Work Text
Static. Smoke. Heat.Katsuki tips from one dream into another, his vision filled with hazy undulations and his ears with white noise but his breathing is normal, fine, unhampered. Just like the underwater version: Swimming through a quiet pressure without any of the actual water.He drags a gloved hand across his face and it smears through the sweat collected there before hitting something hard, unyielding. Metal. His fingers ghost across perforations before realization cracks through his skull like a lightning bolt.Static roaring in his ears. He claws his sweat-damp digits into his ear to dig out the squealing communicator, the tiny bundle of circuits offering nothing but buzzing garbage. He tosses it to the ground.Bleary gaze lurching across the room laid out in front of him, Katsuki's eyes land on a green lump in the corner, lit up like a ghost by an emergency lantern on the floor a few feet away. Fuck. Not dreaming. Real. Deku. His fingers squeak across the respirator strapped to his face. Deku's respirator. Deku's fucking respirator. Katsuki staggers to his feet, stumbling through a step and a shudder. So much smoke in the air; it should be thick, oppressive, choking. It stings his eyes, naked without his own half-mask. But his lungs are free from the ragged sounds emanating from the room’s other occupant.He's on his knees now, though he doesn't remember dropping. Deku is prone before him. The other boy's still fingers are curled around a similarly useless, shattered communicator. But the real problem is the debris covering his body, his green hair, his face. Katsuki can see the red peeking through the dusty rubble. Deku doesn't wear much red, aside from his belt and his dumb fucking sneakers. There shouldn't be any red near his face.His face, which has his stupid hood pulled down in front of it, covering his nose and mouth like a bandana. The rabbit ears - and what else could they be? - are tied behind the back of his head.Katsuki's hands come back up to the metal clamped down on his cheeks, stilling there. He can't. It should be returned but he mustn't, or he'd just be making the same mistake its owner did.Put your own oxygen mask on first.It's what they tell you on airplanes. When an emergency happens, and the oxygen masks drop down, put your own mask on first before helping others. Or you risk passing out and helping no one.Fucking Deku. Of course he wouldn't give two shits about his own fucking life.This wasn't even a metaphor; it was a literal breathing apparatus. Deku had put it on Katsuki, had determined that Katsuki's lungs were more valuable than his own, and in doing so compromised them both.Katsuki's head is pounding, pinching tight across his forehead. What was even the last thing he remembers? They were on a stakeout, holed up in an abandoned industrial building to spy on a presumed up-and-coming villain ring. Oh. Well. The building seems to be on fire. So. They probably got found out. He screws his eyes shut, attempting to block out the roaring panic in his eyes, his ears, his face. He’s the conscious one now. He has to keep the mask on. The mask that tinges every smoke-free inhale with goddamn four days of stakeout musk; imprinted on the respirator from when it last hung around Deku’s neck.Fuck. Katsuki brushes what chalky crumbles and hunks of concrete he can off of Deku's unconscious body. He’s alive, at least; breathing raggedly through, or perhaps despite, the veritable gag wrapped around his airways. Katsuki runs his fingers under the damp fabric. Through his gloves he can’t feel if Deku’s skin is hot, cold, clammy, or covered in blood. He can’t feel if air is actually moving in and out. But the unconscious boy’s chest is moving up and down, and there aren’t any obstructions under the hood. It is enough.It has to be.Katsuki addresses what he is capable of addressing using the basic supplies in his belt: wrapping the wounds that threaten to spill every last drop from inside the green boy on the ground, leaving the ones that will only cost time. The heat and the haze lap at his senses but his training kicks into autopilot as he mechanically tends to the critical injuries of this fallen idiot. Pressure, binding, bandage, tie. Live.He presses his fingers into Deku’s abdomen, prodding and testing in a way that would seem intimate in just about any other situation. But Katsuki does not allow himself to be uncomfortable as he explores through the wall of solid muscle. He is looking for broken ribs, for internal injuries, for anything that will prevent him from fittingly fireman-carrying Deku’s ass out of this concrete coffin. He’d lose the use of both arms with a princess carry or keeping an unconscious body on his back.It is not the four-day stakeout exhaustion that has earned Deku this pitiful nap. The partially collapsed wall he is crumpled under bears his destructive hallmarks; which had