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{The Kiss That Melted a Frozen Heart}
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Word Count ; 4990
Costa paced outside Bakugou's room stationed in the Emergency Room of Ashoka City Hospital, chewing on her nails anxiously. They'd been there for over an hour already, the doctors treating Bakugou's severe chemical burns. Costa crossed her arms over her chest, tucking her hands into her armpits so that she couldn't bite her nails any longer, eyes flicking up to the clock on the hallway's wall repeatedly.
She was stressing, for multiple reasons. She didn't expect returning from clearing the backstreets of the bank to find Bakugou curled up in a ball in the middle of the road, screaming and crying in agony. She also didn't expect to come face-to-face with the ringleader of the criminal organization, the mastermind of the whole ordeal.
She remembered how her brain kicked into gear at the sight of Bakugou, her hero instincts taking full effect at that very moment.
"Stop it! Whatever you're doing, stop it!" she called out as Bakugou started violently shaking in his crouched position in the street. The man gave her a Cheshire cats grin, his eyes flashing evilly as he took a step toward her. She grit her teeth when a deep chuckle rumbled from his chest.
"What's done is done, sweetheart," he said, lifting his shoulders into a slight shrug, "The only person that can save him now is himself." His eyes fanned over to Bakugou's hunched-over form, his body contorting in pain. Costa's gaze followed and she swallowed, her heart squeezing at the sight of him.
"You're torturing him," she breathed out, her eyes filling to the brim with nothing but raw fury, "Give him back."
"The effects are done," the man spat out, irritated by her tone of voice as she'd spewed demands at him, "There's nothing I can do. He'll be in his own personal hell from now on until he finds a way to break it himself."
Her eyes burned as she stared at Bakugou. His spikey blonde locks were wild as he gripped at his roots, every muscle in his body locked into a tense state of distress, his eyes squeezed shut and leaking with salty tears. She swallowed and tore her gaze away from his form, eyes focusing on the villain grinning at her.
"I'm gonna destroy you."
"You know, you and your friend say the same things," he said before a dark look came over his features, "And I'm really getting sick of it."
He tilted his hat back just as she lunged. Their eyes met as she flew through the air and he grinned, activating his quirk.
But instead of recoiling and backing away from him, she let out a battle cry and swung her fist, charged with pure light energy wafting in between her fingers. His eyes widened as he tried to dodge. But he was too late and her fist forcefully collided with his cheek. The impact sent him stumbling backward, stars coating his vision.
Then she was on him before he had the chance to escape, her quirk sending spirals of light racing toward him and wrapping around his entire body. She glared through the yellow pane of her visors as her ropes of light tightly squeezed against him, making it uncomfortable to move at all.
"H-how did you-"
"Your quirk is like some genjutsu type shit, right?" she placed her hands on her hips, peering down at him with a glare that wanted him dead as she tapped two fingers against the side of her visors, "My visors deflect any quirks that trigger illusions through colors or patterns. They render you useless."
He let out a grunt as she tightened her fist, her ropes tightening along with it, squeezing against his body. "You're not going to torture anyone with those eyes for a very very long time," she said, grinding her molars together as she stepped away from him, storming across the street to where Bakugou was.
She crouched down as he let out a pained noise, his fingers gripping his hair so tight she thought he might start yanking it out of his scalp. Her heart pounded rapidly, slightly panicking at his breakdown from the effects of the genjutsu guy's quirk.
"Bakugou," she said softly, hesitantly holding a hand out toward him. He didn't react at all, simply curling himself inward even more. She swallowed, not entirely sure how to calm him down as she extended her fingers. When her fingertips met with the skin of his knuckles, she cursed.
He was as cold as ice. Her eyes widened as she noticed how his fingertips were turning purple, his teeth were chattering violently. His muscles contracted as his entire body started shaking. A wave of panic washed through her at the fear of him going into hypothermia right before her eyes.
"Bakugou!" She said more urgently this time, pulling his freezing hands out of his hair and wrapping her own hands around them. No reaction.
