Archive of Our Own

It starts when Bakugou goes down.

Well, honestly it had started a second before, when Bakugou had taken a dart to the neck, but considering Shouto is the only one here that knows just how bad things are about to get, the main thing is that Bakugou's gone down, and that Shouto managing to get to him in time is the only thing that can stop what is coming next.

——

Katsuki's running hot today.

Not that that's different than any other day, really, but considering it's currently the fucking dead of winter, it's a bit ridiculous. Yeah, his uniform is meant to insulate him to ensure he keeps sweating no matter what, fine, but what it's actually doing today is making him even more uncomfortable than usual, and it's pissing him off.

And he's pretty sure Half n’ Half can tell, because the bastard keeps fucking looking at him. Not in, like, an awestruck way or something, but in the same way that one would study a particularly intriguing insect. Or a morning sudoku puzzle. Katsuki elects to ignore it on account of the fact that if he mentioned it, it would let Half n’ Half know that he's actually bothered by it, which he's not, and also that the dumbass could keep doing it to annoy him, which he would. So their patrol continues in silence, as does Katsuki's discomfort.

Endeavor had instructed the two of them to patrol together while he stayed further back to test how they performed without him, because (according to the occasionally-reliable source beside him) the loser had suddenly started giving a shit about raising kids correctly. Katsuki has personal doubts about how that’s going to go, but he'd come to Endeavor Agency for the heroics, not the daddy issues, so he's more than happy to follow the new groove either way.

It's also probably better that Deku isn't here today, because a third person would've made it much harder for Katsuki to walk exclusively on the vanilla side of Mr. Neapolitan without suspicion. The slight chill that Icyhot's ice side exudes isn't quite able to pierce through Katsuki's insulated sleeves, but it fans ever-so-slightly onto his face and neck due to their similar heights, and that's enough.

It's hard to admit, and it's hard to explain, especially considering that it's objectively sick as hell and stronger than every last extra's, but basically—

Katsuki's Quirk fucking sucks.

Yes, nitroglycerin for sweat is fucking cool. Yes, blowing things up is way better than Deku's stupid punches or Candy Cane's cliché fire and ice thing. But it also—it also comes with downsides that Katsuki is going to take to his fucking grave, and they're currently being really, really fucking annoying.

Because when you mix glycerol, nitric, and sulfuric acid, you make something really, really cool, but you also make something really, really hot.

Most days, it’s all Katsuki can do to simply exist without biting someone’s head off, but none of the damn extras even seem to appreciate his god-tier levels of restraint.

Katsuki lets out an internal sigh and continues his patrol like the goddamn powerhouse he is. If a little bit of discomfort in his own skin was enough to deter him from getting shit done, he’d never fucking get out of bed in the morning.

He is contemplating the pros and cons of calling for a water break or some shit, though. Icyhot’s got a belt full of useful shit—probably to compensate for how fucking useless he can sometimes be—so it’s a logical assumption to make that he’d at the very least have some water on him.

The problem, however, is his fucking personality.

The last thing Katsuki needs this early in a patrol is the little fucker gloating that he’d been helpful for once—lording Katsuki’s weakness over him til he’s fit to blow his head off.

No.

Far better to simply suck it up and power through just as he always has.

Katsuki nods to himself, his throat bobbing as he swallows on nothing before rolling out his shoulders and then his neck.

Damn, this sucks. It’s beyond fucking stifling today.

Half n’ Half stops walking.

“Hah? The fuck you doing, lazy ass, we got shit to do!”

“I’m thirsty,” the stupid freezer burn says, his voice doing that damn annoying monotone that Katsuki can’t fucking stand. “I think we should take a water break.”

The little fucker doesn’t even wait for Katsuki to respond, immediately digging into his belt and pockets for the small skinny tubes he always fills fresh before patrol. He drinks one first, his eyes not even looking in Katsuki’s direction as he does so, and Katsuki is just working himself up into a proper seething rage when the little shit finally opens his right hand and holds it out to him.

The tube resting in his palm is now significantly chilled, and Katsuki snatches it with a snarl because damn it, the bastard had been holding it so fucking long he’d better not have frozen it solid just to fuck with him.

Katsuki shakes it first before opening it, wanting to ensure there’s actually some fucking liquid in there. Icyhot just nods at him like shaking the thing before drinking it is a normal and expected thing to do, and Katsuki has to fight the urge to punch that smooth, calm look off his face.

Because damnit, but no one pushes his buttons like fucking Icyh—

The taste of whatever the fuck had been in the tube hits Katsuki’s tongue, and it’s so unexpected that he practically chokes on it.

That’s not fucking water.

“What’s wrong?” the damn candy cane reject asks, his stupid eyes wide on his stupid fucking face as Katsuki coughs and hacks harshly into his elbow. “You don’t like the flavor?”

“The fuck are you—“ Katsuki rasps, but the little shit steamrolls right over him.

“It’s the same powder you always use, so I assumed it was your favorite. Did I put too much in?”

For once, Katsuki is stunned speechless. “You fucking—“ he grinds out, his throat still raw as his fingers clench tight around the perfectly-chilled tube in his hand. “You got into my electrolyte powder?!”

Stupid Half n’ Half just blinks at him. “Yes?” he says, all calm and casual, like that too is a perfectly normal thing to do. “I’ve never seen you drink water without it.”

Katsuki is at a loss for words. That single statement raises—so many goddamn questions, and he ends up opening and closing his mouth like a fucking dumbass for a few seconds trying to voice all of them. He's pretty sure his brain resets at some point, because his anger has been replaced by sheer bafflement. Eventually, what comes out is:

“Do you—what—I—do you—how long have you been fucking doing this?”

He's pretty sure Icyhot smirks slightly at his fuck-up of a sentence, but the guy considers facial expressions to be more of a suggestion, so it's up in the air. Katsuki therefore graciously chooses to ignore the slight while the walking Japanese flag responds.

“Since the start of the work study,” Half n’ Half says. “I just wanted to try it.”

“Okay,” Katsuki says, surprisingly even. He takes a deep breath. “Okay, first of all, fuckface, I don't know on what fucking planet you prepped this on, but on this one, it's supposed to be one scoop per half liter, which, I would like to emphasize, is on the fucking label-”

“Oh,” Half n’ Half says.

“And second of all,” Katsuki continues, slightly seething, “Don't touch my stuff.”

Icyhot pauses. Katsuki feels a sense of foreboding wash over him.

“Why is not touching your stuff less important than making the powder correctly?”

“I'm going to kill you,” Katsuki vows, and he's not imagining it this time. Icyhot definitely fucking smirks.

Asshole. Katsuki's not done. “If you're gonna steal my shit, at least have the fuckin’ decency to use it correctly. Some of us have tastebuds that actually fucking work.”

Even if he knows that the pure goddamn saltwater that this fucking—audio-channel cord motherfucker made him drink is going to make him feel better, he's still. Salty about it. He can't believe the audacity of this guy.

But that brings him to his next question.

“Why did you even want to try it?” Katsuki asks after a moment.

And Todoroki goddamn Shouto does the last thing Katsuki expects at this question. He glances to the side with a soft but sharp inhale when he responds, which means he's fucking—hiding something from Katsuki, because Icyhot has always been a shit-ass liar, and Katsuki wonders—

What about electrolytes could possibly, possibly warrant that reaction?

Bakugou Katsuki was a mystery.

