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nc-vb · 9 months

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𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐜𝐨𝐥𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐨𝐟 𝐨𝐥𝐝 𝐬𝐩𝐨𝐨𝐧𝐬 & 𝐜𝐚𝐫𝐚𝐦𝐞𝐥𝐬

i don’t even like s’mores so i hope y’all do. also… me jumping on the “bkg smells like caramel” train when i know full well 1) it ain’t true and 2) real nitroglycerin smells like ass… let me be delulu. double also… idk how fires work ok, i’ve never even started one???? 👀

summary → subconsciously, and in your boyfriend’s absence, you crave some caramel. and so, you make some. kind of.

pairing -> katsuki bakugo x gn!reader

warnings -> sfw, apartment fire, injuries (heat burns, heat blisters, threat of asphyxiation from smoke inhalation), injury care.

wc -> 3k

The smell alerts you first, and harshly stirs you from one of the deepest of sleeps you’ve ever had. No, it wasn’t the splintering of wood echoing through the halls from all the fixings and furniture within your home, nor the crackling of flames, and not even the intense heat that’d been swirling within the four walls of your bedroom. Not even the blaring of the fire alarms of your building had been enough to wake you.

The scent of fire was a comfort to you, or at least, it used to be. Memories of taking summer trips past the outskirts of Musutafu with loved ones that had the nights ending with you preparing a western camping treat for everyone— s’mores, you’d tell them they were called. You knew little else of them besides what they were made of, and when they would ask, you’d only say the exact same thing. Graham cookies, marshmallows, and chocolate! Delicious, isn’t it? you’d asked. And there hadn’t been a head shake of disagreement from a single one of them.

You ended up becoming fond of putting caramel inside yours. The first time you did, you made a mess, and ended up burning the pads of your fingers from a lack of care— grabbing onto the handle of your bedroom door managed to remind yourself of the pain from that time. Gasping sharply, dryly, you recoil, hand retracted into your aching chest to comfort it.

Careful, a chiding voice echoes in your head. You flinch, temple pulsing with aggravation as you back away toward the window.

“Careful.” Turning toward the source of the warning, you found Bakugo leaning toward the supplies bag to grab a wet nap. “You’re gonna burn your fingers off with that stuff.”

You didn’t even realize he’d been sitting beside you. Either you’d gone delirious from sitting so close to the campfire, or you’d drank too much of whatever liquor it was that Denki poured into your juice a half an hour ago, but besides the s’mores making, the entire night passed in a blur. You suspected it to be a combination of both, considering you hadn’t noticed who took up sitting next to you on your chosen log (though it might’ve been the other way around— had he been sitting here before you?)

You stared back at him as intently as your focus would allow — it’s definitely a mix of flame and fuel, you subconsciously decided — and Bakugo stared right back.

“Here,” he said, a moment after you heard the tearing of paper. “Before it leaves a mark on you.”

“… uh-huh.” You knew you were staring dumbly at him; as it turns out, your focus didn’t allow you to do much at all, let alone raise a hand to take the packaged wipe from him. He groaned, a loud affair that briefly had some of the eyes of the others glancing his way before returning to their own s’mores and conversations, before forsaking his own treat to the grate above the fire. This, you somehow noticed. “Katsuki, your—”

“Gimme your hands, already,” he interrupted. Reaching forward, he grabbed one of your wrists and tugged it into his lap— napkin blanketing his index finger and thumb, he begins to pick the caramel off of your skin, relieving you of the heat it contained beneath it.

They’re soft. Big, and most certainly scarred, but most importantly, soft. You couldn’t tell if you were surprised to learn this or not; you had your speculations, after all. In the sense of him having such a strong hygienic routine, Bakugo Katsuki wasn’t necessarily like the other boys of your group of friends. In bed by the most reasonably earliest time, teeth brush two to three times a day, faced washed at the end of the day and a shower each morning— in your exhaustion, somedays, this was more than you could say you did for yourself. More than likely, this also accounted for some kind of skin care routine, as to why they were so soft.

