Work Text:
One minute, Izuku Midoriya is flying through the air, using Blackwhip and Float to maneuver through the debris whilst avoiding a villain. He thinks he can hear Siren screaming behind him, but he's unsure what the words mean.
Someone's grip is on him, had he not been fast enough? Did the Villains catch up to him? ‘Shit, I'm leaving ‘Toshi to fend for himself against this villain.’
Izuku blacks out again before he can get the chance to realize he is no longer on the field but safely tucked into a hospital bed. The screaming had ripped itself from his own throat, and the hands were Hitoshi trying to calm him down.
A few hours later found Midoriya blearily fluttering open his eyes, coming to his senses properly this time- delusion-less.
Waking up to the jarring hospital lights would always be comforting in a way only pro heroes understood. Waking up and realizing you made it, you're okay, you're alive.
You feel the sheets tugging at tight stitches, the gauze around heavy limbs, the dull bedache that happens so often that you start to think it's ingrained into your bones.
Midoriya is no stranger to these feelings. The fluorescent roof lights force him awake as his eyes crack open, blinking away what must be a decade of missed sleep. The smell of antiseptic attacks his nostrils and something in him relaxes.
His immediate thoughts are Hitoshi, Hokkaido, the agency, villain detainment, and civilians. Not in that order.
At first, though, he registers the weight at his feet. He thinks it's a cat curled up beside him, taking advantage of all the heat his body has to offer.
Instead, he cranes his neck as far forward as it can go without snapping like a breadstick and spots a tuft of purple hair in a bun that looks long overdue for a wash. Upon further inspection, it’s Shinsou, who had been on duty with him when he got hospitalized. (Sadly, not a cat- even if he's close enough to the real thing.)
The term ‘Hospitalized' sounds a lot scarier than it was, he thinks. However, after his various bone-breaking stunts in UA, Izuku’s colleagues and mentors seem to think it’s okay to send him into a hospital bed as soon as he's had a little tumble. (Honestly guys, he’s fine.)
Izuku’s shift in weight must have woken Shinsou up because he sat up from where he lay and yawned (like a cat) then did a full body stretch (like a cat) then stared at Izuku for a few seconds, blinking warily. (like a cat )
Something in Izuku must have been hit extremely hard for all these cat fantasies to be rolling around his thoughts.
He tried to speak before remembering that not opening your mouth for a week tends to dry out your mouth a lot. Shinsou must have picked up on this because he got up from his dingy little plastic chair to rummage through his bag for a bottle of water. Izuku happily chugged that shit like he just emerged from the Sahara.
When Shinsou sat back down, he returned to his position of flopping down on the bed at Izuku’s feet like he'd been the one knocked into a hospital bed.
Upon trying to speak again, Izuku finds his nose is completely blocked, so much to his disdain, he starts breathing through his mouth. (He imagines he looks like a little Scottish fold with how puffy his face feels.)
“Tired?” Izuku croaks, his voice feeling like sandpaper rubbing against a chalkboard.
“When am I not?”
After three years at UA and one year on the field, Shinsou’s unfortunate sleep depravity had become a staple part of Izuku’s routine. Twice every week, he would bundle up all of the blankets in his closet, (Minus the golden age All Might one, obviously.) And make his way to Shinsou’s dorm (Or his room, now they're roommates.)
There, Izuku would either ramble until Shinsou managed to fall asleep, they’d stay up playing one of Kamianri’s video games or doing another Pre-Quirk movie rerun.
“The nurse just stopped by like 20 minutes ago to check on you, she said it was fine to wait a bit before calling if you woke up at any point today.”
Izuku let out a low hum, coming back to Shinsou instead of going back into his memories. “Did the Villains manage to get detained?”
The other man sighed and pulled out his phone, skimming through a few things before he found what he was searching for.
“There were three casualties, including you. Minimal property damage, no deaths, and all five villains were detained.”
Shinsou brings his hands up to cover his face, the tiredness practically seeping off of him in waves. Izuku thinks it might be contagious with the yawn he struggles to stifle. (As if Izuku wasn't already ready to pass out.)
“Turns out that group was another one of those Shimura Tenko apologists, apparently they didn't comb through as thoroughly as we thought because after interrogation, they broke and gave us info on about four other groups in Shizuoka and Yamanashi, also an upcoming pile of villains with assumed bases in Yokohama and Chiba.”
Izuku let out a groan, he was this close to putting himself back into a few day-long coma.
“Kami, it’s like the aftermath of the MLA War and the HPSC Trials all over again”
The sorrow and misery Izuku felt could not be put into words.
Shinsou lowers his hands and rests them on the sheets, crossed over each other so he can lay his head on them.
