Chapter Text
“Okay, so yesterday we covered this section here.” Katsuki pointed at the GPS screen, surrounded by Kirishima, Kaminari, and Uraraka as a biting gust blew through their snow covered campsite. They had pitched their tents in a flattish area near a large rock formation that cut down most of the wind, but there wasn’t really anywhere to truly avoid it. “We managed to cover a lot of ground yesterday after we finally got our shit together. Now that we know what we’re dealing with, I think we can cover more ground today and we can probably get through this area here.” He glanced around at his team to make sure they were all looking. Satisfied that even Dunce Face was paying attention, he continued. “Once we sweep this section up here,” he tapped the screen, “We’d be pretty close to the area covered by Icy Hot’s team, so we may be able to find some kind of passage we can work with.”
Yesterday was their second day on this damn mission to find a missing family who had been camping in these mountains. No one had heard from them since the area was hit by an unexpected blizzard several days ago. When Aizawa announced that the class would be answering the call for volunteers to help search this frozen hellscape, his eyes had glinted with his own brand of sadistic mirth. After all, “practical experience” was something their teacher enjoyed almost as much as a good “logical ruse.”
Now, Katsuki had come a long way. Over the last two to three years he had grown as a person and had humbled enough to admit he was thankful for that. He and Deku even got along most of the time, to the point he could generally admit that Deku was his fr- his… that Deku was an okay guy. However, when it was time to divvy up the teams and Deku looked right at him with his know-it-all, shit eating grin, and suggested that Pink Cheeks join Katsuki’s team? There was nothing he wanted more than to blast that damn smug look clean off his face.
He’d long since come to terms with how he felt about Uraraka. How could he not? She was a fucking badass who got shit done. She was clever in a fight. She could read people and get them to respond to her in a way that honestly eluded him. She was a goddamn ass-kicking, cherub-cheeked menace. How could anyone not feel this way about her?
Not that any of that actually mattered. Regardless of how he approached the situation, getting her to reciprocate those feelings wasn’t something he could really train for or research. He’d be leaning too hard on luck and not at all on skill, and that just wasn’t how he operated.
As such, if someday she literally fell into his lap and laid her heart bare to him he would be forever grateful, but that’s what it would have to take. He could live with that. Putting himself out there just to look like an idiot wasn’t something he was ever going to do. He sure as hell didn’t need some public failure of his private longing to distract him or anyone else from his rise to becoming the number one hero.
So that was that.
Uraraka’s hand reached out to him for the device. “Can I see that?” Katsuki handed the GPS over to let her inspect the map. The thing was durable as hell, Ponytail made sure of that. Their phones were basically useless since they wouldn’t get any signal in these mountains, so she conjured up special GPS devices to give to each team so they wouldn’t get lost in the rocky and often densely wooded terrain. They also each tracked the other GPS devices and could be used for communication with varying reliability. “Okay, so with the steep rock facing there, we’re going to have to follow the river for a ways before the path opens up to today’s search area.” She nodded to herself. “Aizawa said Todoroki’s team will also be looking for a passage from their side, right? Once they get that far?”
“That’s what he said,” Kirishima inspected the map over her shoulder, “but by the looks of their little blip, I’m not sure they’ll make it close enough to this side to really look today.”
This mission added one more bullet point to the list of reasons why Katsuki hated cold weather. He had been trying to be careful to keep the explosions to a minimum, but he ended up using his quirk for something in just the wrong spot and caused an avalanche. One careless moment completely buried the path they took to get into their designated search area, and then some. They were lucky none of them got buried in the process. It was his own fault and he knew it, no matter how much Uraraka insisted she would never have expected such a small little pop to cause so much damage. Since they were planning on being there for several days anyway and weren’t actually lost, Aizawa instructed them to just continue on with the mission and keep an eye out for alternate routes for the time being. If there were no alternate routes then they would likely need a rescue team to come get them. Katsuki wasn’t sure he could survive that embarrassment.
