Work Text:
It's been at least five days since they were kidnapped. Probably more, but Izuku's long since lost count, if he's being quite honest. Through all the hours upon hours of pain that seemed to refuse to end no matter how much he tried to acquiesce to the League's demands without giving away any truly significant information about his classmates and the heroes, he had little headspace left to even begin to think about time and how long he and Katsuki had been stuck here.
The single mercy, if they can really even call it that, is that they have each other. They are not alone in their agony; when one screams from the knife wounds and burns and all the other creative kinds of torturous interrogation methods Shigaraki and Dabi come up with, the other's heart is surely aching in equal if not even greater pain for their partner.
They get a brief reprieve at least once every few hours, presumably so that the villains can get their much needed rest after such exerting physical activity and vocal chord strain. Izuku and Katsuki take this time, whatever they can steal, to hold each other as best they can, reaching bruised and burned and beaten arms across the gap between their cots so that they can at least hold each other's hands and bask in the comfort of their shared company as their broken bodies try their best to heal in time for the morning.
For that is all they can do, really. Heal as best they can, and hope against hope that somebody will come for them, or even that their captors will eventually slip up and leave them an escape path that they can take.
And that tiny shred of hope is not entirely unfounded, either. Katsuki's sharp eyes never fail to see the way the villains sometimes almost forget one or two security measures. They both feel the way their bindings are being tied in different ways every night, even if it may very well be a hallucination born purely of their dual desperation. But either way, it is enough to keep them going, keep them hoping, and keep them from cracking under the pain and pressure, for — after all — hope is the quietest and yet most powerful form of resistance.
It is a few more cycles of pain and less pain later that their chance comes. Dabi is too careless with tying them to their respective beds, and when Izuku and Katsuki reach for each other the moment that the fire user is out of the room and his footsteps recede beyond earshot… they realize that not only are they able to reach so much more easily than they usually are, but they can also move almost with enough freedom to escape.
It takes some strategic wriggling and not much more work for them to free themselves and each other in tandem, and surprisingly they are both able to stand on their own two feet despite the particularly harsh vengeance that had been dealt earlier that day. As it turns out, adrenaline and rage both make excellent analgesics.
Izuku cracks his knuckles. "Let's get outta here."
Katsuki couldn't agree more.
But first, they have some damage of their own to deal on their way out, as payback. A little parting gift, perhaps.