Shouto leaned his chin on his palm and watched as the angry blond chugged an entire bottle of his weird water-plus-powder drink, watched as he tugged at the collar of his shirt to loosen it, watched as he moved to wipe his hands off on a paper towel—and then dumped said paper towel into the sink, where it promptly got soaked and then incinerated in the garbage disposal.

It was all so very odd.

The class was gathering in the common room, ostensibly to study but most likely to devolve into the usual chaos that a group of teens generally got up to once the hour ticked ever-closer to midnight, and yet Bakugou alone refrained.

“Aw, come on Blasty,” Ashido begged, hands clasped before her dramatically and everything. “You never hang out with us after dinner.”

“Not my fault you fuckers want to be tired as all shit tomorrow,” the explosive boy snapped back, his teeth gnashing audibly as he practically ground them down to dust.

“That’s what coffee is for!” Kaminari clapped back while Sero and Kirishima nodded their heads in agreement.

“Yeah, good luck with that,” Bakugou sneered, already turning away to head for the stairs. “Some of us don’t drink that shit.”

Shouto watched him go with a thoughtful frown pulling at his lips. Now that Bakugou had mentioned it… Shouto couldn’t remember ever seeing the boy drink so much as a cup of green tea, never mind coffee. And when the self-proclaimed Bakusquad had done an energy drink run for the class before finals, Bakugou had downright hissed at the brightly-colored can offered to him like it had personally offended him.

“Hey Todoroki! You coming?”

Shouto finally broke his staredown with the back of Bakugou’s head to join his friends on the couches.

At that point in his research, he’d still been in the dark about it all—he’d still lacked the answers to the mystery that was one Bakugou Katsuki.

But Todoroki Shouto was no quitter. He’d get to the bottom of this one way or the other, even if it took him all year long to do it.

——

A few days later found Shouto sitting with his good friend Yaoyorozu in the library, studying together for a chemistry quiz. When Shouto read off examples of spontaneous reactions, the question had come up organically.

“Nitroglycerin?” Yaoyorozu echoed, tilting her head thoughtfully as she pondered. “No, I don’t think I can make that.”

“Why not?” Shouto pressed, sliding his books aside for a moment so he could give her his full and undivided attention. “Even if it’s a volatile substance, surely you could create it inside a container, like you did the flash bangs during our final exams?”

“It’s even more volatile than you think, Todoroki,” Yaoyorozu mused, moving her own books aside so she could demonstrate. “The way a vial or container is formed generates movement as I pull it out, see?” She pulled a vial out of her forearm, and Shouto nodded as he watched whatever liquid she’d made slosh around inside from the simple motion of being created and removed.

“It would be impossible to keep it completely still,” Yaoyorozu continued. “Even if the reaction wasn't so exothermic, nitroglycerin is a contact explosive. Even the slightest movement could set it off while it's still in the process of being created. Not only would I end up with glass shards inside of my arm from the vial, but nitroglycerin itself is known to have many, many health risks if too much of it comes in contact with your skin. Even when it's used as medication for high blood pressure, you have to be careful with how you're taking it. It’s simply not something I would ever be foolish enough to try and replicate.”

“I see,” Shouto nodded, accepting the vial from her and testing out the way the liquid moved for himself.

Satisfied at his level of research, he set the vial down and returned his full attention to Yaoyorozu who, unfortunately for her, had been about to return to her studying.

“What kind of health risks?”

Katsuki, tragically, doesn’t get to find out why Icyhot is being a shady bastard, because the second he’s about to get his reply, their radio cracks to life.

“Shoto, Bakugou,” Endeavor roars. “We’ve been informed that smugglers have come in from one of the southern ports. They were intercepted, but are on the run and will be approaching our jurisdiction shortly.”

“What kind of smugglers?” Katsuki barks once his mic is on. “Are they gonna fight?” He crackles some explosions in his hands.

“We believe so, yes,” Endeavor confirms.

“Fuck yeah,” Katsuki says with a grin.

“Bakugou,” Endeavor chastises, but it doesn’t matter. Katsuki’s pissed today, and he can finally take it out on something.

Icyhot’s expression just sets into something serious, like a loser. “Do we know what they look like?” He asks over the comms.

Endeavor confirms with a vague answer, of, like, blue shirts, which isn’t particularly helpful. Katsuki assumes they’ll be better identified by running at full speed or trying to kill people. Either way, he and International Red Cross make a break for it towards the directions Endeavor gives them, and after the garbage of this morning, it feels so, so good to finally use his Quirk and burn some energy. Well, and to once again prove that explosive propulsion is way cooler than the ice skating currently going on behind him. Katsuki’s racing Icyhot, just like Endeavor’s been fucking wanting them to. He should be proud.

After a few minutes, it isn't so much that they find the smugglers as much as the smugglers find them.

The three smugglers barrel onto the street they’re currently racing through, maybe ten meters away from them. It’s easy to figure out who they are, because they lose their shit when they see him and the walking Pokéball. Icyhot glances at him and makes to go around to the next street to pincer. At least he recognizes that Katsuki wants to be the first point of contact.

Katsuki does an about-turn and greets the smugglers by blasting them in the face. It’s not his biggest explosion, but since they’re in an urban area, he tries to start with one that would fuck up most people without fucking up everything else. It works to a degree; they stagger, but seem to have some type of protection. Intel gathering, intel gathering. He’ll make the next one stronger, he thinks as he gets closer.

He’s not sure why all three of them are suddenly looking at him like they’ve struck gold, but they stop to glance at each other for a second before the one in the back shuffles something under his clothes. Not waiting to see what bullshit that’s about, Katsuki immediately lets out a stronger explosion, but.

It’s a little too late. The guy seems to have some sort of speed enhancement Quirk, because at the same time Katsuki fires, so do they.

In the neck with a fucking gun.

It’s not a bullet, though, since he’s alive. It’s something else. Needing to check the damage—he can catch up to them anyway—Katsuki lets himself slide into a roll and onto his feet so that he can touch his neck. What he feels immediately injects fear into his veins.

It’s a fucking dart.

He knows it’s bad for the wound, but he needs to know exactly how he’s been compromised, so he pulls it out and processes the slosh of black liquid in the chamber.

Oh.

It’s not just a dart.

It’s fucking Trigger.

The explosion that follows is more of an earthquake.

The bell over the door had jingled when Shouto stepped into the American style diner, but he’d barely even noticed.

Natsuo was a med student. Natsuo would know if Yaoyorozu had been right or not about Bakugou. Or, well, what Shouto suspected about Bakugou, after talking to her.

“Oh yeah,” Natsuo nodded once Shouto finished voicing his thoughts, his brother’s tone utterly bored. He seemed more focused on dunking a single French fry into an obscene amount of his ketchup/mayo mix. “That sounds about right.”

Shouto blinked at him. “What, all of it?”

“Yes, all of it. Nitroglycerin is hella exothermic. My friends looked it up in chem gen ed. Without a way to cool it down as you make it, it would explode immediately. Bakugou is probably using tons of energy just to exist, every minute of every day, doing whatever crap his body does to cool itself down during the production. So without being able to handle caffeine, he’s probably crashing hard at the end of the day. Sounds horrible to me, I mean—think about it, most people sweat to reduce heat, which is why it’s a bad sign when they’re overheated and stop sweating. But Bakugou’s sweat is the very thing overheating him. And I’m gonna assume his body has a failsafe for that, but it sounds exhausting, and really dangerous if anything goes wrong.”

"He does eat almost as much as Yaoyorozu," Shouto mused. “And I’ve never seen him drink any water without electrolyte powder mixed in.”