Dazed from the smoke of the fire — and from the strong scent of Bakugo’s s’more burning (that Midoriya thankfully had the tact to remove off the grate for him before it was too late) — you watched with a lidded gaze as he pried the final piece of cooled caramel from your last finger. It’d been done so gently, too. The warning, the insistence of caring for you when you’d been too incognizant to care for yourself— even in the days before this, he’d always been quick to assure your well-being, and in a funnily zero-to-a-hundred way.

You hummed, and watched Bakugo discard the damp tissue.

If this is what he’s like to his friends, he’d probably be a good boyfriend, too, huh? Gaze wide and pointed, Bakugo’s head snapped back toward you with such zeal that it made you flinch.

“Then date me.”

With how accidentally loud his response had been to you accidentally speaking your thoughts aloud, the entire camp had gone quiet, and all that was heard was the crackling of the fire.

It’d been no different than now, really, except for the fact that there aren’t any graham cookies, or chocolate, or marshmallows, or that caramel drizzle you’d use that reminded you of Bakugo and how naturally sweet you’d learnt his skin smelled; no different, despite the fact that none of your friends are present.

It’s no different, except that Bakugo isn’t at your side to take care of your burnt fingers again.

It’s no different, but at least you hadn’t been about to die back then.

You act quickly, though in your panic, you fumble over each step, nerves eating away at what strength your fingers and knees had left. First is the call to emergency services, one that you put on speaker phone while you roll up your bath towel, swiped off its hook to put at the base of your door. They ask your name as you dump the remainder of your drinking water on it, and watch it seep through while you give them your address and your prefecture. They tell you not to open any windows in your room, not until help can arrive. They tell you they’ve contacted your emergency contact for you, too, and only because your emergency contact is a pro hero.

In your one bedroom apartment, your room sat in the middle of the three rooms within it, and to the right of the kitchen. And from where you stood, it’d become easy to tell where the fire had started; you could feel the heat stronger to your left side. The fire would have already traveled the path of least resistance and crawled down the hallway, while spreading through the wall between your room and the kitchen.

The operator said not to open the window, you remind yourself, as you’d instinctively gone to unlatch the lock. The heat would just be pulled through, and the more oxygen, the faster it would move. You scoff, hands pressed to the warm panes. It doesn’t even matter. It’s too high up to get anywhere. My Quirk won’t help me here, either. I… I’m really trapped.

Another building stood across from yours, a good thirty feet away. Too far to jump, obviously. And being on the tenth floor, too high to drop. In the far distance, to the left of the building opposite you, you spot several sets of emergency lights moving quickly in your direction. Katsuki would’ve gotten the call by now. Knowing him, he’s… probably on his way here.

You cough. Despite having blocked the bottom of the door, the smoke still seeps through other cracks in your rooms’ minimal defence.

He… probably won’t make it in time. You press your face against the window and peer down, in time to watch dozens of your buildings’ residents spill into the street below. Faintly, over the blaring alarm, the fire, and the emergency sirens that have only just pooled into the area before the porte-cochère below. They spill out of the vehicles, some ushering the residents away to the other side of the street, the others putting on their leatherheads and zipping up their turnouts—

You drop to the floor, legs folded under you, and wheeze.

Could it have been an electrical malfunction? Did you somehow turn the stovetop on and leave it on? You didn’t make any food tonight for a lack of time and then energy; the many reports from your office you’d had to complete by morning made sure of that—

And it clicked, in your sleep-riddled, smoked-out brain, what the cause of the fire was. Why you’d recalled that camping memory from nearly four years ago. You were making something. Caramel. Albeit burnt and turned into a fiery mess, you can faintly smell it. You were going to dip apple slices into it.

All those hero courses, the safety training we’d gone through, and all because I wanted some damn caramel! And I fell asleep and left it there! You cough again. Not even safety training, just some damn common sense would’ve been good to have!

