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The darkness crept over the horizon and left a soft and safe blanket of stars across the sky. Ochako Uraraka sat in her dorm room, with a book in hand. Her homework finished, studying done, and it was just time to lay back---relax and enjoy her free time. In between pages, she poked at her phone, at text messages from her boyfriend.
Katsuki Bakugou was an enigma to her. But she loved him. He was supportive and strong, and wasn’t afraid to push her to be better. And he did every damn day. Just like she pushed him to be better. To understand his feelings, and to not be so damn afraid of them. Not to mention how to better channel his rage. Which he had a lot of. Easily explained by the nature of his quirk. The amount of nitroglycerin in his blood, if he didn’t keep his heart rate up all the damn time--- well she didn’t want to think about all the awful implications. They’d talked about it.
She sighed as fingers tapped away at the keypad on her phone, he kept offering to buy her a new one. Said he’d do it for her anyway just to surprise her with something better. She’d laughed him off, and told him he’d better not.
All in all, things were quiet. They’d been making plans for a date tomorrow afternoon after classes. And she was so ready for it. No signs of danger lurked in the air. She dozed off as she read further into her book, her replies to Katsuki’s texts becoming slower and more spaced out.
That was until the walls of her room shook, and she wondered if someone was watching an action movie in their room. When the sound of the first explosion rocked through her. But a second followed closely behind it, and the whole building shook. And she heard panic from the hallways, followed by a third that sent the whole building to shambles. She could feel it coming down around her. Pieces of the ceiling falling to the floor of her room, and she scrambled from her bed, and towards the door.
Ochako threw the door open, and found her path was already blocked. Shit. She needed another way out. Her eyes turned towards her window. And she took off, finger tips brushing her feet trying to make her move faster, lighter. She only made it about half way before another explosion rocked the building, and sent her towards the floor. Which collapsed under her, burying her under a pile of debris and chunks of rock.
###
There was panic in the air, all of the extras from class gathered outside the now crumbling dorms. And Katsuki only had his eyes out for one person. Of course, he mentally made notes that all of his friends had made it out. Shitty Hair, Pinky, Aux Cord and Dunceface. Hell, even TapeDeck had made it out.
But he couldn’t find the comforting and familiar face of his girlfriend. Where the hell was she? He scanned over the faces of their class, again, and again. Fucking Four Eyes had started taking headcount. And the longer he looked, the harsher the realization became. Ochako wasn’t here. She was still inside.
Where the hell are you, Space Cadet?
Tiny anxious pops exploded from his hands as he contemplated quickly all of the options other than her being inside. She had to have made it out, she might have had to come out through one of the back doors, or the window.
“Hey! Any of you extras seen Pink Cheeks!?” He snapped, loud maybe too aggressive. Shit.
Silence fell over his classmates as they all looked at each other, and scanned the crowd.
“No… Kero.” Tsuyu said, even she sounded worried.
“Iida, can you do a perimeter check? And make sure she didn’t come out another exit?” Deku suggested.
Deku’s suggestion was as good as any, Iida was the fastest in their class, thanks to his damn engines for calf muscles. Katsuki watched as he took off--- If he found her, he’d bring her back to the rest of the class. But when he rounded the corner from the other side of the rubble, it was empty handed with a disheartened look on his face.
Several things happened all at once, Four Eyes stopped where he’d started, Katsuki had started towards the rubble, and Deku reached out and grabbed him by the wrist.
“Kacchan! Stop! You can’t go back in---” Deku started, only to be interrupted by Katsuki’s fearful rage.
“LET GO OF ME, DEKU!” He shouted, yanking his arm free and keeping his pace steady. He didn’t look back at his kind of sorta half friend. “She’s in there, and she’s alone.” He ground out, “What the hell kinda hero would I be if I left her like that!?” His voice broke---, He hated that.
The wreckage was hard to navigate through, dust and debris clouded his eyes and caught in his throat and made him cough in disgust. But he had to keep moving. Ochako was in there somewhere.
