Chapter Text
Katsuki is angry. Not that that is anything to write home about. These days he is pretty much always angry. Today was a special case though. It wasn’t like it was every day that you nearly got fucking consumed by a fucking slimy douchebag.
Still, Katsuki can deal with that. He is going to be the Number One Hero and he’d been kicking that villain’s ass anyhow. Just ask any of the fucking useless hero-extras who’d been fawning over him after it all. They had barely left him alone long enough for the damn paramedics to look him over.
No. Katsuki is pissed because the damn nerd thought he was so weak that a fucking useless nerd needed to try and save him. Katsuki had been fine. He’d been handling it. Deku was a fucking idiot.
After All Might had turned up Katsuki had been swiped away pretty quickly into the ambulance (Katsuki is not upset that he hadn’t thought to get an autograph. He wasn’t a fucking baby. He didn’t need a fucking autograph). Now he was sat in the fucking hospital with a bunch of lame-ass nurses lurking over him like he’s going to fucking keel over at any second.
“Bakugou-kun please calm down, secondary drowning is a real risk with cases like this and we just want to make sure nothing’s wrong.”
Nurse Number Three is Katsuki’s least favourite. He keeps telling him to calm down and keeps fucking trying to wrap him a blanket like he’s some weakling who is in shock. Katsuki is fucking fine okay! He doesn’t need to be in the fucking hospital. He’d been kicking the sludge bastard’s ass just fine. He’s not shivering or cold either! His Quirk gives him low blood pressure which means he’s always fucking cold. He doesn’t need a blanket.
Nurse Jackass tries again with the fucking blanket and Katsuki’s hand explodes when the guy just drops it over his fucking shoulders. He didn’t flinch, he just wanted the bastard to get away from him so he’d exploded on purpose.
“Fuckoff!” he screeched. How many fucking times does he have to tell these people before they let him leave.
“Katsuki! Don’t be so fucking rude!”
Shit. They called his mom.
He flinches at the new voice. His mom runs up to him, her eyes wild, practically dragging his dad behind her. She glares at him.
“What the hell happened?” she yells.
“Mitsuki, volume,” his dad says weakly.
Katsuki scowls at both of them.
“You didn’t have to fucking come, I’m fine,” he mutters.
“I can see that now! What the hell is the point of us giving you a phone if you don’t use it!” Mitsuki yells cuffing him across the head before she grabs him around the neck with her elbow and pulls him close.
For a second he feels nothing but blind panic as she wraps her arms around him which is fucking stupid because she’s his mom. The worst she’s going to do is grab him or hit him. He’s not a fucking baby. He’s not scared of his fucking mom. Especially not when she’s just fucking hugging him.
“Can we take him home? Were there any health concerns?” His dad asks Nurse Jackass who seems much smilier now that there are adults in the picture.
“I’ll go get the doctor for you, we’ve checked him over and aside from a few bumps and scrapes it seems like your son had a lucky escape.” It wasn’t luck, he’d fought damn hard to get away from the sludge-bastard. “I think Doctor Hasegawa wants to keep him overnight for observation but barring any complications Bakugou-kun should be free to leave in the morning.”
“What sort of complications?” Masaru asks nervously and his mom’s arm tightens around his shoulders. Katsuki grimaces and shrugs her off. Luckily the doctor turns up then and starts reeling off everything she found wrong with him when she’d examined him earlier.
“The real fear with cases like this is secondary drowning. We’ve had one of our staff with a Healing Quirk check him over, but a lot of times the symptoms don’t show up until a few hours or a day or so afterwards. We want to keep him for observation overnight just to be safe.”
His parents nod and they’re taken away to fill in some paperwork or other. Katsuki glares at anyone who tries to get close to him and starts looking around the ER instead. There are a bunch of people there with little injuries that Katsuki wouldn’t have bothered bringing to a hospital – fucking extras.
His parents are back soon and he’s rolled away on the fucking bed like an invalid until he’s in his own private room.
“Visiting hours are nearly over, of course if you’d rather stay I’m sure we could pull some strings,” the doc is saying.
“No, no, don’t make a fuss on our account,” his dad mumbles. His mom is too busy on the phone to her boss to hear.
Katsuki scowls. It’s not like he wants them to stay anyway.
His dad tries to kiss his forehead before they go and Katsuki shoves him so hard he nearly hits the wall which causes his mom to start shrieking like a fucking banshee.
A knock on the door makes all of them freeze. Katsuki’s eyes catch on a mess of curly green hair and his whole-body tenses
“Deku! What the hell are you doing here?” He tries to leap from his seat, but his mom has him in another headlock.