You shouldn’t have sat down, shouldn’t have yawned and leaned further into the comfort of your bed when you did sit down, shouldn’t have slept through the timer’s alarm, shouldn’t have craved junk food at all, should have eaten just that apple or something else just as simple—

You sob, a dry, choked sound that burns your chest. Tears barely spill, though your eyes had already been watering from inhaling so much smoke; you can’t even bring yourself to look outside your window again from a lack of strength.

There’s nothing I can do but wait, you tell yourself. And if that doesn’t work out, t-then, I guess… I…

A loud boom stirs you from finishing your thought. It doesn’t come from inside the apartment, nor from within the building. Boom. Another. Boom-boom. It seems to be getting louder and louder, like it’s moving closer. From outside…?

You steady yourself when you move onto your knees. Hands shaky from nerves and lung damage from the smoke, you at least manage to get one last look out the window, and in time to move out of the way of it by throwing your body as far as possible from it.

Clattering of brick, splintering of wood, shattering of glass— arms thrown over your head, you cry out as your body shifts from the pressure of the explosion. In front of you, there’s a rush of heat, and from behind, the cool night air licks at your bare feet. As the debris falls from the top of your head, eyes protected, you look toward your window-turned-wall and find a panting figure half-hanging from the opening, and half bent at their knees with a gloved hand extended to you.

“Quit staring! Take my hand and let’s move!”

“I’m not staring,” you grumbled, burning under his knowing stare. “But clearly you were to be watching and waiting to see if I was.”

“Was not.” A bemused silence fell between the two of you, the only sound being that what swirled around your cafeteria table. Taking a swig of his water, “Do I have something on my face or something?”

“No,” you answered. “You just—” You hold in your breath, lips pressed into a firm line.

“Just?”

You cleared your throat, shaking your head at him. You shrug.

“You just… smell…” Chopsticks clatter, against the ceramic of his bowl and onto the table, flicking spicy peanut sauce onto it.

“Hah?!”

“Good!” you shouted, at the appalled look on his face. “You smell good!”

“Finish the sentence faster next time, damn it!” he yelled back, cheeks red from your call out on his apparent poor hygiene. There are multiple snickers and chuckles from the nearby tables, but none sitting there dare to try and look Bakugo’s way.

“Sorry.” You shrink a little in your chair. “I got distracted by it halfway through the thought— you smell really sweet.”

Bakugo stiffens, brows furrowing and pinching toward the bridge of his nose; the tinge in his cheeks don’t disappear quickly.

“Sorry,” you mumble. “So sorry.”

Your body jerks forward, scalded fingers leading the way into his gloved palms, and when he pulls you into him to have you wrap your limbs tight around him, the door to your bedroom bursts open at the seams, giving way to the build-up of flames that would’ve happily greeted you.

Heat licks at your back as Bakugo pushes off of the building, letting the recoiling from his palm’s small-but-quick explosions carry the two of you low and far enough away from the gaping hole in the wall of your tenth story apartment. Audibly, you wince, and in your attempt to keep a tight hold around him, you feel your fingertips pop.

Instinctively and despite only having gotten halfway to the ground, your grip loosens, and you begin to slip.

“Hold on!” Bakugo urges— an arm drops to curl around your waist, hoisting you back up from under your ribcage. You seethe in air through gritted teeth, forcing yourself to ignore the pain of your blistered hand to twist the fabric of his shirt into your fingers.

When your feet finally touch the ground, you crumble onto your knees, clutching your injured hand. Harshly, Bakugo does the same, only to rise back up with you properly in his arms.

“Katsuki,” you call, voice hoarse from the heat.

He doesn’t respond, barely glancing down at you on his way to one of the paramedics; he doesn’t even shout at the residents who stand in his way, his aura apparently doing the speaking for him. They stumble off to the sides, watching him covet you, even when he reaches the ambulance. It takes both you and the paramedics to get him to set you down on the gurney; for them, it’s business as usual when they demand he let them do their job. For you, it takes a placating kiss to his cheek, a promise of your well-being, and you begging him to let go of your hand, him not even realizing that he’d grabbed it until you’d begun tearing up.

