#arianna writes

Winter’s chill nipped at Shoto as he headed home for the night. Just because he wasn’t bothered by the cold didn’t mean he wasn’t awareof it. Nor did it mean that he wasn’t aware of the ways it might affect other people, especially those close to him. Namely, in this case, his husband. The joints in his arms and hands were permanently damaged from how many times he had broken every bone in them using a quirk that, at the time, had been too powerful for his body to handle, and Shoto knew from long experience that the cold made them stiff and painful. He allowed himself a moment to feel bitter that someone he cared so much for was suffering from what many people would consider an old person’s ailment before he was thirty, but there was nothing to be done for it now but try to help ease Izuku’s pain however he could.

To that end, he made sure to turn up the thermostat in their shared apartment as soon as he arrived home. That done, he went into the kitchen and switched on  the kettle, preparing a mug of soothing chamomile tea, which he knew Izuku liked to drink to wind down at the end of a long day, as the kettle’s heating element got to work. Lastly, he plugged in the heated blanket that Izuku kept folded on top of the couch so that it would be ready and warm for him when he came home. Then he settled in to wait, holding the freshly brewed mug of tea between his hands, occasionally applying bursts of heat to it from his left hand to keep it at the perfect temperature.

A few hours later, Shoto heard the scrape of a key in the lock on the front door, and then it swung inward and Izuku stepped through it. He moved gingerly, wincing and grimacing as various aches and pains made themselves known, flexing his right hand down by his side, held slightly behind his body as if to hide how much it was bothering him. With anyone else, it might have worked, but Shoto knew him too well, and his focus immediately honed in on the gesture.

“Here,” he said, getting up from the couch to intercept Izuku at the door. “Sit.” He sat him down on the couch and tucked the heated blanket up around his shoulders. Thrusting the mug of tea into his hands, he added, “Drink this while I go and run you a hot bath.” Izuku accepted the mug wordlessly, wrapping his hands around it and letting out a sigh when the heat from it seeped into his aching joints. He didn’t speak, but his eyes said, Thank you.

You’re welcome, Shoto’s answering smile replied, and then he went to run the bath he had promised. He ran the water hot enough to steam, and added epsom salts to ease the ache from Izuku’s sore and tired muscles. By the time the bath was ready and Shoto went to fetch Izuku, he had finished his tea and was dozing under his blanket.

“C’mon,” Shoto said, pulling him gently to his feet, letting the blanket fall in a heap on the couch. “Your bath is ready.” Izuku nodded and let Shoto lead him down the hall to the bathroom. Once there, he undressed and got into the bath, letting out a contented sigh as he sank slowly down into the hot water.

“Make sure you stay in there until the water’s cold,” Shoto told him. “I’m sure you’ll need lots of time to soak all your aches out.” Izuku nodded and rested his head against the wall behind the tub, his eyes drifting closed. Shoto turned and made to leave the bathroom, intending to let his husband enjoy his bath in private.

“Oh, and Izuku?” he asked as a thought occured to him, pausing in the doorway and turning back toward him.

“Yeah?” Izuku asked.
“I understand why you feel like you have to hide when you’re hurting from the people around you, but you know you don’t have to hide with me, right?” Shoto asked. “I understand, and I’m here for you, okay?” Izuku nodded, and Shoto, satisfied for the moment, finally left him to his bath. 

Once Endeavor’s work study group had reached the warm, ableit temporary, sanctuary of  the train, Izuku hunched in his seat to try to conserve body heat, blowing on and rubbing his hands together in a vain attempt to warm them up. The late December air was bitingly cold, and Izuku was regretting bringing only a scarf in terms of cold weather gear to wear with his school uniform.

“Are you okay?” Shoto asked quietly from where he sat beside Izuku, nudging him gently with his shoulder. 

“I’m fine,” Izuku replied, clasping his hand together in his lap. “I’m just cold. We don’t all have temperature regulation like you do.” Shoto laughed quietly at that, causing Kacchan, sitting on the other side of him, to grumble something about how the two of them were ‘disgusting’. Izuku decided that it was best not to provoke him with a response or to point out that he was often just as bad with Kirishima. 

Conversation among the three of them died out as they continued on their way to the agreed upon place that they’d be meeting Endeavor to start their work study. When the train finally came to a stop, Izuku was the first to rise from his seat, straightening up and preparing himself to once more brave winter’s chill completely unprepared. 

“Here,” Shoto said just as they were about to disembark. “Take my jacket.” In one quick, fluid motion, he pulled his arms from the sleeves of the jacket in question and draped it across Izuku’s shoulders as they stepped off the train and into the cold winter air, leaving him in just his uniform shirt and tie. 

“Are- are you sure?” Izuku asked tentatively, reaching up with one hand to hold it closed and keep it from slipping off his shoulders to fall in a heap on the ground.

“I’m sure,” Shoto confirmed with a nod. “You clearly need it more than I do. It’s like you said- cold isn’t as much of an issue for me as it is for everyone else.”

“Although,” he went on, reaching out to take Izuku’s free hand in his left, applying just the right amount of heat to chase to cold and stiffness from his joints, “you should really try to remember to wear gloves when it’s this cold. I know what the cold does to your hands.”

“Yeah, I know,” Izuku said with a sheepish smile, pulling his hand from Shoto’s grip to set the briefcase that held his costume down on the ground and pull his arms through the sleeves of Shoto’s jacket. A contented sigh slipped out of him as it settled in place around him and the residual body heat still clinging to it warmed him right up. “It’s just… I was in such a hurry to leave this morning, and I was so excited about the start of our work study that remembering to grab gloves completely slipped my mind.”

“Plus,” he added, clenching the hand Shoto had been holding into a fist to try and preserve some of the lingering warmth from his touch and shoving it into his jacket pocket, grabbing his briefcase with the other. “I wasn’t expecting it to be this cold.”

“It’s the middle of the winter, Izuku,” Shoto said, voice quiet to keep from being overheard as they approached where Endeavor was waiting for them.

“Yeah, yeah, I know,” Izuku replied. “I’ll remember my gloves next time, I promise.”

“You won’t,” Shoto said with a teasing smile. “But that’s okay. You’ll always have me to warm up your hands for you.”

When Shoto answered his door, some time after retreating to his room following dinner, his social battery having been on its last dregs of power, he wasn’t surprised to find Midoriya waiting in the hallway outside it. They often studied together in the late evening, about this time, since he was the only one of his classmates that Shoto could spend time around after a long day of social interaction that didn’t leave him feeling drained. He was surprised, however, to see that instead of carrying his usual notebooks and class materials, Midoriya instead held in his hands a basket full of yarn and… were those knitting needles?