“What the hell sort of greeting is that! Be polite!” She hits him over the head. He glares at her but falls silent. Choosing to glare at Deku instead.
“Izuku-kun, it’s good to see you,” Masaru says and he actually looks happy to see the damn nerd. Katsuki scowls harder.
“Izuku! How is your mom? Is she doing well? I guess you’ve come to see the brat! Not that he deserves it! Don’t let him give you any shit!”
The nerd glances nervously over at him and Katsuki tries to tell him without speaking that he was dead meat.
“I... ah... I just wanted to see if Kacchan was okay...?” his voice goes all squeaky at the end of the sentence when he’s caught in Katsuki’s glare and Katsuki feels a thrill of satisfaction that Deku is still scared of him. Good. That’s how it fucking should be. He isn’t some weakling that needs checking on.
“Oh how sweet! You’re such a good kid Izuku! So much better than my brat,” his mom shoves at Katsuki’s head and he glares at her. Not that it does any good. “Masaru and I have to head back, we’ve got a fashion shoot next week and you know how busy it gets. We’ll leave you two to catch up!”
His dad tries once more to hug him and Katsuki glares at him hard enough that he gives up. His mom doesn’t even try anymore. She just rolls her eyes at him and drags his dad out of the room.
Katsuki scowls at Deku who seems to try and become even smaller against the wall.
Katsuki seethes.
“Well?” he barks. Satisfied when the nerd nearly jumps out of his skin.
“I... I’m glad you’re okay Kacchan...” Deku mumbles. He’s rubbing at his chest nervously – must be a new fucking nervous habit and it irritates the hell out of him.
“Why the hell wouldn’t I be? I’m not some extra who needs to be fucking saved! You’re a fucking idiot! Why the hell did you get involved anyway! Nobody asked you to!”
Deku looks pale. Paler than he normally does that is. If Katsuki didn’t know better he’d think the nerd was going to throw up. Good. Maybe if he did he’d just fucking leave Katsuki alone for once.
“I-I-I...” the nerd stammers. His breathing catching at the end of every syllable.
“You’re such a fucking waste of space! I’m fucking fine! I keep telling everyone I’m fucking fine! Why the hell won’t you all just leave me the fuck alone!” Katsuki is breathing heavily after yelling and he stares at Deku because normally when he starts shouting Deku runs away.
The nerd is clutching at his chest like he’s a fucking maiden in one of Katsuki’s dad’s romance novels.
“Deku?” Katsuki frowns.
The nerd is breathing all weird. If he was pale before now he’s basically green.
Katsuki recoils when the nerd throws up on the floor.
“Deku!” he screeches.
The nerd collapses into the newly made puddle and he’s not breathing now.
The rasping breaths have stopped.
Katsuki’s on his knees next to Deku before he has time to think about it. He grabs the nerd and rolls him onto his side but the nerd’s lips have gone blue and he’s not. Fucking. Breathing.
“Help!” Katsuki screams at the top of his lungs. “Help!”
There’s a thudding of feet against the tiled floor and then a whole host of nurses and doctors barge into the room.
Before he knows what’s happening Deku is ripped out of his hands and the doc is yelling about codes and then she’s pumping Deku’s chest right there on the floor.
“What’s wrong with him?” Katsuki doesn’t realise he said it until he’s pushed backwards again by the Nurse Jackass. “What’s wrong with him!?”
“You need to calm down, we’re working on him now. Did he say anything? Show any symptoms before he collapsed?” Jackass asks.
Katsuki can’t tear his eyes away. The nerd isn’t breathing. Why the hell isn’t he breathing?
“Bakugou-kun!” Jackass takes him by the shoulders and shakes him firmly. Katsuki blinks and stares instead at the nurse. “Were there any symptoms?”
“He...he uh...” Katsuki throws his mind back, shaking his head. “All Might got there before the sludge guy could do anything. Deku wasn’t hurt. He wasn’t.”
Katsuki would have noticed. He would have seen if the sludge-bastard had got him.
“Damnit! Hasegawa! He was at the same villain site!” Jackass calls. No one seems to do anything different.
“What’s wrong with him?” Katsuki demands again.
He would have seen if the nerd got hit. He would have!
But no one is listening to him anymore. Instead they lift Deku onto a stretcher and wheel him away out of the room. Katsuki can’t see if he’s breathing. Katsuki needs to know if the nerd is breathing.
“Bakugou-kun you need to calm down!” Jackass stops him leaving the room and pushes him back onto the bed.
