Chapter Text
“Midoriya! Get down!”
Fuck.
“Deku!”
He watched it happen. He watched the bullet cut right across the battlefield, cut right through Deku’s costume, right through his skin. He watched as Deku’s big green eyes widened, making contact with his own, looking fearful, and scared, and terrified. And then he watched as they rolled back far into his skull, farther than they should’ve been able to go. His normally annoyingly expressive face had gone completely blank, eyes empty and jaw slack.
No no no no no no no.
Katsuki was sprinting the distance between them before his mind even had a chance to process everything.
Deku crumpled in his arms, legs caving, body going limp, making the boy look like some useless doll.
He’s not useless.
“Get him out of here!” Someone screamed at him but Katsuki couldn’t tell who it was.
Deku was lying in his arms, not moving.
Not moving.
His heartbeat was thumping violently in his chest, drowning out any other sound like rushing water at the base of a waterfall. He clenched his fist around the loose fabric of Deku’s torn costume, clinging tight to the other boy who had collapsed into him.
“Bakugo! Now!”
Quirk Bullet. He got hit by a quirk deleter bullet. He was gonna be quirkless. Deku was gonna be quirkless.
Quirkless. Useless.
He’s not useless.
But… One For All… Did it-
Rough hands grappled at his shoulders, startling him and shaking him back to reality. He blinked a few times, ripping his gaze away from Deku, not Deku’s body, just Deku, and focusing on the eyes of his teacher. Aizawa.
He was snapping, snapping . His lips were moving and his eyes were so full of urgency.
Deku was still laying on his lap, not moving.
Not moving.
“Bakugo!” The sound was sharp, close and Katsuki blinked again, looking back up to his teacher.
When had he looked away?
His shoulders were shaken again, Aizawa’s hands digging roughly into his collarbone.
“Bakugo snap out of it!”
Katsuki looked into his eyes, so full of urgency.
“Can you hear me?” Aizawa asked, taking a heavy breath.
He nodded, and when his teacher gave him a disapproving look, Katsuki spoke, his voice a lot shakier than he expected. “Y-yeah, yeah. I hear you.”
“Get up.” Aizawa wasted no time. He pulled Deku, not Deku’s body, Deku up so he was supporting his weight and allowed Katsuki to hoist himself up before shoving Deku back into his arms. “Go, get him to safety. And get that bullet out of him.”
“S-Sensei!” Katsuki breathed, unsure of what he was trying to ask.
“Midoriya will be fine,” the hero snapped. “these bullets aren’t as bad as normal ones; it won’t bleed as much, but you need to get him to safety.”
“But,” his mouth was dry and the words sounded funny in his throat. They sounded weak. “What about the fight?”
Aizawa swore, shooting a quick glance up to Gran Torino, who was keeping Shigaraki at bay about a hundred meters from them. “ Bakugo , your first priority is not the fight. It’s taking care of casualties. The pros will take care of the villains. Now go !” He pushed Katsuki away, forcing him in the direction of the city. Katsuki turned his head to watch as his teacher jumped into action, launching himself into the fight.
With a breathy exhale, Katsuki swung Deku, not his body, Deku onto his back so he was giving him a piggyback ride. He was mindful of the wound in his abdomen as he adjusted the boy’s position so he was carrying him as comfortably as possible. As he started running, he tried not to think of how limp the boy felt against him.
Quirkless.
No. He couldn’t be.
Useless.
No. He wasn’t.
“Fuck, Deku,” he growled, feeling the frustrations seep through his inner being.
He’ll be okay. He’ll be okay. He’ll be okay.
Quiet reassurances filled his mind as he tried to block out the worst case scenarios, refusing to let himself believe anything other than Deku will be fine. He kept running, making a mental list of what to do next.
- Get Deku to safety. Away from the fighting, away from Shigaraki, away from Decay and away from the quirk bullets.
- Find a Pro hero. You don’t have medical field training. You don’t know how to take care of a bullet wound. You could end up making everything worse. Find a pro hero that can fix Deku up.
- …
Katsuki’s mind stilled. #3. Should he stay with Deku or go back to join the fight? On one hand, he didn’t want to leave the boy that used to be quirkless alone to wake up quirkless once again . Because isn’t that fucking ironic? Like one sick fucking joke. Fuck , if he didn’t want to just lay a sweat-slicked hand on Shigaraki’s head and blow him to fucking smithereens right fucking now. The bastard made Deku quirkless again. Quirkless. Again.
Useless.
Katsuki growled, tightening his grip on Deku’s legs.
He’s not fucking useless.
If Katsuki decided to go back to the fight, he’d have to leave Deku in capable hands. He’d have to find someone that he could trust to take care of him. He’d be quirkless now, and judging from what he heard about Mirio’s experience, the nerd was likely to do the exact same thing: get up off of his sacrificial ass and keep fighting, keep protecting, quirkless or not. He couldn’t let him do that. He’d kill himself trying to reach his goal, to achieve his dream and damn it all if Katsuki was gonna let that happen.
- Stay with Deku. Protect him.
Something screamed inside his head, yelling that Deku didn’t need protection. He was fully capable of holding his own. But even without a quirk?
Yes. Even without a quirk.