“What’s all this?” Shoto asked, stepping aside to allow Midoriya entrance to his room and closing the door behind him. 

“Knitting,” Midoriya explained, setting the basket he was carrying down on Shoto’s desk. “It’s getting close to winter, and you know how my joints don’t do well with the cold.”

“They become stiff and painful,” Shoto recalled. “Especially your hands. I remember.”

“Right,” Midoriya agreed. “Anyway, I thought having something to do with my hands might help keep them limber so that the usual negative effects of the cold might be minimized.” 

“You always have me to warm them up for you,” Shoto couldn’t help but point out.

“I mean, yeah, but you can’t be around me all the time,” Midoriya said. 

Watch me, Shoto thought but didn’t say. 

“You’ve got your own stuff going on,” Midoriya continued, “and I don’t want to be a bother, or for it to seem like I’m just using you for your quirk. I don’t want to treat you the way he does, even accidentally.”

“I can assure you, my father is the last person I’m thinking of if I’m using my quirk to help one of my friends,” Shoto remarked. “But that’s beside the point. You still haven’t really explained what the yarn and knitting needles have to do with any of this.”

“Oh!” Midoriya exclaimed, clapping himself on the forehead, his anxiety about his accidental insensitvity seemingly lost in his embarassment in the here and now. “You’re right. I haven’t.” A pause, then he said, “Ururaka is teaching me to knit.”

“Ururaka,” Shoto echoed. “Is teaching you to knit.” For some reason, he was having a hard time wrapping his brain around that concept.

“Yeah, apparently her mom taught her when she was little, and she’s always wanted to have a chance to teach it to somebody else,” Midoriya replied. “And it turns out that it’s a really useful skill. You can do all sorts of things with it once you have the basics down. I think I want to try crochet next. I mean, I’m sure the skills transfer. How different can they be, really? It shouldn’t be too hard to find good tutorials online…” He trailed off into muttering.

“Midoriya,” Shoto interjected gently, feeling a fond smile tugging at the corners of his mouth.

“Sorry, sorry!” Midoriya yelped, flinching like he expected to be yelled at. “I didn’t realize I was doing it again.”

“It’s fine,” Shoto reassured him. “You don’t need to apologize. I was just wondering what any of this has to do with me.” 

“Oh!” Midoriya said, brightening up again in an instant, and Shoto wondered for the umpteenth time how he always had so much energy. “Um… it’s supposed to be really relaxing, so I thought maybe it could help you? You know, like if your anxiety is really bad and for whatever reason I can’t be there to help you through it? Plus I didn’t figure you’d ever been allowed to have hobbies before-”

“You would be correct in that assumption,” Shoto put in. 

“So I thought maybe this would be a good one to start with,” Midoriya went on. “I thought maybe we could learn together. I could teach you what I’ve already learned from Ururaka, and the next time we meet up for a lesson you could tag along. I’m sure she won’t mind.” Shoto found himself oddly warmed at the gesture, at the thought that Midoriya had set out to learn a new skill for his own benefit but was eager to share it now that he’d realized how it might be able to help Shoto tooo.

“Sounds good,” he said. “Where do we start?”

Movie night for Class 1-A always proved to be a lively affair. They always spent at least an hour before the actual start of the event chatting with one another about everything and nothing at all, preparing a smorgasboard of snacks, including an array of desserts made by Sato, gathering pillow and blankets to make a nest on the common room floor in front of the TV so that even those who didn’t manage to snag a spot on one of the couches would still have comfortable to sit, and arranging the couches so that they all faced directly toward the TV. Then, once the movie started and the lights were low, everyone would cuddle up with their classmates with heads on shoulders, legs thrown across laps, arms entwined, and so on. With darkness came the removal of the boundaries that usually prevented them from initiating physical contact with one another, and they got in each other’s space in whatever ways they were comfortable with.

Izuku saw it as an opportunity. While he and Shoto weren’t actively trying to keep their new relationship a secret, they didn’t exactly telegraph to everyone around them either. Shoto had expressed fear of the consequences that might come down on Izuku if word of it somehow made it to Endeavor, so they’d agreed to not tell anyone about it until they felt that the time was right. But with everyone cuddling up with each other during the movie, no one would think twice about it if they saw Izuku doing the same with Shoto. And because they’d chosen a horror movie this time, which Izuku was well known by now to not handle well, no one would bat an eye if they saw him clinging to Shoto like his life and safety depended on maintaining contact between them. It was the perfect set of circumstances.

That night, as the lights went down and the opening credits of the movie began to roll, Izuku made his move. As soon as he was sure that no one was paying any particular attention to where he sat on the nest of blankets and pillows on the floor, hip to hip with Shoto, he drew his knees up to his chest and pressed himself up against Shoto’s side- his left side, the warmer one- and rested his head against his shoulder.

“Scared already?” Shoto murmured, his tone teasing. “The movie just started.”

“Sssh, just let me have this,” Izuku whispered back. “This the only way I can cuddle up with you when there’s other people around without anyone thinking twice about it. Or, you know, putting two and two together.” Out of the corner of his eye, in the dim light from the TV, he saw Shoto’s gaze roam around the room, taking in their classmates cuddled up with each other in various combinations and hummed in understanding. 

“But the movie is supposed to be really scary…” he said, trailing off.

“Don’t worry,” Shoto replied. “I’ll protect you.” One of their classmates- in the half light, Izuku couldn’t see who it was- shushed him when his response was a little too loud, and they fell silent as the movie began in earnest. 

True to his past experiences with similiar such movies, Izuku found himself flinching and grabbing at Shoto with every scare. And true to his word to protect him, Shoto didn’t hesitate to gently turn Izuku’s head away from the screen and toward his own body every time one of the scares got him, letting him use him to shield his eyes from the sight of the danger, however artificial it may have been. And each time Izuku risked looking back at the screen to see if it was safe, only to be scared again, Shoto was quick to wrap his arm around him and hold him tightly. And if he took advantage of the darkness to stroke his fingers through Izuku’s hair and press light, comforting kisses to the top of his head, Izuku promised himself that no one else would ever have to know.

For a moment, as he and Midoriya walked side by side back to the dorms after classes were done for the day, Shoto thought he heard a distant rumble of thunder. 

“Did you hear that?” he asked, drawing to a halt.

