Chapter 6
I'll Protect You (Just Hold Me Tight)
It's a blistering hot day to begin with and that didn't even include pushing through smoldering bushes and running around while avoiding falling flaming tree branches.
"WHERE THE FUCK ARE YOU, YOU SHITTY VILLAINNNN!"
At least Ground Zero was in a good mood.
She wasn't particularly, but she supposed that couldn't be helped. There were people to save first- and villains to fight second.
She slaps the side of her helmet to reactivate the mic. "Do we have any eyes on the hikers inside this blaze?"
"Negative Uravity. According to logs there are three left in the blaze, which should have been on the south pass through the woods," Gang Orca replies. "Do you see any signs of the villain that started the fire?"
"Negative!" Her next breath turns into a cough and she grits her teeth and pushes through.
The heat is as bad as it gets and if her suit hadn't been treated to be flame retardant, she likely would have already caught fire. Her helmet however isn't built for the fire, and smoke tickles at her nose no matter how low she gets. She can't stop anyways, embers crackling and popping free of the pines around her as she goes.
They sizzle and bite into her back and arms, and she has to repeatedly brush them off as she moves through the heat.
"Where-" She breaks into a coughing fit and knows that she's running out of time to stay in the fire.
Oxygen deprivation and smoke inhalation are deadlier than a fire most of the time.
"Uravity, sounds like you're hitting your limit. Restock, we're getting fire gear here in a minute," Gang Orca orders through the comm.
The civilians didn't have a minute though. Forest fires were dangerous- not just because of the overall size- but because they were unpredictable and changed direction and flared up wildly. Getting them out was already hard enough but containing them was nearly impossible.
"I can make it a little longer." She crouches down, the air fresher down at her knees. "Where are we on containment?"
"Thirteen is heading it off right now and pushing in from the east. Ground Zero is deoxygenating the center to try and prevent a firestorm. Frostfire is making some walls and ice slicks to prevent spreading," Gang Orca replies. "We're making headway in putting it out; just be aware of ember storms- Frostfire hasn't fully set a containment area."
Thank God for Shoto's ice.
And Thirteen, it's a blessing to have them in the fight.
"Roger," she manages, pushing forward again.
She breaks out of the main blaze by following a path, only realizing that she's on the right track when a scorched sign reveals it's a southern path. The fire doesn't like being left it seems, and the flames race and arc after her as she races down the path.
The trees behind her crackle and pop, branches crashing to the ground in front of and behind her. She hops the ones she can, briefly activating her Quirk to vault it before dropping back to the ground.
A tree limb shatters above her and she has to jump out of the way as shards of flaming pine clatter or stab into the spot she was in. She grimaces, dusting herself out again before easing through the debris.
There's a faint noise that turns her careful edging through the sharp wood and crackling flames into a mad rush.
Someone crying.
A strangled cough and a wail of agony has her scrambling over scorched earth and heated rocks. Her gloves singe and threaten to melt into her palms as she heaves a branch out of the way, sending it floating carelessly away back towards the main fire.
But it reveals a hole under a rock. Not even a hole, a furrow in the ground where an animal might have hidden, a rut. A divot in the dirt that shelters two of the three remaining hikers. A man and a woman, both curled up as tight as possible and breathing shallow.
"I'm here," she manages, grabbing both of their hands and shaking them.
Their response is sluggish and inebriated, but she gets them to untangle and rise from the rocks. She grabs their wrists, careful to keep her pinkies raised, before urging them forward.
"Orca!" She yells into her comm. "I've got two civilians off the south path, where can I go?" Her throat aches but she has to be strong. She can't start coughing and wheezing in front of them.
They need a Hero.
They need someone to be strong for them.
"West, head west. Fire is moving north."
It takes a moment to orientate herself before she finds west by the setting sun. She tightens her grip on her charges and pulls them as much as she guides them along the direction.
"Wind shift!" Someone yells in the comes, just before a burst of air churns the air around her.
She ignores it, pushing across the scorched grass and over the shattered remains of crackling branches. A tree explodes as they run by, and the only reason she doesn't scream is because she knows it's the sap inside that caused it, not a villain's Quirk.