"BAKUGOU!" She shouted this time, starting to shake his shoulders in a desperate attempt to snap him out of the hallucinations. He seemed to react negatively to it, swatting her away with the swing of his arm. She dodged easily before catching his wrist and tugging herself closer to his body. She bit her lip before tapping the button on the side of her earpiece.
"Dynamight is hurt, I repeat, Dynamight is hurt. Calling for backup and immediate medical attention," she said, her voice shaky with nerves as Bakugou let out a panicked sob, "Both suspects that escaped are currently contained."
She didn't even listen to their replies, quickly realizing she needed to warm Bakugou as soon as possible before his body went into shock. She started rubbing her hands over his.
The genjutsu was centered around a person's own 'eternal hell', most likely feeding off of their own residing pain and insecurities and turning it into a force that affects them physically. In Bakugou's case, his nightmares were freezing him to death the worse they got. She knew Bakugou had many issues, especially after witnessing one of his mental breakdowns in the school courtyard, not to mention his severe anger issues. He was probably making it worse and worse for himself without even knowing it.
She licked her lips, calming herself down so that she could center herself to be strong for him, just this once.
"Katsuki," she said in the gentlest voice she could muster, activating her quirk as she rubbed his freezing hands. He stopped convulsing as much when she'd said his first name, in the way anyone who needed comfort would want to be spoken to. She concentrated her quirk as she led her hands up his arms, avoiding the nasty burn on his arm as light flooded from her fingers.
His body slightly relaxed, his face still contorted in pain. She sighed through her nose before repeating gently, "Katsuki."
He shivered violently as she rubbed his biceps and then his shoulders, trying to share whatever heat she could create from her quirk with him. He remained tense despite her efforts and she grit her teeth in frustration. Then, amidst her frustration, a crazy, stupid idea popped into her head.
Before she was born, her mother was a rescue hero in Barcelona and she would save people all across Spain. One winter, the coldest winter they'd ever experienced in Spain, her mother was on the news for rescuing a group of hikers that went into Sierra Nevada and were lost for an entire week. It was one of her most famous news reports because of the unconventional methods she'd used to save one of the hikers from dying of hypothermia.
She'd kissed the hiker, pouring her quirk into his body orally so that the warmth that radiated from it warmed him from the inside out and kept him from freezing to death. Everyone went crazy over the story and her face was plastered over every news station, headlined 'the kiss that melted a frozen heart'.
Costa wrapped her arms around Bakugou, trying to project her body heat onto him, "Katsuki."
He relaxed into her touch, sinking into her arms with his entire body weight. She placed her hands on either side of his face, "Look at me."
He cringed, as if his body was fighting against the warmth she was trying to give to him. She forced herself not to get frustrated with him, to calm down and be patient as he writhed. She sighed before brushing the pads of her thumbs across his cheeks, her voice no more than a gentle whisper as she said, "You're okay, Katsuki. Look at me."
Then, his eyes opened. Deep red flecked with bits of maroon stared deep into her golden eyes. She froze at the pure terror he expressed in those eyes, the fear and desperation cloaked in orbs of vermillion. She could almost see it, those nightmares that haunted the depths of his mind, now turned into a real weapon used against him.
She grit her teeth, wrapping her arms around his neck as she pulled him closer to her. He followed without any hint of defiance, submitting to her gentle pull.
She pursed her lips, almost hesitating on the action she'd have to take to warm him and save his life. But he kept looking at her with those eyes full of pain and sadness and she nearly broke, leaning her forehead against his cold one. Her fingers slid into his hair, gripping softly at his blonde roots.
"Please don't hit me for this," she whispered before softly placing her lips on his.
He recoiled slightly, surprise flashing through his facial features that were still glazed over in a trance of bad dreams. She looked him right in the eyes as she leaned in again, brushing her lips against his as if to say 'it's okay, I got you'. When he didn't pull away, she waited a second before fully pressing her lips against his.