“Yeah,” Midoriya replied. “Sounded like thunder.” His eyebrow drew together in the beginnings of a frown for a moment, but then he brightened up again another mere moment later.

“But it sounded like it was a long way off,” he said. “And look, there’s not a cloud in the sky.” Shoto glanced up at the clear blue dome of the heavens above their heads and saw that he was right. The sky was empty of even the smallest, most non threatening puffy white clouds. 

“Someone’sgetting rained on,” Midoriya went on. “But not us. Now come on, let’s get going. I want to get a start on the homework from today as soon as possible.” Shoto greatly admired Midoriya’s dedication to his schoolwork, even if it did sometimes make him worry that he was going to work himself to death. He smiled to himself and followed after his friend as they continued on their way back to the dorms.

They were about halfway there when there was a loud clap of thunder from directly above them and suddenly they were caught in the storm that they’d thought was a long ways off. Midoriya threw his head back and laughed, a bright, joyous sound that seemed at odds with the situation. Then he stood with his head held tipped back and his eyes closed, letting himself feel the rain pelting down on him. Shoto followed his lead, tilting  his head back and closing his eyes to take in the feeling of the rain storm. The sting of the raindrops striking his skin was slight but distinct, and the chill of the rain was a pleasant relief from the heat of the late spring afternoon.

After a few moments, he felt Midoriya’s hand in his, and he flicked his eyes open quickly. Midoriya gave their joined hands a tug, and Shoto let himself be pulled along. Instead of turning and running for the dorms like he expected him too, Midoriya ran off the path and onto the lawn that flanked it.

“Midoriya,” Shoto chanced asking. “What are we doing?”

“Dancing!” Midoriya replied enthusiatically. “Haven’t you ever wanted to dance in the rain?” Shoto couldn’t say that he had, but if Midoriya was leading, there were very few instances where he wasn’t willing to follow.

“Dancing” turned out to simply racing and leaping in exuberant circles as the rain pelted down on them and thunder crashed overhead. Soon they were both dizzy from exhileration as well as the constant, repetitive circular movement, found to his surprise that he didn’t want to stop. He didn’t want this moment to end.

But it did. All too soon, the storm blew itself out and the sky cleared, and their moment of childlike abandon was over. Midoriya let go of Shoto’s hand and they continued on their way back to the dorm, side by side once again. Thanks to his quirk, Shoto didn’t have to worry about any lingering chill from the cold rain, but  Midoriya was not so fortunate. As they went along, Shoto saw him shiver and then immediately stiffen, trying to keep himself from doing  it again. He wasn’t sure why he didn’t want him to know that he was cold, but he didn’t give himself time to think about it. Without giving himself the chance to worry about whether he might be crossing a line, Shoto slung his arm across Midoriya’s shoulders and pulled him against his left side, raising the temperature to bathe him in comfortable warmth. He continued walking after that, steering Midoriya along with him, and he pretended not to notice the way the contact made his heart race or when Midoriya sighed contendly and leaned further into his side. And when they were finally safe inside the dorms, he pretended that the touch starvation from a childhood deprived of any touch but that intended to hurt him was the reason why he was reluctant to let go of Midoriya and have the contact between them end.

Izuku caught his breath, feeling his gut twist with fear and horrified awe as he watched Touya rise into the air, propelled upwards by concentrated blasts of blue flame, the same technique he’d seen used by both Endeavor with his flames and Kacchan with his explosions

“He can fly?!” he cried aloud, to no one in particular, at least as far as he could tell. He could sense the presence of other people around him, but he couldn’t see them. The only person he couldsee was Shoto, across the battlefield from him, struggling to his feet while bleeding from a dozen nasty looking wounds.

Up above their heads, so far that he looked like nothing but a tiny black speck, Izuku saw Touya cease moving and hold himself still, hovering in mid air. He swore he could feel his cold blue gaze on him, and he realized that he must have been scanning the battlefield below him, searching for… something. Suddenly, he dived, and Izuku realized what- or rather who- he was after a split second too late.

“Shoto!” he screamed, calling up One For All to launch himself across the battlefield toward him, desperate to reach him before Touya did, knowing what he would do to him if he got his hands on him. He was half a second too late, his fingertips just brushing the fabric of Shoto’s costume before Touya snatched him away.

“No!” Izuku cried, and gave chase, using Float to pursue Touya as he returned to the air with Shoto in tow. He still didn’t have a lot of experience using Nana Shimura’s quirk, but he didn’t care. He had to catch Touya before he reached the apex of his flight with Shoto. He knew with sickening certainty what he would do once that point was reached, and he was even more certain that he couldn’t allow it to happen. He couldn’t lose Shoto. Not like this.

“Give him back!” he yelled, putting on a burst of speed to get within shouting distance of Touya, doing his best to supress the sudden flashbacks he had to the last time he’d been in a situation like this. Touya suddenly jerked upright and came to a halt, hovering in place, his fingers curled menacingly around Shoto’s neck.

“ ‘Give him back’?” he asked mockingly, parroting Izuku’s words back at him. “Alright then. Catch.” With a strength that was surprising, considering his thin, seemingly close to emaciated frame, he gripped Shoto by the collar and hurled him into the space between himself and Izuku, whereupon gravity immediately took over to pull him toward the ground far below them. Izuku moved quickly to intercept him, but his relative inexperience with Float proved to be his downfall- he didn’t know how to brace himself against impacts in midair, and when Shoto slammed into him, the jolt of the collision drove them apart, and though Izuku reached desperately for Shoto as he began to fall again, his hand closed on empty air. Then, in one final act of malice, Touya hurled a fireball at Shoto as he fell. He screamed in agony as he ignited with fire not his own, and his plummeted to the ground, burning like a phoenix as he fell. But unlike a phoenix, he would not rise again.

“Shoto!” Izuku cried, sitting bolt upright in bed. Beside him, there came the quiet rustle of sheets, and then Shoto’s arms were around him, drawing him gently back down onto the bed.

“Ssssh,” he whispered in Izuku’s ear, his warm breath tickling his neck. “It’s alright. I’m here.” A broken sob clawed its way out of Izuku’s chest, and he rolled over to cling tightly to Shoto, his overactive amygdala refusing to let him accept that the nightmare was over until he could hold the man he loved in his arms and feel him breathe and know that he was okay.