Her pinky locks around the two people and she swings them around in front of her. She wraps her arms around them and does her best to shield them from the fragments of wood and falling embers.
A tree limb knocks them to the ground, and she has to take one hand off to touch it and push it away. As she does a different kind of heat blooms in her leg. She knows she's hurt.
But if she looks at it she'll slow down and if she slows down she might not make it out. And if she doesn't make it out, then the civilians definitely won't.
Pain thumps in her veins with every beat of her heart as she pushes back to her feet and forces the wounded leg to take her weight. She pulls the two back to their feet.
"Are- are you alright?" One of them asks.
"Fine," she grits out, staggering forward. They're both still weightless, and she uses that to her advantage as she pulls them along towards the gap in the trees that looks clear.
Another tree near her crackles and pops.
One in front of her tilts and groans, the trunk twisting and snapping before the tree finally tilts and comes down.
She throws the two in front, hoping her aim is true as the tree suddenly twists and shifts its fall to her.
To her.
She braces, hands up and out stretched to catch the smoldering trunk of the tree- hoping that her Quirk can catch it and negate the weight before the momentum can crush her.
"Get down!"
Someone else tackles her, slamming into her hard enough her teeth rattle and she nearly bites the tip of her tongue off. She hits the dirt, rolling to a stop. Immediately she twists, checking back on the person that shouted and shoved her out of the way.
Izuku holds the burning tree trunk, his teeth gritted as he holds it above his head. Emerald eyes flash over to her, and the snarl on his lips morphs into a smile just before he winks at her.
He heaves the trunk to the side, letting it thump to the dirt before he rushes to her side. He picks her up, careful as he takes her hand- mindful of her pinkies- and pulls her to her feet.
"You alright, Uravity?" He asks softly, his eyes on her even in the blazing fire.
"Better," she manages, wincing before whirling to look at the two civilains. "Where-a"
"I got them," Izuku assures, squeezing her hand before letting go. "Caught them when you threw them. Otherwise I would have been there sooner."
He was just in time anyways though. That was good enough. She hums, watching as he takes the lead through the blaze, his stance low as his hands skim the ground.
The dirt rumbles, and it looks like panels flipping over again and again as the ground around them thumps and the smoldering embers and charred grass is replaced with clean dirt.
"Nice job," she comments, and he looks back to smile at her.
But the smile shifts as his eyes go wide. She's about to ask what it is when she hears the crack and screech of wood twisting apart. She twists, turns to see another tree tumbles to the ground towards them, limbs and branches ignited like a flaming javelin as the bulk of the pine tree descends towards them.
There's no hope of her catching it, too many branches in between her and the trunk and there's no guarantee she'd get a grip on it before it impaled her.
She slaps Izuku's shoulder, all five fingers connecting before she pushes him away. He's screaming, words pouring out of his mouth as she focuses on the incoming hit.
She might not survive.
Probably won't actually.
Her life extinguished in one great flaming smack of nature.
She backs up until she hits another tree, hot sap and burnt bark digging in through her suit. Nowhere to run. She throws her hands up, palms wide and fingers splayed in hopes of catching something.
Her eyes squeeze closed.
The air whooshes around her and the ground rumbles suddenly and she stumbles and falls. But when it settles a moment later she realizes she's still alive a moment later.
Further confirmation of that is the sound of the crackling pines and the soft wheezing breath above her.
She cracks open her eyes, wondering what miracle saved her life.
But it isn't a miracle.
It's a man.
His hands braced against the tree she had been against, his teeth gritted and his head bowed. She doesn't realize why until something hot and liquid drips onto her cheek.
She wipes it off, and her black gloves come back with a red smear on them.
She looks back up at him in confusion.
A tree branch.
Tree branches- actually- pierce his flesh, broken shards of the tree snapped and left jagged rend his flesh. There's one in his shoulder, another at his hip- she doesn't even know how many as she pushes up, hands fumbling to find what to even do as she looks at him.