Her quirk cast a glow throughout her entire body, filtering into his as if he was injected with the liquid from a yellow glow stick. She forced that light in, determined to cast away his demons by any means.
She had only one thought in that moment as she pushed her quirk into his body, spreading it into his internal organs before they fully froze. It was at that moment that she'd thought, how selfish am I...
For his lips were freezing but so incredibly soft as she pressed her lips against his harder, her fingers curling into his hair automatically. He suddenly shuddered at the action and a tingle of heat flowed through her own insides at the thought of her touch pleasing him in more ways than just providing warmth. She held her breath, kissing him carefully as she tried to focus on her power flowing directly into him and not on the feeling of his lips and how they made her squeeze her thighs together tightly.
How selfish am I... for this...
But when he'd suddenly leaned into her touch, his fingers grasping at the fabric on her waist desperately... surge after surge of pleasurable tingles raced up her spine and down her stomach. She inhaled sharply, her mind going blank as he began to kiss her back harder as if his hunger for her lips was clouding his better judgment.
Oh.
My.
God.
Costa almost gasped as he pulled her closer, his icy-hot fingers digging into her waist, his lips moving against hers, sending cold sweats down the back of her neck. His skin had warmed, now rubbing tightly against hers as he wrapped his arms around her. Her fingers lazily traced circles into his scalp, causing a soft rumble to sound from his chest.
He kissed her like her lips were air and he couldn't breathe.
For this.. this feels so much more enjoyable than I'd ever thought it'd feel like to kiss him. And I am fascinated by the shape of his lips and how they fit so perfectly with the shape of mine...
She was so heated, she felt like she'd melt into a puddle at his knees.
It was enough. She'd succeeded in keeping him from dying of hypothermia, he was fine. She could very well pull away now, for her quirk wasn't even feeding warmth into him anymore. But they were simply caught up in the heat of the moment. She let him kiss her like that despite the voice in the back of her head, screaming at her to pull away. She didn't know why she ignored it, or at least didn't want to know why. All she knew was her heart beating loudly in her chest and how his lips moved passionately against hers. She nearly opened her mouth to let him in further when her better judgment finally kicked in and she ripped herself off of him.
He flinched as if he was struck before his features softened, his arms slackening at his sides. Costa settled her hands atop his shoulders, her eyes fluttering closed as she caught her breath, steadying the rapid heartbeat in her chest. Bakugou twitched, his fingers curling and uncurling as they sat there, their heavy breaths mixing in their close proximity.
Costa sighed in relief as her fingertips slipped under the fabric of his costume right over his collarbones, finding his skin to be a normal temperature. Thank God.
Then, Bakugou's eyes peeled open, warily examining his surroundings. His eyes gazed over Costa, who shivered at the contact, his eyebrows furrowing in confusion. She held her breath as he looked over her shoulder and then back to their position. She wondered when the situation would dawn on him with a clench of her jaw.
Then he looked down at her swollen lips and froze. She grit her teeth, wanting to bury her head in the ground and never come back up as his eyes widened in realization, his cheeks heating up drastically.
She let out a nervous laugh, desperate to soften the tension in the air between them, "I thought I told you to fight off the villains, not die on me, you idiot."
"HUH?!"
He flung himself backward, falling back onto his ass as Costa cringed. She fully expected an over-reaction, maybe even a slap to the face, but the look of absolute horror on his face was probably the worst one she could have expected.
"Um I think you mean 'thank you Miriara for saving my pathetic fucking ass'" she said, crossing her arms over her chest with a glare plastered across her face. He just blinked, struggling to push himself onto his feet with a wince. Her eyes darted to his arm and she cursed.
"Holy shit, Bakugou," she said, jumping to her feet and striding toward him, "Your arm..."
He suppressed the painful expression urging to show on his face, instead, swatting her away, "Leave it alone, you've done enough."
"Is that a thank you?"
"No."
