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Jul 8

✦ I Said Stay Still ✦

Pro Hero!Bakugo Katsuki × Chubby Surgeon !Reader

"I said stay still." "I'm fine.""No, you're stubborn." "...Tch." "And if you tear your stitches again, I'm charging you double." ...He still tears them.

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Chapter One — I Said Stay Still

15k–18k words

Summary

A villain attack leaves Pro Hero Bakugo critically injured and rushed to Musutafu General Hospital. Exhausted surgeon Reader becomes the only doctor capable of saving him. Their first meeting is explosive—Bakugo refuses treatment, Reader refuses to let him die. After a complicated emergency surgery, Bakugo wakes up determined to leave immediately... only to discover his surgeon is even more stubborn than he is.

«Masterlist» «Next Chapter»

The rain in Musutafu didn’t wash the city clean; it only made the grime slicker, turning the neon reflections of the skyscrapers into smeared, bleeding watercolors on the asphalt. It was a Tuesday night, heavy with a suffocating humidity and the kind of oppressive atmospheric pressure that made old scars ache, joints swell, and tempers flare. The sky above was a bruised, violent purple, torn apart by lightning that illuminated the sprawling metropolis in harsh, staccato flashes. The thunder didn’t just rumble; it rattled the fillings in your teeth and vibrated through the floorboards of the hospital.

Inside Musutafu General Hospital, the air was conditioned to a sterile, frigid sixty-eight degrees. It smelled faintly of industrial antiseptic, floor wax, and the metallic, coppery tang of dried blood that no amount of aggressive cleaning could fully erase from the trauma wing. The fluorescent lights overhead hummed with a low, persistent vibration, a sound that drilled into the skull of anyone who had been under them for more than a few hours.

You stood by the central nurses' station, leaning your weight against the cool laminate counter. In your right hand, you held a paper cup of coffee that had gone cold three hours ago. You took a sip anyway, grimacing at the bitter, acidic taste that coated the back of your throat, before setting the cup down with a soft, definitive clink.

Your name is [Name], though the tabloids, the medical journals, and the breathless news anchors preferred to call you "The Miracle Surgeon." At twenty-six, you were the youngest attending cardiothoracic surgeon in Japan’s history, a title that carried more weight than you sometimes felt capable of bearing. You had hands that didn’t shake, eyes that missed absolutely nothing, and an emitter-type Quirk called Operation Zone that allowed you to manipulate biological tissue within a five-meter radius with microscopic, cellular precision. You could stitch a severed artery without a needle. You could restart a fibrillating heart with a thought. You could pull people back from the very edge of the abyss. You could save anyone.

Except, apparently, yourself.

Your reflection in the darkened glass of the breakroom door across the hall looked ghostly, almost translucent under the harsh lights. Dark circles bruised the delicate skin under your eyes, purple and blue shadows that spoke of weeks, maybe months, without proper, restorative sleep. Your white coat was wrinkled, the hem stained with faint, rust-colored traces of blood from a grueling twelve-hour shift that had ended only forty minutes ago. You hadn’t eaten a real meal since breakfast. You hadn’t slept in thirty-six hours. You had simply existed, moving from one crisis to the next, a machine built for preservation, running on caffeine, adrenaline, and a stubborn, deeply ingrained refusal to let death win on your watch.

"Dr. [Name]?"

The voice was hesitant, laced with a tremor of anxiety. You didn’t turn around immediately. You closed your eyes for a brief second, massaging the bridge of your nose where a tension headache was beginning to bloom, before setting your cold coffee down and turning to face the speaker.

"Yes, Nurse Sato?"

Sato was a junior triage nurse, barely a year out of nursing school. She looked pale, her glasses slightly askew on her nose, her hands clutching a tablet to her chest like a shield.

"We have a Code Red coming in. ETA two minutes. Ambulance 4 and Police Escort Alpha. They’re bypassing the standard intake."

You straightened up, the fatigue instantly vanishing beneath the crushing weight of professional instinct. It was a switch you had learned to flip years ago at U.A. High School, under the stern, no-nonsense tutelage of Recovery Girl. When the siren wails, the person disappears. Only the doctor remains.

"Status?" you asked, your voice steady, devoid of any emotion. It was the voice of the Miracle Surgeon. Cold. Clinical. Absolute.

"Multiple casualties from a villain attack in the Shibuya commercial district. Structural collapse, secondary explosions. But the primary… it’s him."

Sato didn’t need to say the name. In this city, in this country, there was only one hero whose arrival triggered that specific, terrifying frequency of panic, awe, and administrative headache.

"Dynamight," you said. It wasn’t a question.

"Yes. Pro Hero Dynamight. Katsuki Bakugo." Sato adjusted her glasses, looking nervously down at her tablet. "Reports say he took the brunt of a massive, concentrated explosion to shield a group of civilians trapped in the rubble. Blunt force trauma to the chest and abdomen. Third-degree burns on the left arm and shoulder. Shrapnel wounds across the torso. He’s conscious, but…" She hesitated, biting her lower lip. "He’s fighting the paramedics. He’s trying to rip out his IVs and is threatening to blast the ambulance doors off if they don't let him out."

