Chapter Text
Bakugo Katsuki wakes to a pounding head, throbbing shoulder, and a dry mouth. He’s lying on something hard and sharp, small points jabbing painfully into his hip and elbow that are beneath the rest of his weight. His ribs twinge with every inhale, and his head pounds with every beat of his heart.
He takes a moment to take stock of himself. He’s in his hero suit, can feel one of his heavy gauntlets still around his left wrist - the other a mystery where it went, and his mask is gone as well. A fine layer of grime and dust coats his skin, he can feel it with the small, minute shift of his arm against the ground. His fingers touch rough concrete and a sharp piece of glass and his eyes are wrenching open.
It’s dark, not entirely impossible to see in but dark enough that Katsuki’s head doesn’t hurt too much. He blinks a few times, clearing his vision as he makes out what exactly is in front of him. Glass shattered - yellow, red, clear - and bent metal - a light blue that’s covered in dust and a silver that has lost its shine. A car’s front fender lies directly in his view, lying on the ground from where it fell from its place a few feet above - a smashed car’s hood sticking a few feet out from a pile of rubble. The windshield was gone, replaced by an entire slab of broken concrete and sharp rebar, and one of the headlights was hanging out of its place by a few wires.
“Fuck,” he whispers, choking a little on the dirt in his mouth and rolling over slightly to spit it out. Doing so, however, sends an agonizingly sharp burn across the top of his shoulder and has him stuffing down a pained yell. He breathes deeply, leaning his head down to the ground and fumbles his hand out of his gauntlet in order to bring it up to his collarbone.
“Oh fuck,” he whispers as he ghosts his finger tips over the obviously protruding bone and nearly gags as the pain twists his guts. Panting, he drops his hand, blinking his eyes from where he had had them slammed closed and looks around as best as he can without moving any more.
More cars are littered around him, all of them in similar shape as the first. Rubble sits in piles up to the ceiling - which is really just more rubble but more precariously placed - glass, metal, concrete all in painfully tall towers around him. The light is coming from a car, one that is in surprisingly good shape, albeit with its front hood smashed and a good chunk of the passenger side ripped off. The headlights are on, as are the lights inside the car, but Katsuki is sure they won’t be for long.
He swallows a thick mouthful of spit and dirt, licks his dry lips, and carefully places his hand down to push himself up off of his hurt shoulder. It hurts like a motherfucker, but slowly, he’s able to sit up.
He sits there for a while, blinking down at his lap as his vision swims and his stomach sloshes around with nausea. It’s a horrible feeling, and saliva pools in his mouth as he desperately tries to not vomit.
When he feels a little better, he lifts his head and peers more around him. It’s the same scene, although he appears to be near a wall and there isn’t as much crumbled ceiling in his view. Nothing of use, and no one else that way; however there seems to be a path down a little further.
Could be his way out.
He tries to think for a moment. He’s in his hero uniform, meaning he must’ve been out for patrol right? His comm is smashed on the floor next to him, probably having fallen out of his ear in the explosion or whatever happened, and his phone is in similar condition.
He takes a deep breath, desperately trying to think past the slow throbbing, back to what he was doing before this. He remembers going on patrol - Aizawa leading him and some of his classmates in a small group on a supervised but independent patrol route. They’d been paired up and sent off for a quick loop of their own. Him and-
He blinks.
“Deku.” His head snaps up and his vision swims, but that doesn’t stop him from scrambling to his feet as quickly as he can. A mistake, really, because his legs fold like jello beneath him and he ends up scraping his hand in order to not fall on his broken collarbone. It still hurts like a bitch, and a groan escapes his clenched teeth.
“Fucking hell,” he groans, holding his right arm as close and firm to his chest in order to keep his bones from jarring.
He stands a little slower this time, and manages to stay on his feet. Then he starts to shuffle around, keeping his eyes peeled for any sort of green. First over by the car, in the area that is the most lit up. The ceiling is actually a little shorter here, and he can occasionally feel his hair brush against it, but he’s too focused on the ground to care.
Nothing.
He takes a quick second to peer around the small space he had been in, in case he had missed Deku while he was initially awake, but again, nothing. The path to the side, near the wall ends up leading to a bigger area with several branches off. There’s several thick, concrete pillars that stand up, holding the ceiling high above. It’s probably the only place left in the parking garage (at least that’s where Katsuki thinks he is) that is actually still sort of in one piece. The other edges of the area have collapsed, however, effectively trapping off any outside doors or stairwells that were probably there initially.
