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Katsuki groans at the pain in his head, bringing a hand up instinctively to the back of his head which is aching like a motherfucker. His hand feels warm, wet, and dusty, which… is likely a problem. He goes to sit up only to meet resistance, and he frowns in confusion.
“Kacchan?”
Deku’s voice has his eyes opening immediately - the strain in his hero partner’s voice not going unnoticed. The lighting is dim enough that he doesn’t immediately recoil with the headache pulsing through him. It’s a weird, wavery green color though, that isn’t helping with his disorientation. Squinting, the first thing he notices is the chunk of concrete laid across his chest. It is too big and heavy to move himself, but he is pretty sure it hadn’t broken bones or skin somehow.
Shortly, he remembers Deku’s voice asking for him, and his eyes drift over. Not far away from him, he sees the telltale flickers of the green lightning of Deku’s Quirk. As everything comes further into focus, Katsuki realizes he can hear the short, sharp breaths coming from his hero partner, and his eyes pick up on the beads of sweat lining Deku’s forehead.
“Deku?” he mutters, shifting as best he can under the concrete. Izuku’s eyes flick to him, a strained smile appearing on his features. An emerald gaze scans what he can see of Katsuki’s features, before meeting garnet again.
“Hey, Kacchan,” he grunts, and the sound is slowly drawing more and more of Katsuki’s attention, because something is wrong but his annoying, battered brain won’t work . “We’re a little held up right now, but everything is going to be fine, okay?”
“Why’re you talking like that, nerd? Why wouldn’t things be fine?” Katsuki squints at him, blinking sluggishly. Izuku’s breathing is carefully controlled, as he casts a slight grimace in his direction.
“Shit. Kacchan, we’re under a building? Remember? We had just gotten the last people out when the supports gave way. I’m… kind of the only thing keeping us from getting crushed under tons of concrete and metal right now.”
Katsuki blinks a couple of times at that, before tipping his gaze up, and - oh. The ceiling is a lot more crumbled than it should be, and a lot closer. After a moment, Katsuki realizes he should have known that sooner, and he huffs in annoyance at the realization that he probably has a head injury.
“I think I hit my head,” he announces to Deku, the years of work and friendship both having made him comfortable sharing temporary weaknesses with his hero partner. “Not dangerous, but disorienting.”
“I was worried about that,” Deku says, and Katsuki can now hear the slight undertone of concern in his voice. “Any other injuries? I saw you get pinned under that slab, and since you haven’t pushed it off yet, I get the feeling that you can’t.”
“No. Shockingly, I think I’m mostly fine, thank fuck,” Katsuki says, taking inventory of his body as best he can. “You?”
“Not injured, but getting tired,” Izuku grunts, lightning flickering across his features again. “This is heavy. But don’t worry, I’ll be able to hold it until someone comes to get us out!”
Katsuki grunts, tipping his head carefully so that he can look at the other again.
“Not worried, nerd, I trust you. Just checking.”
There’s a moment of silence, before Deku grimaces again and shifts the weight across his shoulders. As the lightning flickers and dapples light across his face, Katsuki thinks he looks a little like that old, pre-Quirk story about Atlas, and a little too worried for them both, even though the blond has complete faith in the other’s ability.
“Hey, do you remember when we were seven and I dared you to eat a Carolina Reaper?”
“What?” Izuku’s eyes dart up, before he registers the question and huffs out a laugh. “Yeah, I couldn’t taste anything but pain for two days. Then I tried to do it again, thinking I’d build up a tolerance if I kept trying. Mom had to flush them all because I kept trying to get at them, then she banned me from the grocery store for a month.”
“I acted like I minded she always left you with us when she shopped, because I was a little shit,” Katsuki adds, “but it was still early enough in our whole mess that I missed you and didn’t want to admit it.”
“Aw, Kacchan,” Izuku says, smiling as his eyes well up a little. He sniffs hard a few times, and Katsuki’s eyes catch how he hasn’t had to shift the weight since they began talking. “I also remember how later the following year, you also gave me a Silver Age All Might keychain I’d been wanting, claiming you already had it and your parents gave you the wrong one. Your parents know better than that, I always knew it was from you.”