You sighed, a short, sharp exhale through your nose. "Of course he is."

You grabbed your stethoscope from the counter, though you rarely needed it for diagnostics anymore, and followed Sato out into the main hallway. The hospital was already vibrating with a frantic, kinetic tension. Nurses were rushing toward Trauma Bay One, carrying heavy bags of O-negative blood, plasma expanders, and emergency surgical kits. The air smelled of ozone, fear, and the sharp tang of rubbing alcohol.

As you approached the double doors of the trauma bay, the shouting became audible, muffled but distinctly furious.

"—get your damn hands off me! I’m fine!"

"Sir, please, you’re losing blood, you need to let us—"

"I said I’m fine! Move, or I’ll blow your arms off!"

A massive crash echoed from inside the room. The sound of heavy metal hitting tile, followed by the shattering of glass. A heart monitor alarm began to blare, a high-pitched, rhythmic shriek that cut through the ambient noise like a knife.

You pushed through the double doors, your white coat flaring behind you.

The scene inside was controlled chaos, teetering on the edge of total collapse. Three nurses were pinned against the far wall by the sheer, overwhelming force of the patient’s presence. Two paramedics were hovering near the gurney, looking utterly terrified, their hands raised in a placating surrender. And in the center of it all, sitting upright on the stretcher despite having half his torso wrapped in hastily applied, blood-soaked emergency bandages, was Katsuki Bakugo.

Pro Hero Dynamight. The No. 2 Hero of Japan. The explosive powerhouse who had clawed his way to the top of the hero rankings through sheer, unadulterated willpower.

He looked like hell.

His signature black tactical gear was shredded to ribbons, revealing skin that was a chaotic map of violence. His left arm was charred black, the muscle and tissue beneath visible in gruesome detail where the skin had been burned away by his own Quirk or the villain's blast. His chest heaved with ragged, wet, bubbling breaths, and there was a dark, rapidly spreading stain on the white gauze wrapped tightly around his ribs. Blood dripped from his chin, mixing with the sweat and soot on his face. His ash-blond hair was matted with dirt and blood, sticking to his forehead in jagged, sweaty spikes.

But his eyes—those piercing, crimson eyes—were wide awake and burning with a furious, feral intensity. They scanned the room wildly, looking for a threat, looking for a way out, looking for someone to blame.

"Who the hell are you people?" Bakugo snarled, swatting away a nurse who tried to approach him with a saline drip. Sparks popped from his palms, small, dangerous crackles of nitroglycerin sweat igniting in the humid air, smelling sharply of burnt sugar and sulfur. "Where’s the damn doctor? I need to get out of here. There’s still civilians in the sector, I need to go back—"

"The sector is secure, Dynamight-san," a police officer said from the doorway, looking exhausted and battered. His uniform was torn, his face smudged with soot, a cut bleeding sluggishly above his eyebrow. "Please, let them treat you. The villains are in custody. The civilians are safe."

"I don’t have time for this!" Bakugo roared, his voice rough, scraping against his throat like sandpaper. He tried to swing his legs over the side of the gurney, but a sharp gasp escaped him, his face twisting in agony as his chest seized. "I need to file a report. I need to check on the structural integrity of the—"

"You need to stop bleeding," a voice cut through the noise.

It wasn’t loud. It wasn’t angry. It was calm, cold, and absolute. It carried the weight of a judge passing a final sentence.

Bakugo froze. His head snapped toward the source of the voice, his movements jerky and uncoordinated.

You stepped forward, moving past the paralyzed staff. You didn’t run. You didn’t shout. You walked with the slow, deliberate, measured pace of a predator entering its territory. You moved directly into his line of sight, blocking his view of the panicked staff, forcing him to look only at you. You were small compared to him—even sitting down, he loomed, his broad shoulders and muscular frame taking up most of the gurney—but you held yourself with a rigid, unyielding posture that commanded the space.

"Bakugo," you said. Your voice was flat, stripping away the title, the fame, the heroics, the public persona. Just the man. Just the patient.

He blinked, his eyes narrowing as he scanned you. He took in the pristine white coat, the dark blue scrubs underneath, the calm, completely unreadable expression on your face. He didn’t recognize you. Why would he? You were a ghost in the medical world, a rumor among surgeons, invisible to the public eye unless you were saving a celebrity on live television. To him, you were just another obstacle in his way, another person trying to tell him what to do.

"Who are you?" he growled, though the aggression in his voice dipped slightly, replaced by a flicker of confusion. He masked it quickly with anger. "Get out of my way, extra."

"I’m the surgeon who’s going to keep you alive," you said. You stopped exactly two feet from the gurney. Close enough to feel the intense, radiating heat coming off his burned skin. Close enough to smell the copper tang of his blood and the sharp sulfur of his Quirk. "And if you don’t lie down and let me work, I will sedate you. And I promise you, you won’t like the dream I put you in."

Bakugo stared at you. For a long, agonizing moment, the only sound in the room was the rain hammering against the reinforced windows and the erratic, frantic beeping of the heart monitor. His chest heaved, each breath a visible struggle against the pain in his ribs, his face pale and slick with sweat.

Then, a cruel, arrogant smirk twisted his bloody lips. "Try it, doc. See what happens."