If this were a regular rescue mission, with you at his side instead of in front of your where you sit on a medical bed, his behaviour wouldn’t have been so volatile, so… possessed. Focused and driven, he wouldn’t have impeded the paramedics in helping you right away, but he’d been focused on you and only you. He’s not here as a hero, dressed up as one and having been on patrol as he might’ve been before getting the call. He’s here as your partner, your friend, your lover, your next of kin, your emergency contact— “Dynamight,” you call, your uninjured hand raised to touch his face.

“Yeah,” he finally responds— it’s gruff and heavy, like he’d stopped breathing. You can’t help the frown that settles onto your face, and Bakugo begins to spiral again, whispering out your name and simultaneously cursing out of earshot.

“Hey, hey— I’m fine now,” you once more swear to him. Your fingers tense where they pinch his cheeks. “Look at me. I’m alive, right?”

“… yeah,” he repeats, tone hollow.

“Then let them bandage my hands and I’ll be even better.”

“Okay.”

They’re quick to rinse off your hands with cool saline before applying a gentle lotion to them; some kind of antibiotic cream, you’d overheard one of them say. One of them begins to unwrap a fresh packet of bandaging, and at the look on Bakugo’s face, hastily and gently wraps it around your hand. The other, having just finished checking your oxygen levels and having examined the back of your throat, insists on you breathing through an oxygen mask.

Bakugo is the one who places the rubber band around your head and lowers the mask over your face, having snatched it from the innocent paramedic, all so he can press his palms against your cheeks after. They puff up slightly beneath them as you breathe in and out, deeply, your eyes fluttering shut in relief at the soothing sensation that coats your lungs.

Bakugo calls your name less than a second later.

“I’m fine now,” you say to the paramedics you spot standing off to your right. “Please go check if there are others who are injured.”

They exchange looks. “But,” one of them starts, though you’re quick to interrupt.

“I’m a hero, too,” you inform them. “I really am okay now. Please go.”

They do, looking almost grateful for your dismissal and lack of series injuries. If Katsuki was acting normal right now, he probably would’ve been offended by that.

“Katsuki,” you say, and with your good hand, you drag the mask away from your face— or, at least, you’d tried to. His gaze is harsh on you when he forces it back up over your nose; you sigh. “Katsuki.”

“… they said the fire started in the kitchen.” You nod, and let him pick you up again to carry you to the back end of the ambulance; Bakugo sits, and places you into his lap. “The hell were you doin’?”

“I… I wanted to make caramel.”

“At three in the morning? What, did’ya fall asleep?” This, you don’t bother to answer; your silence ends up being enough. “You idiot… Out of all the damn things…”

Bakugo’s groan is one of exasperation when he sets your hand down, of relief when you’re pulled into his chest, and of frustration and when you raise your arms to hug him back. Muffled complaints seep into your clothed shoulder, while your tears seep into his— as much as you can with what strength your throbbing fingers supplied, you pull him further into you, teeth gritted.

“Idiot,” he repeats.

“Sorry. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” His grip on you tightens, but you don’t say a word. You were almost so close to never feeling it ever again, to never feel from your Katsuki Bakugo, to never breathe him in or hear him chastise you when it’d been deserved, to never hold his hands again. You pull your mask down once more, and press trembling lips up against his jaw. “Thank you for saving me; thank you.”

He nods, a stiff gesture. “… don’t make me have to do it again.”

#bakugo x reader #bakugo katsuki x reader #katsuki bakugo x reader #bakugo x y/n #katsuki bakugo x y/n #bakugo katsuki x y/n #katsuki bakugo #bakugo katsuki fluff #mha x reader #sigh... he's got cute aggression frfr #✦ nc vb.

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