“Alright, let’s get going!” Kaminari picked his bag off the ground and slung it onto his back. “The sooner we find the Sasaki family, the sooner I find a sauna and never leave.”
Uraraka chuckled at his declaration and finished adjusting her gauntlets, then gathered up her own backpack. Katsuki made the decision to leave the gauntlets at the campsite today, since clearly large blasts were off limits for this particular mission. With everyone ready, the team began their hike.
They weren’t far from the river, so it wasn’t long before they were traveling in single file right on the bank of the icy waters. The passageway was narrow and on uneven rocky terrain. The only good part of this cold and miserable hike was that the rest of Katsuki’s team was so preoccupied with keeping their footing that they kept the chatter to a minimum.
“I got a good feeling about today guys,” Kaminari eventually mumbled around the end of the charger hooked up to the GPS. “We’ve just gotta get around this next bend, and I bet we find that family before lunch.”
“Then you better hike faster,” Katsuki grumbled. “This damned trail is so long it takes up half our search time.”
“Naw, I’m with Denki,” Kirishima added. “It’s not short, but it doesn’t take that long, and I bet we cover a lot of ground today, like you said, Bakubro.”
Kaminari turned his head to look at Kirishima. “Thank you. At least somebody here-” he tripped on an uneven spot in the path and to everyone’s horror the GPS went flying. It landed with a pe-lunk right into the water.
A feeling in Katsuki’s gut plummeted in its best imitation of exactly how the GPS was likely approaching the bottom of the river. Only a heartbeat passed with the four of them staring at the spot where it disappeared when next to him he heard Uraraka’s pack hit the ground as she gasped in a large breath and muttered, “Release,” then dove into the freezing water.
Kaminari screamed, “Holy shit! What did she just do?!” The panic clawing up Katsuki’s own throat mostly drowned out the irritation from Kaminari’s inane question as the three of them hovered closer to the river’s edge, straining to see any hint of her.
Kirishima looked ready to climb out of his own skin. His voice frantic, he asked, “Should one of us go after her?”
“No.” Katsuki wracked his brain to think of ways to help her. “Then there’d be two of us down there.” They had rope, but how could they get it to her? She had cables in her gauntlets, for fuck’s sake. Why didn’t she leave herself a line? Just as that thought came and went, a head of brown hair broke the surface of the water a few meters back toward where they came from, right at the bank, choking and gasping.
The three on shore ran to where she was and scrambled to lift her out of the freezing river while she clutched the GPS long enough to make sure it didn’t fall back in, then dropped it on the ground. Her lips were purple and she was shaking violently.
Once she was fully onshore, Katsuki pushed her into Kirishima’s lap and started pulling items out of his pack until he found the neatly folded silver Mylar emergency blanket. He shook it out the way he wanted to shake her, then manhandled the blanket around her body, pulling her to himself in the process.
He fumed at her, “That was really fucking stupid, Uraraka.” He tucked the blanket around her tightly, making it into a cocoon with as few gaps as possible. “What the hell were you thinking?!”
Her lips pulled back from her teeth in an apparent attempt to smile. “A-at l-l-least I g-got it.” Then her whole face pinched shut and her teeth continued to chatter loudly, like the exertion of saying a whole sentence was almost too much.
Katsuki gritted his teeth, stood with her wrapped up in his arms, and started walking at a breakneck pace. “You two, grab our bags. We gotta make a fire the moment we get back to camp.” He did not slow as Kaminari began to quickly repack his bag behind him.
Kirishima trotted up right behind him carrying Uraraka’s pack. “Is she going to be okay?”
Katsuki glared at the space in front of him. “It would be a real goddamn waste of all her fucking effort the last few years if she isn’t,” he said, more to her than Kirishima. “Round Face! Open your damn eyes!” Her eyes blinked open and she stared at his shoulder while she clung to him through the blanket. She would be okay. She had to be okay.