You didn’t blink. You didn’t flinch. You didn’t even breathe. You simply raised your right hand, palm open, fingers slightly curled. Your Quirk, Operation Zone, hummed to life. It wasn’t visible, not really, but the air around your fingers shimmered slightly, distorting the light like heat haze rising off summer asphalt. You focused your senses on the torn tissue in his chest, feeling the rupture in his intercostal muscles, the jagged edge of the fractured rib pressing dangerously against his lung. You could sense the damage without touching him. It was a symphony of pain, a chaotic orchestra of failing biology, and you were the conductor.

"You have a punctured left lung," you said calmly, reciting the facts like you were reading a grocery list. "Your spleen is lacerated. You’ve lost approximately fifteen percent of your blood volume, and it's pooling in your abdominal cavity. Your heart rate is one hundred and eighty beats per minute, and your blood pressure is tanking. If you move again, if you try to stand up, you will go into hypovolemic shock and subsequent cardiac arrest. And I will have to crack your chest open right here in the trauma bay, with my bare hands, to restart it. Do you want an audience for that, Hero?"

The room went dead silent. Even the beeping monitors seemed to hold their breath. The police officer lowered his hand. The nurses stopped trembling. The paramedics exhaled a collective breath they didn’t know they were holding.

Bakugo stared at you. His crimson eyes searched yours, looking for a bluff, for fear, for hesitation. He found absolutely none. You were looking at him not as a hero, not as a legend, not as the explosive powerhouse of Japan, but as a broken, bleeding thing that needed fixing. It was an insult to his pride. It was also the undeniable truth.

His jaw tightened. A vein pulsed visibly in his temple. He wanted to fight. He wanted to explode, to prove you wrong, to show you that he wasn't broken. But his body was betraying him. The adrenaline that had been fueling his rage was fading, leaving behind the crushing, insurmountable weight of exhaustion and pain. His vision blurred at the edges, the room spinning slightly.

"Fine," he gritted out, the word tasting like ash and copper in his mouth. He slumped back against the thin hospital pillows, his head falling to the side. "But make it quick. I have a press conference tomorrow."

"You have surgery tonight," you corrected smoothly. You turned to the team, your back to him, dismissing his threat and his ego as easily as you dismissed his pain. "Prep OR 3. I want a full cardiac and trauma team on standby. Get me two units of packed red blood cells, start a central line, and push a liter of normal saline wide open. Now. Move."

The staff scrambled into action, the spell of his intimidation completely broken by your absolute authority.

As they wheeled the gurney out of the trauma bay and down the hallway toward the elevators, Bakugo kept his eyes locked on you. There was no gratitude in his gaze. Only sharp, calculating assessment. He was trying to figure out what kind of threat you posed. You were too calm. Too precise. Too utterly unimpressed by his presence.

You didn’t look back at him. You were already walking briskly beside the gurney, your mind racing, calculating the incision points, the angle of the rib fracture, the probability of internal infection, the exact sequence of repairs needed to keep him alive. You were already saving him, whether he liked it or not.

The operating room was your sanctuary.

It was cold, blindingly bright, and silent except for the rhythmic, reassuring beep of the heart monitor and the soft, mechanical hiss of the ventilator. Here, the chaotic, messy world outside ceased to exist. Here, pain had a specific, identifiable cause, and healing had a logical, methodical solution. Here, you were god.

You scrubbed in at the sink, the ritualistic washing of your hands a form of moving meditation. The scalding hot water beat against your skin, stripping away the fatigue, the doubt, the crushing weight of the world outside these sterile walls. You used the antimicrobial soap, scrubbing from your fingertips to your elbows, counting to thirty in your head. When you rinsed and stepped back, holding your hands up to let the water drip from your elbows, you felt the familiar, comforting snap of latex against your wrists as the circulating nurse pulled your gloves on for you.

You were ready.

Bakugo was already on the operating table, unconscious under general anesthesia. The anesthesiologist, Dr. Lee, gave you a quick thumbs-up from his station at the head of the table.

"Vitals are stable for now, Dr. [Name]," Lee said, his voice low and professional. "But his oxygen saturation is dropping. That lung collapse is worse than the scans indicated. And the shrapnel… it’s sitting dangerously close to the descending aorta. One wrong move and he bleeds out in seconds."

"Understood," you said, your voice muffled slightly by the surgical mask. You stepped up to the table, positioning yourself on his right side.

Looking at him like this, stripped of his armor, his weapons, and his anger, he looked remarkably young. Vulnerable. The scars on his body told a brutal, unflinching story of eight years of relentless war. There were old, faded burn marks from his childhood, jagged, silvery lines from countless villain fights, and fresh, angry, weeping wounds from tonight’s mission. His chest rose and fell mechanically, the ventilator doing the work his battered, failing lungs couldn’t.

You placed your hands over his chest, hovering just an inch above the skin.

Operation Zone.

The sensation was immediate and overwhelming. It was like dipping your hands into warm, heavy water, but instead of water, it was life itself. You could feel the pulse of every single cell, the flow of every drop of blood, the electrical firing of every nerve ending. You could sense the tear in his lung, the fragmentation of his rib, the deep, purple bruising on his heart muscle. It was intensely intimate, deeply invasive, and physically exhausting.