“He’s going to be okay right? He’s...” Katsuki can’t breathe. It feels like the sludge villain has him again. There are tight bands around his chest and he can’t breathe. The nerd wasn’t breathing. Katsuki would have seen if he’d been hit.
The nerd was fine.
He was fine.
~
Izuku wakes up in a lot of pain. It feels like that time the kids in the year above him had taken issue with the fact that he was Quirkless and had the audacity to sit in the park near them. He groans and tries to lift a hand to his ribs but the pain stops him pretty quickly.
“Deku? You up?”
Izuku flinches and his eyes shoot open.
He’s in the hospital. In his own room. Well. He’s not in the Emergency Room but he’s not alone. Kacchan is on the other bed in the room. He looks pale and has dark circles under his eyes. Izuku worries, maybe the villain had done more damage than they’d thought? Izuku had heard the paramedics fussing Kacchan but he’d assumed he’d be okay. His parents had left too so surely they didn’t think anything serious had been wrong or they would have stayed-
“Shut up with the mumbling Deku!” Kacchan growls and Izuku falls silent immediately. He hadn’t realised he’d been talking out loud.
“Sorry,” he breathes.
Kacchan looks angry. Scratch that, Kacchan looks furious. More surprisingly Kacchan doesn’t say anything beyond telling him to be quiet.
They sit in silence for a few painfully long minutes. Izuku has never done well with long silences.
“Are you... are you hurt?” Izuku whispers, terrified of saying something wrong that would break whatever peace they seemed to have in the room. Kacchan was never so bad as when it was just the two of them.
“Me!?” Kacchan barks and Izuku flinches. Kacchan frowns and lets off a small explosion to the side of his bed. Izuku tries to sit up but the pain in his ribs stops him short. “I’m not the one who fucking collapsed! They had to do fucking CPR on you! Why the hell didn’t you tell the paramedics the sludge-bastard got you? When did he get you!?”
Izuku frowns, he’d collapsed? He didn’t remember that. The last thing he remembered was coming to see Kacchan in the room, his chest had been hurting for the past few hours. He’d been feeling nauseated too. He’d thought it was left over adrenalin from the villain attacks, but maybe he had something else? It can’t have been from when he’d tried to save Kacchan, he hadn’t been close enough to the villain for long enough before All Might got there. It had to be from before, before All Might saved him the first time.
“What the hell do you mean the first time!?” Kacchan snarls.
Izuku winces, he’d been speaking out loud again.
“I... ah... I was going home from school when the sludge villain attack me in the tunnel, you know the one between school and the park on eighth with all the sakura trees?” Kacchan is staring at him, but he doesn’t look angry. If anything he looks shocked. So Izuku powers on. “It wasn’t anything like when he took you! Yours was way worse, he only had me for a minute before All Might saved me! You were really impressive fighting him off for so long! I could barely stay awake for a minute after he got me...”
Izuku trails off when he sees the look on Kacchan’s face. Of course Kacchan doesn’t care. Izuku should just shut up.
“...That bastard got you too?” Kacchan asks, his voice pitched so quiet Izuku has to lean in to hear him. Izuku winces. It’s never a good sign when Kacchan goes quiet.
He nods.
“And All Might saved you?”
He nods again.
“Are you fucking stupid!?” Kacchan snaps. Izuku frowns in confusion, Kacchan sounds pissed but he’s lacking the bite he normally has around Izuku. “Why the hell didn’t you go to the hospital? All the Pros fucking talked about was secondary drowning! What d’you think you’d just risk it?”
Izuku shakes his head. Secondary drowning. That made sense he guessed. The villain had been mostly liquid after all. Izuku grimaces at the thought that some of the villain had been left inside his lungs, but it was probably more likely that his lungs had produced excess fluid after the attack which caused the symptoms.
He comes back to the room when Kacchan’s palm explodes once more. Izuku winces and Kacchan’s fists clench tightly.
“I-I didn’t know that would happen. A-All Might never said anything, h-he had bigger things to worry a-about.” More important things like the fact that Izuku had been clinging to him mid-air. “It was my fault, I distracted him.”
He remembers the conversation on the rooftop. Izuku couldn’t be a hero because he was Quirkless. Kacchan had been telling him that for years but there was something different about hearing it from his favourite hero’s own lips.
“That’s not fucking good enough! You nearly fucking died!”
“Why do you even care?” Izuku asks, suddenly angry himself. “You wanted me to jump off a roof this afternoon! Why is drowning any different!”
Kacchan recoils like Izuku has slapped him across the face. Small explosions crackle in his palm but Izuku doesn’t think he’s angry or meaning to do them, they almost seem on accident, like Kacchan can’t control them but that’s ridiculous. Kacchan has the best control over a Quirk that Izuku has ever seen.
