Archive of Our Own

It starts when Katsuki gets an emergency call when he’s supposed to be on vacation.

Katsuki doesn’t like taking vacations from work, because when he’s not there, shit usually goes down. But this time he didn’t actually have a choice — Best Jeanist looked at Katsuki’s hour log and told him if he didn’t take a break, he’d fire him. 

So Katsuki went on vacation in the mountains by himself, and wished bitterly Best Jeanist listened when Katsuki told him he didn’t want or need a break from work. 

When Katsuki isn’t working, he tends to think, and when he thinks, he regrets, and all in all it’s not a good combination for him. But he’d rather go on a shitty vacation than lose his job, so off to the mountains he went, where at least if he had a breakdown he wouldn’t have to do it in front of Shitty Hair.

He’s been here two days, maybe, and he’s losing his mind when he gets this emergency call about a lost hiker in the area. Grumbling to himself, even though he’s secretly glad to have something to do, he goes out to find out what the issue is. 

It’s snowing outside, and Katsuki allows himself one second of gratitude that he wasn’t allowed to bring his suit on this trip. His suit, with its cut-off sleeves, would be horrible in this weather. Instead, he’s wearing long sleeves and a coat that makes him way too sweaty when he’s inside, but is perfect for outside.  

There’s a storm in the distance, he can see it in the tumbling clouds out there, and he knows today is a shitty day to be a lost hiker. 

That’s what Katsuki is here for, though. He’ll get whoever it is out of there and save the day or whatever.

When he walks into the ranger’s office, they’re all crowded around a walkie talkie, speaking with whoever it is that was stupid enough to get stuck on a mountain right before a snowstorm. “Think you can get back?”

“Uh… I mean, probably not before the storm comes in.” Whoever it is sounds young, maybe around Katsuki’s age, and also weirdly familiar, even over the crackling of the walkie talkie. “The snow mobile’s all out of gas too, so that’s out. I’d have to walk, and I think it’d be safer just to make a shelter.”

The rangers share a worried look, and one of them catches sight of Katsuki. “Oh! Well, Izu, there’s a hero here who can give you a hand!” 

“Oh, yeah? If you think they can get out here, that’d be great. Really, though, I’m fine to wait it out.”

“Is your gear dry?” someone asks, one of the more experienced-looking rangers.

“My inner coat is.”

“It’d be better if I just went and got him,” Katsuki says, offering his input. He learned this stuff in school. That it’s better not to leave people out in the middle of blizzards, even if they know what they’re doing. 

“He’s going to come get you,” one of the rangers says.

“Tell him to hurry. This storm isn’t going to slow down for us.”

“Okay.” The experienced ranger turns to Katsuki. “Izu — he’s a ranger with us. He went out earlier for an S.O.S. that turned out to be a false alarm, but now he’s stranded out there.” Handing him a small device, she continues,  “This is a GPS. We have his location there via tracker, but you’re going to have to hurry to find him. That storm is going to hit in less than an hour.”

Katsuki nods, taking the GPS. “Yeah, yeah, no fucking problem. I’ll be back.”

He walks out into the outdoors, wincing at the cold, and frowns up the mountain. It’s fucking huge, that’s what it is,  but Katsuki’s not a hero for nothing. Reading the GPS, he starts off, using explosions to propel himself into the sky so he can get to ‘Izu’ in time.

At least he’s not rescuing an incompetent loon. At least whoever this Izu guy is, Izu with the familiar, bright voice —at least he won’t drag Katsuki down. 

He hurtles over drifts of snow, heading straight up the mountain and keeping his eyes fixed on the clouds in the distance. They’re angry clouds, and he can feel the wind already, icy and biting. It’s not good for his quirk in this weather, but he’ll push through until he finds the lost ranger.

He follows the GPS and finally finds the guy, a dark speck on the mountain, carefully making his way down. Katsuki drops down to the ground in front of him. 

The ranger looks up in alarm, and Katsuki’s stomach plummets. “Hey, don’t step ba—”

Deku meets his eye and freezes. 

No. No way. 

Katsuki’s gone years without seeing Deku, there’s no way he’s seeing him again right now. No way, after leaving him behind, after all the regrets and nightmares, that Katsuki is face to face with him again. That would be the worst coincidence of all—

“Kacchan?” Deku says, voice almost broken. 

Katsuki takes a step back in horror, and then another. No, no way.

“Kacchan, wait— stop walking, there’s a—”

He takes another step, and the snow gives way beneath his foot. 

“Kacchan!” Deku screeches as Katsuki falls. He lunges forward, but he’s too late, because Katsuki is already falling. 

He sets off an explosion to catch himself and only ends up slamming into a wall of ice and sliding down the wall, barely managing to catch himself a few times before breaking something. Still, he hits the ground hard and feels something crack beneath him. 

Holy shit. 