"Scalpel," you said.

The scrub nurse slapped the instrument into your palm. You didn’t use physical tools often—your Quirk allowed for non-invasive, cellular repair—but sometimes, you needed to see. You needed to touch. You needed to confirm what your senses were telling you.

You made the incision along his sternum, the blade parting the skin with practiced ease. The blood welled up immediately, dark and rich. You used your Quirk to part the tissue, holding the bleeding at bay with a sheer act of will. It was like holding back a tidal wave with your mind. The strain was immediate, a sharp, blooming headache behind your eyes, but you pushed through it, locking the focus down.

Inside, his chest cavity was a catastrophic mess. The rib had splintered upon impact, sending jagged shards of bone into the surrounding muscle. One shard had pierced the pleura, collapsing the lung. Another was resting precariously against the pericardium, the fibrous sac surrounding the heart, millimeters away from puncturing it.

"Retractor," you murmured.

You worked with mechanical, flawless precision. Your movements were efficient, economical, devoid of any wasted energy or hesitation. You removed the bone fragments, using your Quirk to stitch the lung back together with threads of bio-synthetic material that you guided into place at a microscopic level. You repaired the spleen, sealing the deep lacerations with cellular precision, fusing the tissue back together. You carefully extracted the shrapnel from near the aorta, your hands steady, your breathing controlled.

Hours passed in a blur of blood, tissue, and intense concentration.

The sun began to rise outside the small, high window in the OR wall, casting a pale, gray, watery light onto the sterile blue floor. The storm outside had passed, leaving behind a quiet, dripping morning.

You were deep in the zone. The world outside ceased to exist. There was only the steady beat of his heart, the rhythm of your own breathing, and the intricate, delicate dance of your hands.

But then, as you were carefully closing the chest cavity, weaving the muscle and skin back together, something changed.

As your Quirk brushed against the deep, old scar tissue on his shoulder—a scar from a massive explosion years ago—you felt a flicker. A memory. No. A sensation. A resonance.

Eight years ago.

U.A. High School.

You were a first-year in the General Studies Department. You weren’t a hero student. You weren’t strong, you didn’t have a flashy combat Quirk, and you didn’t have the drive to throw yourself into danger. You were quiet, observant, and incredibly, naturally gifted at first aid and biology. Recovery Girl, the school’s resident healer, had taken you under her wing during your lunch breaks, seeing a rare, profound potential in your Quirk that others missed. She taught you that healing wasn’t just about fixing broken bones and knitting flesh; it was about understanding the person beneath the injury. It was about empathy.

One day, after the first-year Sports Festival, you had found a boy sitting alone in the nurse’s office. He was furious, nursing a badly burnt arm, glaring daggers at the blank wall. He had refused to let Recovery Girl treat him, insisting he could do it himself, that he didn't need her pity or her candy. He was proud. He was angry. He was entirely, profoundly alone.

You had walked in, unnoticed in your quiet way. You had seen the damage immediately—not just the superficial burns, but the deep, underlying strain on his muscles, the micro-tears in his tendons from overusing his Quirk, the inflammation in his joints. He was destroying himself from the inside out.

Without saying a single word, you had activated your Quirk. Just a little. Just a tiny, controlled pulse. Just enough to soothe the inflammation, to knit the tiny tears in his tendons before they became major, career-ending injuries.

The boy had looked up, startled. He hadn’t thanked you. He had just stared at you with those same, piercing crimson eyes, confused, wary, and deeply suspicious.

Then Recovery Girl had entered the room, and you had slipped out the back door, disappearing into the hallway.

You had never seen him again. Or so you thought.

Now, looking down at Katsuki Bakugo’s unconscious face, the pieces finally clicked into place. You realized exactly who he was. The boy with the burnt arm. The boy who refused help. The boy who carried the weight of the world on his shoulders and refused to let anyone see him sweat.

He hadn’t remembered you. Why would he? You were a background character in his grand, explosive story. A shadow in the hallway. A fleeting moment of unexplained relief. But you remembered him. You remembered the intense, crushing loneliness in his eyes, even then. The desperate, clawing need to be strong, to be invincible, because in his mind, weakness meant failure, and failure meant people died.

You were just like him. You just hid it behind a white coat instead of a hero costume.

"Closing," you said, your voice tight, pulling yourself back to the present.

You finished the final sutures. The chest cavity was sealed. The lung was fully re-inflated. The bleeding had completely stopped.

"Vitals stabilizing," Dr. Lee announced, letting out a long breath. "Heart rate down to seventy. Oxygen saturation at ninety-eight percent. Blood pressure normalizing. Excellent work, Doctor."

You stepped back, peeling off your blood-spattered gloves. Your hands were shaking. Not from fear, but from sheer, bone-deep exhaustion. You had poured everything you had into this surgery. Every ounce of focus, every bit of physical and mental energy.

"Good work, [Name]," Dr. Lee said, clapping you gently on the shoulder. "He’s incredibly lucky to have you."

"Luck has nothing to do with it," you muttered, turning away to dispose of the gloves.

