I don't know who else can see it, but I wanted to share this, and document it's existence! Just refreshed my feed and boom! there it was. I think it's amazing, and y'all continue to astound me at every turn. I don't know if anyone is gonna claim credit for it, but to those of you who did it, I love it! Spit the hard truths and say what needs to be said! I hope you have the day you deserve, your pillow is always cool, and that any Lego you might be around is always stepped on with a shoe!
This is my BTHB card! I'm still taking requests for prompts; for Zorro, Boku No/My Hero Academia with Bakugou, and starting now Epic: The Musical! Especially with Hermes, Tiresias, and Telemachus! They is my babies! So please, please send me an ask if you see a prompt you like! I love this community and I love interacting with all of you!
PS Bridal Carry has been taken, I just haven't finished it yet, but everything else is open!
This is my BTHB card! I'm still taking requests for prompts; for Zorro, Boku No/My Hero Academia with Bakugou, and starting now Epic: The Musical! Especially with Hermes, Tiresias, and Telemachus! They is my babies! So please, please send me an ask if you see a prompt you like! I love this community and I love interacting with all of you!
PS Bridal Carry has been taken, I just haven't finished it yet, but everything else is open!
Ohhhh, I haven't been writing as much as I want to, but I think this is the most recent line I've written?
He had no coin, he reminded himself, and pulled the blanket in more.
But that's like 13 words, which is way too much for my heat-addled brain, so I'm going to just tag people
@raiswanson, @lady-redshield-writes, @queenofhelheimr, @jo-castle, @nora-theteawriter, @derpyslurpy-da-derp-master, @ anyone else who writes and I'm not remembering their name rn!!
This actually forced me to write haha I'd just finished Hands Rated E for Excruciating and hadn't started my Bridal Carry prompt, but I really wanted to do this so, I managed to write a tiny bit!
"Bakugou Katsuki is the worst hot person ever in existence!"
Mmmm this was fun to write hehe I tried to tailor it to you a little, but I'm not entirely sure how well I did lol so we'll just have to wait and see.
Requests are still open! I had to turn anon off (kept getting too many bots) but my asks are definitely still open! I love writing for this community, and I love interacting with everyone! It's so much fun. I'll take prompts for Zorro, Boku No/My Hero Academia with Bakugou, and starting now Epic: The Musical! I got into it a little bit ago, and now I am obsessed. Especially with Hermes, Tiresias, and Telemachus! They is my babies! So please, please send me an ask if you see a prompt you like! I want to take the blorbos and hurt them ever so sweetly. Okay, onto what y'all have been waiting for!
Sometimes, Katsuki liked to pretend that his life was normal. It was rare, but when he could, he liked to indulge. His parents had asked him for a small favor, picking up a check they’d received in the mail when they were out of town and depositing it in the bank.
He should’ve known his life could never be that simple.
https://archiveofourown.org/works/65958904
Hands Rated E for Excruciating
Sometimes, Katsuki liked to pretend that his life was normal. It was rare, but when he could, he liked to indulge. His parents had asked him for a small favor, picking up a check they’d received in the mail when they were out of town and depositing it in the bank. While he’d put up a fuss about it, he hadn’t actually been all that upset about doing it. Being a normal kid, doing a favor for his parents, standing in line just like everyone else, it seemed like a good break after everything he’d been through. Ever since getting into UA, his life had been one constant crisis after another, so he wanted to take every chance he got to just take a fucking breather.
He should’ve known his life could never be that simple.
The day had been ridiculously boring so far, just taking the subway to his house, fetching his parent’s mail, and walking over to the bank. He’d enjoyed every minute of it. Standing in line gave him a sort of calm, his instincts finally easing off a little, not needing to constantly be on the lookout as people stared at him, whispered about him out of range. He loved UA, to his surprise he actually enjoyed living in the dorms and being close to his friends, but sometimes constantly being around so many people got a little suffocating. He didn’t regret the reputation he’d gotten at UA, but sometimes he wanted to just be a regular person, and not the constant center of attention.
He was almost disappointed when he was done, wondering if he should head back to the dorms to make himself some food or go out to eat. He knew if he went out to eat, his friends would whine at him for not bringing them anything, but he also wanted to prolong one of the few ‘normal’ days he’d gotten in what felt like months. So he decided it would be worth just picking them up a few snacks to just have some more time to himself, blending in with the rest of the world, living quietly amongst it rather than screaming and fighting against it.
The doors suddenly bursting open surprised him, and he stumbled back a little from the force. Several men dressed in black then rushed in, and Katsuki internally groaned. Dammit, could he never have just one normal day? God, was he cursed or something?
Within seconds, Katsuki had taken stock of everything happening. Four men, wearing ski masks, one a mutant and the rest non, and from what he could figure out, the mutant possessed a strength quirk and another had a gun for a right hand. Closer look indicated that it was screwed on, and Katsuki thought that meant that the man could detach his limbs and replace them. The other two hadn’t revealed their quirks yet, so either they didn’t need them right now or potentially didn’t have any.
“Everyone down on the ground, get down!”
Slowly, trying to blend into the background, Katsuki knelt, keeping low to the ground but still able to rush to his feet. Internally, he wondered if a teller had managed to activate a silent alarm yet or if he was on his own for now. While he hadn’t fought without his uniform and gauntlets on in a little while, he was sure he could take these fuckers down without much issue. He’d just need to focus more on speed and stealth rather than his usual brand of heroics. Aizawa had taught him well, he could do this.
“He said get down, blondie!” A voice shouted at him, and Katsuki tensed, ready to strike as soon as he saw an opening.
The man’s eyes suddenly widened with recognition as he made eye contact, and Katsuki saw his opening. Immediately, Katsuki sprung, hands already sparking off, aiming for the man’s left arm. The sound of pain and the smell of burnt fabric had him continuing without thinking, his instincts taking over as he raised his leg to deliver the blow that should knock him out.
Suddenly, he felt something at his back and a hand covered his mouth. Katsuki shouted as the scent of something sweet but sharp filled his nose and mouth, and inexplicably the floor began to tilt dangerously to the side. The hand clamped down on his face, and he choked on the strange scent overwhelming his lungs, another strong arm holding him as the ground shook beneath him. His eyelids fluttered as the world slid out of focus, the faces of the scared hostages blurring into each other as he found it harder and harder to stay awake.
No, no, people were in danger, he was in danger, he needed to stay awake, he needed to get the hand off of his face. But his train of thought was beginning to crash off the tracks, and his stomach rolled as he felt like he was spinning. Cotton plants suddenly began to grow in his mind, sprouting quickly and dulling his senses, causing his arms to go limp. His knees gave out, and he felt himself fall, his head falling into the hand holding him. His eyes closed and he couldn’t open them again, darkness quickly consuming him as he felt himself pass out.
(line break)
“What the hell were you thinking, you idiot? Why the fuck did you bring that kid here? Don’t you know who he is? He’s from UA!”
That voice was loud. Very loud. Angry too, he was pretty sure. But it was so hard to think that it was hard to tell.
“I- I was thinking- ahh!” Ooh, that sounded like it hurt. A slap maybe? “I thought we could use him!”
“If the fucking League didn’t get him on their side, what makes you think we could?”
“No, no, I meant with, like, the vault!” That voice was desperate, scared. “Akira’s quirk can’t get it open, and the kid explodes stuff, so I thought we could get him to open the vault!”
“Oh really? And how are we going to do that?”
“W-well, I don’t know, but you’re the boss, you could think of something! You’re the boss for a reason! You always have such smart, great ideas!”
Katsuki’s lead eyelids slid open slowly, and he groaned softly. Where… where was he? It certainly wasn’t his room, or his dorm, so why was he waking up here? This place seemed abandoned, with rotted wood floor and peeling wallpaper. And this wasn’t a bed, it was a hard, metal table of some sort. Ugh, he didn’t understand, he’d never be comfortable enough to sleep on something so cold and stiff. But sleep still clung to him like a koala on a tree. The loud voices drew him back in, and he could see two men arguing. One had red hair, tall but clearly intimidated by the smaller man beside him. The other had a gun for a right hand… hadn’t he seen that before? He could’ve sworn he had, but he couldn’t remember when. Fuck, it was so hard to think…
“I ought to fucking shoot you right now, Haruto.” Gun-hand said. “You’re lucky I don’t have another healer on hand right now, otherwise you’d be praying to be smarter in your next life!”
Haruto slumped in relief, though he was still clearly scared of gun-hand. “I’m sorry, boss, I’ll do better next time, I swear.”
Gun-hand sneered and then began unscrewing the gun from his right hand, replacing it with what looked like an actual hand. Guess he wasn’t gun-hand anymore…
“Ah, it seems our young visitor is awake.” Not gun-hand said, quickly plastering a fake smile on his face.
The sudden change of personality caught Katsuki’s gooey mind off guard. Heh, gooey. That reminded him of… of… he couldn’t remember his name, but he was sure he was blond. Blond had tried to make rice pudding the other day, but had accidentally made rice goo. Katsuki had laughed so hard at that, it had been so funny. He’d even enjoyed the impromptu cooking lesson that he’d started right after.
“Aw, is our little baby having a hard time staying awake?” Not gun-hand cooed, and Katsuki dragged his eyes to the man’s face. He wanted to glare at him, explode his face, but Katsuki’s body wouldn’t listen to his brain. “Must be so difficult to even keep your cute little eyes open.”
Katsuki frowned, trying to glare but he wasn’t sure how successful he was. Ugh, he hated being treated like a little kid, it drove him nuts.
Not gun-hand stroked his cheek softly, smirking. “Why don’t you make it easier on yourself and just tell me how your quirk works, princess? Once we have what we want, maybe we’ll be nice and drop you off at your stupid little hero school.”
“N-no…” Katsuki slurred, his tongue thick with sleep. “Fuck y-you. Won’t… won’t help you.”
“Rin, give him another dose.” Not gun-hand said, rolling his eyes. “And knock him out good, I want plenty of time to figure out his quirk.”
The hand covered his face again, and he felt that same sharp scent attack him once again. He tried to thrash, pull away, but the hand just tightened on his face as something that wasn’t oxygen filled his lungs again. Cotton vines ensnared his mind again, easily crushing his tenuous grip on consciousness, sending him back into darkness.
(line break)
Katsuki had long gotten used to pain in his hands, his quirk was explosive and powerful, and that kind of power always came with a price. The muscles in his hand were always stiff and needed constant massages, he could burn himself if he wasn’t careful, and if he used too much to create a big explosion like he’d done at the sport’s festival the blowback would hurt all the way up to his shoulders. But throughout all of his life, he’d never felt such pain in his hands.
Fuck, what had happened to him? He could feel his body trembling as he slowly rose to consciousness, and his hands felt like a brand of molten silver pressed itself into his hands. He’d caught his hands on fire a couple of times when he was growing up, though nothing too bad, but fuck, this was so much worse. Katsuki felt tears building behind his eyes, eyes he couldn’t even open though he couldn’t remember why. This was an agony words couldn’t describe, an all-consuming pain that surrounded his mind and left him wanting to scream but without the voice to. His breathing quickened and he tried desperately to be able to get up, but his body just wouldn’t listen to him. His memories slid through his hands like he was trying to catch moonlight, his body weighed down by what felt like lead weights running through his veins, and he groaned softly, the only sound he could make. He felt the scream building in his throat, he just didn’t have the strength to let it out as unfettered agony ripping through his hand, boiling his blood, burning deep within his skin kept him from being able to even open his mouth.
Putting all of his effort into opening his eyes so he could see what the hell happened to him, he managed to get his eyes half open. He looked down at his right hand, and felt his stomach roll with a powerful nausea. Trails of blood met his eyes first and he tracked them with growing horror to his hand, completely covered in blood. It was… shredded. As if blown open from the inside, deep scores ripped through the flesh of his palm, nearly all the way down to the bone. There was so much blood his hand was lying in a pool of it on the table. Two throwing needles were stabbed into his hand, forcing it open, refusing to free him from any bit of this agony. A quick look showed that his left hand had suffered the same fate, and he felt his stomach clench. He’d be sick if he had the strength to be. Each second seemed to send a whole new set of serrated knives into his palms, his every twitch and tremble sending another shot of excruciating torment through every nerve in his body. His vision blurred as tears slipped down his cheek.
“How we doing, Kenzo? Any progress?” A voice beside him said, casually as if Katsuki wasn’t in torturous agony every millisecond.
“Not yet. From what Haurto said and the burn on his shoulder, it’s his hands, but I can’t quite figure out how he does it.”
Wait, he knew that one. Not gun-hand. The man had unscrewed the gun he was using as a right hand after… a bank robbery, that’s what it was. Not gun-hand and his stupid friends had been robbing the bank he’d been in. He remembered getting a shot off but then his memories went cloudy again, and nothing made sense anymore. He clawed at consciousness, desperate to make sense of what he was seeing and feeling, trying to fight through the fire of pain he now lived in.
“Should your quirk be wearing off soon, Rin?” (He was pretty sure the name was) Kenzo’s voice gave him something else to focus on, so he clung to it, hoping to ground himself as his hands became a maelstrom of pain. Voices, Katsuki, focus on the voices, voices don’t hurt.
“Yes, boss.” Apparently-Rin said. He just barely remembered those names from the last time he’d woken up. Or had that been a dream? Fuck, he couldn’t think straight… “He should be waking up any minute now.”
“Good, good.” Kenzo said. “Do you think if you gave him a smaller dose that he could be more… forthcoming about how his quirk works?”
“I’m not sure, boss.” Rin said. “I can give him a lighter dose of sleep so he doesn’t immediately pass out, but I don’t know exactly what that’ll do to his mind. If he’s aware enough that he’s talking to us, I doubt he’ll tell us anything. We’d be better off giving him some sodium pentathol. One injection ought to be enough if I combine that with my quirk.”
No…no, not again, he couldn’t go through that again. He could practically feel that blonde bitch’s cold needles sliding down his collarbone again, getting dangerously close to his throat as she laughed her cruel, high-pitched laugh. It had taken everything inside him to stop himself from showing just how scared he’d actually been. He couldn’t show fear, not to them, but god he’d been so scared…
“Sodium pentathol? Rin, you know I don’t like using our truth serum unless it’s our last resort.”
“Come on, kid, tell the truth. You don’t really like living within the confines of hero society, do you? I’ve seen you. You’re a brute who needs an outlet, willing to attack anyone or anything who gets in your way. We’re all like that, you’d fit right in with us! Admit it, kid. Deep down, you know it’s the truth.”
“I know that, boss, but I don’t think there’s another way. If he could resist it back when he first woke up, he can resist it now too. He won’t tell us the truth without it.”
“There’s another way of living, kid. One that suits you perfectly. You know what you are, just admit it! You’d just be living as your true self for time. Join us, kid, you know you want to.”
Shut up, shut up, shut up! He didn’t, he didn’t want to, he wasn’t a villain, he wasn’t! He was an asshole, but he wasn’t a villain! He wasn’t, he wasn’t…
A hand came to his face, slapping him a little. “Wake up, little canary. You’ve got some singing to do.”
A sharp pinch in his neck was immediately drowned out by the throb of pain in his body, his hands, punctuated by a cruel bark of laughter. Fingers grabbed his chin and tightened, and he groaned. He could just barely feel that sharp scent slowly seep into his lungs, relaxing his muscles despite his desire to stay alert. His whole body felt heavy, yet somehow he managed to drag open his eyelids fully.
“Hey.” Fingers snapped at him, his eyes sliding around a little before landing on Kenzo. “You with me, princess?”
“Y-y-yes…”
That voice… wasn’t one of the villains. It was hoarse and weak, and horribly familiar. Fuck, he hadn’t even realized he’d spoken until he’d heard his own voice. What the hell had they just given him?
“Do you know what’s just happened to you?” Kenzo asked.
“N-no.” Katsuki whimpered. Fuck, why he was he even talking? He didn’t want to be saying anything to these bastards, let alone the truth! Shut up, Katsuki, shut up.
Kenzo wore a cruel smile that made Katsuki’s blood run cold. “Since you refused to be a good boy and save everyone the trouble, I figured seventy-five milligrams of sodium pentathol would be enough to loosen those pretty lips of yours.”
Katsuki’s eyes widened in terror. Sodium pentathol had long been banned in Japan because of its potency. Back when it was first introduced, it used to just make you lose inhibitions and make it harder to lie. Now, after years of tampering on the black market, it made lying impossible.
Oh, god, no…
“Now, let’s get down to business, my little canary.” The cruel smile widened. “How does your quirk work?”
Katsuki felt words already filling his mouth and Katsuki’s mouth opened of its own accord.
“No… no! N-no….” Katsuki wailed desperately, feeling a fire building in his neck as the truth burned within, trying to escape. He felt it clawing at his vocal cords, only getting stronger with each passing second. He wanted to cover his mouth, wanted to scratch at his throat, but even the slightest movement he made just amplified the torrent of pain in his hands. “It- it’s the sweat on my hands!”
“How do you turn your sweat into explosions?”
Katsuki wailed, desperate to hold himself back. “Ahhh! No! N-no! I won’t, I won’t….”
“Stop fighting it, princess.” Kenzo smirked maliciously. “You and I both know you’re just making it harder on yourself. Just give in. Tell me how you make your sweat explosive”
Katsuki shook his head, clamping his mouth shut. He could feel the heat in his throat burn, like flames licking his lungs, spreading with each second, and he bit his tongue hard to stop himself from speaking. It felt as if his mind was trying to escape his body to free himself from the pain. The flames caught on the cotton thoughts on his head caused by that damn sharp scent, becoming an inferno in seconds. The world began to turn as white as snow as the flames destroyed him from the inside. Tears streamed down his cheeks, and Katsuki’s chest jerked hard as the words tried to escape his mouth. Another jerk jostled his hands, each needle throbbing where it was stabbed through flesh and muscle, and his mind short-circuited as a brutal scream ripped through his throat.
“My sweat works like nitroglycerin, you can ignite it!”
A soft, condescending hand patted his head. “Now that’s more like it, princess. Was that really so hard?”
Katsuki could just barely make out a soft, keening sound before a weak, broken voice whispered, “... yes.”
There was a cruel bark of laughter, and the hand pulled away. Something wet slid down his face as Katsuki’s eyes unfocused, only able to see the white snow somehow falling while indoors.
“Haruto, get a space heater. Seems we need to warm up our little canary.”
Katsuki felt the world begin to fade as loud sounds happened around him, and he lost track of everything that was happening. The fire in his chest had eased, but hadn’t quite left him yet, as if there were smoldering embers lying in wait for a match to strike. The whiteness around him was becoming painfully bright, scorching him, even as he shut his eyes to try and escape it. Ice began to permeate his core, a coldness he’d never felt before freezing the blood in his veins and making his body tremble with shivers.
To his utter terror, a black figure soon approached out of the brightness, steadily getting bigger. Katsuki’s breathing picked up as the figure got closer, and took shape. It seemed to shift between bodies, one moment Shigaraki was in front of him before he was replaced with Toga but then before he could blink she switched with Dabi, and Katsuki could swear he could smell the fire Dabi used. He could certainly feel it, could feel the sweat dripping down his skin, the scent of caramel filling the air, even though he’d never felt colder in his life. The fire in his lungs flickered ominously, as if knowing that Dabi could reignite it with barely a glance.
“Aw, the princess is crying again.” Dabi whispered, his voice sounding strange. Katsuki just barely noticed that Dabi’s mouth hadn’t actually moved as he spoke. “Think he’s still awake?”
He was crying? When had that happened? Katsuki never cried in front of anyone, especially not the villains he hated most, the villains he feared most. He… he knew he hadn’t cried the first time Dabi and the others had taken him… so why was it happening now? Why couldn’t he even feel it? Was Dabi lying to get under his skin? Katsuki could feel Dabi’s fire sliding through his chest and implanting itself into his throat, daring him to answer the question, but he did everything he could to keep himself silent. He wouldn’t give in, he wouldn’t give in.
“Honestly, fifty-fifty chance.” Katsuki jolted as Toga suddenly appeared beside Dabi. Her voice was calm, but this didn’t sound like her either. The voice was much deeper, without the trill and lilt she was known for. Were these some of Twice’s doubles of them? At least Toga answering seemed to cool the fire within him, though he wasn’t sure why or how. “Sodium pentathol’s still a barbiturate, like my quirk is, but I’m pretty sure he’s still awake. Why?”
Strangely enough, the world began to spin a bit, though Dabi and Toga remained unmoving as a whirlpool seemed to swallow them whole. Katsuki’s stomach lurched.
“I want an audience for this particular victory” Dabi said casually, still in that strange, not right voice. “Nothing like making a hero watch as you take what they tried so hard to protect.”
Toga just laughed, a deep laugh that didn’t match up to her usual giggling.
Katsuki felt like he was being blown around like a leaf on a cold, fall wind, and didn’t have the strength or weight to hold himself still. It was like he was becoming an icicle and melting at the same time. He could feel heat on his cheeks, on his arms, fighting against the cold deep in his core. Somehow, he could tell it was a losing battle, and Katsuki felt his footing on consciousness begin to slip.
Something grasped his chin tightly, even though Dabi still didn’t move. No… that couldn’t have been Dabi, he knew the exact feel of Dabi’s hand, he’d relived that memory dozens of times in his dreams, this wasn’t it. Dabi’s hands were calloused and overly warm, as if overflowing with decades of experience, but this hand was smoother, colder, almost mechanical. Then… who was touching him?
“Don’t pass out on me yet, boy.” Dabi said, a growl, possessive and smug, even though the man’s mouth still didn’t move. “I’m not done with you.”
Katsuki felt like he was falling through space, the voices around him fading into suffocating silence. He could distantly feel someone shaking him, but his consciousness descended into darkness too quickly to even feel the pain that came with it.
(line break)
“Yeah, he’s out. He’s not waking up for a while.”
“That’s a shame. I really wanted him to see this.”
…
PWFNKHSHOOOOVJKNMM!
(line break)
“I’ll kill him! You take one step closer, and I swear to god, I’ll kill him.” Something cold and sharp pressed against his throat, the scream at top volume just barely bringing Katsuki back to consciousness. Katsuki could feel the echoes of sharp cotton threads still clawing at his mind, wanting to drag him back down into blissful darkness, but their strength had faded so much, they weren’t strong enough. He felt like he was drifting aimlessly in an ocean of pain, without even the strength to swim. Idly, he wondered if he could drown.
“You kill him, I kill you.” Wait, he recognized that voice. It took a lot more effort than he’d have wanted, but Katsuki managed to drag open his leaded eyelids. Fuck, he’d never been so glad to see IcyHot in his life.
“Oh, please.” The coldness pressed a little deeper into his throat, and Katsuki whimpered as a sharp prick sent a tiny drop of warm stickiness down his neck. “Heroes don’t kill. I’m calling that bluff, kid, it won’t work.”
Todoroki glared fiercely at the man, slightly cocking his head to the side, in a gesture that Katsuki thought he recognized as sizing the man up. The last time he’d seen that look, it had taken Todoroki about five seconds to find the weakness in the robots they had used as target practice. It was comforting, a small sense of normalcy in the haze of agony he existed in now.
“You’ve kidnapped my friend and now you’re threatening to kill him. I don’t know if you know this, but we heroes don’t tend to take that well.” Distantly, Katsuki thought that sometimes Todoroki could be as snarky as him. He could’ve been proud if his thoughts didn’t live and die by agony.
“Don’t think I don’t know that you have morals and lines you don’t cross.” The man sneered his words, as if having morals was a character flaw.
“You wanna bet?” Todoroki growled, taking a step forward.
“Get back! I’ll fucking kill him!” Katsuki choked off a breathless gasp as the knife sliced a little deeper, feeling a soft trickle of blood beginning to run down his throat.
Unfortunately, it had the villain’s desired effect, because Todoroki took a step back, and Katsuki could’ve sworn saw a flash of fear in Todoroki’s eyes.
“If you kill him, I swear there won’t be a corner on this earth that you can run to where I won’t find you.” Todoroki growled, fierce and protective, and it made something small and scared blossom warmly in his chest. “So save us both the effort and surrender!”
“I think I’m the one who has the leverage here, pretty boy.” The villain snarled, sounding like prey backed into a corner. Katsuki knew that sound well. “His life is in my hands, not yours.”
“You don’t want to know how far I’d go to protect him.” Todoroki hissed, his voice low, deadly even.
“Aw, is he your little boyfriend, pretty boy?” The villain said, mockery practically dripping from his words. “Have you told him you love him yet? Now might be your last chance.”
“I won’t tell you again.” Todoroki said firmly. “Let him go!”
“No can do.” The villain replied angrily.
Katsuki saw the movement before it happened. He’d been watching intently at the sports festival, making sure that he’d see his opponents move, so he could predict them before they happened. Todoroki’s feet shifted ever so slightly, directing the flow of his body to line up perfectly with the villain, his muscles tensing as the flow of ice slowly began to move through Todoroki’s body. While Katsuki couldn’t quite feel the drop in temperature, he could sense it.
Within seconds, a burst of ice shot through Todoroki’s leg, utterly encapsulating the villain and lifting him all the way up to the ceiling. Katsuki took a deep breath as the knife pulled away from his throat, his relief relaxing him a little, though the sudden influx of more oxygen made him dizzy. Once the villain was restrained, Todoroki then immediately came to him. Soft hands, softer than expected, came to his chin and tenderly tilted his head back, exposing his throat.
“I’m going to get you out of here.” Todoroki said, his voice determined and steely. Katsuki didn’t know if he’d ever believed anyone’s words so strongly before.
“Okayyy… dats good.” Katsuki slurred out, his voice weak and raspy. This time, Katsuki was sure he saw fear in Todoroki’s eyes.
Todoroki reached into one of the pouches on his belt, pulled out a small field dressing, and used his ice to cut it to size. He then slowly, with a featherlight touch, covered the small wound on Katsuki’s throat. Thankfully the villain hadn’t cut him very deep, probably because he didn’t want to lose whatever leverage he had over Katsuki, but Katsuki was at least a little grateful for the silver lining. Though, Todoroki’s fingers were so nimble and gentle that he barely even felt it until he felt the adhesive sticking to his skin.
Katsuki’s eyes had drifted to the lights dancing on the swirling ceiling, but they were brought back to Shouto as Katsuki heard a sharp inhale of frightened breath.
“Your hands… Bakugou, your hands.”
Katsuki had never heard Todoroki sound like that before. Raw and scared and horrified. Todoroki’s hands were over his own, trembling with hesitancy, as if wanting to touch but unable to. Finally, they settled on the cold table next to him.
The thunderstruck expression on Todoroki’s face made his stomach lurch again, but this time in fear.
“I have to take them out.”
“N-no…” Katsuki whimpered, unable to keep the terror out of his voice. “Pl-please.”
“Bakugou, these things… they’re pinning you to the table.” Todoroki said, with a hitch in his voice Bakugou hadn’t heard since… since Kamino. “They’re stabbed all the way through the metal. I have to take them out.”
“‘Roki, please, it h-hurts.” Katsuki’s voice cracked. “Don’t.”
Katsuki heard the familiar crackle of Todoroki’s ice, but he couldn’t see where it was. His breathing picked up, his eyes solely on Todoroki’s face as he silently pleaded with him not to do this. Todoroki looked away from him, unable to keep looking at him, only encasing Katsuki’s right forearm in ice, and then quickly doing his left, rendering him unable to move. Todoroki then guided his ice around the throwing needles in his right hand, encasing them and linking them together. Katsuki’s heart was beating so loud he was sure Todoroki could hear it.
“Please don’t do this.” Katsuki begged, sounding like a child afraid of the dark.
“I’m sorry.” Todoroki said, with glassy eyes and a tight voice. A few tears ran down Todoroki’s face that Katsuki didn’t understand . “This is for your own good. I’m so sorry, Katsuki.”
A long, singular note of agony covered up the sound of metal sliding through flesh, the decimated nerves and muscles that had long gone numb coming alive with a fire burning hotter than the sun. Katsuki thrashed, trying desperately to escape, his back arching so high that he seemed to almost float away from the table before crashing back down like a comet crashing to earth. His eyelids fluttered as Todoroki quickly vanished, barely even able to see the blue blur of Todoroki’s uniform move from his right side to his left, linking the other two needles with ice once more.
No, wait, please he wasn’t ready… wait please… he wasn’t ready, he can’t handle it, he can’t--
A second explosion of agony erupted from his left hand, rising quickly in intensity to match his right. He felt each and every nerve as if they were flayed down to the quick, almost wishing he could tear his own arm off, knowing it would be less painful than this. He wanted to beg for mercy, wanted to plead with whatever and whoever to stop, but his voice only offered a choked keen of agony that stuttered to a halt. Black spots danced across his vision as he distantly heard the sound of ice breaking, whispers of apologies and contrition bleeding into each other to become a sort of word soup, and Katsuki drifted.
Trembling fingers moved his hands to his lap, and strong arms slid underneath his shoulders and knees. His head hit something soft yet firm, something that took his weight from him and let him float. He could feel the wind caress his skin as he flew without wings, whispering soft promises of the future. Katsuki wanted to smile, but found he couldn’t even open his eyes anymore.
