Work Text:
Ochako dropped down directly onto the hospital parking lot with a roll on the asphalt to cushion her shoddy landing due to the tears blurring her vision.
She hastily scrambled to her feet with a choked breath and ran full speed into the emergency room where she immediately became lost in the throng of the wailing injured and overwhelmed trauma nurses. The building was lucky the doors slid open automatically by design, because they would have otherwise flown off the hinges by the force of the increasingly frantic woman.
“ Where is Dynamight? ” Ochako grasped at the air in front of the first available medical personnel she saw, only barely cognizant of the fact that she shouldn’t grab at unassuming strangers, much less with her grimy, ash-covered hands.
Oh god. Her hands. They were crusted over with more than just concrete dust.
“I’m sorry, ma’am. I don’t know what you’re-”
“Dynamight! O-o-or maybe you have him in as, uh, as Bakugo Katsuki?? Y-yeah, the records would h-ha-have him as-as Katsuki. Where is he?? ”
“Uravity?” A voice called out in recognition behind her.
Ochako whirled around, hope leaping in her chest, though she didn’t dare indulge it for longer than a split second. “You know who I am! Please, help me!”
The concerned woman in scrubs with a name tag that read ‘A. Sakanashi’ reached out tentatively. “You’re bleeding. We should get you checked out.”
“No, no! This isn’t my blood, see??” Ochako unstrapped her gear indiscriminately, letting them crash to the ground with an unconcerned clang. She unzipped her hero costume with fumbling fingers, peeling the tattered garment off of her limbs to reveal surface cuts, certainly nothing deep enough to produce the shockingly large, dark brown stain across the pink panels of her costume.
No, that honor belonged to the man who was pulled off of her, unconscious, and whisked away in an ambulance.
The very same man Ochako was trying to get some answers about. Why wasn’t anyone answering her question and telling her where he was??
“Uravity-san, you really should get those wounds clea-”
“I said I’m fine!!” The increasingly panicked hero tore her arm out of the frowning nurse’s hold. “I’m not here for me! I-I’m looking for my partner. Dynamight. Please, tell me where he is and I’ll get out of your way. Please .”
A look of understanding passed over nurse Sakanashi’s face.
“I’m sorry, but we can’t divulge any medical information to you since you aren’t considered immediate family. Work partnerships don’t hold any legal weight.”
“I am the primary on his emergency contact list.” She informed snappily with a glare. “Check your records for Bakugo Katsuki. Check right now!”
Though skeptical, Sakanashi-san indulged her by putting in the request to the receptionist, if only to keep the shouting, half-dressed woman from creating an even bigger commotion in the already chaotic hospital floor.
“So??” Ochako urged, becoming increasingly frustrated by the desperation leaking into her voice.
“... It seems like you are indeed listed as his primary contact.” The nurse relented once seeing the name Uraraka Ochako, noted as the patient’s job partner, in the appropriate spot on the form.
“Like I said!”
“But it looks like Bakugo-san is in surgery at the moment. I’m sorry, no one is allowed into the operating room at this point.”
Surgery.
Ok… ok. That meant they knew what was wrong with him and were repairing the injuries, right?
Ochako wrung her hands anxiously. “What’s the damage?”
The nurse scrolled through the newly imported file on her tablet, her features darkening with each new blurb outlining the blonde man’s condition. “Fractured ulna, dislocated shoulder, and the lacerations to his back can expect to heal naturally. We have a couple of reversal quirks that may be able to step in for the ruptured eardrums, but…”
“But what??” What could be impeding the recuperation of a person’s sense of hearing?
“We haven’t yet begun the process because protocol prohibits the employment of quirks when the probability of a successful outcome doesn’t meet standards.”
“Wha-what’s keeping the quirk from helping Katsuki regaining his hearing?”
“It’s not that we doubt the efficacy of the reversal process in terms of repairing the eardrums. We are quite certain it would remedy that particular problem… The concern lies in Bakugo-san’s chest trauma. He suffered from a collapsed lung, most likely from one of his three broken ribs puncturing it.”