You looked at Bakugo’s face one last time. He was still unconscious, his features relaxed, the harsh lines of anger smoothed away by the anesthesia. He looked peaceful.

You wanted to hate him. You wanted to resent the arrogance, the stubbornness, the way he treated the people who were literally trying to save his life. But you couldn’t. Because you knew exactly what it was like to carry the weight of the world on your shoulders. You knew what it was like to feel like you had to be perfect, because if you weren’t, people died.

You were just like him. And that terrified you more than anything.

The recovery room was dim, lit only by the soft, ambient glow of the monitoring equipment and the pale light filtering through the blinds.

Bakugo woke up groggy, disoriented, and in agony. The anesthesia was wearing off, leaving behind a thick, suffocating fog of nausea and a throbbing, blinding pain in his chest that felt like someone had taken a sledgehammer to his ribs and left it there.

He tried to sit up, his instincts screaming at him to move, to fight, to escape.

"Don't," a voice said.

He froze. The voice was familiar. Cold. Calm. Unyielding.

He turned his head, wincing as a sharp spike of pain lanced through his chest. You were sitting in a vinyl chair in the corner of the room, reading a thick medical chart. You hadn’t left. You had been there for hours, watching his vitals, monitoring his recovery, waiting for him to wake up.

"Who…" Bakugo’s voice was a harsh, dry rasp. He cleared his throat, grimacing as the movement pulled at his stitches. "Who are you?"

You looked up from the chart. Your eyes were tired, rimmed with red, but they were sharp, missing nothing. "I told you in the trauma bay. I’m the surgeon who kept you alive."

Bakugo frowned, his brow furrowing as he tried to piece together the fragmented memories. The trauma bay. The anger. The blinding pain. The woman with the shimmering hands. And then… nothing. Just a heavy, suffocating darkness. And now, this.

"Why are you still here?" he asked, his voice defensive, suspicious. "Shouldn’t you be saving someone else? Someone who actually matters?"

The insult was deliberate. A test. He wanted to see if you would break. If you would get angry, if you would cry, if you would leave. He wanted to push you away before you could see how broken he actually was.

You didn’t flinch. You didn’t even blink. You closed the chart and stood up, walking over to his bedside with slow, measured steps. You checked his IV line, adjusting the flow rate of the pain medication with practiced, effortless ease.

"You matter," you said simply, your voice devoid of pity. "To the people who were in that building. To the people who watch you on the news and feel safe because of you. To the hospital administration, because if you die on my operating table, my malpractice insurance premiums go up."

Bakugo blinked. He hadn’t expected that. He had expected defensiveness. Or pity. Or anger. Not… cold, hard pragmatism.

"You’re a smartass," he muttered, looking away.

"I’m a doctor," you corrected. "There’s a difference."

You picked up a plastic cup of water from the bedside table and held it out to him. "Drink. Slowly."

Bakugo stared at the cup. Then at you. He didn’t reach for it. His arms were heavily bandaged, trembling slightly from the exertion of the day. "I can do it myself."

"Your arms are burned, your chest is cracked open, and you’re severely dehydrated," you said, your tone leaving no room for argument. "Drink."

He glared at you. The glare was intense, fiery, the kind that had made hardened villains tremble and beg for mercy. But you just held the cup steady, your expression completely unchanged, your hand perfectly still.

After a long, stubborn moment, he let out a frustrated huff, leaned forward, wincing violently as his chest protested, and took a sip. The water was cool, soothing his dry, cracked throat. He drank greedily, gulping it down, then pulled back, coughing slightly as the water went down the wrong pipe.

"Easy," you said. You didn’t move to help him, didn’t pat his back. You just watched, your eyes tracking the movement of his throat.

When he finished, he slumped back against the pillows, breathing hard, his chest rising and falling in shallow, rapid gasps. "Thanks," he muttered, the word barely audible, buried under his pride.

"You’re welcome," you said. You sat back down in the vinyl chair, picking up your chart again. "Now, stay still. Your stitches are fresh, and your bone is wired. If you tear them, I’ll have to sew you up again. And I charge extra for repeat customers."

Bakugo let out a short, harsh, barking laugh. It hurt his chest, his face twisting in pain, but he didn’t care. "You’re annoying, doc."

"I’m effective," you countered, not looking up from the chart.

Silence settled between you. It wasn’t comfortable, but it wasn’t hostile either. It was a truce. A fragile, unspoken agreement to stop fighting, at least for now.

Bakugo closed his eyes, pretending to sleep. But he was listening. Listening to your breathing. Listening to the steady beep of the monitor. Listening to the quiet, grounding presence of the woman who had seen him at his absolute weakest, had looked at his broken body, and hadn’t looked away in horror or pity.

Three days later.

Bakugo was bored out of his mind.

Hospital boredom was a special, agonizing kind of torture. It was the absolute absence of action, the total lack of purpose. He was used to moving, to fighting, to winning, to the adrenaline pumping through his veins. Sitting still in a bed felt like dying a slow, agonizing death.

He had tried to leave twice. Both times, you had caught him.

The first time, he had waited until the hallway was clear, ripped out his IV, and made it as far as the elevator. You had appeared out of nowhere, stepping out of the stairwell and blocking the doors with your body, your arms crossed over your chest.