“It’s alright,” Shoto whispered, rubbing soothing circles on Izuku’s back as he cried. “It’s alright. I’m here. I’m okay.” Izuku choked back another sob at that, this one of relief. Shoto continued to rub his back and murmur reassurances, the creature comforts he was in desperate need of in that moment, until at last he was able to regain his composure. 

“Nightmare?” Shoto asked softly once he’d calmed. 

“Yeah,” Izkuk whispered hoarsely.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Shoto asked, running his fingers through Izuku’s hair.

“No,” he said, wrapping his arms more tightly around Shoto and leaning further into the protective circle of his embrace. “I just want you to hold me.”

“Fancy seeing you here,” Shoto said teasingly, striding up to the agreed upon meeting point for the joint mission between the Endeavor Agency and Team Idaten, where Izuku was waiting for him. The green of his costume blended with that of his hair and eyes, complimenting and enhancing it. For the hundreth or perhaps even the thousandth time over the course of their relationship, Shoto was reminded of how head over heels he was for Izuku, even after years of friendship, then romance, and now marriage.

That sense of deep affection driving him forward, Shoto curled his fingers around Izuku’s and pressed a kiss against the back of his hand.

“Hello gorgeous,” he murmured, looking up at Izuku through his lashes.

“Sho, we’re at work,” Izuku hissed, pulling his hand out of Shoto’s grip. His cheeks flushed, making his freckles stand out sharply against pink tinged skin.

“If I can’t flirt with my husband while we’re at work, when can I flirt with him?” Shoto teased.

“Not when we’re in public!” Izuku replied. “It makes me all flustered, and it’s embarassing! I have an image to uphold, you know. People expect All Might’s successor to be composed at all times.”

“Well, maybe I like seeing you flustered,” Shoto murmured, closing the gap between himself and Izuku. “Maybe I think it’s cute.”

“Shoto!” Izuku protested, stamping his foot like a child. There was humor glinting in his emerald eyes that suggested he was in on the game Shoto was playing. Soon, he burst into giggles, and Shoto couldn’t help but to press a kiss to his laughing mouth. Izuku didn’t hesitate to return the kiss, and even though they had seen each other that morning before leaving for their respective agencies, they clung to each other as if they had been apart from one another for days or months rather than mere hours.

“God, I love you,” Shoto said when they broke apart. 

“I love you too, Sho,” Izuku replied. “As I’m sure this”- he wiggled the fingers of the hand on which he wore his wedding band, hidden for the moment beneath his long white glove- “reminds you and the rest of the world of every single day.”

“Maybe not the rest of the world so much,” Shoto said softly, glancing down at his own bare hands and his silver colored wedding band gleaming in the afternoon sun, “but me? Absolutely.” He darted in to give his husband a kiss on the cheek before pulling back once more. 

“How long has it been since we’ve gotten to work together?” he asked.

“Too long,” Izuku answered, eyes growing misty at the reminder. “Not since you officially took over management and operations of the Endeavor Agency from your father.’

“And I’ve told you-” Shoto began.

“There’s a place for me there now that Endeavor is finally retired,” Izuku interjected, finishing a conversation that they’d had so many times that they each knew their lines by heart. “I know. But I like the work I’m doing with Team Idaten.”

“Thank whatever forces out there in the universe that allowed us to be able to do that work together this time around,” Shoto said.

“Better enjoy the opportunity while we have it,” Izuku replied, a gleam in his eye, and leaned in for another kiss.

Behind them came the roar of Iida’ engines, startling them apart. When they turned toward the sound, they saw him standing watching their antics with his arms crossed and a disapproving frown on his face. Shoto groaned internally and prepared himself for a lecture on respectful conduct and public displays of affection. Some habits, it seemed, Iida would never grow out of.

The silence persisted for a moment, until Izuku broke it by clearing his throat awkwardly, trying to dispel the tense, uncomfortable air that suddenly hung over them all.

“If you two are quite finished,” Iida said, fixing them both with a reproving glare, “I believe we have work to do.” Both Midoriyas nodded and followed after him as he began their joint patrol and debrief, both thinking it wise not to mention that he was often just as disgustingly flirtatious with Ururaka when they worked together, if not more so.

Izuku stifled a gasp as he was led through ornate double doors into the grand ballroom of the royal palace. Even if this was a masquerade, if his ruse was ever going to work, he couldn’t be gaping at everything he saw like the poor village boy he still was at heart. He needed to blend in, to act like he belonged here among these richly dressed people, like the opulence and elegance and grandeur on display before him was his normal.

“Careful,” Tenya, a royal knight and one of Izuku’s friends from his many adventures as well as his escort that evening, warned in a low voice, speaking out of the side of his mouth so as to disguise the fact that he was speaking at all. “Don’t let anything give away the fact that you’re not one of these people. I don’t need to remind you of how dire the consequences will be if you’re caught.” 

“You don’t,” Izuku replied. “I’ll be careful. I promise.”

“I’m holding you to that,” Tenya warned, and moved off to attend to his own matters, leaving Izuku to himself to enjoy the party.

And what a party it was. This cold midwinter day marked the birth of King Enji of Endeavor’s youngest son, Shoto, sixteen years prior. The king had spared no expense for this masquerade, intending to celebrate this momentous occasion in a manner befitting the boy he called “his greatest masterpiece”, as well as present a reminder of the wealth and power of both himself and his kingdom to any foreign dignitaries who may have been attending the event in the hopes of securing a marriage alliance with Endeavor now that Shoto, the king’s heir, was of age. 

Izuku had simpler, much less political reasons for wanting to sneak into this party. He wanted simply to see the prince, just once. A lowly commoner such as himself was not even considered worthy to breathe the same air as the heir to Endeavor’s throne, whatever fame and glory he might have won himself in his adventures, and this might be the only chance he’d ever get to see for himself if the rumors he’d heard were true. He’d heard that the prince had one eye the color of the sea and one the color of a stormy sky, that half of his hair was as red as flame and the other half white as snow, that he was a powerful magic user like his mother and father, that he was tall and striking and his gaze as sharp and piercing as an arrowhead. Most of all, he’d heard that the prince was beautiful, but cold and distant, like a sculpture of ice, or perhaps the moon.

Izuku knew he was risking a lot coming here, but his curiosity was insatiable and impossible to ignore. Rumors weren’t enough for him. He needed to see. He needed to know.

