| Safety from a Stranger | Katsuki Bakugou X Reader

part 1 - savior

| "There's an art to life's distractions / To somehow escape the burning weight / The art of scraping through / Some like to imagine / The dark caress of someone else I guess any thrill will do." | - HOZIER

I opened my heavy eyelids and saw the neck and chin area of someone I don't recognize. They carried me bridal style, and they were running. I felt myself losing consciousness again, so I muttered the only thing that made sense to me in that moment.

"T-thank... you." I managed to say. A man with angry red eyes looked down and met my gaze. "Save it. Don't use your energy, just rest." he said. Then everything went black.

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I had awoken to the sound of machines whirring and beeping. Before my eyes had opened, I had taken note of the sanitized smell of a hospital, and figured that I was in some sort of medical bay. When my eyes finally opened, I knew they were bruised and swollen. It was probably better if I had just kept them shut, but I was sick and tired of not knowing what was going on. I looked around the room and came to the conclusion that I was correct; I was definitely in a hospital. Wires and thin tubes were connected to my arms and chest, and bandages covered large sections of my body. The sections of skin that weren't covered with bandages were peppered with purple, yellow and blue bruises. I'm glad I can't see myself, because I definitely would not like the person that was staring back at me.

The sound of the door opening interrupts my thoughts. It hurts to move my neck, but I move my eyes in the direction of the door. A tiny elderly woman comes in holding a clipboard, which I assume contains information about me. She walks up to the side of the bed and pushes a switch that lowers the height. Once it was low enough, she stopped and sighed. "How are you feeling, honey?" She asked, and I can hear the pity in her voice."

"Sore, but I look worse than I feel, I think." My raspy voice responds. She nods her head, and bends down to kiss my arm. I can't pull my arm away, it's too sore. "Don't worry, my quirk heals people with kisses, honey." She says. Weird, but I'll do anything to get out of this hospital bed sooner. She stops kissing my wounds on my arms and walks toward the door.

"You do have a visitor, I told him to wait outside until I got permission from you to let him enter." She says out of my line of vision. Who would be visiting me? I don't even know exactly where I am. "Go ahead and send them in?" I said, not sure if I was truly okay with the words that had just come out of my mouth. She nodded and walked outside, leaving the door open behind her. I heard some distant mumbles and I could hear heavy footsteps entering my room.

The man that walked in looked familiar to me, but only slightly. He wore a black shirt and jeans, and blonde hair. He didn't say a word, he just looked down at me in my pitiful state. He grabbed a chair and roughly moved it to the side of my bed, the chair legs making an atrocious noise as they ground against the tile floor. I turned my head as much as I could to look at him, and my E/C eyes met the red irises that I had seen when I was being saved. "It's you." I said, and I smiled as much as I could at the blonde. "No shit. How do you feel? You look rough." He responded. Taken aback by his comment, my smile left my face. I didn't really have the energy to smile, anyway.

"I'm not feeling so great, honestly. I would probably be much worse if it weren't for you, though." I sigh. "Yeah, you're right. What you did was stupid, you wouldn't have hurt yourself at all if you would have just used your head." He said, and his expression dissipated. "I don't even know what happened. I don't even know you, but you saved me anyway. Could you fill me in?" I asked. He stared at me, and he looked obviously annoyed. "You were with your friends when a villain attacked, and you tried using your weak-ass quirk against him. He had some sort of shape-shifting quirk and was able to almost kill you by turning himself into some sort of monster. You tried making a force field around you and your friends, but obviously it didn't work." He scoffed. I frowned. I was just trying to help my friends, and that's what I told him.

"Sometimes you're better off just running away. It's what you should have done." he said. He may not be the nicest, but ultimately, he did save me. "Thank you for saving me, Bakugou. I'd be dead if it wasn't for you, I'm sorry you had to carry me out of there." I said, and I meant it. I'd for sure be dead without this guy. "It's fine, you weren't that heavy." He said, and I looked at him, confused. "Thanks, I guess?" I ask. He grunts in response.

We sat there in silence for about a minute. I finally speak. "So, uh, what do you do for fun, Bakugou?" I ask. He looks at me and shrugs. "I don't know, I guess I explode stuff? What kind of question is that?" He asked. "I don't know, I just wanted to know if you had any cool hobbies I guess?" He raised his eyebrow. "Why?" he asked, and it was less of a question and more of a demand. "Well, uh, if you saved me, wanna maybe be friends?" I asked.

"Whatever." He said, seeming uninterested in my offer. "Cool. So, how long have you been pro-hero-ing?" I asked, and I realized how dumb that sounded. He glared at me, because he knew how dumb it sounded, too. "I graduated from U.A. two years ago." he said, and I smiled. "U.A.? That's awesome! You must have a real impressive quirk!" I say. I'm incredibly interested in quirks; my mother was a pro hero before she got sick, and I've always thought becoming a hero was a noble profession. Unfortunately, my quirk isn't strong enough for that kind of thing.

"My quirk is explosion, that's basically it. I'm a human grenade." He said, and my eyes grew wide. That's badass! I thought to myself. "Wow! That's amazing! I can't wait to see it in action!" I beamed. He held up his hand and made the tiniest explosion with a small pop! noise. My grin grew wider, and I saw the faintest hint of a smile on his face. "I'm sure they get a LOT bigger than that, right?" I asked him as I gestured my head in the direction of his hand, making sure not to move my sore neck too much. "Hell yeah, they do!" He said with a smirk.

My mind switched gears. "Wait, you said I was protecting my friends, are they okay?" I ask him. "Yeah, they're fine. They did move back overseas to the US; I guess they're pretty shaken up from the attack." He said. I sighed, I sometimes forget that they have homes they can return to elsewhere, but I'm here in my own apartment with my own bills. "Right." I said. We sat in awkward silence again, and it felt like an eternity before Bakugou finally spoke up.

"If you're worried about being lonely, you can hang out with my group, I guess. Just don't bring up that I saved you or anything like that. I'm doing you a favor, that's it. Got it?" He said, and I nodded. With that, he stood up and pushed the chair back to its original location. "I think your phone was broken during the attack. I'll give you my number, and I have your phone number for your hospital room. If you're feeling up to it, give me a call and I can come visit. Just don't bother me too much, okay?" He said. He put a piece of paper in my hand, and then trudged out of my hospital room.

"Bye, I guess." I said to the now empty room. I looked down at my hand the best that I could and read the slip of paper. Katsuki Bakugou 555-555-5666. The handwriting was atrocious, but I could still make out the name and numbers. I made a mental note to call him as soon as I could walk and move my arms enough to even make a phone call.

The opening door interrupts my thoughts, and the same small, old lady shuffles to my bedside. "That young man, definitely something, huh?" She chuckled. "You could say that. Does he have an anger problem or something? I couldn't tell if he wanted to be my friend or fight me." I replied. She shakes her head. "He's a hot head, that one. He has a good heart and a heck of a quirk, he's nice to look at too, but he's definitely hard to crack." She said as she readied an IV. She stuck the needle in my arm and began to drip a clear liquid from a bag that hung on a metal pole next to my bed. "This should help with the pain, sweetie. My quirk only goes so far, but I'm hoping you'll be up and walking by tomorrow. You aren't ready to be released just yet, but I definitely think you're making progress." She said with a smile.

I sure hope so.

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Hey Guys!

This is my first Bakugou related story! Bakugou isn't really my favorite, but he's growing on me. I hope you enjoyed the first chapter, I'll be updating this when I can, but probably at least once a week!

Much Love! -Madds