“Shut up,” Katsuki says without bite, averting his gaze for a moment. “You can’t prove anything.”
Deku full out laughs at that, body instinctively curling forward a bit with the force of it and causing a now-familiar warmth to spread through Katsuki’s chest. A second later, the weight above them both shifts a little at the motion, and they both freeze, casting their eyes upward. The green-haired hero carefully adjusts his shoulders under everything, to steady it all again.
“Alright, no laughing then,” he says faintly. “Got it.”
They stay in relatively comfortable silence after that, listening to the distant sounds of the building settling again. Katsuki is just glad he’s breathing relatively easily. Even though he’s pinned and can’t get out due to his head and the enclosed space, he’s not injured which is shocking in and of itself. The sound of a muffled grunt nearby draws his eyes back to the green lightning wreathing the frame of his friend.
“You remembered to water the plants this morning, right?” he asks, bringing Deku’s attention away from his discomfort again. “I swear to fucking god if you begged to get them so much just to let them die, I’m going to kick your ass.”
“I’m a terrible plant dad,” Izuku says, eyes going wide in horror. “Kacchan, they’ll be fine if I water them when we get home, right? Right? They won’t get shrivelled up in the… what, eight hours? It’s been since then, right?”
Katsuki gives a long-suffering groan at the green-haired hero’s words, starting to roll his eyes before the spike in his headache causes him to abort the motion midway.
“How did you make it this long without me? Honestly, asking me to be your roommate is the best decision you ever made, idiot,” he sighs. “Your fucking plants will be fine. I watered them the day before yesterday because you forgot again.”
“Thanks, Kacchan,” the other says, sending a sheepish smile his direction followed by a wince as he shifts his feet again. “Man, who knew a building was this heavy, huh?”
“Obviously it’s heavy, nerd, it’s a fucking building.” Katsuki eyes him, scanning his expression for tells. “I’m fucking pissed I’m stuck under here though. There’s not much I can do to help lift a building, but I could figure out how to get out or alert the extras where we are if I could fucking move.”
“It’s okay, Kacchan,” Izuku says, turning his attention back to him. “I’m good, really. I’m just glad you’re okay. I saw that concrete fall on you, then you passed out and I saw blood on your head. When you didn’t wake up, I…”
An old, familiar pained expression twists Izuku’s features for a moment, before he turns his face away to hide it, knowing he’s always worn his heart open for the world to see. Katsuki tries to put himself in Izuku’s position - if he were somehow the only thing holding up a building and the other had been buried under concrete, unconscious and bleeding, he’d be losing his mind.
The urge to reach out and touch the other had been growing stronger and more frequent recently, and it roars into existence now with an intensity that makes Katsuki catch his breath. Katsuki has been doing well about not making it too obvious, but he knows Izuku has noticed still. The other hero has been doing it too, and the moments they spend over dinner, watching TV, working out, patrolling together, all of it has begun to be a little more charged every time they interact.
Still, neither of them are willing to be the first to broach the topic, their history hovering over their shoulders despite everything. But, at the reminder that either of them could have lost their lives in the building collapse, Katsuki can’t remember why they were holding back so much. He can’t imagine what life would be like without the nerd at this point - the other having always been within arm reach their entire life.
He decides to take hold of some of the boldness that has ruled him his entire life, now.
“Hey, Izuku,” he says, drawing Deku’s attention in an instant at the name he still didn’t use often. “When we get out of here, let’s get fucking married.”
“ What ?!” Izuku sputters, face flaming red in an instant. “You can’t just-! Kacchan !”
“I’m serious,” Katsuki protests, watching with satisfaction as Deku’s face turns even redder. He’s certain that if the other man wasn’t holding literal tons, he’d be flailing and curling into an embarrassed ball on the floor. “Let’s do it. Why fucking not?”
“Why - we aren’t even dating yet! We’ve never even kissed! I didn’t know you even…”
“What, you didn’t know I liked you? Or that you liked me?” Katsuki watches as Izuku’s eyes avoid his, his blush slowly creeping down his neck. “That’s what I thought. And, if you’re fine with it, the kiss can be fixed easily as soon as we get out of here.”