As the night wore on, Izuku gorged himself on rich food and engaged in idle chatter while keeping mostly to the edges of the crowd, where he was much less likely to be spotted and immediately outed as someone who did not belong. Every few moments he would pause and scan the faces around him, desperate for even one tiny glimpse of Prince Shoto. But apparently he was so much of a recluse to not even attend his own birthday party, as there was no sign of him. Izuku tried not to let himself feel toodisappointed, and he threw himself wholeheartedly into the dancing once it began in earnest. Catching sight of the prince had been a long shot anyway, and he was determined to have fun despite things not going to plan.

“May I have this next dance?” a soft, cold voice asked some uncounted moments later. It had come from behind him, and Izuku whirled around, startled.

“My apologies,” Prince Shoto said smoothly. “I didn’t mean to startle you.” Izuku felt his mouth go dry, and all he could do was stare. Prince Shoto was just as beautiful as the rumors said, one half of his hair fire red and the other half snow white, one eye brilliant blue and the other stormy grey, an aura of power coming off of him in waves. The only thing that might have ruined the image was the scar around his left eye, partially hidden by his hair, but as far as Izuku was concerned it didn’t mar his beauty at all, only enhanced it.

Prince Shoto raised his eyebrows- one red and one white, like his hair- questioningly, and only then did Izuku realize that he hadn’t yet answered his request. Yet when he tried to speak, he found that his voice had suddenly failed him, and so he could only nod and allow the prince to lead him to a spot in the center of the crowd of other couples waltzing.

“Might I have your name?” Prince Shoto asked after a while.

“Ah, that’s a secret,” Izuku replied teasingly. In the back of his mind, he was astonished at himself. He couldn’t believe he was bantering with the prince, of all people. 

“I’d like to know the name of the person who I haven’t been able to keep my eyes off of for the entirity of this party,” Prince Shoto insisted. “For all that you try to pretend otherwise, I can tell that you don’t belong here, and that intrigues me. I’ve been trying to get you alone all night.”

“Very well,” Izuku replied, stunned by the prince’s earnestness. “You may call me Deku.”

“I can’t imagine a person wanting to be called by a name that means ‘worthless’,” Prince Shoto remarked, effortlessly twirling Izuku when the moment came in the dance.

“Deku is the name of a hero,” Izuku insisted when he was reeled back into the prince’s side. This was the truth, as he had fought hard to make it so.

“My apologies,” Prince Shoto said, inclining his head. “I’ve heard tell of the great hero Deku. I didn’t realize I was in such illustrious company.” Izuku didn’t know how, but he could detect a trace of amusement coloring the prince’s voice.

“Not nearly so illustrious as yours, Your Highness,” he said.

“Shoto,” Prince Shoto replied. “Call me Shoto.” 

“Shoto,” Izuku echoed, breathless. Shoto pulled him close, and suddenly they were nearly nose to nose, breath fanning across each other’s faces on each exhale. Izuku longed to close the gap, however scandalous and improper it might have been, but before he could the orchestra ceased playing, signaling the end of the dance. Izuku felt his heart sink as Shoto pulled back, hand still clasped in his. 

“Until next time, Deku,” he murmured, lifting Izuku’s hand to his lips and brushing a kiss across his knuckles that he swore he could feel through his glove. Then he dropped Izuku’s hand and disappeared into the crowd. And if he and Izuku spent the rest of the party in the palace gardens, locked in a passionate embrace, well, that was no one’s business but their own.

Izuku had a secret. Well, an open secret, at least to most of his friends, because he was absolutely terrible at hiding his feelings, much as he tried to put on an emotionless facade the way people like Tokoyami and Todoroki did so easily, but a secret nonetheless. He had a crush on his best friend. And as much as Ururaka and Iida insisted otherwise, he knew he could never let slip a single mention or inkling of those feelings to their object, because that was Todoroki, whose friendship he treasured dearly, too much to risk losing it if he didn’t feel the same. And it was more likely that he didn’t then that he did, because it was Todoroki, after all. Beautiful Todoroki. Strong, powerful, kind, capable Todoroki. Todoroki who could have anyone in the whole school, so why would he ever want someone like Izuku?

Looking back, Izuku could pinpoint the exact moment his feelings for the son of the man who believed himself  to be All Might’s bitterest rival had shifted from platonic to romantic. It had been during their internship week, and, more specifically, following their encounter with the Hero Killer. In the heat of battle, when he’d mass texted his location to the whole of Class 1-A, he’d done so out of sheer desperation for any kind of assistance. Or so he’d thought. But in the hospital that night, once things had calmed and Izuku had had a moment to collect his thoughts, he’d realized that when that blast of flame had come from the mouth of the alley behind them and Todoroki had appeared, charging into battle, he’d felt, not relieved that help had arrived, but glad, because it was Todoroki. Somewhere deep down, he’d been hoping that he’d be the one to answer his call. Then they’d spent the next night in the hospital together, just the two of them, Iida having been discharged that morning, staying up late talking about everything and nothing at all, until they’d both fallen asleep after wearing themselves out from talking so much. And then Todoroki had comforted Izuku when he’d woken up from a nightmare about their recent fight later on that night, in his awkward but sincere and well-meaning way, and he had thought, Oh. I have feelings for him. Romantic ones.

That had been nearly a year ago, and with everything that had happened since then, all the villain attacks and training and hero work and moments of peril, Izuku had resolved himself to shoving those feelings into a tiny box in the back of his mind, to be taken out again only when he at last found himself in the right headspace to consider them carefully and from every possible angle. So far, that hadn’t happened. But his feelings for the boy he cared for so much, the one who he’d come to think of as his very best friend, didn’t seem to want to stay locked up in their box anyway.

No matter what Izuku did, he couldn’t stop himself from reacting to every single thing that Todoroki did, down to the smallest gesture. He couldn’t stop his heart from skipping a beat every time Todoroki smiled, as rare of a sight as that was. He couldn’t stop his spirit from soaring every time he watched him training, all power and fluid grace and laser focus. He couldn’t keep his heart from swelling fit to burst with joy and pride whenever he witnessed him using and growing stronger and more comfortable with his fire. He couldn’t stop heat from rushing to his cheeks at every casual touch between them, every brush of the arm or nudge to his shoulder or hand offered to help him to his feet when he got knocked off them when he and Todoroki sparred. And he certainly couldn’t do anything to stop the dreams he had every night that he didn’t have nightmares, dreams that played out like a romance anime with himself as the protagonist and Todoroki as the love interest. He hated himself for those dreams upon waking each morning, because of all the people in his class, in the whole damn school, in fact, why did his stupid, sappy, traitorous heart have to make him fall for his closest friend, the one person he knew he had absolutely no chance with?