"I said stay still," you had said, your voice echoing in the empty hallway.

"Quit ordering me around," he had snapped, sparks popping angrily from his palms. "I’m leaving."

"Then stop reopening your stitches," you had replied calmly, pointing a slender finger at the fresh, bright red blood spot blooming on the front of his hospital gown. "You tore the muscle when you stood up too fast. Sit back down before I sedate you and tie you to the bed."

"…I’m leaving," he had growled, though the fight was already draining out of him.

"Sit back down," you had said. And somehow, miraculously, he had. Maybe because he was too tired to fight you. Maybe because the pain was finally catching up to him. Maybe because he knew, with absolute certainty, that you were right.

The second time, he had tried to climb out the window. It was a stupid, desperate idea. He was on the fourth floor. But he was desperate for air, for space, for anything other than the sterile, suffocating walls of this room. You had found him halfway out, hanging onto the exterior ledge with his one good arm, his legs dangling over the drop.

"What are you doing?" you had asked, your voice dangerously, terrifyingly calm.

"Getting some air," he had lied, not looking at you.

"You’re going to fall," you had said.

"I won’t."

"You will. Your left arm is burned, your chest is cracked, and your grip strength is compromised. You will fall, and then I’ll have to scrape you off the pavement. And I really don’t like scraping."

He had looked at you then. Really looked at you. And for the first time, he saw something in your eyes that he didn’t expect. Not judgment. Not fear. Not anger. But… concern. A deep, profound, exhausting concern.

He had climbed back in.

Now, on the third day, he was lying in bed, staring at the ceiling, counting the tiles. The pain was manageable, thanks to the heavy painkillers you kept him on. But the itch under the bandages was driving him absolutely crazy.

The door opened. You walked in, carrying a plastic tray with two steaming paper cups.

You set the tray down on the overbed table and pulled up the vinyl chair. "Black. Two sugars. Just how you like it."

Bakugo sat up slowly, frowning, his eyes darting between you and the cups. "How do you know how I like my coffee?"

"I read your medical file," you said, taking a sip of your own coffee. "And I asked Midoriya."

Bakugo stiffened, his eyes narrowing dangerously. "Deku? Why the hell were you talking to Deku?"

"He’s on the Medical Advisory Board for the hospital," you said smoothly, taking another sip. "We’re friends. From U.A."

Bakugo’s eyes widened slightly in surprise. "Friends? With Deku?"

"Is that so hard to believe?" you asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Yes," he said bluntly.

You smiled. It was a small, rare, genuine smile that reached your eyes, softening the harsh lines of exhaustion on your face. "He’s a good guy. He’s very worried about you. He wanted to visit today, but I told him to wait until you were less… explosive."

Bakugo grunted, looking away, though a faint, almost imperceptible flush of embarrassment touched his ears. He reached out with his good hand and picked up the coffee cup. It was hot. Perfect. "Why are you here? Don’t you have other patients? Other people to save?"

"I do," you said. "But they’re not as difficult, demanding, or stubborn as you. You require… special attention."

"I’m not difficult," Bakugo said, genuinely offended. "I’m demanding. There’s a difference."

"Same thing."

You took a sip of your coffee, watching him over the rim of the cup. "How’s the pain?"

"Manageable," he lied, his voice flat.

You raised an eyebrow, unimpressed. "Liar."

Bakugo glared at you, his crimson eyes flashing. "Why do you care? It’s just a job."

"Because if you’re in pain, your cortisol levels spike, which means you heal slower," you said, your tone clinical, matter-of-fact. "And if you heal slower, you stay here longer. And if you stay here longer, I have to listen to your complaining. It’s in my best interest to keep you comfortable."

Bakugo opened his mouth to argue, to tell you to go to hell, but then he closed it. He took a sip of the coffee. It was good. Really good. Better than the hospital sludge they usually served.

"You’re a weird doctor," he said finally, staring into his cup.

"And you’re a terrible patient," you replied.

"But I’m alive."

"Yes," you said softly, the anger draining from your voice, leaving only a quiet, profound truth. "You are."

The silence returned. But this time, it was lighter. Less tense. The heavy, suffocating weight of the first few days had lifted, replaced by a fragile, cautious understanding.

Bakugo looked at you. Really looked at you. He noticed the dark, bruised circles under your eyes. The way your hands trembled slightly when you set the cup down. The way you leaned back in the chair, rubbing your temples, looking utterly, completely exhausted.

"You look like shit," he said bluntly.

You laughed. A real, bright laugh that surprised both of you. "Thanks. You should see yourself. You look like a burnt hamburger."

"I’m a hero," he said, puffing out his chest slightly, though he immediately winced. "I’m supposed to look tough."

"You’re a human," you said softly, meeting his gaze. "Humans break, Bakugo. It’s what we do."

Bakugo looked away, staring out the window. The rain had started again, tapping a gentle rhythm against the glass.

"I don’t break," he said quietly, the words sounding more like a prayer than a statement.

"Everyone breaks," you said. "Even heroes. Especially heroes."

He didn’t answer. He didn’t argue. He just sat there, drinking his coffee, letting the silence wrap around them both.