This is a little too much for him to process. Deku — falling a good fifty feet — the storm, all of it. And now he’s probably broken a bone too? What is even happening?

“Kacchan?” Deku calls down from the top of this shitty hole Katsuki fell into. 

He takes a second, trying to figure out where he is. It looks like some sort of chasm of ice… a crevasse, if he remembers correctly from school.

Well, shit. This is possibly the worst place for Katsuki to be right now.

“Kacchan!” Deku screams, sounding much more frantic. 

Katsuki takes a second to remember what his voice does, and then calls up, “I’m fine, shi… I’m fine!”

Now that he’s said that, he should probably actually make sure he’s fine. He checks himself over and nearly starts a swearing match with the empty crevasse when he realizes he’s done something to his tailbone that’s going to make it very difficult to walk or fly out of this shitty, shitty hole.

“I don’t believe you,” Deku says flatly. “I told you not to step backwards, Kacchan!”

“Well, I wasn’t exactly listening!” he snaps back. 

“Well, now you’re stuck in a hole, Kacchan.”

“I see that, asshole.” Katsuki starts to get to his feet and then stops, gasping, as he realizes he must have missed another break because something is not right with one of his hands. He looks and sees one of his wrists is broken, his hand at a funny angle. Hissing, he presses the hand close to his chest. “Hey, shithead,” he yells up the chasm. “My hand’s broken, I can’t explode myself out!” Now that he’s aware his hand is broken, it’s starting to burn with pain, bringing tears to his eyes. 

“Well, that would be a bad idea in any circumstance,” he hears Deku mutter, although it’s quiet. “Give me a second!” he yells in a louder tone. “We can wait out the blizzard down there.”

Katsuki’s not sure that’s a good idea, but he also can’t think of a better option, so he holds still, doing his best to ignore the way his hand is pulsing with pain. That combined with the pain in his ass and he’s struggling.

After a minute, Deku appears at the top of the crevasse again and starts climbing down, jamming picks into the ice and using them to climb. It takes him the better half of thirty minutes, but he gets down eventually, sending Katsuki a concerned look. “Let me see your wrist,” he says without preamble, reaching out his hands for it. 

Glaring at him, Katsuki twists his body away so Deku doesn’t look at the break. He doesn’t need Deku’s shitty help.

“Oh, for the love of— I am a registered medical professional,” Deku says, tone a little biting now. “Let me see your wrist, Kacchan. Something could be wrong.”

“It’s fucking fine,” Katsuki snarls, knowing he’s acting like a child and not particularly caring.

“Yeah, and I’m a hero,” Deku says drily, rolling his eyes. That actually hurts a little, given how many times Katsuki told him he couldn’t be exactly that. “Now let me see it.”

“I can handle it myself,” he snaps.

“Can and should are two very different things,” Deku says, sounding a lot like Auntie Inko. “I have a first aid kid, I can splint it.”

“I don’t need your shitty help, Deku!” Katsuki snaps. “Get off!”

“I’m not even touching you!”

Katsuki doesn’t want to be stuck in a fucking chasm with Deku, goddammit. “Yeah, well, you’re being a nosy asshole.”

“It’s not being nosy if it’s a broken bone, Kacchan.”

“It’s your fault we’re out here in the first place,” Katsuki mutters. 

Deku drops his helping hand, glaring at Katsuki with more anger than Katsuki thought he had in him. “Oh, great, really mature, Katsuki-kun,” he said, voice dripping with sarcasm. “Right, my fault, thanks for reminding me.”

Katsuki didn’t mean to hurt his feelings, but now that he’s here, like hell is he backing down. “It is your fault.”

That appears to be the wrong thing to say, because Deku’s face starts getting red. “Well, if you’d listened to me, then you wouldn’t have fallen in here in the first place!”

“Well, if you hadn’t…” The problem is, Deku is right. Katsuki had been distracted, something he made it his life’s work to never be, and so he’d fallen backwards into a hole and broken some stuff. Something about Deku… Oh, for fuck’s sake. “If you hadn’t been standing so close to the chasm—”

“What was I supposed to do, huh? Go on a long hike around a hole I knew perfectly well was right there?”

“Well, you could’ve—”

A biting wind sweeps through the cavern and both of them shut up as the cold sweeps over them.

The first of the snowflakes start to fall. 

When Katsuki left, it was almost noon. This blizzard is supposed to last all night and into the next one. If they can’t get out of this goddamn hole, they’re going to freeze to death. 

“Look,” Deku says, in a much more gentle tone than the one he’d been using before. “If we don’t help each other a little, we’re going to die.”

Katsuki can see that, yeah.

“If you don’t want me looking at your wrist, fine. I can give you my first aid materials and you can fix it yourself. But the way I see it, we’re not getting out of here by the time this blizzard blows over, so we’re going to need to make a shelter for ourselves, okay?”

Katsuki glares at him, hating that he’s right. “Okay, fine,” he agrees in the meanest tone he can muster, even with his hand feeling like it’s about to fall right off. He hasn’t been in this much pain since the war, probably. 