“The Keigo trials or the Nagant ones?”
Izuku sinks deeper into his pillow, “The Keigo ones, the Nagant sympathizers were way less violent.”
Shinsou nodded in agreement, sliding his eyes shut. “You’d think this long after the whole thing happened, everyone would have come to terms” He yawns, the sleep still not quite escaping from him. “But it’s all these kids dude- they can’t get enough reasons to make everyone else’s life miserable.”
They pause for a second, in thought, before Hitoshi pipes up again.
“On a lighter note though, in the week you’ve been out everyone’s dropped by something for you.”
Izuku looked to the side of the bed at a table with flowers, chocolates, plushies, and generic hospital gifts. (Then there was Shouto’s Louis Vuitton wallet and Katsuki’s designer Audemars watch which were obviously going to be given back or donated. What the two of them would do when facing bankruptcy…?)
He looks back at Shinsou who is staring at the table with a frown, lost in thought.
“Do you want anything?”
Shinsou snaps out of his trance and stares at Izuku with confusion.
“I mean... I don't need any of this, if you don't take it then it’ll probably be donated, or I'll give it to some of the staff here and at the Agency.”
Shinsou looked troubled. ‘Does he dislike the idea of taking my gifts so much?’
“Do they always get you these things? Roses, chocolates, n’ stuff?”
Izuku furrowed his eyebrows, unsure of where he was leading with this.
“Yeah? I mean, sometimes I get peonies instead of roses but the stuff on the table is pretty much the same every time I stay in the hospital, why?”
Shinsou deepened his frown, his skin tugged at his eyes like a Himalayan cat.
“You're allergic to roses though, aren’t you?”
“I-”
Shinsou sat up and closely inspected the table, he looked like he was solving some deep uncovered mystery with the way his eyes scanned over everything at least ten times.
“It’s all milk chocolate too, you prefer dark because the milk hurts your stomach, and the cotton on that plushie agitates your skin, and the cards all have dogs on them but you like cats more because their less work and dogs weird you out, and-”
Shinsou must have realized how weird his little rant sounded because he zipped his lips and stared at Izuku with the same bewildered face he’d held since Izuku came barreling to him in his first year of UA.
“I guess you're right…I didn't really think about it too hard…”
Shinsou let out a breath of relief at the fact that Izuku never questioned Shinsou's knowledge of all of those little details- thank the heavens.
“I'm not saying your friends aren’t your friends or that their shit, it’s just that… surely after four years of knowing you, they’d pick up on the little things, no?”
Shinsou felt a small blush creeping up his neck along with the instant dread that followed.
He was not too happy.
“I remember you telling me stuff second year and it just stuck- I'm not weird or anything!, like I didn't remember a bunch of stuff about you in a stalker-y way, but a ‘I care about you so I'll make sure your happy’ kind of way, I swear I don't have a mental encyclopedia on everything you've ever said and done-”
“Hitoshi.”
The boy in question froze and slowly blinked. If he wasn’t fucked before then he definitely was now. Izuku let out a snort which eventually turned into a giggle, which turned into laughing, which turned into cackling. Shinsou had to rub his back for a few seconds, so he didn't choke on his breath. Lord.
When he finally calmed down, he kept his smile and leaned back in his bed, eyes still on the other man.
“For an underground hero, you're not too good at keeping your information hidden.”
Shinsou squeaked in mock offense and gave Izuku a frown. “I'll have you know, not a single hero forum has gotten my quirk right. They think I teleport.”
Shinsou let a smug smile drape his face.
“You shouldn’t be on any forums in the first place.”
The smile fell off.
“It’s not my fault I had to do the first-year sports festival...” He grumbled, smushing his face into the blanket.
“You already knew that any amount of publicity would screw you over later on in your career though?”
Shinsou had no response.
“Anyway, I'm more flattered than concerned, I've had my fair share of stalkers and I'm happy to say that you don't exactly fit into my list of threats.”
Izuku patted Shinsou’s head as he made a noise garbled by the blanket he was slowly going deeper and deeper into.
Shinsou looked up, pouting. “Am I really that defenseless that you don't even see me as a little bit of a threat?”
Izuku smiled and kept his hand on top of Shinsou’s head, undoing the unruly bun and ruffling his hair around.
“I see it as more of a trust thing, I've got no doubt that you could probably beat me in a spar.”
“On one of your bad days.”
“Oh, come on, you're good enough to beat me on any normal day.”
“The only person close to that is like- Bakugou or Shouto. No one else stands a chance, Mr.All Might's predecessor, Lemillion dupe, One For All welder, Tenko Shimura defeater, princess twilight lookin’ ass-”
Izuku bopped Shinsou on his head, He didn't realize just how red Izuku had gotten.