Sounds he couldn’t understand became louder, like a jackhammer pounding away at his skull. A soft whimpering sound was lost to him, a spasm sending him further into the softness that smelled strangely of sandalwood. It was a comforting scent, so much better than the sharpness of the cotton that infected his mind, gently laying him down upon the riverbank rather than dragging him down deep into the bottoms of the ocean. Darkness once again followed, but the river promised to keep him safe, and he believed it, sinking easily into it and the comfort it provided.
(line break)
“It’s gonna be okay, Katsuki, you’re gonna be okay.”
…
“Oh my god, his hands, his hands!”
…
“Hang on, kid. You’re gonna be okay, just hold on a little bit longer. I know you can do it, prove me right one more time, kid. Just one more time.”
…
“We won’t be able to tell the true extent of the damage until he wakes up.”
…
“Bakugou-san, can you hear me? ... Bakugou-san, wiggle your fingers.”
“Bakugou? Kid? Bakugou, wiggle your fingers.”
“Maybe he’s just not awake enough yet.”
“Bakugou-san, please, wiggle your fingers.”
“Come on, dammit, wiggle! Please, kid, wiggle, I know you can do it!”
…
“Oh thank god.”
(line break)
As much as the new scars disturbed him, Katsuki couldn’t stop looking at his hands. He couldn’t remember much of what happened to him after he’d first been knocked out at the bank, but his hands showed every moment, every ounce of pain and torture he’d gone through regardless. The doctor at the hospital had given him instructions on how to minimize the scarring, but they wouldn’t fade overnight, and he still couldn’t stop staring.
Katsuki had first counted nine on each hand at the hospital when he’d first woken up, and every other time he’d counted afterwards, and now was no different. There were still nine different scars across his hands in every kind of lighting, in every part of the day, no matter where he went. Each scar was unique in its own way, and yet mimicked the others perfectly. He sighed, and laid back down on his bed, hoping that his racing mind could finally calm down. He wanted to thread his hands together and put them behind his head, but they were still too sensitive for that, so he settled for just staring up at the ceiling. It felt good to be back at the dorms, away from everyone else, but still able to hear them. A laugh here and there, pieces of conversations, echoes of voices that had once grated on his every nerve and now only soothed him. He was finally home again, after far, far too long.
The hospital had been a fucking nightmare, with constant unknown sounds emanating from seemingly everywhere, medication that dulled his senses and slurred his speech, and far too many people around him for him to be even the slightest bit relaxed. Seeing his parents hadn’t helped at all either, as both of them looked so guilty that they could barely look him in the eyes. Even his mother had been subdued and quiet, her eyes red-rimmed and puffy, making his stomach twist with discomfort and sorrow. He’d never wanted his dream to be the number one hero to cause such pain to his parents. They had their issues of course, particularly considering how much he and his mother butted heads, but he still loved them, and he knew they loved him. And even though he’d told them flat out this hadn’t been their fault, he had a sinking feeling that they hadn’t really taken that to heart. Especially since his father had promised him that they’d never ask him to do another favor for them until after he graduated, and while Katsuki had known it was supposed to be a tease, the crack in his father’s voice made it sound way too real. He’d let them hug him for far longer than he usually did when they dropped him back off at school, but he wasn’t sure it really did anything to make them feel better.
A knock startled him out of his reverie.
“Hey, Bakubro?” Kirishima. “You in there?”
“No shit, dumbass, where the fuck else would I be?”
Kirishima laughed self-deprecatingly, and even though Katsuki couldn’t see it, he knew the redhead was rubbing the back of his neck with a slight blush. Kirishima was a good friend, and also ridiculously predictable.
“We wanted to know if you wanted to come down to the common room to play some Street Fighter? Or maybe some Mario Kart?”
Immediately Katsuki knew that it wasn’t just Kirishima asking. The others in the Bakusquad, and perhaps more, just thought that Kirishima asking alone would have a better chance of getting Katsuki to come down.
Eh, might as well. He did always enjoy wiping the floor with his friends, and seeing them pout when they lose. Sitting with friends, playing video games, stealing each other’s snacks… that was his favorite kind of normalcy that he let himself indulge in.
Swinging his legs over the bed, he gasped softly as his hands ached as he used them to push himself up. He almost changed his mind, as he hadn’t answered yet, his hands beginning to shake. He slowly flexed them, feeling each muscle as it moved, watching as the new scars contract and expand with his movement. A pang of nausea hit his stomach, feeling just how different his hands were now. He’d never been scared to use his hands before, his hands were his quirk, his life, but now… a small, scared part of him was telling him that he shouldn’t use his hands for anything but what was necessary, that he shouldn’t waste his hands on stupid video games. He swallowed hard, his breathing picking up a bit.
His pocket pinged loudly, and his hands hesitated over it. He forced out a (barely) calming breath, and pulled out his phone, trying to use his hands as little as possible.
Discount Pikachu: pls come play kacchan wee saved u player 1 :D [gamecontroller.jpg]
Katsuki huffed out a small laugh. Kaminari was just as stupid over text as he was in person.
He walked over to the door and opened it. “Pikachu promised me player one, and if one of you bitches about it, I’m going to throw the controller at your heads.”
Kirishima smiled brightly, and then excitedly dragged him to the elevator, even though Katsuki was clearly capable of walking.
“Don’t worry, no one’s gonna complain, we promise! It’s just a friendly game, Bakubro, nothing big or anything! And if you don’t wanna play, or y-your hands hurt, you can just watch! No stress, dude!”
Ah, there it was. That tiny hesitation in Kirishima’s voice that always followed an injury. Kirishima always tried to walk that fine line between hovering too much and wanting to help Katsuki. It was almost endearing, if also a little annoying.
But despite himself, Kirishima’s incessant chattering and warm hands made Katsuki’s breath come a little easier. He told that little voice in his head that this was necessary, that the happiness he’d feel having fun with his friends outweighed any anxiety he might have, warranted or not. He refused to be held back by fear, refused to give it any space in his life. He was Bakugou fucking Katsuki, and while his life might never be normal, he wouldn’t trade it for the world.
“I’m gonna stomp your fucking faces into the dirt, Shitty Hair. None of you stand a chance against me!”
Kirishima gave him a wide, glowing smile, and Katsuki found himself smiling back.
Mmmm this was fun to write hehe I tried to tailor it to you a little, but I'm not entirely sure how well I did lol so we'll just have to wait and see.
Requests are still open! I had to turn anon off (kept getting too many bots) but my asks are definitely still open! I love writing for this community, and I love interacting with everyone! It's so much fun. I'll take prompts for Zorro, Boku No/My Hero Academia with Bakugou, and starting now Epic: The Musical! I got into it a little bit ago, and now I am obsessed. Especially with Hermes, Tiresias, and Telemachus! They is my babies! So please, please send me an ask if you see a prompt you like! I want to take the blorbos and hurt them ever so sweetly. Okay, onto what y'all have been waiting for!
Sometimes, Katsuki liked to pretend that his life was normal. It was rare, but when he could, he liked to indulge. His parents had asked him for a small favor, picking up a check they’d received in the mail when they were out of town and depositing it in the bank.
He should’ve known his life could never be that simple.
https://archiveofourown.org/works/65958904
Hands Rated E for Excruciating
Sometimes, Katsuki liked to pretend that his life was normal. It was rare, but when he could, he liked to indulge. His parents had asked him for a small favor, picking up a check they’d received in the mail when they were out of town and depositing it in the bank. While he’d put up a fuss about it, he hadn’t actually been all that upset about doing it. Being a normal kid, doing a favor for his parents, standing in line just like everyone else, it seemed like a good break after everything he’d been through. Ever since getting into UA, his life had been one constant crisis after another, so he wanted to take every chance he got to just take a fucking breather.
He should’ve known his life could never be that simple.
The day had been ridiculously boring so far, just taking the subway to his house, fetching his parent’s mail, and walking over to the bank. He’d enjoyed every minute of it. Standing in line gave him a sort of calm, his instincts finally easing off a little, not needing to constantly be on the lookout as people stared at him, whispered about him out of range. He loved UA, to his surprise he actually enjoyed living in the dorms and being close to his friends, but sometimes constantly being around so many people got a little suffocating. He didn’t regret the reputation he’d gotten at UA, but sometimes he wanted to just be a regular person, and not the constant center of attention.
He was almost disappointed when he was done, wondering if he should head back to the dorms to make himself some food or go out to eat. He knew if he went out to eat, his friends would whine at him for not bringing them anything, but he also wanted to prolong one of the few ‘normal’ days he’d gotten in what felt like months. So he decided it would be worth just picking them up a few snacks to just have some more time to himself, blending in with the rest of the world, living quietly amongst it rather than screaming and fighting against it.
The doors suddenly bursting open surprised him, and he stumbled back a little from the force. Several men dressed in black then rushed in, and Katsuki internally groaned. Dammit, could he never have just one normal day? God, was he cursed or something?
Within seconds, Katsuki had taken stock of everything happening. Four men, wearing ski masks, one a mutant and the rest non, and from what he could figure out, the mutant possessed a strength quirk and another had a gun for a right hand. Closer look indicated that it was screwed on, and Katsuki thought that meant that the man could detach his limbs and replace them. The other two hadn’t revealed their quirks yet, so either they didn’t need them right now or potentially didn’t have any.
“Everyone down on the ground, get down!”
Slowly, trying to blend into the background, Katsuki knelt, keeping low to the ground but still able to rush to his feet. Internally, he wondered if a teller had managed to activate a silent alarm yet or if he was on his own for now. While he hadn’t fought without his uniform and gauntlets on in a little while, he was sure he could take these fuckers down without much issue. He’d just need to focus more on speed and stealth rather than his usual brand of heroics. Aizawa had taught him well, he could do this.
“He said get down, blondie!” A voice shouted at him, and Katsuki tensed, ready to strike as soon as he saw an opening.
The man’s eyes suddenly widened with recognition as he made eye contact, and Katsuki saw his opening. Immediately, Katsuki sprung, hands already sparking off, aiming for the man’s left arm. The sound of pain and the smell of burnt fabric had him continuing without thinking, his instincts taking over as he raised his leg to deliver the blow that should knock him out.
Suddenly, he felt something at his back and a hand covered his mouth. Katsuki shouted as the scent of something sweet but sharp filled his nose and mouth, and inexplicably the floor began to tilt dangerously to the side. The hand clamped down on his face, and he choked on the strange scent overwhelming his lungs, another strong arm holding him as the ground shook beneath him. His eyelids fluttered as the world slid out of focus, the faces of the scared hostages blurring into each other as he found it harder and harder to stay awake.
No, no, people were in danger, he was in danger, he needed to stay awake, he needed to get the hand off of his face. But his train of thought was beginning to crash off the tracks, and his stomach rolled as he felt like he was spinning. Cotton plants suddenly began to grow in his mind, sprouting quickly and dulling his senses, causing his arms to go limp. His knees gave out, and he felt himself fall, his head falling into the hand holding him. His eyes closed and he couldn’t open them again, darkness quickly consuming him as he felt himself pass out.
(line break)
“What the hell were you thinking, you idiot? Why the fuck did you bring that kid here? Don’t you know who he is? He’s from UA!”
That voice was loud. Very loud. Angry too, he was pretty sure. But it was so hard to think that it was hard to tell.
“I- I was thinking- ahh!” Ooh, that sounded like it hurt. A slap maybe? “I thought we could use him!”
“If the fucking League didn’t get him on their side, what makes you think we could?”
“No, no, I meant with, like, the vault!” That voice was desperate, scared. “Akira’s quirk can’t get it open, and the kid explodes stuff, so I thought we could get him to open the vault!”
“Oh really? And how are we going to do that?”
“W-well, I don’t know, but you’re the boss, you could think of something! You’re the boss for a reason! You always have such smart, great ideas!”
Katsuki’s lead eyelids slid open slowly, and he groaned softly. Where… where was he? It certainly wasn’t his room, or his dorm, so why was he waking up here? This place seemed abandoned, with rotted wood floor and peeling wallpaper. And this wasn’t a bed, it was a hard, metal table of some sort. Ugh, he didn’t understand, he’d never be comfortable enough to sleep on something so cold and stiff. But sleep still clung to him like a koala on a tree. The loud voices drew him back in, and he could see two men arguing. One had red hair, tall but clearly intimidated by the smaller man beside him. The other had a gun for a right hand… hadn’t he seen that before? He could’ve sworn he had, but he couldn’t remember when. Fuck, it was so hard to think…
“I ought to fucking shoot you right now, Haruto.” Gun-hand said. “You’re lucky I don’t have another healer on hand right now, otherwise you’d be praying to be smarter in your next life!”
Haruto slumped in relief, though he was still clearly scared of gun-hand. “I’m sorry, boss, I’ll do better next time, I swear.”
Gun-hand sneered and then began unscrewing the gun from his right hand, replacing it with what looked like an actual hand. Guess he wasn’t gun-hand anymore…
“Ah, it seems our young visitor is awake.” Not gun-hand said, quickly plastering a fake smile on his face.
The sudden change of personality caught Katsuki’s gooey mind off guard. Heh, gooey. That reminded him of… of… he couldn’t remember his name, but he was sure he was blond. Blond had tried to make rice pudding the other day, but had accidentally made rice goo. Katsuki had laughed so hard at that, it had been so funny. He’d even enjoyed the impromptu cooking lesson that he’d started right after.
“Aw, is our little baby having a hard time staying awake?” Not gun-hand cooed, and Katsuki dragged his eyes to the man’s face. He wanted to glare at him, explode his face, but Katsuki’s body wouldn’t listen to his brain. “Must be so difficult to even keep your cute little eyes open.”
Katsuki frowned, trying to glare but he wasn’t sure how successful he was. Ugh, he hated being treated like a little kid, it drove him nuts.
Not gun-hand stroked his cheek softly, smirking. “Why don’t you make it easier on yourself and just tell me how your quirk works, princess? Once we have what we want, maybe we’ll be nice and drop you off at your stupid little hero school.”
“N-no…” Katsuki slurred, his tongue thick with sleep. “Fuck y-you. Won’t… won’t help you.”
“Rin, give him another dose.” Not gun-hand said, rolling his eyes. “And knock him out good, I want plenty of time to figure out his quirk.”
The hand covered his face again, and he felt that same sharp scent attack him once again. He tried to thrash, pull away, but the hand just tightened on his face as something that wasn’t oxygen filled his lungs again. Cotton vines ensnared his mind again, easily crushing his tenuous grip on consciousness, sending him back into darkness.
(line break)
Katsuki had long gotten used to pain in his hands, his quirk was explosive and powerful, and that kind of power always came with a price. The muscles in his hand were always stiff and needed constant massages, he could burn himself if he wasn’t careful, and if he used too much to create a big explosion like he’d done at the sport’s festival the blowback would hurt all the way up to his shoulders. But throughout all of his life, he’d never felt such pain in his hands.
Fuck, what had happened to him? He could feel his body trembling as he slowly rose to consciousness, and his hands felt like a brand of molten silver pressed itself into his hands. He’d caught his hands on fire a couple of times when he was growing up, though nothing too bad, but fuck, this was so much worse. Katsuki felt tears building behind his eyes, eyes he couldn’t even open though he couldn’t remember why. This was an agony words couldn’t describe, an all-consuming pain that surrounded his mind and left him wanting to scream but without the voice to. His breathing quickened and he tried desperately to be able to get up, but his body just wouldn’t listen to him. His memories slid through his hands like he was trying to catch moonlight, his body weighed down by what felt like lead weights running through his veins, and he groaned softly, the only sound he could make. He felt the scream building in his throat, he just didn’t have the strength to let it out as unfettered agony ripping through his hand, boiling his blood, burning deep within his skin kept him from being able to even open his mouth.
Putting all of his effort into opening his eyes so he could see what the hell happened to him, he managed to get his eyes half open. He looked down at his right hand, and felt his stomach roll with a powerful nausea. Trails of blood met his eyes first and he tracked them with growing horror to his hand, completely covered in blood. It was… shredded. As if blown open from the inside, deep scores ripped through the flesh of his palm, nearly all the way down to the bone. There was so much blood his hand was lying in a pool of it on the table. Two throwing needles were stabbed into his hand, forcing it open, refusing to free him from any bit of this agony. A quick look showed that his left hand had suffered the same fate, and he felt his stomach clench. He’d be sick if he had the strength to be. Each second seemed to send a whole new set of serrated knives into his palms, his every twitch and tremble sending another shot of excruciating torment through every nerve in his body. His vision blurred as tears slipped down his cheek.
“How we doing, Kenzo? Any progress?” A voice beside him said, casually as if Katsuki wasn’t in torturous agony every millisecond.
“Not yet. From what Haurto said and the burn on his shoulder, it’s his hands, but I can’t quite figure out how he does it.”
Wait, he knew that one. Not gun-hand. The man had unscrewed the gun he was using as a right hand after… a bank robbery, that’s what it was. Not gun-hand and his stupid friends had been robbing the bank he’d been in. He remembered getting a shot off but then his memories went cloudy again, and nothing made sense anymore. He clawed at consciousness, desperate to make sense of what he was seeing and feeling, trying to fight through the fire of pain he now lived in.
“Should your quirk be wearing off soon, Rin?” (He was pretty sure the name was) Kenzo’s voice gave him something else to focus on, so he clung to it, hoping to ground himself as his hands became a maelstrom of pain. Voices, Katsuki, focus on the voices, voices don’t hurt.
“Yes, boss.” Apparently-Rin said. He just barely remembered those names from the last time he’d woken up. Or had that been a dream? Fuck, he couldn’t think straight… “He should be waking up any minute now.”
“Good, good.” Kenzo said. “Do you think if you gave him a smaller dose that he could be more… forthcoming about how his quirk works?”
“I’m not sure, boss.” Rin said. “I can give him a lighter dose of sleep so he doesn’t immediately pass out, but I don’t know exactly what that’ll do to his mind. If he’s aware enough that he’s talking to us, I doubt he’ll tell us anything. We’d be better off giving him some sodium pentathol. One injection ought to be enough if I combine that with my quirk.”
No…no, not again, he couldn’t go through that again. He could practically feel that blonde bitch’s cold needles sliding down his collarbone again, getting dangerously close to his throat as she laughed her cruel, high-pitched laugh. It had taken everything inside him to stop himself from showing just how scared he’d actually been. He couldn’t show fear, not to them, but god he’d been so scared…
“Sodium pentathol? Rin, you know I don’t like using our truth serum unless it’s our last resort.”
“Come on, kid, tell the truth. You don’t really like living within the confines of hero society, do you? I’ve seen you. You’re a brute who needs an outlet, willing to attack anyone or anything who gets in your way. We’re all like that, you’d fit right in with us! Admit it, kid. Deep down, you know it’s the truth.”
“I know that, boss, but I don’t think there’s another way. If he could resist it back when he first woke up, he can resist it now too. He won’t tell us the truth without it.”
“There’s another way of living, kid. One that suits you perfectly. You know what you are, just admit it! You’d just be living as your true self for time. Join us, kid, you know you want to.”
Shut up, shut up, shut up! He didn’t, he didn’t want to, he wasn’t a villain, he wasn’t! He was an asshole, but he wasn’t a villain! He wasn’t, he wasn’t…
A hand came to his face, slapping him a little. “Wake up, little canary. You’ve got some singing to do.”
A sharp pinch in his neck was immediately drowned out by the throb of pain in his body, his hands, punctuated by a cruel bark of laughter. Fingers grabbed his chin and tightened, and he groaned. He could just barely feel that sharp scent slowly seep into his lungs, relaxing his muscles despite his desire to stay alert. His whole body felt heavy, yet somehow he managed to drag open his eyelids fully.
“Hey.” Fingers snapped at him, his eyes sliding around a little before landing on Kenzo. “You with me, princess?”
“Y-y-yes…”
That voice… wasn’t one of the villains. It was hoarse and weak, and horribly familiar. Fuck, he hadn’t even realized he’d spoken until he’d heard his own voice. What the hell had they just given him?
“Do you know what’s just happened to you?” Kenzo asked.
“N-no.” Katsuki whimpered. Fuck, why he was he even talking? He didn’t want to be saying anything to these bastards, let alone the truth! Shut up, Katsuki, shut up.
Kenzo wore a cruel smile that made Katsuki’s blood run cold. “Since you refused to be a good boy and save everyone the trouble, I figured seventy-five milligrams of sodium pentathol would be enough to loosen those pretty lips of yours.”
Katsuki’s eyes widened in terror. Sodium pentathol had long been banned in Japan because of its potency. Back when it was first introduced, it used to just make you lose inhibitions and make it harder to lie. Now, after years of tampering on the black market, it made lying impossible.
Oh, god, no…
“Now, let’s get down to business, my little canary.” The cruel smile widened. “How does your quirk work?”
Katsuki felt words already filling his mouth and Katsuki’s mouth opened of its own accord.
“No… no! N-no….” Katsuki wailed desperately, feeling a fire building in his neck as the truth burned within, trying to escape. He felt it clawing at his vocal cords, only getting stronger with each passing second. He wanted to cover his mouth, wanted to scratch at his throat, but even the slightest movement he made just amplified the torrent of pain in his hands. “It- it’s the sweat on my hands!”
“How do you turn your sweat into explosions?”
Katsuki wailed, desperate to hold himself back. “Ahhh! No! N-no! I won’t, I won’t….”
“Stop fighting it, princess.” Kenzo smirked maliciously. “You and I both know you’re just making it harder on yourself. Just give in. Tell me how you make your sweat explosive”
Katsuki shook his head, clamping his mouth shut. He could feel the heat in his throat burn, like flames licking his lungs, spreading with each second, and he bit his tongue hard to stop himself from speaking. It felt as if his mind was trying to escape his body to free himself from the pain. The flames caught on the cotton thoughts on his head caused by that damn sharp scent, becoming an inferno in seconds. The world began to turn as white as snow as the flames destroyed him from the inside. Tears streamed down his cheeks, and Katsuki’s chest jerked hard as the words tried to escape his mouth. Another jerk jostled his hands, each needle throbbing where it was stabbed through flesh and muscle, and his mind short-circuited as a brutal scream ripped through his throat.
“My sweat works like nitroglycerin, you can ignite it!”
A soft, condescending hand patted his head. “Now that’s more like it, princess. Was that really so hard?”
Katsuki could just barely make out a soft, keening sound before a weak, broken voice whispered, “... yes.”
There was a cruel bark of laughter, and the hand pulled away. Something wet slid down his face as Katsuki’s eyes unfocused, only able to see the white snow somehow falling while indoors.
“Haruto, get a space heater. Seems we need to warm up our little canary.”
Katsuki felt the world begin to fade as loud sounds happened around him, and he lost track of everything that was happening. The fire in his chest had eased, but hadn’t quite left him yet, as if there were smoldering embers lying in wait for a match to strike. The whiteness around him was becoming painfully bright, scorching him, even as he shut his eyes to try and escape it. Ice began to permeate his core, a coldness he’d never felt before freezing the blood in his veins and making his body tremble with shivers.
To his utter terror, a black figure soon approached out of the brightness, steadily getting bigger. Katsuki’s breathing picked up as the figure got closer, and took shape. It seemed to shift between bodies, one moment Shigaraki was in front of him before he was replaced with Toga but then before he could blink she switched with Dabi, and Katsuki could swear he could smell the fire Dabi used. He could certainly feel it, could feel the sweat dripping down his skin, the scent of caramel filling the air, even though he’d never felt colder in his life. The fire in his lungs flickered ominously, as if knowing that Dabi could reignite it with barely a glance.
“Aw, the princess is crying again.” Dabi whispered, his voice sounding strange. Katsuki just barely noticed that Dabi’s mouth hadn’t actually moved as he spoke. “Think he’s still awake?”
He was crying? When had that happened? Katsuki never cried in front of anyone, especially not the villains he hated most, the villains he feared most. He… he knew he hadn’t cried the first time Dabi and the others had taken him… so why was it happening now? Why couldn’t he even feel it? Was Dabi lying to get under his skin? Katsuki could feel Dabi’s fire sliding through his chest and implanting itself into his throat, daring him to answer the question, but he did everything he could to keep himself silent. He wouldn’t give in, he wouldn’t give in.
“Honestly, fifty-fifty chance.” Katsuki jolted as Toga suddenly appeared beside Dabi. Her voice was calm, but this didn’t sound like her either. The voice was much deeper, without the trill and lilt she was known for. Were these some of Twice’s doubles of them? At least Toga answering seemed to cool the fire within him, though he wasn’t sure why or how. “Sodium pentathol’s still a barbiturate, like my quirk is, but I’m pretty sure he’s still awake. Why?”
Strangely enough, the world began to spin a bit, though Dabi and Toga remained unmoving as a whirlpool seemed to swallow them whole. Katsuki’s stomach lurched.
“I want an audience for this particular victory” Dabi said casually, still in that strange, not right voice. “Nothing like making a hero watch as you take what they tried so hard to protect.”
Toga just laughed, a deep laugh that didn’t match up to her usual giggling.
Katsuki felt like he was being blown around like a leaf on a cold, fall wind, and didn’t have the strength or weight to hold himself still. It was like he was becoming an icicle and melting at the same time. He could feel heat on his cheeks, on his arms, fighting against the cold deep in his core. Somehow, he could tell it was a losing battle, and Katsuki felt his footing on consciousness begin to slip.
Something grasped his chin tightly, even though Dabi still didn’t move. No… that couldn’t have been Dabi, he knew the exact feel of Dabi’s hand, he’d relived that memory dozens of times in his dreams, this wasn’t it. Dabi’s hands were calloused and overly warm, as if overflowing with decades of experience, but this hand was smoother, colder, almost mechanical. Then… who was touching him?
“Don’t pass out on me yet, boy.” Dabi said, a growl, possessive and smug, even though the man’s mouth still didn’t move. “I’m not done with you.”
Katsuki felt like he was falling through space, the voices around him fading into suffocating silence. He could distantly feel someone shaking him, but his consciousness descended into darkness too quickly to even feel the pain that came with it.
(line break)
“Yeah, he’s out. He’s not waking up for a while.”
“That’s a shame. I really wanted him to see this.”
…
PWFNKHSHOOOOVJKNMM!
(line break)
“I’ll kill him! You take one step closer, and I swear to god, I’ll kill him.” Something cold and sharp pressed against his throat, the scream at top volume just barely bringing Katsuki back to consciousness. Katsuki could feel the echoes of sharp cotton threads still clawing at his mind, wanting to drag him back down into blissful darkness, but their strength had faded so much, they weren’t strong enough. He felt like he was drifting aimlessly in an ocean of pain, without even the strength to swim. Idly, he wondered if he could drown.
“You kill him, I kill you.” Wait, he recognized that voice. It took a lot more effort than he’d have wanted, but Katsuki managed to drag open his leaded eyelids. Fuck, he’d never been so glad to see IcyHot in his life.
“Oh, please.” The coldness pressed a little deeper into his throat, and Katsuki whimpered as a sharp prick sent a tiny drop of warm stickiness down his neck. “Heroes don’t kill. I’m calling that bluff, kid, it won’t work.”
Todoroki glared fiercely at the man, slightly cocking his head to the side, in a gesture that Katsuki thought he recognized as sizing the man up. The last time he’d seen that look, it had taken Todoroki about five seconds to find the weakness in the robots they had used as target practice. It was comforting, a small sense of normalcy in the haze of agony he existed in now.
“You’ve kidnapped my friend and now you’re threatening to kill him. I don’t know if you know this, but we heroes don’t tend to take that well.” Distantly, Katsuki thought that sometimes Todoroki could be as snarky as him. He could’ve been proud if his thoughts didn’t live and die by agony.
“Don’t think I don’t know that you have morals and lines you don’t cross.” The man sneered his words, as if having morals was a character flaw.
“You wanna bet?” Todoroki growled, taking a step forward.
“Get back! I’ll fucking kill him!” Katsuki choked off a breathless gasp as the knife sliced a little deeper, feeling a soft trickle of blood beginning to run down his throat.
Unfortunately, it had the villain’s desired effect, because Todoroki took a step back, and Katsuki could’ve sworn saw a flash of fear in Todoroki’s eyes.
“If you kill him, I swear there won’t be a corner on this earth that you can run to where I won’t find you.” Todoroki growled, fierce and protective, and it made something small and scared blossom warmly in his chest. “So save us both the effort and surrender!”
“I think I’m the one who has the leverage here, pretty boy.” The villain snarled, sounding like prey backed into a corner. Katsuki knew that sound well. “His life is in my hands, not yours.”
“You don’t want to know how far I’d go to protect him.” Todoroki hissed, his voice low, deadly even.
“Aw, is he your little boyfriend, pretty boy?” The villain said, mockery practically dripping from his words. “Have you told him you love him yet? Now might be your last chance.”
“I won’t tell you again.” Todoroki said firmly. “Let him go!”
“No can do.” The villain replied angrily.