That must’ve been what caused that god-awful rattling sound he made right before blacking out.
“That tension in turn led to circulatory failure. Having already had to restart Bakugo-san’s heart twice, combined with the unknown extent of his head injuries, the chances of a full recovery are slim. At the moment, we are waiting for the results of the surgery, as his internal organs have been severely damaged. Once he’s out of the operating room, then we can focus on the process of rehabilitation.
Sakanashi-san’s voice turned soft by the end, like she knew the importance of instilling hope in the face of adversity, but being unable to do so without shrinking under the weight of reality. She was feeding Ochako empty words and they both knew it.
“You’re saying… You won’t heal Katsuki’s ears because he might… You’re all expecting him to…”
Ochako couldn’t even bring herself to say the dreadful words.
She couldn’t bear to speak it into existence.
But she felt the pain of it anyway. It brought her down to her knees, forcing her to bow down at the mercy of whatever cruel deity was out there that controlled Katsuki’s fate. She curled into herself on the tiled floor, trying futilely to compress the grief into a manageable ball.
Cutting through her wails, a voice commanded her to sleep from somewhere above.
For a brief moment, as her consciousness faded, Ochako wondered if it’d be possible to ask this person to allow her to never wake up.
Ochako boarded the elevator up to Endeavor’s office with a bouncy spring in her step.
She finally made it.
Her transfer to the best hero agency in the country went through two weeks ago and since then, she had moved into her new apartment provided by the agency, attended her fair share of farewell parties thrown by her coworkers of the last 6 years, then drafted and re-drafted what she’d say to her new boss in thanks for this incredible opportunity.
But all that preparation went out the window the moment she stepped into the expansive office and saw a familiar head of spiky, blonde locks blocking her vision.
“B-Bakugo?” She stammered out, frozen in the doorway. Of course she knew he was employed there, it wasn’t all that surprising when he was signed right out of high school, but she certainly didn’t expect to see him in her very first meeting with Endeavor.
“Are you shitting me?? You’re assigning round-face to be my sidekick?”
Sidekick? Ochako’s face twisted in displeasure. She had already served her mandatory time as one and far-exceeded the requirement for advancing into the title of a full-fledged pro-hero. She was nobody’s sidekick, much less Bakugo’s.
“Call me your sidekick one more time, and I’ll throw you so hard, it’ll take you a week to come back down.”
If she weren’t so overcome with the urge to kick Bakugo’s rude ass, Ochako might have felt the slightest bit mortified to have that be the first thing Endeavor hears coming out of her mouth. But at the moment, she was too busy glaring down the oddly silent peer she hadn’t seen for almost a decade.
Though it was hardly the harshest threat he’d heard over his long, illustrious career as an asshole, Bakugo quirked his eyebrow in pleasant surprise at her bite.
“Hmmm. Yes. This will work well.” Endeavor stood up from his seat and loomed over the pair.
Ochako snapped out of the staring contest first to ask a confused, “Ah- what will?”
“Starting today, you two will work as partners in the field.”
“This is bullshit! I was promised a sidekick!” Bakugo scowled at the perceived injustice.
“That was before you scared off 3 of them into quitting the profession.”
“‘S not my fault they weren’t cut out for the job! If they can’t handle the heat, they shouldn’t be considered heroes!”
“Though that may be true to an extent, it is undeniable that you will need someone to keep you in check. I have been advised that Uraraka-san would be the best suited candidate.”
“P-pardon me? Advised by who?” Ochako gaped at the premise that someone was going around spreading the notion that she was equipped to somehow reign in all of Bakugo’s… everything.
“A consulting group comprised of PR specialists, recruiters, analysts, and both of your previous mentors. My son weighed his opinion as well.”
“I-I see…”
After a preliminary debriefing and a curt welcome, the duo left the office with matching frowns, though Ochako couldn’t imagine his turmoil measured anywhere near hers.
It wasn’t that she didn’t want to work with Bakugo. He was incredible and would no doubtedly push her to amazing heights. But knowing that she was hired solely to babysit him left a sour taste in her mouth.