“I speak nothing but the truth man,” Hitoshi put his hands up, palms open. “You come to me with incorrect statements, and I refute with the truth.”
Izuku smacks him again and hides under his blanket. “If you keep up with that behaviour, I'm sending you to Tokoyami for a yoga and spiritualism retreat.”
Hitoshi begs Izuku for forgiveness, which is responded to by a kick from underneath the blanket straight into his chest.
“Back to my original point though-” Shinsou says once he recovers from that lethal kick with a wheeze, “-Am I the only one who knows that stuff, surely you’ve got others, no?”
Izuku emerges back from underneath the covers, gaze wandering back over to the pile of gifts.
“Kacchan might know a few details from when we were young, but you're the only one who picked up all the little things I dropped and committed them to memory. I admire that.”
Shinsou stood staring at the other before his face went so hot that you could practically see steam rolling off of him. Izuku carried on,
“I admire a lot of the things you do, actually. Like when we're getting food you always ask for them to make my portion a little spicier, and when we're getting drinks, you always ask for extra honey or sugar so mine’s always sweeter, and you make sure I sleep every night, and eat after patrol- oh, whenever I get hurt and reporters find out, you're at my apartment like- an hour later like I bet you’ve even been here since I got admitted-”
Shinsou shuts the other boy up but dashing a pillow at his face, Izuku, dumbfounded, splutters to get the fabric out of his mouth. When he succeeds, he's met with Shinsou adorning the biggest blush he'd ever had, so much so that his face tone matched the roses on the desk.
He takes a minute to register, cocking his head to the side.
After a second of confused silence, it dawns on him.
“Oh.” Izuku whispers, his eyes widening a little.
“Yeah, oh.” Shinsou remarks, regretting ever living.
“Just so we're on the same page…” Izuku barely mumbles, looking like a dazed fish out of water. Shinsou furrows his eyebrows in dissapointment, at this rate, he'll look like Aizawa at twenty-three.
“Are you really going to make me say it?”
“…Maybe?”
It takes every single molecule of patience in Hitoshi not to walk out of that room then and there.
‘I swear I will hurt you Izuku.’ He thinks, barely battling his thoughts. Another day, he hopes.
He sighs deeply, then again, and ends up going in and out for about five seconds before straightening his face and fully turning his body towards Izuku who thought he might be hyperventilating.
“Izuku Midoriya, I am blushing this hard because I like you. Some may say I even love you,” Shinsou has to pause for a second so he doesn't throw up. “I have since second year, and for you to only have found out now is horrendous, you should be ashamed.”
Shinsou's sprinkle of ‘humour’ seemed to have fallen flat, as Izuku just sat there, shell-shocked.
“You…”
Shinsou had never been more stressed than he was at that moment, not as a child, not as a UA student, and not as a Hero. He was one-hundred percent sure Izuku would be the death of him.
“You…? You what? Izuku, you give me grey hairs.”
The other still sat shell-shocked in his bed, buffering like he manually had to figure out his next step.
“You like me?”
Shinsou smashed his head into the duvet.
“Yes, Izuku, I like you. Are you going to make me say it again or are you good?”
Thankfully, instead of his one-hundred-mile stare, Izuku plastered the biggest grin he could onto his face. If anything, it made Shinsou burn like a candle wick.
“I love you too Hitoshi,” If Izuku could say that with any more adoration in his voice, he would.
“I'm only now seeing the signs and I feel very, incredibly, stupid- but you love me.”
He paused to slide a little more forward, so his knees were at Shinsou's head. With one hand, he cupped the other man's face, akin to holding a flower. So tenderly, the littlest friction might just snap the moment in half.
“You love me and I am a little half asleep right now but I'm awake enough to tell you that I love you too, and I'm really happy and I need you to know that's because of your stupid face.”
Izuku let out a huff as he felt and saw Hitoshi going an even brighter red than he was before, at this rate, Hitoshi would be the one in the hospital bed from all the blood suddenly shooting to his head.
They stayed silent, neither wanting to break the tension they'd suddenly built. Due to this, they'd forced themselves to stare into each other's eyes, a glassy viridian green on a misty damson purple.
Finding his long-lost determination, Hitoshi slowly closed the gap between their already practically flushed faces, softly pressing his lips to the other who shared the sentiment.
Izuku's hand slid higher to brush through Hitoshi's unruly hair as the boy in question lifted his own hand to rest behind Izuku's neck, tussling a lone curl with his finger.
They reluctantly parted from their moment and moved back to their original positions, staring unwaveringly into each other's eyes.
“That fulfilled every dream I've ever had since I was sixteen.”
Midoriya had then stared to choke and a nurse was forced into the room.