"Are you…" He wheezes suddenly, and that's when her hand lands on the one in his chest, off center and still dripping blood. "Okay?" He whispers, green eyes fuzzy as he tries to focus on her.
"I'm okay!" She shouts back, before deciding she'll have to remove the tree. She'll have to push it off.
There's no other way.
She reaches around him, her hands pressing against the trunk and removing it's gravity.
He shifts, and as she pushes the tree off and the branches in his body slide out he's strangely quiet. He slumps against her as she's fumbling for her comm. She screams into it for a medic as she staggers her way out of the burning pines and across the newly turned dirt- free of embers and smoke and flickering flames.
She collapses onto the hillside just as Frostfire freezes the entire expanse of it over. The ice is cool against her knees as she sets Izuku down, hands pressing against what she thinks is the worst of the wounds.
Shoto is there a moment later, his hands more coordinated than hers as he freezes a few of the holes over and pulls an emergency kit from his belt. He pulls hers off too, and together they shove gauze and pack the wounds as tight as they can as Izuku wheezes one breath out and one breath in.
"You're…" Izuku suddenly mutters, eyes flickering open and closed before he manages to force them to focus on her. "Okay?" He repeats.
"I'm fine. I'm fine you dummy!" She looks to Shoto, and the man suddenly stands and runs away.
"We're over here!" He shouts, and Ochako realizes that he's guiding the medics to them. Thank god.
"Stay with me," Ochako pleads. "Please, stay with me." She shakes him, knowing there is nothing she can do but plead with him.
They're out of gauze. His wounds are still pulsing blood- thick red and irreplaceable- onto the slick ice beneath his back and into the green fabric of his new costume. He smiles faintly at her, blood tainting his lip as he offers the expression.
"Wouldn't… dream… of… it," he whispers back, his chest wheezing with each word- each breath.
"Please, please, please," she pleads as his eyes flutter and close. "Izuku!"
"Need an emergency evac for casualty on the southern end of the slope!" Someone shouts around her.
"Blood transfusion, what's his type?"
"O positive!"
There's a dozen different conversations going on in the comms and around her, between the medics and Shoto and even her.
But the words tumble off her numb lips and she's barely registering what she's saying. She doesn't realize she's on a gurney as well until there's a stab of pain and a medic is bandaging her leg- a shard of wood ripped out of it.
There's just Izuku. Laid out on a gurney with his hands over his chest, bandaged up and already bleeding through as the whirling winds of a helicopter buffet and tousle his hair.
He was so strong.
The thought doesn't startle her or rip her back to reality. He was so strong.
She had seen it the first day, in the regret in his eyes as he followed Toga's commands. She had seen the strength in his character in how he saved her and Tsuyu and Mina from Dabi that day in the art museum. She had seen his strength and his weakness when she stumbled out of that dungeon with his mom.
She had seen just how weak he could be- on his knees and weeping as his mom held him that day.
She had seen him over lunch, staring off into the distance before he would ask her a question so deep and so painful to answer she wondered if therapy was too much for him. If Corvan was pushing him too hard when he came back with bruises or later when she came over to his apartment and he fell into her arms and just cried.
She had seen him strong.
She had seen him weak.
She had not seen him like this.
Green eyes glazed over but steadily staring at her even as the helicopter lands and he's loaded into it. An oxygen mask is fitted to his face, and he waves it off, mouthing something at her. His hand reaches for her- some instinct awakened by the fear of distance keeping them apart.
A paramedic tucks his arm back in, and the helicopter is already peeling away, racing across the sky away from the dying blaze of the forest fire.
Leaving her on the hill side, her heart aching more than her wounded leg.
She hasn't gotten a chance to tell him yet.
She hopes she hasn't missed her shot.
He's grown too much for her to let it slip by. He's grown from the scared boy that had to fight every day to preserve what little pieces of himself he managed to hide from the League. He's grown from the person that didn't think he was worth saving. He's grown from the man that looked at her and thought she was so far out of his reach he didn't have a chance to be her friend.
Much less something more.
Much less something she wanted.
He flinches in his sleep.