likely been his undoing as it damn near brought the whole room down on his head. If he had just been wearing his respirator, his un-dulled reflexes might have saved him. Lucky the nerd has a thick skull. The blood on his face, run down from shallow cuts above his forehead, makes it look worse than it likely is. He will live. If Katsuki can get them out.And fuck off if anyone thinks he can’t.Katsuki moves to finish what was started. He has to get air flowing in this windowless room or not even the metal on his mouth will be able to save him. Not to mention. They have to escape this burning fucking building. He is coated with enough sweat now to bring the whole block down to its foundation, but it’s too risky. He can’t be Deku. He can’t expect there will be another chance, another trade of consciousness. He has to keep the mask on - for both of them.So he digs. He claws, and scrapes, and pulls and lifts and shifts and strains. Breathing difficulty spikes in time with the rise in exertion. Heavy exhales fill up the respirator faster than it can dissipate them, and it’s ironically suffocating, claustrophobic. But not near as bad as without it, or as being trapped in this doomed rectangle of concrete and steel.The fire isn’t in here, despite the haze and the smoke hanging heavy in the air that might indicate otherwise. But the heat is still near unbearable. It weighs down on Katsuki like he’s at the bottom of the ocean; without any of the actual water.He knows he is digging to hell. Each new hunk of wall removed is hotter than the previous one, baked stones seeping their anger straight through his gloves. It isn’t the hot concrete that unnerves him; he is no stranger to fire in his palms. Searing piece by searing piece comes away until finally he breaks through and the oven door explodes, sending him reeling back from a tangible blast of heat and pressure that curls his eyelashes and steals his breath right out of the respirator.Katsuki found the fire.He stares into the volcano and doubt finally stares back at him. He has no room for it. There is precious little time left before his window will literally close on him, so he does the only thing he can: he presses onward. If they are going to die in this hellhole it won’t be because Katsuki gave up.He shimmies through his portal into the inferno and he thinks this very well might be what being cooked feels like. Nothing has ever come close, not even taking the full brunt of Half-n-Half’s left side. The only saving grace is that the building was mostly empty and mostly concrete. A fire in a regular building would have already killed them both.Katsuki at least has a high heat tolerance. He reaches back through the opening to snag Deku’s wrists, pulling him through the hole into hell. He knows there is a chance the heat alone, to make no mention of the smoke that Deku can’t avoid, will roast him alive before Katsuki can get them out. But it’s not like he can just leave the nerd there.Fucking Deku.With a grunt and a curse, Katsuki hoists his unconscious and likely dying partner up over and across his shoulders.“Fuck, you’re heavy, you shithead,” he hisses at the hip pressed against his ear. The words come out tinny and muffled through the respirator. Katsuki repeats the expletive to himself in his head. Shithead. Shouldn’t be literally wasting his breath on an unconscious ass. Shit. The oxygen was going to be thinner higher up, it would be much better to be carrying him lower—Instinct and his free hand alone deflect the hunk of ceiling as it detaches from its previous place of occupancy, intent on squashing the two heroes before they could even attempt escape. Katsuki’s pulse is thrumming now, singing in his ears. His arm quakes. He looks down in shock at his hand still flexed in detonation formation, the heat produced indistinguishable from the surrounding air. What the fuck. He was not about to be taken out by a fucking piece of rubble!Katsuki moves. His one-handed grip pinning Deku’s leg and arm together across his own chest tightens, his jaw clenches under the hot metal and his eyes narrow to slits. He is going to get out of here. He is going to live. He is going to win.He’ll fight fire with fucking fire if he has to.Through the heat and the havoc, down one floor, then another. Deku weighs heavily across his shoulders, both literally and figuratively. All of his senses, internal and external, are assaulted from so many sources they all bleed into one ball of static pressure. Searching, hoping, praying for a window not completely blocked off but at least the stairways are open and each level closer to the ground is one step out of hell.He hits the second floor and the stairs end in an inferno. If there isn’t an exit here he’s going to have to blow a hole in the outer wall. Before he can even look around, his center of gravity shifts with a strangled gasp over his shoulder. Deku is moving, wheezing, flailing. Katsuki topples, slipping the panicking nerd to the ground before rounding on him, seizing his wrists in a bruising grip as they attempt to rip the rabbit hood off of his face.