She must’ve sighed pretty disappointingly because Bakugo grumbled out before disembarking the elevator on the lobby floor, “Don’t know what you’re all pissy for. You get to work with me.”
With an uncharacteristic growl, Ochako slapped all five fingers on his back and sent him floating up to the vaulted ceiling.
“Let me down, cheeks!” Their coworkers and police gawked as Bakugo maneuvered his body through the air awkwardly with his explosions, all the while turning a brilliant shade of vermillion. Their jaws dropped a little lower when they heard Ochako’s response.
“No! You deserve a time out!”
“What the fuck is this, Kindergarten??”
“With the tantrum you’re throwing, it might as well be!”
“I’m not the one who resorted to physical violence to solve my problem!”
Ochako had to admit he had a point there. For once, it wasn’t Bakugo who lashed out with his fists, but her. Well, she didn’t exactly deck him, but technicalities wouldn’t save her.
“Oi! Quit thinking about how I’m right and let me down!!”
With a ‘hmph’ and a cross of her arms, Ochako let Bakugo down. She increased his gravity little by little, letting him descend down gradually until he landed gently on his feet.
“... You can do shit like that now?” Bakugo’s forehead wrinkled in deep concentration, his earlier annoyance set aside temporarily.
Ah. She had forgotten that he probably didn’t know about all the ways her quirk control had advanced. “I still have to touch things with all the fingers of one hand and I can’t stop it from activating, but I can adjust the force of gravity in an object instead of just absorbing the whole thing.”
Bakugo nodded absent-mindedly in approval. “Alright. Come with me.” He turned back around to the elevator once more.
“Eh? Where are we going?” She followed without first getting an answer, mostly to avoid the strange looks she was definitely getting from everybody.
“My desk. We’re gonna come up with some fucking killer combo moves. Blow shitty Deku and Half-and-Half out of the water.”
Ochako grinned in giddy anticipation. Maybe this wouldn’t be so bad after all.
For a blissful moment, Ochako wasn’t sure where she was or what was happening. Once she opened her eyes and grounded herself back in the land of the alert and awake, the pain of possibly losing Katsuki slammed back into her hard enough to make her grateful she was already laying down.
She was in one of the hospital beds with the curtain drawn around for a sense of privacy. There was no longer a fine layer of dust clinging to her skin and her wound stung from the residual alcohol trapped under thin pieces of gauze. A needle protruded from the crook of her left elbow, directly feeding fluids into her feeble body.
Though weak, Ochako mustered enough energy to swing her legs over the bed and hoist herself up with the help of the IV pole to swipe aside the fabric partition. The nurse from earlier noticed her attempt at an escape and walked over with a stern look in her eyes.
“Uraraka-san, I understand your desire to go see Bakugo-san.”
“I have to be there with him. I promise I won’t disturb the operation. I’ll just wait outside the doors.”
“He’s out of surgery now.” Sakanashi-san allowed herself a tentative smile.
Ochako fell back down onto the bed in mind-numbing relief, her voice refusing to work even to ask about his condition.
The kind woman seemed to know what to say anyway, helping Ochako back to her feet as she explained the situation. “Things aren’t entirely in the clear as he hasn’t woken up yet, but the surgery was deemed a success and we went ahead with reversing the eardrum damage so as to not put it off any longer.”
Clutching onto the nurse for fear of both falling and having her hope snatched away, Ochako nodded mutely through her tears.
“When he wakes up… If he wakes up…” Sakanashi-san remained resolutely realistic and cautious in her choice of words. “We can assess the extent of his hearing loss and the effect of his brain damage to discuss next steps. He will most likely need to attend physical therapy for his arm and partake in other rehabilitation programs, depending on what we see.”
But he made it.
For now, that was all that mattered.
“Thank you so much. Just… thank you .” Ochako choked out thickly.
“I’m taking you to go see him. But we will need to sedate you again if you become a danger to yourself or Bakugo-san in your distress.”
