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Being a pro-hero, it was basically a given that you would face a number of near-death situations, one of which you might not make it out of. Morbid as it sounds, you couldn’t lie and say that you’d never tried to imagine that one situation before, because you had. A number of times, actually.
However, in all those times, you could confidently say you’d never expected this. Drowning in a waterlogged cave after almost being crushed by a collapsing building was not the way you wanted to go.
The faint sloshing sound of water was barely audible over your laboured breathing. It was almost pitch dark in the cave that had been created by the falling rubble and the only source of light was a single crack between two pieces of concrete just barely half a metre above your head.
Water had already filled the cave up to your chest and the steady trickling sound was a horrible reminder that very soon you wouldn’t be able to stand anymore. As you stared hard at your palms, cut and scraped as they were from the long hours of hero work you’d just endured, you felt your jaw begin to tremble.
You didn’t want to die just yet. But it didn’t seem like you had much of a choice anymore.
When the first sniffle of your tears sounded through the cave there came a long groan. You looked over to who would likely be the last person you ever saw - Katsuki Bakugou, who had made a desperate grab for you as the building you were both working in started to collapse, and who, as a result, had ended up trapped down here along with you.
The young man gave you a long stare, his vermillion eyes flashing in the dim light.
“Stop crying, idiot.”
You scowled deeply, managing to suppress your tears somewhat. “Shut up. I can cry if I want to.”
Bakugou rolled his eyes. “What’s the point? It ain’t gonna do shit while we’re trapped down here.”
“Well, I’m sorry that I want to stay alive, thanks,” you spat back, though your voice trembled. Bakugou was right, of course. Crying wasn’t going to help. However, neither was leaning back against the wall and accepting your impending doom, something Bakugou had done readily the second the pair of you realised you were well and truly trapped.
You eyed him angrily through the darkness, taking in the way his waterlogged hero costume clung to his physique and his damp hair drooped in front of his eyes.
There was silence for a long moment, during which all you could do was listen to the steady trickle as the precious air you had left to breathe was slowly displaced by the increasing volume of water. The surface of the liquid was now lapping energetically at your shoulders, almost as if it was excited to eventually swallow you whole. You sighed and ran a hand through your damp hair.
“I’m sorry.” Bakugou’s voice was small as he spoke and much quieter than you were used to. It put you on edge.
“Don’t talk like that,” you told him, looking away from his watchful gaze.
Bakugou quirked a single eyebrow. “Why not?”
“Just… don't. It freaks me out.”
Bakugou was silent for another second. Then he said, “You’re shivering.”
You were. The water streaming steadily into the cave was icy and your submerged hero costume did nothing to keep out the mind-numbing cold from seeping into your bones and making you tremble. However, there wasn’t exactly much you could do about it, so you figured you might as well keep your mouth shut.
Bakugou sighed at your lack of acknowledgment of his words and pushed himself up from where he’d been leaning against the cave wall. With little difficulty, he managed to wade through the rising water - which only reached to his collarbones - and then wrapped you in his bulky arms. You fell against him, knocked off balance by the unfamiliar feeling of water surrounding your body, and your forehead met the crook of his neck.
For a moment the pair of you stayed like that - your heart beating uncomfortably fast the entire time, before you eventually shifted to look up at his face. “What are you doing?” you asked quietly.
Bakugou’s jaw clenched slightly as he stared over the top of your head at the wall behind you. His arms tightened around you somewhat. Then he said, “You’re cold.”
You swallowed, suddenly wanting to cry again. “It doesn’t matter if I’m cold.”
“Tch,” Bakugou grunted, his tone laced with clear annoyance. “Don’t say shit like that.”
“Well, it really doesn’t,” you mumbled. “I’m going to drown way before the cold kills me, so what’s the point?”
“Shut up,” Bakugou told you. He inhaled deeply then and for a second you almost thought you heard a tremor in his breathing. But then the idea was knocked out of your head by his next words.
“Just let me hold you, dumbass.”
You knew the implications behind the words he spoke. It had been an unsettled tension between the two of you for a long time, an unspoken feeling that neither of you had the courage to deal with, always pushing it back to another time. You suppressed a chuckle as you realised that you’d always taken the fact that there would be another time for granted.
Timidly, your own arms came up until they could settle around Bakugou’s torso. The water was brushing the bottom of your chin now and you had to force yourself up onto the points of your toes if you wanted to remain comfortably out of reach of getting a mouthful of it.