Two small areas branch off, but they are empty. Katsuki thinks for a minute that he’s glad he isn’t finding bodies or civilians, because one, he doesn’t think he could honestly handle that right now, and two, he really just needs to find his fucking partner.
He knows he’s down here somewhere. There’s no fucking way that Katsuki would end up buried under rubble without Deku.
The only other way to go is a tight, narrow tunnel that he has to shimmy himself through painfully, crawling on both knees and one hand. His palm is cut open, and dust coats everything he touches, but he keeps going through.
Eventually the tunnel opens up to a very small, stale area that is surrounded by tall walls of concrete rubble. It’s dark, too dark for Katsuki to see anything really, but he stays kneeling and attempts to feel around the room. There’s no air movement around him, and the dust that has settled is almost sticky as he feels around the cold concrete jungle. It’s a little difficult to do, as he ends up having to shuffle himself forward a bit, feel around with his functional hand, so it takes some time.
He thinks he’s almost right back at the entrance with his hand skims over a familiar shape and he lets out a quick shout of excitement. A phone, screen miraculously unbroken and with 65% battery life left.
“Thank Kami,” Katsuki mutters, shifting off of his knees and to his butt as he slides the phone unlocked and sighs in relief when there’s no passcode. He takes a second to thank all the old people out there that don’t understand security.
He types in Aizawa’s number (the one he’d made them all memorize) and immediately places it on speaker phone then sets it down. Then he starts to painfully shimmy off the thin, outer vest he was wearing. It was an experimental piece, something made to keep his core temperature up while the months were getting chillier, but now it’ll be a makeshift sling.
The phone rings and rings, and eventually goes to voicemail by the time he manages to get the vest off. He swears, reaching over to redial the number and let it ring again. He scrapes the vest on a piece of metal nearby, sharp enough to fray the edge enough that he can tear is down the length.
He’s tying a knot with one hand when the call connects.
“How’d you get this number?”
Sweet Kami Katsuki has never been happier to hear his sensei’s gruff voice. “Sensei,” he chokes out, hand stilling on the fabric in his lap. He swallows and clears his throat, well, attempts to. “It’s me.”
A huff of air, like it was knocked from Aizawa’s lungs, sounds over the speaker. “Bakugo? That’s you?” A cacophony of voices suddenly rises in the background of the call and Aizawa tells them to shut up sharply. Katsuki’s pretty sure he had heard Kirishima and Round Cheeks voices rise above the rest.
“Yeah, sensei.” He pauses a moment, allowing himself to pull the fabric over his head and slip his arm into it’s hold. He groans through clenched teeth, but the sling admittedly does its job well.
“Where are you?” Aizawa sounds pissed. “And whose phone is this?”
Well that answers one of Katsuki’s questions. Now he knows that he’s fucked. “Uh, there isn’t a collapsed building in the news is there?”
“A collapsed building? Bakugo there’s at least 4,” Aizawa responds. He pauses. “Don’t tell me…”
“Sorry sensei,” Katsuki responds, chuckling slightly. “Guess I really wasn’t paying attention in all those rescue classes.”
“You’re under one aren’t you.” It’s not a question and Aizawa sounds about as defeated as Katsuki feels.
He hums affirmatively back.
“Is Midoriya with you?”
Fuck.
“No,” he breathes, swiping the phone off the ground and using the screen as a light to double check the room. He stands, a little too quickly judging by the way his vision tilts and his stomach swoons, but he steadies himself quickly.
“Alright,” Aizawa responds. Then, softer, like the microphone has been pressed against his chest, he can hear him talking. The words aren’t decipherable, but Katsuki just assumes that his sensei is sharing the fact that Deku is fucking missing.
Not for long, he thinks to himself, shuffling his way back out of the small area and back to the larger one. He takes a breath, looking around again in case he missed anything there as well, and, low and behold, there’s another path to the side that he’d missed in the first check. It’s by a pillar near a pile of rubble (surprise, surprise) and it leads to another small area.
“What’s your condition Bakugo?” Aizawa’s voice is back, albeit a little quieter because the speaker is facing away from Katsuki as he’s using the screen once again as a flashlight.
“Functional,” he responds, squinting in the dim light around the area.
Aizawa makes a noise that sounds half way disappointed and concerned.
“I think I broke my collarbone,” Katsuki responds honestly. No reason in hiding it at this point. “But I am functional.”