“I understand.” Still leaning on Sakanashi-san, she hobbled down the hallway to where Katsuki presumably was. Without the adrenaline of immediate danger coursing through her body, Ochako’s brain was now accurately registering the pain of the multiple cuts across her arms and the pressure in her joints.
Despite the compounding physical and emotional pain, she said goodbye to nurse Sakanashi at the door and entered Katsuki’s room by herself, where two guests stood up from their seats at the sight of her.
“Oh, thank god you’re alright.” Mitsuki rushed over to embrace the shaky brunette while Katsuki’s father shakily breathed into his hand in an attempt to stop the tears of relief before they began. “We were so worried.”
“When we didn’t hear from you and then one of the sidekicks dropped off your bag…” Masaru handed Ochako her purse, which contained her phone with multiple missed calls from the hospital, Katsuki’s parents, and hers. The hospital must’ve alerted Katsuki’s parents once they couldn’t get a hold of her.
“I-I’m so sorry.” Ochako whispered out, unable to look them in the face in shame.
“It was a hectic day for you. We’re not mad at you for not contacting us. Not even a little bit.” Mitsuki nodded along in fervent agreement with her husband.
The guilt threatened to crush her, making her gasp out in a short breath. “I mean, it’s my fault that he’s hurt. I’m so so sorry .”
“Oh, oh, sweetheart. You can’t hold yourself responsible for that.” Ochako bit her lip, refusing to cry and make them feel bad for her when she should’ve been the one comforting them.
“No. I’m supposed to protect him. And instead… Katsuki, he…”
“He never would’ve forgiven himself if you got hurt when he could’ve prevented it. You know that. That boy… He lives and breathes for you.”
If only he would.
Live.
“Do I look ok?” Ochako twirled in her long, pleated skirt, feeling it flutter and swish at her ankles before settling into place.
“You think I give a shit?” Katsuki shoved his hands in his pocket and glared at the gate that separated them and the enemy.
“I didn’t dress up for you , I’m asking what your parents will think!” She lightly smacked his arm and waited patiently for him to cross the threshold and enter into his childhood home. Though, it looked more like a villa than a humble house.
“I don’t fucking know! That old hag craps on everything I do and say!”
“Well, would you wear this?” She gestured to her blouse and the coordinating flower-embroidered flats.
“Hell no!”
“Then I guess I’m all set!” Ochako stuck her tongue out at her partner and jumped at the voice coming out of the speakers embedded in the wall.
“Oi, brat! You coming in or what??”
“Do I have a fucking choice??” Katsuki yelled back and yanked open the gate to march in with Ochako trailing behind with wide eyes. The front door was already open and Mrs. Bakugo was standing with an identical face to her son while Mr. Bakugo sheepishly waved at the guest.
“Took you long enough!” Katsuki scowled and swatted at his mom’s hold on his ear. “You’re not gonna greet your own mother??”
Recognizing that he was about to start one of his admittedly creative string of expletives, Ochako chimed up. “Hello, Mr and Mrs. Bakugo! Thank you so much for inviting me over! I brought some melons and strawberries, please enjoy them!”
“Thank you, dear.” Mrs. Bakugo’s features softened towards the young woman as her husband accepted them gratefully. And then as fast as it came, it was replaced with another scowl. “You let her carry them by herself??”
“They’re just fruit, damn! Shee can lift literal cars!”
“That’s besides the point! Why you little… Who raised you??”
“You!!”
“It’s so good to finally officially meet you! Come on in, Uraraka.” Mr. Bakugo led her into the kitchen where he set down the boxes onto the polished island. “They’re going to be at it for a while.”
‘A while’ lasted through and well past dinner, though she honestly didn’t expect anything less.
“Would you like some more of the roast, Uraraka?”
“Hand it here.”
“You can serve yourself, you lazy shit!!”
“Lazy??”
“Here you go…” Mr. Bakugo scooped some more of the mouth-wateringly tender, fall-apart-at-the-slightest-touch meat onto her plate, which was an impressive feat considering that the pot of food was moving around wildly in his wife’s hands. He was an expert in avoiding getting caught in the crossfire of his family.
