Chapter Text
Katsuki felt a feral grin stretch its way across his face.
The heat of his explosions spread a sort of pleasant warmth from his palms up his arms as he closed in on the criminal trying to make a desperate escape. The idiot had robbed a bank in broad daylight a block away from Endeaver’s agency, where Katsuki was doing his work study. He’d been patrolling with Deku when he saw the commotion, a crowd of people rushing out of the bank. They’d all been yelling and crying like a bunch of whiny babies, but luckily the bank teller wasn’t a complete waste of space and was able to point them in the direction that the robbers had gone in.
Katsuki had been able to catch up with one of the criminals, who evidently had a bounce quirk. The man had a duffel bag full of stolen money and was jumping from rooftop to rooftop, which was no problem for Katsuki’s explosive speed. He was right on the wannabe villain’s tail, and he wondered why the hell someone with such a stupid quirk would think they would be able to get away with committing a crime so close to a hero agency. Katsuki had to assume that the idiot’s accomplices must have more impressive quirks to have felt confident enough to commit such a bold crime in a heavily patrolled area. He almost felt a bit of respect for the amount of balls that must have taken. Almost.
As soon as the man was within reach, Katsuki leaped forward and slammed into the bouncing criminal, causing them to crash land on the roof of an apartment building. They rolled over one another before skidding to a stop. Katsuki pushed himself to his feet with a groan. He could hear the robber trying to crawl to where the duffel had landed a few feet away from them.
“Don’t even think about it,” He scoffed as he slammed his boot down on the man’s chest, effectively keeping him in place.
Before he even had the chance to turn and look for Deku, who had been somewhere behind him, he heard the sound of an explosion, and a wave of heat washed over him.
“Kaachan!” a squeaky voice called out, worry lacing his voice.
“Deku, what the fuck?”
Izuku landed beside Katsuki with a loud thump. “The other villains! One of them must have an explosion quirk or something. I was about to follow them through that building when they made it blow up!”
“Hah?” Katsuki raised his eyebrows in shock, a frown permanently etched into his features.
“You’ve got this guy, right? I’m going to try to evacuate that building!” Deku jumped away before even waiting for an answer, going head-first into trouble like he always does.
“Wait, back the hell up. What the fuck do ya mean?”
When it was clear that Deku was gone and he was not going to be getting any kind of answers, Katsuki turned back to the criminal under his boot.
“You,” he said with a glare boring into the man’s soul, “Tell me what you know.”
The other man had been silent up until this point, and he seemed almost shocked that Dynamight was actually bothering to speak to him. “Me? I d-don’t know anything.”
Katsuki pressed down on the man’s chest with his heavy foot, smirking with satisfaction at the hiss of pain he let out. He opened up his palms and aimed them at the man’s face. “Who the hell are you working with?”
“No one!” Shaky hands came up in a pathetic attempt to protect himself. “They’re no one. W-we’re no one. We just wanted the money!”
Katsuki spat at the cement next to his face and ground the heel of the boot down into his ribs once more for good measure. “Pathetic.”
He took the handcuffs and snapped one side onto one of the bouncing man’s skinny wrists, and the other side to a copper pipe sticking out of the building’s roof. He turned his attention back to the building Deku had disappeared into. Flames were starting to peak out of the broken windows, licking at the gray brick facade.
He could see a steady stream of civilians running out of the front doors of the building, scattering in all directions. Some emergency vehicles had begun to arrive, red and blue lights flashing.
Shit, Deku probably needs help getting people out of there, he thinks to himself.
Katsuki’s hands popped, propelling him across to one of the open windows. He held his arms and legs close as he shimmied past the shards of glass attached to the window frame, hissing as a couple of raggedy edges broke his skin on the way in.
The air was thick with smoke, making it difficult to breathe. Katsuki belatedly realized that his comms unit was no longer in his ear, probably knocked loose during the scuffle on the roof. He mentally kicks himself, knowing full well that this is the kind of situation that they should probably call for backup in.
Katsuki plunged ahead, hoping that Deku had enough sense to contact Todoroki, who was back at the agency with Endeavor.
The shit between Endeavor and Half n’ Half had surprisingly gotten better. Not perfect by any stretch, but the two made a pretty solid team when they actually tried. Now that the three of them were working with Endeaver’s agency for their work study for a second year, they had begun to work in pairs, with Endeaver taking along Icy Hot with him most of the time, leaving Bakugo and Deku to work together.
Which… well it wasn’t that bad. The two of them had made some pretty big steps forward, in terms of being civilized with each other. In fact, Katsuki was starting to find that he doesn’t necessarily mind working so closely with the nerd. Deku always had a way of pushing him forward, and once he’s finally come to terms with the fact that the other hero had never actually been looking down on him, shit was pretty much smooth sailing.
