?”
Static again. And then, clearer, urgent: “Midoriya. What’s your status?”
Izuku’s hand leaves Katsuki’s neck, and Katsuki gathers that he’s pressing it against his own mouth, based on the controlled breath he takes. He speaks again. “S-Sensei. The building collapsed.”
“I know, Midoriya. We’re doing everything we c-n to get through to you.”
“Sensei. Kacchan needs help. Kacchan needs help.”
Katsuki doesn’t need help, what the fuck. Who does Izuku think he is?
If Aizawa sensei responds, he doesn’t hear it. Izuku speaks again. “He c-covered me from another explosion. His back is—it’s not good. And he’s only sort of conscious, he’s slurring and he’s not making sense. I don’t know if any of his bones are broken.”
Aizawa says instantly: “Okay. That’s okay. Try not to move him.”
Katsuki sits up.
He doesn’t really think about it before he does it, but Izuku shouts (too loud) and grabs his arms to stop him. There isn’t a lot of light in here. Katsuki squints at the approximation of where his face is.
“Midoriya. Are you hurt at all?”
Katsuki makes a grab for the comm before Izuku can, considering both of his hands are busy. It’s his comm, the emergency one he usually keeps in his pants’ pocket in case something happens to his phone. Katsuki brings it to his mouth. “He’s c’vered in blood.”
A pause.
In the dark, Izuku stares at him.
“Bakugou,” Aizawa says. He doesn’t miss the relief, or the sort-of edge of annoyance. “What do you mean, he’s covered in blood?”
“Drenched, I mean.”
“Give me that,” Izuku whispers, mindful of his volume now. Katsuki doesn’t have enough coordination over his fingers to protest when he snatches it.
“I’m fine, sensei,” Izuku says. “He’s not all here. I have a small head wound.”
“Don’t put words in my fucking mouth.”
Now that he’s sitting up, it’s simultaneously harder and easier to exist. He can’t expand his ribs all the way, and he’s still swimming in nausea, but the dizzy spell has faded a little. He’d be trying to worry about the fact that his thoughts are coming in at buffering internet speed if he had enough CPU to process it in the first place.
Izuku is saying something else to Aizawa, because his mouth is moving, but he’s still staring at Katsuki with those wide, wide eyes. Katsuki’s just watching his lips move. He sways a little.
“Okay,” Izuku whispers weakly. “Please hurry.”
“Don’t worry,” Aizawa-sensei says. His voice is calm. Katsuki trusts him, because Aizawa isn’t one to bullshit like that. “Just keep him awake. We’ll clear you out soon.”
“Okay,” Izuku whispers again.
The static doesn’t buzz back in response.
There’s a few seconds where Katsuki and Izuku are just staring at each other. At least, he thinks it’s a few seconds. It could be a few minutes, or maybe even hours, but he doesn’t quite think so. Izuku has never shut up for that long, ever, in his entire life.
He proves Katsuki’s point when he says, strained, “Why did you do that.”
“Do what?” Katsuki asks. He wants to tuck his face into the curve of Izuku’s neck.
He doesn’t feel good. He doesn’t feel good at all.
Izuku closes his eyes. He takes a few more measured breaths. “Okay,” he whispers. Then he opens his eyes. “Okay. Kacchan? I’m gonna ask you a few questions, okay?”
Katsuki nods, and then stops when it hurts his head. He hums.
Izuku settles his hands back on Katsuki’s arms to stop him swaying. He hadn’t even realized he still was.
“Can you tell me your full name?” Izuku asks. He’s using his Hero voice, which Katsuki thinks is sort of cute.
“B’kgou Katsuki,” Katsuki tells him. And then he smiles a little, lopsided and mocking. “Kacchan.”
Izuku doesn’t take the bait, but he smiles a little. Relief. “Okay. How old are you?”
Katsuki pauses. He’s—well, his birthday has just passed, he thinks, so he must be one year older than he thinks he is, because birthday transitions can get tricky. He’s—nineteen? No, that doesn’t sound right. Eighteen? He’s old. He feels old, feels it in his bones.
He’s felt old since the first war. He was too young to fight in that. Izuku was too young, too.
“Y’didn’t deserve that,” Katsuki tells him.
Izuku’s grip on his arms tightens. “What?”
“Eighteen. I’m pretty sure.”
Izuku keeps staring at him.
Katsuki bobs his head in a nod. “S’rry. For—you didn’t deserve to get hurt like that, when we were fighting Shigar’ki.”
“Kacchan.”
“Always worryin’ abou’ me. Don’ deserve it. I’m always—always finding s’me way t’ make you cry.”
Izuku’s tearing up now as he watches him.
Another wave of dizziness starts to crash against him in waves. Katsuki tries real hard to keep his focus on Izuku.