And he’s supposed to be on vacation. This all goes to show Best Jeanist knows nothing.

“So are you going to be a stubborn ass, or are you going to let me splint it?” Deku asks, and there's only one answer Katsuki can say to that question.

"I'll do it myself, nerd."

Deku doesn't say anything back, just reaches into his pack and pulls out a small first aid kit, which he hands wordlessly off to Katsuki. "Anything you need should be in there,” he says quietly. "Let me know if you need any help."

Absolutely not. Only on his deathbed will Katsuki ask for help from Deku. He takes the first aid kit and quietly starts pulling out the materials he'll need. Meanwhile, Deku reaches back into his pack and pulls out what looks like a sharp drilling tool of some kind.

Wrapping his wrist, Katsuki watches sharply as Izuku starts picking at the wall of the ice rift they're in. It seems like it's slow work, and Katsuki thinks he can speed it up a great deal as soon as he gets his wrist fixed, but he has to figure that part out first.

The problem is, while Katsuki has splinted plenty of other people’s wrists, he's never had to splint his own before. He's never broken a wrist and it's much more difficult to wrap with only one hand. After several unsuccessful attempts, he has to admit he needs help.

"Deku," he says, looking up. 

Considering the amount of time that has passed, Deku has made a pretty sizable dent in that wall. It isn't anything Katsuki would have noticed if he hadn't seen the wall before, but still. He wonders what Deku’s up to.

Either way, Deku has stopped his work to look up at Katsuki. "What?" he asks, and those wide green eyes should be made illegal, because they take the words right out of Katsuki’s mouth. Has Deku always been this beautiful? Katsuki can't remember, but he thinks he found Deku quite plain when they were younger.

"Uh... Help. I need...” Katsuki holds out his broken wrist, feeling weaker than usual. "I can't do it.” Those are words Katsuki has never uttered before this moment. Deku’s always had that effect on him, though, made it easy to say how he felt, like Deku could see right through him. It’s part of the reason he terrifies Katsuki so much.

Deku sets down his ice picking tools and walks over, taking his arm. “Yeah, you broke it,” he says, deadpan.

The snark is new. Katsuki doesn’t think he minds it much, actually. It’s… funny.

“Okay, I’m going to set the bone, so hold still,” Deku says seriously. 

He starts messing around with Katsuki’s wrist, and through the blinding pain, Katsuki wonders where on earth Deku learned to do this. He missed a lot, didn’t he? It’s been several long years since he last saw Deku, and in that time, Deku changed. He moved up to the mountains and started doing rescue… 

Oh, of course he did.

Deku does something to Katsuki’s wrist that sends flaming pain shooting up his arm and he cries out, trying to take his arm back.

“Stop,” Deku says, and, to his own increasing amazement, Katsuki stops. “I’m almost done.”

Katsuki holds still, gritting his teeth and glaring at the ground, as Deku sets his wrist and wraps it. After that, it still hurts like hell, but at least now he can’t jostle it. 

“Okay,” Deku says, backing away.

The snow is falling harder now, torrents of white so thick Katsuki is almost having trouble seeing Deku’s face.

“So, I’m making a hole in the crevasse,” Deku says, pointing. “If we can get it deep enough, we can keep shelter in there.” 

Katsuki nods. “Okay, move over,” he says, holding out his uninjured hand. He can just blast a hole right through. 

“Are you crazy?” Deku hisses, catching his arm. “If you shake the tunnel too much you’ll collapse the whole thing and we’ll die.”

Katsuki glares at him, shaking him off. “I’m not going to shake the tunnel. Just give me a second and I’ll help with your shitty hole.”

Deku’s changed since Katsuki saw him last. 

But then, so has Katsuki. 

He presses the palm of his hand against the ice and fires off a tiny explosion, not enough to send the walls of the crevasse crashing down, but enough to make a serious dent in the ice. He glances over at Deku to see his expression, and scowls when he sees it’s completely blank. No emotion at all, just a slight frown as he watches Katsuki make a hole in the ice wall. 

Wind sweeps through the tunnel, cold enough to make Katsuki shiver. Deku turns away from Katsuki, digging in his pack again without comment on Katsuki’s new skills with his quirk.

To be honest, Katsuki had hoped he’d be a little more impressed than that. But maybe… after everything he’s seen Katsuki do with his quirk, he can’t be impressed anymore. 

Especially after everything Katsuki did to him with it. He did more harm than good in middle school, that was for sure, and Deku received a great deal of his hatred. He was so annoying, always knowing things. 

Katsuki fires off another small shot, and then another, and slowly starts picking through the ice. He hears the sound of static and looks over to see Deku pulled out his walkie talkie. 

“I told them we’d fallen down here,” Deku says. “But when you fell, you broke the GPS, right?”