Aizawa sighs. “Limit your use of your arm, alright? Did you already splint it?”
“No. There’s nothing to use. I've got it in a sling though.”
“Good. Alright, I assume you’re searching for Midoriya right now?”
Katsuki huffed a breath. “How’d you guess eyebags?”
“Bakugo,” Aizawa sighs again. Good lord this man needed a nap. “How’s the battery on this phone?”
Katsuki takes a second to peer at it. “Down to sixty three percent.”
“Alright, listen to me closely.” Katsuki hums back. “Rescue might be a while, but we’re trying our best to get to you right now alright? Your classmates are helping with the efforts and that’s going well, but since we don’t know exactly where you are and there are other casualties…”
“I get it,” Katsuki responds despondently. God this fucking sucks. “It’s gonna be a while.”
“I’m going to hang up, to preserve the battery, alright? I’ll check in in fifteen minutes or so.”
“Alright.” Katsuki spots a backpack that’s been caught under some rubble, yellow and dirty. “I’m gonna find Deku.”
Then he hangs up, slides the phone into the top of his hero suit so that the top of the screen still lightens up a small area in front of him, and crouches. The backpack is the shitty corduroy material, the stuff that gets dirty like nothing else and feels like hell. It’s covered in dust, like everything else in this hell, and a broken water bottle in the side pocket is leaking over the ground. Katsuki quickly pulls the water bottle out, standing it up so that the hole in the metal is above the water line and sets it aside.
That’s his only water for who knows how long.
The contents of the backpack have Katsuki frowning; child books and school papers, an extra pair of shoes that are smaller than his hand, and a bento box of an uneaten lunch. He grips the pack in his hand and stands, quickly surveying the area ahead of him. This is obviously a kid’s bag, meaning that around here somewhere should be someone.
There’s less damaged cars now, obviously a spot of the parking garage(? He’s still not sure where he is) that wasn’t used as often as the rest. However, it feels as if that gave reason to the rubble to be piled up even more. It’s tricky for Katsuki to make his way around, having to scoot carefully over a pile with one arm, while avoiding any sharp metal or glass. It’s when he’s crawling over the third or fourth pile, nearly touching the collapsed ceiling above him, that he sees them.
For a moment, his brain doesn’t really comprehend what exactly he’s seeing, and then the signals start firing and he’s scrambling quickly down the pile.
There’s a kid, wearing a cute little outfit and little tiny shoes, no doubt the owner of the backpack slung over Katsuki’s shoulder. And also no doubt dead, judging by the slack, unseeing face, and greying skin. Around him is slung an arm, covered in a green suit and missing a glove, revealing a scarred, tan hand. The rest of Deku is hidden behind the body's outline, but it’s obvious that his partner is out and down for the count.
“Shit,” he mutters, checking the kid’s pulse for confirmation, before he’s pulling the body away towards a wall and gently setting the backpack near it. Then he’s back at Deku’s side, fingers shakily reaching under his chin to his pulse point.
“Oh thank fuck,” he breathes as a fairly steady heartbeat thrums beneath the skin. He quickly glances over Deku, trying to categorize any injuries he sees. There’s some slightly bloody tears along different spots of his body, but nothing looks too deep or bleeding too heavily.
Still too cautious to move Deku, fearing a neck or back injury, Katsuki just resorts to pinching the skin on the back of his hand.
“Deku,” he says sharply. “Wake the fuck up you fucking idiot.”
The phone starts to vibrate against his chest, which makes his collarbone ache, and he quickly pulls it out and slides to answer.
“Aizawa-sensei,” he begins immediately. Again, he sets it on speaker and props it up on the floor. “I found Deku.”
“Good job,” Aizawa responds, sounding relieved. Katsuki can hear him quickly relay the information to someone else. “How is he?”
“Unconcious.” He pinches harder. “Deku. Deku. Izuku.”
There’s a groan, and Katsuki feels his heart skip a beat. “Izuku?”
He swipes the bangs off of his partner’s forehead, leaning down to peer into his face. Izuku’s eyes flutter slightly, his mouth turning to a frown and creases appearing in his forehead. He’s in pain, that much is clear.
Kami, Katsuki hates this.
“Hey, Izuku, wake the fuck up.” He pinches once more, and this time Izuku’s eyes open and stay open a little longer. He can see Izuku’s mouth move around a little, as if he’s trying to figure out how to form words before another groan escapes and he clamps his eyes shut.