Correction, he flinches in his drug-induced sleep.
And on top of that, he shifts around in the bed- shuffling and jerking to the point a nurse has already come in and strapped one of his arms down to make sure he doesn't rip or shift the IV too much.
His breathing and heart rate climb and fall as she watches. To the point she thinks he's going to wake up and start screaming like Tsuyu used to when she was having nightmares about the USJ.
But he doesn't, and his sleep persists as he shuffles and grunts in his sleep.
"Did you know… the first time we saw each other?" She whispers quietly, voicing her fragmented thoughts in the empty room.
Night shift is on duty, and the doctors and nurses are busy tending to other more critical patients. Every once in a while, someone will peek into the room to make sure they don't need anything, but it's few and far between. She isn't sure if it's that knowledge that for once they are alone, or if it's just because he's recovering in a hospital bed and she feels like if she doesn't say it now, she'll lose him forever.
But the words bubble up all the same and course across a raw throat and over chapped lips. "Did you know all those months ago that the girl you looked at across a café would look at you and wonder if you wanted to be with her?"
It would be impossible if he did. After all, he had been a villain, well not exactly but… He likely didn't have any thoughts about getting out, only keeping his mother safe.
"Did you know that she would want to know more about you?" She asks, something in her chest tugging the words that she's been so scared to say up until now that she's swallowed them every time they've threatened to taste the air between them.
"That she would get curious about the man who did so many terrible things just to ensure the safety of his momma? That she'd want to know what drove him and what secrets he kept?" She fumbles with her hands, before settling on gripping the railing his arm is strapped to.
"Did you know she'd fall in love with you?" It's a demand but it's whispered all the same because…
Because it's a fragile admission. The words delicate and tentatively voiced into the sterile air that could only exist when he was not even awake. That was always the case though, because when he was awake…
When Izuku was awake…
When he was awake he always filled the air between them with questions and comments and thoughts of how the world worked. And sometimes he just filled the air with laughter- tentative and a little scared but always genuine. He filled it with all the things she wanted to give him more and more because she was starting to realize that he was becoming more than just a friend. More than just someone she wanted to see set on the right path.
He was becoming the person she wanted to lean against on the couch and talk through a movie's plot with. He was becoming the person that she wanted to have helping her cook or meal-prep with for a long week of double patrol shifts. He was becoming the person… the place… she wanted to come home to, at the end of a day where nothing went right and what went right was always paid for in blood and pain.
"Did you know that I'd grow to love you?"
It's all tumbling out now, and she can't stop the words as they rush out.
"Did you know I'd see snippets of your kindness when you walked to the store? I'd see you on patrol helping an old lady across the street or you'd just stop and listen to someone. Everyday little things that no one else did that you… you stopped and made sure you did. Did you know that?"
"Did you know that I'd fall in love with how you started wearing short sleeves to show your scars? That I'd see that strength and wish I had it? That I'd see your smile even when I could tell you were crying, and I would envy it? And then I'd see you break down after a session with Corvan and I would be so, so grateful that it was me you came to? That I fell in love with being able to hold you and let you sob into my chest? That I would fall in love with the way you held me like I was your rock?"
She's crying now. Fat tears spilling across her face and down her cheeks to splatter onto the legs of her charred and bloody costume.
"Did you know I'd fall in love with the way you always asked why I believed in you?"
Oh god she remembers so many times he had asked her that. All the different times she had to convince him that he really meant something, that he was important and strong and worth it. The provisional exam, and even after it, how she had to remind him of all the times he redirected the League from hurting people or pulled them away to escape. Going in for his therapy review session with the Hero Association, having all of his sessions on display in order to give a final verdict on whether or not he should be allowed to be a civilian instead of a prisoner, much less a Hero.
"Did you know I'd fall in love with the way your mind works?" Her hands slide off the rail, fingers tangling with his. It is only a fragment of thought that allows her to lift her pinkies to keep him from floating off the bed. "Did you know I'd fall in love with the man that told me he wanted to keep others safe when he was the one who was failed? That I would fall in love with the man that wanted to protect others because he didn't want anyone else to hurt like he did?"