A quiet whine of embarrassment comes from Deku, and Katsuki decides to back off a little, given that the other was holding up literal tons of concrete and saving both of their lives at the moment. He goes quiet and watches as Deku slowly regains his composure. After a while, the green-haired hero turns his attention back to Katsuki, glancing at him through his lashes shyly.
“You haven’t taken it back,” he points out quietly, green lightning flickering across his face. Katsuki levels a look at him.
“And I’m not going to, nerd,” he says, watching the lines of Deku’s eyes soften a little at the admission. “If you need more time to be sure of things, then fine, let’s go on a date. I’ll let you take as long as you need, and I’ll try to convince you to pick me too. But if it’s just because it’s sudden, then I’m already convinced. You have me. So, what happens next is up to you.”
There’s a long moment of silence, before Deku huffs, wrinkling his nose.
“Kacchan’s being really unfair, springing this on me when I can’t even hug him,” he finally mutters, the words carrying easily in the enclosed space. Katsuki doesn’t bother fighting down his grin at the words.
“Is that a yes then?”
“Of course it is,” Izuku says, sending him a glare that he obviously didn’t mean. At the questioning raise of Katsuki’s eyebrows, the pink tinge returns to his cheeks. “A yes to the first question. You already have me too. But you know that already, stop making me say it out loud.”
Even though he’d been pretty confident going into this, at Izuku’s confirmation that he’d marry him, Katsuki felt a swell of relief and happiness combined. He hadn’t been lying earlier - even though they’d been taking their sweet fucking time with things, Katsuki had already been won over. So the fact that apparently Deku was fully won over too was gratifying.
“I’m going to marry the fuck out of you,” he muses aloud, causing bright crimson to spread across Deku’s cheeks again as Katsuki lets that warm feeling in his chest sweep through him further.
“ Kacchan ! Stop just saying these things out loud!” he complains. “I’m half convinced this is all a stress-induced hallucination anyways, I’m still adjusting to the idea! And it’s still unfair this is all happening when we’re both stuck under a building.”
Katsuki is about to respond when a faint rumble catches both of their attention.They both pause and turn to where the sound was coming from. There is a long moment of quiet, until another faint sound carries through the material.
“Hero Deku! Hero Dynamight! We have readings on you, from someone with a searching Quirk! We’ll be able to get you out of there in just a moment, please hang on!”
The pair exchange a look before Katsuki raises his voice, ignoring the throbbing in his head.
“We’ll be here!” he calls, before dropping his voice to a mutter. “It’s not like we’re fucking going anywhere, that’s kind of the point.”
“Be nice,” Izuku scolds, tipping his head from side to side. “But yeah, if they could hurry up, I’d really like to put this down now.”
From there it’s a whirlwind of shouted instructions, the distant sound of rubble moving, and the sudden breakthrough of daylight as the heroes finally reach them. Katsuki does his best not to snap at people as they get the concrete block to move enough to get him out from under it. A hero with a stone Quirk - Deku was muttering something about granite? - worked with Izuku to take the weight of the building so that Izuku himself could leave.
He isn’t entirely sure how they manage to get Izuku out of there, since the moment he himself is out from under the concrete, several heroes and medical professionals swoop in to get him medical care before he can even offer up a token protest.
Katsuki grumbles the entire time he’s being checked over off the back of the ambulance. The medical professionals are taking readings from him and checking to make sure he hasn’t broken or punctured anything important, while reporters are swarmed at the edge of the police barricade and various heroes are milling around looking for more people in need of help and beginning cleanup.
“Hero Dynamight, it looks like you’ll be fine,” the EMT closest to him says, before frowning a little. “You have a slight concussion though, and I’d like you to spend a night in the hospital anyway, in case there are any delayed effects from being trapped under the concrete for so long.”
“Sure,” Katsuki shrugs, rising to his feet and making his way over to the adjacent ambulance as his team of EMTs begins to scramble after him. “I’ll just ride with Deku in his ambulance there, so you can take someone else who needs it more.”
