Chapter Text
There is a ringing in Kirishima Eijirou’s ears as sound slowly starts to filter back in.
He coughs and tries to get up, his palms pressing flat to the ground beneath him so he can attempt a solid position to push himself up.
Wait.
His eyes blink open but even that does nothing to dispel the darkness he’s currently found himself in as it slowly registers that his hands are indeed touching a very rough, course surface that he’d apparently been laying on until now.
He coughs again, more pointedly this time as his fingers dig into what feels like rubble, and dust particles in the air serve to agitate his throat and his breathing.
“H-Hello?” he manages, patting at his surroundings a bit more frantically now as he tries to map out just how trapped he is. “Can anyone hear me???”
He’s not expecting a response, not really.
And yet he gets one in the way of a long groan.
“Can you keep it down?” a low voice calls back to him with audible annoyance in the tone from somewhere slightly above him. “Some of us don’t have quirks like yours to protect our heads from the impact.”
Eijirou freezes, staring up unseeing towards the voice like he can will himself the sudden ability to see in the darkness. “Are you injured?” he whispers worriedly, mindful of the implied headache the voice must be sporting and adjusting his volume accordingly.
“...it’ll keep.” the voice says back, accompanied by slight shifting now as whoever it is starts moving around. “The more pressing question is why you sound like you’re below me… Ah. I see.”
Eijirou blinks as slowly, three circles of muted light come into view above him. Another blink has them settling into a row of glowing colored circles, a grey, white, and purple light, all three being ringed in black as they let off just enough light to illuminate the belt they are resting on and the unfortunately familiar hero costume above.
Distantly Eijirou notes that they must have been out interning for Monoma to be wearing his hero costume, but the larger part of his brain is stalling on the fact that the 1B boy’s pocketwatches not only glow in the dark but apparently in the colors and order of–
“Is that… supposed to be the ace flag???”
Monoma scoffs, his watches illuminating him enough that Eijirou can see him dramatically cock one hip and pose. “But of course. I’m the Ace of any hero team baby.”
Eijirou just blinks at him for a minute but honestly… it kind of tracks.
Mentally updating the things he’d previously known about Monoma, he loudly sighs and pointedly looks away to resume patting at the rubble around him as he shoots back a half mocking, “of course you are.”
He can’t exactly see Monoma anymore but somehow Eijirou can tell the boy is rolling his eyes at him.
“If you’re trying to map out the stability of your terrain by touch alone so you can safely stand up, then I'm sorry to say but you’ll be here all night. We were investigating a shady lab rumored to have multiple underground levels after all. Before they somehow brought the building down on us after we'd entered the lobby of course.”
Eijirou’s hands briefly pause as he registers this new information. It vaguely rings a bell. Right. He still can’t remember why it’s just the two of them down here but maybe it’ll come back to him with time.
“Figures,” he huffs, continuing to pat around for a stable way to climb up to where Monoma is. “Of course luck would have me be the one stuck on a ledge.”
“Of course,” Monoma sniffs, a pompous air to him that makes Eijirou want to simply ignore him for however long it takes for the heroes to rescue them. “I have the high ground.”
“Wow,” Eijirou deadpans to cover the way he’d almost laughed. He keeps forgetting Monoma is not just an asshole, he's also an A– make that B Class nerd the type of which would write a fanfiction-esque stage performance and then cast himself as the lead.
Which, technically, if Eijirou were feeling charitable enough to even so much as think a compliment at him… then technically, Monoma had done a great job with. Technically.
To cover that a part of him had even thought such traitorous thoughts, he coughs before attempting a mock casual, “So... are you gonna make yourself useful or…”
“Aw, does the little A class hero need my help?” The glowing grey circle is lifted off the belt, illuminating Monoma’s fingers as the boy expertly swings it on its chain, clearly relishing the situation. “I suppose I could be… persuaded to share. You know, if you asked nicely enough…”
Eijirou glares down at the darkness beneath his hands. Honestly, fuck this guy and fuck this mission and fuck this entire situa–
“Alright, alright, keep your shirt on.” Monoma laughs.
There’s a brief yet pointed pause before he goes, “Oh wait…” and Eijirou has to very strongly resist the urge to kill him.
“Just…” he grits his teeth, and squeezes the rubble beneath him in his hardened fists, throttling down his hatred just long enough to manage a very tight, “Please.”
“But of course!” Monoma trills, all magnanimous benefactor now as he spins the glowing watch around once more for emphasis before expertly halting its movement so it lands smack back into his palm. “What kind of hero would I be if I didn’t step up to help those less fortunate than myself.”
“Less fortunate?" Eijirou splutters, all but seeing red. "Come down here and say that to my–”
“Ah. Ah. Ah.” Monoma chides, wagging a finger at Eijirou that he can unfortunately see thanks to the glowing grey clock in his hand. “That’s not how we say thank you.”
“If you think–”
“Whoopsie.”
The watch slips from between Monoma’s fingers, but Eijirou would bet the costume right off his back that it was no accident.
He lunges for it but doesn’t manage to catch it before it… doesn’t smash to pieces right in front of him.
Instead it falls down, down, down, into a seemingly bottomless pit directly to the right of him, before finally landing somewhere far below with a muted smash.
Silence.
“Well,” Monoma sniffs, pompously twirling the purple watch around his finger now. “At least we know how screwed we are now. I'd say we’ve somehow managed to end up alongside the elevator shaft.”
Eijirou attempts a deep breath in, struggling over the dust in the air and his slowly encroaching panic. “What the fuck,” he chokes. “What the fu–”
“Here!” Monoma shouts, cutting through Eijirou’s panic as he loudly readies to toss the purple watch at him. “Try not to drop this one.”
