Chapter Text
The radio presenter keeps talking, a low and self-assured prattle from the set on the table by the fingerprint-marked fridge. Confident, dipping into dismissive little asides, back again for some assured points on the failure of UA.
He kind of wants to fling the open laptop out through the window.
In fact, he’s thinking of it, imaging it, visualising the arc it could sail through over the hedge and biting down on his own tongue to quell the destructive, useless, petty urge - right when he stumbles.
“Fuck -”
“Oh, shit. Shit. I don’t think you can wear that tie now - no. Okay. It’s okay, Toshi’s got that blue one -” Hizashi’s gone jerky, keyed up and buzzing with uncomfortable energy. He seems almost glad to put it to use in striding for the bedroom, yanking open drawers.
You never expect to trip on that one loose board in your home that you keep forgetting to sort out right before you leave for a mission disguised as a press conference; to distract and pull eyes away from a raid of epic proportions involving the top heroes to save a kidnapped teenager from an unpredictable opposition. And in tripping, to splash the dregs of a sludge-coffee over the front of a half-pressed white shirt and old, unfashionably thin tie.
At least, you don’t when you’re training for the job. Half of what he’s learned in the last decade of hero work boils down to this much; it’s barely ever glamorous, your knees are shot after a couple of years, and small inconveniences spring up like weeds around you at the most inopportune of times and can send whole operations crashing.
Shouta hisses at the faint sting of heat and the worse burn of frustration. Inspects the marks he’d failed to notice, and wrests the tie off his neck roughly.
“It’s okay,” Hizashi repeats. His hands aren’t as gentle as they usually are through his hair - losing himself, tugging, and dropping his hands in immediate remorse when he realises just how hard he’s pulling at his hair in the effort of taming it. “It’s going to be okay. Grab the other tie in the drawer, it’s fine. He’ll be fine. Just think about that, okay?”
“I’ve got to focus on the conference,” he mutters. “It’s - I can’t afford to let on that I’m rattled, or -”
Hizashi knows what he means.
“You’ll be fine, Shouta. You’re both going to be fine. He’s with the police, with Endeavour, with a whole load of the top pros. Bakugou will be fine. And I’m with Nem, you know how great a team we are. Promise, sweetheart, we’re going to all be right back here by morning, overloading that poor coffee machine.”
Hizashi’s just reassuring himself, now. But Shouta really can’t begrudge him that - he wouldn’t. He might be blunt, but he’s not cruel. He tries not to be.
The suit feels wrong on him. The last time he wore it was to a funeral a year ago, and he’s put on weight since. Slightly softer in the belly from the comfort and warmth of his new home life, broader in the shoulders from the uptick in time he can spend training, eating well. But it fits, if a bit snugly, and he can see the wobble in Hizashi’s mouth when he fixes the cuffs again, straightens Toshinori’s blue tie to lie flat and neat against the white of his shirt.
It’s all downturned mouths, jerky movements rushing; and panic and a sick, lurching feeling spreading from gut to chest.
If this were any other day at all; he’d have two beautiful men to coo over him and make him scowl and blush with praise, kissing at his stubbled cheeks and neck until he finally snorts, amused, and thanks them in a low, awkward mumble for their overwhelmingly sweet and entirely genuine compliments.
But today he doesn’t. Today, Hizashi’s buckling down with the others to secure the residential areas, he’s facing down the cameras, and Toshinori -
“Okay.” Shouta pushes back the chair, Hizashi moving beside him and brushing down the last few errant parts of his bangs into pin-neatness. “Vlad is driving over. Nedzu’s meeting us there at the conference hall - he’s going to do most of the talking. He said he’d handle the difficult stuff if someone starts stirring trouble.”
“Mm. Probably best -”
Hizashi’s forehead is creased up, jaw set while he tries to tug his gloves on over his hands. Stiff, curled in automatic tension that makes his chest twinge, sends his feet across the floor to take Hizashi’s left hand in his own and massage the knuckles with both thumbs, easing the set of his slim fingers into a loose enough position for him to slip on the fingerless leather. And to cup it, just for a moment, and focus his eyes on the safe normality of the black and red around freckled fingers, pretty rings slipped off into the dish at the door where all three of them make their transitions between personas.
“There.” One last minute to trace his fingers over the red stitching, turning Hizashi’s hand over again before letting go. He hesitates, though, before trying to ask what’s been on his mind ever since Toshinori pulled on his suit and let himself billow out into All Might. “Do you think-”
“Thanks, Shou’.”