Katsuki hasn’t checked, but yes, probably. 

“Right, yeah, and my side doesn’t work down here,” Deku mutters, “because of how deep we are, so they don’t know our precise location. And,” he presses the talk button on the walkie talkie, “testing?” Releasing it, he finishes, “And I bet this doesn’t work down here either.”

“So what you’re saying is, we could be stuck down here for the rest of our lives.”

Deku purses his lips together. “I have food in my pack that’ll last us for probably two days, if we’re really careful. This storm isn’t supposed to blow over until tomorrow, so as long as the rangers get up here right after, we should be fine. I told them my last known location up there, but… it’s going to be hard.”

“So you’re saying they might not find us.”

Deku nods. “I am saying that, yes.”

Katsuki fires a shot into the wall angrily. “You’re saying we could die down here.”

“I am… also saying that, yes.”

“Great, okay.” Katsuki’s made a sizable dent in the wall now, not quite enough that he thinks they could both fit in there and hide from the storm, but still, quite large. His wrist hasn’t started aching yet, so he keeps going. “Well, we’ll just have to hide out until someone gets here, then.”

Deku looks up at the falling snow and frowns. “This isn’t a great place to be in a blizzard,” he says softly, but he takes up his picks again and starts chipping away at the ice next to Katsuki. 

The snow keeps falling, wind whipping fast through the crevasse, so quickly it makes a whistling sound. It pierces through Katsuki’s clothes, sending shivers through his body, but he keeps working regardless, Deku right beside him. 

His face starts to sting from the cold, ears going numb, but he chips away at the ice wall, eventually climbing into it and starting to make it bigger from the inside. He passes out chunks of ice to Deku, who takes them wordlessly and throws them away from the hole. 

Katsuki doesn’t know how many hours it’s been when he makes a big enough hole for them to both sit in comfortably, just knows that they’ve spent the whole time in silence, and knows that he can’t feel his fingers anymore. He scootches away from the entrance, careful with his broken bones, and waits. Deku pushes in his pack and then climbs into the hole, frowning a little when he gets in. 

“It’s big.”

“Well, yeah, not like I was going to cuddle you or some shit,” Katsuki says, and some small, traitorous part of his brain says he would like to cuddle Deku. That part of his brain gets no say in further decision making, because clearly something’s wrong with it. 

Deku pulls off his hat once he’s in and stuffs his fingers inside it, shivering. His curly green hair hair flops over his eyes, but he leaves it, probably too cold to care. He was outside longer than Katsuki was, and his nose is bright red. 

Katsuki watches him quietly for a second as wind whistles by. Eventually, he shifts around and puts Deku’s pack in front of the hole in the ice, keeping any wind and snow from coming into their little shelter. 

Body shaking with the cold, Deku says quietly, “Th-thanks.”

“Sure, nerd,” Katsuki says, pushing himself gingerly away from the entrance again. His ass hurts like hell. 

It’s quiet for a long time, too long, maybe, as Deku warms up again, making full use of the shared body heat in here. Both of them are drenched from the snowstorm they were just in, which isn’t helping matters whatsoever. 

“Sorry,” Deku says after a while, finally reaching up and swiping his hair out of his eyes. 

“For what?” Katsuki asks, glaring at him. 

“For getting us stuck out here,” Deku says, looking at his hands. “For… for making you come get me. And…” He bites his lip, like he wants to say something but doesn’t have the vocabulary for it. Eventually he just gives up, shaking his head. “Never mind.”

“Well, it’s not your fault we’re stuck in a crevasse, stupid nerd,” Katsuki says, crossing his arms — gingerly, so he doesn’t mess up his wrist further.

Deku nods, head still bent down. It’s silent again for an uncomfortably long second, Katsuki trying to piece together what’s wrong with Deku. “It’s been a while,” Deku finally says. “How’s heroics?”

Katsuki hates small talk with a burning passion, but he doesn’t think he minds it with Deku. “Busy,” he says shortly. 

Deku nods, eyes down.

The thing is, they might die in here. And Katsuki doesn’t want to spend his last moments being an asshole, so he opens his mouth to say something about middle school, maybe even an apology, if he can get up the guts for it.

Deku speaks first. “I’m sorry,” he murmurs. 

Trying to figure out what he did this time, Katsuki asks, “For what?”

Deku shifts a little, digging his fingers further into his cap and wringing it between his hands. “For… I…” He shakes his head and lifts his eyes to meet Katsuki’s. “I’m sorry for middle school,” he says softly.

What? Katsuki’s having some trouble wrapping his head around that.

“I’m sorry for following you everywhere and being such a nuisance.” His eyes drop down again as Katsuki realizes what he’s saying. “I’m sorry for… for dragging you down. I should have…”

Katsuki sits up, ignoring the twinge in his tailbone. “Deku—”

“No, listen because I should have let you be. I just was so—”

“Deku, wai—”

“—obsessed with the idea of being a hero, that I ended up stopping you from doing what you—”

“Izuku!” Katsuki snaps, glaring. “Shut up for a second.”