“Kacchan!” Deku exclaims as he hops into the back of the ambulance, perking up a little. The EMT holding a stethoscope to his chest, eyes them both knowingly, and Katsuki smirks a little at the realization that the other’s heartrate must have jumped.
“Dynamight, I’m afraid only family members or spouses are able to travel with patients in the ambulance,” the lead EMT in Izuku’s ambulance interjects firmly, eyeing Katsuki’s own team behind him with some judgement.
“Good thing I’m this nerd’s fiance then,” Katsuki drawls, sprawling out in an unoccupied seat. All chatter falls quiet for a moment as the medical staff try their best to stay professional in light of that tidbit of gossip, and he sees Izuku flush red again as a beaming grin emerges on his features.
“Ah, my apologies then,” the lead EMT says, pausing as her eyes dart between the two of them. “I wasn’t aware-”
“Chill, it’s recent,” Katsuki interjects, ready to get this show on the road. “We would’ve been more shocked if you had. Can we go yet? I want to get home before my hair starts going grey. Or before my old hag catches wind of this fucking mess.”
“She’s going to be so clingy,” Izuku giggles blearily from his seat on the gurney. “And she’s probably going to yell at us.”
“Not you - she thinks the sun shines out of you and your mom’s asses.”
“Kacchan!”
“Alright,” the EMT interrupts, we’ll get you ready to go, Deku, then we’ll take off. Dynamite, you got approved to be here, right?”
“Sure,” he says, causing the EMT to eye him suspiciously. Before she can interrupt though, a familiar voice cuts in.
“Blasty! You’re okay!”
They all turn to see Mina and Kirishima pushing their way through the crowd of people. Kirishima glances at the group of medical professionals, before casting his gaze towards Katsuki, a slight frown on his face.
“I’m glad you’re good, dude, but don’t they only allow family to travel with people in the ambulance? Why don’t you have your own?”
“Oh,” Katsuki begins, a troublemaking grin spreading slowly across his features. He flicks a look towards Izuku - his fiance - and while the other looks a little exasperated, there’s a flicker of a grin at his lips too. “Because Deku’s my fiance, obviously. And since my injuries were minor, I’m travelling with him to free up the other ambulance.”
“Excuse me, what !” Mina screeches.
“Bro, that’s so manly! Congrats, but when did that happen?”
“About twenty minutes ago,” Katsuki says offhandedly, before turning to look at the lead EMT. “Hey, I think we’re good to go now, the nerd needs treatment - I’m pretty sure he tore something if the way he was grimacing earlier was any indication.”
The EMT’s lips twitch as she tries to hold back an amused smile, clearly picking up on what he was doing. Gesturing towards the other EMTs, they begin to prepare everyone for transportation. Turning his attention back to Deku, Katsuki’s stomach flips when he sees the other hero staring at him was a rather smitten smile. Which, reminded him.
“Hey, nerd,” he says, leaning forward in his chair. “I promised to do something once we got out of there, didn’t I?”
Leaning further forward, he catches Izuku’s eyes widening in surprise before he presses his lips to Izuku’s own. Deku inhales sharply, before melting into the contact with a happy hum. Distantly, Katsuki hears his annoying friends screeching unintelligably. He ignores them until he pulls away, shooting a glare over his shoulder.
As the EMTs close the door, quieting the shouting of his friends - who he knew would be gossiping about this in the class group chat that was still around despite having graduated already - he turns his attention back to Izuku. At the sight of tears in the other’s eyes, he almost panics until he sees the smile.
“I’m fine,” Izuku says, grinning a little, already guessing where Katsuki’s mind had gone. “I’m just really happy.”
“Good,” Kasuki says, more softly than he’d speak to pretty much anyone else. Movement from the side of him catches his eye, and at the pointed look from the EMTs, he sits back a little and straps himself in, getting ready to head to the hospital.
Deku stretches out a hand, and Katsuki takes it carefully, without hesitation. The green-haired hero smiles, and Katsuki lets an answering one form on his lips, as the ambulance begins to move.