Katsuki saw the movement before it happened. He’d been watching intently at the sports festival, making sure that he’d see his opponents move, so he could predict them before they happened. Todoroki’s feet shifted ever so slightly, directing the flow of his body to line up perfectly with the villain, his muscles tensing as the flow of ice slowly began to move through Todoroki’s body. While Katsuki couldn’t quite feel the drop in temperature, he could sense it.
Within seconds, a burst of ice shot through Todoroki’s leg, utterly encapsulating the villain and lifting him all the way up to the ceiling. Katsuki took a deep breath as the knife pulled away from his throat, his relief relaxing him a little, though the sudden influx of more oxygen made him dizzy. Once the villain was restrained, Todoroki then immediately came to him. Soft hands, softer than expected, came to his chin and tenderly tilted his head back, exposing his throat.
“I’m going to get you out of here.” Todoroki said, his voice determined and steely. Katsuki didn’t know if he’d ever believed anyone’s words so strongly before.
“Okayyy… dats good.” Katsuki slurred out, his voice weak and raspy. This time, Katsuki was sure he saw fear in Todoroki’s eyes.
Todoroki reached into one of the pouches on his belt, pulled out a small field dressing, and used his ice to cut it to size. He then slowly, with a featherlight touch, covered the small wound on Katsuki’s throat. Thankfully the villain hadn’t cut him very deep, probably because he didn’t want to lose whatever leverage he had over Katsuki, but Katsuki was at least a little grateful for the silver lining. Though, Todoroki’s fingers were so nimble and gentle that he barely even felt it until he felt the adhesive sticking to his skin.
Katsuki’s eyes had drifted to the lights dancing on the swirling ceiling, but they were brought back to Shouto as Katsuki heard a sharp inhale of frightened breath.
“Your hands… Bakugou, your hands.”
Katsuki had never heard Todoroki sound like that before. Raw and scared and horrified. Todoroki’s hands were over his own, trembling with hesitancy, as if wanting to touch but unable to. Finally, they settled on the cold table next to him.
The thunderstruck expression on Todoroki’s face made his stomach lurch again, but this time in fear.
“I have to take them out.”
“N-no…” Katsuki whimpered, unable to keep the terror out of his voice. “Pl-please.”
“Bakugou, these things… they’re pinning you to the table.” Todoroki said, with a hitch in his voice Bakugou hadn’t heard since… since Kamino. “They’re stabbed all the way through the metal. I have to take them out.”
“‘Roki, please, it h-hurts.” Katsuki’s voice cracked. “Don’t.”
Katsuki heard the familiar crackle of Todoroki’s ice, but he couldn’t see where it was. His breathing picked up, his eyes solely on Todoroki’s face as he silently pleaded with him not to do this. Todoroki looked away from him, unable to keep looking at him, only encasing Katsuki’s right forearm in ice, and then quickly doing his left, rendering him unable to move. Todoroki then guided his ice around the throwing needles in his right hand, encasing them and linking them together. Katsuki’s heart was beating so loud he was sure Todoroki could hear it.
“Please don’t do this.” Katsuki begged, sounding like a child afraid of the dark.
“I’m sorry.” Todoroki said, with glassy eyes and a tight voice. A few tears ran down Todoroki’s face that Katsuki didn’t understand . “This is for your own good. I’m so sorry, Katsuki.”
A long, singular note of agony covered up the sound of metal sliding through flesh, the decimated nerves and muscles that had long gone numb coming alive with a fire burning hotter than the sun. Katsuki thrashed, trying desperately to escape, his back arching so high that he seemed to almost float away from the table before crashing back down like a comet crashing to earth. His eyelids fluttered as Todoroki quickly vanished, barely even able to see the blue blur of Todoroki’s uniform move from his right side to his left, linking the other two needles with ice once more.
No, wait, please he wasn’t ready… wait please… he wasn’t ready, he can’t handle it, he can’t--
A second explosion of agony erupted from his left hand, rising quickly in intensity to match his right. He felt each and every nerve as if they were flayed down to the quick, almost wishing he could tear his own arm off, knowing it would be less painful than this. He wanted to beg for mercy, wanted to plead with whatever and whoever to stop, but his voice only offered a choked keen of agony that stuttered to a halt. Black spots danced across his vision as he distantly heard the sound of ice breaking, whispers of apologies and contrition bleeding into each other to become a sort of word soup, and Katsuki drifted.
Trembling fingers moved his hands to his lap, and strong arms slid underneath his shoulders and knees. His head hit something soft yet firm, something that took his weight from him and let him float. He could feel the wind caress his skin as he flew without wings, whispering soft promises of the future. Katsuki wanted to smile, but found he couldn’t even open his eyes anymore.
Sounds he couldn’t understand became louder, like a jackhammer pounding away at his skull. A soft whimpering sound was lost to him, a spasm sending him further into the softness that smelled strangely of sandalwood. It was a comforting scent, so much better than the sharpness of the cotton that infected his mind, gently laying him down upon the riverbank rather than dragging him down deep into the bottoms of the ocean. Darkness once again followed, but the river promised to keep him safe, and he believed it, sinking easily into it and the comfort it provided.
(line break)
“It’s gonna be okay, Katsuki, you’re gonna be okay.”
…
“Oh my god, his hands, his hands!”
…
“Hang on, kid. You’re gonna be okay, just hold on a little bit longer. I know you can do it, prove me right one more time, kid. Just one more time.”
…
“We won’t be able to tell the true extent of the damage until he wakes up.”
…
“Bakugou-san, can you hear me? ... Bakugou-san, wiggle your fingers.”
“Bakugou? Kid? Bakugou, wiggle your fingers.”
“Maybe he’s just not awake enough yet.”
“Bakugou-san, please, wiggle your fingers.”
“Come on, dammit, wiggle! Please, kid, wiggle, I know you can do it!”
…
“Oh thank god.”
(line break)
As much as the new scars disturbed him, Katsuki couldn’t stop looking at his hands. He couldn’t remember much of what happened to him after he’d first been knocked out at the bank, but his hands showed every moment, every ounce of pain and torture he’d gone through regardless. The doctor at the hospital had given him instructions on how to minimize the scarring, but they wouldn’t fade overnight, and he still couldn’t stop staring.
Katsuki had first counted nine on each hand at the hospital when he’d first woken up, and every other time he’d counted afterwards, and now was no different. There were still nine different scars across his hands in every kind of lighting, in every part of the day, no matter where he went. Each scar was unique in its own way, and yet mimicked the others perfectly. He sighed, and laid back down on his bed, hoping that his racing mind could finally calm down. He wanted to thread his hands together and put them behind his head, but they were still too sensitive for that, so he settled for just staring up at the ceiling. It felt good to be back at the dorms, away from everyone else, but still able to hear them. A laugh here and there, pieces of conversations, echoes of voices that had once grated on his every nerve and now only soothed him. He was finally home again, after far, far too long.
The hospital had been a fucking nightmare, with constant unknown sounds emanating from seemingly everywhere, medication that dulled his senses and slurred his speech, and far too many people around him for him to be even the slightest bit relaxed. Seeing his parents hadn’t helped at all either, as both of them looked so guilty that they could barely look him in the eyes. Even his mother had been subdued and quiet, her eyes red-rimmed and puffy, making his stomach twist with discomfort and sorrow. He’d never wanted his dream to be the number one hero to cause such pain to his parents. They had their issues of course, particularly considering how much he and his mother butted heads, but he still loved them, and he knew they loved him. And even though he’d told them flat out this hadn’t been their fault, he had a sinking feeling that they hadn’t really taken that to heart. Especially since his father had promised him that they’d never ask him to do another favor for them until after he graduated, and while Katsuki had known it was supposed to be a tease, the crack in his father’s voice made it sound way too real. He’d let them hug him for far longer than he usually did when they dropped him back off at school, but he wasn’t sure it really did anything to make them feel better.
A knock startled him out of his reverie.
“Hey, Bakubro?” Kirishima. “You in there?”
“No shit, dumbass, where the fuck else would I be?”
Kirishima laughed self-deprecatingly, and even though Katsuki couldn’t see it, he knew the redhead was rubbing the back of his neck with a slight blush. Kirishima was a good friend, and also ridiculously predictable.
“We wanted to know if you wanted to come down to the common room to play some Street Fighter? Or maybe some Mario Kart?”
Immediately Katsuki knew that it wasn’t just Kirishima asking. The others in the Bakusquad, and perhaps more, just thought that Kirishima asking alone would have a better chance of getting Katsuki to come down.
Eh, might as well. He did always enjoy wiping the floor with his friends, and seeing them pout when they lose. Sitting with friends, playing video games, stealing each other’s snacks… that was his favorite kind of normalcy that he let himself indulge in.
Swinging his legs over the bed, he gasped softly as his hands ached as he used them to push himself up. He almost changed his mind, as he hadn’t answered yet, his hands beginning to shake. He slowly flexed them, feeling each muscle as it moved, watching as the new scars contract and expand with his movement. A pang of nausea hit his stomach, feeling just how different his hands were now. He’d never been scared to use his hands before, his hands were his quirk, his life, but now… a small, scared part of him was telling him that he shouldn’t use his hands for anything but what was necessary, that he shouldn’t waste his hands on stupid video games. He swallowed hard, his breathing picking up a bit.
His pocket pinged loudly, and his hands hesitated over it. He forced out a (barely) calming breath, and pulled out his phone, trying to use his hands as little as possible.
Discount Pikachu: pls come play kacchan wee saved u player 1 :D [gamecontroller.jpg]
Katsuki huffed out a small laugh. Kaminari was just as stupid over text as he was in person.
He walked over to the door and opened it. “Pikachu promised me player one, and if one of you bitches about it, I’m going to throw the controller at your heads.”
Kirishima smiled brightly, and then excitedly dragged him to the elevator, even though Katsuki was clearly capable of walking.
“Don’t worry, no one’s gonna complain, we promise! It’s just a friendly game, Bakubro, nothing big or anything! And if you don’t wanna play, or y-your hands hurt, you can just watch! No stress, dude!”
Ah, there it was. That tiny hesitation in Kirishima’s voice that always followed an injury. Kirishima always tried to walk that fine line between hovering too much and wanting to help Katsuki. It was almost endearing, if also a little annoying.
But despite himself, Kirishima’s incessant chattering and warm hands made Katsuki’s breath come a little easier. He told that little voice in his head that this was necessary, that the happiness he’d feel having fun with his friends outweighed any anxiety he might have, warranted or not. He refused to be held back by fear, refused to give it any space in his life. He was Bakugou fucking Katsuki, and while his life might never be normal, he wouldn’t trade it for the world.
“I’m gonna stomp your fucking faces into the dirt, Shitty Hair. None of you stand a chance against me!”
Kirishima gave him a wide, glowing smile, and Katsuki found himself smiling back.
Ahh, there's nothing better than putting the blorbo in situations. Requests are still open! I5 is taken but everything else is still open! If there's any situation you wanna put Bakugou in, send me an ask! Anon asks are open too!
Avalanche and Terror
The thunderstorm had caught them all off guard, going from a light sprinkle to a downpour in less than an hour. While he, Uraraka, and Kirishima had become very uncomfortable as they’d gotten soaked, Izuku had been very worried about his boyfriends. Kacchan had always been weak to water and cold, and being soaked meant Shouto’s fire would go out as soon as he brought it to life. But it was the lightning hitting the mountain that had Izuku panicking.
https://archiveofourown.org/works/63770404
At first, he’d been excited to train in the mountains, because he loved seeing Kacchan show off his skills, loved how it made his boyfriend light up and make his chest puff out with pride. Kacchan was especially proud of his mountaineering skills, as he was an expert rock climber, and Izuku had been so ready to learn everything he could. Izuku hadn’t been able to go to the mountains much with his mom, they’d never been able to afford things like skis or climbing gear, but he’d never really felt that absence of knowledge until now.
The thunderstorm had caught them all off guard, going from a light sprinkle to a downpour in less than an hour. While he, Uraraka, and Kirishima had become very uncomfortable as they’d gotten soaked, Izuku had been very worried about his boyfriends. Kacchan had always been weak to water and cold, and being soaked meant Shouto’s fire would go out as soon as he brought it to life. But it was the lightning hitting the mountain that had Izuku panicking. It felt like within moments, the entire mountain was destroyed, leaving only an avalanche and terror in its place.
Shouto had just barely managed to get an ice shield up before getting hit in the head and knocked unconscious. Izuku hadn’t even thought twice before throwing himself over Shouto’s limp body, and soon felt another weight on top of him, Kacchan shielding both of them as best as he could. Izuku was sure he had screamed, but he couldn’t be sure, all sound was lost under the deafening sound of the avalanche. It felt like three eternities had passed as the mud and debris kept falling around them, but just as suddenly as it started, the avalanche stopped.
Izuku needed a moment to breathe and recenter himself, his ears still ringing from the ear-shattering noise and the shakes that made Izuku tremble, but Kacchan was already up and moving, triaging the situation within moments. Izuku adored how even though Kacchan was quick to anger at, well, everyone, Kacchan’s need to protect the people he cared about had him standing even when others couldn’t.
“Zuzu, make sure Shouki’s okay.”
It took a moment to register through the cacophony of echoed sounds in his ears that Kacchan was talking softly to him but he then nodded, and his fingers went to Shouto’s throat. He checked Shouto’s pulse and breathing, and while the head wound was definitely a problem, right now Shouto didn’t seem to be dying. Izuku breathed a sigh of relief, but his heart still ached with worry. He just hoped that Aizawa-sensei found them soon.
“Deku, you and Pink Cheeks stay under the ice, and don’t move unless you absolutely have to.” Kacchan said, his voice firm and commanding. “Shitty Hair, you’re coming with me. We’re going to find shelter.”
Izuku had wanted to take Kacchan’s hand, to come with him, to stop him from leaving Izuku’s sight, but he held himself back. Shouto needed him here, and Kacchan had chosen Kirishima for a reason. Kirishima would protect Kacchan with everything he had, and he trusted his friend.
Kacchan cast one last glance at Izuku before he headed off, walking with that familiar sway of confidence in his hips. Izuku knew that confidence was well-placed, and that he trusted Kacchan not to take unnecessary risks when lives were in the balance, especially his and Shouto’s. Kacchan loved them too much to let recklessness blind him and let them come to harm. So as much as it hurt to watch his boyfriend walk away, he forced himself to stay still and focused on their next step, treating Shouto’s wound as best as he could.
There wasn’t much he could do for Shouto, as he was still unconscious, but he and Uraraka were able to get him completely under the shield, and bandage his head. Izuku used the rainwater to help clean the blood from Shouto’s face, but otherwise, there wasn’t anything else to do. Izuku sighed heavily, his heart twisting painfully in worry for both of his boyfriends.
“It’ll be okay, Deku.” Uraraka said, and while he knew she was trying to comfort him, when he was away from Kacchan in a situation like this, he could never feel comfort. “Bakugou’s, like, a super great mountain climber, right? He knows what to do.”
“I know, and I trust Kacchan to be safe.” Izuku said, softly stroking Shouto’s cheek. “I just… don’t trust this mountain.”
Uraraka put a hand on his shoulder and forced a smile. He tried to return it, but he didn’t think he managed it.
The more time he spent waiting for Kacchan to return, the more Izuku’s mind tortured him with images of Kacchan’s body, bloody and broken, trapped under rubble or struck by lightning or eaten by some mountain predator. Everyone praised him for his ability to see a situation from all angles, but he’d never hated his ability to see everything more. He wished his mind would just stop for a moment, to let him think clearly without constantly going back to how easily death could take Kacchan, and Shouto too.
Though it might have been a bit uncomfortable for Shouto, he couldn’t stop himself from keeping two fingers on Shouto’s throat, making sure his pulse stayed strong. Since Shouto’s heartbeat and breathing seemed strong, Izuku was pretty sure that Shouto had just been knocked out, but still, he kept his fingers pressed against Shouto’s throat, just in case.
As they waited for Kacchan and Kirishima to get back, the rain just seemed to get worse. It felt like rather the clouds up above them, there were endless pitchers just pouring all their water out over the earth. Izuku, Uraraka, and Shouto were mostly safe from the water under Shouto’s ice shield, but Izuku knew that Kacchan wouldn’t be. His heart ached with worry, knowing that the rain would effectively stop Kacchan’s quirk from working. The water would wash away his sweat before Kacchan could even ignite it. He just hoped that Kacchan wouldn’t have to use his quirk to save himself, or that Kirishima could protect him.
Finally, after what felt like ages, Izuku finally saw two figures begin to approach them. To his utter relief, Kacchan and Kirishima seemed to be unharmed, but he could see their arms crossed and pressed against their chest, and that their teeth were chattering. Izuku’s heart squeezed painfully.
“Th-There’s a c-cave a little while s-southwest of us.” Kacchan said, his chattering teeth evident in his voice. “We c-can stay there and k-keep dry until Aizawa f-finds us. We w-won’t be able to d-do much else, but it’ll a-at least k-keep us d-dry.”
Izuku nodded, and together with Uraraka, he was able to lift Shouto up with her quirk, doing their absolute best to keep Shouto’s neck from moving, just in case he did have a spinal injury. The cave Kacchan found was small, but Izuku didn’t really care. Any port in a storm and all that, or rather any cave in a storm.
Shouto still hadn’t woken up even when they placed him back on the ground, and Kacchan immediately looked him over. Izuku knew that Kacchan trusted him with their Shouto, he just wanted to check Shouto for himself. Having been away from him for so long while searching for shelter must have been driving Kacchan crazy.
“S-Seems to just be a b-bad head wound.” Kacchan muttered to himself, his teeth still chattering. “He sh-should be okay f-for now.”
“Kacchan, you’re freezing.” Izuku murmured, grasping Kacchan’s shoulder, noticing that his clothes were soaked through and stuck to his skin.
“I’ll be alright, Zuzu.” Kacchan said dismissively, though Izuku knew he wasn’t trying to dismiss Izuku’s worry, just downplay what he was feeling. Kacchan always did that, always forced himself past his limits to get stronger. Izuku had always admired him for it, but it also drove him crazy sometimes.
“We should get a fire going.” Uraraka said, voicing what they were all thinking. “It’s freezing in here.”
“Wouldn’t be much of a fire.” Kacchan replied, and Izuku could tell he was deliberately trying to keep his chattering teeth out of his sentences. “All that wood is absolutely soaked, it wouldn’t burn well. It’ll just clog the cave up with smoke.”
Izuku’s shoulders slumped, as that had been the only thing that he could think of that would warm his Kacchan up. Kacchan had always been weak to water and cold, his quirk relying on him to remain hot and dry, and not being able to build a fire meant that Kacchan was only going to get weaker. Sensing Izuku’s worry, Kacchan threw him a soft glance, trying to reassure him. If Kacchan’s teeth weren’t chattering and he wasn’t shivering so hard, Izuku might have been a little soothed. He wished he had some sort of blanket to wrap his boyfriends up in.
Kacchan sighed unhappily. “We need to get out of our wet clothes and wring them out as best we can. The best thing to do would be to stay out of them, but without a fire, we shouldn’t take the risk of fully stripping down unless we have to. Pink Cheeks, do you know if your costume is cotton?”
Uraraka blushed but stammered out a no. Kacchan then walked to her and examined the fabric. Having known Auntie Mitsuki and Uncle Masaru as long as he did, it didn’t surprise Izuku that Kacchan could tell the difference between fabrics even when they were fully soaked.
“It’s not cotton, so you should put your costume back on once you wring it out.” Kacchan said confidently. “You should go first, you’re the smallest.”
Uraraka blushed even deeper, and Kacchan, Kirishima, and Izuku immediately turned around, trying to give her what privacy they could. Izuku tried his best to ignore the sounds of Uraraka undressing and wringing out her clothes, the sound of the water splattering to the cave floor even louder than the storm currently pouring down outside.
“Okay, I’m done.” Uraraka said, and Izuku could still hear her blush. At least her shivering seemed to be a little reduced.
Kacchan then inspected Kirishima’s uniform, and determined that his also wasn’t cotton, so all three of them began to undress. Kacchan hadn’t needed to expect his, as once he’d seen the homemade costume his mom had made him, he’d immediately started making comments and suggestions (read: commands) about how to improve Izuku’s costume. Not allowing it to be made of cotton was one of his main demands as apparently ‘cotton kills’.
Getting out of his freezing cold uniform into the freezing cold air wasn’t great, but he forced himself to do it. Once his suit was wrung out, getting back into it seemed a little worse at first, but it got better the longer his skin adjusted.
Kacchan then strode over to Shouto, and wobbled a bit as he knelt down, sending a jolt of fear down Izuku’s spine. But Kacchan didn’t let it deter him, and he checked over Shouto. He sighed a little in relief.
“Shouto’s quirk is still somewhat active, his body is regulating his temperature. His left side has already begun to dry, so we shouldn’t undress him until we have something to brace his neck or if his quirk doesn’t fully achieve homeostasis.”
Izuku nodded, grateful that Shouto’s quirk was still able to protect him even as he remained unconscious. It was a small silver lining in this dark storm of uncertainty.
Kacchan stood up, and swayed dangerously, and Izuku immediately reached out and grabbed him, holding him tight. To Izuku’s horror, he realized that Kacchan hadn’t been trying to keep the stutter of chattering teeth out of his voice, Kacchan had stopped shivering.
Immediately, Izuku pressed the back of his hand to Kacchan’s forehead, and he could feel how cold Kacchan’s skin was. Kacchan leaned into the touch, as if Izuku was warm to him, even though Izuku could feel how cold he was.
Suddenly, Kacchan’s knees gave out and Izuku struggled to take all of Kacchan’s weight, his original grip not good enough to take all of his boyfriend’s weight.
“Bakugou!”
“Dude, what’s wrong?”
Uraraka and Kirishima both immediately rushed to help as Kacchan went limp in Izuku’s arms. Izuku gasped softly as he realized that Kacchan must have been pushing himself through his weakness without letting himself breathe. As soon as Izuku, Shouto, and their friends were in somewhat safer conditions, the relief must have been the chink in Kacchan’s armor that allowed his body to finally give out after holding together for far too long.
“I think Kacchan has hypothermia, we need to get his body heat up.”
Together, they maneuvered Kacchan down, his eyelids fluttering like he was trying to desperately maintain consciousness. Izuku sat down on the ground, pressing his body against Shouto’s right side and manhandling Kacchan’s slack body on top of him. Izuku held Kacchan close to his chest, cradling his head as he sensed Kacchan’s consciousness slipping.
“What do we do now?” Uraraka asked. “If we can’t make a fire, how are we supposed to get him warm? Kirishima, you’ve gone on hikes with him, right? Has he told you anything?”
“No, stuff like this never came up.” Kirishima said. “Whenever he’d talk to me about hypothermia, it was always to get the person to shelter, get them out of wet clothes, and make a fire. I don’t think anyone ever thinks of what to do if you can’t make a fire.”
“Maybe we should put him on Shouto’s left side?” Uraraka said, though Izuku could hear how even she wasn’t fully sure of this plan. “Maybe since his quirk is fire, he can keep Bakugou warmer.”
Izuku shook his head. “No, if Shouto has a neck or back injury, Kacchan’s weight could make it worse. Or even if he has bruised ribs, the pressure could make them crack and puncture a lung.”
Uraraka’s shoulders slumped in frustration. “Well, we need to do something!”
“Bakubro told me the best way to heat someone up without a fire who has hypothermia is body heat.” Kirishima said confidently, trying to take charge of this tense situation, having been defaulted to their expert. Izuku was so glad that Kirishima shared Kacchan’s love of the outdoors, even if Izuku and Shouto didn’t. “I think me and Midoriya need to sandwich him between us.”
“Should we keep our clothes on?” Izuku asked. “I mean, mine are kinda drying off, but they’re still wet.”
“Body heat is best when it’s skin to skin.” Kirishima said with a frown. “We can use our jackets and stuff as blankets, but he needs skin to skin most right now. Otherwise, the wet clothes will make him freeze faster.”
That alone had Izuku shifting around so he could take off his shirt no matter how cold it was outside. Kirishima took off his jacket and handed it to Uraraka before they adjusted Kacchan so he was laying chest to chest with Izuku. Kirishima then laid down on Kacchan’s back. It was uncomfortable and a lot of weight pressed on him, but Izuku didn’t let it affect him. Now when Kacchan needed him and Kirishima so badly.
“What should I do?” Uraraka asked as she laid Kirishima’s jack over his shoulders as a makeshift blanket. “I feel kinda useless just sitting here.”
“Uraraka, you should check on Todoroki.” Kirishima muttered, his face pressed into Kacchan’s hair. “Keep checking his breathing and heart and stuff.”
Uraraka nodded, obviously glad to have a job rather than just sitting on her hands. Izuku understood her helplessness, feeling just as useless himself. All he could do was just sit, and hope that his body was warm enough to keep Kacchan alive.
The silence was thick around him, and felt suffocating, but Izuku didn’t know what to say. He knew he was known for his muttering, but Kacchan wasn’t able to silence him with a kiss, Shouto wasn’t able to breathlessly giggle at how easily Kacchan could distract Izuku, and he just had no words to say. He just spent his time holding his Kacchan while keeping himself pressed up against Shouto. He wanted to be trying his best to keep both of them alive, but there was nothing else to be done, and Izuku felt like crying. He made sure not to though, as that would only make him colder, and if he got colder, Kacchan might get colder, and Kacchan couldn’t take much more.
“Zuzu…” Kacchan slurred, scaring the hell out of Izuku. Kacchan never called him Zuzu when anyone but Shouto could hear. He always said it was a name reserved just for Izuku’s ears, and then Shouto’s when he’d become their third. “Zuzu I’m too… hot, I’m so hot.”
“Shh, it’s alright, Kacchan.” Izuku whispered, running his fingers through Kacchan’s hair. “You have hypothermia, you need more heat.”
Kacchan whimpered softly, his eyes hazy and half-lidded. “N-no… too hot Zuzu, so hot.”
Izuku sniffled loudly as he tried to keep himself from crying.
“Take it easy, bro.” Kirishima whispered, pressing his body a little harder against Kacchan. “You just have to be hot for a little while longer. We just need to wait for Aizawa-sensei to find us, okay?”
It surprised Izuku that Kirishima was acting as if it was hot, but he supposed Kacchan needed to preserve his energy rather than convince them he was actually hot.
“But it’s so hot…” Kacchan mewled, still slurring his words.
“I know, Kacchan, but it’s gonna be okay.” Izuku said. “You trust me right? You just have to be hot for a little while longer. Aizawa-sensei is sure to find us soon.”
Izuku’s heart shattered into pieces that even when Kacchan was barely cognizant of the world around him, slipping into unconsciousness, he still would always make sure that Izuku knew that Kacchan loved him.
“I love you too, Kacchan.”
They fell back into an uncomfortable silence. It was so cold, Izuku could feel it in his bones. His eyelids were getting heavier as the silence smothered him, though he made sure to keep his arms wrapped tight around Kacchan, never wanting to let him go.
“-riya! Midoriya, wake up!”
Izuku snapped awake, startled that he’d even been falling asleep. Kirishima’s face was taut with worry.
“M-Midoriya, you can’t fall asleep.” Kirishima said, his voice taking on a desperate edge. “T-Trust me, I’m tired too, but we n-need you to stay awake.”
“S-sorry, Kirishima.” Midoriya murmured, his teeth chattering harshly, he could hear it over the sound of the thunderstorm still drowning the mountain in rain.
“Uraraka, you too.” Kirishima said, and Izuku turned to their friend. Uraraka was slumped against the cave wall, and Izuku reached out with a trembling hand to shake her. Thankfully, she seemed to snap out of it when he touched her.
“I’m awake, I’m awake!”
“Uraraka, I th-think you need to g-get over here.” Izuku said. He hated to leave Shouto without someone watching over him, but he knew if Uraraka stayed, she would freeze to the cave wall and never wake up.
Showing just how cold she was, Uraraka nodded and crawled over to them. Kirishima raised his arm slightly and Uraraka shuffled close to him, curling her shivering body into his.
Distantly, Izuku wondered why the thunderstorm hadn’t shifted into snow yet, it was so cold. He thought it might be below zero with how cold they all were. As much as he tried to keep himself awake, Izuku found it harder and harder to stay awake, feeling his consciousness slip from him, and trying to get it back was like trying to grab moonlight.
“No, no, Midoriya, wake up! Wake up!” He could hear a panicked voice shouting at him, but he couldn’t fight the cold anymore, and he sank into darkness.
(line break)
The first thing that Izuku noticed as he came back to consciousness was that he was warm.
A soft groan slipped past his lips, and blinking his eyes open revealing very bright lights above him. He frowned and winced, the bright lights assaulting him until his eyes adjusted.
Looking down, he saw himself swathed in blankets, with hot packs all over his arms and legs. Oh, they must have been found. That was good.
Wait… they’d been lost? Trying to sift through his memories was difficult, the warmth in his blood mixing with the cold emptiness of his head, but after a moment, he remembered the thunderstorm and finding the cave. It had been so cold, so cold he couldn’t even think, but Kacchan’s expertise had gotten them through, just as it always did.