"Mmm,” Natsuo hummed with a nod, sipping at his drink. “He probably needs it. Can you imagine? At the very least, we’re talking full-on heat stroke as the default setting any time you get a fever.”

“I see…” Shouto clenched his fists and frowned down at his own untouched milkshake. Bakugou was so much more fucked up than he’d realized.

And Natsuo wasn’t even done yet.

“And if he has low blood pressure, his heart rate’s probably pretty high, that tends to happen. So I bet that's why he doesn’t have caffeine.” He absently dunked a fry into Shouto’s milkshake, before biting off the soggy end. “As for the electrolyte drinks… that’s gotta be sodium, to raise his blood pressure. Everything you’ve said makes sense.”

Shouto slowly snuck a fry off Natsuo’s plate and dunked it into his own milkshake before sniffing it suspiciously. People actually ate this?

“So yeah, he’s probably hot all the time, Sho,” Natsuo continued, oblivious to his brother’s judgement as he munched away on an entire handful of fries. “Probably explains the personality too, if I’m being honest. Look at our old man, people with fire Quirks tend to run hotter than the average human making them more sweaty, more irritable, and more tired after using their Quirks. Bakugou’s famous temper is probably a result of that.”

"Is that why the school lets him get away with not wearing his tie and not buttoning up his shirt?" Shouto mused, dropping the uneaten soggy fry onto a napkin and folding it out of view.

"I wouldn't be surprised."

“But I have a fire Quirk too, and I’m not constantly overheating,” he argued.

Natsuo rolled his eyes and flicked a single french fry across the table at him. “Ice Quirk, dumbass,” he mumbled around his mouthful of fries. “You’re self regulating, which was like the whole point of the— Regardless, even you get temperature issues when you use one side over the other. Back when you only used ice in combat you’d literally freeze yourself, remember? If you ever overused your fire, you’d probably understand what Bakugou feels like on a daily basis…”

“Huh,” Shouto had hummed, nodding to himself and getting to his feet. “You’re right, I should get right on that.”

“What? No, don't do that— Hey! Where are you going? Shouto!”

Admittedly, Katsuki’s kind of out of it as the Trigger starts to hit. He sways almost immediately, but he at least still has the common sense to avoid the rubble from his accidental explosion. He’s pretty sure it’s more than usual, but the world is starting to feel a bit funny as the seconds pass. He knows Trigger is supposed to make him unable to think properly, and if that’s the case, it’s fucking working, because wow does pain immediately shoot up into his forehead. He rubs one of his temples instinctively and finds his hair matting to his face. It’s… there’s a lot of sweat. There’s a lot of sweat.

There’s also some screaming. Katsuki realizes he’s not sure where he is right now. He pants—he’s fucking boiling—and tries not to set off any explosions. He’s running mostly on instinct, and all he can think of is how fucking hot it is in here.

Katsuki glances down at his grenade bracers and his gloves, then immediately starts to pull them off. His coordination isn’t quite there right now, fuck him, but he’s painfully aware of his own limits, and he needs to start cooling down now. Or else. The worst case scenario hasn’t actually happened before (obviously, since he’s still fucking alive), but even through the haze of pain, he feels himself getting hotter, and he’s understanding on a visceral level that he’s about to become a fucking problem.

Katsuki manages to finally discard his bracers after some fumbling, and he tosses them to the side, and—

They explode.

Fuck, it makes sense, Trigger probably made his sweat worse and got it too warm, his bracers are supposed to have failsafes but he’s too hot and he didn’t think about that because he can’t fucking think at all and—

Basically, there’s a few buildings coming down on him right now.

That’s pretty shitty, considering he currently has the coordination of a fucking koala, so he’s probably dead, but at least he won’t be able to get anyone else killed. Katsuki closes his eyes. Distantly, he hears a shout, and then a massive fucking noise, and then eventually processes that he hasn’t been crushed.

He opens his eyes and hazily looks up. Even through the suddenly dimmed light, Katsuki can sort of make out what he’s seeing. There’s a giant fucking—ice wall holding up the rubble maybe a meter above him. Hot damn. Cold damn. Fuck, his head hurts.

“Bakugou!”

Someone’s shouting again. It might actually be directed at him. He turns to see.

It’s Icyhot.

Fear breaks through the haze and stabs through Katsuki like a knife.

Because—even with Trigger scrambling his fucking brain, even with the worst headache of his life, even with an entirely diminished ability to think—it’s hard to override the base instincts he’s developed over the twelve years he’s had this Quirk. The cold, hard intuition of what’s about to happen with this much heat.

“Stop,” Katsuki screams at him, heaving. He might vomit soon; he’s getting really nauseous. The world is spinning.

Icyhot does not stop.

“Fucking leave me,” he tries again, throat spasming. Katsuki holds out a hand to try to force him into going away. He thinks he fires another explosion. Once his ears stop ringing, he croaks, “Or we’ll both die.”

Something like sadness takes over the fucker’s face before it’s overridden with determination.

“No we won’t,” Half n’ Half vows, and catches him as he falls over.

The last thing Katsuki processes before everything goes hazy and starts fading away is the feeling of Icyhot’s freezing-cold palm on his chest.

——

“Shoto, Bakugou, retreat, the smugglers appear to be armed with Tr-”

Bakugou takes a hit of Trigger to the neck, and Shouto is already running faster than he ever has before. If everything Natsuo and Yaoyorozu had said is true, then this situation is about to go fucking nuclear.

He glides forward on his ice, pushing himself even faster and watches as Bakugou fumbles clumsily to remove his bracers.

The explosion when they’re tossed to the side is enormous, and Shouto’s pulse immediately starts racing, his breath catching in his throat at the realization that those things had been attached to Bakugou’s arms not two seconds ago.

Information from what feels like ages ago starts filtering through his brain. Yaoyorozu talking about how volatile nitroglycerin is, how even the most minor of movements could set it off. Natsuo talking about how exothermic it is and how without a way to cool it down, it would simply explode immediately.

Bakugou is swaying, sweat visibly pouring down his face as it flushes with heat like he’s already got a fever and—

And Shouto needs to go fucking faster.

There’s an audible rumble in the air as the nearby buildings take issue with Bakugou’s gauntlets exploding in their front yard, and it’s all Shouto can do to throw up a massive instantaneous ice wall like he’d done all the way back at the sports fest.

Somewhere in the back of his mind, he registers that it’s significantly more ice than he made back then, and that it’s probably the most he’s made ever, but the thought is gone as fast as it came. Frost starts creeping up his right side as his breaths puff harshly and visibly in the air, but Shouto ignores it.

Right now, he’s the only one that can cool this exothermic reaction before it goes critical. A little Quirk overuse is nothing compared to what will happen to—

“Bakugou!” the shout slips out unbidden at the sight of his friend stumbling away from him. Bakugou looks up at him, but his expression is something Shouto’s barely ever seen on his face. Pure, undiluted fear.

“S-Stop!” Bakugou screams at him, his hands shaking as they raise up as if to ward Shouto away.

Which, rude. Here Shouto is, rushing like Bakugou’s life depends on it—which it does, for the record, Shouto’s pretty sure all his research points to one very very very fatal explosion coming up—and here Bakugou is treating him like an annoyance!

He’s not gonna use his fire side, alright? He’s not stupid. Adding heat to this already volatile situation would be downright cataclysmic. It’s why he’s just letting the frost creep over his right arm without attempting to regulate himself. He can handle a little Quirk overuse right now. Bakugou cannot.