“I didn’t mean that,” Kacchan says eventually.
Izuku knows that. He does.
Kacchan may be angry and a bully but he also wanted to be a hero. If Izuku had jumped then Kacchan would never have forgiven himself. Still, it’s not something you can say to anyone and not expect any consequences!
“You can’t say stuff like that then! Especially not to someone like me!” Izuku can’t help it. He hasn’t talked back to Kacchan in years but Kacchan has never gone so far before. “What would you have done if I’d actually jumped off a roof?”
“You wouldn’t have though,” Kacchan frowns.
“You don’t know that!” Izuku yells.
He’s suddenly angrier than he’s been in years. Everything that’s happened hits him all at once. Kacchan destroying his notebook, the sludge villain, meeting All Might, having his one dream – the only thing he’s ever really wanted – smashed right in front of him. He’s just done with it all.
“I’m Quirkless Kacchan,” Izuku says and Kacchan frowns like he doesn’t get it. “The rates of suicide and mental health problems is higher by a lot in Quirkless people.”
“WHAT?” Kacchan reels backwards. “Why the hell would they be higher? You’re still fucking people! You wouldn’t fucking do that!”
Izuku sighs. “Quirkless people mean nothing to society. We’re worthless, useless. We get bullied and looked down on and when we do have mental health problems we’re less likely to be diagnosed or get proper help because I mean why waste resources on someone who won’t ever do anything great with their life anyway… but no, I wouldn’t do that.”
Izuku wishes he could sit up, for that matter he wishes he had some painkillers because his chest is killing him. He closes his eyes tightly and turns his head away from Kacchan.
“I’m sorry.”
Izuku’s heart stops.
His eyes shoot open again and he spins to face Kacchan. Wincing as the movement tugs at what he’s starting to think might be broken ribs.
“What?”
Kacchan scowls at him but he doesn’t yell or explode, beyond the tiny crackling explosions currently sparking in the palms of his hands.
“I said sorry,” he grumbles, “I didn’t know that stuff.”
Izuku huffs frustrated. “It shouldn’t matter that you didn’t know that! Even if I wasn’t Quirkless you shouldn’t tell me to kill myself!”
Kacchan nods. “You’re right. I’m sorry.”
Izuku doesn’t know what to do with this Kacchan. This quiet, pale, almost scared looking Kacchan.
“I was wrong.”
Izuku can’t stop staring at Kacchan who seems to realise this and scowls down at the bed sheets instead. His fists are clenched so tightly Izuku can see the whites of his knuckles. Izuku has never heard Kacchan apologise to anyone except his mom before, and even that was only after she had basically forced him to.
He has no idea what to say.
Luckily for him they’re interrupted a minute later as a nurse comes bustling into the room. He smiles brightly when he sees that Izuku is awake.
“Ah you’re up! That’s great news! Your friend here was really worried about you,” the nurse chirps as he starts checking the monitors that Izuku is hooked up to.
Kacchan scowls and mutters, “Jackass,” but makes no other complaints.
“We called your mom, she’ll be here soon don’t worry. In the meantime I’m just going to check out your lungs to make sure everything is still working like it should. We didn’t want to use a healing quirk on you because the CPR took quite the toll on you so we wanted to give your body a chance to recover. Chances are the doc will get you to stay overnight and rest a bit more before she brings out the big guns in the morning. How’s your pain levels? Are you comfortable? Warm enough?”
Izuku nods weakly, he thinks he hears Kacchan mutter something about “blanket obsessed Jackass” but the nurse is already poking and prodding at his chest and Izuku flinches away.
“Ah yep, that’ll be the broken ribs. CPR is a nasty bitch sometimes. Still, better a broken rib than dead. You’re lucky you were here when you collapsed! We had everything set up in case Bakugou-kun had exactly what you had so we were ready.”
Izuku glances at Kacchan who is scowling again, but this time he’s looking at where the hospital gown has opened and Izuku’s chest is filled with blooming purple bruises.
Eventually Kacchan rolls his eyes and flops back onto his bed with a huff.
“Ow,” Izuku mumbles.
The nurse just laughs, “Ow is right. Let me just adjust your morphine drip. Then you can get some rest, how does that sound?”
Izuku nods and closes his eyes. Right now it sounds like heaven. Maybe this is all a dream and he will wake up and the world will be back in order.
It doesn’t take long for the drugs to kick in and before he knows it he’s drifting off to the warm chatter of the nurse and the soft crackling of Kacchan’s palms.