Kacchan. Where was Kacchan? Izuku woke up a little more, and he turned to the side, needing to find his boyfriend, both boyfriends. That’s right, Shouto had been hurt too. Oh god, his heart couldn’t take this, he didn’t know how his mother managed to even let him out of the house sometimes.
To Izuku’s eternal relief, Shouto stood off to the side, talking with Aizawa-sensei who looked like he hadn’t slept in a month. Bandages were wrapped around Shouto’s head, but he was standing, he was talking, and that’s all Izuku needed to know. Shouto must have sensed Izuku’s eyes on him, both Kacchan and Shouto could always tell when people were staring at them (mainly him) and immediately, Shouto ran over to Izuku, taking his hand that was apparently wrapped up in a warm mitten.
“Ichan, how are you feeling?” Shouto’s voice was frightened and worried.
“I’m better now, especially seeing you.” Izuku said, trying to smile and reassure his boyfriend.
Shouto slumped a little in relief, though it was barely perceptible. Only he or Kacchan would’ve been able to tell.
“I’m so glad.” Shouto whispered, squeezing Izuku’s hand. “I’ve been so worried about you two.”
“Where’s Kacchan, Shouchan?” Izuku asked, needing to complete their little circle.
Shouto pointed to the other side, and Izuku turned and looked. Kacchan still looked really pale, wrapped up in even more blankets, with hot packs covering basically his entire body, and a nasal cannula was pumping oxygen into his system. There were bags under Kacchan’s closed eyes, and his spiky hair seemed limp and exhausted. Izuku’s heart clenched.
“Is he gonna be okay?” Izuku asked, the heart monitor beeping loudly.
“He’ll be fine, Ichan.” Shouto said, brushing through Izuku’s curls gently. “He hasn’t woken up yet, but Aizwa-sensei told me he’ll be okay. The doctors have had a little trouble warming him up, but he didn’t get frostbite and they can treat the hypothermia. It’s just taking a little longer because his body is weak to cold.”
Izuku sighed in relief, feeling like the weight of the world was lifted off his shoulders. “Thank goodness.”
Shouto gave him a tiny smile.
“What about you?” Izuku asked, cupping Shouto’s cheek with his mitten.
“I’m fine.” Shouto said, putting his hand over Izuku’s. “My quirk helps protect me from things like hypothermia, so I wasn’t as affected. Just got the bump on my head and Recovery Girl made quick work of it. The bandages are just a precaution.”
“And Kirishima and Uraraka? They’re okay too?”
Shouto nodded, smiling softly. “They’re okay, Ichan. Kirishima told me that Katsuki was able to get you guys to safety before he collapsed, so everyone’s okay.”
“You know, he’s gonna be impossible to live with when he wakes up.” Izuku chuckled.
“I know.” Shouto giggled breathlessly. “I’m already expecting several lectures on proper mountain safety in the next few weeks.”
Izuku smiled, relieved, and he suddenly became aware of the intense exhaustion still deep in his bones. Sometimes, it was obvious how he and Kacchan were two sides of the same coin.
“Sleep, Ichan.” Shouto murmured softly, kissing his forehead. “We’ll still be here when you wake up.”
Izuku shifted slightly, and quickly fell back to sleep, content that his little family was safe and warm, and would still be when he woke up.
My first ever bad things happen bingo fic! I'm so excited! I hope you all like it, I was so excited I cranked this out in like one day!
This is for Zorro (1957) let me give you a quick guide.
Don Diego de la Vega - Zorro, the main character of the show. He's convinced the rest of Los Angeles that he's a dandy, completely inept with a sword in order to keep people from discovering he's Zorro.
Bernardo - Diego's manservant, and best friend. He's mute, and communicates solely in gestures.
Tornado - Zorro's horse, who's incredibly smart.
https://archiveofourown.org/works/63258037
Tornado was shouting.
Wait, Tornado is a horse. He can’t shout. But Diego could still hear the anger, the fear in Tornado’s voice, or neigh he supposed. Whichever. Ugh, his head hurt. He could feel something hard pressed against it, but he couldn’t quite figure out what it was. Oh, Tornado was still shouting, or the horse equivalent anyway. He was pretty sure that that wasn’t a good thing.
He rolled over as he felt himself returning to consciousness, his hand coming to his head as he felt it throbbing. Suddenly, he remembered what he’d been doing, how he’d ended up laying in the dirt with his head against a hard thing. The messenger… he’d accused Sergeant Garcia of stealing the soldiers pay, and the soldiers were going to execute him for it on orders of the Magistrado. But the messengers story had had holes in it, and his last desperate chance to save his friend was to bring the man back to the cuartel and force him to tell the truth. So he forced himself up, trying to ignore the pain in his head as he got to his hands and knees. It took more energy than it should’ve, though Diego wasn’t quite sure why.
Tornado had forced the man against a rock, but the man was swinging at him with a large branch, with no regard to Tornado’s safety. He shouldn’t do that, Diego thought distantly, Tornado was such a good horse. Diego adored him, and besides Bernardo, Tornado was his best friend. He’d been with him the entire time he’d been Zorro, and he’d been as loyal as any horse in the land.
Oh hey, the man was still swinging the branch at Tornado. That wasn’t good. He didn’t want Tornado to get hurt. Tornado was shouting and bucking, as if dueling the messenger as well as a horse could duel a man. Wait… no, he wasn’t dueling, Tornado wasn’t actually getting close enough to trample the messenger, even though Diego knew he was able to. Tornado would get out of the way of the man’s strikes, but he never relinquished his position. Tornado was keeping the messenger on the defensive, was keeping him in place, away from Diego. Diego gasped softly as he realized that Tornado was protecting him. Right, the hard thing pressed against his head. A quick glance showed a rock and he suddenly remembered falling down the hill, and then a sharp pain had turned his vision to black. Hitting the rock at such speed must have knocked him out, and Tornado was protecting him from the messenger who had wanted to take advantage of his inability to defend himself. Tornado truly was a great horse, and so smart too.
Focus, Diego. Tornado needed him, Sergeant Garcia needed him. Zorro would never let an innocent man be killed for something he didn’t do, and he needed to act. He forced himself to stand, swaying a little as he drew his sword. Black spots danced across his vision, but he managed to remain upright somehow. His determination to save his friends kept him going, pushing through any pain he might feel. He could rest later, once he’d saved Sergeant Garcia and returned the money to the soldiers.
A simple touch to Tornado’s back had his horse calming slightly, and Tornado turned to nuzzle him gently. He knew Tornado could sense something was wrong, and Diego was pretty sure he agreed, but he couldn’t let it affect him yet. Zorro was an ideal, a hero, and heroes couldn’t allow themselves to be hurt when others depended on him.
Holding his sword to the messenger’s chest had him telling the whole story, how he’d been told he could keep the soldier’s pay if he’d pretended that Sergeant Garcia robbed him. He’d dressed himself in bandages to hide his nonexistent wounds, and that he’d been given an eagle’s feather to deliver to Monterey by the Magistrado. It seemed this man of ‘law and order’ was just as corrupt as the new Commandante was. But that didn’t matter right now. Now, Diego needed to get back to the pueblo so he could save his friend.
Fetching the man’s horse while riding Tornado made his head spin dangerously, but Tornado kept him steady, making him even more grateful for his friend. Riding back with the messenger behind him made his head even worse, but he refused to let that stop him, knowing Sergeant Garcia’s life was on the line. Diego rode as fast as he could while making sure the messenger was still behind him, praying desperately that his bout of unconsciousness hadn’t doomed his friend to death.
To his eternal relief, he’d been able to return to the cuartel just in time to save Sergeant Garcia’s life. Diego was very relieved to see his friend unharmed, even if it was hard to focus on him as he stood, most of his energy going into keeping himself steady. Though, he couldn’t help teasing his friend before he tossed the gold in Sergeant Garcia’s direction, just barely able to get it in his hand. Diego then escaped off the roof, trusting that the soldiers wouldn’t go after him today. He heard the soldiers rushing to apprehend the messenger, climbing the roof of the cuartel, but a quick glance told him that the soldiers weren’t interested in him today. He smirked softly, grateful that his trust had been well placed. Though he’d jumped onto Tornado’s back several times and was an expert at it, he nearly fell off as his vision doubled as he looked down upon Tornado, his head spinning as the ground moved and shook in his eyes. But he’d landed in the saddle, if just barely, most likely through muscle memory alone. He urged Tornado home, relieved that his work was done for the day. He’d never wanted to get to bed so badly in his life.
This time, Tornado rode slower, steadier to keep him from bouncing so much in the saddle, and Diego could sense the worry emanating from his friend. Diego softly stroked Tornado’s neck, doing what he could to reassure the horse, though he was grateful for Tornado’s intelligence, his ability to sense Diego’s emotions and react accordingly. He was definitely getting some extra carrots when he got back.
Diego groaned softly, his hand coming to his face, closing his eyes as his stomach rolled at the thought of food, even if it wasn’t for him. Tornado slowed down, then stopped, neighing loudly. Diego gasped at the sound, feeling as if his skull had pierced by a small dagger. He shushed Tornado, just whispering to him to go home. Tornado neighed again in apprehension, but he continued on at a slower pace than before.
Taking stock of himself, Diego found that the throb in his head was even stronger than before, his vision spun and blurred, and he could hear a ringing in his ears that he hadn’t heard before. Diego brought his other hand to his face, clutching himself tightly as if that would help ground him. He wasn’t sure what was going on, but he could easily figure out that it was nothing good. Pain, especially at this level, never meant anything good.
Tornado stopped again, but Diego didn’t react for a moment, unsure to why Tornado had stopped. It wasn’t until a hand came to his thigh that he pulled his hands away, and realized that he was home. He looked down to see Bernardo looking up at him. Bernardo took one of his hands and squeezed, his expression painted with worry. Diego smiled softly, yet he could feel his smile showing his exhaustion. Diego went to dismount, but he wobbled and Bernardo clutched him tight, helping him off of Tornado. Bernardo held him to steady him as he swayed, worry shifting to fright. Diego then forced himself to stand on his own to reassure his friend.
“I’m alright, Bernardo.” Diego said, his voice taking on a slight slur that hadn’t been there before. “The messenger and I fought, and we rolled down a hill. I hit my head on a rock, knocked me out, but I’m alright. I saved Sergeant Garcia’s life, that’s all that matters.”
To his surprise, Bernardo shook his head. He pointed at Diego, and then himself before pointing at his heart. It seemed Diego’s health mattered to Bernardo just as much as helping people did. Diego just smiled again, grateful for his friend’s support. Bernardo had always been so loyal to him, he thought no one could ever be such a great friend before.
Suddenly, Bernardo shook him, and Diego groaned, looking at his friend in confusion. “What did you do that for?”
Bernardo bit his lip in fear, and pointed at him. He mimed talking, and then he paused. And kept pausing, his face staying in position before he pretended to shake himself.
“I… hadn’t spoken in a bit?” Diego asked, unsure of what these movements meant.
Bernardo shook his head, but then nodded and waved his head in a maybe gesture, telling Diego that he hadn’t got it quite right.
“I hadn’t moved in a bit?”
Bernardo then nodded, cupping Diego’s cheek softly. Oh, Diego must have just stared for a moment while he was thinking. That was odd, Diego didn’t usually do that.
“It seems I got a little more hurt than I thought I did.” Diego chuckled self-deprecatingly.
Bernardo nodded. He then pointed at Diego, and brought his hands to his cheeks, closing his eyes.
“Ah, yes, I agree, I am very tired.” Diego nodded, before he felt Bernardo’s arms at his sides once again as he swayed. Okay, nodding wasn’t a good idea anymore. “Y-yes. You’re right, my friend. I need rest.”
Bernardo then wrapped Diego’s arm over his shoulder, and began to walk with him up to his room. Diego’s legs didn’t work as well as he wanted them to, and he kept stepping oddly, with his feet sliding in front of the other or not lifting high enough to keep it from catching. The tunnel began to skew sideways as he walked, his head spinning dangerously as Bernardo dragged him to his room.
Diego lurched forward to open the door, but Bernardo held him back. Bernardo took off his hat and bandana, and Diego realized he was still in his Zorro disguise. Oh. Whoops. He’d almost just walked into his room where anyone could see that he was Zorro. He felt a surge of gratitude for Bernardo, who kept him together even when he was falling apart.
Bernardo gently let go of Diego, but quickly snatched him back when Diego’s knees nearly gave out. Bernardo frowned, looking around for something to help, before gesturing to Diego for him to sit on the table.
Diego went to nod before remembering that was a bad idea. “I understand.”
Bernardo helped him onto the table, and he laid back against the wall. Soft, deft hands pulled his boots off, as his hands came to his mask. He pulled it off, but he had a hard time opening his eyes again after doing so, his hands hovering uselessly in the air. Bernardo then took his hands and slowly lowered them with a soft smile. Diego hated depending on Bernardo so much when it came to simple things like dressing, but it seemed he had no choice right now. He made a soft, if slightly annoyed noise of affirmation, but Bernardo knew Diego well enough to know that the annoyance wasn’t directed at him, but at Diego himself. He wasn’t spoiled like other kids who he met at university, others that came from wealth as he did, but couldn’t do basic tasks themselves. He was perfectly capable of dressing himself, he didn’t need his friend to do it for him just because he was lazy.
Bernardo shot him a look as he took off Diego’s belt, as if scolding him gently, saying without words that if Diego needed help, Bernardo would help him.
“I know, I know.” Diego slurred as Bernardo helped him take off his shirt. “I just don’t like it. I don’t like making more work for you.”
Bernardo smiled at him, shaking his head softly in fond exasperation, and cupped his cheek for a moment. Diego knew that look well, he got it every time he got ill. It said Diego wasn’t making more work for Bernardo, and that Bernardo was happy to help Diego in whatever way he could. If anything, Bernardo had proved that time and time again as he helped Diego fight as Zorro, be that riding for him or covering for him.
“That doesn’t mean I have to like it, my friend.” Diego murmured softly.
Once Bernardo got him undressed, he hung up the clothes in their usual place, and then they walked into Diego’s room. Bernardo helped him to his bed, and Diego just laid back against his pillows. Bernardo held up his dressing gown, but Diego made a noise of refusal. Getting undressed, even with help, had been far too exhausting and he was far too tired to try dressing again. Bernardo frowned at him, cupping his cheek again.
“I’ll be alright, Bernardo. I just need to sleep this off. I’ll be fine by tomorrow.”
Bernardo gave him an unimpressed look.
“Fine. Two days? Three?”
Bernardo just raised his eyebrow. It was incredible how the man could be so sarcastic while also being completely mute.
Diego sighed. “Next week?”
Bernardo smiled and patted his hand, satisfied with that answer. He then pointed at Diego, and brought his hands to his cheek again. Diego chuckled softly, his eyes becoming heavier as each moment passed.
“Alright, alright, my friend. I shall sleep. Just make sure you come up with a good excuse if my father comes by. I don’t want to be yelled at for being a lazy klutz as well as a dandy.”
Bernardo laughed silently and nodded.
With that, Diego closed his eyes and kept them closed this time. He was asleep before he even noticed Bernardo pulling his duvet to his shoulders and dimming the lights in his room.
I made a BTHB card for the first time! So please, request away! I write for BNHA (usually Bakugou Katsuki), and I also do Zorro fics. If you have any other ideas of what you want, just send me an ask and we'll see what I got!
Please interact, I really want to do requests for you all!
I made a BTHB card for the first time! So please, request away! I write for BNHA (usually Bakugou Katsuki), and I also do Zorro fics. If you have any other ideas of what you want, just send me an ask and we'll see what I got!
Please interact, I really want to do requests for you all!
I made a BTHB card for the first time! So please, request away! I write for BNHA (usually Bakugou Katsuki), and I also do Zorro fics. If you have any other ideas of what you want, just send me an ask and we'll see what I got!
Please interact, I really want to do requests for you all!
According to AO3, it was 29,008. I wonder if I should cut those eight words to make them even lol
Your favorite character to write this year?
Ooh that's difficult. I love all my characters, they're so fun and wonderful to play with and hurt. Bakugou is always my best boy, but Diego from Zorro was a fun new boy to play with.
Favorite work you wrote this year?
My Zorro fic, Like I Could Pull Away The Mask, And There Would be the Face of My Son, Diego. It was so much fun exploring new characters I've never written for, and I even had to stop watching the show so I could pause and write that fic. I'm very proud of it.
According to AO3, it was 29,008. I wonder if I should cut those eight words to make them even lol
Which work of yours have you reread the most?
My Zorro fic, Like I Could Pull Aside The Mask, And There Would be the Face of My Son, Diego. Or maybe my my hero fic, When the Past Comes Calling, I Can't Breathe. I'm really proud of those, and they're very self-indulgent to what tropes I like to read.
Favorite line/passage you wrote this year?
"Again, Alejandro was reminded of Diego, of a time when Diego had been about twelve years old, still young but trying so hard to be a man like his father. Diego had climbed a tree to impress the young Rosarita Cortez, but he’d been more concerned about showing off to the girl he was infatuated with than caution, and he’d slipped and fallen out of the tree. He’d landed hard on his left wrist, and Alejandro had immediately taken him to the doctor in town. As Diego had clung to him in the saddle, he’d made the same exact sound, whispering that it hurts. He’d been trying very hard not to cry, but constantly being jostled around in the saddle had overwhelmed the small boy. But Alejandro had promised his young son that admitting he was in pain was a strength, and not a weakness. Diego then started sobbing into his father’s shirt as Alejandro rode to the doctor, and he comforted his young son as best as he could. If he remembered correctly, Diego still had the scar on his left wrist from the break, even though he’d fully healed years ago. But now was not the time to reminisce about his son. He needed to think about the man in front of him now."
I reread that bit all the time. I'm not entirely sure why, but I really enjoy it. Another one I adore is:
"
Suppressed memories started to break through to his mind’s eye, flashing across his eyes and devastating them with his power. The sight of his shaking hands in the shower as he scrubbed his body raw trying to get rid of the feeling of sludge all over his body, his stomach rolling as he still felt disgusting no matter how hard he scrubbed. The panic that had been caused by the attack, the fires that had started, the way his quirk had turned from a defensive measure into an uncontrollable weapon for the villain. Coughing as much as he was breathing, feeling the villain’s sludge go down his throat, only being allowed to breathe on the villain’s terms. His friends staring in terror at the monstrosity swirling around him, his arm still outstretched as he silently begged for their help. Watching in horror as the people he thought were friends turned around and ran away from him, abandoning him to be at the villain’s mercy, letting his body get swallowed by the darkness he couldn’t escape on his own.
Katsuki crashed to his knees, his soapy hands still clawing at his throat, his heart beating so hard it must be cracking his ribs. Up until that point, Katsuki had never felt so close to death, and now it felt like he was right back there, his body trembling and weakening from the inescapable power of the memories that seemed to be slowly killing him."
Like I Could Pull Aside the Mask, and There Would be the Face of My Son, Diego
Soooooo I know this Zorro fandom is literally so dead, as the show's been over for literally over sixty years 😅 but I was watching the show for the first time since I adore Zorro, and as I went, I got an idea for this, annnnd then this happened. Whumptober let me finish this so it counts haha. If y'all don't mind reading fanfics for fandoms you're not familiar with, I'd be really excited if you could try this one. I'll give you a guide so you can follow the story.
Don Diego de la Vega - Zorro, the main character of the show. He's convinced the rest of Los Angeles that he's a dandy, completely inept with a sword in order to keep people from discovering he's Zorro.
Don Alejandro de la Vega - Diego's loving father, who doesn't know who Zorro is under the mask.
Bernardo - Diego's manservant, and best friend. He's mute, and also pretends to be deaf so he can help Diego with being Zorro.
Tornado - Zorro's horse, who's incredibly smart.
Sergeant Garcia - A soldier of the King of Spain, who's not the brightest, who's charged with arresting Zorro while also "secretly" thinking he's a hero
Corporal Reyes - Another soldier, who's probably slightly autistic lol who takes everything Sergeant Garcia says way too literally, and is as dumb as a box of rocks.
The Eagle - The main villain of the second half of the first season.
Juan Ramos - A guy I made up for the sole purpose of hurting Diego.
pueblo - What Los Angeles was before it really became a city. When they say pueblo, they basically mean the whole city.
hacienda - Alejandro's house, he's a rancher, Diego lives there with his father after returning from university in Spain.
cuartel - basically the police force/police station
Okay, now that we've got that out of the way, let's get down to the actual story.
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the
Organization for Transformative Works
Adrenaline really could be a powerful drug sometimes, Diego thought vaguely. It was why he never drank too much wine when he was drinking, he never liked his senses being dulled. But sometimes, as Zorro, he would get so caught up in the simple act of not getting killed, that his world narrowed to just what he was doing. Facing multiple enemies at once will do that to a person, even the most accomplished swordsman. And while the idea of Zorro could never be destroyed, that didn’t mean that Diego de la Vega wasn’t still just a mortal man.
The Eagle’s men were often very well-trained in swordplay, some even rivaled Diego himself, and this one was no different. Juan Ramon had been sent to smuggle a supply of weapons from Mexico to the Eagle’s men waiting in the outskirts of Los Angeles. As soon as he’d figured out the Eagle’s plan, Diego donned his mask and Zorro rode, and he intercepted the wagon full of the concealed weapons, redirecting it to Sergeant Garcia to prevent any of the Eagle’s men from getting their hands on it. The shipment of weapons had been stopped, but Ramon decided to ride with Sergeant Garcia to capture Zorro, citing the reward. It had been all too easy to evade the Sergeant, as it usually was, but Ramon wasn’t so easily misled, continuing to race after him as he rode on Tornado.
Tornado was the fastest horse in the pueblo, but it seemed nothing would stop Ramon from capturing Zorro. Ramon’s sword slashed at his back, slicing through some of his cape. So he’d turned Tornado around to fight the man honorably, though it seemed the man had none, and their swords began to clash in the darkness. Ramon was a fierce swordsman, a true challenger to Diego’s skills. Being Zorro for so long, he’d gotten very used to fighting in the dark, so he could parry Ramon’s strikes, though fighting on horseback was quite difficult. He didn’t just have to protect himself but he had to protect Tornado. He had no doubt that this man would strike Tornado just to get to him. As his blood thundered through his veins, his heart pounding in his chest, Diego felt the world narrowing to this fight, keeping himself and Tornado alive.
Luck it seemed was on his side though, and he could hear the rattle of a snake in between the crashes of their swords. Ramon’s horse bucked into the air, causing Ramon’s last thrust to veer off course as Ramon was thrown from his horse. Diego could sense that Tornado hadn’t seen the snake yet, though his good friend clearly heard it, and he used his new advantage to ride away before Ramon could get back on his horse to chase after him.
But something strange began to happen as he rode to the hacienda. His vision began to blur a little around the edges as his heart couldn’t slow down. Diego could tell that something was wrong, but he couldn’t tell what, this had never happened to him before. He tried to ignore it, hoping if he just made it home, he could deal with it then, but black spots began to dance across his vision as he rode. After checking that no one was following him, he had Tornado slow down, thinking that would ease his heart into something calmer. Again, it didn’t. Black spots still began to dance across his vision, actually if anything they got worse. At this point, Diego knew that something was terribly wrong, but he wasn’t sure what. He began to slump a little in his saddle, and he became aware of a distant throbbing in his right side. He urged Tornado home, never more grateful that Tornado was the smartest horse in the state, as he was losing the ability to guide Tornado himself.
The throbbing in his side was beginning to get stronger, turning sharper and fouler with a kind of pain he’d never felt before, and he felt himself getting weaker and weaker far too quickly. Diego’s hands then came to his right side, trying to ascertain what was causing his unusual and unpleasant feelings. He ran his fingers up the right side of his shirt, and found part of it to be wet for some reason. He didn’t understand, his sharp, witty mind moving unusually slow, and he looked down at himself.
Wearing all black often let him move around in the pueblo in complete secrecy, moving as one with the shadows. But something he’d never thought of before was that being dressed in black would prevent him from seeing things like blood when they started to stain through his shirt. It wasn’t until he noticed that his shirt was ripped that he even saw the wound. It seemed Ramon’s last strike had found its mark.
All at once, when he finally registered he was wounded, the pain slammed into him like a horse kicking him in the chest. He doubled over, crying out as his hand covered the wound, and his breath left him like he’d been punched in the stomach. His mind went a little dizzy at seeing his flesh sliced open, and he leaned on Tornado to keep himself upright.
“Tornado, take, ahh, take me home.” Diego murmured, his eyes having trouble staying open. But he trusted Tornado, as he was the smartest horse Diego had ever met, and he knew his friend would get him home.
Darkness started to pull at him a little as Tornado trotted along carefully, as if sensing his master was wounded. Pull it together, he thought to himself, the hacienda wasn’t far. He just had to make it back home, and then Bernardo would be able to get him a doctor. He was sure Bernardo would be able to make some excuse of why Diego had been stabbed that didn’t involve Zorro. Probably in a way that made his father disappointed in him again.
Diego’s thoughts began to stray as the pain became unbearable, his body lurching with every step Tornado took. He wasn’t sure why he was thinking of his father, and the disappointed look he always had in his eyes whenever Diego backed down from a fight. Maybe because he’d just fought proudly and honorably for the people he and his father wanted to protect, but his father would never know it. He preferred it that way of course, because he never wanted his father to get caught up in his adventures of Zorro, as he risked his life often and losing his father would absolutely destroy him. But that didn’t make disappointing him any easier.
Thoughts of his father drifted as his body got weaker, as his mind lost the ability to think beyond the pain. He was slumping further and further in the saddle, his body now laying against Tornado’s neck, as he was unable to sit up anymore. His blinks got longer, heavier, his eyes feeling like lead, and he was losing the strength to keep them open.
“Torn’ado, get… get ‘ernardo. Get help…” Diego whimpered, the pain overwhelming him to the point where he could barely speak anymore. The adrenaline that had kept him going this entire time was fading, and he was losing what little strength he had.
But Diego couldn’t see his horse’s answer, as his eyes slipped closed and stayed closed. His body went limp, and he slowly slid out of the saddle. He collapsed onto the ground with a soft groan. He felt Tornado nuzzle his face, heard the fright in his friend’s neighs, but he couldn’t respond beyond a low moan. Tornado tried to get him up once more, but Diego still lay unmoving on his side. With the little bit of strength he had left, Diego tried to reach out to Tornado, unsure of what he was even reaching for, but desperate to try and not give into this darkness. Even though Zorro was a fearless hero, Diego was still just a man, and he was scared he was going to die here in the dirt, away from anyone he loved. His hand trembled as he fought as hard as he could, putting all of his remaining strength into trying to move, but his hand went slack as the little strength he had waned, and he collapsed into darkness.
Originally, Alejandro had wanted Diego to ride with him this morning since he thought that getting some fresh air would do his bookworm son some good, but when he knocked, Diego hadn’t answered. He assumed his son must still be asleep, having stayed up late due to his books and poems, no doubt. Thinking that he’d just see his son at breakfast, Alejandro decided to ride across his hacienda alone.
Riding across the hacienda every morning had become a part of his routine when he’d sent Diego off to Spain to finish his education. He’d missed his son terribly, so he’d taken to riding in the morning to clear his head to start the day. Diego had always loved riding when he was younger, so Alejandro rode in the mornings to make him feel close to his son while he was gone. And even though Diego had returned from Spain, Alejandro still missed the young boy he’d sent to college. Diego had been such a rambunctious youth, always getting into trouble, always swinging his sword at every problem in an effort to imitate his father. He wasn’t sure what had changed in his son during university, but something had. So Alejandro still rode every morning to clear his head, to let him focus on the day ahead of him, and to think about his son. He’d tried to understand, tried to get Diego to tell him what had happened to him, but Diego had suddenly become very evasive over his true feelings, and he wouldn’t speak to his father the way he used to. Whatever it was that had happened, he hoped that Diego would tell him eventually. He wanted his son to trust him, regardless of what path he walked in life.
A horse’s neigh started him out of his thoughts, and he was stunned to see Zorro’s black horse riding up to him. He’d only seen the horse a few times when he’d run into the outlaw, but it seemed that Zorro owned the only black horse in the entire pueblo, and everyone would recognize the horse on sight. But something was wrong, as an experienced ranchero like him would immediately spot the tell-tale signs in the horse. The horse came up to Alejandro without fear, and bucked a little. Alejandro could tell the horse knew something was wrong, but he couldn’t tell what.
“Where is your master, horse?” Alejandro murmured, very confused as to why he was seeing Zorro’s horse without seeing Zorro. The horse still had his complete saddle on so Zorro must have been with him last night. Then the horse then nipped at his arm, gently grasping Alejandro’s jacket and pulling. The kind of control Zorro’s horse had of nipping at him without hurting him was incredible, and Alejandro wondered how Zorro had been able to train his horse so well. The horse nipped at him again, clearly trying to communicate through their language barrier, and he could tell the horse clearly thought whatever it was it was urgent.
“You want me to follow you, is that it?” Alejandro asked, and even though he hadn’t been expecting an answer, it seemed the horse was smarter than Alejandro thought and immediately took off. The horse turned a little, looking at him, and Alejandro nudged his own horse on, following Zorro’s horse.