Deku had proved himself on multiple occasions that he didn’t need a quirk to kick someone’s ass. He didn’t need a quirk to be just as competent as the rest of their class. Because even before he had gotten OFA, Deku was determined to be a hero. Deku was determined to save. And that’s why Katsuki hated him so much, isn’t it? Because of his relentless determination to keep fucking going . Isn’t it?
He knew that wasn’t the whole reason, but it was just enough to keep him going, to keep him running. Despite having hated him so passionately because of that sheer willpower and unbreakable resolve, he found himself accepting these qualities as part of Deku that was unequivocally him .
And wouldn’t pre-pubescent Bakugo Katsuki get a fucking kick out of that, huh? The very reason he hated him, despised him, bullied and abused him, called him names and told him to do unspeakable things, the very reason he couldn’t stand to see Deku not on the ground, would eventually become something he respected him for. Pre-pubescent Bakugo Katsuki was a fucking idiot.
Protect him. Protect him because you still need to-
You still need to apologize.
“Deku, you fucking bastard,” Katsuki growled at the boy, unconscious on his back and completely oblivious to Katsuki’s own inner turmoil, “you better fucking get back up this time. You always fucking get back up when it counts, and this time, it really fucking counts. ”
“Don’t you dare fucking give up.”
By this time Katsuki had made it back into the city where the majority of civilians had already been evacuated. He could still see a few up ahead, scattered around and hastily moving towards where the relief station ought to be set up.
Almost there. You’re almost there.
Katsuki repeated the words like a mantra inside his head. His legs burned from running the long distance with the extra weight on his back. Despite the difference in height between the two boys, Deku was still pretty fucking heavy. He really had bulked up in muscle and now all that extra training he had been putting in was weighing Katsuki down.
A slight movement on his back captured his attention and he looked over his shoulder, eyeing Deku’s face from where it was resting on his back.
“Deku.” he grunted, continuing to keep the same pace as he ran.
Deku groaned softly. It sounded like he was in pain.
“Deku?” He tried to make it sound a little more gentle coming out of his mouth but by Katsuki’s standards, it really wasn’t much.
Out of the corner of his peripherals, he saw Deku’s eyes shoot wide open, and his body on top of Katsuki’s tensed, seizing up unexpectedly. He let out a guttural cry, fingers digging into Katsuki’s flesh.
Everything happened so fast, and it caught Katsuki off guard, causing him to lose his balance. The sudden pained cry and the deep pressure on Katsuki’s skin spooked him and the boys were crashing to the ground before Katsuki could do anything to prevent it.
“Deku what the hell -“
He was interrupted by another heart-wrenching scream, and he immediately pushed himself up to analyze the situation.
Deku was lying in the fetal position, curled up into himself, fingers grasping at the bullet wound in his abdomen.
A small pang of panic flared up in Katsuki’s chest at the sight. Deku was in pain .
And he was showing it.
Ignoring the ache in his muscles, he scrambled over to where Deku was laying, panting heavily and visibly biting back cries of agony.
“Fuck, Deku, what’s going on?”
Did the quirk bullet really hurt that much? Was the pain of getting his quirk erased really that bad to bear?
“Get it outtttt !” Deku groaned, a guttural sound emerging from his throat. It was a low noise, full of weakness, but it was a demand if Katsuki had ever heard one, and living with Bakugo fucking Mitsuki meant he had heard plenty.
Fuck.
His hands hovered uncertainly over the wound in his abdomen. He had no clue how to fucking do this shit. The wound didn’t really look like a bullet wound either; the part that had embedded itself inside of Deku was just a thin needle-like object, whereas the outside of the bullet had broken apart, likely from the impact of hitting his skin. So really, it wasn’t like a bullet wound, it was more like a tiny stab kind of wound.
Deku reached up and grabbed onto Katsuki’s wrist, tightening it into a death grip. “K-Kacchan,” he growled, panting heavily, “get it out. ” There was that demanding tone again, and frankly it really fucking worried Katsuki. Deku would never demand anything from him. He knew not to. He’d known since they were children. So the fact that he did it, not once but twice in the span of a minute or two? It definitely did not mean good things.
Fuck.
He pressed his fingers to the bullet, and gently tugged on it, pulling it out of Deku’s skin. It slid out with ease, and Katsuki didn’t know why he had expected something much more climactic.
But Deku’s grip tightened impossibly on Katsuki’s wrist, and for a second, he thought the boy might snap it in two.
“Fuck, Deku, it’s out, I took it out.” he tried, attempting his hand at reassurance. He twisted his wrist uncomfortably under the tight pressure, seriously not wanting any broken bones.
Deku’s body bucked underneath him and his face contorted in pain. The scream he let out was horrible, gut-wrenching and primal, and it chilled Katsuki to the very bone.
“Fuck,” he cursed for the umpteenth time that hour. “Deku, what is it, the bullet’s out already!”
With his free hand, the boy clawed at the spot where the bullet had hit him, whining and panting all the while.
He knew it had to be something related to the wound, so he stuck his fingers into the hole of his costume that the bullet created, and ripped the fabric of Deku’s jumpsuit.
One look at the skin where the bullet had made contact had Katsuki keeling over and vomiting up everything he had eaten that morning.
There were several tiny, angry black lines branching out from the initial puncture wound and spreading all over his abdomen, fading into an ugly red that crept over his stomach like vines, trying to take control of him. But meeting that red were tendrils of pulsing green, like little slivers of electricity.
One For All was fighting back.
Fuck.