“Ah, thank you.” Ochako slightly bowed her head gratefully, already salivating at the delicious smell.
“Round-face! Tell the old hag how much I do at work!!” Katsuki had his teeth bared, leaning over the table like he was ready to pummel his adversary if only she hadn’t happened to birth him.
“It’s true. He probably does the most out of anyone in the agency in terms of hours and caseload” Ochako admitted, though she hesitated to so easily concede to Bakugo’s point. The two of them decided to get a futon in their office by the fourth week of working together, tired of falling asleep on chairs and random patches of the floor in the middle of the night.
“You hear that, woman??” Katsuki snatched the food out of his mom’s hands.
“You didn’t bribe her to agree with everything you say, did you?” Mrs. Bakugo narrowed her eyes suspiciously, piling on the vegetables on both of the kids’ plates.
“Who do you take me for?? Besides, she’s way too smart for that shit!” He grumbled and stuffed his mouth with a candied carrot.
Ochako smiled softly to herself, pleased at the unexpected compliment.
In the last 5 months of their partnership, the two of them had grown to trust one another unequivocally. She relied on him to catch her when her quirk gave out and he depended on her, and only her, to watch his blind spots. But outward, verbal praise was rare and she was going to hold onto those scrappy nuggets every chance she got.
While Ochako was happy to answer all the polite surface questions about her and Katsuki’s working partnership, which ended with an impatient “Stop interrogating her, damnit!!” from the blonde, she became more than a little nervous when Mrs. Bakugo pulled her into the living room after dinner.
“I can help clean, I really don’t mind.” Ochako insisted as Katsuki and his dad cleared the table.
“Oh, no. You’re our guest and there’s something I wanted to talk to you about. Come sit with me.”
Ochako complied with her request and settled into the plush couch, her back a little stiffer and straighter than normal.
“I’m not so good with subtext, so I’m just gonna come out with it.” Ochako nodded, though confused with where this was going. “I would like to get connected with your folks.”
Huh? “With, uhhh… Like my parents?”
“Yes. I think it’s important that we stick together, since you two are so involved.”
“Ah, involved? Wha-what do you mean?” Was this some kind of messed up arranged marriage or something? What was happening here?
“Did you know that Katsuki never told me and his father about that bullet to his leg? We only learned about it from the news.”
Ochako frowned at the memory of carrying him all the way to the hospital with the gunshot wound in his calf. It turned out to be a clean through-and-through with only a couple week’s desk duty, but she remembered the panic she felt when he first crashed to the ground from being unable to support his weight.
“Now, I don’t expect that good-for-nothing kid of mine to inform us of those things, but I sure as hell was surprised to find no evidence of a hospital contacting us either. That leads me to believe that we are no longer the first point of contact in an emergency.”
It was becoming a little more clear where this conversation was going. She and Bakugo put one another down as their primary contact so that their respective families wouldn’t freak out about the dangers of their jobs. He didn’t care for their nagging and she didn’t want them to feel like they had to take the 3 hours trip down to the city every time she got hurt.
“I’m sorr-”
“No, no. I get that there are things that you two go through that have nothing to do with us. And that’s ok. But it would be nice for us parents to be able to commiserate over our kids throwing themselves into danger like that on a daily basis, don’t you think? Hmm?”
Ochako laughed a little at that. “Ok, sure. I’ll let them know and give them your numbers.”
“Thank you.” Mrs. Bakugo patted Ochako’s hands in her lap, squeezing them in gratitude of unspeakable volumes. “And thank you for taking care of Katsuki.”
“Oh, not at all! To be honest, I feel like he’s carrying me most of the time.”
“That’s not how he sees it. I mean, that little shithead might not call us even when he’s on his deathbed, but he doesn’t shut up about you. So I know plenty about how capable you are.”
Her whole body turned flushed at the implication, making her fight the urge to physically fan herself.
And she had no idea what his dad said to him, but Katsuki appeared from the kitchen a few seconds later with the same red face.