Kaminari jogged to catch up with the other two, carrying his own pack and Katsuki’s, then fell in step with the quick pace behind them. In the back of his mind Katsuki noted Pikachu was once again keeping his mouth shut and wondered if it was just the terrain or because the situation was so grim that even he didn’t have any dumbass commentary.
The hike seemed twice as long even though he knew they were moving much faster. He used his quirk to warm his hands to try to gently push some heat into her. Even still, Katsuki could barely feel her shivering after a while, and not in a good way. Just as he realized her grip on him had gone slack, the weight of her in his arms suddenly increased like someone had dropped Kirishima’s dumbbells on top of her. “Shit!” he shouted as he tipped forward and managed to catch himself with a knee on the ground without dropping her.
“What happened?” Kirishima asked, then helped Katsuki lift her weight so he could get back up. “Woah, why is she so heavy?”
Katsuki adjusted her new weight in his arms. “Her quirk must have dropped itself. She always uses it on her gear.”
“Drop her gear, man. We can come back and get it later.” They paused long enough to get her gauntlets and boots off of her. The process of manipulating her like a limp rag doll to do it was more than a little disconcerting. Once her gear was removed, Katsuki made sure to readjust the emergency blanket around her, then was on the move again. After a moment Kirishima cleared his throat and said, “You know, we need to get her out of those wet clothes, and then one of us is going to have to warm her up.”
Just as Katsuki let exactly what that would entail fully sink in, Kaminari blurted, “I’ll do it.”
Katsuki glared at the trail in front of him as he shouted, “The hell you will! I am not having her wake up in a fucking sleeping bag with your deviant ass! You did plenty enough already!” He sighed as he committed to the only sane choice. “Hair for brains, you do it.”
Kaminari squawked indignantly, “Hey! Do you actually think I would try anything in the middle of a medical emergency? I just want to help! Whatever needs doing, I’m ready to do it! Geez, man!”
“Good!” Katsuki barked. “Then when we get to camp you get the fire going and then boil a pot of water for her to drink when she’s ready, and don’t fucking touch her!” He stepped over a large rock, keeping his footing without losing speed. “We have to get her dry and in a sleeping bag with you, Kirishima, as soon as we get there.” His heart squeezed at the thought of it, but that was exactly why it had to be him.
“Nope.” Kirishima said in a surprisingly stubborn tone. “I know what you’re doing and it’s a very manly choice, but it’s gotta be you, Bakugo.”
“And why the hell is that?” Katsuki bit back.
From behind him, Kirishima enunciated each word clearly, like there was a chance that Katsuki might miss an important detail. “Because my quirk doesn’t double as a heat source. You’re her best option.”
“Fuck.” Katsuki took a few deep breaths.
He spared a quick glance at her face and noted that her lips were bluer now than before and her face was worryingly pale. She looked so small like this. He growled in frustration, “I feel like I’m about to break her like a twig!” An awful feeling constricted his chest. “I am not fucking gentle, and right now she’s so damn delicate!” The familiarity of shouting wasn’t as comforting as usual.
He could see the campsite ahead. They were so close, but that didn’t stop his tirade. His voice broke on the fear he hadn’t recognized until the words launched themselves from his mouth. “I’ve never been scared of hurting her, but she’s too damn delicate right now!”
He hadn’t even realized he’d stopped walking as he looked at her unmoving white face. His adrenaline spiked sharply and he said quietly, “Kirishima, check her pulse. She’s not shivering at all.”
Kirishima reached for her neck and his hand jerked slightly when he made contact. “Shit, that’s cold.” His brows furrowed as he pushed his fingers deeper into the side of her throat and stayed there a few seconds. “It’s there, but it’s really faint. I can’t tell if she’s breathing.”