He doesn’t really like when Hizashi sounds like that. Uncharacteristically subdued, and vaguely choked up when he crosses his arms back across his narrow chest, rocks on his heels restlessly.
“Stay safe, okay? I know - I know you’re probably going to see whatever happens with the League. But we need to trust the other heroes too, right? Toshinori’s still the number one - and the guys watching his back are good.”
“Doesn't mean either of us has to like it.”
Hizashi sighs, expressive face completely downcast. It’s just - wrong. “Yeah. You’d best get a move on, get a camera face ready, huh?”
Only half-dressed himself, and Hizashi’s still fussing over his tie. The sweater he’s wearing over those leather pants - such a mismatch, so oddly lovely and strange for it - is loose enough to bare his shoulder, and the constant red pressure marks dug into his collarbones from the unavoidable weight of his vocal booster.
He wants to kiss him. To have Toshinori here, and have both of them bundled and safe and inside and in his line of sight where he can protect them, and them him -
Realism. Action, not standing around and crying for his partners.
He nods, and looks around the room - scanning on instinct - while he toes on the pair of shoes he never wears; stiff on his feet and pushing into the back of his ankles right over the tendon, rubbing the skin red already. Half of a heroic career, right there; blisters and scars and cuts from hero suits that fit the job more than the person.
It’s Yagi’s, on paper. One of the biggest apartments; and only Nedzu’s prim rattle of logic had stopped Toshinori’s awkward protests against the assignment. He has his own - growing a carpet of dust - and Hizashi another, far more clean and lived in.
It made sense, they’d decided in stutters and half-glances. To speed up the relationship timeframe a little. Or maybe, they just drifted into each other’s orbit and now it pulls tighter, bringing them close and circling.
Most of the decor is Hizashi’s doing. Toshinori is just as spartan and undecided in his habits as he is, as it turns out, and neither of them have a clue how to fit furniture and plants and rugs together.
So it’s a patchwork piece, in the end; a hook installed in the narrow hallway for his scarf to hang up on without tracking the smell of not-quite-metal throughout the house, or risk anyone tripping on it. A bowl for keys and rings and bracelets. Toshinori’s armchair sits happily by the window, facing the door in the one position he can actually relax in. It’s one of those high weight-rated ones that’s still - somehow - squished down in the middle, high enough in the back that he can lean his blonde head against it and start nodding off comfortably with both of them moving through the apartment around him. Orbiting.
It’s little pieces of the three of them, full medication cabinets and first aid boxes packed full. Prepped meals in the fridges, gel packs banished to one cupboard and firmly restricted to one a day, unless he wants to get another case of foaming in his mouth during class - terrifying Toshinori into a bloody coughing fit the second he’d turned him over in his sleeping back and witnessed the vaguely rabies-reminiscent bubbling around his mouth.
It’s an actual home. And he’s never been so loath to step outside of the warm light from the lamp Toshinori bought - gaudy, riotously colourful, and proudly added to the patchwork of the living room.
“I love you,” he tells Hizashi, thick in his throat right before he opens the door. He really needs to tell him that more often. Both of them, every day. “And he’ll be back tonight. I swear. Even if I have to go get him myself.”
Hizashi nods, and tries for a smile that doesn’t remain quite so steady as it should. Practised and polished into a quick-draw reflex that could almost rival Toshinori’s in speed of use.
“I’ll be here.”
*
Press conferences aren’t something he’s ever enjoyed. Or tolerated particularly well, in all honesty. Even in his normal position, leaning against the back wall in whatever shadow or crowd he can find; staying firmly out of it and glowering when a hopeful mic or camera swings his way. He can’t imagine it ever becomes easier, trotting up behind the head table with a rabble of voices clamouring over each other, cameras flashing blindingly, the smell of hairspray and sweat, your own voice played back in a half-second echo as the heat rises in the room from the crush of bodies and the fluorescent TV lighting gets stronger and stronger, beating down like on overhead sun.
This one is ten times worse.
Vlad nods at him in silent encouragement while they make that neverending walk up to the designated seats and microphones. It’s appreciated, even as he keeps his head down and stops trying to listen in on the mutterings and slips of gossip that fire around the crowd. It’s too loud. Nedzu leads the way, and hops up into the chair before settling himself, gazing out at the crowd with a bland, unperturbed look about his pointed face.
Shouta hopes his own expression looks even half as blank. Being in the middle is a reassuring thing when he’s at home - it’s become that, with the warmth of two men he loves on either side of him, laughing quietly and talking about nothing over his head. But here, he feels pinned against the white cloth and the imposing stretch of a mic leaning into his face, Nedzu’s tail whipping on one side of his periphery, and Vlad’s fingers clenching and releasing silently on the other.