After calling her parents to reassure them that she was fine, unfairly so, Ochako returned to Katsuki’s side to alternate between holding his limp hand and just barely brushing her fingers across his cheekbones.
There was no one to watch her do it, his parents were outside talking to hers on the phone, but it felt wrong to touch him when he didn’t yet have the ability to protest it. Or enjoy it.
What if he never would?
“Katsuki… You can’t leave like this. You can’t.” She pleaded, checking his vitals for any sign that he could hear her. “There’s so much I need to tell you.”
Like how she couldn’t imagine not starting her day with one of his coffees topped off by a perfect swirl of whipped cream even though he always sneered at it as he handed her the designated cat mug she left in the office.
Or how she didn’t mind him always not-so-sneakily taking off those burnt sausage bits from her pizza for himself because she couldn’t get enough of the way his eyes lit up when he ate them.
And how she would fall asleep every night imagining his arms holding her like that one time they crashed on Kirishima’s couch on New Year’s Eve.
She needed to tell him that she loved him.
She loved him.
There was no way he couldn’t have known after all this time. They spent the better part of a year dancing around their feelings, spiraling towards one another until they were close enough to touch noses. He must’ve known, just as she knew he would purposefully forget his umbrella in order to huddle close under hers whenever it rained.
He knew, but she should’ve said it. Knowing the nature of their jobs, it was stupid of her not to have said it earlier.
The whole time, she just figured they’d fall into place. His lease would end or she’d need a date to her cousin’s wedding and they would just… accept the fact that they belonged together.
“Please stay with me.” She was openly caressing his face now, cupping his jaw and stroking his hair back. “I-I know I’m being selfish, asking you to come back and go through all that excruciating rehab with the possibility that you may never be the combat hero you once were but…”
A shuddering breath worked through her chest so violently it hurt her ribs. And tears were dripping down her chin hot and steady, saturating his pillow.
“ God, Katsuki. Y ou’d be number 1 in my eyes for the rest of my life if you’d just wake up.”
It was one thing to prevent a building from falling. It was another thing entirely to reverse the trajectory once it started.
They had contained the villain, but not before he knocked down the foundation supporting the 30-story building.
Ochako had braced against the wall of the toppling skyscraper with both hands in hopes that it would buy enough time for all the inhabitants and those in the fall zone to be evacuated. She had no intentions to try and re-right the whole thing, having planned to let it go once she got the ‘all clear’.
But there she was, feeling her back bend as the still-occupied building continued its descent dauntingly. No longer standing perpendicular to the ground, it was leaning at a noticeable 15 degree angle now.
Would it be better to be slowly crushed to death or all at once?
Ochako willed herself to think of anything else than the all-consuming feeling of impending doom, but the unwanted thoughts of Katsuki finding her lifeless body under the rubble left her with indescribable dread.
“All floors clear.” Hawks’ voice rang out through her helmet after far too long. They were at 45 degrees now.
“Surrounding buildings have also been evacuated. Uravity, you’re free to let go.”
“... Can’t.” Even though no one would hear her, she grit her teeth and strained out the one syllable, afraid that if she were to devote any amount of attention to anything other than the load above her, she’d collapse right away.
As if he was watching out for her, because of course he was, a panting Katsuki appeared a few minutes later as she assumed a crouched, squatting position to avoid being pinned by the massive weight.
“Hey, cheeks.” His voice broke uncharacteristically, clearly recognizing the gravity of the situation.
“Hey.” She laugh cried, having accepted her fate somewhere between 50 and 60 degrees.
“Let’s get outta here.” He was on his knees, arms up to try to take away at least a fraction of her burden.
“You go.” She groaned out against the killer headache pushing against her skull, concentrating all her energy into making sure he escaped in time.
“No! You’re coming with me!”
“Sorry… Katsuki…”
“Fuck that! You don’t say that! You don’t say that!! You don’t stop a fucking building from falling and then just get to give up! Fuck no!”
“I… lo… ve…”
“No! You… you just shut your mouth . You are going to be fine .” His voice was deep and roughly edged with heartbreaking denial. “I’m… I’m going to save you. So you just shut up until we’re free. Got it?? Ochako, I’m going to save you.”