“I am worried about you,” Izuku says quietly, fiercely. He jostles Katsuki a little, but not enough to hurt too bad. “I am always worried about you, do you hear me?”
“Don’ deserve it,” Katsuki says again.
He tips himself forward, and Izuku lets him when he realizes what he’s trying to do. Katsuki puts his forehead against Izuku’s shoulder. Izuku smells like sweat and amber.
Even after Katsuki closes his eyes, he’s still dizzy. He groans.
“Kacchan?”
“Hurts.”
Izuku’s always so soft when he touches him. He’s soft now, and he doesn’t have to be asked, and he wouldn’t care if Katsuki complained ‘cause he wouldn’t believe him anyway, when he very gently skates his palm up the expanse of Katsuki’s shuttering back. He avoids his busted ribs and something on his skin that burns to settle on his neck again. To soothe Katsuki’s racing heart, and the sweat drenched there.
“I should’ve listened to you,” Izuku sniffs. “You told me not to go in and I didn’t—I should’ve—I don’t know why I didn’t trust you.”
“Y’do trust me,” Katsuki mumbles. Jesus, he’s sick. He’s so dizzy. He presses his face against Izuku’s neck. He wants to stop being dizzy. “Y’re just also r’lly stupid.”
Izuku huffs a wet-sounding laugh. “You’re right.”
“It was C-4.”
“What?”
Katsuki rolls his head. Izuku’s skin is so fucking soft. “The villain upstairs. Set off C-4 when you w’ked in. Smelled like motor oil. Prob’ly projected h’s voice with a q’rk.”
Izuku’s hold on him shifts. Tightens. He presses his mouth into Katsuki’s grimy hair and says, “You’re a genius.”
“I know,” Katsuki tells him, just as Izuku fumbles for the comm again.
“Sensei? The villain’s quirk likely isn’t the explosions. Kacchan figured out how he might have lured us.”
The static cues in again. “Good to know. How are you holding up?”
“The same, I think,” Izuku says, but he sounds a lot calmer now.
Katsuki shifts his weight a little so he can sit more comfortably, bloody face still pressed against Izuku’s bloody neck. The smell of Izuku grounds him.
“Kacchan is moving and talking mostly okay.”
“Mostly okay?”
A pause. Izuku shifts his head, like he’s looking down at where Katsuki has curled up against him. “He’s—um. Sort of clingy? And he’s saying stuff that I don’t think he would say if he had— any sort of filter.”
“I’ll fucking kill you,” Katsuki says into his skin, eyes fluttering again. “The fuck is that supposed to mean.”
“Mostly.”
He doesn’t hear what Aizawa-sensei has to say in response to that, because the next wave of dizziness makes his vision cut out.
He only realizes he’s lost time when he comes back to himself folded low at a weird angle and Aizawa’s static voice saying “Midoriya? Come in.” and Izuku’s voice begging “Kacchan. Kacchan— Katsuki!”
Katsuki jolts.
Izuku’s immediately upset again, if the tears in his voice are anything to go by. “Katsuki,” he sniffs, grabbing at him. “God, please—”
“’Zuku.”
Izuku shutters. “Open your eyes. Say—say my name again.”
Katsuki fights the confusion of where he is and what’s happening around him to bite back at whatever dumb shit Izuku had to say: “Say mine first, f’ckin’ asshole.”
“Katsuki.”
“’Zuku.”
Katsuki lifts his head, like, point proven, but has to blink hard to focus when Izuku cups his face in his hands like he’s trying to verify he’s semi-there.
Then the tears really do start falling. Dam opened.
“Hey,” Katsuki grunts. He picks up his own clumsy hand to scrape his fingers across Izuku’s wet cheeks in the dark. “Sorry. ’M sorry.”
“Stop,” Izuku hushes him, warbly, but turns and puts his face into the cradle of Katsuki’s palm as he does. Katsuki holds his breath and forces himself to stay very, very still.
The comm buzzes again. “Midoriya. Bakugou. Come in.”
Izuku doesn’t move to grab it.
Katsuki has enough motor control to furrow his brow. “What?”
“Don’t—don’t do that again.” Izuku says this very sternly. His green eyes flash open. He’s like the sun. Even in this darkness. He’s all Katsuki has.
Oh.
Wait.
For some reason, that’s the moment he thinks he gets it.
That indescribable feeling. The something about Izuku. The feeling he’s been trying to chase ever since he knew how to run.
He thinks it clicks. Just like that.
He thinks—
Katsuki doesn’t say any of this. While he’s mostly cognizant, he manages, “Can’t really control it.”
“Try.”
Katsuki squeezes his eyes shut. He’s getting dizzy again. Bile stews in his stomach. “F’ck you. Think I’m not tryin’?”
