The smoke clears, and everything shaking comes to a standstill. Mostly. Flecks of plaster flitter down like dust motes. Chunks of concrete scrape as they grind against each other.

Once his ears stop ringing, it’s eerily quiet, compared to the previous cacophony of noise. Sirens still echo in the distance, but explosions and the gritty sound of stone on concrete have stopped. No crashing, no more screaming or yelling.

Blood Riot pushes himself up off the ground, brushing dust and bits of concrete off his shoulders and chest. Thanks to his hardening, he was virtually unscathed from several floors of the building above him crashing down. The fight still left some marks, and his back hurts a smidge from being shot through a support beam like a cannonball, but otherwise he’s fine.

The same can’t be said for his opponent. It takes a few moments of him scanning the rubble, but finally, on the opposite side of the room, he sees him. Crumpled up against a slab of concrete, Dynamight looks so much smaller. 

The other heroes have left. Warning of the impending collapse of the building had come over Dynamight’s comms several long minutes ago, but they had both ignored it, too engrossed in yet another battle of rivals. Sick of their stubborn recklessness, his comms cut off with a cold, “You’re on your own.” And that was fine with Dynamight. He didn’t need help to take down Blood Riot, this was his fight. It was their fight and theirs alone, a warring of equals. It was always their fight, even if they had lost count long ago, somewhere in the several hundreds by now. 

There had been a mounting pressure between them. It seemed every fight recently got more and more rash. More snarled threats in heated, close proximity. A closeness that lingered longer than it should, with tension of a different kind. Over the years, they had built a mutual respect for each other. But both of them kept toeing the line, or blatantly crossing it. 

The only thing they held back were questions they feared the answer to. 

Something was going to break, one way or another.

In Dynamight’s mind, this time- just like many, many times before, this time nothing would get in his way. 

The building disagreed. 

They were both such stubborn pieces of shit.

Blood Riot makes his way over to him, dodging exposed steel rebar and weaving around broken walls that struggle to hold what’s left of the building above. 

He looks like shit. His usual fiery ferocity is nowhere to be seen. Pinned by a crushed pillar, he’s stuck, too weak to move. Just from a glance, Blood Riot can tell the hero has multiple broken bones. Blood stains the ground around him, on the slab he’s pinned against. He looks pale. 

If Dynamight hadn’t fired him across the room and through a support beam, maybe he could have gotten to him before the building collapsed. Then again, the building probably wouldn’t have collapsed, at least not yet.

He kneels beside Dynamight, hovering over him as he tries to assess the damage and the condition of the pillar.

Dynamight’s breathing, just barely. His chest rises with shallow breaths, rattling with a wheeze. Reaching towards him, he’s stopped by red eyes, the same color as his own, squinting open.

“You here to finish me off?” He says, voice rough, almost hopeful with the hint of a smirk.

“We both know that’s not what’s happening.”

“.. Yeah. I know, ‘Shima..” His face falls, the brief flicker of flame replaced by tired, sad eyes. They knew each other's real names, by nature of their roles in hero society, but they were only spoken in rare instances. Instances they never talked about later. Blood Riot refuses to acknowledge the significance of it being said now.

He leans over Dynamight as he investigates the pillar. Gripping at the edges of it, he tries to find the best handholds to lift it without doing more damage. His hands brush against Dynamight’s legs and chest as he tests the weight of the pillar. Riot feels him tense at the contact.

“Get yer’ fuckin paws off me, shithead,” Dynamight grits out, before he’s cut off by a cough. “I can get out of here myself.”

They both know Dynamight is far too weak in this state to get the pillar off himself by strength alone. His only options are to blast off the pillar, or a limb. Or wait for another hero, which apparently isn’t coming. Either way, he’d only hurt himself further. And based on the amount of blood and his even paler complexion, he can’t afford to.

Following their shared train of thought, “Clearly, explosions and buildings don’t go well together,” Riot says, matter of factly. Let alone actively crumbling ones, he doesn’t say.

Dynamight pauses, as if considering his options. As if there’s a choice at all. “Fair,” he concedes.

“Sounds familiar,” he goes on, after a beat, “like my explosions and a certain annoying skyscraper I know.” At the surface, he sounds irritated, but he knows him well enough to recognize an underlying warmth to it, though he still can’t name it.

Blood Riot laughs at that, ignoring the warmth spreading through his chest. “Well, unlike buildings, I’m unbreakable,” he says with a wink.

They both know that’s not quite true. He’s broken before, and Dynamight has seen him break. Has even been the one to break him.

The building groans. 

Bits of plaster and concrete rain down on Blood Riot’s back, from where he’s leaning over him. One shielding the other from the debris, they lock eyes. He doesn’t dare to breathe, doesn’t dare to move. Dynamight stiffens, but maintains his shallow breathing.

The debris stops as the building settles.

Blood Riot moves quickly. But he can only go so fast. He could easily chuck this pillar, but not without risking the little remaining integrity of the building. Not without risking crushing Dynamight.