Deku’s lips purse a little and he slowly looks up to meet Katsuki’s eyes, expression guarded. He’s closed himself off to Katsuki, and that just… No.

“I’m the one that should be apologizing,” Katsuki says, doing his best not to clench his teeth, even though apologizing feels like dragging something cursed out of a deep hole of shame. “You were a perfectly normal kid, and I was an asshole. Yeah, you were fucking annoying — we were twelve, of course you were. I was an egotistical shithead, so it all got balanced out. But that doesn’t mean it was… It wasn’t fucking right of me to bully you, okay?”

Deku recoils a little, staring at him. “It wasn’t bul—”

“It absolutely was,” Katsuki snaps. “I was a fucking asshole, Deku, and I’ve spent a long ass time trying to better myself because I was so shitty back then. You don’t have anything to apologize for, idiot.”

“But I-I followed you around and made you look bad in front of your friends and—”

“Are you trying to apologize for being a better person than me?” Katsuki asks, scowling at him. “You were always so goddamn helpful, it pissed me off. But that was because I couldn’t handle the idea of someone being better at something than me. You were always so…  kind.”

He rubs his uninjured hand over his face, scowling at the ice floor. Years, years he’s spent trying to figure out why he hated Deku so much back then. He knows the answer now, though. He hated him, because Deku was the hero Katsuki knew he could never be. He cared about people in a way Katsuki never allowed himself to. And because of that, Katsuki pushed him down and ruined his dream. 

“I’m sorry for telling you you couldn’t be a hero,” Katsuki says, in the softest tone he’s used in a while. “It… It wasn’t true.”

He glances up, expecting to see anger from Deku, and instead finding concern, proving once again that he’s a better person than Katsuki is. Deku reaches out a hand and very gently lays it on Katsuki’s knee, meeting his eyes with more care than Katsuki could ever dream of. “I think I forgave you for that a long time ago, Kacchan,” he says.

Katsuki will never be able to understand Deku’s ability to let things go. He’ll never understand the way Deku can give everyone the benefit of the doubt, no matter how much they hurt him. Deku is more compassionate than Katsuki could ever dream of being. 

And because of that, Katsuki loved him. 

There. 

The true reason Katsuki bullied Deku, the true reason he shoved him down and told him he was worthless, laid out for all the parts of Katsuki’s brain to see. Katsuki loved Deku, and he hated himself for it. Because loving people is asking them to hurt you. Loving people is giving them his heart and telling them to do what they want with it, and Katsuki was scared of what Deku could do to it. So he pushed Deku down and told him he was shit, to fool his stupid ass heart into thinking he hated him.

“You blamed yourself, didn’t you?” Katsuki asks, angry with himself, and angry with Deku for ever thinking he was anything less than perfect. “You thought there was something wrong with you, if I treated you like that.”

“You were so cool,” Deku says, shaking his head. 

“I still am so cool,” Katsuki corrects him on reflex and then freezes. 

Deku laughs, and Katsuki… doesn’t think he’s ever heard Deku laugh. Or if he has, he can’t remember it.

It’s a beautiful sound, honestly, and Katsuki thinks he might have had a much better life if he’d tried to make Deku laugh instead of cry. 

No. Izuku. No more calling him fucking Deku. 

“Okay,” Izuku says, shaking his head. “Let’s just move on, okay? Past in the past.”

Katsuki doesn’t think he’ll ever be able to forget everything he did back then, but for Izuku’s sake, he can let himself move on. He can… he can forgive himself, with Izuku’s help. 

“So, other than heroics… what have you been up to?”

Katsuki doesn’t do anything other than work. He opens his mouth to make some shit up, when a loud thunderclap echoes through the crevasse. Izuku gasps, clapping his hands over his ears, and curls in on himself a little. “I hate thunder,” he says through gritted teeth. 

Katsuki can hear snow crashing into the walls, and it hits him for the second time that they could, and probably will, die in here. Too much buffeting, and their ice cave could collapse. Too much snowfall outside, and they could suffocate. They’re in danger of freezing too. 

“It’s okay,” he says, even though absolutely nothing about this is okay, and Katsuki is one giant liar. “The thunder can’t hit us in here.”

Izuku squints at him, probably on the verge of saying thunder can’t hit anything, because it’s just a soundwave.

“You know what I mean,” Katsuki grumbles. 

Izuku laughs again, the tension draining from his shoulders, and if Katsuki could save that smile, he would. 

Fuck, he’s so done for.  

—

“So what have you been doing? While I’ve been off saving the world.”

It’s been maybe an hour, it’s pitch black outside, Katsuki is freezing, and he’s trying to pass the time by talking to Izuku. Talking is actually less awkward than he thought it would be, mostly because they know each other so well it’s just like picking up where they left off a long time ago. 