Katsuki shouted, “Let’s move!” and broke into a dead run. He headed for the tent closest to the fire pit, which happened to be Uraraka’s. The other two guys struggled to keep up, but they managed. When they got there Kaminari immediately set himself to work on the fire. Katsuki yelled, “Kirishima, get her sleeping bag out, unzip and open it up all the way so I can set her down on it!” Without a word his friend did what he was told.
Katsuki quickly but gently laid her down atop the sleeping bag on the ground outside the tent, then barked, “Help me keep the blanket over her while I get this stuff off from underneath. Once we get her out of this and dried off we can use the bag to drag her into the tent.” Kirishima removed her head gear then held the emergency blanket in place to keep her covered while Katsuki struggled with the zipper of her suit, then peeled the wet garment off of her. He frowned at Kirishima and said, “Underwear?”
Kirishima had his brows furrowed while he held the side of his face right over her nose and mouth, feeling and listening for air movement. His eyes darted to Katsuki and he answered, “Are they cold and wet?”
Katsuki sighed and blindly peeled off the soaked panties, then quickly but awkwardly untangled her wet bra from her body from underneath the silvery crinkled sheet. “She breathing?”
Kirishima said, “Barely,” then found a towel to replace the Mylar and started drying her off.
Katsuki took off his own equipment and stripped off his shirt. “After we drag her in the tent I’ll climb in. Help me zip it around us once I’m in there.”
Kirishima nodded while he had his fingers pressed to her neck. His eyes widened in panic. “I can’t feel anything! I think her heart stopped!”
“What?! How long?” Katsuki tried to feel for it too, but only for a moment before he started doing chest compressions.
“Just now, I’ve been checking regularly since you put her down.”
Kaminari came running toward them, hollering, “There’s no pulse?! Let me help!”
Katsuki continued pistoning his weight into her sternum and growled back, “Stay the fuck out of the way!”
Kaminari grabbed Katsuki’s shoulder with a surprising amount of force and shouted, “I’M A DEFIBRILLATOR!”
Katsuki paused. “You know how much juice to use?”
“Yes! I’ve been studying, just in case!” He pleaded miserably.
Katsuki instantly moved out of Kaminari’s way to give him space to work. Kirishima had his fingers at her pulse point again. “Still nothing guys.”
Kaminari quickly tossed the sleeping bag over the lower half of her body and removed the damp towel, leaving her upper body exposed, then clapped his left palm just above her right breast and cupped her rib cage just under her left. “Stay back and don’t touch her. Oh crap. Clear!” Her body lurched as the current contracted her muscles. He reached up to check her pulse with one hand, “Come on. I know it’s my fault, but come on!” She was so still and so fragile. She reminded Katsuki of a porcelain doll with wet hair matted to her cheek. Kaminari frowned and put his hand back on her chest. “Clear!” She lurched again and he tried again to take her pulse.
While Kaminari’s eyes were screwed shut, trying to feel for any little blip, Katsuki said quietly, “That was all her idiot idea to jump in. You didn’t make her.”
Kaminari huffed a wet bitter laugh while tears tracked down his face. He put his hand back in position. “Uraraka, please! Clear!” Her body spasmed under his hands again a third time, and his fingers were immediately at her neck again. After a moment his eyes widened. “She’s back! I feel it, the pulse is back!” He hastily threw the top of the sleeping bag over her chest and backed away to squat down with his head between his knees.
Katsuki resumed shucking clothes immediately, cursing himself for not continuing earlier, while Kirishima grabbed the edge of the sleeping bag and dragged her into her tent. Once Katsuki got down to just his boxer briefs, they traded places in the tent and Katsuki carefully climbed into the sleeping bag next to Uraraka so he would be between her and the zipper. He hissed at the cold when his bare stomach and legs made contact with her icy skin. “Kirishima, zip this thing up, will ya?”
“Got it.” Kirishima climbed into the cramped space and began zipping his friends into the bag. It was big enough to fit Uraraka and himself, but Katsuki still gritted his teeth as he was gradually squeezed against her freezing form while it closed. When it was zipped all the way up Kirishima crawled out and said, “I’m going to grab the rest of the sleeping bags.”
