"Bakugou! Bakugou, talk to me!" Izuku cried, tearing his mask off as he fell to his knees beside the bomber gear and debris. The concrete pillars that braced the building around them were tilted from their posts, snapped straight through the middle or cracking under the pressure of the floors they once held. Concentrating the fight would concentrate the damage and lower the cost of reconstruction which would pose as a financial burden on the city. In a world driven by money, that was a constant dagger, stabbing at the mind of a seasoned hero. Izuku thought about it from the start but rather than heed the financial turmoil this villain presented, he was more concerned about the cost of lives had he not lured the villain into the lower parking garage of the office building nearby. The building was evacuated and the parking garage provided a large space to charge his attacks. How it became a mess of broken car parts, debris and spitting wires was a foggy memory like the dust that hung in the air after the explosion that left the entire lot in shambles.

Mounds of rubble, some tall as the patches of the ceiling, covered the floor. Izuku had to use his remaining strength to push concrete slabs, the size of long tables, In the middle of the rubble pile was Bakugou, the only member of Class 1A that decided to run head-first into the fight. Izuku dug through the smoke and pillars to reach him there, barely conscious or able to breathe without a mask which, Izuku brought for him. The dust cleared where the sunlight broke through the holes in the ceiling and while Izuku shouted for a response, Bakugou's head tilted from one stone slab to the next until he met Izuku's tearful eyes.

A hero never cries, Izuku thought as he wiped them clean, wincing when he smeared pieces of stone across his cheeks. White scratches cut through the dirt, dust and dried blood on his skin. Bakugou glared at the marks as they cleared into his fuzzy view. He grunted when he forced his head to move again, wanting to rest it on a something smoother than the jagged debris that cut into his neck. The mask Izuku gave him filtered the air for him to breathe but it didn't remove the dust rattling in his lungs when he inhaled. His body ached and he could barely feel the ground rumbling beneath them, unlike Izuku, who lurched forward, shielding Bakugou when chunks of the pillars fell from the ceiling. He hissed and shuddered when they landed on his back and rolled onto the rubble, stirring the dust. Bakugou coughed through the mask.

"D-don't worry, Bakugou," he muttered, fighting through the pain with a trembling smile while Bakugou's half-lidded eyes started to lose focus.

"I'll get you out of here!" Izuku promised.

Bakugou's processed those words slower than usual and despite his immobility, and the cloudy, crumbling, foreseeable tomb around them, he coughed out a spiteful, mouthful of bloody words.

"I don't...need...your help."

But his eyes screamed 'save me!'