“Um, mostly just staying up here,” Izuku says, shrugging. He dragged blankets out of his pack a while ago and bundled them over himself. Katsuki tried to resist getting one himself, but Izuku had none of it and passed him one too, so now they’re both covered with blankets, which for some reason aren’t doing much. “I went to high school, and then I went to school for nursing, and then from there I realized doing this is kind of like being a hero, just without the fighting, so I moved up here.” He flashes a grin at Katsuki. “Mom wasn’t totally pleased.”

Katsuki snorts. “I can imagine.”

“She comes up every once in a while, but I don’t think she likes the snow, so mostly I’m just by myself up here. Well, by myself with the other rangers.”

Something crashes down outside and Izuku flinches, moving away from the entrance to their cave. It’s actually pretty warm in here, with the two of them warming up the space with their body heat. They’ve lit up the little cave with a small lamp Izuku had in his pack. Vaguely, Katsuki thinks this situation would be better if fucking Half-and-Half was here. The guy has the perfect quirk for this. 

“Do you like it?” Katsuki prods, trying to distract him. Izuku, he’s starting to realize, doesn’t like loud, abrupt noises. “Doing this?”

“Oh, yeah,” Izuku says, nodding. A bright light comes into his eye as he starts to talk about it. “It’s actually really fun. The cold isn’t really that great, but I like working with people and it’s really quiet up here, which is nice. And no one gets like… weird about me not having a quirk. Mostly because not a lot of people know about it. I can save people just fine without one, and most of the other rangers have kind of small quirks anyway, so we do our jobs without one. Not a lot of heroes up here, you know.”

“Would you ever want to do something else?” Katsuki asks, curious.

Izuku tips his head to the side. “Something else? Like… what?”

“Like… I don’t know, getting a provisional heroics license or something.”

Slouching down a little, Izuku shakes his head. “You know, I realized something up here. I don’t have to be a hero to be happy. I can find happiness in other things. Heroics was a dream, and it stayed that way. I’m living real life now, and I like it.”

“But you don’t love it,” Katsuki says, frowning.

“I can’t say I do, no, but who does, really? Do you?”

Katsuki thinks about his job, and his classmates, and his shitty apartment, and realizes he honestly doesn’t. “No.” 

But he thinks he could, maybe. If he changed something or other, maybe he could love his life. 

“Yeah,” Izuku agrees, shrugging. “It’s hard to, I think. Everything has to be just right, and there’s just… I just always feel like I’m missing something.” His eyebrows furrow a little and he looks right at Katsuki, like he’s a puzzle Izuku only just now realized he hadn’t solved yet. “Are you missing something?”

Izuku makes it hard to keep secrets. Something about his open expressions, the way his eyes seem to bore right into Katsuki’s heart, like he can read everything Katsuki has before he even opens his mouth. 

“Yeah, I am,” Katsuki says, even though he knows if anyone else had asked him that, he would have told them to fuck off. Izuku’s always just been… different.

Oh, fuck. 

Katsuki knows what he’s been missing, and fuck no, he doesn’t want it. He doesn’t want to fall in love, doesn’t want the pining and the empty dreaming and the vulnerability, none of that shit. He barely tolerates having friends, the idea of… loving someone is too much.

He knows, though. He knows when he looks at Izuku that he’s already gone. That the reason he’s never dated anyone all these years is because stuck in his mind was a pair of green eyes and a blinding smile he’s seen too few times.

Because he’s been in love with Midoriya Izuku since middle school, since elementary school, since his quirk manifestation, since the day they met, and he’ll never be able to move on.

There’s another crash outside, this one louder than the other ones and Izuku winces. “I really hate—”

Something slams right through their ice wall, cutting off their light source and sending the cave plunging into darkness. Izuku screams, but it’s pitch black in here and Kacchan doesn’t know what happened.

Panicking, Katsuki reaches out for him. “Izuku, Izuku, are you okay?” he gasps, trying to see through the swirling snow now coming into their little cave. He struggles to move over to Izuku, but his broken tailbone protests and his wrist is aching, so he slumps against the wall again, choking on pain. 

“Shit!” Izuku gasps. Katsuki’s never been so relieved to hear his voice in his entire existence. He’s so glad to hear he’s alive, tears start biting his eyes, and he collapses, coughing on the freezing air. “I’m fine, Kacchan, stop moving.”

“You hurt?” Katsuki growls. Fuck, it’s cold. The wind is shrieking as it whistles past the hole in the ice crevasse. 

“No, Kacchan, it just scared the fucking crap out of me. Also, our shelter is shot. Piece of ice went right through the wall.” He crawls back to Katsuki, dragging his pack and some blankets with him. “We’re going to have to share body heat.”

Katsuki doesn’t think he’s ever heard Izuku swear this much. “I can make a new—”

“No, Kacchan,” Izuku says firmly. “We will literally freeze to death if you don’t listen to me right now.” 