A week later.

Bakugo was finally discharged.

You stood by the exit of the hospital, watching him sign the mountain of paperwork with his left hand, his handwriting jagged and angry. He was dressed in civilian clothes—a tight black t-shirt, dark jeans, heavy boots. He looked smaller without the bulky hero costume, but no less intense, no less dangerous.

"Follow-up in exactly two weeks," you said, handing him a thick manila folder. "No heavy lifting. No using your Quirk. No villain fighting. No explosions. If you tear those stitches, I’m not fixing them next time."

Bakugo took the folder, shoving it into his pocket. "No promises."

"I’ll know if you lie," you said, your eyes locking onto his. "I can feel the tissue damage. Don't test me."

He smirked, a familiar, arrogant tilt of his lips. "Creepy."

"Effective."

He turned to leave, pushing through the automatic doors. He paused on the sidewalk, the rain misting around him, and looked back at you.

"Hey," he said.

"Yes?"

"Thanks." He didn't look at you, staring instead at the puddles forming on the concrete. "For… you know. Not letting me die."

It was barely a whisper, carried away by the wind. But you heard it.

"You’re welcome, Bakugo," you said.

He nodded once, sharply, then turned and walked out into the rain, disappearing into the gray mist of the city.

You watched him go, feeling a strange, hollow emptiness in your chest. Not pain. Not sadness. Just… absence. A sudden, jarring quiet where his loud, explosive presence used to be.

You turned back to the hospital. There were other patients. Other emergencies. Other lives to save. The machine had to keep running.

But for the first time in eight years, you felt like you had saved something more than just a body. You had saved a piece of him.

And maybe, just maybe, in some small, imperceptible way, he had saved a piece of you.

Two weeks later.

The follow-up appointment was scheduled for 4:00 PM on a Thursday.

You were in your office, reviewing a stack of charts, when the heavy, deliberate footsteps echoed in the hallway. You didn’t need to look up to know who it was. The heavy tread, the faint, lingering smell of ozone and gunpowder that always seemed to cling to him, the sheer, overwhelming physical presence that filled the small room the moment he crossed the threshold.

"Sit," you said, not looking up from the file.

Bakugo snorted, but he walked over and sat in the chair opposite your desk. He was wearing a tight black t-shirt that clung to his frame, the fabric stretching across his broad chest and shoulders. He looked better. The hollow, gaunt look under his eyes was less pronounced, and the angry, weeping red of his burns had faded to a dull, tight pink. But he still looked tired. They always looked tired.

"Shirt off," you said, finally looking up, setting the file aside.

Bakugo raised an eyebrow, his lips twitching. "Excuse me?"

"You heard me," you said, your voice flat, professional. "I need to check the incision site. And the burns. Shirt. Off."

He stared at you for a long moment, his crimson eyes challenging yours, testing your boundaries. Then, with a heavy, dramatic sigh, he reached for the hem of his shirt and pulled it over his head, tossing it onto the chair beside him.

You stood up and walked over to him, snapping on a pair of blue latex gloves. The air in the small office seemed to thicken, the silence stretching between you, heavy, charged, and entirely unspoken.

You stepped into his personal space, close enough to feel the intense, radiating heat coming off his skin. You could see the faint, almost imperceptible tremor in his hands, the way his jaw tightened as you reached out.

Your fingers, encased in the cool, smooth latex, brushed against his chest. He flinched, a sharp, involuntary jerk of his muscles, but you felt it.

"Relax," you murmured, your voice softer now, stripped of the clinical edge. "I’m not going to hurt you."

"I know," he gritted out, his eyes fixed on a point on the wall behind you.

You traced the line of the incision along his sternum. The stitches had been removed, leaving behind a raised, angry, jagged scar that stood out starkly against his pale skin. It was a brutal reminder of what he had survived. You pressed gently, feeling the tissue beneath, checking for adhesions, for fluid, for infection.

"Does this hurt?" you asked, pressing a little harder near the bottom of the scar, right over the sternum.

"No," he lied, his voice tight.

You looked up, meeting his eyes. "Bakugo."

He glared at you, his jaw working. "It’s fine. Stop babying me."

"You’re a terrible liar," you said softly. You moved your hands to his left side, where the third-degree burns had been. The skin here was smoother, but tight, shiny, and pulled. You stretched it gently, testing the range of motion, feeling the resistance of the scar tissue.

He hissed sharply through his teeth, his muscles locking up, his breath catching in his throat.

"You’re still guarding it," you said, stepping back slightly and peeling off the gloves. "You’re not doing your physical therapy."

"I don’t have time for physical therapy," he snapped, standing up, his chest heaving. "I have patrols. I have agency meetings. I have a city to protect. I don't have time to sit around and do stretches."

"You have a healing chest cavity," you interrupted, your voice sharp, cutting through his excuses. "If you don’t do the exercises, the scar tissue will bind to the muscle. You’ll lose mobility. And then you won’t be able to lift your arm above your head, let alone shoot explosions from it. You’ll be permanently crippled."

"I’ll manage," he growled, stepping closer, towering over you. "I always manage."