Bakugou speaks again, his words more warbled and almost strangled this time as he spits out a harsh, “Fucking leave me! Or we both die!”

And, well… at least he’s not pushing Shouto away because he finds him annoying. That’s a bit of a relief, if a bit sad that Bakugou has already resigned himself to what is promising to be an extremely agonizing death.

He must not be aware that Shouto has done his research.

“No, we won’t,” Shouto promises.

Bakugou’s knees buckle, but Shouto is already there to catch him.

——

So it starts when Bakugou goes down.

——

Katsuki opens his eyes blearily, finding himself flat on his back and staring into near-darkness. Freight train doesn't even begin to describe how he's feeling. It takes him far too long to remember what's going on, and when he does, things only get more confusing.

Icyhot's left hand is holding a phone. Katsuki's pretty sure he's calling 119, but his hearing is oddly muffled, and he feels further away than he should. Icyhot's right hand—his fucking right hand is on Katsuki's chest, and that's when Katsuki registers that he's being lightly covered in ice. That makes sense, probably. His winter sleeves were stripped off of him at some point, and he watches distantly as his—god, he's so sticky—his sweat begins to cool from Half n' Half's Quirk, turning into sludge and sloughing off of his arms in waves. It's kind of disgusting.

Half n' Half finishes the phone call.

"They aren't s'posed to do that," Katsuki mumbles after a second as he tries valiantly to process existence and what’s happened.

"What?" Icyhot asks.

"Bracers," Katsuki gasps before taking a frantic inhale, because it's kind of feeling like he isn't getting enough oxygen anymore.

Icyhot blinks at him. "Nitroglycerin is volatile," he says eventually.

"Not s'posed to be," Katsuki slurs, or tries to. It is so fucking hard to talk right now. "It's not s'pose... perfect nitro... but... Trigger." Katsuki's body heaves again, like it's trying and failing to vomit. "Fuck me."

"I don't think talking is helping, Bakugou," Todoroki says in a way that sounds way too fucking calm for how Katsuki's feeling. “Please try to breathe.”

But he's getting even more lightheaded, so he just sort of hums in response. He's starting to feel that specific coldness crawl up his neck, which normally wouldn't make any fucking sense, because he's boiling, and Icyhot's Quirk isn't really changing that feeling, but Katsuki knows from fucking experience that it means—

"I'm prob'ly gonna pass out again," Katsuki says casually, the same way one would report the weather. "Maybe explode."

"Don't do either of those things," Todoroki says.

Katsuki laughs. Todoroki's starting to look like someone kicked his dog.

He passes out again.

——

When Bakugou passes out the second time, he doesn't wake back up. Shouto's not panicking, he's not. Bakugou's breathing. He's checked five times that he's breathing, and he’s changed him from flat on his back with his legs elevated to recovery position, because he keeps hurling like he's going to vomit and also convulsing, and both of those things are choking hazards.

Shouto’s right arm is completely covered in frost and somewhat numb, but he still refuses to use his fire, because he's pretty sure Bakugou was trying to explain that he thought the Trigger made his Quirk be pure nitroglycerin rather than whatever mildly safer form his Quirk usually functions at. So his arm is staying how it is.

He's also slightly ashamed to admit that he didn't do a perfect job with the whole building-ice-wall thing. Another building fell while Shouto was running to catch Bakugou, and now they're somewhat trapped, but he can't move Bakugou because he might literally explode. So they’re in a bit of a situation.

Shouto's not panicking, though. He's not, but Bakugou's shaking again, and Shouto's painfully aware that he doesn't know what else he can do. He’s already called EMS, and reported their location on the hero radio, and cut down Bakugou’s uniform and chilled him, so really at this point Shouto would much rather hear from someone like—

Natsuo picks up on the second ring.

"Hey, Natsuo," Shouto greets. "Bakugou's dying."

"Hey, Sh—what?"

"Bakugou got hit by Trigger and he's dying," Shouto elaborates. "Can you help?"

"What—Shouto, call 119, what is wrong with you?"

"I already did that," Shouto complains. "But we're trapped and he needs help now."

"Um," Natsuo says. Shouto can hear the clatter and movement of things on his end in the background. "God, okay. You couldn't get someone to stay on the line and talk to you?"

"You're a medical student," Shouto argues. He already feels a little bit better with Natsuo’s voice.

"That isn't even remotely... oh my god. Okay, you won't listen.” Natsuo takes a few deep breaths. "What's wrong with him, exactly?"

"You were right about his Quirk side effects," Shouto says in a rush. "He's creating too much nitroglycerin so he's overheating and I'm using my Quirk to stop that but I think his blood pressure is really low and that much nitroglycerin is probably toxic—”

"Shouto, slow down. His blood pressure is low?" Natsuo prods.

"Yeah," Shouto says. "It's always low, so it has to be worse now. He passed out. He's breathing," Shouto adds as an afterthought. "And he’s in recovery position, but I don't know if that’s right or anything, Natsuo.”

"Okay. It’s not the worst this could've been. I'm looking up nitroglycerin overdose now," Natsuo says. "But my guess is that he may be going into shock."

"Shock," Shouto repeats.

"Yeah, like, anaphylactic shock, your blood pressure tanks and your body doesn't get enough oxygen," Natsuo explains. Shouto can hear his keyboard tapping frantically.

"Can I use an epipen, then?" Shouto asks, desperate. "I have one on me."

"Uh... not the worst idea... but just, hold on."

Hold on, he says.

Hold on to what? Shouto’s suddenly adrift in the breeze, staring down at Bakugou’s unmoving form and realizing that the fingers of his own right hand are way too frozen to hold onto anything, let alone Bakugou.

So… The phone? If Shouto clutches it much tighter than he already is, he’s probably gonna straight up break it.

It’s—

He’s wavering, he can feel it. It’s like the ground is rocking beneath his knees, and fuck, he can’t even feel his arm anymore. His shoulder’s so stiff that he probably can’t move it even if he tried, and he hasn’t overused his ice like this ever, but fuck is he going to keep going as long as Bakugou needs him.

As long as he physically can, anyway.

Shouto shudders, and it’s an involuntary thing that he can’t control, because there’s a growing tightness in his chest and a wheeze building in the back of his throat as he realizes—

What if he can’t hold out?

He’s been trying to remain as calm as he can, but that’s when he thought his gathered information would be more than enough. Bakugou going into shock was not in his research, and if the epipen doesn’t work then what can he even do if his body won’t keep long enough for the actual medics to—

"Okay, I'm looking at it now,” Natsuo announces, seemingly oblivious to Shouto’s little spiral. “And, uh, no. Nitroglycerin's mechanism of action is mostly venodilation, so—"

"Natsuo, I don't know what that means."

"Right! Sorry. No, don’t give him the pen. As for what will hel... oh… shit. Bakugou, you are so much more fucked up than I realized. He's gonna be hypovolemic," Natsuo says as he keeps reading. That sounds bad.

"How do I fix it?" Shouto asks.

"Um, you'd give him a lot of fluids.”

"I have a saline bag Hatsume gave me. She said to just add water."

Natsuo is silent for several seconds.

"There's no possible way you're pulling that out of your ass right now," Natsuo says.

"We proved that the ice made from my Quirk is sterile," Shouto continues.

"No, no, hold on. According to all known laws of physics—"

"So if I hooked up the second port thing on the bag with my ice, then used my fire to melt ice and make water—"

"Oh my god," Natsuo groans. Based on how muffled he sounds, Shouto's pretty sure his head is in his hands.

"Do you think that would work?" Shouto asks.