"You know, I could've just let you suffer," she said, throwing daggers at him with the fierce look in her eyes. He wouldn't look at her though, his own red eyes darting all over the place but refusing to meet hers. She also noted the slight blush dusting his cheeks that he couldn't seem to shake off with the rest of his reaction.
"Whatever..."
Suddenly, Yoroi and his team appeared, immediately hounding them with questions, mostly regarding Bakugou's wellbeing. Costa managed to fill Yoroi in on what occurred while Nine examined Bakugou's burn, despite his angry protests. Magma took care of the detained villains while the four of them regrouped.
Yoroi immediately sent Bakugou to the hospital to be treated while he requested Costa come back to the agency with him to fill out a full report of the mission. She hesitantly accepted, glancing over her shoulder at Bakugou, who was taken into an ambulance, basically kicking and screaming that he wasn't to be coddled.
Costa kept nervously fiddling with her watch the entire way back to the agency. Yoroi took notice of the little hints of her being on edge even when they were filling out the report together. Half an hour later, when they were about done, he turned to her and said, "Go."
"Excuse me, sir?" she asked, looking up from her paperwork in confusion.
He let out a sigh, "You're obviously concerned for your friend, you should go check on him."
She hesitated, "Are you sure?"
"Yes, I'll take care of things here," he said with a nod to the door. She quickly packed up all of her paperwork, placing it in front of his spot on the conference room, glass table. With a goofy smile, she saluted him, "Thank you, sir."
Then she turned to leave, but he stopped her with a raise of his hand.
"Before you go," he said, "I have something to say to the both of you, but you can relay this message to your partner."
She waited in the doorway for him to continue. He let out a sigh through his nose, "I'm very impressed with the both of you, you exceeded my expectations. You are both very bright and full of raw potential. Before, I was concerned to take you on after I heard a rumor about the two..."
Oh shit, she thought, her fists clenching nervously.
"But it seems that rumors are only rumors," he smiled behind his mustache, "I'm very glad I decided to take you two on. You've managed to get your work done efficiently whilst looking after one another. Teamwork is one of the most important factors of being a hero, and you two have seemed to grasp that very well. You both did exceptionally today, I hope you know. Although I do apologize on behalf of Dynamight's injuries..."
She beamed, "Thank you, sir. We're both very grateful for this opportunity, even if one of us is more reluctant to admit it."
He chuckled deeply at that, shaking his helmet head slowly, "You make an interesting pair. I look forward to the rest of our week together, just make sure that boy's doing well."
"I will," she smiled, both of them giving each other a final nod before Costa slipped through the doorway.
So there she was, pacing outside of his private room in the Emergency unit of Ashoka City Hospital, trying not to resort to nail-biting to suppress her anxiety. She quickly sat down in one of the little benches lining the walls, plopping into the dark blue cushions right when the door swung open. She shot right back up to her feet.
A kind-looking, older woman stepped out of his room, her white lab coat and stethoscope hinting she was a doctor, not a nurse. She looked up and noticed Costa standing there expectantly.
"Is he doing okay?" she asked, rubbing her sweaty palms on her thighs.
"He's fine, just in a bit of pain but we provided medicine for him to take and managed to heal most of the burns," she explained, glancing down at the clipboard in her arm, "It will leave a pretty nasty scar though."
"Is he.. ya know, conscious?" she asked, suddenly not knowing what to do with her hands.
"Yes, he's very conscious," she said with a slight edge in her tone that suggested he'd been a bit rowdy, "You're free to go in and see for yourself."
She bit her lip, eyes glancing down at the ground. The doctor smiled at her nervous gesture, patting her shoulder as she passed by, "Whenever you're ready, kid."
Costa sighed, looking over her shoulder at the small, wrapped brownie that she'd stolen from the cafeteria, sitting on the bench beside where she was seated. It had a small 'get well soon!' sticker slapped onto the top of it, most likely made as a gift for patients residing in the hospital.