When the horse realized that Alejandro was indeed following him, Zorro’s horse took off like a shot. Alejandro had to ride quickly to keep up, and the faster the horse ran, the more worried he became. Dread churned in his gut the more distance they covered, and Alejandro wondered what he would find when they finally reached their destination. Animals were often much smarter than most people thought, especially the ones who didn’t spend their lives raising them and training them. But Alejandro was an expert in horses, and he knew that Zorro’s horse wouldn’t have left his master without a good reason.
His eyes went wide when he finally saw what the horse had been leading him to. Zorro was lying on the ground, facedown, in a pool of blood, and he didn’t seem to be moving. Alejandro couldn’t even tell if the man was even breathing. Even though Zorro was a bandit, an outlaw, Alejandro respected him immensely for always riding for justice. He hadn’t forgotten how Zorro had saved him from Comandante Monastario, and how he owed Zorro his life. So Alejandro acted immediately, dismounting the moment he saw the still form of the hero, and he rushed to the man’s side. His hands hovered over Zorro for a moment, but then Alejandro grabbed the man’s shoulder and rolled him over, instantly leaning down to the man’s chest to check his heart. Alejandro could hear the soft thump-thump of Zorro’s heart, though he thought it sounded a little too fast, but the important thing was that the man was alive, and that meant that Alejandro could help him.
Even though Alejandro was getting up in years, he was still able to slide his arms underneath Zorro’s back and knees and he was able to lift the man into the air. He whistled his horse down, and with his horse kneeling, he was able to finagle the unconscious man onto his saddle and get behind him. Zorro was a little taller than he was, just about Diego’s height, so his head lolled onto Alejandro’s shoulder as they began to ride away. Alejandro had one hand on his horse’s reins and the other over Zorro’s chest, holding the unconscious man in the saddle as he whistled for his horse to take them back to the hacienda. Even though Alejandro hadn’t said anything, Zorro’s horse trailed after them, still upset and as frantic as a horse could get, easily matching his horse’s strides. Zorro truly had a magnificent horse, he’d never seen a horse so loyal before.
As they rode home, Alejandro wondered how long Zorro had been lying unconscious on the ground before his horse found Alejandro, how long his horse had clearly sought help. Zorro rocked back and forth limply in Alejandro’s arms as they rode, and Alejandro’s grip got tighter as they approached the hacienda. Even though he was being bounced around a little on Alejandro’s horse, Zorro still hadn’t woken up, and a pit of dread was starting to form in Alejandro’s stomach. With Zorro’s head on his shoulder, he could feel the man’s shallow breathing, and he prayed that he had gotten to the heroic outlaw in time to save the man’s life.
The hacienda was quiet as Alejandro approached, which was usual, as his vaqueros were already out taking care of the cattle and horses, and the servants were most likely still preparing breakfast. Alejandro rode into his hacienda, and he opened his mouth to call Diego down so he could help, but he thought better of it. He didn’t want to put any of his servants or employees in any danger by associating with someone who helped Zorro, even if they loved Zorro. But thankfully, Diego’s manservant exited Diego’s room, probably having just woken Diego for breakfast. Bernardo saw them almost immediately, and he ran down the stairs, coming right up to Alejandro and Zorro. Alejandro dismounted his horse, and Bernardo helped him ease Zorro’s limp body down from his horse and together, they wrapped his arms around their shoulders.
Unfortunately, Zorro’s horse had followed them into the hacienda, still very attached to his master, and Alejandro tried to gently shoo the horse away.
“Go on, horse.” Alejandro waved the horse away with the hand not currently holding the still unconscious Zorro. “We’ve got him, you’ve got to get out of here. It’s dangerous, you must go.”
The horse just neighed and bucked in response, obviously not wanting to leave Zorro’s side. But in order to keep Zorro safe, it had to be a complete secret that he was here, and this horse was far too recognizable. Bernardo turned to him and gestured for him to take all of Zorro’s weight. Alejandro was confused, but Diego trusted this man, and he trusted Diego’s judgment. So he held the limp Zorro in his arms as Bernardo approached Zorro’s horse. Strangely enough, the horse actually reacted to the deaf-mute. When the man put his hand on the horse’s chest, the horse calmed a little. Bernardo then pointed for the horse to leave, and miraculously, Zorro’s horse actually trotted away, obviously returning to where he lived with Zorro. Alejandro stared at Bernardo for a moment, completely bewildered by the man’s actions, but Bernardo then took Zorro’s other arm from him and wrapped it around his shoulders. Alejandro knew he could be confused as to why Zorro’s horse had reacted to a man he’d never met later, right now, they had to get Zorro into the hacienda where no one would stumble upon him.
“We need to find shelter for him.” Alejandro said, and then cursed himself as the man stared at him a little. Right, he couldn’t hear. Lord, he didn’t know how Diego communicated so well with the man. Bernardo then pointed to Diego’s room, and Alejandro nodded. Diego would have no issues giving up his bed for Zorro. He knew that Diego always spoke about how Zorro was a criminal, but he knew the twinkle in his son’s eyes when he was teasing, even if others didn’t.
So Alejandro and Bernardo carried Zorro’s unconscious body up the stairs, and maneuvered him into Diego’s room. Surprisingly, his son wasn’t there as he’d expected Diego to be. He wanted to ask where Diego was, but Bernardo couldn’t hear so that would have to be a question for later. Maybe his son had already gone down for an early breakfast.
Carefully, Alejandro and Bernardo laid Zorro down on Diego’s still made bed. Alejandro removed Zorro’s hat and torn cape, and Bernardo removed Zorro’s shoes and gloves. Then Alejandro gently pulled at the fabric stuck to Zorro’s skin, and hissed at the sight in sympathy. There was a roughly three inch gash in the man’s right side, dried blood mixing in with the dirt Alejandro had found him in. When Bernardo saw the gash, his face was extremely expressive in his worry. Bernardo placed his hand on Zorro’s forehead, and Zorro’s cheeks. He looked at Alejandro, clearly frightened and Alejandro gently touched the man’s skin around the wound. Dammit. It was already warm with fever. Alejandro cursed under his breath.
“Okay. We have to clean the wound, and no one can know he’s here.” Alejandro said slowly, trying to use gestures to explain what he was saying. Thankfully, the man seemed to understand, and he nodded. Alenajdro then gestured to the room, and the books that Diego loved so much. “Where’s Diego?”
Bernardo struggled a little, his gestures not making any sense. Alejandro sighed, wondering how Diego dealt with this all the time. At least his bookworm son had learned patience in Spain. Bernardo then shrugged, and Alejandro sighed. “I have no idea what you’re saying.”
Well, he could worry about where Diego had disappeared to later. Zorro needed him now. He trusted his son, Diego would be alright without his father and his manservant for a little while. His son was perfectly capable of taking care of himself.
“Go get some water and several soft cloths.” Alejandro said, and tried to mime that to Bernardo. Even though Alejandro was not used to communicating only with his hands, Bernardo nodded quickly, and slipped out of the room. Having been deaf his whole life, he was probably very used to understanding gestures.
Even though Alejandro only knew cattle and horses, and wasn’t a doctor himself, he’d seen enough injuries over the course of his life that he had a fair idea of what to do. He had to clean the wound, stitch Zorro back up, and let him rest for at least a few days so he could recover from the blood loss and fever. He hoped that that was all Zorro needed, as Alejandro wouldn’t risk bringing a doctor to the hacienda unless it was at the uttermost end of need. The less people who knew of this secret the better.
Bernardo was rather quick in his return, carrying a large basin of water with several soft washcloths. Alejandro cleared a space on Diego’s nightstand for the man to set everything down. Alejandro then tried to gesture for Bernardo to lock Diego’s door, and he nodded quickly. At least now no one would be able to come in unannounced. Diego would understand why he was locked out of his own room once he came home.
When the man returned to Diego’s bed, worry still written clearly on his face, he pointed at Zorro, and then pretended to undress himself. Alejandro nodded resolutely. “You’re right, let’s get his shirt off.”
Bernardo then came around to the other side of Diego’s bed, and carefully, they eased Zorro’s body into somewhat of a sitting position. Alejandro ripped the already torn sash around Zorro’s waist and removed his gloves, and Bernardo supported Zorro’s unconscious body as Alejandro began to slowly try to remove Zorro’s shirt. The man moaned softly in pain as he did so, and while it hurt Alejandro’s heart, he was almost glad for it. The heroic outlaw wasn’t too far gone if he was still able to make noises. Bernardo helped Alejandro wrangle Zorro’s limp arms out of his shirt before they managed to pull it off his head. The pull of the fabric pulled a little at Zorro’s mask and bandana, and when that happened, Alejandro saw Zorro’s eyes open a little. He must have trained himself to recognize anything trying to unmask him, even when he was barely conscious.
“No… n-no…” Zorro whimpered, his trembling hand trying to come to his mask.
“Shh, it’s alright, Zorro. You’re safe here.” Alejandro took Zorro’s hand and squeezed gently. Zorro weakly tried to pull away, his hand trying to come back to his mask. Alejandro could see the fear in Zorro’s eyes, so he spoke with pure conviction, his only goal reassuring the outlaw. “I give you my word, Zorro. We will not unmask you. You’re safe here.”
Zorro stared at him with brown eyes that reminded him of Diego, and he must have seen Alejandro’s sincerity even though the haze of his fever, and he nodded a little, his head then falling limply down as his hand clutched Alejandro’s as tightly as he could. It frightened Alejandro with just how weak Zorro’s grip was.
“... hurts.” Zorro moaned, clearly insentient from the fever, as Alejandro doubted that the masked man would ever admit he was in pain if he were fully in control of his wits.
Again, Alejandro was reminded of Diego, of a time when Diego had been about twelve years old, still young but trying so hard to be a man like his father. Diego had climbed a tree to impress the young Rosarita Cortez, but he’d been more concerned about showing off to the girl he was infatuated with than caution, and he’d slipped and fallen out of the tree. He’d landed hard on his left wrist, and Alejandro had immediately taken him to the doctor in town. As Diego had clung to him in the saddle, he’d made the same exact sound, whispering that it hurts. He’d been trying very hard not to cry, but constantly being jostled around in the saddle had overwhelmed the small boy. But Alejandro had promised his young son that admitting he was in pain was a strength, and not a weakness. Diego then started sobbing into his father’s shirt as Alejandro rode to the doctor, and he comforted his young son as best as he could. If he remembered correctly, Diego still had the scar on his left wrist from the break, even though he’d fully healed years ago. But now was not the time to reminisce about his son. He needed to think about the man in front of him now.
Somehow, as if sensing Zorro’s distress, Bernardo then pulled down Zorro’s mask so it properly covered his face again. The restoration of his mask seemed to calm the outlaw, and his eyelids fluttered as he struggled to remain conscious. Alejandro wondered if he should let the man sleep again, as what he was about to do was going to be painful, but he also didn’t want the man slipping into unconsciousness again to the point where Zorro wouldn’t wake up again.
“Lay him back down.” Alejandro said, there was silence and stillness for a moment, and then he gestured for Bernardo to lay him back down. Gently, Bernardo laid Zorro back down, careful with his head, until Zorro was once again laying flat in Diego’s bed.
Alejandro then reached over, grabbed a small cloth, and dipped it into the water. The water was only slightly cool, and Alejandro hoped that this wouldn’t be too much of a shock to Zorro’s fevered skin. Bernardo then got his attention, and gestured for a cloth of his own. He mimed placing something on his eyes, and Alejandro nodded, understanding. He handed Bernardo the cloth he’d had and grabbed another one. Bernardo folded the damp cloth and then placed it over Zorro’s eyes, over his mask. Alejandro hoped that would help ease the heroic outlaw into knowing that his secret was safe with them.
Taking a deep breath, Alejandro then brought the cool cloth to Zorro’s right side, starting with the skin around the wound. Zorro whimpered in pain at the touch of the cool cloth, but Alejandro knew he couldn’t stop even if his actions were going to cause the man pain. He slowly began to wipe away the dried blood and dirt around Zorro’s wound, trying not to use too much pressure but also trying to make sure he washed off all of the dirt around the wound. As he worked, he saw Bernardo out of the corner of his eye, gently stroking Zorro’s cheek, most likely trying to do what little he could to comfort the suffering man.
Stroke after stroke, Alejandro used gentle pressure to wipe away the dried blood and dirt around the gash in Zorro’s side. He tried to ignore the soft noises of pain that slipped past the outlaw’s lips, knowing that even though this hurt, he needed to clean the wound so Zorro could heal. But each noise twisted his gut a little, even if his hands remained steady as he cleansed the man’s skin. For a reason Alejandro couldn’t figure out, Zorro’s noises of pain sounded almost exactly like Diego. Alejandro ignored it, thinking that it was just his paternal instincts responding to Zorro’s pain as Zorro had the same eyes as his son. Though, Zorro clearly had much more muscle than his scholarly son, training to fence as well to be as skilled as Zorro was would of course build up that muscle. He wished Diego had put that much devotion into his fencing skills rather than his books. He’d heard from around town of just how hopeless his son was with a sword, which he didn’t understand. Diego had been a fine swordsman when he’d left for Spain. Even if he didn’t fence the entire time he was there, he shouldn’t be so hopeless now.
Even though Alejandro couldn’t stop his thoughts from drifting to Diego, his hands moved just as they should. Slowly, carefully, he gently cleared away the dried blood and dirt away from Zorro’s right side. When he finished, he looked back up at Zorro. Bernardo was still softly stroking his cheek, and Alejandro saw droplets of water running down Zorro’s cheeks. Alejandro hoped that they were from the cool compress over his eyes, rather than the poor man being in so much pain that he was crying, though he knew it was probably the latter. Alejandro sighed. Unfortunately, it was only going to get worse.
“Bernardo, hold him down.” Alejandro said, trying to gesture to the deaf-mute. “This is going to be painful.”
He saw the fear on Bernardo’s face, as if he could hear the grimness in Alejandro’s tone, but most likely, he just understood what had to come next. Bernardo shifted a little, using his arm to pin Zorro’s shoulder’s to the bed. Using his other arm, Alejandro pinned Zorro’s waist to the bed, and he took another deep breath, trading the dirty cloth for a clean one.
Alejandro then brought the clean cloth to the wound itself. Zorro shrieked in pain as soon as Alejandro touched it, but Bernardo quickly covered Zorro’s mouth, trying to muffle the shrieks and groans of pain as Alejandro worked. The wound had stopped bleeding at some point during the night, but as soon as he began to try and wipe the dirt from the gash, it started bleeding sluggishly once again. Having been a ranchero all his life, Alejandro was very used to blood, human or cattle. But out of all the blood he’d seen in his life, this was the worst. This wasn’t some vaquero who’d been gored by a bull for getting too close to his mate, this wasn’t a man who’d accidentally cut himself as he was fixing the perimeter fence, this wasn’t a man who’d been kicked by a horse. This was a man who’d been intentionally injured because he fought for justice and cared about all people in the pueblo. Still, Alejandro had to do a job to keep the man alive, so he pushed away all thoughts of the cruelty of this wound.
With Bernardo muffling Zorro’s sounds as best as he could, Alejandro worked, trying to get all of the grime in the wound. He had to use a fair amount of his strength to keep Zorro pinned down, but he tried not to focus on that, on how much pain this was causing the man. He just did his best to work as quickly as he could without losing his caution and attention to detail. It felt like it took hours upon hours to make sure there was no more dirt in the wound, but just as he was finishing up, Zorro went completely limp in their arms. The poor man must have passed out from the pain. He wasn’t sure if that was a good thing, but at least the man wasn’t in agony anymore. Alejandro finished cleaning the wound as Zorro lay unconscious in Diego’s bed, and he sighed heavily when he thought that this would be as clean as he could get a wound like this.
Alejandro then stood up, taking the bloody rags, and threw them in Diego’s fireplace. When he turned back to the man, he saw silent tears running down Bernardo’s cheeks as he continued to stroke Zorro’s face. Even though the man couldn’t hear the horrid cries of excruciating pain he’d been trying to muffle, it seemed he could still tell just how much pain Zorro had been in, and tried to do what little he could to comfort the outlaw. Alejandro then placed his hand on Bernardo’s shoulder, surprising the man a little, but the deaf-mute just nodded at him. The man then started miming the act of sewing, and Alejandro motioned for him to continue. Bernardo then slipped off of Diego’s bed, and went to his desk. He ruffled around for a little bit before returning with some skin sewing thread, which confused Alejandro.
“Why does Diego have medical supplies in his desk?” Alejandro asked.
Bernardo must have understood the question even though he didn’t hear it, and he picked up one of Diego’s books, and pulled his hand back as if he’d been injured.
“He has sewing thread for the skin in case of a papercut?” Alejandro said incredulously, unable to believe that Diego would have something so extreme for something as insignificant as a papercut.
Again, Bernardo seemed to understand, probably going off of his facial expression, and he shook his head. He mimed getting another papercut, and Alejandro realized he’d gotten the wrong conclusion from his actions. Bernardo then mimed riding a horse, and Alejandro finally thought he understood. The man was just using a book to imitate the sensation of getting cut. He remembered how Diego had struggled to ride Princessa even though he was a fantastic rider, how sore he’d been after he’d slipped off of her. When he’d seen his son on the ground, he’d been afraid that Diego had been seriously hurt. Suddenly hitting the ground after being on a horse could cause any manner of injuries. Diego must have the thread because he knew just how dangerous it was to be thrown from a horse, and that sometimes the doctor couldn’t be reached immediately. If anything, his bookworm son had a good, logical head on his shoulders.
“I understand, come here.” Alejandro said, waving the man closer. Bernardo came to him, handing him the thread. He could see the hesitance in the deaf-mute’s face as Bernardo mimed sewing, clearly trying to ask a question.
“Yes, I can do this.” Alejandro nodded. He’d stitched up small wounds on cattle before, so he was confident that he could handle this. He then guided Bernardo’s hands to Zorro’s skin, lightly pressing the wound together. Zorro made another small sound of discomfort but he didn’t move, so Alejandro assumed the man was still unconscious, and Alejandro thought this was the best time to do this.
Alejandro threaded the needle, and with a fierce determination, he began to sew Zorro’s skin together. The process was arduously slow, and every time the needle pierced Zorro’s flesh, he let out another soft noise of pain, feeling the agony even as he slept. It broke Alejandro’s heart, but he didn’t let that affect him. Bernardo had turned away, unable to keep looking as Alejandro stitched the gash closed, and Alejandro didn’t blame him. Sometimes even the most experienced vaquero could be sick at the sight of an injury like this.
Puncture right, push through, puncture under the left, pull, switch sides, then repeat. The repetitive process of sewing Zorro’s skin back together was grueling, as the man had never stopped making those small noises of pain that reminded far too much of Diego. But eventually, after what felt like ten hours but was actually about ten minutes, and roughly twenty stitches later, Alejandro finished stitching the wound shut. Zorro’s skin kept twitching a little as his body adjusted to the stitches, but Alejandro knew that the man’s body would calm after a little while. Alejandro readjusted the cool compress over Zorro’s eyes, feeling Zorro’s warm forehead, but other than keeping Zorro safe and helping with his fever, Alejandro wasn’t sure what else he could do to help the outlaw.
As soon as Alejandro had finished stitching, Bernardo had let go, just staring sadly at Zorro. Alejandro grabbed Bernardo’s shoulder, trying to do what he could to comfort the man. Bernardo just looked at him. Bernardo then gestured to Zorro, and then mimed looking for something and then a question mark.
“I’m not sure,” Alejandro said, still speaking aloud even though the man couldn’t hear him. “I don’t know if the soldiers know he’s wounded, but I suppose it’s only a matter of time. So we must keep his presence here a complete secret.”
Alejandro tried to communicate his words in gestures, which was still a struggle, but Bernardo nodded, so he assumed he might have done something right. He then looked to Diego’s locked door, wondering where his son was. Diego wasn’t the type to go missing for such long periods of time. Alejandro noticed that Diego’s bed hadn’t seemed slept in, but he just assumed that Diego had gotten up during his father’s ride and Bernardo had just remade the bed. Of all the times to be off by himself reading his books or doing whatever it was that he was doing. His son truly had become a mystery since his return from Spain.
But now that the worst part was over, Alejandro was able to focus on other things again. Alejandro then got Bernardo’s attention.
He pointed at Zorro, and then tried to mime riding a horse, and then used his fingers trying to imitate how Zorro’s horse had listened to the deaf-mute. “How on earth did you get Zorro’s horse to obey you?”
Bernardo seemed to understand his question, and then he pointed at Zorro and also mimed riding a horse. He then mimed a lasso, and reached out and held an imaginary horse. Finally he mimed a spoof of one of the king’s soldiers.
“Ah, when Zorro’s horse had been captured by the soldiers, yes.” Alejandro murmured, speaking aloud instinctively. He nodded and then motioned for Bernardo to continue.
Bernardo pointed to himself and used his fingers to imitate walking and then the horse again.
“You were walking by where they were keeping the horse.”
Bernardo mimed the satirized version of a soldier again. Then he mimed a whip, and Alejandro gasped lightly.
“One of the soldiers was whipping Zorro’s horse?” Alejandro asked. “How dishonorable, attacking a defenseless animal like that.”
Bernardo continued as if he hadn’t spoken, miming the whip again, and catching it in the air. He then waved his finger from side to side in a fierce ‘no’.
“You tried to stop him.” Alejandro nodded, putting the puzzle pieces together in his head. Bernardo had been near the corral, and had tried to intervene when he saw the soldier whipping the horse. With as smart as Zorro’s horse seemed to be, that easily explained how Zorro’s horse knew that Bernardo could be trusted. “So he knows you as a friend. I see.”
It was very lucky indeed that Alejandro had been the one who found Zorro. The horse would’ve followed his master into the hacienda of whoever had found him, as everyone in the pueblo would have taken Zorro in, and they might not have been able to send the horse away. He did wonder where the horse went, but Zorro needed his attention more. He had wanted to wait a little to wrap the wound, wanting to give the poor man a break as his body adjusted to the stitches, but now it was time to continue.
“I’ll be back in a few minutes.” Alejandro said slowly, trying his best to mime out his words. “I have some extra bandages in my room from when I was injured, I need to go get them.”
Bernardo nodded. Alejandro still marveled at how easily Bernardo was able to understand him, even though he couldn’t hear him. Alejandro then slipped out of Diego’s room, and carefully came to his own room. He searched through his drawers and found the bandages. As long as the wound didn’t reopen, he thought what he had would be enough.
A knock startled him, and he shoved the bandages into his pocket to hide them. He took a deep breath to steady himself before answering, “Yes?”
“Senor, breakfast is ready.” Alejandro sighed, recognizing his servant’s voice. He’d been afraid that it would be a soldier looking for Zorro.
Alejandro then exited his room. “I shall come down for it later, my son and I have some important business to attend to. I ask that you don’t disturb us.”
The servant nodded, and Alejandro just sighed, walking causally back to Diego’s room. But he trusted his son. Diego was a smart boy, when he returned if anyone asked about this ‘new important business’, his son would easily catch on that his father needed him.
He was beginning to become worried, as it was not like his son to go somewhere where he’d be gone for a while without telling anyone. But he trusted his son to be careful. He was sure Diego was alright. As his father, he felt he’d know if something happened to his son. Still, the longer Diego went without coming home, the more worried he became. Oh mijo, where are you?
Alejandro slipped back into Diego’s room, and pulled the bandages out of his pocket. Bernardo helped ease Zorro into a sitting position again, causing the man to again make a soft noise of pain as they unfortunately jostled his wound. Bernardo then got his attention and mimed a circle and then pointed at himself. It seemed Bernardo wanted to wrap the bandages. Alejandro nodded, seeing no reason to deny him, and handed him the cotton bandages.
Holding Zorro by the shoulders, Alejandro then adjusted himself so he was holding Zorro upright. Bernardo then began to softly wrap the bandages around Zorro’s wound. The man’s touch was incredibly delicate, almost reverent, like he was bandaging a close friend. Maybe Zorro had thanked him for rescuing his horse from that cruel, dishonorable man in some sort of way and Bernardo felt indebted to him as he did, as many did after encountering the hero.
Alejandro watched as Bernardo’s nimble fingers wrapped the white cotton around Zorro’s abdomen. Bernardo moved quickly but tenderly, making sure not to cause any further pain to the hero. He seemed very experienced in this, and a small part of Alejandro hoped that he’d just learned how to do this in his training as a manservant, and not because he’d bandaged an injured Diego before. He hoped that wasn’t what changed his son while he was in Spain. He’d seen the aftereffects of some battles that left men shaking whenever they held a sword again.
Swathes of white soon covered Zorro’s abdomen, and Bernardo tied the two ends together. Together, they laid Zorro against the pillows once more, and adjusted him so he’d be as comfortable as he could be. Alejandro sighed. At least now, all they needed to do was let Zorro rest. They shouldn’t need to cause him any more pain.
With Zorro taken care of Alejandro needed to tend to the hacienda as he always did, trying to assume a look of normalcy. No one could suspect that Zorro was here, that anything was out of the ordinary. And even though Alejandro wanted to remain with Zorro, to watch over the hero as he had watched over Alejandro, it would be better for him to keep the secret and act completely normal. That would keep him the safest.
“Watch over him.” Alejandro said, pointing to his eyes and to Zorro. “I need to tend to the hacienda, otherwise it will seem suspicious.”
Bernardo nodded, and Alejandro placed his hand on Bernardo’s shoulder before heading out. Even though he didn’t really feel like eating, he went down to breakfast anyway. Maybe Diego would be there, waiting with a smile that always calmed Alejandro’s heart.
Bernardo had been exhausted from waiting up all night for Diego to return, but the second he saw his friend in Don Alejandro’s arms, he’d suddenly become wide awake. It was as if he’d drunk a whole keg of coffee, his heart racing in his chest at seeing his friend so injured. Bernardo knew that being Zorro was risky for Diego, it was risky for him too when he joined his friend, but this was the first time Diego had really gotten injured. There had been that one instance when Diego had hit his head against a rock, but he’d been fine afterwards, except for a rather strong headache. He’d been perfectly fine after a little rest. This injury would not go away so easily.
Holding Diego down as his father cleaned the wound was one of the hardest things he’d ever had to do. Hearing Don Alejandro’s promise to not unmask Diego had been slightly comforting, but his friend was so injured, already afflicted with fever that it was hard to feel it. He’d had trouble keeping up the ruse that he was also deaf, especially when Diego had started screaming in pain. Covering his mouth to muffle his sounds broke Bernardo’s heart, but he knew it was necessary. Diego couldn’t be found here like this, unable to defend himself, and Diego certainly wouldn’t want his father being implicated in helping Zorro, no matter what state he was in.
When Diego finally passed out from the pain, Bernardo didn’t know whether to be grateful or distraught. While he hated to see his friend be in pain, he longed to see Diego’s eyes open once again, so Bernardo could see that he was alive, he was awake. But even in unconsciousness, Diego wasn’t relieved of the pain. He’d kept stroking Diego’s face as gently as he could, trying to bring what little softness and comfort he could to his best friend, trying to give Diego something to focus on that wasn’t the horrible pain he was in. Unfortunately, it hadn’t seemed to work, as Diego continued to make those soft noises of pain as Don Alejandro worked, even after he’d finally lost consciousness.
Bernardo had almost been sick at having to hold the two edges of Diego’s skin closer so Don Alejandro could stitch them together, but he forced himself to be strong for his friend. Diego had always been so strong for him, defending him from people who thought that his inability to speak was a deficiency and made him unintelligent. It was one of the main reasons he’d become so devoted to Diego, who never got frustrated with him because he couldn’t speak. In Spain, Diego had never let anyone speak ill of Bernardo, even dueling a couple of people because they insulted him. Diego was one of the kindest, most patient men he’d ever met, and Bernardo would do anything for the man who had become his best friend. He’d never thought he’d become best friends with someone who was sixteen years younger than him, but Diego was special. He’d never had such a good friend before. So no matter what, no matter how ugly or hard this healing process would be for him to watch, he’d see Diego through this if it killed him.
When Don Alejandro told him he was leaving to keep up appearances, Bernardo nodded, wanting some time alone with his friend. Bernardo locked the door behind him, so he wouldn’t be disturbed. Slumping a little in relief, Bernardo immediately came back to his friend. Gently, Bernardo removed Diego’s bandana and then his mask. This time, Diego’s eyes remained closed, knowing Bernardo’s touch even in sleep. Bernardo then dipped another one of the cloths into the water, and began to dab at the dirt still on Diego’s face, trying hard not to wake him. Judging by the dirt on Diego’s body, he must have fallen off of Tornado at some point. He wondered how long Diego had laid in the dirt before Don Alejandro had found him.
Tenderly, Bernardo began to reveal Diego’s soft skin from under the dirt. His friend slept on, unaware, only occasionally murmuring nonsense in his sleep. He’d never known Diego to talk in his sleep before, but fevers often did strange things to people. So he just focused on his task, gently cleansing Diego’s face with the cool water. This way, Don Alejandro didn’t have to do it and they wouldn’t have to risk Diego’s father potentially accidentally seeing under his mask. Bernardo knew that Don Alejandro promised he wouldn’t unmask Zorro, but still. He and Diego didn’t like to take risks they didn’t have to.
