Bakugou came to with small tufts of brown hair obscuring his vision. Soft sniffling sounds emitting near his chest and a heavy weight pinning down his arm.
"Stop crying Hatsue."
'The boy?' Bakugou thought. Mind feeling too foggy and hazy to register much more than the children's presence around him.
"He's not dead. I know he isn't. He can't be. So stop crying Hatsue. Kacchan is safe. I promise."
'The children? Who were they? Why was he with them? Were they safe? Why was he worried about their safety? What was going on? Where was he?'
Bakugou's head was swimming. He couldn't formulate a concrete reason as to why anything was currently happening. Why he couldn't move. Why he couldn't remember or why these kids were with him now.
He groaned.
Suddenly the soft sniffles of Hatsue? Stopped, and the watery voice of the boy shot up in octaves as he exclaimed something in surprise. Bakugou couldn't hear it for his ears had started ringing loudly as he started to come to. Making Bakugou's stomach churn and his throat clog up.
"Oi Hatsue get away from him. He's looking a little green."
The weight on top of his chest vanished, and Katsuki for brief of moments missed the comforting presence before he was shooting up into a sitting position and hurling the content of his stomach onto the floor.
He coughed twice to clear his throat, spitting out the remaining of the hospital meal he'd had with shitty hair earlier today.
"Ew."
Bakugou tilted his head to the side, meeting the eyes of the little twerp he most have risked his life. "Shut the fuck up brat," he drawled. Wiping his mouth with the back of his shirtsleeve. The kid grimaced in disgust, but chose to forfeit his hostile stance, as he looked over to his sister and quickly patted her on the back.
"Told you your Kacchan would be alright Sue-chan!"
The little girl; Hatsue Bakugou reminded himself, had been standing to his left. Eyes wide and puffed cheeks glistering with salty tears. Her tiny fists were clenching at the bottom of her blue dress.
Bakugou felt his heart soften the tiniest bit. "Come here," he said brusquely, his good arm waving her closer.
She did.
Practically flew herself into his side, tiny hands clenching at his torn shirt. "I thought you died Kacchan," she blubbered, rubbing her face into his neck and staining it with her tears. "I thought you died," she wailed.
Bakugou watched her silently. Quietly taking note of his recent injuries. His right arm was pinned down by a slab of concrete. It looked bad.
Katusiki briefly wondered if not feeling any pain for the time being should be alarming to him before quickly dismissing the thought and turning slightly to observe his legs.
They looked fine, but a nice cut was running from his ankle and splitting his pants all the way to his left knee. It was bleeding sluggishly. 'That's going to be a problem, ' he mused.
Bringing up an arm to circle around the crying girl, Bakugou thanked whatever higher powers out there, that both these brats came out of the incident relatively unscathed. God knew he would never sleep again if he let these kids die. He already didn't sleep enough. If he had to see tiny dead bodies every time he closed his eyes, well, sign him up for the psych wards because Bakugou was seriously going to have a mental breakdown,
"It's ok," he muttered into her hair. "I'm ok. The other brat which I'm guessing is your brother is ok too, and so are you. So stop crying kid."
She didn't, but Bakugou wasn't really expecting her too. Instead he was keeping a closer eye on the other kid who had for some reason while he was distracted gone surprisingly still.
Following the direction of the kid's eyes Bakugou was again looking at his injured leg. "It's nothing," he found himself saying, nudging the brat with his toes. "I'm fine kid. Don't worry about it."
"I'm not worrying," the kid cried, whirling around to face him. "I just think you could bleed out and stuff and that's not good. So you should fix that."
Not worrying at all indeed.
"What's your name?" he asked rather than point out how the brat in fact was freaking out on his behalf.
"Matsu," he mumbled, water lining his eyes.
'Great, ' Bakugou thought. 'Another crying kid .'
Can't have that.
"Come on brats," he said putting on his best authoritative Aizawa-sensei voice. "Stand back and let me get out of here."
He didn't even have to push little Hatsue away as she jumped back, looking even more worried that she would get in the way of him saving himself. Bakugou ruffled her hair again.
'Now then,' he thought when he was sure the kids had put sufficient enough distance between him and the broken staircase. 'Let's see what I can do here.'
Turns out it wasn't much of fucking anything he could do. His arm was pinned, he could still feel it so that was a positive, but there was no way in hell he could explode himself out of this without risking a significant damage to his own person and the likelihood of losing his hand all together
Fuck.
"Um, Mr. Kacchan?"
Bakugou almost threw up at that butchering of his already butchered name. But non the less turned around to face Matsu. "What?"
The kid looked uncertain. Wringing his fingers and chewing on his bottom lip. But there was a certain determination glinting in his eyes that made Bakugou pay attention to his next words.
"I can melt that thing if you want. I'm really good so I promise I won't hurt you."
Bakugou blinked. 'Well wasn't that something? Maybe the world didn't hate him after all.'
"How good?" he asked.
"Good enough to melt a whole picture frame and leave the picture safe!" the kid exclaimed throwing his arms to the side and puffing out his chest.
He was obviously proud of his quirk, and honestly Bakugou couldn't blame him. It was an awesome quirk.
"Racoon-eyes would love you," he muttered to himself before gesturing for the kid to get closer and after a brief observation told him exactly which part to melt.
They worked in tandem for what felt like hours but was honestly probably no longer than five minutes. After it was done, Bakugou slowly lifted his bruised arm from the melted concrete and flexed it gently. He winced.
'Probably sprained,' he thought. But it was out now, and he was free to move around the way he wanted to. Ripping his shirt even more, he tore a piece of and began to bandage up his leg. It wasn't the most sanitary approach nor the most effective, but it was all he had, and for now it had to be enough.
Looking up, his eyes caught the two kids huddled to the side watching him carefully. He frowned, before his expression softened again. "I'm ok," he said, repeating his previous words. "Thanks for saving me kid."
They were on him before he even knew. Both of them clinging onto him like he would disappear if they let up for even a minute.
'Idiots,' he thought as his arms came to pat them briskly on the back.
'Dumb brats making me soft.'