She looked back at the door once more before inhaling sharply and swiping that brownie off of the bench. It was no time to be nervous, after all, it was only Bakugou.
She only kissed him to save his life, nothing more.
She repeated that thought inside her head over and over as she opened the door and slipped into the room.
He was seated on the edge of a hospital bed, his arm covered in white bandages, the top of his hero costume discarded on the bed behind him, leaving him shirtless. Costa steadied her heartbeat as he looked up from his arm, red eyes darting to hers.
"Hey hotshot," she grinned, causing him to scoff and roll his eyes at her, "How're you feeling?"
"What the hell are you doing here?" he asked, dismissing her question as he tore his gaze away from hers. She noted the quick diversion of eye contact as she quietly shut the door behind her and fully stepped into the room, "Thought you'd miss me."
"Yeah, sure," he said with a bored tone, "Why are you really here?"
"Why must I have a reason visit a fallen comrad?"
"Stop talking like you're Naruto."
She barked a laugh, crossing to the front of his bed and plopping down against the pillows. He growled in annoyance, twisting his body to dangle his legs off the side of the bed.
"Yoroi told me something, I thought you should know."
"What? Are we being sent home early again?" his tone was bored but there was a hint of worry in those vermillion eyes as he quickly looked up at her. She snorted, shaking her head as she rested her hands behind her head, her arms stretching back against the pillows.
"Nope, quite the opposite actually," she let one of her hands go to reach for the brownie in her pocket, "Come here."
"Why?"
"Just c'mere."
"No, you're going to hit me."
"I'm not gonna- Fine. Close your eyes and open your hand."
"What? No!"
"Please just do it without arguing with me for once," she glared at him in frustration. He held her glare, their eyes silently battling out who would yield first. She huffed, "This isn't a competition, just freaking do it, you worm."
"Don't call me a worm, you cretin!"
"Bakugouu," she threw her head back and groaned in irritation at his stubbornness. He let out a growl in response before aggressively sticking his hand out towards her and squeezing his eyes shut, "Fine, as long as you shut up and stop being annoying."
She snickered, pulling the brownie from her pocket, "No promises."
His eyebrows crinkled in confusion as she placed the packaged brownie into his palm gently. Her fingers brushed the skin on his wrist, causing his own fingers to twitch slightly. She pulled her hand away and sat up, crossing her legs together, "Okay, you can open your eyes now."
"Don't tell me what to do," he snapped before his eyes peeled open. When he peered down at the 'get well soon' brownie in his hand, he scowled at her, "What the fuck?"
Then she whipped out a tiny birthday candle and grinned, "It's a celebratory brownie."
"For what?"
"Us! Yoroi said he's impressed with us and how incredible we were with the mission today," she said, her eyes lighting up with an excitement that had even Bakugou's heart racing. The gold in her eyes flashed bright yellow, a phenomenon that occasionally occurred when she experienced little bursts of extreme emotion, "He's gonna give us a top tier report to Aizawa. We've officially redeemed ourselves, my friend."
He watched as she focused her eyes on the wick of the candle, "I'd say that's cause for celebration."
His chest swelled with pride as she grinned up at him. He opened his mouth with a reply when she cut him off with another fast, excited, comment, "He even apologized for your injuries but said that we exceeded his expectations and that he looks forward to working with us furhter!"
He scoffed, trying not to smile as big as her, "Of course we did, we're amazing."
She snapped her eyes up to meet his at the choice of words that fell from his lips. He realized it immediately too, his eyes widening slightly. A smile started to grow on her lips as he began to sputter, "I um, I mean-"
"Yeah, we're pretty great, aren't we?" she said, twisting her lips to one side as she looked up at him. He gulped, his throat suddenly feeling very dry as his heart beat rapidly in his chest. Before he knew it, he took a glance down at her lips.
A memory flashed through his mind. Red hot, desperate kisses. His arms filled with the soft warmth of a female body pressed against his. Chills running down his spine from the feeling of fingers scraping his scalp, tangled in his roots. Soft skin warming his own, hands sliding up the plane of his arms to his collar bones, shooting intense heat through his veins.