“Hey! I didn’t even drop the first–”
He manages to catch the thrown watch in a tight grip.
A tight grip with his quirk active since he hadn’t wanted to slice his palms while digging through the rubble.
There’s an audible crack as the watch all but splinters to pieces in his hand and even without being able to see Monoma’s face, Eijirou can immediately tell that the other boy is not amused.
“...that one was my favorite.”
“Of course it was,” Eijirou sighs, because honestly, of course it was. Of course this day can’t possibly get any worse, of course Monoma only had the three pocketwatches on his belt and now he’ll leave Eijirou here to die a quite frankly embarrassing death surrounded only by rocks and the shattered remains of the only light source Monoma had been willing to–
“Fuck this.” Monoma grumbles, removing his belt in its entirety, followed by his ridiculous suit jacket so he can push the sleeves of his starched white shirt up past his elbows to reveal…
“The fuck,” Eijirou breathes, eyes widening as he takes in the three glowing wristwatches strapped to each of Monoma’s wrists for a total of six new sources of light.
“Yes, yes, never let them know your next move and all that. You’d be surprised how many people target my belt assuming I can’t keep time without them. And these ones are even better, for with but a simple twist of the bezel bordering the watch face, I can both set the timer as well as control the brightness when in automatic glow-in-the-dark mode. I’ll leave them in standard for now to conserve battery but we should try to get to a more stable position before the heroes start shifting the upper levels too much. You never know when the structure will become unstable and start falling down on us again.”
The lights move around with the sudden rush of movement as Monoma deftly switches the chain of his remaining pocketwatch to the very last notch on his belt and then lays himself down on his own ledge so he can lower it down to Eijirou. “If you somehow manage to break this one too I swear to god I’ll–”
He cuts himself off as Eijirou simply takes the watch without a word.
Man but Monoma is being downright helpful if his usual asshole self.
It’s making Eijirou feel weird.
To buy himself time to answer he quickly uses the light to scope out his position.
And then gulps.
He’s been moving around way too much for someone on as little ledge as he’s currently got. Especially when faced with that absolute chasm the first watch had fallen down.
He gulps again at the very reminder.
“So uh… I don’t suppose you know of a way I could join you up there,” He gestures with the watch up at Monoma. “before I inevitably fall down there.”
Monoma sniffs disdainfully and starts loosening his tie. “Obviously. You take a running leap right at me and then I grab your hand and pull you up.”
“Uhhh,” Eijirou hedges, extremely uncomfortable at the idea of putting his literal life in Monoma’s hands. “Not that I don’t trust you but…”
“Oh come off it,” Monoma scoffs, already reaching down once more. “I know I don’t look it but I can definitely lift you. Especially since as soon as I can touch you I’ll have your quirk and can better anchor my position wherein you can then pull yourself up using my body as a handhold.”
Eijirou pauses at that, hesitating even more at the reminder that for Monoma the main goal is probably to just get ahold of his quirk. He’d said it himself earlier hadn’t he? Eijirou’s quirk is perfectly suited to this situation as it offers protection in case of any further collapses. It’s in Monoma’s best interest to touch Eijirou in any way he can if only to copy the quirk.
And after that…
Well he’d made it pretty clear what he thinks of Eijirou and his class on plenty occasions. Eijirou isn’t exactly holding his breath at Monoma suddenly growing a–
“Oh for the love of god! Just take my hand already Asshole! I’m a hero student the same as you, you really think I’d just leave you here to die just because of class rivalry???”
And well… when he puts it like that…
Eijirou flushes ashamedly. Wow here Monoma is, manfully willing to set aside his personal feelings just to save him, and here Eijirou is, wasting both of their time with stupid hesitations. So unmanly.
“Alright,” he concedes, tucking the watch into his boot and shaking out his hands. “Ready?”
Monoma scoffs audibly, his hands practically lit up by wristwatches like a guiding beacon that Eijirou just can’t miss. “I was born ready.”
A laugh slips out unbidden as Eijirou readies himself to jump. Truly this is all or nothing for him. The ledge he’s currently on will not support his landing back down on it if this fails.
And yet somehow all he can say to that is another reflexive, “Of course you were.”
And then he jumps.
There’s a single second where he’s sure he’s misjudged, both the jump as well as Monoma’s character. A single second where a part of him whispers, ‘this is how I die.’
And then there’s a hand on his, fingers grasping for each other in an absolute tangle of digits, and Monoma’s breath is hot on his face as the other boy grunts with effort and hisses out a frantic, “switch handholds, grab my wrists.”
Half of Eijirou panics at the thought of crushing yet another watch in his punishing grip and yet it seems that Monoma had at some point taken the time to push his watches further up his arm, leaving his wrists bare for Eijirou to grab, so Monoma can then grab Eijirou’s wrists in turn, for a way more secure acrobatics type hold.
Despite his thoughts on the other boy's personality he can't deny that Monoma can be a mastermind when he wants to be.
As soon as the hold is secure, Eijirou can feel Monoma activate his quirk. For the moment, neither of them is going anywhere as they focus on catching their breaths before attempting to move any further.
“H-Hey,” Eijirou manages, his heart still pounding in his chest as his breaths wheeze in and out harshly through all the dust their flurry of motion had kicked up. “Your watches…
“What… about em,” Monoma grunts back, sounding absolutely wrecked for this little amount of effort he’d just exuded.
The incredulity of the situation has Eijirou wheezing with laughter this time. “They’re all… just white. No… flag colors this time?”
Monoma scoffs with effort over his own labored breathing. “Don’t be… ridiculous. I’m the ace… up my own sleeve.”
Eijirou stares at him silently for a single second before bursting into laughter that almost serves to pull them both over the edge.
“Yeah,” he chokes out as tears of mirth slide down his face. “Of course you are.”