"You’re not a machine, Katsuki," you said, using his first name for the first time. The effect was instantaneous. He froze, his eyes widening slightly. "You can’t just push through this. Your body needs time to heal. It needs care."

"My body is fine," he said, his voice dropping, losing some of its aggressive edge. "I’m the Number Two Hero. I don't break."

"And what happens when you’re on patrol and your chest seizes up?" you asked, looking up at him, holding his gaze. "What happens when you can’t move fast enough to dodge an attack? What happens when you end up back on my operating table, bleeding out because you were too stubborn to do your stretches?"

He flinched. The words hit him harder than a physical blow. He looked away, his jaw working, his hands clenching into fists at his sides.

"I’m not going to let that happen," he said quietly, the fight draining out of him.

"You can’t control everything," you said gently. "You have to trust your body. And you have to trust me."

He looked back at you. The anger in his eyes had faded, replaced by something else. Something raw, vulnerable, and deeply guarded. He searched your face, looking for judgment, looking for pity.

He didn’t find either. He just found you. Tired. Steady. Unyielding. Completely, utterly present.

"Fine," he said finally, his voice rough. "I’ll do the damn stretches."

"Good," you said. You walked back to your desk and sat down, picking up your pen. "Now, sit back down. I need to check your vitals and sign your discharge from my care."

He sat. You checked his blood pressure, his heart rate, his oxygen saturation. Everything was normal. Perfect, even. But you could feel the tension in him, the coiled, kinetic energy that never seemed to fully dissipate.

"You’re healing well," you said, writing in his chart. "The lung is fully expanded. The spleen is holding. The burns are closing nicely. You’re cleared for light duty."

"See? I told you I was fine," he said, a hint of his old, familiar arrogance creeping back into his voice.

"I didn’t say you weren’t healing," you said, looking up. "I said you were healing well. There’s a difference. You’re still not at a hundred percent."

"I’ll get there," he said.

"I know," you said. You closed the chart and looked at him. "But you need to take it easy. Listen to your body. If it hurts, stop."

He stood up, pulling his shirt back on. He paused at the door, his hand on the handle, looking back at you.

"Hey," he said.

"Yes?"

"Thanks. For… you know. Checking on me. For not giving up on me when I was being a pain in the ass."

You smiled. It was a small, genuine smile. "That’s my job, Bakugo. Now get out of here. And do your stretches."

He nodded, a faint smirk touching his lips, and walked out the door.

You watched him go, feeling that strange, hollow feeling in your chest again. But this time, it wasn't just absence. It was anticipation.

You knew he’d be back.

Later that night, after you had finished your charts, signed off on your last patient, and were packing up your bag to go home, your phone buzzed on the desk.

You picked it up. It was a message from Izuku Midoriya.

You stared at the screen, a small, genuine smile touching your lips. All Might smiling. Midoriya buying dinner. Normalcy. Friendship. A reminder that you weren't just a machine in a white coat. You were a person. You had friends. You had a life outside these sterile walls.

Deku: Hey [Name]! Hope you’re resting. I heard Kacchan was… less explosive today? 😅 I'm glad he's healing well. You always were the best at handling him.

Deku: Also, I finished calibrating the new support gear for the first-years. The new things are ready for you when you come back to the academy for the board meeting next week. I think you’ll love the ergonomic adjustments I made to the harnesses.

Deku: And hey, since you’ve been working so hard and taking such good care of Kacchan… let me buy you dinner next Friday? My treat. There's that new place you like. All Might says hi, by the way. He smiled when I mentioned you. Said you remind him of someone who truly understands the weight of saving lives, and that you carry it with grace.

You typed back a quick, warm thank you, setting the phone down.

The hospital was quiet. The rain had finally stopped.

For the first time in eight years, you felt like you could actually breathe.

You grabbed your bag and headed for the door. You were just about to turn off the lights when the intercom on your desk crackled to life, shattering the quiet.

"Dr. [Name]?" It was Nurse Sato. Her voice was tight, panicked, trembling. "We have a Code Red. ETA thirty seconds. It’s… it’s Dynamight."

Your blood ran instantly cold. The breath left your lungs in a rush. "Status?"

"He’s unconscious. Multiple blunt force trauma. Internal bleeding. He collapsed on patrol. His partner brought him in. He’s not responding to stimuli."

You didn’t wait for her to finish. You were already running down the hallway, your white coat flying behind you, your heart hammering a frantic, terrifying rhythm against your ribs.

The doors to the ER burst open. Paramedics rushed in, pushing a gurney at a dead sprint.

And there he was.

Katsuki Bakugo.

Unconscious.

Pale as a ghost.

Bleeding.

You stopped at the foot of the gurney, your hands trembling, your mind racing. You looked at his face, pale and still, the angry red of his scars standing out starkly against his skin. He looked so small. So broken.

"Get him to Trauma Bay One," you said, your voice steady, despite the sheer, blinding terror clawing at your throat. "Now. Move."

As they wheeled him past you, his hand brushed against yours. It was cold. So incredibly cold.

You took a deep, shuddering breath, pushing the fear down, locking it away in a box in the back of your mind. You were a doctor. He was a patient.

And you were going to save him.

Again.

──────────── ✧ ────────────

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