Katsuki shuts his mouth.

Izuku starts piling blankets on him. It’s dark, so dark Katsuki can’t see Izuku at all, and is just blindly trusting him. Suddenly, he feels Izuku’s hand on his shoulder and he gasps at how cold it is. 

“It’s just me, calm down,” Izuku snaps, shifting around until he’s under the blanket pile too. 

He’s shivering, Izuku is, body trembling with the cold. Katsuki throws personal space out the window and wraps his arms around Izuku, pulling his small frame into him. Izuku’s just a little smaller than Katsuki now, and easily fits in the embrace. 

Izuku’s arms snake around Katsuki too until they’re a tangle of cold limbs and goosebumps. A flurry of snow dances around them, tiny flakes nipping at Katsuki’s face, and he rests his chin in Izuku’s hair, keeping him close. Katsuki glares into the darkness, silently cursing every god in the universe. No matter what, Izuku has to survive this. 

“Did you call me Izuku a second ago?” Izuku breathes after several minutes of cold.

“I did,” Katsuki says shortly. “Problem?”

“No, just…” Izuku shakes his head, the movement jostling Katsuki’s chin. “Never mind.”

Katsuki holds him as tightly as he can, head slowly freezing. The blankets they’re under are doing a fine job of keeping him warm, but everything above that is fucking cold.

Izuku’s shivering so hard Katsuki can hear his teeth clacking together. He grabs the top blanket and yanks it up over their heads, making a shield from the wind and snow. 

“Th-thanks, by th-the way-y,” Izuku whispers. 

“For what, nerd?” 

He breathes out a laugh, and some sick part of Katsuki’s brain thinks it might be his last. “For-r-r com-ming to s-s-save m-me.”

“You didn’t need it, shithead.”

Izuku snorts. “Wow, lo-ove you t-too, assh-hole.”

Katsuki resists the urge to kiss the top of Izuku’s head. Shitty feelings, betraying him at a time like this. “It’s supposed to be a compliment…” he grumbles instead.

“Ye-ah, yeah.”

Katsuki would give all the heat he had left if it would keep Izuku alive through the night. His body naturally runs hotter than other people’s so he’ll just have to make do with hugging Izuku close to him and hoping to whatever higher powers are out there that it’ll be enough. 

He just got Izuku back, like hell is he losing him again. Especially now that... Especially now. 

He just… he can’t lose Izuku before he’s gotten the chance to really get to know him.

After a while, too long for Katsuki’s comfort while the storm rages outside, Izuku snuggles in closer. “Mmmm really t-tir-r-red…”

Mind jumping immediately to hypothermia, Katsuki curses silently and presses his body as close to Izuku’s as possible. He smells like pine and wind, and Katsuki can’t let him die. “Try to stay awake,” he says softly. “Just a little longer.”

A little longer could be anywhere from a few hours to another full day, but Izuku has to hang in there. If Izuku dies and it’s Katsuki’s fault … no. No, if Izuku dies period, Katsuki won’t be able to live with himself. 

Thunder roars and Izuku barely jumps. 

Tears sting at Katsuki’s eyes and he holds Izuku tighter, starting to shiver himself. 

They’re going to die here, the two of them. Wrapped around each other, breathing the same last breath. Katsuki’s body heat is giving out, the blankets aren’t helping nearly enough, and all that will witness Izuku’s last moments is Katsuki and the howling wind outside.

My fault, Katsuki thinks to himself. 

If Izuku dies, it’s Katsuki’s fault. For breaking his wrist, for falling in this hole, for telling him he couldn’t be a hero. Katsuki’s goddamn fault. “S-s-stay with m-me, Izuk-ku,” he pleads. 

“Yer annoying,” Izuku sighs, words so slurred Katsuki can barely make them out. His breathing is slowed against Katsuki’s chest and Katsuki fights back tears, hating himself and hating the blizzard and hating the entire world for this. 

“J-just stay,” he begs, crying silently into Izuku’s hair. His tears freeze on his cheeks, and the air is prickling with cold. Katsuki can’t feel his broken wrist anymore.

He loses track of time, just focused on tracking Izuku’s breathing, in and out, and slowly the cave starts to grow light again. Time inches past, the air so frigid any movement could shatter it. Izuku’s body is cold, but Katsuki can still feel his slow breaths on his neck. 

Katsuki’s too exhausted to move. He thinks he sees fucking Half and Half at the entrance to the cave, but that can’t be right because the blankets are up over his head…

He’s not sure what’s going on anymore, really, just that Izuku’s right here, freezing but somehow still alive.

The world blurs out of focus and Katsuki rests his head on the ice floor, feeling Izuku’s heart beat thudding against his own chest. One… two… one… two… one….

It’s slow. 

Katsuki drifts in and out of consciousness, snow pricking at his skin, or maybe that’s just some random tingling? He’s not sure.