Despite Iida and Ururaka’s insistence that he should confess his feelings to Todoroki before they got out in a way he didn’t want or couldn’t control, risking their friendship in the process, the one thing that Izuku was trying very hard to avoid, he promised himself that he would not. Even as he fell harder and harder for Todoroki by the day, he was determined to keep his crush a secret. As much as he wanted to believe the opposite, he knew he had no chance with Todoroki, and the pain of an unrequited crush was much easier to bear than that of rejection. This wasn’t the first secret crush he’d harbored for someone close to him in his lifetime, after all. He could bear this, and he would be fine.

After all, he told himself. Itisjust a crush. It’ll go away on its own if I leave it without acting on it for long enough. They always do. It’s not as if I’m in love with him or something. But as time went on, what he’d convinced himself was nothing more than a silly schoolboy crush on the person who understood him better than anyone else, one of the first people to look at him and truly see him, refused to fade. In fact, despite Izuku’s refusal to act on or even speak of his feelings, they only grew stronger, until eventually he was forced to admit, Maybe it islove.

Growing up, Shoto had never paid much attention to or cared all that much about flowers, or really anything that he wasn’t specifically told to care about. There was a garden on the grounds of his family home, of course, but it wasn’t as if he’d ever had the time to or was allowed to visit it. Frivolities such as that, he was always told, were beneath him. But Izuku, he’d learned, loved flowers. Especially dandelions. He’d said that he found them inspiring, the way that they persisted despite constant attempts to eradicate them, how they found ways to grow in the most unlikely of places, places where other plants could never have gotten a foothold. Even if they were just weeds, it was something to admire, that tenacity.

“We should all strive to be a little more like dandelions,” Izuku had said, flashing one of his smiles bright as a ray of sunlight, the kind that always dazzled Shoto.

From then on, he took a lot more notice of flowers. Dandelions, in particular. He saw them everywhere, sprouting up from small mounds of dirt collected in rain gutters, poking in between cracks in the sidewalk, dotted across lawns and fields and grassy parks. It was evidence of the tenacity Izuku had spoken of, and it always made him smile to see those little yellow flowers and be reminded of the person he cared so deeply for everywhere he went.

When his relationship with Izuku moved beyond the boundaries of friendship- even close friendship such as they’d had- Shoto made a point of snapping a photo with his phone anytime and anywhere he happened to see dandelions and send it to Izuku, hoping it would make him smile. He longed to give him actual dandelions, but he feared they wouldn’t survive the trip to UA’s campus in a condition good enough for them to be considered a worthwhile gift. He’d hoped that would no longer be the case once they moved into the dorms, but there again his efforts were stymied. He didn’t know if UA had a gardener or a groundskeeper- he’d certainly never seen any such a person on campus- but someone was taking the time to make sure that not a single one of the sun colored puffy flowers that Izuku loved so much disturbed the uniform greenness of UA’s manicured lawns or sprouted up along its neatly kept walking paths.

“It pains me that I’ve never been able to give you real dandelions,” Shoto lamented to Izuku as they walked to class one day, hand in hand. “I know they’re your favorite, and the pictures honestly don’t seem like enough anymore. I know how much it would make you smile to have some on your desk to look at while you’re doing your schoolwork, and I want to be able to do that for you. I want to make you smile.” He saw Izuku eye him curiously at that. He’d gotten better at expressing his emotions, but he sometimes he still struggled to put words to the things he felt, and it could be surprising when he was willing to be so open about his feelings.

“It’s funny that you should say that,” Izuku said, tugging on their joined hands to draw Shoto to a halt. “Look.” He held his phone out for Shoto to see. On his home screen, right where it would be the first thing he saw when he unlocked his phone, was an album of saved pictures titled “Flowers From Sho”. He didn’t need to see the album’s contents to know that it must have been the place where Izuku had collected all the pictures that he’d sent him of dandelions he spotted in his travels throughout the city.

“See?” Izuku said with one of his characteristic sunbeam-bright smiles. “I don’t need quote unquote real dandelions. I have these. Honestly, it’s enough to know that you remembered that they’re my favorite. It’s enough to know that you think of me every time to see them, enough that you want to make sure that I get to see them too. That reallydoesmake me smile.”

“Shoto?” Izuku called out, entering his room.

“In here!” The reply came from the attached bathroom.

“Are you almost…” Izuku said, trailing off into silence as he entered the bathroom. Class 3-A had decided to throw a Halloween party, and the members of the Dekusquad had decided to do a group costume, collectively coming to the decision that they would each dress up as their characters in the weekly DnD game they played with Shinso. They’d gotten Yaomomo to make their costumes, but Izuku hadn’t been expecting Shoto to look quite so good in his. The blue vest brought out the brilliant turquoise color of his left eye, and the high collar of both the vest and the billowy white shirt he wore underneath it served to accentuate his sharp jawline. The whole thing was exquisitely tailored in a way that only Yaomomo’s quirk could produce, drawing the eye- or at least Izuku’s eye- to every curve of lean, hard muscle on Shoto’s torso, everything that was usually hidden by the loose folds of his school uniform. Izuku felt his mouth go dry, and his cheeks warmed as some very impure thoughts went flitting through his mind at the sight before him. Shoto often took his breath away, but right now, in this moment, he was even more breathtaking than usual. However, the effect was ruined by the frown pinching his brows and turning the corners of his mouth downwards.

“Shoto,” Izuku said softly, entering the bathroom and laying a hand on his arm. “What’s wrong?”

“I can’t figure this out,” Shoto replied, tilting his phone so that Izuku could see what he was talking about- he had a Google image search for “elf braids” pulled up on the screen.

“I thought it might add a little something extra to my costume to do my hair like that,” he said. “But I can’t seem to figure it out.” He sighed frustratedly, and Izuku knew that his inner perfectionist was screaming at him.

“Here,” he said, hoping he could help him silence it. “Let me try.” Shoto nodded slightly and let Izuku take him by the hand and lead him out of the bathroom. Sitting him down on the floor, Izuku knelt on the edge of the futon behind him and studied the reference images he’d been looking at for a few minutes before stripping off the white leather gloves he was wearing as part of his own costume and setting to work.

“You know,” he said, combing his fingers gently through Shoto’s long hair to work the tangles out of this, “this was meant to be something fun. You didn’t need to stress yourself out about it. It would have been fine to leave your hair down, or just do something simple with it like a ponytail or a regular braid.”