Bakugou glanced down at you and you were surprised to see that his gaze was soft, none of his usual fire in sight. For a second you thought maybe you should just kiss him. But then something in the back of your mind told you later.
As if there would be a later.
Instead, you settled for staring at the hard line of his jaw. “You know, if I wasn’t seeing it with my own eyes, I wouldn’t believe you would be this calm in a situation like this.”
Bakugou frowned slightly and glanced down at you again. His eyes were questioning. “What do you mean by that?’
“Well,” you reached up to fix a strand of his hair that had come out of place, probably from the water. “I would think you would be blasting at everything in sight, trying to break a way out of this.”
Bakugou chuckled then, a sound that you both weren’t used to and found incredibly comforting at the same time. “I guess I could do that. But I’d probably bring the walls down on us. Plus, I figured…” he trailed off, suddenly staring into your face with a kind of intensity that brought a blush rising to your cheeks. “I… I guess I just thought… I’d rather spend my last moments doing this mushy shit with you and not wreaking havoc.”
You laughed weakly at his confession, blinking as tears welled in your eyes. “Well, isn’t that flattering.”
Bakugou hummed softly in reply, his arms tightening their grip around you. You were struggling to breathe now, forced to turn your face skyward to face the roof of the cave in an attempt to keep your nose and mouth above water. Below you, your legs kicked weakly, exhaustion already dragging you downwards.
Without warning, you felt Bakugou’s hands on the back of your thighs and then he was drawing your legs around his hips, simultaneously allowing you to rest your entire body weight on him while hoisting you upwards so you no longer had to fight for air. He was taller than you, by a substantial amount, and in picking you up, he gave you quite a bit more room to breathe. However, you couldn’t ignore the fact that he too was now being forced to stand on his toes to keep the both of you above water.
“Katsuki,” you breathed, a sudden ache gripping your chest. Your heart was beating fast now, thoughts of I don’t want to die flashing wildly through your head. However, you pushed them down in favour of staring into the eyes of the man you’d been too scared to admit that you loved until now.
Bakugou offered you a weak eye roll in return. “Don’t start with all that sad crap, okay,” he said. There was a slight strain in his voice as he forced himself to remain as far out of the water as possible. “That shit is pathetic. And I’m not going to let your last words be some shitty garbage.”
“I…” you smiled weakly. “Damn, nothing gets past you, does it.”
Bakugou scowled. Then one of his hands came up to cup the side of your face. His thumb brushed lightly over your cheek, smoothly away the single tear that had escaped as was trickling down your skin. He sighed.
“Fuck, you’re making this real difficult on me, sweetheart.”
“Isn’t that my job? To make things difficult for you?” you countered. Your hands tightened on his shoulders as you realised the water was now kissing the underside of his jawline.
Bakugou scoffed. “Tch, and you’re fucking good at it.” Then his face softened. “Just.. shut up and let me say this…”
You held your breath as you waited for his next words, simultaneously dreading and aching for them all at once. Bakugou was staring at you, his dark eyes soft and filled with the very same emotion that was plunging through your body at that very moment. Then he signed again.
“Damnit, I really didn’t think it would end like this.” His grip on the side of your face tightened just enough that he was able to force you to hold his gaze. “You of all people know I’m not the type of person to say shit I don’t mean,” he growled out, his eyes burning into yours. The pain in your chest was growing stronger now, evolving into the beginnings of panic but you forced yourself to remain still, to stay in his arms until the very end.
“Just know that… know that I’ve loved you since we were at UA. And… and if I’d know I didn’t have all the time in the world to stop being a coward and tell you how I felt, I would have kissed you back on graduation day.”
Your lip trembled as more tears welled up in your eyes. If it were any other time you would have teased him for how romantic he sounded. However, there were only a few inches left between the rising water and the ceiling and both of you were now being forced to turn your face upward in an attempt to stay alive.
“I… I love you too, Katsuki,” you mumbled as your eyes drifted closed. You didn’t want to watch as the water finally closed over your head. “Always have. Always will.”
Bakugou’s grip on you suddenly completely disappeared and for a moment you were left floating in the icy blackness, the only sensations you could feel being the breath of air on the tip of your nose and the utter panic that was burning through your body like acid.
However then a pair of strong hands gripped the sides of your face in a touch so gentle you could barely feel it. And then, as he turned your head downwards, submerging your mouth and nose under the water, the panic suddenly dissipated and all you could feel was calm.
The last thing you knew before the water closed completely over the crown of your head was the feeling of his icy lips pressed against yours.