His hand squeezes hers and it stops her monologue and pulls her tear streaked face to look at him.
"…Cha…ko…" He breathes the word, shifting in the bed suddenly, closer, curling around his hand and pulling her hand to his chest.
"I'm here," she blurts out. "I'm right here, Izuku."
His next breath is a huff of flames and a whine. He shifts again, his grip painful on her fingers before his eyes snap open.
"Och-" He starts and stops, green eyes wild and frantic as they dart around the room and fall on her.
"Hey, hey," she smiles at him, and moves to take a step back when he instead pulls her forward and into his arms. She didn't even hear the Velcro holding his left arm down rip. It doesn't matter anyway as his next action is to pop the needle out of his arm and toss it to the side.
She's immediately crushed against his chest, and the next noise he hears is a sob that ripples through Izuku's chest and comes out of his mouth like a gasp for air.
"I'm so sorry," he wheezes, clutching her to his chest and nearly pulling her into the bed.
His heart rate spikes, and the beeping of his monitor becomes frantic, but his grip doesn't loosen, and he buries his head into the crook of his neck. "I'm so sorry you got hurt!"
He's shaking and sobbing into her neck and she doesn't know if he should even be up, much less speaking, much less talking, much less crying.
But she holds him close and feels the ache in her chest settle down just a bit.
He is here.
He is safe.
He is alive.
And that has to be enough.
"I was so scared I would lose you," he whispers. "I just saw that tree coming and- I- it- I couldn't stop it. And I couldn't save you. So I just jumped in front of it."
His shaking again, and that's when the nurse comes in, frantic and scared as she asks him to lay back down. He doesn't obey, wrapping his arms tighter around her until she's forced to shuffle closer to the bed to collapse on top of him.
"Izuku- I'm o-okay," she whispers back, carding her fingers through his hair to try and calm him down.
At least that's what soothes the man when they're at his apartment or at hers. Little acts of physical touch- of gentle touch- always soothe the man's wounded soul, and it does so now. He calms, just enough to relax his grip on her and allow the nurse to recline him in the bed again.
Ochako moves to take a step back, but his hand finds hers again, clasping it tight and careless of the harm her Quirk might bring him in the hospital bed.
He might end up on the ceiling, or tumbling through the air if she even touched all five fingers to his hand.
But he doesn't care. He clings to her hand, his eyes fixed on hers as he gives the nurse his other arm.
"Please," he whispers, and there are still tears in his eyes and she can see the fear in how he's so tense- muscles flexed and chest heaving. Like he's too scared to let his guard down for fear that something will rip it away. The nurse doesn't even have to look for a vein when she puts a new IV in his other arm. "Don't leave." His thumb caresses the back of her hand.
"I wouldn't dream of it," she says. "I'll be right here." And again she takes a step back to sit in the chair she was just in.
He tugs her back, using that ridiculous strength of his to pull her up to the railing of his bed.
"Please don't leave me," he pleads, as if he's scared as soon as he lets go she'll disappear. "Please."
"I'm right here Izu-" She starts but his hand readjusts, sliding from her hand up to her forearm. He pulls her closer, his eyes pleading silently for her to come closer.
She grimaces, exchanging a look with the nurse.
"I was so scared I'd lose you," he says, breaking the awkward moment and replacing it with one that immediately has her heart aching.
"I'll give you a moment," the nurse whispers as she slips away, but if Izuku notices he doesn't react as he squeezes her arm.
"I was so scared I'd lose you and I won't get to see you again."
"Izuku I-"
"You're my best friend. I don't think I'd be here without you. I don't think I'd be able to manage this without you. You…" He hesitates there, the frantic pace of his sentence resulting in a wheezing breath and a just as hurried return to speaking. "You are the reason I am half the man I am."
"Izuku," she whispers, placing her hand gently on his arm, "you need to rest."
"I need to tell you that you mean so much to me and I don't even have the words to describe what that is or what that means," he urges.
"We're best friends," she says, forcing the words that are so painfully true and yet so inadequate to describe what has manifested between them.