He thinks he hears someone shouting… something… but he doesn’t react, can’t react, until someone pulls Izuku away from him and he reaches out, protesting in a voice that can’t be his, it’s so slurred and broken. 

“Hurry, he’s almost gone,” he hears someone say, and he lashes out with a weak arm… only to hit absolutely nothing.

Hands are on him now, pulling him out of their cave and putting him on something a lot softer than ice. A stretcher… maybe… It’s cold, and everything smells like icicles… Katsuki’s floating into the sky… to something blurry… making a lot of noise, Izuku wouldn’t… like… that…

His eyes droop shut, but he opens them again… they slide shut one more time, and he tells himself it’ll just be a second.

Just one… second…

—

He wakes up groggily to the sound of something beeping. It’s annoying, the beeping. He wants it to shut up, so he works his eyes open.

They’re immediately assaulted by artificial light and he squeezes them shut again, wincing. That’s annoying as fuck. 

He takes a second to understand what’s going on. 

The beeping, the horrible lights… he must be in a hospital. Okay, yeah, he’s been in lots of hospitals. Practically born in a hospital.

Well, he was born in a hospital, of course, everyone is. But… that wasn’t… 

His brain isn’t working. 

Why is he in the hospital? That’s the real question. He slowly gets his eyes open again, and registers that he’s covered from head to toe in warm blankets, and there’s an IV stuck in his arm. So maybe there was an issue with his breathing or something, because blankets are used for circulation, and the IV is probably because he was unconscious or something. But what happened?

He racks his memory, and all he can remember is cold , the kind of cold that seeps into his veins and never leaves, the kind of cold that made him lose all feeling of everything except—

His body jerks reflexively as he remembers. 

Izuku.

Everything was cold, except Izuku in his arms and even he was cold. 

The beeping gets faster as he starts to panic. Izuku’s not in here with him, so he has to be in another room. Right? That has to be it, because if he’s not in another room, that means he’s dead and Katsuki refuses to accept that. 

The door opens and some shitty nurse comes in.

Katsuki knows better than to rip out his IV — not that he could, given that his other wrist is in a cast, but he is very tempted to regardless.

“Izuku—” he chokes out, voice hoarse and broken.

“He’s alive,” the nurse says, smiling at him, and Katsuki’s body melts again, everything sinking into the bed with relief. 

“I need to see him,” he croaks. 

The nurse smiles. “Soon, okay?”

Katsuki doesn't want to wait another second, but he also doesn’t want to interfere with hospital business, so he nods, and settles down to wait.

It’s agony, the waiting. He hates it so fucking much. What he would give to just see Izuku again, even if it’s for just two seconds. 

The clock ticks through several hours and Katsuki’s about ready to just break all the hospital rules, rip the IV out, and go find Izuku himself, when the nurse comes back in, and for some ungodly reason, holds the door open. 

Katsuki squints at her, and then he sees why as a wheelchair comes in.

And in that wheelchair, is Izuku. 

Katsuki nearly bursts into tears on the spot, only a great deal of pride and stubbornness holding back the flood. He’s alive, he’s alive, he’s alive.

His skin is a little pale, and he looks like he’s seen God and turned right around again, but he’s alive, and that’s what matters right now. 

“Izuku,” Katsuki breathes, shoulders releasing tension he didn’t know they had. 

Izuku beams, tears flooding out of his own eyes, and Katsuki never thought he’d see that smile again, but he’s so glad he gets to. “Kacchan,” Izuku sobs over a grin. He wheels over and presses a hand into Katsuki’s, tears still spilling over. 

“You’re okay,” Katsuki whispers, feeling the calluses on Izuku’s skin, making sure he’s real and not some hallucination from hell. 

“I’m so glad you’re alive,” Izuku chokes out, bending over himself as he sobs. “Let’s start over, okay? Let’s just— how’d you like to go on a date?” 

What an absolute nerd, saying something like that at a time like this. Where that bravery comes from, Katsuki will never know, but he supposes it doesn’t matter. “I hate you,” he gasps, fighting tears, but what he means is I love you.

“There’s this place with really good hot chocolate in one of the hotels down the street,” Izuku continues happily, wiping at his eyes and not heeding Katsuki’s so-called hatred whatsoever, “so we can go there and then afterward we can move back to Musutafu and never, ever go near another fucking ice crevasse again.”

Katsuki chokes on a laugh, slapping his uninjured hand over his mouth. “Sure,” he says, blinking a few times as he stares at the ceiling. “Sure, stupid nerd.”

He can’t keep his eyes off Izuku for long, and he looks over to see a blinding smile spreading over his face. Stupid nerd. Katsuki loves him. 

“Good,” Izuku says, squeezing Katsuki’s hand once. “I think we have some catching up to do.”

Katsuki nods, eyes stinging, and thinks that Best Jeanist is going to have to give him a little more vacation time, so he can fall in love with Izuku all over again.