“Don’t you fucking dare!” Katsuki roars, but the boy is wild, thrashing, rasping. He releases the wrists in favor of clutching Deku’s face in both hands, locking their eyes together in hopes of forcing recognition by sheer will alone. “Calm down! You need to fucking calm down! You have to trust me!” His words are still muffled through the mask and they don’t sound right, they don’t sound like words he’d say but they’re coming out all the same. The flames are still swirling all around them but in that moment all Katsuki can focus on is the green inside sickly red whites, filling with comprehension slowly before closing. The tension drains from Deku’s body and he presses his masked face against Katsuki’s left palm with a rattled sigh. A breath hitches in Katsuki’s throat, the sound hidden by the roar of the fires and the respirator.They don’t have time for this. “Can you walk?” He knows the answer can’t be yes, but he’s exhausted and doesn’t know if he can manage getting Deku back up onto his shoulders. To his credit, Deku gamely struggles to stand, but makes it not even halfway up before his knees give out and he collapses back down, clutching at Katsuki’s forearms. He shakes his head, eyes still shut.“Dizzy,” comes through the hood, muffled and weak. The amount of smoke he must have inhaled would have likely killed anyone else. But Deku was pretty fucking hard to kill.“Don’t talk,” Katsuki hisses. He spins around, crouching so his back is to Deku. “Get on. Hold tight as much as you can.” He reaches back to help pull the idiot up, and Deku’s weight presses against his back, arms around his neck. Katsuki pushes upright with a wobble, and Deku’s legs wrap around his waist, clinging to him like a weak koala. In this position Katsuki can hear every tortured wheeze against his nape.Surely they’re almost out, and Katsuki can give Deku back his respirator. Give him back the piece of metal that by chance or design is part of his hero outfit, and the only reason either of them are still alive. Ease his struggling, strained, painful breathing. What if he is already at his limit? What if he truly needs it before they get out?What if Katsuki kills him?Put your own oxygen mask on first. Put your own oxygen mask on first. Put your own oxygen mask on first.Katsuki already passed out once without the respirator, if he gives it up now and chokes, Deku’s in absolutely no shape to take over.But still he wheezes.Guilt stabbing through his chest with each step, Katsuki pushes forward, and forward, until finally, finally, he is rewarded with an unobstructed window, its glass already blown out from the heat. Relief floods through him and he surges toward it, narrowly missing one last falling beam of death attempting to block his exit. Not today, asshole!He slaps at one of Deku’s thighs. “I’m gonna need both hands for this, shitty nerd, so hold on tight, like your life depends on it because it absolutely fucking does.” The force encircling him increases like some kind of fucked up life-or-death hug, and Katsuki jumps out of the window.The dramatic shift in air pressure and temperature slams into Katsuki as he emerges, nearly blacking him out as his brain struggles to adjust. But he has no patience for lightheadedness now. Taking as much care as possible not to incinerate them both with the excess of sweat soaking into every last scrap of fabric he’s wearing, the explosion hero ignites his palms into thrusters and he is soaring. They’re only on the second floor; it’s but a moment before they hit dirt. Katsuki’s knees give out and he falls forward to his elbows. His green backpack rolls to the ground with a thud.Katsuki reaches for the filthy rag still covering Deku’s face as he rips the respirator off of his own, and they can both finally breathe. They’re covered from head to toe in soot and ash, but half of Deku’s face stands out like a bandana is still tied there, skin clean and pale. His eyes are closed but his mouth is gaping, gasping, drawing in as much smoke-free air as he is able. The sound is awful but he’s alive, he’s alive, he’s alive.“You are a fucking idiot,” Katsuki growls, and there is heat behind it, heat of the hell of a burning building he just had to claw his way through. The green haired boy on the ground with his eyes screwed shut only nods in response.Emergency personnel are here, and Katsuki can’t be bothered that he didn’t notice them swarming. He gives silent thanks to no one that they are not an enemy. Paramedics are fussing over him, touching him, talking to him. They have tanks of oxygen and are trying to attach a rubber mask to his face, but he waves them off with a grunt and a jerk of his thumb. “Put it on him first.”