Once he left, Katsuki took a second to mentally steel himself, then grabbed her shoulder to roll her icy limp upper half to face him. Trying not to grab where his hands weren’t welcome, he wrapped his arms around her waist and dug his hand under her to pull her the rest of the way around and against him. He did his best not to use his eyes in the process, which was fine since in the sleeping bag they weren’t that much help anyway. It wasn’t like he hadn’t just seen her bare chest while Kaminari restarted her, but she was jarringly close now and would probably appreciate the effort.
Once she was settled on her side he wrapped himself around her as much as he could, the whole time fighting not to be reflexively repelled from her freezing skin. Obviously she was cold, that was the whole problem. Knowing that, and even feeling it in smaller doses did not prepare him for how distressing it was having such a full understanding of how little heat her body was holding. If fear were a temperature, this would be it; sharp stinging frozen fear over every square inch of contact.
Katsuki pulled her chilled mass snugly into his chest and tangled their legs. Pillowing her head on his bicep, he wrapped his arm across her back and placed his palm just under her shoulder blade. With his other hand, he felt the dip of her lower back before he moved it up to just under his first hand. It was unintentional, but familiarizing himself with her contours like this felt way more intimate than he thought it had a right to, given the rest of their proximity.
He pushed that out of his mind and with his hands situated in order to warm her core temperature as directly as possible, he very carefully heated his palms against her. The thought occurred to him that with how cold he was at that moment, he couldn’t sweat enough to compete with a sparkler.
Kirishima came back dragging in one of the other three sleeping bags. He looked at Katsuki and Uraraka and the corner of his mouth twitched. He set to work opening the bag and draping it over them. “How’s she doing?”
“How do you think? She’s a popsicle! A breathing popsicle with a heartbeat, but still a popsicle.” While Kirishima straightened the sleeping bag over them Katsuki interrupted, “Hey, get some of it under her. The ground is cold.”
“Got it.” He crouched down next to them and tried to stuff the edge of the blanket under her. “Hmm. I could do a better job though, if you got her out of the way.” Katsuki glared at him. Kirishima shrugged. “I mean, it’s true.”
Katsuki rolled his eyes and tightened his grip on her. “Come on, Cheeks.” Then he rolled onto his back bringing most of her weight on top of him. A moment before he didn’t think they could be any closer to each other, but like this, with her head resting on his chest, any previously hidden gaps between them were evicted. “Just hurry up, Hair for Brains.”
Kirishima chuckled, but made quick work of bringing each of the other two sleeping bags in from just outside, opening them, tucking one side under her and draping the rest over both of them. Katsuki rolled them back to how they had been, successfully encasing her entirely in blankets and himself. Kirishima crawled over next to their heads and pressed his fingers to her neck. “It’s still weak, but stronger than it was when we first got here. I’ll go help Kaminari with the fire.”
After Kirishima left, it took about six seconds for Katsuki to fully realize that this was going to take a lot of patience, now that the hurry and panic was over. Keep his hands warm, but not too warm. Keep himself wrapped around her like shrink wrap. Wait.
With nothing else really to do, he closed his eyes and imagined pushing his body heat into her. He took a moment to appreciate that his quirk actively allowed him to do exactly that, in a way. Being cold was something that he had always hated, but giving over his own literal warmth to her was strangely cathartic for the distress he was feeling.
This had better work. What if it didn’t? How long would it take if it did? He looked at her face. It was really close. Her eyelashes actually rested on her cheeks. Probably because they were so round. One was all smushed on his arm and he was definitely going to get drooled on. Her lips looked all pouty. She probably would pout about being cold. No, that wasn’t fair. She hadn’t pouted once the whole trip.
She had better be okay. He was going to be so fucking pissed at her if she wasn’t okay.