Next thing she knew, Katsuki was shielding her body, pressing her face into his chest and blocking her ears as he roared and let off a series of blasts upward powerful enough to jerk his arm out of its socket after the fourth one. The fourth of what seemed like a neverending barrage.
Way past her limit, Ochako slumped into him and feverishly pieced together the bare bones of Katsuki’s plan as the world shook around them.
He was trying desperately to break through the building as it dropped down onto them to create a hole big enough for them to survive the crash unscathed. Though she lessened the impact of the fall with her gravity manipulation considerably, he would still have to smash through a good 40 feet of concrete, drywall, and metal beams to pull this off.
And he did. Once the raw screams died down and all Ochako could hear was Katsuki’s alarmingly raspy breathing, she rotated her head around the rubble to see they were now in the darkened space between floors, where everything was sideways and upside down.
The pair shakily rose to their feet. She was covered in debris and achy all over, but otherwise unharmed. He was another story.
“Told ‘ya. I saved your pretty little ass…” Katsuki managed a smirk before gasping in a rattling inhale that would haunt her dreams for the next year and crumpled to the ground.
“Katsuki!” Ochako yelled out into the darkness, astutely aware of the fact that there were no signs indicating that help was coming for them. Her helmet was in no shape to send out a message, just a dented mockery of what it once was.
After years of being in the field, she knew better than to move an injured person with internal injuries, but she’d be damned if she just sat around for someone to come rescue them. Ignoring the churning in her stomach from activating her quirk so soon after such a traumatic exertion of strength and energy, she carried Katsuki to the nearest window and kicked off the jagged sides to emerge into the dusty light.
“HELP!” She screamed with all her might as she fell over with his weight on top of her, no longer able to support him with or without her quirk.
And though she knew they were taking him to receive the necessary medical attention, her hands didn’t seem to get the memo.
Holding onto his unresponsive body until the last second.
“Mmmm’chako.” He mumbled before opening his eyes, lids heavy from the painkillers. With his right arm in a sling, Katsuki placed his left hand on top of Ochako’s sleeping head with difficulty.
She jolted awake, making the injured man wince, though he didn’t pull away. It took her a couple of blinks before her brain processed what she was seeing, but when the full picture came to light, Ochako’s eyes immediately welled with a fresh wave of tears.
“ Katsuki .” Ochako felt her heart swell with unbridled hope. “C-can you hear me?”
“Can I hear y- the fuck kind of question is that?”
She immediately dissolved into a blubbering mess at his response, careful not to press on any of his injuries in her overwhelming urge to hug him.
“You’re such a crybaby, cheeks.” He raised his hand once more to pinch her face, but before he could, she leaned into his touch, reveling in his warmth and kissing his palm. “Wha-what are you doing?”
“I’m so happy .” She closed her eyes, sniffling back the wetness, and rested her forehead into his fingers. “I was afraid you were going to die. You almost died on me.” Only now that he was awake and back with her could she utter that forbidden three-letter word.
“... Now we’re even.” He croaked back after a pause, his eyes glazed over in memory of what she resolved to do before he stepped in.
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have put you through that.” Ochako gently forced him to look at her so that he’d know she was taking her vow seriously. “I will never give up on you like that again.”
“You better fucking not. Or I will hunt you down in the afterlife and end you myself.” He growled, sending a long shiver to trickle down every vertebrae in her spine.
“I promise. Because… Katsuki, I lov-”
“Wait!”
“W-what? Why??” What could possibly be so important that he had to stop her in the middle of her highly anticipated, and frankly overdue, confession?
“I’m going to say it first!” He declared through his raging blush.
After the shock passed, Ochako threw her head back and laughed openly, joyfully, at his ineffective glare. “Ok, ok. Go ahead.”
“I don’t need your permission!”
“You kind of do since you rudely interrupted me.”
“I had it all planned out with the sappy flowers and expensive dinner and shit, but then you had to go and martyr yourself for no goddamn reason!”