After finding the best approach, Riot carefully lifts the concrete off his leg. Even so, Dynamight cries out, clenching his jaw from the pain as he throws his head back against the concrete slab he’s leaning on. 

Removing the pillar, his eyes land on the blood pooling under Dynamight’s lower half, hidden by the obstruction. Fuck. There’s so much more blood than he thought. He needs to get him out of here.

Depositing the pillar somewhere relatively stable, he rushes back over to Dynamight.

He needs to stop the bleeding. Does he even have time? The building could collapse any second.

Dropping to his knees, he rushes to action.

He covers Dynamight’s body with his own, ready to go Unbreakable in an instant to protect him in case the building falls while he works. It’s not ideal, but nor is bleeding out. “This is gunna hurt, I’m sorry.” Riot maneuvers his broken leg trying to find the source of the bleeding, while Dynamight’s grunts of pain weigh on him, heavy like dread. The entire leg is basically crushed. But there’s a gash on his thigh from the initial impact. He hastily rips off some of his tattered waistcape to wrap his leg, pulling the cloth taut hoping to stop the bleed. 

There’s another gash on his side. He wraps that one, too, the best that he can in their position. Reaching around him, Riot leans forward and pulls the fabric between his back and the rubble. From here, he’s so close he hears Dynamight’s breath stutter under his tender touch. Holding his own breath, he ignores his pounding heart. 

Blood Riot has never seen him so vulnerable, but he never wanted to see him vulnerable like this. They’ve been this close before, but normally at each other’s throats. As the tension would build, inevitably one would pull away. Lingering felt like a question, fearing the answer of the snap.

In his guiltiest dreams, in the thoughts that kept him up at night, he didn’t want to feel his touch like this. Didn’t want to hear him like this.

He doesn’t want to pull away. But they don’t have time.

He cinches the knot against Dynamight’s waist, and he pulls away.

As gently as he can, Riot cups Dynamight’s knees with one arm and supports his upper back with the other, lifting him and holding him against his chest as he stands. He whips his head around, forced to consider both safety and speed as he searches for the best route through the rubble. Heart thudding against his ribs, he keeps moving.

It’s quiet again. Dynamight stopped talking, which is unlike him. In fact, he hadn’t made much noise as Blood Riot picked him up. He glances down at him, where he lies feeble in his arms. His eyelids alternate between drooping and struggling open, but it’s a losing battle. Even when open, his eyes seem glazed over. Distant, somewhere else.

Riot clenches his jaw. “Talk to me, Might.”

“Don’t start with that sappy shit. ‘m not g’nna die,” he slurs.

“Then stop fucking acting like it.”

“You’re helping me. Why?” Genuine confusion, not distrust, laces his tone.

“I’ve never wanted to kill you. We both want the same thing, just have.. different approaches.”

It’s true, but they both knew that already. It’s not what Dynamight was asking.

Riot looks at the deep bags under his eyes and feels the weight of his own. They’re both so tired of fighting this system. Of fighting-

They’ve had some close calls in their fights, on both sides. But not like this. They knew when to stop, and often pushed their limits, but never this far. If he had just reacted faster-

“We might have overdone it this time,” he cuts off his own thought.

“I can hear you blaming yourself for this shit. Stop it. I’m the one that shot you through the fucking support beam.”

“You wouldn’t have done it if I hadn’t cornered you. We were already well over our limit by then,” he bites out. “I pushed you too far,” he finishes, sullen.

Dynamight would usually continue bickering with him, but he must not have the energy.

For years, they’ve clashed from opposing sides of hero society. Butting heads, with more draws than either of them victories or defeats. Yet here they both are, in the same crumbling building, both responsible for its collapse. If things were different-

Ducking under another fallen support beam, stepping through one last crumbling doorway, Riot finally steps out of the unstable structure. The shallow, brief relief that grants him dissolves as he feels a hand weakly tug at the mesh on his upper chest.

“‘m gettin’ cold,” he mumbles, so faint he has to strain to hear it. He’s right, his skin is cold to the touch in his arms. The warm stickiness of blood against his chest from Dynamight’s side is a sickening contrast. 

Blood Riot’s mind races. He needs help. All the heroes left after evacuating the area around the unstable building. Even if he could find one, they’d probably attack him before he could explain why a villain was carrying a limp, bloody hero. That isn’t an option; Dynamight needs medical attention now! He- he knows a healer nearby. He can take him there. It’s the fastest choice.

Riot swallows the lump in his throat and turns in that direction. “Let’s get you out of here.”

“Take me home, Red.”

His brows knit together in confusion, concern, frustration. “Your apartment is a city over-”

“That’s not what I said-” A cold hand gently cups his jaw, shaking. Blood smears on his cheek. He looks down at the man in his arms.

“Take me home, Red,” he says, softer this time as his voice shakes. His tone is pleading, and Dynamight never begs for anything. His expression is so tender, so full of desperation, it’s as if he’s begging for air. Asking for something he can’t have.

“Okay, Katsuki,” he answers.