He hacked hard into the air before calling out to her the first time, his voice sounding raw. “Ochako!” He called out into the destruction that had once been their temporary home. “Come on Pink Cheeks! Where the hell are you!?”
###
Ochako came to with a cough, which was followed by a groan. Had she lost consciousness? Fuck. She didn’t know, she’d tried to push herself up and pain splintered through her arm, and she cried out. Broken. It had to be.
Oh no.
Her legs, both of them laid trapped under a huge piece of debris that had to be from the ceiling. She coughed again, her lungs burned, and her body ached. She reached her unbroken arm up towards the angled pieces of debris, and panic flooded through her as she noticed through blurry eyes the piece of steel rebar that teetered between them hovering just over her chest. She couldn’t move them. If she did, the bar would wall, and skewer her. Fuck.
She choked, then coughed again on the particles of debris in the air.
“---Pink Cheeks! Where the hell are you!?”
“K-katsuki!” She tried to call back to him. She’d heard him, and his voice sparked a tiny shred of hope in her as she examined her situation. Even if they could get her out of this mess, her legs were broken at the very least, ruined at the worst. But maybe they could minimize the damage, right? She had to have some sort of hope.
Ochako coughed hard and her eyes widened as the long piece of broken off steel rebar slipped down, a handful of inches. Shit. No. Could she float it? She could try. But she didn’t know anything about what rested above it. That was the downside of finding herself buried beneath several floors of rubble.
“Ochako!” He called back to her. He’d heard her right? She could only hope. A piece of debris slipped down the cascade of larger pieces, and fell hard on her broken arm making her cry out. The rebar slipped down another inch or two as footsteps crunched the debris above her. The fingers of her broken side twitched at her pain, and she shifted.
“Katsuki---” She called out again, the footsteps stopped.
From where she laid she could see him. She extended her good hand up towards him, he slipped down carefully into the small alcove in the debris with her, before taking hold of that hand.
###
Katsuki Bakugou assessed the situation that he’d found himself faced with. He’d gotten better at analyzing things better, and in a situation like this--- Fuck. A huge piece of debris rested on top of her legs, and that piece of steel was dangerously close to making contact with her. Moving her wasn’t an option.
And neither was an explosion. The odds of there being a gas leak were astronomical, and setting off an explosion in such close quarters didn’t spell anything good for either of them. Goddamn it, she was in so much pain, he could see it on her face, and there wasn’t shit he could do about it. But watch her suffer and hope that help arrived sooner rather than later.
“Fuck, Baby--- How are we gonna get you out of this?” He asked, it was the first thing that came to his mind. And he was shocked at how calmly the words came out of his mouth. Though, he supposed it was easier to be calm when your heart was hammering out of his chest thanks to adrenaline and not his anger.
“I’m scared.” Ochako breathed out, her eyes trailing back to the cold steel that threatened to run her through. “I’m--- I’m not ready to die yet.”
How the fuck was he supposed to provide comfort in a situation like this? He’d never been good at that shit anyway. But--- This was Ochako. Bright, smiling, sweet Ochako. Always so optimistic and just--- Good. Why do bad things always happen to good people? Why couldn’t it have been him? He’d gladly trade spots with her, if he could just give her half a chance.
His eyes widened as the bar slid down, hovering just barely a millimeter over her chest. Fuck.
“Hey--- No. Don’t talk like that. You’re not going to die here, Space Cadet. I won’t let you.” He shook his head, And he held her hand tighter, bringing it up to rest it held between two sparking palms to his lips. “We’re gonna figure this out. I swear. I’m gonna stay right here with you until help arrives, okay? I’m not--- I’m not going to leave you.”
"It's gonna fall." She breathed, "It's just a matter of when. I..." There was no sign of her usual optimism. She was preparing to die, and she wasn’t wrong. He hated that she wasn’t wrong. The rubble was precariously teetering on collapsing entirely on them both. "You have to get out. You... You have to be number one... Y-you can't do that if... If..." The bar shifted again and he could see the indent it made against her chest. She closed her eyes tight as if terrified to watch.