Actually, that might be pushing it a bit. They still argued a lot, but Deku had grown a spine and had begun to push back too. Katsuki was surprised with himself that he preferred it like that. Pushing around a weak Izuku wasn’t fun and it made him feel kinda shitty. I mean, fuck, he had apologized for that shit and everything already, but he was sorta still hung up about it. Every time he felt like the two of them were having a good time for once, he would get a weird feeling in his stomach and it would take everything in himself to not grovel for forgiveness all over again, and how fuckin’ embarrassing would that be?
Speaking of Deku, where the fuck was he?
The heat was starting to get to Katsuki as he made his way through the scorched building, looking for any lingering civilians. His quirk made the fire a bit easier to bear, but he certainly was not fireproof.
Katsuki forged ahead, sticking his head into all of the office building’s rooms. He certainly was not going to be responsible for any idiot extras dying in this shitty-ass fire.
“Deku!” he called out, keeping his eyes peeled for any movements.
“Help!” a shrill voice called out.
Katsuki turned his head towards the direction the voice had come in. It wasn’t Deku, he knew that. He slid under a fallen beam, making his way into a heavily damaged room, with a woman sitting near the far side of the room. She was sitting up, but her foot looked like it was pinned by a large piece of furniture, probably a bookshelf.
“Dynamight!” the woman exclaimed, clearly relieved to see the hero.
“How the hell did you manage to get trapped under a fuckin’ bookshelf?” he asked brashly. Let it be known that tact was not his strong suit.
The woman looked terrified of the situation, but it didn’t seem like she minded Dynamight’s behavior.
“There was a villain. He had come through here with another criminal and he caused an explosion. That’s what caused the fire, but when they were making their way out of here he caused a couple of smaller explosions. I think they made the furniture tilt and fall.”
Katsuki listened as he crouched down, sliding his fingers under the heavy wood. He braced his back and began to lift, using his thighs to push up. “Fuck, can you move?”
She nodded and began scooching backward, pulling her legs out from where they had been trapped.
Katsuki let the bookshelf drop with a huff. He made his way over to the woman and helped her to stand. “Can you walk?”
“I-I think so.” She hesitantly went to step forward, putting her weight onto one foot and almost crumpled immediately. Katsuki jerked forward to catch her.
Without a word, he took her one arm and draped it over his shoulder, allowing her to lean on him as they stumbled towards the doorway. Once they reached the broken beam, Bakugou gestured for her to get down and crawl underneath it. Once she had passed through, he went to follow her.
As he made his way across the threshold of the room, Katsuki felt his stomach drop to his balls as a horrible groaning sound echoed throughout the building. Shit.
Before he even had time to react, he saw a tendril of Blackwhip grab the woman and toss her out the window. Good fucking thing this is only the second story. As soon as he thought this, he felt another tendril wrap around his middle and drag him from underneath the wooden beam. Suddenly he realized that he was falling. He tried to move his arm to use an explosion to propel upwards, but his arms were trapped at his sides.
The last thing he remembered before his head slammed into a piece of concrete was the swooping feeling in his chest when he realized he was yet again being saved by Deku.
“Fuuck.” Katsuki raised a hand to his head as he groaned. He pulled his hand away to find it covered in blood.
“Kacchan?” he heard a soft voice call out. It sounded concerned.
Katsuki groaned as he tried to focus on the source of the voice. He squinted in the direction he thought it came from.
“Hey!”
Katsuki grunted. “Shut the hell up, why are you being so fuckin’ loud?”
His eyes finally focused as he took in the scene before him. Deku was sitting at a weird angle, kind of crouched down, with his shoulder’s curling in on themselves. And it looked like… he was pressed against concrete?
Katsuki blinked a few times, trying to clear his vision, before trying to figure out what was happening again.
When he looked again he realized that Deku wasn’t just leaning against a slab of concrete, he was actually holding it up.
Goddamn fuckin’ Deku, always getting himself into deep shit.
“Kacchan,” Deku called again, this time sounding a little less worried.
“What the hell happened?”
Deku weakly chuckled. “Well, the building began to collapse. I managed to grab you two, but I only had enough time to get the woman out. So I uh, sorta just held on to you. But then all this debris began falling on top of us. So I, um, caught it.”
Okay, Katsuki did not have time to unpack all of that.
One thing at a time - assess the damage. He tenderly touched his hand back to his head. It hurt to the touch, but the cut did not feel like it was huge. He knew it would be a good idea to try to stanch the bleeding, but it was not as bad as he had feared. His head felt very wonky and his vision was still swimming. He probably had a concussion, but he did not feel as though he were in danger of passing back out so that would probably be okay. He wiggled his arms and legs and they all felt pretty okay. Achey, but nothing dire.
He turned his attention back to Deku, who was not looking so good. He could tell the boy was trembling under the weight of the cement slabs, and it looked as though he was bleeding from several locations. Katsuki reached into his belt and dug around for some of the mini first-aid kit items that all heroes were trained to keep on them at all times. He had a few pieces of gauze, medical tape, and some skin-safe wipes.
He took one of the wipes and dabbed at his forehead, before haphazardly slapping a piece of gauze over it and taping it down.