Nine thirty-two. The police force must be moving in on the Nomu hangar.
Nedzu’s parrying questions flawlessly, contrite and clever. Vlad keeps his cool, teeth jutting up as his jaw clenches, fingers reaching for a glass of water and coming up empty. No refreshments today; not for a staff facing near-scandal.
Nine forty-eight. Bakugou’s been captive with the League for days now, not hours. They’ve got no lines of communication - just the knowledge of a plan that they can’t disclose to the public, can’t mention on air, and have no idea as to the success of so much as a single step.
And then the tone of questioning shifts.
It’s an older reporter who stands up. One he knows - fuck.
He’s expressed just how much he hates media appearances to this guy before. Not to him specifically, but a general, growled statement to a bunch tagging along after him at a rescue that included that head of brown hair and steely eyes, deep nasolabial lines. And this man knows full well how inexperienced he is with pithy words and the skill of weaving delicately through tense, televised interviews. All of the old hands are, and now it’s come back to bite him.
Nedzu parries well. Keeps it diplomatic, and his own fists tighten under the table as the questions become more pointed, scrabbling for each other’s chinks.
“...not always stable, mentally. What if the villains kidnapped him because they had an eye on that? Kidnapping him with deceitful words, dyeing him with the path of evil? What evidence do you have for saying he has a future?”
His throat tightens.
Aizawa can feel Vlad tense beside him; a tightening of his hand, a twitch of his jaw. It’s the same tension as he feels, confined squarely to his gut and kept as far as he can out of his voice when he finally has no choice but to speak up. It’s a fight in itself - but this is his responsibility. The one difference he can make in how all of this plays out, with his hands balled tight and sweat sticking his shirt tight between his shoulderblades, the echo of Hizashi’s hands in his hair and Toshinori’s lips on the back of his neck.
Those are the things he’s protecting.
He stands up, and feels the burn of Vlad’s worried eyes into him, the satisfaction of a reporter having drawn blood, and the pounding in his ears reaches a new tempo of frantic energy. A grin, facing him down. A glower, at his side, Nedzu’s tail beating a tattoo against the chair leg over the click, click, click of cameras -
Aizawa bows.
“As an educator, I take full responsibility for Bakugou Katsuki’s violent behaviour.” His throat is dry; his eyes even more so. “However, his actions originate in what he considers ideal strength. He is trying harder than anyone in his pursuit of becoming the top hero.”
If he straightens up a fraction, he can look the reporter - and the cameras - right in the eye. Holding steady, and firm, just like he would in the moments before a fight when the right look and narrowing of his eyes can end it all before it's begun - no harm, no bloodshed.
And - he thinks, over and over - Bakugou could be watching this right now. For all of the sweat and pain he might put them through, all of the ruses and dry remarks; he’s only a boy. If he can be the one person in his corner, he owes it to him. Now, more than ever.
“If the villains saw that and thought they had an opening,” he draws breath, rough down his throat, “- then I believe that they are being short-sighted.”
One minute past ten.
A low murmur rises up, even as the journalist’s face twitches in dissatisfaction before pressing again, brow furrowing. They can all feel it - the tides have shifted in this one arena.
This time, Nedzu chips in - finally - and he lets himself take a slow, controlled breath while Vlad gives him a barely perceptible nod of approval. His hands are shaking harder than they ever have, even on rooftops in mid-winter. He wants to hold onto Toshinori’s blue tie for comfort - how would that look, on camera, he reminds himself viciously.
It’s over right by the time when the top hero force should have reached the League’s base - and in the first stroke of good luck all night, there’s a room with a television available. One that he bursts into, kicking off the shoes that he can’t handle on his feet anymore - Vlad nearly trips over them, growls at him half-heartedly - and turns on the live feed, opening his phone and scrolling through the alerts.
“The Nomu’s - yes, the hangar was infiltrated and destroyed. We’ve cut off that backup - Bakugou’s safe. All Might is right there with him, and we’ve confirmed the identities of the League. All accounted for -”
“No!”
He scans it frantically, hunched over his screen even as Nedzu gives his mild commentary and the yelling continues. That voice, That’s his partner screaming, the man he loves, All Might -
“There are portals forming.” Even with Vlad’s colouring, he’s never seen him look this pale. “These are different from those that came before - and there are more Nomu’s. But they took control of that hangar base -”
And then everything goes to shit.