“No!” Katsuki snapped. “I am not leaving you here alone. You’re gonna be okay.” He shook his head, he felt the tears welling up in his eyes, and he cursed them. “Baby--- You have to be okay. We’re gonna be heroes together.” He promised. “You just--- You gotta hold on for me, okay?”
The first of the tears slipped free, and Ochako freed her hand to bring it to wipe it away.
###
Ochako did her best to keep her breathing shallow, it came out sounding more wheezed though. The pressure of the bar on her chest pressing into her skin to create discomfort as her chest attempted to rise and fall in spite of it. Not to mention she feared that breathing would jostle it and force the inevitable to come faster.
All the rescue training in the world hadn’t prepared her for what to do when she was the one who needed rescued. And yet somehow she stayed calm. She stayed so damn calm. Like she’d accepted it.
Maybe because she had. Because it was hard not to with her breathing restricted like this, odds so grim. And fuck--- she was scared. Fuck. Because her time was slipping away, and she could feel it. Like a steady ticking bomb stuck in her chest in the form of her heartbeat. She had so much she needed to say.
She looked up at him, away from the rebar that was just a push from ending her life. And she brushed her thumb across his cheek with a sad smile. “I love you.”
She watched as his eyes widened, as her words washed over him. “Tell me again when we get out of here, Baby Girl.”
The rebar shifted again, this time the pressure made it impossible to breathe, and she struggled with drawing in any air. She didn’t want him to see this. She needed him to leave. Fuck. She wheezed in one more breath. “Please g---”
Something heavy fell from above them, and drove the bar down through her and leaving her eyes wide and her breathing broken. She looked down at the long metal rod and the blood that bubbled up around it. It didn't hurt. Not as much as she'd feared it would.
"I..." She whimpered.
###
“No.” Katsuki choked on the word as he watched the blood bubble up, and listened to her try to breathe. Each wheeze was accompanied by a soft whimper from her quivering lips. “No. No.”
His lips trailed the word in a mantra as he straightened himself up, dropped her hand and tried to figure out what to do. The way she arched, it’d gone right through her, he could see the blood dripping from the exit wound, and feel it as it soaked his pajama bottoms.
“Please… Babe. Please.. Don’t… Damnit… Don’t leave me!” He pleaded, fingers touching at the edges of the wound, finding themselves covered in her blood. Her blood. He failed. He failed. His fingers trembled. “Please… Stay. Please.”
Her wheezes came fewer in number, and the panic rose in his chest. He was running out of time. Fuck. He was running out of time. “Come on, Baby. Stay with me.”
There was so much blood. Fuck there was so much. And she was slipping. Her eyes were filled with fear. “I’m scared.” It was a whisper on a breath that wasn’t quite there. And it broke him, because he couldn’t take that fear away.
He couldn’t save her.
He failed.
HE FAILED
“I know--- I know…” He breathed, blooded fingers brushing a few strands of hair from her face. “I love you too--- Goddamnit… I’m so sorry I couldn’t protect you.”
There was one more broken breath, followed by silence. Completely earth shattering silence.
Gone. The best thing in his goddamn miserable life, gone. The most precious, deserving person in the world. Gone. The only thing left of her a mangled lifeless mess pinned to the rubble of everything they called happiness.
No. No. Please no.
“Please… just one more breath, Baby. Just one more. Don’t go yet.” Bloodied fingers brush over her cheeks, through her hair over her too still frame, and he felt more and more of himself falling apart.
He shifted to sit so that he could pull her head into his lap and just hold her there. They’d laid this exact same way in his room only a handful of hours ago. She’d been laughing, so full of life.
Gone.
That smile at the dinner table before that. Gone.
He didn’t know how long he’d held her there like that before the rubble started clearing away and a peek of moonlight poked through. She was cold by the time they found them. Freezing.
And he felt like a shell of everything he’d once been.