Izuku grabs Katsuki’s chin in both of his big hands. “Kacchan. Stay awake.”
“Fuck you.”
He’ll stay awake if he fucking pleases, which he does, thank you very much. Even if shouting to get his point across sends another jackhammer down on his skull. Ugh. Fucking ugh.
Izuku doesn’t say anything for a second.
Katsuki feels his eyes flutter. Then, in a moment of weakness, he hears himself say: “’S kind of hard when I can’t hear you.”
Izuku’s grip on his chin goes slack. And then he’s cupping the back of his neck again. One strong hand slides up his jaw. “Okay,” he whispers. “Okay. What do you want me to talk about?”
“Anything you want.”
Izuku whispers, “I was going to ask you something.”
“Mm?”
“At graduation.”
“Mm.”
That’s right. Graduation’s coming up right around the corner. Bye-bye UA, hello oversaturated job market. Oh, the humanity.
Izuku doesn’t say anything else. When Katsuki cracks his eyes open, he’s got his lip worried between his teeth.
Leave it to this fucking nerd to make Katsuki do all the work during what’s probably the worst concussion of his entire life. “Well? Are you gonna tell me now?”
“I’m debating.”
“The f’ck did you br’ng ’t up for then? If I die here—”
“Kacchan,” Izuku snaps, horrified.
Katsuki cracks his eyes open a little more. Izuku’s almost in tears again.
“Don’t you dare say that.”
Okay. He’s not gonna win this one. “Sorry,” he slurs, distantly aware that this is the most he’s ever apologized in his life. His ribs twinge at his next breath, but his wince makes his headache pound harder. “Fuck. Bad joke.”
“Bad joke,” Izuku agrees softly. His thumb strokes the ridge of Katsuki’s jaw.
They sit in silence for another few seconds.
Another wave of dizziness hits. Katsuki’s eyes roll back in his head—his vision cuts out again.
“—suki!”
“Here,” he grunts. Since when has he been clutching Izuku’s arms? He lets Izuku right him after he apparently listed sideways.
“Stay—stay awake,” Izuku hiccups. Every time he manages to pull his composure back, Katsuki fucks it up again. Izuku ducks his head down to lock eyes with him. There’s something desperate about it. “The thing I was gonna ask you—I had this whole speech prepared, like, this whole official thing. I talked to Uraraka and Todoroki about it, and I—and I was thinking about getting flowers or something, but then I thought: ‘Kacchan’s too cool for that’, so I got rid of the flowers.”
Katsuki squints in blind delirium. He must be dead, actually, because there’s no way in hell Izuku is trying to ask him out right now. There’s no fucking way.
Izuku doesn’t notice the shift. He barrels on. “And I—well, I’ve been thinking about it since first year—”
First year?
“—but I never knew how you’d react, so I never brought it up. Actually, it might’ve been good that I didn’t bring it up first year, because you would’ve definitely said no.” Izuku hiccups again. “Actually, second year you would’ve said no, too, so maybe it’s good that I—”
Katsuki cuts him off. “Where is this going?”
Izuku is asking him out.
Izuku croaks, “Be a Hero Duo with me.”
Katsuki’s brain short-circuits.
It takes him so long to reboot, in fact, bowled over with surprise, that he’s already starting to detect the first notes of panic on Izuku’s face by the time he kicks his ass into gear to respond.
Fucking. Okay. Hero Duo. That’s—actually really sweet. That’s actually really sweet, what the fuck? Izuku has just offered to spend every day with him—with Katsuki, who is a monster in his own right, sometimes—fighting crime together like they dreamed of when they were kids. They’d get a shared agency; they could—
If they play their cards right, they could be Number One together.
That is what Izuku has just given him.
Katsuki needs to play it cool.
“I think I’m in love with you,” Katsuki says.
He only has a matter of two seconds to watch the shock bloom on Izuku’s face before he leans away from them both and hurls.
By the time he comes back to himself again, because he must’ve passed out a little for the third or fourth time, Izuku is pushing at his shoulders with urgency, sounding sort of hysterical. “Okay!” He’s chirping. “Okay, you’re so concussed. You’re so concussed, it’s not even funny how concussed you are right now. Okay, wow!”
“Ask me again when I’m not,” is what Katsuki manages.
The comm buzzes again. Aizawa’s voice filters through, sounding a lot more unsteady now. “Midoriya? Bakugou? Come in. Come in, what’s your status?”
Izuku grabs it. Katsuki barely manages to pull himself upright again.
Izuku wipes some throw-up off his chin (gross) with his free hand, and answers with the other. “S-still alive.”
There is a deafening pause.
“Good,” Aizawa says slowly. “Because any longer without responding and you would not have been after we fished you out. What happened?”