“Oh my god, Katsuki. Would you just say it already so I can say it back to you??” Though she wanted to sound exasperated, it was kind of hard to do that when she was smiling so widely.
“I’m getting there, woman! Fuck!”
Ochako leaned forward with a twinkling laugh. “Well, if you get to be the first to say it, then I’m gonna be the first to kiss you. And you can’t object this time because you’re bedridden and I’m not.”
Katsuki didn’t protest. He couldn’t. Because their lips touched the moment she finished talking. Hovering over him, her hair creating a curtain between the two of them and the rest of the world, Ochako smiled into him.
She always thought their first kiss would be in a passionate frenzy, the culmination of all the tension between them. But this was better. It was soft and gentle. A trembling promise that would endure long beyond the explosive highs of novel attraction.
It was also due to the fact that he was still recovering from a myriad of injuries, but that wasn’t all that important.
When she pulled back with a content sigh, Katsuki gripped her hip and drew her back in for another kiss.
This time, sealing it with a low voice that twisted her insides pleasantly.
“I love you, Ochako.”
“Oi, cheeks. My parents forced me to buy these fucking tickets to some ridiculously priced restaurant their shitty friends are opening on Friday. Wear something nice.” Katsuki instructed her as she took the first sip of her coffee, pulling away with a creamy, white moustache.
“What makes you think I can just drop everything for you on a Friday night? What if I had something important?”
“‘Have’. Not ‘had’.”
“Huh?”
“If you ‘have’ something to do, then that suggests a pre-existing commitment. ‘Had’ is hypothetical. You don’t have jack shit to do on Friday.”
“Darn.” Ochako deflated in defeat. Her pout turned into a giggle once she noticed the thin line of whipped cream on her upper lip, licking it off with a swipe of her tongue. “Alright. I guess I have no choice.”
“Tch. As if you would ever turn down a chance to eat five different kinds of cheesecake.”
“They have cheesecake?? Why didn’t you start with that?? Unbelievable…”
“Yeah, yeah. Whatever.” He rolled his eyes then cleared his throat. “They, uh, they’re trying out different kinds of flowers for their table settings. Wh-what kind do you think they should get?”
“Hmmm. Well, what kind of mood are they going for?”
“Fuck if I know! Just tell me what flowers you like!”
“Ok, ok! Jeez. I guess I like lilies? The orange ones are nice.”
“Orange lilies…” Katsuki muttered to himself, contemplating writing it down.
“So what time should we-”
“Uravity! Dynamight! We need you at the Shiori building! Someone’s threatening to knock the whole thing down!”
The pair of heroes sprung to action, equipping themselves with their gear and locating their target quickly from their 360 view of the city from their high-rise office.
“3 miles away. Shouldn’t be too far of a jump. It looks about 30 stories tall to me. What do you think, Katsuki?”
“Yep. You going high?”
“Probably. Once we get there, I’ll check in with Hawks to make sure, but expect me on the top floors getting people down.” Ochako informed her partner of her preliminary plan as they ran up the one flight of stairs leading to the roof.
“Get me as close to the entrance as possible. I’m gonna smoke out the villain.”
“Ok. You ready?” Ochako emerged on top of the world, allowing a gust of cold wind blow past her and Katsuki for them to calculate how much of gravity to adjust and in what direction to pop the explosions to get them on the right trajectory to their intended destination. They'd done this so many times, it only took a milli-second to compute it all.
“Fuck yeah. Are you?” Katsuki smirked, reaching out to find her wrist.
Connected tight to one another, they leaped from the edge of the rooftop with a whoop.
Their voices were lost to the wind whipping past their faces and threading through their hair. Ochako could feel her heart shoot straight up only to get caught in her throat from the force of the fall. Or maybe it was the way Katsuki shifted his grasp so that they were holding hands, all of her fingers touching him. Gravity shifted and then they were running through the air together, high enough to touch the clouds if they so desired.
High enough to make her feel light-headed and inordinately happy.
Completely, irrefutably, deliriously happy.