He flinched, tearing his gaze away from Costa immediately, his cheeks heating up at the memory of it all. At first, he wasn't sure if he'd just imagined it. But after seeing her flushed state after he'd awoken, he was pretty sure it had actually happened.
"So um..." she spoke up, her tone seeming less confident than it did a moment ago. He cringed, realizing the memory was about to become the topic of conversation as well.
"About... you know," she said with a hint of hesitation, "I should probably explain why I did that."
He paused, still looking away from her but listening intently.
"So my quirk is very unique and um, has a lot of different uses-" she started wringing her hands, "Light manipulation is mainly used in forming weapons, creating large bursts of energy, shields, and other things but um, I can also concentrate it enough to create a heat source." He became utterly quiet and still. She continued, "It's not very much, I can't make a fire or anything but I can concentrate enough energy to warm things up. My mom, she uh, she once saved a man from freezing to death after he went missing in the mountains during a winter storm."
"Warming someone up from the outside can only do so much, it's quicker to save the person by warming them from the inside out. So, she forced her quirk inside of him by uh- by kissing him," she looked up at him through her eyelashes. He sucked in a breath, the information circulating through his brain rapidly. She kissed him... to save him?
"So that's why I uh- kissed you," she cleared her throat, "So that after the effects of that guy's quirk, you wouldn't go into hypothermia and die or whatever." He stayed silent for a few seconds as she stared at him, "Oh."
"Yeah..." she chuckled, "I can imagine how that could be interpreted differently so..."
He nodded once, then twice, his mouth shut tight as he wondered what to respond with. Costa watched him, her eyes slowly lighting with amusement as he became tongue-tied. He didn't look at her, his hands squeezing the bedding tightly.
"Also I apologize for using your first name," she quickly added, "But I thought it would be more personal and grab your attention more than your last name would."
Katsuki. He remembered, she'd called him Katsuki in those moments dipped in darkness and ice. He remembered how the syllables had slipped off of her tongue so delicately, wrapped in a fuzzy blanket of warmth and love. She was right, it did grab his attention, ripping it away from the terrors that consumed him.
At that moment, he wasn't sure what to think of it all. Gratefully, there was a perfectly reasonable explanation for her... kissing him. His chest felt tight and his head wasn't very clear yet but at least she'd made that part of the situation... make sense. So why did that itching feeling return? Why did it slightly bother him that the reason was so... justified?
"You look disappointed," the corner of her mouth quirked up into a smirk, "I'm starting to think you enjoyed it a bit too mu-"
"Shut up, I didn't."
She smirked wider, "That's not what I picked up on after you started kissing me back."
He ripped open the packaging of the brownie, desperate to get her to stop talking as he shoved a piece of it into her mouth. She let out a 'hmph!' as her eyes widened and she recoiled. She ripped it out of her mouth, glaring at him, "HEY!"
"Gimme the damn candle."
"You're an asshole."
"Do you want me to light it or not?" he asked, extending his palm toward her. She looked at him for a moment longer before begrudgingly placing the candle into his palm. With a little 'pop' of his quirk, he'd lit the birthday candle, carefully sticking it into the middle of the brownie. She smiled down at it, golden eyes flicking up to meet his briefly.
"Go us for being such great heroes," she smiled goofily, glancing down at the candle once more. He eyed her and how the warm light reflected off the curves of her face. Her forehead and chin were dusted in dirt and her hair was an absolute mess and yet...
She was glowing.
He felt that warm feeling again as he watched her look down at the candle. Her skin, her hair, her face, all of it reminded him of her quirk, of that piercing white light that flowed into him. She didn't just manipulate light, she was it, heart and soul and body.
"Make a wish," she whispered.
"It isn't my birthday, dumbass," he snorted before glaring down at the small flame flickering atop the candle.
He swallowed, taking a deep inhale before blowing out the light.