"Shouto, literally no one has ever done this big of an asspull before, I don't know," Natsuo says, like it’s physically hurting him. "But you'd need, like, antiseptic and gloves-"

"I have those," Shouto pipes up. He doesn’t mention that he’s only fifty percent sure he can successfully pull on gloves in his semi-frozen state.

"You're actually going to do this, aren't you."

"Would it work?" Shouto presses, because that’s all he cares about, that’s all that matters.

"If Bakugou dies from sepsis because of this, Shouto, it will be your fault," Natsuo says quietly, still into his hands.

Shouto glances at Bakugou.

"I kind of think he'll be dead either way," Shouto points out. "So that's a yes."

"I cannot emphasize how unqualified I am for this," Natsuo emphasizes. "And so are you."

"I don't care about qualifications," Shouto spits. "I care about my friend dying."

Natsuo concedes the point.

Shouto purposefully overused his fire side.

It was incredibly informative.

“It was incredibly dangerous!” Aizawa-sensei yelled as soon as Shouto finally managed to peel his eyes open. “What on earth were you thinking?”

“Ngh,” Shouto mumbled intelligently, staring up at Recovery Girl’s ceiling and trying to piece together exactly how he’d gotten here. He’d been following Natsuo’s advice to experience overusing his fire firsthand so he could better understand Bakugou, and…

Soup. Brain soup.

Ugh.

“Don’t give me that,” Aizawa-sensei lectured immediately, uncaring of Shouto’s pounding headache and the burning behind his eyes. “There’s no reason for you to be pushing yourself into a fever, much less hyperthermia! When you started to feel flushed and nauseous—hell, when you started to feel thirsty, that was your body telling you to take a break and cool down! You of all people have ice water constantly at your fingertips! Use it!”

Shouto tried to nod, but his head kind of did a weak little flop motion instead. Noted. Bakugou sweating too much makes him thirsty. Hence the constant drinking and no coffee because it dehydrates. Right?

Oh, his head was killing him, he could feel it in his teeth.

He hoped Bakugou didn’t go through that as well. He wouldn’t wish this kind of headache on Shigaraki.

Wait, actually…

Shouto paused to think it over, which was no easy feat considering the burning pressure behind his eyes that was practically begging him to close them again.

No, yeah, Shigaraki deserved it. And Dabi, maybe. Compress? Yeah, Compress stole Bakugou at the summer camp, he deserved a little brain soup hammer skull marching band. As a treat.

“Are you listening to me?” Aizawa-sensei snapped.

Shouto blinked hazily at him.

“No.”

“Alright, that’s enough of that,” Recovery Girl suddenly interjected, all but shooing Aizawa-sensei from the room. “You can continue this when he’s lucid.”

“No, I’m Shouto,” Shouto mumbled helpfully.

Recovery Girl snorted. “Yes dear, I know.”

Shouto vaguely heard the door open and close. Recovery Girl ushered him into a sitting position (which surprised him, since he wasn’t quite aware that torture was legal) before pushing a glass of semi-opaque water into his hands and demanding him to drink. It was slightly sweet.

“Anyway, Todoroki, dearie,” Recovery Girl said once he had finished the glass.

Shouto grunted in a way that could possibly, maybe constitute as a response. She walked briefly over to the room’s cabinets; Shouto forced himself to look over despite his headache to see her hold up a vial of what appeared to just be more water in her hands.

“I had intended to inform you of this at your next check-up, but now seems to be a better time. To put it plainly, your teacher is right about your ice. During your last Quirk test, we discovered the water formed by your Quirk seems to be sterile. Perhaps due to your Quirk’s duality; I am not sure. Now, I recommend you bring water with you, of course, but if you are prone to heat exhaustion and dehydration, I would consider bringing oral rehydration solution with you as well,” Recovery Girl explained, holding up some small packets in her other hand. “And definitely don’t be afraid to melt and drink your ice.”

Shouto stared at the packets in her hand, then at the glass she’d given him, and thought distantly about Bakugou’s electrolyte powder.

——

The day after his heat exhaustion experiment was somehow worse.

"Your Quirk has so many possible applications!" Hatsume was saying in a rush, three centimeters from his face. "I cannot believe it's sterile water. That changes everything! Everything!"

"Okay," Shouto said. His head still vaguely hurt.

"So I talked to Recovery Girl and I made this baby—"

She slapped a folded-up bag with a small amount of white powder in it into Shouto's hand.

"What is this?" Shouto asked blankly.

"Portable saline!" Hatsume exclaimed. "Recovery Girl told you to make rehydration solution, but if you can make sterile water, then you could just! Make saline, too! You could clean wounds or help give fluids, right on site!”

"Okay," Shouto said. "How does that work?"

"Oh, well, you'll also need to get training on how to put an IV in," Hatsume added, barreling over him. "I don't really think you'll need this for IVs as much as you will for wounds, but it could really come up, you know? Either way, I did way too much research and stayed up until 3 am and modified one of the bottom ports to where you could add—"

Shouto's not good with accepting his own limits.

He knows this. It's something he's carried within him for a long time, cultivated by the demands of his father and somewhat exacerbated by the insanity of his classmates and Plus Ultra. It's something Aizawa-sensei has chastised him for time and time again throughout his time at UA, not just during his past overheating experiment. He knows it's a problem of his, he truly does.

But—right now, he's painfully aware of what his limits are. He's been working on fine-tuning control of his Quirk in general, and practicing using both his fire and ice at the same time for months, but he's far too aware that this is so much more delicate than anything he's practiced. So, when Natsuo goes off with—

"You're telling me Recovery Girl was okay with this?" Natsuo hisses. “This like, definitely has to be illegal without a full license. And you're not even in a sterile environment! She was okay with this? And they actually gave you a needle!?”—

Shouto doesn't respond. He's preoccupied with staring down the saline bag like it personally offended him. He needs both his fire and his ice for this, and also needs to keep producing ice to make sure Bakugou’s stable, and his head and arm are already hurting.

"...Shouto?" Natsuo prods.

"Shut up," Shouto replies. "I'm concentrating."

He's feeling pretty lightheaded, in all honestly, as he backs away from Bakugou to activate his fire in his left hand, but it's not exactly like he can stop now. He barely remembers how he ends up getting Hatsume's whole second-insert-port contraption on the bag working, and the water ends up being ice-cold due to his refusal to let his left side fire up too much, but eventually he's standing there with a filled saline bag and a mildly less cold right hand.

"Okay," he says, panting slightly. His breath is still fogging up the air. "Natsuo, can I administer this stuff cold?"

"Um... don't do that," Natsuo replies. "Shouto, are you... good? You sound—”

"I'm fine," Shouto bites out, and begins to focus on heating up the saline bag without melting it in his left hand and keeping Bakugou from exploding with his right. He can actively feel the way his headache is expanding on both of his temples from using his Quirk so carefully in two different directions, but he'll be fine. Bakugou won't.

Eventually, he's pretty sure the saline is at least room temperature, even if his hands aren't very good at gauging right now. He sighs and ignores the sweat building on his brow. Wiping it off would remove the sterilization thing that Natsuo wants him to try pretty hard to have going on.

"Okay, Natsuo," Shouto announces. “Walk me through inserting the IV. I only have a little practice.”

“Oh my god. You're gonna stick him wrong and he's gonna die.”

It takes at least two of Natsuo's mental breakdowns before the IV is inserted, probably correctly. Shouto lets out a breath he didn't know he's been holding.

"Okay. Do I just... stand here with the bag now?" It feels rather anticlimactic.