As he worked, little droplets of water ran down Diego’s face, mixing in with the tear tracks so obvious within the dirt that still remained. Bernardo softly stroked Diego’s face with his fingers again, looking sadly upon his friend. Seeing Diego cry was such a rarity that the memories were vivid in his mind. The first time was when Diego wept at the bedside of a good friend when he’d died unexpectedly of yellow fever, and the second was at a wedding as Diego (and most of the crowd) had teared up during the vows. And now this was the third.
Once Diego’s forehead and eyes were clear, Bernardo immediately put the mask back on. Even though the door was locked, he knew Diego would be more comfortable with it on. Despite his fever, Diego still clearly had enough of his wits to remember that he was Zorro, not Don Diego de la Vega. Bernardo hoped the mask’s presence would give Diego the emotional comfort he clearly needed to reassure him that his identity had remained a secret.
Bernardo’s touch was gentle as he brought the cool cloth to Diego’s cheeks, but it seemed that all the touches to his mask and face had woken his friend anyway. Diego’s brow furrowed as his eyes fluttered open. Bernardo could see the fevered glaze in Diego’s brown eyes, and his heart hurt for his friend.
“Ber… bern’do?” Diego whimpered, and Bernardo was grateful that Diego wasn’t too far gone to not recognize him. Bernardo cupped Diego’s cheek gently, and Diego whispered, “wha…?”
Bernardo shushed him gently by putting his finger on Diego’s lips, and then he took Diego’s hand. When he’d first become Diego’s friend, Bernardo had taught him a few hand positions to use as a way to communicate with him. He’d taught Diego the same signs his family had used for the alphabet. It wasn’t something he needed to use often, as Diego was unusually good at communicating with him, but it was what he used to spell out his words as a last resort.
Carefully, Bernardo shifted Diego’s fingers into a fist, with his index and middle fingers raised, and he waited for Diego to recognize it. It took a moment for Diego to understand him through his fever, but eventually he murmured a breathless, “U…” Bernardo then crossed Diego’s fingers, and again waited. “R…” Bernardo guided Diego’s fingers into four successive letters, and when Diego didn’t respond except a confused noise, he did it again. “S-s-a-fe. Safe.”
Bernardo nodded, and cupped Diego’s cheek again. “‘ts good.”
Diego’s eyelids seem to hang heavy over his eyes, and Bernardo’s fingers softly brushed over his bandana. He then grabbed the glass of water he’d gotten earlier, and brought it to Diego’s lips, cradling Diego’s head to help ease him up. Diego wasn’t strong enough to hold the glass, but he managed a few sips of cool water.
“Tor… tornado.” Diego suddenly gasped, his exhausted eyes opening wider in fear, and Bernardo shushed him gently again, setting the glass aside.
Bernardo mimed himself sending Tornado back to their secret hideout, and then he softly stroked Diego’s forehead again. Diego nodded weakly, understanding that Tornado was safe too. Tornado was a smart horse, he’d keep himself out of trouble.
It seemed that the knowledge that he and Tornado were safe was enough for Diego to slip back into sleep, and Bernardo just stroked his cheek until he was sure Diego was deeply asleep again. Bernardo then brought the damp cloth to Diego’s cheeks, softly washing the dirt from Diego’s skin. His touch was featherlight, not wanting to wake Diego again when he clearly didn’t have the strength to stay awake.
After that, Bernardo worked in complete silence, just washing the dirt from Diego’s cheeks, and then Diego’s neck. His costume covered everything else except the wound, and that had already been taken care of. But just as Bernardo placed the dirty, damp cloth to the side, he noticed a thin sheen of sweat on Diego’s skin. He felt Diego’s forehead again, still feeling too warm as the fever burned within him. Hopefully it would burn itself out soon. Diego would need all of his strength to recover from this wound.
Diego hadn’t been at breakfast. He also hadn’t been home for lunch. Alejandro hoped that Diego was just in town, with his friends, and that he was alright. It really was not like Diego to go for so long without at least telling his father where he would be going. The only thing he could think of was that Diego had taken a spur of the moment trip, perhaps to the mission, as potentially someone in town wanted his presence. Still, Diego usually stopped by the hacienda to tell his father where he was going, but perhaps this was an emergency. Alejandro just hoped that Diego came home soon, he missed him.
It was evening by the time that Alejandro had been able to return to Zorro’s side without arousing suspicion. It took a little while for him to get the deaf-mute’s attention inside, but eventually Bernardo unlocked the door upon seeing him.
“You should get some rest, Bernardo.” Alejandro said, doing his best to mime, seeing the exhaustion on Bernardo’s face. “I’ll watch over him for the night.”
Bernardo seemed torn, looking at Zorro with forlorn eyes, obviously not wanting to part from the hero. Alejandro placed his hand on Bernardo’s shoulder, miming “I’ll fetch you if I need you.”
While the man clearly still did not want to go, he did nod. Alejandro wondered if the man had slept the previous night, but whatever had exhausted him was catching up to him. Bernardo took one last look at Zorro, but he went to the door. He knocked three times in a rhythm, and then again. Alejandro realized he was setting up a code for him to use, so he nodded, showing he understood. At least Alejandro could hear the knocks when Bernardo wanted back in.
Alejandro sat at Zorro’s bedside, watching the hero sleep with a worried expression. Zorro’s eyes darted around under his eyelids, his body restless and trembling. Alejandro pressed his hand to Zorro’s forehead, and frowned at the heat he found. All they could do now was hope that an infection had not taken hold and that what was causing this fever would not be as serious as that. An infection would mean Alejandro would need to fetch a doctor, and he hoped that he wouldn’t have to do that. Alejandro grabbed another cloth, it seemed Bernardo had restocked while he was gone, and he dipped it in the cool water.
Carefully, Alejandro brought the cool cloth to Zorro’s collarbone, deciding to forgo touching the man’s face since the slightest touch to his mask had woken him the last time. Tiny beads of sweat had formed across Zorro’s skin, and he softly wiped them away, hoping the cool water would help break the man’s fever. He brushed the cloth over Zorro’s chest, carefully avoiding the bandages around his waist.
As he brushed the cloth over Zorro’s arms, he saw something rather incredible. Zorro also had a scar on his left wrist that Alejandro could’ve sworn looked exactly like Diego’s. He lifted Zorro’s hand, taking great care to be as careful as possible, examining the scar curiously. It was the same length, same width, seemed just as old as Diego’s.
“You know, my son has a scar just like this.” Alejandro murmured. He wasn’t quite sure why he was talking to an unconscious man, but he hoped that his voice could bring the hero some kind of comfort as he slept. “Though, I’m sure you got yours a different way, being the master swordsman that you are. You probably got yours as you honed your incredible skill. My son fell out of a tree, heh.”
A soft moan filled the air, and Zorro’s eyes fluttered open. His brown eyes were glassy and dazed, and it took them a moment to focus on Alejandro.
“Father?” Zorro murmured, his voice weak and confused.
“Shh, it’s alright, Zorro. It’s Don Alejandro.”
Zorro just whimpered again, raising his hand a little. “Father.” Alejandro just grabbed his hand and held it tightly.
“Father… I’m sorry.” Zorro whispered, staring directly into Alejandro’s eyes. Alejandro frowned in confusion, pursing his lips, feeling a little discouraged that Zorro didn’t recognize him. The fever must be distorting Zorro’s mind into thinking Alejandro was his father. “I tried… tried so hard to make you proud.”
“Shh, Zorro, it’s alright.” Alejandro squeezed the hero’s hand. “You did everything you could. Even the bravest in battle get injured. I’m sure your father is very proud of you.”
“No…” Zorro slurred, his glazed eyes drifting softly to the wall. “My father isn’t proud of me.”
“Nonsense.” Alejandro instinctively started stroking Zorro’s hair over his bandana, as Diego always liked his father petting his hair when he wasn’t feeling well. He just hoped that Zorro took comfort from it too. “You’re a great hero. A savior of our people.”
“No… my father thinks I’m a coward.” Zorro muttered. “Always so disappointed in me. I can see it in his eyes.”
Unconsciously, Alejandro’s mind flashed to Diego, that first day when he’d returned from Spain and he hadn’t wanted to take up arms against Comandante Monasterio. How heartbroken Alejandro had been when Diego hadn’t wanted to draw his sword against the corrupt captain, or even draw his sword at all. But how could anyone think that Zorro was a coward? Zorro risked his life constantly for the people of Los Angeles. No one could dare call him a coward or a disappointment! He was tempted to ask who his father was, as he had a few words to exchange with the man. Zorro had risked his own life to save Alejandro’s, how could anyone ever say that he was a coward or a disappointment?
“Your father is wrong.” Alejandro squeezed Zorro’s hand again, his voice full of conviction, which brought Zorro’s fevered eyes back to Alejandro. “You are no coward. You are a hero to us all, Zorro, from the richest ranchero to the poorest peasant. Every day, you risk your life to save us from tyranny and injustice. If your father can’t see that, then even a blind man can see more than he can.”
Zorro’s eyes glistened as Alejandro spoke, and he saw a single tear slide down into the mask. Alejandro’s heart twisted in pain. His thumb came to Zorro’s face, softly brushing under Zorro’s eye. Zorro’s eyes fluttered closed, and Alejandro didn’t stop his ministrations until he was sure that the hero had fallen asleep once again.
Alejandro sighed softly as he gazed upon Zorro’s sleeping form. He hadn’t met the outlaw often, but he never would’ve guessed he’d had such a difficult family. He couldn’t imagine having a father who treated him so disrespectfully. Even he had gotten used to how bookish and unwilling to fight Diego had been since he got back from Spain. Truthfully, it had been hard, but Diego was his son. That meant that Alejandro loved him unconditionally, whether he was a master swordsman or a dandy. Diego was the best thing in his life, nothing could ever change that, even his son’s inability to handle a sword. But Zorro, he was a hero! He did more for the pueblo than anyone. How could anyone be disappointed in that?
Alejandro shook his head, trying to clear his thoughts. As much as it hurt to hear that Zorro’s family didn’t appreciate him as they should, there was nothing he could do about that. But what he could do was do his best to help the man heal. He continued wiping the sweat away, brushing Zorro’s skin with clean cool water. He checked the bandage, and thankfully, he didn’t see anything that would indicate an infection. This fever was most likely caused by the stress of getting such an injury, Diego and his late wife had been prone to them as well, Diego especially once his mother passed.
A sudden knock on the door startled him, and he quickly composed himself, covering Zorro with Diego’s blanket and trying his best to hide his mask with a cool compress over his eyes. He then went to the door, trying his best to calm his nerves.
“Yes?” Alejandro answered, seeing one of his servants.
“I’m sorry to disturb you at this late hour, sir, but Sergeant Garcia is at the door and is urgently requesting to speak to you.”
Alejandro’s heart raced. What could Sergeant Garcia be wanting at this hour? Had something happened to Diego? Were they looking for Zorro? His stomach twisted with dread, but he kept a straight face, looking appropriately worried rather letting the terror and panic he was feeling show. He nodded simply, and then headed down to the entrance of the hacienda.
“Sergeant.” Alejandro said, fighting his every nerve to keep calm. “What brings you here this late into the night?”
“I’m so sorry to disturb you, Don Alejandro, but on our last attempt to capture Zorro, it seems he was wounded.” The Sergeant said. “ One of the swords that did battle with him came back with blood on it. So we’re searching everywhere in the pueblo for him, as he’d need help, and since we couldn’t find him in any place he’d seek a doctor, we’ve started searching all the haciendas to see if we can find him.”
“We want to make sure he’s still alive.” Corporal Reyes added.
“Babosa!” Sergeant Garcia shouted, smacking Corporal Reyes upside the head. “You’re not supposed to say that!”
“But you said-”
“I know what I said, Corporal, now be silent!” Garcia growled, and then turned and smiled bashfully at him.
Alejandro’s heart raced, his mind becoming a whirling dervish as he struggled to think of a reason he could deny them entry.
“Well, Sergeant, it is very late, perhaps you could come back tomorrow.” Alejandro said. “Most of the hacienda are already in bed, and I’d hate to wake them.”
“I’m afraid I must insist.” Sergeant Garcia said, sounding regretful. “We must check everywhere for Zorro, even this late at night. N-Not that I suspect you, Don Alejandro, but the Comandante would be very upset if I didn’t search everywhere, including your hacienda. But we’ll try to be quiet.”
Alejandro fought to keep his composure. He had to think, how could he keep them from discovering Zorro? There was no way to sneak him out without the soldiers noticing!
“Well, if you must, but I must ask you that you do not go into Diego’s room.” Alejandro said, hoping this excuse was enough to deter them. He didn’t have the time to think of another. “I’m afraid my son is sick, and cannot be disturbed. A-and I wouldn’t want you catching what he has.”
Sergeant Garcia looked surprised. “Diego is feeling unwell? Oh I’m very sorry to hear that. I was wondering why he hadn’t met me for lunch yesterday as we’d agreed. It’s not like him to miss our lunches together.”
Wait, Diego had made plans and then not kept them? Sergeant Garcia was right, that wasn’t like Diego. That wasn’t like his son at all. He almost asked when the last time the Sergeant had seen his son, but he stopped himself as he realized that he couldn’t. He was pretending Zorro was Diego. The Sergeant would find it very odd that Alejandro needed to look for Diego when supposedly he was lying sick in bed. He would send Diego’s manservant out tomorrow at dawn, and see if the deaf-mute could find his son. Bernardo knew Diego best since he returned from Spain, perhaps he’d be able to find Diego.
“Yes, he has a fever.” Alejandro said, trying to hide his worry for his missing son. “He’s asleep at the moment, and the noise of someone searching his room will most definitely wake him.”
“I do apologize, Don Alejandro, but I must search every room.” Sergeant Garcia said. “But I’ll check his room myself and just peek in there to make sure I don’t wake him.”
“I appreciate your understanding, Sergeant.” Alejandro said, a vice grip squeezing at his chest. The only thing he could hope for now was that the Sergeant wouldn’t recognize Zorro on sight.
With his heart pounding out of his chest, he followed Sergeant Garcia up the stairs while the other soldiers began to search the hacienda. He swallowed nervously as they went up the stairs, using every faculty he had to keep himself acting calm, even if he wasn’t inside. Quietly, Sergeant Garcia opened the door. The soldier peeked through the door, and Alejandro was so anxious about him finding Zorro that he could barely breathe.
Miraculously, Sergeant Garcia closed the door after just a moment. “I apologize for disturbing him, Don Alejandro. It’s obvious Zorro is not in there. Please let me know when he feels better, I would like to come by and see him.”
Don Alejandro smiled, and he actually meant it this time, knowing that Zorro was safe. “Of course, Sergeant. When he feels up to seeing visitors, I’ll send for you.”
Sergeant Garcia nodded happily, smiling broadly at him.
After that, Alejandro could act as he usually did around the soldiers, chatting with them as if nothing was wrong. He knew nothing else in the hacienda would give away that Zorro was here, so there was no chance of them finding Zorro here. Internally, he worried about Diego. What could’ve happened to his son to keep him away from home for so long? To miss plans that he’d made. Diego was not one to go back on his word. Alejandro had taught him the importance of integrity from a very young age. Where on earth could his son be?!
Alejandro wasn’t sure how long the soldiers spent looking for Zorro, but it was still a relief seeing them leave, Sergeant Garcia again apologizing for the disturbance as the rest complained to the Sergeant that they wanted to stop and go home so they could sleep. He bid them adios before returning to Diego’s room. There was nothing he could do about Diego since it was late in the night, and there was only moonlight and starlight to search for him. But the moment the sun rose, Alejandro would start looking for his son.
The moment Alejandro stepped through the door, he could tell something was wrong. Zorro was thrashing a little, having kicked off the blanket which was now tangled between his feet, with the cool compress laying on the pillow beside him. He was murmuring nonsense in his sleep, but it was clear that he was in distress. After locking the door, Alejandro rushed to Zorro’s side.
“Shh, Zorro, you’re alright, you’re alright.” Alejandro said, trying his best to sound soothing.
“No, no please,” Zorro whimpered, still lost in the throes of a nightmare.
“Zorro, wake up, you’re having a nightmare, you’re safe here.” Alejandro gently cupped Zorro’s cheek, hoping the touch to his face would wake him.
But Zorro kept thrashing, his head moving from side to side, his face twisted in fright. Alejandro tried again to wake him before suddenly going still, unable to comprehend what he was seeing. Zorro’s thrashing had dislodged his mask, revealing part of his face. Even though he was asleep, Alejandro still recognized the face of his son.
Diego… Diego was Zorro??? His bookish, pacifist son was the hero of the pueblo who fought with the strength of ten men? Impossible. Yet here he was, staring at his son as he thrashed from a nightmare, clearly Zorro under the mask. Surely, it must be a dream, but he was wide awake, and this was no dream.
Alejandro then acted on impulse, his paternal instincts screaming at him to comfort his son. He took Zorro- Diego by the shoulders and brought him up to Alejandro’s chest, his arms wrapping around his suffering son’s body in a fierce hug, holding Diego close to him. He slowly began to rock back and forth, just as he’d done when Diego was a small child.
“Shh, Diego, it’s alright, Father’s here, you’re safe, shh, you’re safe.” He whispered, keeping one hand on Diego’s head, keeping him pressed against his chest. He knew his son, he knew what would comfort him. It had always worked when he was a child, he saw no reason it wouldn’t work now that he was an adult.
Just as he thought it would, Diego’s murmurs of fright softened as his father held him, whispering comforts as he slowly rocked back and forth. When Diego’s mother was alive, Alejandro would often find a sleeping Diego in his late wife’s arms as she sat in her rocking chair. He knew that the feeling comforted Diego, especially after his mother passed. So he just kept rocking back and forth, holding his son tightly until Diego’s cries quieted down. But even though the nightmare seemed to have passed, Alejandro didn’t let go of his son.
Carefully shifting Diego’s weight so he could hold his son with one hand, he gently pulled off the mask of Zorro. He figured, since he’d already found out it was Diego, he wasn’t breaking his word to not unmask Zorro. Gently dropping the mask and bandana onto the bed, he tilted Diego’s head up a little. Alejandro had burned his son’s face into his memory when he’d come home from Spain, having missed him so much. And here he was, in his arms, sleeping peacefully now.
How could he have missed this? How could he have not seen that his own son was Zorro? Obviously, Diego had gone to great lengths to hide his identity from his father, as well as the rest of the pueblo, but Diego was his son. Alejandro should’ve been able to tell. Now that he knew, the clues were rather apparent. No one had ever seen Diego and Zorro in the same room at the same time, Diego was never around whenever Zorro appeared, the fact that Diego was constantly being accused of being Zorro (even though previously it seemed so evident that he wasn’t), Diego’s sudden evasiveness over his feelings, how Zorro sounded so much like Diego especially when he was in pain, the scar on his wrist… it all made sense now.
“I fail to see what we can do.”
“We can stand up to him, fight him!”
“Calm yourself, Father. The use of force should be our last resort.”
“I hardly expected such discretion from a son of mine!”
Diego hadn’t been a coward in the face of Comandante Monastario, he just made Alejandro believe that. He’d seen the hurt in Diego’s eyes when Alejandro had been so vocal about his obvious disappointment when Diego had refused to take a stand against Monastario, but he’d been more concerned about his son becoming a coward after he left for college rather than comforting his son. It must have been very painful for Diego to let him think such low things of his own son.
“I’m sorry. I tried… tried so hard to make you proud… My father isn’t proud of me. My father thinks I’m a coward. Always so disappointed in me. I can see it in his eyes.”
The only time words had caused Alejandro to feel such pain was when the doctor had told him that his wonderful wife was dying. Never before had Alejandro felt such a sickening regret in his chest that consumed him so entirely. Diego, his incredible, precious son thought that he was a disappointment. That Alejandro considered him a coward. Admittedly, Alejandro hadn’t been very good at telling his son how proud he was of him when Diego constantly ran from a fight, not understanding how his amazing son could’ve become such a coward in a few short years. But… he understood now. Diego never ran from a fight, he just became Zorro to fight that fight.
“It is strange. So strange. It is almost as if I had known you. You seem so much like someone I know. I'm a foolish old man with foolish dreams. So often have I dreamed that my son came back from Spain and he would be like you. Now that you're so close, it is so much like my dreams. I feel almost that I could pull aside the mask, and there would be the face of my son, Diego. I would not pull away the mask. I would not have the courage. An old man must cling to his dreams as desperately as he clings to life.”
Alejandro startled at seeing tears run down Diego’s cheeks as he slept, but he soon realized that the tears were coming from him, dripping down from his face onto Diego. He tucked Diego’s head into his shoulder again, kissing his hair.
“Oh, mijo. Why didn’t you tell me?”
He held his son all night, unwilling to let him go. His only consolation was at least now he didn’t have to worry about where Diego was. His precious son was right here in his arms, where he should be when he was… wounded. It was the smallest of silver linings that he hadn’t known that this was his son when struggling to treat his wound. He felt nauseous just thinking of his son being so grievously injured, especially when all his son was trying to do was help people.
Dawn’s early light surprised him, as he was so lost in thought that he hadn’t noticed that several hours had passed. Diego was still overly warm in his arms, but he seemed to be resting quietly.
A set of three knocks in a row startled him enough that he nearly dropped his son. There was a pause, and another three knocks. Alejandro’s shoulders slumped when he realized it was just Bernardo. He leaned forward, cradling his son’s head with the utmost reverence as he laid Diego back down. He got up to let Bernardo in before he hastily remembered to put on Diego’s Zorro disguise. He wasn’t sure if Bernardo knew, but if he didn’t, he wouldn’t reveal his son’s secret.
Alejandro then let Bernardo in, and the man immediately rushed to Diego’s side. Bernardo’s hand came to Diego’s forehead, his cheeks, checking on his fever. Diego didn’t stir at the touch, and now Alejandro knew what that meant. Even as Zorro, Diego recognized the touch of his friend. He wondered if that meant that Bernardo knew too.
Diego murmured nonsense in his sleep again, and Alejandro sat beside his son, stroking his hair over the bandana. “Shh, Diego, it’s alright, you’re alright. Sleep my son, shh.”
His son calmed, soothed by Alejandro’s voice. Alejandro just stared at his son for a moment, taking in his peaceful expression before he noticed that Bernardo was looking at him in panic. At first it confused him, before he realized that somehow Bernardo must have understood that he knew now that Diego was Zorro.
“You knew?” Alejandro said, his voice incredulous before it turned to anger. “You knew this whole time?”
Bernardo struggled again with nonsensical movements before he just nodded.
“You knew and you didn’t tell me?” Alejandro demanded. “I’m his father!”
Bernardo then pointed to Diego and pressed a finger to his lips, showing that Diego had asked him not to tell.
Alejandro groaned and ran a hand over his face. Then he stopped.
“Wait, you can hear?” Alejandro exclaimed. “You could hear the whole time too?”
Bernardo nodded again.
“Why didn’t you say anything?” Alejandro asked. “Why deceive everyone in such a way?”
Bernardo pointed at Diego again, and then he covered his ear. He then mimed walking again, and used his hands to mime talking. Then he placed his hand behind his ear to mime the word listen. Then he placed his hand over his mouth as if he was whispering and pointed to Diego.
“Diego wanted you to pretend to be deaf so you could overhear others’ conversations and what, report back to him?”
Bernardo gave him a hand wave to indicate perhaps a maybe, and pointed at himself. “You wanted to do that?” Bernardo nodded again. “Why?”
He placed his hand behind his ear again, and then mimed running and then whispering to Diego again. He made a ‘Z’ sign, and then pointed to Diego, and then mimed a shield.
“So… you could overhear things that would indicate that Zorro needed protection?” Alejandro asked.
Bernardo nodded happily.
Alejandro sighed. “At least Diego trusted someone to help him.”
Bernardo frowned and patted his shoulder in what seemed to be a gesture of comfort.
“So Diego has been Zorro this entire time.” Alejandro sighed again before a terrible thought entered his mind. “Even… even when we drew swords against each other.”
He remembered dueling Zorro when he and the other landowners tried to rush the cuartel to free the unjustly imprisoned Torres’ women. He’d noticed back then that Zorro had seemed very reluctant to draw his sword against them, a sadness in his eyes that he hadn’t understood in his anger. And all the time, it was Diego. Diego forced to fight his own father. Even if Alejandro’s intentions were good, his actions had still led him to fight his own son. Poor Diego. Diego had never hidden how much he loved his father, even if he hadn’t told Alejandro his secret.
Bernardo nodded at his statement, pointed at Diego, and then mimed an obvious frown, telling him that Diego had been very upset at having to do that. He could tell the man wasn’t trying to make him feel bad, just trying to tell him that Diego had been just as upset as he was right now, that Diego hadn’t wanted to fight him, but that brought him no comfort. He couldn’t imagine the strength of will Diego must have had to make himself fight his own father on his quest for justice. He doubted he’d have been strong enough to be able to draw his sword against his son.
“We need to take off his mask.” Alejandro said, reaching over. Bernardo grabbed his wrist, shaking his head and waving his finger in a no gesture.
“I’m not doing this because I know now.” Alejandro said. “Last night, while you and most of the hacienda were asleep, the soldiers came here.” Bernardo’s eyes went wide with fear. “Don’t worry, I was able to convince them that Diego was ill to hide Zorro’s presence, but now people expect Diego to be ill. And… I suppose he really is. But if we cover the bandages with a blanket, and hide his mask, then no one will be able to tell that Diego is Zorro. We could let him rest without worry of someone discovering him.”
Alejandro could tell that Bernardo was still uncertain about his plan, but after a moment, he did let go. Alejandro tenderly reached over and slipped Diego’s bandana off, and then very carefully, his mask. Without his Zorro disguise, Diego looked so young, like the boy who he’d sent to university those few years ago. Alejandro softly stroked his son’s cheek, unable to tear his eyes away for a moment. His poor son. Having to shoulder all of that responsibility, all of that pressure to protect the pueblo and distribute justice all alone, unable to confide in his own father. He didn’t know how Diego did it.
They lapsed into silence for a while as Diego slept beside them. Bernardo placed another cool cloth on Diego’s forehead, and Alejandro just sat, brushing another cool cloth over his son’s skin. At least, now that he knew it was Diego, he knew how to help his son. Whenever Diego had gotten stress fevers before, when he was a child, Alejandro just had to give him water, and keep him cool. When they checked his wound as they changed his bandages, the wound showed no sign of infection. Alejandro was nauseous at the sight of seeing his son’s body torn up and stitched together, but he had to be strong for his son. If Diego could fight under his mask as Zorro, then Alejandro could take care of him as his father. When Diego was born, he’d promised to always take care of his son, and he wouldn’t let him down now.
Dusk was settling gently in the west when Diego stirred again. To Alejandro’s immense relief, and when Diego opened his eyes the glaze of fever was gone. He smiled softly at his son.
Soon, fear entered his son’s eyes, and his hand came to his face, obviously searching for his mask. “Father, what… why did you…”
“Last night, you were thrashing in your sleep.” Alejandro explained, his voice saddened by his son’s fear and confusion. As much as he was grateful that he knew, he would’ve wanted his son to tell him of his own free will, and he knew Diego would’ve wanted that too. “It disturbed your mask, and well… I could recognize your face from the other side of the pueblo.”
Diego just stared at him, with his fingers still under his eye. Bernardo then took his hand, and Diego startled a little, having been so distracted with Alejandro’s presence that he didn’t notice his friend. Bernardo smiled a little, but Diego didn’t seem to react to it.
“I am sorry, my son.” Alejandro said, and he knew his son could sense his sincerity. “I know this isn’t how you wanted this to happen.”
Diego slowly brought his hand back down, and he suddenly couldn’t meet his father’s eye. “Are you upset with me? For not telling you?”
“Of course not, mijo.” Alejandro stroked Diego’s hair as he did when he was a child. “I could never be upset with you because you decided to keep a secret. Even one so big as this.”
Diego met his eyes once more. It hurt Alejandro’s heart to see shame in his son’s brown eyes.
“I’m sorry, Father.” Diego murmured. “I didn’t mean to lie to you for so long. I hated doing it.”
“It’s alright, Diego.” Alejandro smiled down at his son. “I can understand why you did it.”
Diego tried for a smile but it didn’t quite make his eyes. He shifted a little, seemingly uncomfortable, and then he winced, frowning in confusion. “What…?”
“Diego, what’s the last thing you remember?” Alejandro asked quietly, as it seemed like Diego didn’t know what had happened to him.
His son paused, his brow furrowing a little. “Riding Tornado. We’d just gotten away from Ramon, the last man I fought. He was trying to smuggle weapons into the pueblo. I… I remember my side hurting, and I didn’t know why. After that, it’s a bit of a blur.”
Alejandro hummed slightly, nodding. That lined up with the timeline that Alejandro had been able to figure out from what little information he had.
“What happened?” Diego asked. “How did you find me?”