“Kacchan,” Izuku whispers.
Katsuki sniffs and licks his lips. “Yeah I’m here. You gotta talk to me, Deku. I gotta know what’s going on.”
He really needs to know what kind of shape Izuku is in. “He’s awake sensei,” he calls over to the phone, knowing that Aizawa has been paying attention this whole time. “I’m checking him over.”
Izuku starts to move then, just a short move of his torso up before it’s abruptly cancelled and a loud keen escapes his mouth. Katsuki is left kneeling there, one hand stretched out, eyes wide, as Izuku writhes in pain.
“What the fuck, Izuku what the fuck,” he mutters, putting a hand on Izuku’s shoulder to still his body. “Talk to me. Talk to me.”
Izuku just gasps in pain, but one of his hands makes a little movement towards his hip. Katsuki’s gut curdles slightly.
“Alright,” he shushes, keeping his hand on Izuku’s shoulder but twisting around carefully to find anything sharp. A large piece of glass, thick and fairly straight, pokes out from under a pile of dirt a little bit away. He grabs it, taking care to hold it in a way as to not slice his hand open, and carefully cuts off a piece of Izuku’s yellow cape. Then he wraps that around the bottom half of the glass and gets away at cutting down Izuku’s hero suit.
“Wh’t’re you doin’?” Izuku mutters, a hand weakly sliding down to feel where he couldn’t see. Katsuki just pushes it away, squeezing it slightly, and continues to work.
“I’ve gotta see what I’m dealing with idiot,” the insult feels sour in his mouth.
They’ve come a long way from their beginning, and it's something that Katsuki has taken comfort in. He’s found a friend in Izuku, as well as a few others, but Izuku is his closest friend.
It probably doesn’t help that you wouldn’t mind shoving him into a wall and making out with him….
Actually, that’s a problem Katsuki doesn’t need to think about right now. No, he needs to worry about getting the two of them out of there alive.
Izuku’s belt is the most difficult to cut, as it’s been designed to resist breaking, but Katsuki manages. Then he cuts up Izuku’s top to about halfway up his torso, and cuts down his pants to his knee. He sets the glass aside and carefully probes around Izuku’s stomach and chest, feeling for any give when there isn’t supposed to be or any swelling.
Finding none, he moves to peel down the scraps of his pants and his throat closes.
A massive bruise, dark and angry looking, is already stretching up Izuku’s hip. The skin looks unbroken, but it looks almost dented.
“Fuck,” he breathes, glancing back up at Izuku, who just blinks slowly back at him. “You fucking broke your hip.”
“He what?” Aizawa’s voice rips from the speaker. His voice has changed from mildly-concerned-midly-upset to full-blown-concerned. It’s not a voice that Katsuki hears often.
“Goddamnit Izuku,” Katsuki whispers, feeling his throat start to tighten. Izuku frowns, reaching his hand out again. This time, Katsuki takes it with his own and squeezes tightly. “I fucking hate you.”
He turns to face the phone a little better. “His hip is fucked up sensei,” he explains, glancing down at the purple skin on Izuku’s hip. “He’s not ambulatory. We’re not moving.”
Silence for a little bit, some crackles. “Any way you could make a stretcher?”
“And pull it with my broken collarbone?” Katsuki snarks back, sitting on his butt.
Aizawa sighs. “Right. I forgot about that.”
“Yeah.”
“How is he doing though?”
Katsuki looks down at Izuku’s face, which is dazed and looks none the bit concerned. “He’s definitely in shock. Could be bleeding internally, maybe a head wound.”
“Alright.”
“Sensei?” Katsuki’s mouth is so dry.
“Yeah kid?”
“You’re gonna get us out of here right?”
There’s no answer for a bit. And then- “Of course kid. You two hang on, I’ll call you back to check in again in a bit.”
He hangs up before Katsuki can say anything in return.
Katsuki feels Izuku squeeze his hand and he looks down. Izuku cracks a smile, his lips splitting and bleeding, eyes still unfocused, and Katsuki bursts into tears.
God, he’s just so tired and in pain. His head is pounding, he’s still on the verge of vomiting, and all he wants right now is his mom. When was the last time he had said that?