Natsuo laughs, slightly hysterically. "Yeah. You just stand there with the bag now.” He sighs. “God, Shouto. I need you to know I can't be implicated in any of this, none of this has been official medical advice—”

Shouto hums. He's pretty sure his heart is still beating out of its chest, and he's definitely lightheaded, but Bakugou’s life is more important than any of that.

——

Time starts flowing a little weird after that.

At first, Shouto stares at Bakugou, saline bag held high in his rapidly-cooling left hand, while his right has gone back to supplying the ice currently keeping his friend alive.

It feels like Shouto isn’t blinking, isn’t moving, watching every drop of sweat sliding down Bakugou’s face as it seems to drip down in slow motion.

And then Shouto does blink, and it takes him a second to gain his bearings because… because… because…

His fingers are blue. They weren’t blue a second ago.

He tries to move them, and finds that he can’t.

His breaths catch on that damn persistent wheeze, and he turns to check on the saline bag.

Or, he tries to, anyway. He means to simply turn his head, but his body takes a second to respond, and even then the turn is slow and laggy.

The bag looks okay, he thinks.

The hand holding it up is shaking though, so he carefully shifts his right foot into creating an ice ledge to hold his arm up.

There.

That’s good.

Everything’s fine.

Everything’s gonna be just fine.

——

"Do you know how long it'll be until they can get to you?" Natsuo asks eventually with an edge to his voice.

"No," Shouto pants, "Why?"

Natsuo sighs. "The actual nitroglycerin toxicity is going to be methemoglobinemia, and I know you don't also have methylene blue stored up your ass."

"How bad is that?" Shouto asks, trying to keep a hold on the saline bag despite the state of his hands and the pounding headache.

"Um, well, hopefully you can get rescued before he dies."

"Natsuo!"

"Do you have... I can't believe I'm even asking—Whatever. Do you have any vitamin C on you?”

"No," Shouto says. "But he just had electrolyte powder before this.”

"Okay, well," Natsuo says. "Good timing, but he's still kind of screwed."

"That's very unhelpful," Shouto remarks.

"I'm trying to keep you from freaking out by telling you what's going on."

"I am freaking out, I think," Shouto replies. "Probably. Natsuo, is he supposed to be turning blue?” He changes the hand holding the saline bag for a moment so that he can check Bakugou’s temperature. “He's still hot.”

And, well, he himself has been turning a little blue, but that’s because he’s cold, so at least that one makes sense and is fine.

“Um… no, but-”

A sudden sound pierces through the rubble currently keeping them trapped, and though it’s usually Shouto’s least favorite thing to hear in the whole entire universe…

“SHOUTOOOOO!” His father booms from somewhere out of earshot.

…for just today, it is music to his ears.

And then his lagging brain kicks back in, and he realizes that if Todoroki Hellflame Enji gets too much closer to Bakugou right now, they’re all going to fucking die.

“Go away!” he yells back, or tries to anyway. It’s extremely difficult to raise his voice without exacerbating his aching head.

Also, his throat is dry. So that means he’s probably thirsty. He ducks his head in a silent apology to Aizawa-sensei. He doesn’t have enough hands to melt himself a drink, and he’s not about to lick the ice ledge, either. There’s no way it’s still sterile water after everything he’s put it through.

“WHERE ARE YOU, SHOUTO!!!”

Shouto’s face is stiffening, locking in place as ice steadily creeps over his cheek, but he slowly works to open his jaw again.

“S-Stay back!” he manages, hoping it’s audible as something more than a croak.

“What’s going on?” Natsuo demands. “Is the ambulance there?”

“Worse,” Shouto mumbles. “It’s a firebomb.”

“WHAT?!?”

“Is the ambulance here?” Shouto tries next, because now that he’s heard Natsuo say it, he’s realizing it makes sense to ask. “Bakugou still might explode,” he adds, because the worse he makes it sound, the faster they’ll be, probably.

Also, his old man can be pretty smart when he needs to be. He’ll probably hear “might explode” and combine it with the fact that they’d clashed with known Trigger dealers, and stay the fuck away before he melts Shouto’s ice and sets off a trigger of his own.

Time skips out on him again.

There’s the shuffle of shifting rubble and a barely audible murmur of voices getting closer, but Shouto’s world has narrowed down to two fine points. The ice beneath his right hand, coating Bakugou as much as he can… and the ice pick stabbing at his brain, jabbing at the back of his eyes.

And then there’s hands on him, and Shouto vaguely makes out Natsuo yelling at him to tell the EMTs everything he knows. And then the call disconnects, and people are swarming, and Shouto has to struggle to get his lips to remember how to form words again.

"He—he's—nitroglycerin toxicity, he needs, methy- methylene blue? And my brother said he was in shock—something—so I gave him saline—"

The person closest to him is listening and asking questions, but the rest are already bustling to remove Bakugou from beneath Shouto’s right palm so they can pack him into the ambulance, and—

"I need to go with him," Shouto adds in a rush.

"I'm sorry, but—"

"No, I need to go with him," Shouto emphasizes.

"Sir—"

"He's overheating because of his nitroglycerin and if I don't go with him he's going to explode and kill everyone and die," Shouto hisses.

Shouto gets to go with him.

Katsuki, very unfortunately, opens his eyes to find that he's surrounded by white.

He also has one bitch of a headache, so it takes him a few blinks to adjust his eyes to what he's seeing. Once they focus, he looks around and processes that he's in the hospital. That's… something. He takes a moment to think about what he last remembers. Trigger... the buildings... going down... Icyhot... his body trying its damnedest to kill itself and also explode.

Huh. He's actually alive.

...Holy fuck, he's alive?

"Barely," says a voice next to him, and Katsuki gracefully avoids jumping. He must have said that out loud. "You have Todoroki to thank for that one."

Katsuki sighs and sits up regardless of the wires on him, because he's not about to sit here and be jumpscared by people talking. He looks up into Aizawa-sensei’s already-disapproving gaze before glancing at the two empty hospital chairs next to him.

"Your parents left to eat breakfast," Aizawa supplies helpfully. Katsuki does the math; at least a day must’ve passed since the Trigger dosing, then. "But I wanted to have this conversation with you privately, so now is a good time. You're lucid, aren't you? Do you remember what happened?"

Katsuki sighs, because Aizawa's wanting to have a conversation is always something incredible. "Yeah."

"Can I speak about your condition with Todoroki here?" Aizawa continued, nodding past Katsuki.

Katsuki turns and looks, because what the fuck, there weren’t any other chairs next to his bedside, so where—

Ah.

Icyhot’s also here.

In a hospital bed.

He'd been completely fine when Katsuki saw him briefly before passing out. With more cognizant hindsight, Katsuki’s pretty sure they were trapped under some rubble together, so what happened—how did he…? Why was Icyhot also…? Did Katsuki… do…?

“He’s asleep,” is what Katsuki croaks after a moment too long. “You could just say what you want anyway.”

“No, because if he woke up in the middle of it, it’d be violating patient confidentiali- whatever.” Aizawa stops for a minute, probably to rub his temples. “Is that a yes?”

Katsuki nods stiffly, still staring at the array of shit that Half n’ Half's hooked up to.

"Then, firstly," Aizawa begins immediately after picking up a clipboard, seemingly oblivious to Katsuki’s worry, "Hyperthermia, methemoglobinemia, hypovolemic into refractory shock, seizures, vomiting, bradycardia—do you need me to continue? Because Bakugou Katsuki, you should be very, very dead right now.