"But you are so much more than just that," Izuku sobs out, and it occurs to her then that Izuku might just be on a higher dose of drugs and either of them thinks he is.
"God, you are the sun and the moon. You saved my mom. You saved me." He swallows and looks at her with those beautiful green eyes and tells her something that shatters her heart. "You believing in me means I can look at myself in the mirror and see something other than a monster."
She hugs him. Slides her arm out of his and wraps her arms around his neck and squeezes him. "Izuku, you are not a monster."
"But I am. I hurt you. I hurt Ryukyu. I hurt so many Heroes I didn't even know. Chargebolt, Red Riot, Creati, Frostfire- I hurt your friends and classmates, I hurt the people you love." His free arm wraps around her back and she can feel the tears leaking across his cheeks again. "And yet you still believe in me."
"I love you silly," she says. "It's what I do."
And it takes her a moment.
It takes her a shuttered breath and a renewed burst of tears from Izuku to realize what she just said. It takes him curling his fingers into her suit and sobbing out a, "I love you too, Ochako," for her to realize she finally confessed.
And that he was saying it back.
And then she's crying too.
Everything welling up fresh once again to spill out across her still ashy-stained face and trekking new lines down it until tears drip off her chin and onto Izuku's shoulder.
She squeezes him and he squeezes her, and it's like nothing in the world can pull them apart in that moment and that moment alone. Because she is everything to him and he has already become the person that is her everything.
"I love you," Izuku repeats, a need in his voice to say it despite the damage to his body. "I love you and I know I'm not going to be the person you deserve and I know that you are an angel. I know that I'm so lucky to have you love me. And I promise I'll try and be the man you deserve. I promise. And I promise I'll always protect you."
Oh god how did this man even exist?
She can't look at him.
Or the tears already spilling down her cheeks are going to keep going and going until they both drown.
"I just-" Izuku hesitates and his next breath is another wheeze that has her tearing herself away and trying to lessen the pressure on his already abused body.
But he pulls her close instead and when there is no more room to give and his grip only tightens she falls into the bed with him. He doesn't complain, and she's caught up in the feel and press of his good hand on her back and the look in his eyes as he stares down at her.
"I'm weak," he whispers. "I might have all the Quirks in the world and I might have the strength to rip mountains to shreds but it is all hiding the fact that I am weak. And I struggle. And I will do everything I can to protect you. If that means dying for you then it is worth it to know that you will keep living and breathing. But I need you to know that I am sorry for my weakness, that you have chosen to love a man who is horribly broken and scarred and…" He hesitates again, catching his breath and fixing his words and after so many talks with him she knows now is not the time to interrupt.
He breathes, and she watches, bracing her hands to try and take her weight off him. But she feels it when he wants to speak again.
A shift in the air, where life refocuses itself and the molecules of space between them seem to vibrate with intensity and space-time shatters and recollects.
"I will love you with every cell of my body, but I am not enough. And I will protect you with every Quirk, every fiber of my being but I will break and I will crack at the end of the day and I need you to know that. I will protect you. Just…" He hesitates and falters then.
"I'll hold you tight," she says with a smile. "I will hold you tight and let you fall apart at the end of every day if you need. And I will love every shattered broken piece and I will put you back together every night so that you can stand tall as the man I knew you would become."
They're both sobbing messes at this point. Somewhere in between Izuku's declaration and Ochako's own the tears started anew and now there's just watery-eyed stares at each other where space is blurry. But it's enough for her to crawl up and curl against him, shifting her weight onto his good side and to wrap her arms around him as best she can.
It's enough to let her kiss his lips- soft and chaste and gentle. She can still taste the ash on his skin when she pulls back to kiss his cheek. She can still taste it on her own tongue and still smell the scent of burnt pine and charred dirt. But it is somehow enough through all the little discomforts of her charred and slightly melted costume, and through the disgusted scents coming off both of them, and through the fatigue and the pain and the ache of their injuries and their hearts to lay next to him in that bed and know that they love each other.
It's enough.
And it will always be enough for her.
For him.
For them.