“Your horse, actually, he’s incredibly intelligent.” Alejandro explained. “You must have fallen out of the saddle as you rode, and your Tornado went looking for help. He found me and brought me back to you. I found you lying in the dirt with your side sliced open. I brought you home, and since Diego de la Vega wasn’t in his room, I thought we could use it as a place to keep Zorro safe. Bernardo and I took care of you from there.”
“Oh.” Diego said softly, his hand coming to his right side. “I wondered what hurt so much.”
“I can send someone into town for laudanum tomorrow.” Alejandro said. “I couldn’t risk it when you were Zorro, but since the soldiers now think that Diego de la Vega isn’t feeling well, we can ask for it without repercussions.”
“The soldiers?” Diego asked, becoming afraid. “Why were the soldiers here? Is everything alright?”
Alejandro explained how the soldiers had come looking for him and left easily enough, thinking that a sleeping Zorro was a sleeping Diego. That calmed Diego visibly.
“Thank goodness.” Diego murmured. “I never wanted to put anyone in danger.”
Alejandro cupped Diego’s jawline, brushing his thumb over his cheek.
“Bernardo,” Alejandro muttered softly, and the man turned to him. “Can you give me and my son a moment alone?”
Bernardo looked to Diego, who nodded. Alejandro wasn’t sure of what had happened to make Bernardo so loyal to Diego, but he was glad his son had someone who would always stand by his side. It was clear Bernardo didn’t want to go, but he still listened to Diego, and he stood. He mimed getting Diego some water and food, and Diego smiled gratefully.
“That would be nice, Bernardo, thank you.”
Bernardo smiled at his son, and then he slipped out of the room. Now that he and Diego were alone, Alejandro sighed heavily.
“Why didn’t you tell me, mijo?” Alejandro murmured, asking the question that had been burning within him since he found out. “You know I wouldn’t have told anyone. You didn’t have to make me think that you had changed so much since I sent you to Spain.”
“Because I knew being Zorro would put you in danger, and I couldn’t risk that.” Diego whispered, his voice tinted with shyness and shame. “I knew I had to become someone I’m not to fight Comandante Monastario, I had to become someone he would never suspect. A scholar who couldn’t wield a sword couldn’t possibly be Zorro, and it worked. I knew if we took open action as you wanted to do, your life would be in danger. And I had to protect you.”
“You’re my son, Diego, you’re not responsible for protecting me. “ Alejandro said. “I’m responsible for protecting you. I swore to your mother that I would protect you until the end of my days and I will keep that promise. Even if it means dying for you.”
“I couldn’t risk that.” Diego said softly. “I don’t know what I’d do if I lost you. Seeing you get shot was one of the worst days of my life. I’ve never been so scared, not even when I’m fighting the whole of the cuartel at once. I couldn’t knowingly put you in danger, and being Zorro is nothing but danger. I could choose to risk my own life, but I could never ask you to risk yours. I had to protect you, Father, even if it meant lying to you about who I was. I’d rather be a disappointment in your eyes than the reason you were killed.”
“Oh, mijo.” Alejandro sighed, stroking his son’s cheek. “You could never be a disappointment to me. You’re my son, I will always be proud of you. Yes, it was difficult to understand why you wouldn’t fight alongside me, why you suddenly had become so interested in books and music when you hadn’t been before. But that never meant that I thought of you as a disappointment.”
“Father-”
“Diego.” Alejandro said firmly. “Whether you’re a scholar and a diplomat or a dueler and an outlaw, I will always be proud of you. I’m sorry if I ever made you doubt that. You’re my son, I love you more than life itself.”
Diego smiled again, and this time, he could see it in Diego’s eyes. “I love you too, Father.”
Alejandro smiled in return. This was probably the most honest talk they’d had since Diego returned from Spain, and he was glad that his son could finally be honest with him.
Diego huffed quietly, slightly smirking. “I will say, I’m not looking forward to the worry and fretting you’re going to do whenever I go out at night.”
“I see no reason to do that.” Alejandro laughed, seeing Diego’s attempt at humor for what it was, but going with it anyways. Diego looked surprised at his answer. “You’ve bested me in a duel, my son. Not to mention you constantly fight the curatel and always escape unharmed. You… do escape unharmed every time, right?”
“Yes, Father.” Diego nodded, soothing Alejandro’s worry. “This is the first time I’ve ever gotten seriously hurt being Zorro. Usually, I’m very good at avoiding it.”
“Then I have no need to be worried.” Alejandro said. “I trust in your skills.”
Diego smiled. “Thank you, Father. I’m glad Zorro is skilled enough to earn your trust.”
“I did wonder what happened to your skills when you came back.” Alejandro mused. “When you left, I was sure you’d become the best swordsman in California before age thirty. But I suppose I wasn’t wrong, I just thought it would be under the name de la Vega.”
Diego chuckled. “So did I. I wish I could’ve shown you the medals and trophies I won back in Spain for fencing. You would’ve been so proud.”
“Medals and trophies?” Alejandro asked, confused. This was the first time Diego had ever mentioned anything of the sort since he came back.
“Yes.” Diego nodded. “I won several. I was one of the best swordsmen at university.”
“Where are they? Did you hide them?”
“Yes… at the bottom of the ocean.” Diego said wistfully. “I was warned our bags would be searched when we arrived in Los Angeles, so in order to keep up the illusion that I was completely inept with a sword, I had Bernardo throw them out the port window.”
“That’s a shame.” Alejandro said. “I would’ve liked to have seen them. And shown them off.”
“I can always go swimming the next time I go to the coast.” Diego smirked, and they both laughed together. A somewhat heavy tension between them dissolved softly into nonexistence.
Bernardo soon returned with some soup and a glass of water for Diego. His son went to sit up, before he immediately fell back into the pillows, whimpering in pain and clutching his right side.
“Easy, son.” Alejandro soothed, helping Diego adjust, sliding behind him so he could keep Diego up, maneuvering him into a sitting position. “You’re not ready for that yet. Just let us help you.”
“I don’t seem to have a choice in that.” Diego muttered, and Alejandro could hear the slight bitterness in Diego’s voice. His son had always been independent, and Alejandro knew how difficult it was for him to accept help sometimes.
“The more you rest, the faster you’ll heal.” Alejandro murmured. “I can certainly attest to that.”
Diego huffed quietly, still obviously upset at his situation, but he didn’t protest further. Bernardo could also clearly sense Diego’s desire to not be dependent on them, as he fed Diego as quickly as he could without making him sick so Diego wouldn’t have to deal with being so weak for longer than he had to. Alejandro could tell his son’s strength was waning as he finished, and when Diego was finished, he gently moved so Diego was resting against the pillows again. It took a moment for Diego to adjust and get comfortable again, but his eyes were half-lidded by the time he was done, clearly exhausted.
“Sleep, my son.” Alejandro whispered. “You’ll feel better in the morning.”
It was barely a few minutes between Diego nodding softly and Diego’s breathing evening out as he slipped back into sleep. Alejandro stayed with him the entire night, promising himself that he’d watch over Diego until his son was fully healed and riding for justice again.
When Izuku and Kacchan are fighting a villain, Kacchan gets hurt. As horrible as that is, Izuku is a little glad he can finally take care of Kacchan the way he's always wanted to.
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the
Organization for Transformative Works
Getting paired up with Kacchan on disaster assistance was the highlight of his week. He didn’t like that there had been an earthquake near Musutafu, and he hated seeing all the people in peril who needed help, but Aizawa-sensei assigning him and Kacchan together was definitely a silver lining that he could appreciate. Any time he could spend with Kacchan was time well spent. Sure, Kacchan had loudly protested, and only conceded when Aizawa-sensei hadn’t allowed him to switch as he said that they’d been paired up for a reason, but that didn’t matter. He was pretty sure that Kacchan would’ve complained no matter who he was paired up with. He had always been so independent. It was one of the many reasons Izuki loved him. A-as a friend. Yes, definitely as a friend, and not anything else. Totally.
“You better fucking keep up with me, nerd, or I’m gonna leave your ass in the dust.” Kacchan growled as they started to run to their assigned area.
“Don’t worry about me, Kacchan, I’ll stay right by your side.” Izuku said with a bright smile.
Kacchan just glared at him. “There is nothing in this world that could make me worry about you, Deku.”
Izuku’s smile didn’t falter. He’d known Kacchan long enough to know when he was speaking seriously, and when he wasn’t. As serious as Kacchan was, he often spoke in hyperbole, always had ever since they were little.
They spent the first few minutes looking for any injured people in their area, they’d been given orders to clear three blocks of any civilians and/or get anyone injured to medical attention. The sound of smashing glass then caught their attention.
“The hell was that?” Kacchan muttered.
“It wasn’t an aftershock, we’d feel the ground shaking if it was, so it can’t be the result of anything having to do with the earthquake.” Izuku murmured.
“I know what the fuck it isn’t, Deku, we need to find out what it is, you idiot!” Kacchan snapped at him. Izuku didn’t take it personally, he knew Kacchan was really stressed about this. As much as he liked to portray that his only reason for becoming a hero was to be the best, to be even better than All Might, Izuku still knew that deep down Kacchan wanted to save people too. It was a part of who he was, even if it didn’t seem like it all the time.
Izuku’s eyes searched, and landed on a man climbing through a clearly broken window into what appeared to be a jewelry store. “There!”
Without waiting for him or anything else, Kacchan started running straight towards the man.
“Wait, Kacchan, no, we need a plan of attack!” Izuku said, tearing off after him anyways.
“I have a plan. Attack.” Kacchan growled back as he leapt through the broken window.
Izuku felt the familiar rush of power that accompanied activating One-for-All, his body beginning to crackle slightly with green lightning. He followed Kacchan inside the store to see the man he’d seen stuffing the necklaces into his jacket. Clearly, this was a crime of opportunity, and Izuku hated seeing people take advantage of others’ distress.
“Hands up, you dumb bastard!” Kacchan shouted, his hands already sparking off.
The man turned, obviously startled by their presence, as he’d most likely been expecting the heroes to focus on where the damage was rather than the side streets they’d been assigned.
“What the? Who the hell are you brats?”
“Dynamight and Deku, fuckwad!” Kacchan shouted back. Izuku’s heart secretly fluttered just a little as he heard his and Kacchan’s hero names sounding so wonderful together, especially in Kacchan’s gorgeous voice.
“We’re gonna take you down!” Izuku yelled.
“The hell you will!” The man shouted, and he extended his arm towards them.
The man’s quirk was easily revealed as spikes of all lengths started to shoot out of the man’s wrist. Almost seamlessly, they instinctively began to work together, just as they had done during the final exam, proving that they truly were two sides of the same coin. Izuku tried firing his snap wind attacks, trying to catch the man off balance, while Kacchan expertly put him on the defense to keep backing him into the wall. Together they flew, moving as one unit, when Kacchan dodged, Izuku fired his air pressure snaps, and when Izuku dove underneath a display case to shield himself, Kacchan got in close, trying to blow the man up. As much as Kacchan didn’t like working with him, it was easy to see that they did work ridiculously well together. While Izuku never lost focus on the man in front of him, he couldn’t help but stare a little at Kacchan as he moved in tandem with Izuku. Kacchan was a warrior, yet also a dancer who moved with beauty and grace, and Izuku loved being here to watch him move so expertly.
Suddenly, the world seemed to slow down as Kacchan jumped into the air, his arm outstretched, his hand ready to pull the pin out of his grenade. As he saw Kacchan move, Izuku saw a small spike protruding from the underside of Kacchan’s right gauntlet that Kacchan couldn’t see. Immediately, he started to reach for Kacchan, to scream at him to stop. But before Izuku could even get his voice to work, Kacchan had already pulled the pin.
BOOM!
A blast of hot air hit him in the chest and threw him off his feet. He flew through the air for a moment before he crashed into something hard behind him, his vision going spotty as he slid down to the ground. He wanted to get up, he wanted to run to Kacchan, but instead his eyes just closed and he passed out.
His ears rang painfully as Izuku managed to open his eyes. He groaned lightly without being able to hear it as his blurred vision tried to justify itself. Izuku wasn’t sure how long it took before his mind finally got the cobwebs out and he came back to himself. Everything about him hurt, and he could feel what must have been over a dozen bruises all over his body, but he’d had worse, so he forced himself up. He leaned against the wall to steady himself and looked around, seeing debris all around him. The jewelry store… the building must have come down around them from the force of the explosion from Kacchan’s gauntlet misfiring.
Oh god, Kacchan! Forcing himself forward despite the pain, Izuku stumbled to where he’d last seen Kacchan.
“Kacchan!” Izuku coughed as he shouted for his friend, dust trying to get down his throat as he walked. “Kacchan, where are you?”
Silence.
Izuku’s heart twisted in fear when Kacchan didn’t answer. What if something had happened when Izuku was unconscious? What if Kacchan had gotten kidnapped again? What if he’d gotten killed? God, Izuku couldn’t fathom it. Kacchan was just as much a part of him as his left arm was. He couldn’t lose Kacchan, he just couldn’t.
“Kacchan! Come on, answer me!” Izuku shouted, trying to search through the debris for any sign of his friend.
His blood ran cold when he saw lots of dots of red splattered over the floor. Izuku’s mind raced as he followed the red trail, his stomach twisting with dread as horrible images of Kacchan’s broken body flashed through his head. No, please, no, god, there was so much blood…
Izuku gasped as he came upon a pair of black boots lying still on the ground, and he immediately lurched forward, moving the body they were attached to to see who it was. A few tears ran down his cheeks as he realized that these belonged to the man who had been robbing the store. He ripped his glove off and felt at the man’s throat. He sighed heavily as he didn’t feel a pulse, and he saw some of the man’s own spikes embedded in his flesh. The force of the explosion must have sent the spikes back into him. It was a tragedy, and Izuku wished it hadn’t turned out like this, but his mind quickly drifted back to Kacchan. He needed to find his friend, he couldn’t waste any time. The potential for Kacchan to be injured was just too high.
He searched through the wreckage as carefully as he could, trying to determine any load bearing debris as he worked, using his quirk to help him dislodge what rubble he could. “Kacchan, come on, please answer me! Please! Anything! Just let me know you’re alive!”
His only answer was an eerie silence that terrified him. Kacchan never went that long without making noise.
Izuku’s heart pounded with fear in his chest, a vice twisting around his chest in the same way he’d felt that night at the training camp. “Please, Kacchan, please say something, don’t be gone, please let me find you, please!”
When he finally saw a glimpse of a green glove, he shrieked “Kacchan!”, and Izuku felt his instincts scream at him to get to Kacchan. His hands started shaking as he removed the rubble that was caging Kacchan in, and finally, after lifting a chunk of debris that must have been almost as big as Izuku himself, he finally saw the crumpled form of his dear friend. “Oh god, no, Kacchan!”
Kacchan lay upon a giant piece of rubble, slightly curled on his right side, lying in a pool of blood. Izuku immediately reached for Kacchan’s throat, and a shuddered sigh passed his lips as he felt a weak but steady pulse beating against his fingers. Izuku forced himself to calm down so he could properly triage Kacchan. Right now, his friend needed calm, and he needed support, and right now, Izuku was the only one who could give him that. Focus, Izuku, focus.
Izuku’s eyes were immediately drawn to Kacchan’s right arm, his silky skin embedded with horrible shrapnel. His right arm was soaked in blood, and took top priority. A quick glance showed that this was the most serious of the many wounds on Kacchan’s body, so he just slipped his hands underneath Kacchan’s chest and knees. He’d carry Kacchan to safety if it killed him.
A soft moan followed, and he realized that the movement must have woken Kacchan.
“Wha… de-deku?”
“Shh, you’re alright.” Izuku whispered, taking a moment to softly stroke Kacchan’s golden hair. Kacchan usually never let him get close enough to touch him, and he knew that Kacchan liked it even if he wouldn’t admit it. He’d seen Kirishima do it last week when Kacchan had a headache, and he’d seen that small smile on Kacchan’s face, even if he probably wasn’t meant to. Sure, Kacchan probably didn’t know that Izuku had been watching him, but he’d seen that Kacchan was clearly in pain, so he just wanted to check on his friend. It was nothing more, really. “Don’t move, Kacchan, I’ve got you.”
“What… happened?” Kacchan groaned, coughing a little. Probably from the dust, just as Izuku had.
“Your gauntlet misfired.” Izuku said simply. “You got hurt.”
Kacchan just made a pained noise in response.
“Shh, Kacchan, it’s alright, I’m going to take care of you.” Izuku said. He’d always wanted to do this, to be able to be close enough to take care of Kacchan, but he’d never been allowed before. “I’m going to get you to safety.”
Kacchan weakly shoved at him with his left arm. “I don’t need you, Deku.” Kacchan then tried to move and push himself up, but he didn’t even get off the ground before he shrieked in pain and collapsed again.
Izuku didn’t say anything for a moment. Kacchan glared at him. He tried again, trying to get up himself, but Kacchan just collapsed with another agonizing shout. It hurt Izuku’s heart to hear Kacchan’s beautiful voice exude such agony, but he knew his Kacchan. He had to try it himself before he let anyone even think about helping. As much as Izuku loved how independent Kacchan could be, sometimes, it was really frustrating to watch as Kacchan put himself through agony to prove a point Izuku already knew.
This time, Kacchan stayed down, panting heavily. Izuku knew that Kacchan would never verbally ask for help, especially not from him, but he knew that Kacchan not trying to stand again was his way of saying that he needed Izuku’s help. Izuku knew him better than anyone, he understood what Kacchan’s nonverbal behaviors meant, even if Kacchan himself didn’t know. Honestly, though, Kacchan had no choice but to accept Izuku’s help. He couldn’t even stand on his own. Izuku’d always wanted Kacchan to want him, to want him around, to want Izuku to take care of him, and he secretly hoped that maybe this would finally show to Kacchan that Izuku was the person who he would want when he was in trouble, when he needed someone to help him.
Gently, Izuku reached out and again stroked Kacchan’s satiny golden hair in an effort to be soothing. Kacchan swatted his hand away, but he could sense Kacchan’s strength waning. “Don’t… don’t touch me… Deku.”
“Kacchan, you’re badly hurt, and right now, I’m all you’ve got.” Izuku said, getting a little frustrated that Kacchan was acting like this even when he was so hurt. “I’m going to take care of you whether you like it or not.”
Kacchan just glared at him, but he could see the pain Kacchan was trying to keep hidden. Kacchan was so silly sometimes, trying to hide something that Izuku could so clearly see. But he knew that Kacchan had a really hard time being vulnerable, especially in front of Izuku, so he didn’t call Kacchan out on it. After all, it would just lead to another argument.
“I know you don’t like being touched, Kacchan, but you’re really hurt, and I need to do this.” Izuku said softly but firmly, and he resumed his position of grabbing Kacchan under his knees and chest. He started to lift, but he froze when Kacchan shrieked loudly in his ear.
“Wha- Kacchan, what’s wrong?” Izuku asked frantically. Kacchan would never scream like that unless he couldn’t hold it back.
“Right… side.” Kacchan gasped quietly, pain evident in every syllable. “Something… shifted.”
Izuku immediately set Kacchan back down, and rolled Kacchan over a bit, making Kacchan make a soft whimpering sound in the back of his throat. Izuku gasped as he saw what Kacchan must have felt. It had been hidden by Kacchan’s first position, but there was a metal rod sticking into Kacchan’s body, right above his hip. That must have been why there was so much pooled blood. Ohh, not good, not good. He set Kacchan back down, causing another gasp of pain.
“Kacchan, you’ve- there’s a steel rod, it’s stabbed into you.” Izuku explained, trying to keep panic out of his voice. Kacchan met his eyes, and he saw a fear in Kacchan’s beautiful crimson eyes that he hadn’t seen in a long time. They both knew that if the rod was displaced before they reached medical assistance that Kacchan would bleed out. And Izuku wasn’t willing to risk trying to break the rod, because the probability of making the wound worse was too high. Which meant that Izuku couldn’t carry Kacchan to safety without the potential of killing him.
Oh, god.
Okay, focus, Izuku, Kacchan’s terrified and he needs you. You’re the only one who can help him right now. Just like a dark part of him secretly wanted, though he always pushed that part of him down as far as it could go.
“Okay, I need to stop the bleeding on your arm.” Izuku thought out loud, so he could let Kacchan know what he was about to do so he could prepare himself. He could hear the subtle hitches in Kacchan’s breathing, they both knew this was gonna be painful. Be strong, Izuku. For Kacchan.
“I-I’ll be right back, Kacchan.” Izuku stuttered a little, hating to leave his precious Kacchan like this, scared and in pain, but he had to do this to save his best friend. “I’m going to see if this place has a first aid kit. Just-just call me if you need me.”
Izuku felt like he was tearing his heart in half, having to leave Kacchan alone for even a second while he was hurting and scared, but he forced himself to stand up anyways. His head swam a little as he did, his own injuries screaming at him for attention, but he’d had worse so he forced himself to ignore it. His own set of bruises was nothing in comparison, his poor Kacchan was in agony and as long as Kacchan hurt, Izuku’s pain didn’t matter.
Thankfully, whoever had run this place was thinking logically, and when Izuku finally found the remnants of a register, he also found a small first aid kit tucked away along with some tape. Knowing this would be the best he got, he immediately returned to his Kacchan. He flipped open the kit, and examined its contents, looking for very specific equipment. His heart calmed a little when he found tweezers and a small spray bottle of isopropyl alcohol, the two things he needed most right now. Okay, he could do this. Kachhan would be okay. Kacchan would be okay.
First things first, Izuku found a couple of ibuprofen tablets, and popped them out of their blister packs. Before he could put these to Kachhan’s mouth, Kacchan’s left hand snatched them away from him, and he dry swallowed the pills. It wouldn’t be nearly enough to stop the pain he was in, but Izuku hoped it would help. After all, the only real reason Kacchan would’ve done that was because he was in so much pain he couldn’t wait for Izuku’s gentleness.
“Kacchan, I have to clean the blood off, pull the fragments out, and then disinfect the wounds.” Izuku said, his voice shaking a little. Kacchan glared up at him, and yet Izuku, knowing Kacchan as well as he did, could still see the fear hidden in those beautiful crimson eyes.
“Fuck, just- fucking do it already.” Kacchan muttered, pain so horribly evident in Kacchan’s gorgeous voice. “I can take it.”
That Izuku knew. After everything they’d gone through, Izuku knew just how far Kacchan could push himself. But knowing that didn’t make it any easier. He took the paper first aid guide and held it up to Kacchan’s mouth. “Here, bite down on this.”
At first it looked like Kacchan wasn’t going to, but after a moment of hesitation, Kacchan slowly moved to bite down on the booklet. It wasn’t nearly enough, but it was the best they had. Izuku then maneuvered himself carefully to be slightly above, slightly next to Kacchan without him needing to move so Izuku could get at Kacchan’s whole arm. Even though Kacchan made a noise of protest, Izuku gently picked up Kacchan’s arm and placed it in his lap. Izuku knew the protest was just the pain, so he didn’t pay it any heed.
Izuku then pulled off his gloves, setting them aside. The kit didn’t have any rubber gloves to replace them, but his somewhat clean hands were better than his dirty gloves touching Kacchan’s silky, torn skin. All that was in the kit that Izuku could use was those little alcohol pads so he just tore one open. He carefully brought them to Kacchan’s shoulder, and took a deep breath.
Slowly, meticulously, Izuku then swiped the little pad down Kacchan’s bicep. It didn’t do much since it was so small, but he did his best. It was mere minutes before the pad was soaked with Kacchan’s blood, so he just tossed it aside and got another. As Izuku worked, Kacchan made little noises of pain when the pad hit an open wound, tiny lacerations that were hidden by the blood so thoroughly plastered to his skin, but Izuku kept going. He had to.
“It’s gonna be alright Kacchan, shh, I know it hurts, but you’re doing so well, I’ve got you.”
It felt like hours were passing as Izuku swiped at the blood on Kacchan’s arms, the little pads easily getting overwhelmed by the amount of blood. His heart was thundering in his chest as he saw every new cut, how deep some of the fragments were embedded into Kacchan’s touchable skin. He wished he could touch Kacchan like this when he wasn’t grievously wounded. As he wiped off the blood, he counted the lacerations as he found them, cataloging where it was and approximately how long it was. He didn’t think he’d ever been so grateful for his ability to pay so intense attention to detail.
After five eternities, Izuku finally finished with Kacchan’s arm as clean as he could get it. There were still spots of dried blood, but he didn’t try getting them. He didn’t want the attempt to aggravate Kacchan’s existing cuts and add to his obvious agony.
Now for the hard part.
Izuku’s hands were shaking as he picked up the tweezers after using the last of the alcohol pads to do his best to sterilize his hands. He met Kacchan’s eyes, as if nonverbally preparing him for what was to come. Kacchan’s eyes were filled with a resignation he’d never seen before, one that made Izuku almost feel the agony Kacchan was feeling inside, and then, Kacchan nodded. Izuku took another deep breath, and nodded back, understanding.
As Izuku moved determinedly, the shakiness in his hands slowed to a stop. He couldn’t afford to have shaky hands right now. Again, he started at Kacchan’s shoulder, working his way down to his forearm. Izuku’s heart and stomach lurched as he pulled the tiny pieces of shrapnel from Kacchan’s perfect body. Kacchan couldn’t stop himself from crying out whenever Izuku found one that was resistant to his gentle pulls, and gasping when the pieces finally slid out. Izuku had to look away from Kacchan’s face, unable to take the tears streaming down his cheeks. Kacchan was hurting so bad, and while he knew this was for Kacchan’s own good, that Kacchan had given him permission, that didn’t make him feel any less terrible about the pain he was causing his poor, poor Kacchan.
“You’re doing great, Kacchan, you’re doing great.” Izuku murmured, almost unaware of the words he was saying as he was so focused on his task. “Just a few more, just a few more, you’re doing great, Kacchan, almost there, almost there.”
Izuku’s movements became repetitive, tweezing the next piece of shrapnel, pulling it out as gently as he could, putting the very end of the tweezers into his mouth, then grabbing a piece of gauze from the kit and covering the wound with it, and finally, using the tape he found to keep the gauze secured to Kacchan’s wounds. A small pile of shrapnel was forming beside them as Izuku carefully extracted the twisted metal. But as hard as he tried to keep himself focused on his only job, taking care of Kacchan, his ears couldn’t help but be tormented by Kacchan’s moans and whimpers of pain as Izuku worked. Izuku’s heart was tearing itself into pieces knowing he was the cause of Kacchan’s pain, regardless of circumstances. He just knew that Kacchan was hurting, Kacchan was scared, and that meant Izuku was hurting too.
Finally, the fourteen Izuku had originally counted was down to one, and Izuku pulled it out with a tug, tug, tug. Kacchan’s voice cracked on the last tug as the shrapnel finally came loose, and he quickly taped down the last piece of gauze.
“There we go, okay, Kacchan, that was the last one, you’re done, you’re so brave Kacchan, you’re done, you were amazing.” Izuku murmured, brushing his hand through Kacchan’s hair again. “I’ve got some bandages in my pocket, I’ll wrap your arm and then I’ll go for help okay?”
It took three heartbeats for Kacchan to nod weakly, his eyes only half open. His level of compliance terrified Izuku.
“We’re almost done, Kacchan, you just gotta stay with me, okay?” Izuku said, pulling the bandages out of his pocket. “You gotta stay awake. Just a few more minutes. Stay awake, Kacchan, come on, stay awake.”
Kacchan’s eyelids fluttered precariously.
Izuku gulped nervously. He grabbed Kacchan’s arm, and even though he’d tried to be gentle, the movement itself must have been too much for Kacchan’s loose grip on consciousness, and he watched in horror as Kacchan’s eyes closed and didn’t open again. Izuku’s fingers immediately went back to Kacchan’s throat, but when he found a weak but steady pulse that was going too fast for his liking, he took another deep breath, trying to calm down. Kacchan must have just passed out from the pain, which wasn’t ideal but it also wasn’t fatal, so he took what he got. As much as he wanted Kacchan to be giving him attention, any kind of attention, he didn’t bother trying to wake Kacchan up, thinking it would waste valuable time. The medics could do that when they were helping him once they got here.
Izuku’s fingers nimbly began to wrap Kacchan’s arm as quickly as he could without losing the efficacy. He just had to do this so the gauze would stay in place, just in case blood weakened the tape with its moisture, and then he could go run for help. Swathes of white soon covered Kacchan’s arm, Izuku making sure that the bandages were tight but not too tight, covering the gauze properly so it wouldn’t be disturbed. Class 1-A had been given basic first aid training after Aizawa-sensei had recovered from the USJ, so he just pulled up the instructions in his head and followed them. Thankfully, had just enough bandages to cover the important parts, his knot stopping just shy of Kacchan’s wrist. He put another couple pieces of tape over the bandages and then stood up.
“I’m going to go get help, Kacchan.” Izuku said, knowing that Kacchan couldn’t hear him, but he couldn’t just leave without saying goodbye. He walked out of the jewelry store, checking to see if there was anyone else. The street was just as empty as it had been before, and he went to step forward, wanting to do what he’d always wanted to do and help Kacchan.