“You are not for two reasons. The first one is the kid you’re looking at. The second one is that kid’s brother. For whatever reason, and I’m not going to bother trying to guess why, Todoroki was spectacularly overinformed about your Quirk, and spectacularly well-equipped for handling it. He also had the common sense to ask someone when he didn’t know what to do.”

Aizawa set the clipboard aside. His gaze hardened into a glare. “But your survival should not have come down to either of those things, Bakugou, because it’s a U.A. requirement to inform us of all information regarding your Quirk when you enroll in the first place."

Katsuki gives him his pissiest look in response, but Aizawa doesn’t even raise an eyebrow. The hospital-bed getup is probably ruining his whole fucking flow.

"Admittedly, it's partially U.A.'s fault that we didn't catch on at some point,” Aizawa concedes with a sigh. “I'm not sure how we've missed such a glaring thing about your Quirk for so long."

"Because I didn't fuckin' want you to know, teach," Katsuki levels, hackles raising. Yes, okay, yes, his Quirk sucks, he fucking knows, okay? But it's manageable. He's been managing it perfectly fucking fine for sixteen years, how the fuck was he supposed to account for Trigger, let alone know that it would—

"No, we are—” Aizawa starts, rubbing his temples. "This is not an argument, problem child. We are putting coolants in your costume the moment we get back to campus, and adjusting everything else to match.”

Katsuki tch'ed.

"And if you had told us, you could've had a uniform exception this entire time," Aizawa adds. "Rather than betting on us choosing our battles. Really, Bakugou.”

And suddenly Aizawa-sensei is looking at him, really looking at him, and Bakugou needs to look away first because hot damn, he’d prefer Aizawa yell at him again over just… oozing fucking disappointment like this.

“This was astonishingly reckless, even for you. I would go so far as to say suicidal. Or were you not listening during my lectures on how miscommunication kills in our line of work?”

Katsuki sighs, holding his tongue on the plethora of things bursting to come out. Aizawa doesn't understand how fucking—bad it looks, to have a Quirk that fucks him up half the goddamn time. He doesn't get it; Katsuki knows that he doesn’t, not with his Quirk. And Katsuki also knows, logically, that he should’ve had something like a coolant suit this whole time, but how the fuck was he supposed to request one of those without giving the game up? What the fuck was he supposed to do?

"Fine, sensei," Katsuki grits out eventually. "You can fuck with my costume."

Aizawa looks at him in a very this conversation is not remotely over manner, which means future Katsuki is equally as fucked as the current one, but a second wave of foreboding rises within him as he realizes that Aizawa can’t possibly be finished, and he wonders why his teacher has stopped.

Then Aizawa's gaze shifts, and Katsuki follows it, only to see one grey and one turquoise eye staring directly back at him.

The ambulance ride had felt both too short and yet simultaneously far too long.

Shouto tilted and rocked with every motion, his right arm trembling as he struggled to keep his palm pressed to Bakugou’s chest. He tried to stay still as the paramedics bustled around behind him, working frantically to deal with the… the… what had Natsuo called it? Methy-something? Apparently, whatever ridiculously long-named thing he said Bakugou had was pretty bad.

Shouto’s brain felt slow, he couldn’t… couldn’t really think; everything felt sluggish and stiff. Even his heart rate had finally begun to slow now that his fear and panic had started to gradually leak out of him. He was a balloon that had sprung a hole, blown up in place of Bakugou, but rapidly losing air now that the danger was finally passing.

There was still that tightness in his chest and that pesky ever worsening wheeze in the back of his throat, but now that his breathing was slowing, it suddenly felt less important than it maybe would have before.

The driver swerved on their next turn, and Shouto barely managed to stop himself from falling over. His blinks were starting to come slower, too, more drawn out and unhurried.

But that was okay. As long as Shouto was touching Bakugou, he could continue keeping his friend cool. It didn’t matter that he could barely feel anything, it didn't matter that his eyes were burning with an exhaustion that was begging him to give in.

It didn’t matter that he was so parched his lips were cracking, so cold he wasn’t even shivering anymore, so tired he couldn't stop the back of his head from knock-knock-knocking against the laminate of the ambulance interior as he was jostled by the drive.

His world had narrowed down to a single point now: keep Bakugou cold, keep the ice going, can’t stop, can’t rest yet— need to— gotta— must—

The second Bakugou was wheeled inside, finally in hands more capable than his own, Shouto crumpled to the floor, barely registering the concerned shouting as his body decided it could finally rest.

Katsuki’s still staring at Icyhot while the bastard wakes up. Somewhere in the background, Aizawa is conceding that the two of them need to get checked out by the nurses now that they’re both awake. He leaves for a few minutes so that they can be sufficiently poked and prodded, but Katsuki, with his considerable experience on the topic, is intimately aware that they’re not out of the woods of Aizawa’s scolding yet. He will stew in that anxiety until Aizawa returns.

For now, Katsuki watches as the nurses fuss over Half n’ Half. Apparently, Aizawa and their parents already signed most of their waivers or some shit, so he only gets a few forms shoved under his nose to look at when they’re checking him over, allowing him to spend the rest of the time studying the Coca-Cola trademark violation next to him.

He’s not entirely sure what happened to Icyhot. He’s got a few things hooked up to his arms; Katsuki stares idly at an IV bag labeled “Iloprost” that’s going into his veins in addition to the usual saline shit. Half n’ Half looks pallid and alarmingly exhausted, especially for someone who just woke up, and the hair on the fire side of his face is completely matted onto his skin. His hand—Katsuki eventually notices that Icyhot’s right hand is fully wrapped up, fingers and all, and that settles it.

Something else happened to him other than a basic hospital check-up. He seems to be free of burn marks, but Katsuki still hopes that this other shit wasn’t somehow because of him. At least he can try to appreciate that for once in his life, Icyhot looks like fucking shit.

Eventually, the show is over, and Aizawa comes back into the room. Katsuki winces internally, but does his best to pretend that he’s not actually afraid of Aizawa’s wrath, because Half n’ Half is awake and watching now and Katsuki’s brand is in dire need of repair since apparently Icyhot knows fucking everything, so he has to keep up appearances.

To his immense surprise, however, Aizawa doesn’t turn to glare at him again. Instead, he looks at the offbrand Kit-Kat and sighs.

“Are you lucid, problem child? Do we have permission to—”

“It’s fine,” Icyhot dismisses, eyes clear and steady despite whatever the fuck he has going on. “Say what you came here to say.”

Aizawa raises his eyebrows but continues all the same. “Alright. I wanted to wait until Bakugou was awake, because it’s become clear that he also has certain issues with hiding critical information,” he deadpans, and okay, Katsuki’s still liable to catch strays here, even if they’re slightly warranted.

“But you, Todoroki,” Aizawa accuses, voice sharp as a knife. “I need you to understand that you are fully complicit here, which is arguably worse.”

Katsuki’s eyebrows raise into his hairline. No fucking way Aizawa put a hold on ripping into him in favor of ripping into Icyhot even more.

Half n’ Half opens his mouth to reply, but Aizawa barrels over him.

“Frankly, I cannot believe we need to have this conversation, but according to your own testimony, as well as your actions, you knew about Bakugou’s Quirk ahead of time,” Aizawa declared. “You knew full well that Bakugou was hiding information about his Quirk, and you didn’t tell anyone. Why?”

And Icyhot just fucking—blinks at him, like he’s been asked a question that he assumed everyone already knew the answer to. It takes at least seven seconds until he responds; Katsuki’s counting. Icyhot even glances over at him before turning back to Aizawa. When he finally replies, it comes out as,

“Bakugou wouldn’t have wanted me to.”