Izuku pulls on Katsuki’s arm, and Katsuki’s still too out of it to really process anything but following where Izuku wants him to go. Izuku tucks Katsuki against him, just holding him. His whole body is trembling. Katsuki thinks, hazily, that this is weird. They don’t normally do this.
He doesn’t pull away.
“Sorry. Sorry. Kacchan—he, um. He passed out for about a minute or two.”
Aizawa swears. It’s still nice to hear his voice. “Okay,” he starts, apparently putting a pin in his annoyance, because he’s back to being serious now. “Okay, kid. I’ve got someone here who wants to talk to you, okay?”
Izuku sniffs. “Okay.”
There’s a pause, and Katsuki wonders if the comm is being shuffled to another person, but then Aizawa-sensei says: “You’re doing great, kid. I’m proud of you.”
Izuku’s hold tightens around Katsuki. “Please just get him out of here.”
“Roger that.”
There’s a click, and then a new voice comes on the line. “Sup, everyone. Uncle Hawks has a new trick he wants to show off. You two holding on?”
“Hawks!” Izuku says, startled.
“The one and only. You dead yet, Midoriya? How’s it hanging?”
There’s a flash of red in Katsuki’s peripheral. He turns his eyes just in time to see a sleek red feather circle around them like an animal of its own right, before slipping back through the crack in the rubble it came from.
Izuku watches it leave. “Not quite. We’re doing much better now that you’re here.”
“What, that old man isn’t enough for you?” Hawks laughs. It’s lighthearted, and achingly confident. “I’ll tell him you picked favorites. But—seriously, are you holding on to each other?”
Izuku draws Katsuki even closer to him. Katsuki flattens his mouth against the warm column of Izuku’s neck. He doesn’t even know why, he just—it’s instinct.
Izuku shutters, but his voice stays steady. “Yeah. Yeah.”
“Great. Let’s rock and roll.”
The second he finishes speaking, the rubble around them shifts.
Katsuki squeezes his eyes shut and buries himself further against Izuku, because his head fucking hurts. It’s like cotton is pouring out of his ears.
Izuku doesn’t get too tense or panicked, so Katsuki doesn’t spare the energy, either. Izuku even makes these soft little shushing sounds when Katsuki gets dizzy again, which would normally sound condescending, he thinks, but they’re. He’s. Izuku is a hero, and the comfort sort of works.
Whatever.
It takes Katsuki a second to process that light has started to stream into their surroundings—when he does, his vision blurs, and he groans again. He sort of feels like a cat, hackles raised as he has them.
The muffled shouting hits in waves.
“Over here! Sens—”
“—oah, Bakugou, are you—?”
“Deku! Is he—?”
“Medic!”
There are people jumping past the rubble and into the little crater they’d designated for themselves. There are hands on his arms, lifting him up and away, and Katsuki goes limp again when the nausea rears its ugly head again. He keeps his eyes squeezed shut.
“Bakugou!” Kirishima’s voice.
Katsuki cracks an eye open. Riot red.
“Hey, sh’tty hair.”
Kirishima hugs him. It hurts his back and ribs, and he hears Izuku start to protest in the background, but Katsuki only hisses a little and takes it on otherwise. He’s fuckin’ strong, Pro or not.
Kirishima looks fucking wrecked when he pulls back, and he’s just looking at Katsuki.
“Hey,” Katsuki says again, quietly. It’s a little too soft for his reputation to uphold.
“Hey, man,” Kirishima rasps, because he’s one of the best people Katsuki’s ever known, and he would never call him on some shit like that.
Izuku catches up to his side just as Aizawa gets there, and Kirishima moves out of the way in time for him to grab them both and pull them into a new hug. Katsuki notes, through the jolt of how strange it is for their sleep-deprived, deadpan, probably-alcoholic teacher to hug anyone voluntarily, how Aizawa avoids all of his major injuries with insane precision. Aizawa folds Izuku up a little tighter, allowed to be less careful, and Izuku goes boneless against him.
“Thank God,” Aizawa says, a harsh whisper. Katsuki’s glad to hear it away from the static of his comm.
Their teacher pulls back. Looks between the two of them: Izuku, bloodsoaked and crusty and one green eye screwed shut, and Katsuki, swaying on his feet with half-lidded vision.
Aizawa crushes them to his chest again.
“Thank God,” he repeats, quieter, and Katsuki knows he and Izuku will both ignore how his voice shakes.
“Sensei?” Katsuki says into his shoulder, when the inky black starts to dot his vision again.
“Yeah, kid?”
“Y’might have to catch me.”
Katsuki will never admit, to anyone who asks, that after the rescue is when he faints for real.
(That’s when he faints for real.)