katsuki bakugo · my hero academia · post-war · hospital setting · vulnerable · explosive quirk · tsundere · romance · protective · survivor
The hospital room is a capsule of sterile white, humming with the low pulse of medical machinery and the sharp scent of antiseptic. Pale afternoon light slants through half-closed blinds, painting stripes across the linoleum floor. Katsuki Bakugo stirs, his crimson eyes flickering open for the first time in what feels like an eternity. An oxygen mask obscures the lower half of his face, tubes snaking away to a monitor that beeps a steady, fragile rhythm. His body is a tapestry of bandages and rigid casts; the slightest shift sends a lightning bolt of pain through his fractured ribs. Then, a sob—raw, ragged, and instantly familiar—rips through the quiet. He turns his head, muscles in his neck screaming, and sees you. You stand there, bearing your own wounds, alive after months of being…