But something stopped him. He took one more look at Kacchan, who was still lying unconscious on the ground. The dark part of his heart whispered in his head, whispered that there had been something else he’d always wanted to do… and right now he had a chance to do it. He doubted he’d ever get a chance again, at least not for years. So even though his logical mind told him to stop, his heart had him going back to Kacchan.
Izuku knelt in front of Kacchan, looking for any sign of consciousness. When there wasn’t any, calloused fingers cupped Kacchan’s cheek, brushing his thumb over Kacchan’s satin skin. Kacchan was so beautiful, even when injured. Izuku could touch Kacchan every day for the rest of their lives and he’d never get tired of it. He longed for a day when Kacchan realized that his show of independence wouldn’t be necessary for him, that Izuku understood him in a way that no one else ever could. That Izuku loved him more than his own life, that Kacchan’s happiness mattered so much to Izuku that he’d sacrifice anything just to see Kacchan smile. In the deepest, darkest part of his heart, Izuku knew that Kacchan would be with him eventually. Izuku just had to keep trying, he just had to keep getting Kacchan’s attention any way he knew how.
Izuku’s free hand brushed through Kacchan’s golden hair again, savoring the feeling as he knew he wouldn’t get the chance for a while. When sunlight streamed through the windows in the dorms, Izuku could just stare at how Kacchan’s hair glowed in the light for hours as Kacchan sleepily made himself breakfast. It was his favorite part of the mornings, why he always tried to secretly align his schedule with Kacchan’s, so he could see it every chance he could.
But Izuku’s favorite thing to stare at was Kacchan’s lips. Secretly, whenever he was alone and no one could ever catch him, he’d imagine what it felt like to be kissed by those plump, full lips. Izuku could daydream for hours just imagining Kacchan’s lips pressed against his, his hands roving over Izuku’s body, their bodies pressed so closely together. And every time he’d tell himself that he just had to be patient, that he’d convince Kacchan how good they’d be together, that he was so sure that Kacchan actually really cared about him rather than the angry mask he put on. He just had to give Kacchan time. But right now, with Kacchan unconscious and left completely alone with him, Izuku didn’t have to be patient.
There was a spark of electricity within him as soon as Izuku pressed his lips against Kacchan’s, his heart singing with the thrill of being able to kiss Kacchan. Sure, he’d prefer that Kacchan was awake and willing, but this was more than enough for now. Izuku deepened the kiss against Kacchan’s slack lips, being selfish for once in his life. Kacchan’s lips were so much better than he’d imagined, soft and luscious and addictive. Izuku could happily spend a week just like this, kissing Kacchan’s perfect lips, even giving up food and water as much as he could just to spend more time with Kacchan loving him the way that Izuku knew he would, that he did.
Izuku pulled back immediately when Kacchan stirred, making a soft moan. Izuku scanned his face for any sign of waking, but Kacchan went still after that. Even though he was unconscious, Kacchan must have felt the same spark of electricity at their kiss that Izuku did.
“I love you too, Kacchan.” Izuku breathlessly whispered. “I’m going to save you.”
With his lips still tingling, Izuku stood up again, and took off to find the first paramedic he could. He was lightheaded and a little dizzy, but he was sure it had nothing to do with his own injuries (mostly), just feeling such an intense high of having fulfilled a lifelong dream of actually kissing Kacchan. And just as he promised he would, he would save Kacchan, no matter what. He’d save him from whatever threat ever came their way, no matter how vast or how cruel.
Nothing would ever keep him from Kacchan’s side again, not even Kacchan himself.
When Izuku and Kacchan are fighting a villain, Kacchan gets hurt. As horrible as that is, Izuku is a little glad he can finally take care of Kacchan the way he's always wanted to.
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the
Organization for Transformative Works
Getting paired up with Kacchan on disaster assistance was the highlight of his week. He didn’t like that there had been an earthquake near Musutafu, and he hated seeing all the people in peril who needed help, but Aizawa-sensei assigning him and Kacchan together was definitely a silver lining that he could appreciate. Any time he could spend with Kacchan was time well spent. Sure, Kacchan had loudly protested, and only conceded when Aizawa-sensei hadn’t allowed him to switch as he said that they’d been paired up for a reason, but that didn’t matter. He was pretty sure that Kacchan would’ve complained no matter who he was paired up with. He had always been so independent. It was one of the many reasons Izuki loved him. A-as a friend. Yes, definitely as a friend, and not anything else. Totally.
“You better fucking keep up with me, nerd, or I’m gonna leave your ass in the dust.” Kacchan growled as they started to run to their assigned area.
“Don’t worry about me, Kacchan, I’ll stay right by your side.” Izuku said with a bright smile.
Kacchan just glared at him. “There is nothing in this world that could make me worry about you, Deku.”
Izuku’s smile didn’t falter. He’d known Kacchan long enough to know when he was speaking seriously, and when he wasn’t. As serious as Kacchan was, he often spoke in hyperbole, always had ever since they were little.
They spent the first few minutes looking for any injured people in their area, they’d been given orders to clear three blocks of any civilians and/or get anyone injured to medical attention. The sound of smashing glass then caught their attention.
“The hell was that?” Kacchan muttered.
“It wasn’t an aftershock, we’d feel the ground shaking if it was, so it can’t be the result of anything having to do with the earthquake.” Izuku murmured.
“I know what the fuck it isn’t, Deku, we need to find out what it is, you idiot!” Kacchan snapped at him. Izuku didn’t take it personally, he knew Kacchan was really stressed about this. As much as he liked to portray that his only reason for becoming a hero was to be the best, to be even better than All Might, Izuku still knew that deep down Kacchan wanted to save people too. It was a part of who he was, even if it didn’t seem like it all the time.
Izuku’s eyes searched, and landed on a man climbing through a clearly broken window into what appeared to be a jewelry store. “There!”
Without waiting for him or anything else, Kacchan started running straight towards the man.
“Wait, Kacchan, no, we need a plan of attack!” Izuku said, tearing off after him anyways.
“I have a plan. Attack.” Kacchan growled back as he leapt through the broken window.
Izuku felt the familiar rush of power that accompanied activating One-for-All, his body beginning to crackle slightly with green lightning. He followed Kacchan inside the store to see the man he’d seen stuffing the necklaces into his jacket. Clearly, this was a crime of opportunity, and Izuku hated seeing people take advantage of others’ distress.
“Hands up, you dumb bastard!” Kacchan shouted, his hands already sparking off.
The man turned, obviously startled by their presence, as he’d most likely been expecting the heroes to focus on where the damage was rather than the side streets they’d been assigned.
“What the? Who the hell are you brats?”
“Dynamight and Deku, fuckwad!” Kacchan shouted back. Izuku’s heart secretly fluttered just a little as he heard his and Kacchan’s hero names sounding so wonderful together, especially in Kacchan’s gorgeous voice.
“We’re gonna take you down!” Izuku yelled.
“The hell you will!” The man shouted, and he extended his arm towards them.
The man’s quirk was easily revealed as spikes of all lengths started to shoot out of the man’s wrist. Almost seamlessly, they instinctively began to work together, just as they had done during the final exam, proving that they truly were two sides of the same coin. Izuku tried firing his snap wind attacks, trying to catch the man off balance, while Kacchan expertly put him on the defense to keep backing him into the wall. Together they flew, moving as one unit, when Kacchan dodged, Izuku fired his air pressure snaps, and when Izuku dove underneath a display case to shield himself, Kacchan got in close, trying to blow the man up. As much as Kacchan didn’t like working with him, it was easy to see that they did work ridiculously well together. While Izuku never lost focus on the man in front of him, he couldn’t help but stare a little at Kacchan as he moved in tandem with Izuku. Kacchan was a warrior, yet also a dancer who moved with beauty and grace, and Izuku loved being here to watch him move so expertly.
Suddenly, the world seemed to slow down as Kacchan jumped into the air, his arm outstretched, his hand ready to pull the pin out of his grenade. As he saw Kacchan move, Izuku saw a small spike protruding from the underside of Kacchan’s right gauntlet that Kacchan couldn’t see. Immediately, he started to reach for Kacchan, to scream at him to stop. But before Izuku could even get his voice to work, Kacchan had already pulled the pin.
BOOM!
A blast of hot air hit him in the chest and threw him off his feet. He flew through the air for a moment before he crashed into something hard behind him, his vision going spotty as he slid down to the ground. He wanted to get up, he wanted to run to Kacchan, but instead his eyes just closed and he passed out.
His ears rang painfully as Izuku managed to open his eyes. He groaned lightly without being able to hear it as his blurred vision tried to justify itself. Izuku wasn’t sure how long it took before his mind finally got the cobwebs out and he came back to himself. Everything about him hurt, and he could feel what must have been over a dozen bruises all over his body, but he’d had worse, so he forced himself up. He leaned against the wall to steady himself and looked around, seeing debris all around him. The jewelry store… the building must have come down around them from the force of the explosion from Kacchan’s gauntlet misfiring.
Oh god, Kacchan! Forcing himself forward despite the pain, Izuku stumbled to where he’d last seen Kacchan.
“Kacchan!” Izuku coughed as he shouted for his friend, dust trying to get down his throat as he walked. “Kacchan, where are you?”
Silence.
Izuku’s heart twisted in fear when Kacchan didn’t answer. What if something had happened when Izuku was unconscious? What if Kacchan had gotten kidnapped again? What if he’d gotten killed? God, Izuku couldn’t fathom it. Kacchan was just as much a part of him as his left arm was. He couldn’t lose Kacchan, he just couldn’t.
“Kacchan! Come on, answer me!” Izuku shouted, trying to search through the debris for any sign of his friend.
His blood ran cold when he saw lots of dots of red splattered over the floor. Izuku’s mind raced as he followed the red trail, his stomach twisting with dread as horrible images of Kacchan’s broken body flashed through his head. No, please, no, god, there was so much blood…
Izuku gasped as he came upon a pair of black boots lying still on the ground, and he immediately lurched forward, moving the body they were attached to to see who it was. A few tears ran down his cheeks as he realized that these belonged to the man who had been robbing the store. He ripped his glove off and felt at the man’s throat. He sighed heavily as he didn’t feel a pulse, and he saw some of the man’s own spikes embedded in his flesh. The force of the explosion must have sent the spikes back into him. It was a tragedy, and Izuku wished it hadn’t turned out like this, but his mind quickly drifted back to Kacchan. He needed to find his friend, he couldn’t waste any time. The potential for Kacchan to be injured was just too high.
He searched through the wreckage as carefully as he could, trying to determine any load bearing debris as he worked, using his quirk to help him dislodge what rubble he could. “Kacchan, come on, please answer me! Please! Anything! Just let me know you’re alive!”
His only answer was an eerie silence that terrified him. Kacchan never went that long without making noise.
Izuku’s heart pounded with fear in his chest, a vice twisting around his chest in the same way he’d felt that night at the training camp. “Please, Kacchan, please say something, don’t be gone, please let me find you, please!”
When he finally saw a glimpse of a green glove, he shrieked “Kacchan!”, and Izuku felt his instincts scream at him to get to Kacchan. His hands started shaking as he removed the rubble that was caging Kacchan in, and finally, after lifting a chunk of debris that must have been almost as big as Izuku himself, he finally saw the crumpled form of his dear friend. “Oh god, no, Kacchan!”
Kacchan lay upon a giant piece of rubble, slightly curled on his right side, lying in a pool of blood. Izuku immediately reached for Kacchan’s throat, and a shuddered sigh passed his lips as he felt a weak but steady pulse beating against his fingers. Izuku forced himself to calm down so he could properly triage Kacchan. Right now, his friend needed calm, and he needed support, and right now, Izuku was the only one who could give him that. Focus, Izuku, focus.
Izuku’s eyes were immediately drawn to Kacchan’s right arm, his silky skin embedded with horrible shrapnel. His right arm was soaked in blood, and took top priority. A quick glance showed that this was the most serious of the many wounds on Kacchan’s body, so he just slipped his hands underneath Kacchan’s chest and knees. He’d carry Kacchan to safety if it killed him.
A soft moan followed, and he realized that the movement must have woken Kacchan.
“Wha… de-deku?”
“Shh, you’re alright.” Izuku whispered, taking a moment to softly stroke Kacchan’s golden hair. Kacchan usually never let him get close enough to touch him, and he knew that Kacchan liked it even if he wouldn’t admit it. He’d seen Kirishima do it last week when Kacchan had a headache, and he’d seen that small smile on Kacchan’s face, even if he probably wasn’t meant to. Sure, Kacchan probably didn’t know that Izuku had been watching him, but he’d seen that Kacchan was clearly in pain, so he just wanted to check on his friend. It was nothing more, really. “Don’t move, Kacchan, I’ve got you.”
“What… happened?” Kacchan groaned, coughing a little. Probably from the dust, just as Izuku had.
“Your gauntlet misfired.” Izuku said simply. “You got hurt.”
Kacchan just made a pained noise in response.
“Shh, Kacchan, it’s alright, I’m going to take care of you.” Izuku said. He’d always wanted to do this, to be able to be close enough to take care of Kacchan, but he’d never been allowed before. “I’m going to get you to safety.”
Kacchan weakly shoved at him with his left arm. “I don’t need you, Deku.” Kacchan then tried to move and push himself up, but he didn’t even get off the ground before he shrieked in pain and collapsed again.
Izuku didn’t say anything for a moment. Kacchan glared at him. He tried again, trying to get up himself, but Kacchan just collapsed with another agonizing shout. It hurt Izuku’s heart to hear Kacchan’s beautiful voice exude such agony, but he knew his Kacchan. He had to try it himself before he let anyone even think about helping. As much as Izuku loved how independent Kacchan could be, sometimes, it was really frustrating to watch as Kacchan put himself through agony to prove a point Izuku already knew.
This time, Kacchan stayed down, panting heavily. Izuku knew that Kacchan would never verbally ask for help, especially not from him, but he knew that Kacchan not trying to stand again was his way of saying that he needed Izuku’s help. Izuku knew him better than anyone, he understood what Kacchan’s nonverbal behaviors meant, even if Kacchan himself didn’t know. Honestly, though, Kacchan had no choice but to accept Izuku’s help. He couldn’t even stand on his own. Izuku’d always wanted Kacchan to want him, to want him around, to want Izuku to take care of him, and he secretly hoped that maybe this would finally show to Kacchan that Izuku was the person who he would want when he was in trouble, when he needed someone to help him.
Gently, Izuku reached out and again stroked Kacchan’s satiny golden hair in an effort to be soothing. Kacchan swatted his hand away, but he could sense Kacchan’s strength waning. “Don’t… don’t touch me… Deku.”
“Kacchan, you’re badly hurt, and right now, I’m all you’ve got.” Izuku said, getting a little frustrated that Kacchan was acting like this even when he was so hurt. “I’m going to take care of you whether you like it or not.”
Kacchan just glared at him, but he could see the pain Kacchan was trying to keep hidden. Kacchan was so silly sometimes, trying to hide something that Izuku could so clearly see. But he knew that Kacchan had a really hard time being vulnerable, especially in front of Izuku, so he didn’t call Kacchan out on it. After all, it would just lead to another argument.
“I know you don’t like being touched, Kacchan, but you’re really hurt, and I need to do this.” Izuku said softly but firmly, and he resumed his position of grabbing Kacchan under his knees and chest. He started to lift, but he froze when Kacchan shrieked loudly in his ear.
“Wha- Kacchan, what’s wrong?” Izuku asked frantically. Kacchan would never scream like that unless he couldn’t hold it back.
“Right… side.” Kacchan gasped quietly, pain evident in every syllable. “Something… shifted.”
Izuku immediately set Kacchan back down, and rolled Kacchan over a bit, making Kacchan make a soft whimpering sound in the back of his throat. Izuku gasped as he saw what Kacchan must have felt. It had been hidden by Kacchan’s first position, but there was a metal rod sticking into Kacchan’s body, right above his hip. That must have been why there was so much pooled blood. Ohh, not good, not good. He set Kacchan back down, causing another gasp of pain.
“Kacchan, you’ve- there’s a steel rod, it’s stabbed into you.” Izuku explained, trying to keep panic out of his voice. Kacchan met his eyes, and he saw a fear in Kacchan’s beautiful crimson eyes that he hadn’t seen in a long time. They both knew that if the rod was displaced before they reached medical assistance that Kacchan would bleed out. And Izuku wasn’t willing to risk trying to break the rod, because the probability of making the wound worse was too high. Which meant that Izuku couldn’t carry Kacchan to safety without the potential of killing him.
Oh, god.
Okay, focus, Izuku, Kacchan’s terrified and he needs you. You’re the only one who can help him right now. Just like a dark part of him secretly wanted, though he always pushed that part of him down as far as it could go.
“Okay, I need to stop the bleeding on your arm.” Izuku thought out loud, so he could let Kacchan know what he was about to do so he could prepare himself. He could hear the subtle hitches in Kacchan’s breathing, they both knew this was gonna be painful. Be strong, Izuku. For Kacchan.
“I-I’ll be right back, Kacchan.” Izuku stuttered a little, hating to leave his precious Kacchan like this, scared and in pain, but he had to do this to save his best friend. “I’m going to see if this place has a first aid kit. Just-just call me if you need me.”
Izuku felt like he was tearing his heart in half, having to leave Kacchan alone for even a second while he was hurting and scared, but he forced himself to stand up anyways. His head swam a little as he did, his own injuries screaming at him for attention, but he’d had worse so he forced himself to ignore it. His own set of bruises was nothing in comparison, his poor Kacchan was in agony and as long as Kacchan hurt, Izuku’s pain didn’t matter.
Thankfully, whoever had run this place was thinking logically, and when Izuku finally found the remnants of a register, he also found a small first aid kit tucked away along with some tape. Knowing this would be the best he got, he immediately returned to his Kacchan. He flipped open the kit, and examined its contents, looking for very specific equipment. His heart calmed a little when he found tweezers and a small spray bottle of isopropyl alcohol, the two things he needed most right now. Okay, he could do this. Kachhan would be okay. Kacchan would be okay.
First things first, Izuku found a couple of ibuprofen tablets, and popped them out of their blister packs. Before he could put these to Kachhan’s mouth, Kacchan’s left hand snatched them away from him, and he dry swallowed the pills. It wouldn’t be nearly enough to stop the pain he was in, but Izuku hoped it would help. After all, the only real reason Kacchan would’ve done that was because he was in so much pain he couldn’t wait for Izuku’s gentleness.
“Kacchan, I have to clean the blood off, pull the fragments out, and then disinfect the wounds.” Izuku said, his voice shaking a little. Kacchan glared up at him, and yet Izuku, knowing Kacchan as well as he did, could still see the fear hidden in those beautiful crimson eyes.
“Fuck, just- fucking do it already.” Kacchan muttered, pain so horribly evident in Kacchan’s gorgeous voice. “I can take it.”
That Izuku knew. After everything they’d gone through, Izuku knew just how far Kacchan could push himself. But knowing that didn’t make it any easier. He took the paper first aid guide and held it up to Kacchan’s mouth. “Here, bite down on this.”
At first it looked like Kacchan wasn’t going to, but after a moment of hesitation, Kacchan slowly moved to bite down on the booklet. It wasn’t nearly enough, but it was the best they had. Izuku then maneuvered himself carefully to be slightly above, slightly next to Kacchan without him needing to move so Izuku could get at Kacchan’s whole arm. Even though Kacchan made a noise of protest, Izuku gently picked up Kacchan’s arm and placed it in his lap. Izuku knew the protest was just the pain, so he didn’t pay it any heed.
Izuku then pulled off his gloves, setting them aside. The kit didn’t have any rubber gloves to replace them, but his somewhat clean hands were better than his dirty gloves touching Kacchan’s silky, torn skin. All that was in the kit that Izuku could use was those little alcohol pads so he just tore one open. He carefully brought them to Kacchan’s shoulder, and took a deep breath.
Slowly, meticulously, Izuku then swiped the little pad down Kacchan’s bicep. It didn’t do much since it was so small, but he did his best. It was mere minutes before the pad was soaked with Kacchan’s blood, so he just tossed it aside and got another. As Izuku worked, Kacchan made little noises of pain when the pad hit an open wound, tiny lacerations that were hidden by the blood so thoroughly plastered to his skin, but Izuku kept going. He had to.
“It’s gonna be alright Kacchan, shh, I know it hurts, but you’re doing so well, I’ve got you.”
It felt like hours were passing as Izuku swiped at the blood on Kacchan’s arms, the little pads easily getting overwhelmed by the amount of blood. His heart was thundering in his chest as he saw every new cut, how deep some of the fragments were embedded into Kacchan’s touchable skin. He wished he could touch Kacchan like this when he wasn’t grievously wounded. As he wiped off the blood, he counted the lacerations as he found them, cataloging where it was and approximately how long it was. He didn’t think he’d ever been so grateful for his ability to pay so intense attention to detail.
After five eternities, Izuku finally finished with Kacchan’s arm as clean as he could get it. There were still spots of dried blood, but he didn’t try getting them. He didn’t want the attempt to aggravate Kacchan’s existing cuts and add to his obvious agony.
Now for the hard part.
Izuku’s hands were shaking as he picked up the tweezers after using the last of the alcohol pads to do his best to sterilize his hands. He met Kacchan’s eyes, as if nonverbally preparing him for what was to come. Kacchan’s eyes were filled with a resignation he’d never seen before, one that made Izuku almost feel the agony Kacchan was feeling inside, and then, Kacchan nodded. Izuku took another deep breath, and nodded back, understanding.
As Izuku moved determinedly, the shakiness in his hands slowed to a stop. He couldn’t afford to have shaky hands right now. Again, he started at Kacchan’s shoulder, working his way down to his forearm. Izuku’s heart and stomach lurched as he pulled the tiny pieces of shrapnel from Kacchan’s perfect body. Kacchan couldn’t stop himself from crying out whenever Izuku found one that was resistant to his gentle pulls, and gasping when the pieces finally slid out. Izuku had to look away from Kacchan’s face, unable to take the tears streaming down his cheeks. Kacchan was hurting so bad, and while he knew this was for Kacchan’s own good, that Kacchan had given him permission, that didn’t make him feel any less terrible about the pain he was causing his poor, poor Kacchan.
“You’re doing great, Kacchan, you’re doing great.” Izuku murmured, almost unaware of the words he was saying as he was so focused on his task. “Just a few more, just a few more, you’re doing great, Kacchan, almost there, almost there.”
Izuku’s movements became repetitive, tweezing the next piece of shrapnel, pulling it out as gently as he could, putting the very end of the tweezers into his mouth, then grabbing a piece of gauze from the kit and covering the wound with it, and finally, using the tape he found to keep the gauze secured to Kacchan’s wounds. A small pile of shrapnel was forming beside them as Izuku carefully extracted the twisted metal. But as hard as he tried to keep himself focused on his only job, taking care of Kacchan, his ears couldn’t help but be tormented by Kacchan’s moans and whimpers of pain as Izuku worked. Izuku’s heart was tearing itself into pieces knowing he was the cause of Kacchan’s pain, regardless of circumstances. He just knew that Kacchan was hurting, Kacchan was scared, and that meant Izuku was hurting too.
Finally, the fourteen Izuku had originally counted was down to one, and Izuku pulled it out with a tug, tug, tug. Kacchan’s voice cracked on the last tug as the shrapnel finally came loose, and he quickly taped down the last piece of gauze.
“There we go, okay, Kacchan, that was the last one, you’re done, you’re so brave Kacchan, you’re done, you were amazing.” Izuku murmured, brushing his hand through Kacchan’s hair again. “I’ve got some bandages in my pocket, I’ll wrap your arm and then I’ll go for help okay?”
It took three heartbeats for Kacchan to nod weakly, his eyes only half open. His level of compliance terrified Izuku.
“We’re almost done, Kacchan, you just gotta stay with me, okay?” Izuku said, pulling the bandages out of his pocket. “You gotta stay awake. Just a few more minutes. Stay awake, Kacchan, come on, stay awake.”
Kacchan’s eyelids fluttered precariously.
Izuku gulped nervously. He grabbed Kacchan’s arm, and even though he’d tried to be gentle, the movement itself must have been too much for Kacchan’s loose grip on consciousness, and he watched in horror as Kacchan’s eyes closed and didn’t open again. Izuku’s fingers immediately went back to Kacchan’s throat, but when he found a weak but steady pulse that was going too fast for his liking, he took another deep breath, trying to calm down. Kacchan must have just passed out from the pain, which wasn’t ideal but it also wasn’t fatal, so he took what he got. As much as he wanted Kacchan to be giving him attention, any kind of attention, he didn’t bother trying to wake Kacchan up, thinking it would waste valuable time. The medics could do that when they were helping him once they got here.
Izuku’s fingers nimbly began to wrap Kacchan’s arm as quickly as he could without losing the efficacy. He just had to do this so the gauze would stay in place, just in case blood weakened the tape with its moisture, and then he could go run for help. Swathes of white soon covered Kacchan’s arm, Izuku making sure that the bandages were tight but not too tight, covering the gauze properly so it wouldn’t be disturbed. Class 1-A had been given basic first aid training after Aizawa-sensei had recovered from the USJ, so he just pulled up the instructions in his head and followed them. Thankfully, had just enough bandages to cover the important parts, his knot stopping just shy of Kacchan’s wrist. He put another couple pieces of tape over the bandages and then stood up.
“I’m going to go get help, Kacchan.” Izuku said, knowing that Kacchan couldn’t hear him, but he couldn’t just leave without saying goodbye. He walked out of the jewelry store, checking to see if there was anyone else. The street was just as empty as it had been before, and he went to step forward, wanting to do what he’d always wanted to do and help Kacchan.
But something stopped him. He took one more look at Kacchan, who was still lying unconscious on the ground. The dark part of his heart whispered in his head, whispered that there had been something else he’d always wanted to do… and right now he had a chance to do it. He doubted he’d ever get a chance again, at least not for years. So even though his logical mind told him to stop, his heart had him going back to Kacchan.
Izuku knelt in front of Kacchan, looking for any sign of consciousness. When there wasn’t any, calloused fingers cupped Kacchan’s cheek, brushing his thumb over Kacchan’s satin skin. Kacchan was so beautiful, even when injured. Izuku could touch Kacchan every day for the rest of their lives and he’d never get tired of it. He longed for a day when Kacchan realized that his show of independence wouldn’t be necessary for him, that Izuku understood him in a way that no one else ever could. That Izuku loved him more than his own life, that Kacchan’s happiness mattered so much to Izuku that he’d sacrifice anything just to see Kacchan smile. In the deepest, darkest part of his heart, Izuku knew that Kacchan would be with him eventually. Izuku just had to keep trying, he just had to keep getting Kacchan’s attention any way he knew how.
Izuku’s free hand brushed through Kacchan’s golden hair again, savoring the feeling as he knew he wouldn’t get the chance for a while. When sunlight streamed through the windows in the dorms, Izuku could just stare at how Kacchan’s hair glowed in the light for hours as Kacchan sleepily made himself breakfast. It was his favorite part of the mornings, why he always tried to secretly align his schedule with Kacchan’s, so he could see it every chance he could.
But Izuku’s favorite thing to stare at was Kacchan’s lips. Secretly, whenever he was alone and no one could ever catch him, he’d imagine what it felt like to be kissed by those plump, full lips. Izuku could daydream for hours just imagining Kacchan’s lips pressed against his, his hands roving over Izuku’s body, their bodies pressed so closely together. And every time he’d tell himself that he just had to be patient, that he’d convince Kacchan how good they’d be together, that he was so sure that Kacchan actually really cared about him rather than the angry mask he put on. He just had to give Kacchan time. But right now, with Kacchan unconscious and left completely alone with him, Izuku didn’t have to be patient.
There was a spark of electricity within him as soon as Izuku pressed his lips against Kacchan’s, his heart singing with the thrill of being able to kiss Kacchan. Sure, he’d prefer that Kacchan was awake and willing, but this was more than enough for now. Izuku deepened the kiss against Kacchan’s slack lips, being selfish for once in his life. Kacchan’s lips were so much better than he’d imagined, soft and luscious and addictive. Izuku could happily spend a week just like this, kissing Kacchan’s perfect lips, even giving up food and water as much as he could just to spend more time with Kacchan loving him the way that Izuku knew he would, that he did.
Izuku pulled back immediately when Kacchan stirred, making a soft moan. Izuku scanned his face for any sign of waking, but Kacchan went still after that. Even though he was unconscious, Kacchan must have felt the same spark of electricity at their kiss that Izuku did.
“I love you too, Kacchan.” Izuku breathlessly whispered. “I’m going to save you.”
With his lips still tingling, Izuku stood up again, and took off to find the first paramedic he could. He was lightheaded and a little dizzy, but he was sure it had nothing to do with his own injuries (mostly), just feeling such an intense high of having fulfilled a lifelong dream of actually kissing Kacchan. And just as he promised he would, he would save Kacchan, no matter what. He’d save him from whatever threat ever came their way, no matter how vast or how cruel.
Nothing would ever keep him from Kacchan’s side again, not even Kacchan himself.