“I know,” Shoto replied. “But I just.. this whole group costume thing seemed really important to you, and I wanted everything to be perfect. I wanted to be perfect for you.”

“This was only ever meant to be something fun for us all to do together,” Izuku reassured him as he began to braid his hair in the elaborate multi-layered fashion he’d seen in the pictures he’d looked at. “It was never meant to be something that stressed you out or made you upset, especially for my sake. I know that you expect perfection from yourself in all things, and I know that that’s something so deeply ingrained by this point that it’s going to take a long time to unlearn it, but I need you to understand that perfection is not now nor will it ever be something I expect or need from you. I like you just the way you are, flaws and screw-ups and all.” Shoto laughed quietly at that, a wonderful, beautiful sound that Izuku had come to cherish.

“Thank you,” he said when Izuku had finished his work, and he knew he didn’t just mean for helping him with his hair. 

“You’re welcome,” he said. “Now let’s get going.”

Early morning sunlight was just beginning to filter through the gap in the bedroom curtains when Shoto heard the sheets rustle and felt Izuku begin to pull away from him.

“Izu, where are you going?” he slurred, still mostly asleep.

“I’m just going for a run,” Izuku murmured gently in reply, brushing Shoto’s long hair back away from his face and pressing a kiss to his temple. “Go back to sleep.” Shoto sighed contentedly and let his eyes drift closed again, listening to Izuku’s footsteps move around the bedroom before receding out into the hallway. This had become their routine- every morning at dawn, Izuku would slip out of bed to go for a run, a habit he’d gotten into when they’d still been in school. He’d be gone for about two hours, return home, take a quick shower, and then return to bed, and then he and Shoto would sleep curled up together until their alarm went off a few hours later. 

But today was a special day. It was the first day they both had off in almost three months. It hadn’t happened by accident, either. Their lives were busy and chaotic enough that nothing could be left up to chance and everything had to be planned in advance, even time off. From Izuku’s telling of it, Iida had practically ordered him to take a day off and spend time with his husband before he worked himself to death, and Shoto had been only too happy to leave things to the other people at his own agency for the day in response. He had almost expected that Izuku would skip out on his morning run, just this once, considering that this was a rare occasion where they managed to be off work on the same day, but in hindsight, he supposed he should have expected that he’d keep to that part of their routine, no matter the occasion or circumstances. With another contented sigh, he let himself drift back to sleep, knowing that in just a couple of hours Izuku would be in his arms again and they could spend the whole day in bed if they wanted, having nothing pressing that needed their attention.

Shoto was awoken a few hours later by the alarm going off and the feeling of something being not quite right. He reached over to gently prod Izuku to get him to turn it off, since the side of the bed that he slept on was closest to the bedside table where the alarm clock sat, but his fingers brushed empty sheets long since cooled from the lack of a warm body wrapped up in them. If his husband had gone on his morning run, he wasn’t back yet, which was unlike him. He always returned within two hours, like clockwork. Shoto suspected there was something else going on, and he had a feeling he knew what it was.

With another sigh, this one more than a little disappointed, he got out of bed and switched off the alarm, then padded out into the hallway, not bothering to change out of his pajamas. He rounded the corner and saw Izuku seated at the kitchen table, his back to the hallway, poring over case files.

“Izuku,” he said in only a slightly scolding tone. Izuku’s head jerked upwards and he turned around in his chair to face Shoto, smiling sheepishly.

“I can’t believe you brought your work home with you,” Shoto said, striding into the kitchen and packing up Izuku’s case files before he had a chance to protest. “This is supposed to be our day off.”

“I know, but-” Izuku began to argue.

“No buts,” Shoto interjected. “I swear to all the gods, Izuku, one of these days you’re going to learn how to take a break if I have to force the lesson on you.” With a huff, he finished gathering up the files and set them on top of the shoe cubby by the door, where they would be waiting when they returned to work. Re-entering the kitchen, he asked “Have you had breakfast yet?”

“No,” Izuku mumbled. “I kind of… got caught up in what I was doing.”

“Alright, then I’m making us breakfast,” Shoto replied. “Don’t move from that spot.” With that, he set about the process of making breakfast, setting the coffee brewing, retrieving a package of bacon and a carton of eggs from the fridge, and grabbing a frying pan from the cupboard where their pots and pans were kept. He was about halfway done with cooking their breakfast when he felt Izuku’s strong arms wrap around his middle.

“I thought I told you not to move from your seat,” he said without looking away from what he was doing.

“I know,” Izuku replied, then was silent for a few moments before he asked “Are you mad at me?” and Shoto knew he didn’t mean because he’d gotten up from his chair.

“No, Izuku, I’m not mad at you,” he said with a sigh, feeling Izuku’s head move up and down in time with it where it rested against his back. “I just… I wish you would let yourself relax and take a break every once and a while. If anyone’s earned that, it’s you.”

“I’ll try,” Izuku said softly. “Starting today.”

“Good,” Shoto replied. “I’m glad to hear it.” Taking the food off the heat, he added, “Now let’s eat breakfast, and after that we can go back to bed.”

“Sounds fantastic,” Izuku said sincerely, and let go of Shoto to follow him to the kitchen table.

A/N: A direct sequel to Day 12′s fic

“Shoto,” Izuku whispered, cracking his dorm room door open. Shoto groaned at the light slanting through the open door and into his eyes, rolling over and yanking his covers over his head. Izuku felt a pang of guilt. This was his fault. Shoto had taken care of him while he’d been sick with the flu that had been going around, and now he’d caught it from him. He was sick because of him.

“Shoto,” he tried again, shoving his guilty thoughts aside as he closed the door behind him and stepped into Shoto’s room, carefully balancing the bowl of chicken soup that he’d carried up from the kitchen. It was a long time before Shoto answered.

“What,” he mumbled. 

“I made you some soup,” Izuku replied, setting the bowl he was carrying down on Shoto’s desk and switching on his desk lamp so that he’d have enough light to see by without aggravating his headache. “Do you think you feel well enough to try and eat something?”

“Don’t know,” Shoto mumbled in reply. “Feel nauseous. Head hurts.” The broken sentences were worrying, if not all that surprising. Izuku knew from recent personal experience how much effort forming coherent sentences took when your body was devoting all your energy to fighting off an illness. 

“I’ll go get you some ibuprofen,” he said.

“Wait, Izuku, don’t go,” Shoto whimpered as he reached the door.

“I’ll be right back,” he promised, though he hesitated for a moment at the plea in Shoto’s voice. 