Katsuki thinks that his brain is finally coming to terms with how fucked they are right now. No one knows exactly where they are. It could be hours, or even days until they’re found, and there’s so many things that could go wrong in that amount of time. Rubble could shift, crushing them, they could run out of oxygen, maybe Katsuki is bleeding internally and he just doesn’t know, maybe Izuku has a brain bleed and is slowly slipping away and Katsuki wouldn’t know and Izuku would never know that Katsuki lov-
“Don’t cry, Kacchan,” Izuku whispers. His hand tightens. “Please don’t cry.”
Katsuki sniffles a bit, looking down at Izuku, and then hastily wipes his tears off on his shoulder. It hurts, because somehow he forgot about the whole other broken part of him, and he sucks in a pained breath.
“Okay, Izuku.” He nods, biting his lip. Then he bows his heads and prays to whoever is listening that if they pull his body out, his parents aren’t there to see it.
Izuku hurts. Well, sort of. He’s kind of floating around, like in a big pool. But every once in a while, it’s like he starts to come back himself a bit, like he’s searching for the ladder out, and then there’s an aching, piercing pain that pushes him back in.
He’s a little confused. Not a lot he doesn’t think. Just a little.
He’s lying down, but it’s on something hard.
He’s in pain but he’s not.
Kacchan’s here.
That one he’s not confused about.
Kacchan is here. He’s sitting right in front of Izuku, and he’s holding his hand (Izuku totally is not internally blushing about that). He looks a little worse for wear, covered in dirt and scratches and he’s got one arm in a sling.
Izuku pokes his tongue out a little, just enough to pry apart his dry lips from sticking to each other.
“Wha’s wrong with y’ur ‘rm?” Hmm, that didn’t sound right but Izuku’s too tired to care. Goodness a nap sounds great right now.
Kacchan’s brow furrows - he looks so cute like that - and he huffs a breath. “I hurt it.”
Izuku frowns. That’s not good. Kacchan’s too good of a hero to get hurt.
The throbbing pain is back, and Izuku can’t help but groan, trying to shift away from it. All that does, however, is cause Izuku’s vision to black out as the feeling of being stabbed burns his hip.
“Shit,” he hears Kacchan mutter, and then there’s a hand on Izuku’s shoulder. “What did I tell you before? You’re hurt, Izuku. Stop trying to move.”
Izuku breathes through the pain, graciously letting the haze of blissful unawareness cast over him again and then he blinks open his eyes. “You di’nt tell me ‘at.”
Kacchan’s face crumbles, and he bites his lip. He nods, slowly at first, before a steely expression takes over and he blinks away the movement. His hand moves from Izuku’s shoulder up to his head, fingers tangling softly in his hair.
There’s another source of pain near the base of his head, but that one can be tuned out pretty easily.
Izuku blinks a couple times, watching Kacchan. He frowns again. “Yo’re hurt.”
Kacchan nods a little. “Yeah. So are you.”
“Oh.” Izuku doesn’t remember getting hurt. He doesn’t remember Kacchan getting hurt either. Speaking of remembering, Izuku is suddenly remembering what he get Kacchan for Christmas and he really needs to tell him now.
“Kacchan,” he says.
Kacchan is turned away, tapping on a screen with a case - a phone Izuku realizes - but he hums in acknowledgement.
“I got’ya a lim’ted ‘dition figurine for Chri’mas….”
Kacchan whips to look at him, face pinching in pain and concern. “The fuck are you telling me that for?”
Izuku just smiles.
He doesn’t really know why he told him that.
He frowns.
“Kacchan you’re hurt.” Kacchan has a sling and a bruise peeking out from his hero suit. That can’t be good.
Kacchan just hums back, going back to the phone.
Izuku pouts, turning his gaze up to the ceiling.
“Hey Kacchan?”
“What.”
“I love you.”
Silence answers him, and Izuku frowns again. He looks back at Kacchan, who’s doing a really good impression of a fish. Izuku giggles.
“What?” Kacchan sounds… hurt. That’s not what Izuku wanted. Don’t people say ‘I love you’ and it’s a good thing?
“Say that again,” Kacchan says, shuffling over. His hand lands on Izuku’s cheek and he leans in close. Izuku can feel the warmth of his breath on his skin. “Fucking say that again.”
“Love you,” Izuku responds, but this time his mouth fails him. His heart is pounding, and the pain is surfacing again. He frowns.
“Think I’m gonna sleep a bit.”
Sleeping sounds good. Sleeping sounds like no pain.
Yes.
Sleep.
“Izuku don’t you fucking dare-”
Izuku falls asleep with the warmth of Kacchan’s hand on his cheek and the coolness of the concrete beneath him.