And, well, he’s fucking right, but that’s still heinously offensive, because what the fuck. Why does Half n’ Half know things about him. That should be illegal.

“It seems your class needs remedial lessons on mandatory reporting,” Aizawa groans. “If you see something, say something, Todoroki, for god’s sake. What would Bakugou have done if any of your other classmates were there instead of you?”

“Yaoyorozu would have been able to handle it,” Icyhot declares immediately, with conviction.

Aizawa pinches the bridge of his nose. Katsuki tries his goddamn hardest not to laugh, because Aizawa will probably take away his hero license or some shit if he does right now. To their teacher’s credit, he recovers from Icyhot’s bullshit rather quickly.

“And what if it wasn’t a classmate? What if he had been with Endeavor instead of you, who wasn’t informed about Bakugou’s Quirk, because U.A. had never been told about it? Would you have liked to see both your father and your friend dead on the news?”

Half n’ Half’s jaw audibly clicks shut and sets in record time.

“I appreciate that you care about your classmates, Todoroki,” Aizawa continues, voice settling in a way that’s clearly him trying to calm himself down and failing. “But you need to think about your actions on a larger scale, or I promise I will expel you, and that is not an empty threat. Heroes who don’t communicate get killed.”

Icyhot’s just sort of staring at the blankets with his kicked puppy look, and Katsuki’s pretty sure Aizawa’s susceptible to it, because he sighs and adds,

“But you had quick thinking, and your information gathering skills are clearly excellent. As far as rescue went, you did well. Just try to be more aware of your own body next time.”

At the mention of whatever Icyhot’s problem is, Katsuki speaks up, coating his concern in anger. “What the fuck happened to you, anyway?” He asks, before glancing back at Aizawa. “And why the fuck aren’t you reading him his whole goddamn chart as we—”

“As much as his communication was a catastrophic failure, I will not admonish him for the extreme measures that kept you alive,” Aizawa decrees sharply. “While they could have been performed better, he had the right ideas, and they saved you.”

Katsuki grows quiet at that. What the hell did Icyhot do?

“It was Quirk exhaustion, by the way,” Half n’ Half supplies helpfully, and Katsuki can’t help it. He fucking snorts. Not because of what Half n’ Half said, but because he’s such a fucking loser dork even when he probably just almost killed himself.

In the corner of his eye, he sees Aizawa relax slightly at the sound. “You two seem well enough for your parents to come in, then,” Aizawa says, and Katsuki freezes up.

“Wait, sensei—”

“BAKUGOU FUCKING KATSUKI!”

——

After a couple hours of what Katsuki swears is legalized torture, the last of the stream of visitors dries up and the door is shut behind them.

Katsuki is fucking exhausted, and in the bed over he’s sure Icyhot is much the fucking same, if the new shadows under his eyes are anything to go by. The Where’s Wally reject looks like he hasn’t slept in days.

Which is good for Katsuki, though. Because it means that now that the visitors are gone and the lights have been dimmed and the nurses have even fucking told them both to get some rest, Katsuki can lay back and close his eyes and ready himself for a nice relaxing—

“Are you… feeling okay?”

Katsuki’s eyes snap open with a muted “tch” under his breath. Of fucking course the freezer burn poster child wants to talk instead of sleep. Of fucking course.

“Fine!” he snaps back. “Tired!”

“Oh. Me too,” the strawberry vanilla swirl hums, all pleased and nodding like Katsuki was making conversation and not hinting pointedly that he wanted to go to sleep. The dumbass.

“Yeah,” he sneers back instead. “You look like a piece of shit, Frosty.”

Said Frosty wrinkles his nose. “That sounds disgusting,” he says.

Katsuki stares at him in confusion. “Wha—?“

And then it hits him.

“N-Not! Fucking moron, I didn’t mean a shit-flavored frosty, you stupid motherfucking—do you know what a fucking comma is—”

He has to cut himself off to practically collapse back onto the pillows. Right, right, his body and Quirk are all fucked up, he’s got to be more mindful of his fucking heartrate than he usually is.

The stupid motherfucking frosty half-sits up in his own bed, which is the dumbest thing he’s done yet, considering he looks like he’s going to fall over. And he’s staring at Katsuki with fucking concern on his face like he has the right to, like he’s allowed to be worried over…

Oh.

It hits Katsuki then, the truth and weight and gravity of everything Aizawa-sensei had said.

Todoroki had saved his life.

And while it sounds easy, to start and end the incident with that one simple phrase, to boil it down to Katsuki getting hit with Trigger and then skipping straight to when he’d woken up in the hospital…

Well it hadn’t occurred that way for him, had it?

Icyhot had been awake and aware for the entire middle section that Katsuki hadn’t been. He’d gotten a front row seat to the onset of all the fucking symptoms and diagnoses that litter Katsuki’s stupid chart.

Put like that, it makes sense that he’d be fucking worried to see Katsuki all but collapse backwards into his pillows. So. God. Katsuki should probably say something.

"Uh," he fumbles. Icyhot stares at him, but goddamnit, the walking stop sign's fuckin' earned it. He clears his throat.

"Thanks," he says awkwardly.

He gets one of Half n’ Half real smiles in return. It's disgusting and freaky and gross.

"Nevermind, cut that shit out," Katsuki demands immediately.

"I'm just glad you're okay,” Half n’ Half says, which is just another fucking nail in the coffin, because he's incapable of pulling any punches.

But Katsuki is tragically forced to sit through this emotional bullshit without killing him, because this ketchup-and-mayonnaise abomination saved his life, which means he gets a single day of amnesty from Katsuki's complaints. The two of them finally lull into a surprisingly comfortable silence. Apparently Icyhot truly, actually just wanted to know if he was doing alright, which is the stupidest bullshit he’s ever heard. But the silence allows Katsuki to eventually ask the burning question inside of his mind.

"How'd you know about my—” shit, bullshit, loser weakness, "things, anyway?"

Icyhot chuckles under his breath. Katsuki isn't sure what's so funny.

"It's a long story," he says.

——

They’ve only been back in the U.A. dorms for a few hours when the front door abruptly slams open. Shouto looks up from where he’s trying to convince Bakugou to play shogi with him.

“I was gone,” booms Midoriya’s voice from down the hall, “for ONE DAY! One day at the work-study, guys! How did you guys both almost die?”

Shouto looks up at Bakugou, who’s already turning around in his seat.

“I don’t want to hear shit from you, Deku,” Bakugou yells. “How many bones have you broken?”

“Eighty-four!” Midoriya replies dutifully, finally coming into view. “But that’s not the point, Kacchan! You got hit with Trigger???”

“Yeah,” Bakugou confirms gruffly.

Midoriya looks concerned for about six seconds before his eyes light up. Shouto’s pretty sure he recognizes that expression.

Like clockwork, Midoriya asks quietly, “...Did it make your explosions bigger? Did you sweat more? How did it—”

“Ask Icyhot,” Bakugou says, cutting him off. “Apparently he knows goddamn everything and is bored out of his fuckin’ mind now that we’ve got house arrest.” To Shouto’s surprise, he starts setting up the shogi board.

Midoriya glances at Shouto and the board curiously before processing the full statement. “Wait. Wait, you’re leaving me alone with Endeavor??? Guys—!”

Shouto can’t help it. He laughs. Bakugou flashes him a grin, and it feels vaguely like something’s shifted.