He crawled over to Deku and inspected some of the more gnarly cuts. He had one over his left eyebrow, stretching towards his hairline. It was pretty thin and didn’t seem very deep, but the blood kept flowing from it. Katsuki took a wipe and gingerly wiped away the trails of blood from his face.
Once he was satisfied, he took a piece of gauze and pressed it up to the cut. He used the medical tape to crisscross over the gauze in the shape of an ‘x’ to hold it to his skin. Katsuki ran his fingers down each of Deku’s arms, looking for cuts, cleaning them, and bandaging them.
Izuku was blessedly silent throughout this.
Once Katsuki was satisfied that Deku wasn’t hiding any major injuries from him he sat back on his haunches and tried to assess the full situation. The piece of concrete that was resting on Deku’s back was pretty wide and was keeping any small pieces from crumbling down on top of them. The building they were in was five stories, which meant that there were three floors worth of shit on top of them. Could be worse, could be better.
“Okay Deku, what’s the plan?”
Deku laughed, but it sounded more like a wheeze. “Plan? Um, keep the ceiling from falling?”
Katsuki narrowed his eyes. “You can’t hold that up forever, we gotta figure out how to get the hell out of here.”
Deku squeezed his eyes shut, before he opened them wide, a more genuine smile gracing his features. “My comm!”
Katsuki sagged with relief. He recognized that Deku would not be able to turn on the comm unit with both of his hands a little preoccupied with keeping them from being crushed. Katsuki reached forward and took the device from Deku’s ear and placed it in his own before tapping it.
“Icy Hot?”
The line crackled for a second. “Dynamight!” Todoroki sounded relieved, with more emotion in his voice than Katsuki was used to hearing.
“Yeah, and I’m here with Deku. We’re trapped inside that building that had caught fire. We were on the second floor when it began to collapse, I think we might have fallen through to the first floor.”
Katsuki made eye contact with Deku. Now that he was looking more closely, Deku’s eyes looked more green than usual, an unnatural shade. Shit, Katsuki thought. Deku was using One For All to help keep the building off of them.
“You guys need to hurry,” Katsuki continued. “Deku is holding up some of the concrete so we’re not crushed. He can’t keep this up forever.”
“I understand, we are already on our way. We will work with Search and Rescue to get you guys out.”
Katsuki knew he didn’t need to respond. Todoroki and Endeavor were on their way, everything was going to be okay.
“Kacchan,” Deku said again. His voice was strained. There were no outstanding injuries on the outside of Deku’s body, but he was pretty sure holding up an entire building was not something that someone could do without seriously injuring themselves.
“Deku, why do you always have to go and get yourself into shitty situations?”
Deku gave him a wobbly smile. “I dunno, Kacchan. Why do you always get yourself into shitty situations with me?”
Katsuki wanted to continue to tease the boy, but he was pretty sure it wasn’t a good idea for Deku to keep talking. He was going to need all of his energy to make it out of this situation.
As they waited for Search and Rescue, Katsuki let his eyes wander over Deku’s trembling form. He had to be honest, it was pretty impressive that the nerd was able to hold up so much weight. Deku’s eyes were squeezed shut as he strained.
Suddenly, Deku let out a gasp as he slipped a bit lower. He was now down on his knees, the debris looking like it was beginning to crush him, a little at a time.
Katsuki raised himself up a bit to meet the cement. He braced his back against it and began to push up a bit, trying to relieve some of the strain from Deku’s shoulders.
Deku’s eyes flew open. “Kacchan! You shouldn’t do that, you have a concussion.”
Katsuki glared at him. “What, and let you have all the fun? No way, nerd.”
The other boy looked like he wanted to argue with him, but a sudden shift in weight, probably some debris moving around above them, caused the cement to become unsteady. It was now heavier on one side than the other, and it caused Izuku to become a bit unsteady. Some tears sprung to his eyes and he struggled under the immense weight. He felt like it was crushing him from the inside out, like his spine was being compressed and crumbling to ash and dust.
Katsuki watched as the boy struggled. He attempted to take on more of the weight, but the other boy simply didn’t let him.
“Kacchan?” Deku whispered.
Katsuki felt himself leaning in close, wanting to hear anything the boy had to say.
“I… I’m scared.”
Katsuki had never heard Deku’s voice sound that tiny, that frail. Deku was almost to tears, swallowing down the feelings of a breakdown. His whole body was shaking. His knees pressed down into the ground below them, cracking the floor with the pressure.
He swallowed. Katsuki hesitantly reached forward, one hand gently touching Deku’s cheek. The boy leaned into the touch, his terrified face beginning to smooth out a bit.
The debris above them shifted again, but this time a stream of sunlight made its way into the closed-in space.
“Dynamight! Deku!” He heard voices called.
“Hey! We’re down here. Hurry the hell up!”
Deku looked relieved, but the pain was still evident on his face.
As soon as the Search and Rescue team reached the pair, the pressure from the slab of cement over them began to lessen and Katsuki was able to relax for a second.
The moment the weight was removed, Deku crumbled to the floor.
Katsuki surged forward. “Deku!”