A few minutes later, as he’d promised, he was returning to Shoto’s room with a bottle of ibuprofen and a glass of water. Shoto had fallen back asleep in short time he’d been gone, but by the light of the desk lamp, he saw him blink awake again at the sound of his approach. Setting the bottle and the glass down on the desk, beside the rapidly cooling bowl of soup, Izuku crossed the room to Shoto’s futon and dropped to his knees beside it,

“God, Shoto, you’re still burning up,” he murmured, laying the back of his hand across his forehead to check his temperature.

“Can’t be,” Shoto mumbled, shaking his head beneath Izuku’s hand. “Quirk is… temperature… too hot.” That was barely coherent, but Izuku got the gist.

“The temperature regulation from your quirk can’t help with a fever,”  he said. Levering himself to his feet to retrieve the ibuprofen and water, he added, “Thankfully, this should, as well as take care of your headache.” Shaking a few of the pills inside the bottle out into his hand, he perched on the edge of the futon and wrapped an arm around Shoto’s back to help him upright. He watched him intently as he downed the pills and the water, then set the empty glass back on the desk.

“It’ll be four hours before you can take any more,” he said, more to himself than to Shoto. “Assuming that this doesn’t take care of your headache or help to bring your fever down in that time. I don’t want to leave you alone during that time, either, in case you get worse and need to be taken to Recovery Girl.” He trailed off into mumbles as he pondered what to do. 

Coming to a decision, he pulled the covers back and crawled onto the futon to lie beside Shoto.

“What are you doing?” he asked, trying to shove him away, but with almost no force behind the action. “Get away from me. I’ll get you sick.” Izuku shook his head, resisting Shoto’s weak attempts to put space between them.

“I already had this, remember?” he asked. “I came down with the flu that’s been going around, and you took care of me until I was better. And now it seems you’ve caught it from me. It’s my fault that you’re sick.”

“Not your fault,” Shoto replied with a half shake of his head. “I’ll always take care of you…” He trailed off as his attempts to keep Izuku away ceased and he apparently fell back asleep once again. Izuku settled in beside him, wrapping his arms around his middle and resting his head against his back, between his shoulder blades. It wasn’t long before he drifted off to sleep himself, just as much in need of rest as Shoto was, if for different reasons.

Of the twenty former members of the UA Hero Course Class A, now graduated and well on their way to becoming full fledged pro heroes, the first of them to be able to move out of their childhood home and into a place of their own was- perhaps unsurprisingly- Shoto. He went the way of his older brother Natsuo and moved out as soon as he was able, which, thanks to his family’s wealth, was almost immediately after graduation. 

Izuku, of course, one hundred percent supported this decision. He loved Shoto very much, and he knew how much better things would be for him in the long run, how much better he would be, if he removed himself from the place where all of his traumas had begun as soon as possible. He was eager to do whatever he could to speed that process along, which is how he found himself standing in Shoto’s bedroom in the Todoroki family home, three months after graduation, cardboard box in hand.

“You really didn’t need to help me move,” Shoto said, shoving aside his futon to get at a loose floorboard beneath it, the space underneath which turned out to be filled with books, which he began pulling out and methodically stacking to one side. “It’s not as if I have so many possessions that I couldn’t manage on my own.” Izuku had to admit that his bedroom was rather spartan, but so was the entire house. Despite the wealth and influence of the Todoroki name, their family home was almost totally bare and empty. It seemed less like a home and more like a building that people just happened to occupy.

“This is a big day for you,” he said in response to Shoto’s statement. “It’s a big moment for you, and I wouldn’t miss it for the world.” Shoto smiled at that and wordlessly moved aside to let Izuku stack the books from beneath the floorboard in the cardboard box he was carrying. A cursory inspection of them as he did so showed that they were all fiction books, but he knew enough about Shoto’s home life and childhood to not have to ask why he had to have any non school related books hidden away like contraband.

Later, when Izuku and Shoto had gotten everything moved into and set up and settled in Shoto’s new home, there came a knock at the door. Izuku couldn’t help but flash his boyfriend a bright, mischievious smile when he glanced over at him in confusion.

“Well?” he asked, knowing exactly who was at the door but not wanting to spoil the surprise. “Aren’t you going to answer it?” Shoto hesitated for a moment, eyes narrowed suspiciously at Izuku, but then got up from the loveseat where they both sat and went to answer his door.

“Izuku,” he said a moment later. “Mind telling me why our entire class is outside my door?”

“For the Room King competition, of course,” Mina answered for him, striding through the door in her usual smooth, graceful manner, as if she were always sliding along on her acid, the rest of the recently graduated Class A of the Hero Course following behind her.

“Come on, Sho,” Izuku put in in a fake shocked tone. “Don’t tell me you forgot about the Room King competition? It’s only a Class A housewarming tradition, after all.”

“But we’re not comparing dorm rooms…” Shoto countered, clearly puzzled, trailing off as he pondered what exactly Izuku was getting at.

“No, but we will all be moving into our own places sooner or later,” Mina declared.

“And since you’re the first of us to do so, your place will be the benchmark by which all of the rest of ours will be judged,” Izuku finished for her. He had been planning this with her and the rest of their class from the moment he’d heard that Shoto would be moving out of his childhood home. “By default, you’re the first Room King.”

“And whenever one of us gets our first apartment, or moves into a new one,” Yaomomo jumped in, “we’ll all meet up there to determine whether we must crown a new Room King.”

“It’s the perfect way to keep in touch with each other as we begin our careers so we don’t drift apart and lose contact with those who have become our dear friends,” Iida offered. 

“Well, it certainly sounds like you have this all planned out,” Shoto remarked dryly. Turning to Izuku, he asked “I don’t suppose I have the option of refusing, do I?”

“Nope!” he exclaimed cheerfully, looping his arms through Shoto’s and preparing to lead their class on a tour of the apartment he’d spent the day helping him turn into a home. “Let’s get started!”

“I’ve never seen you look this happy,” Shoto’s mother said softly as they swayed together on the dance floor, the song they’d chosen for their mother-son dance ringing in Shoto’s ears.

“I’ve never been this happy,” he agreed. “Our family is finally together without Endeavor’s shadow hanging over us, and I’m finally married to the love of my life. This is the happiest day of my life.”

“Good,” his mother replied, tears threatening in her voice. “Happiness is all I’ve ever wanted for you.” Neither of them spoke again after that, and when the song and their dance came to an end, Shoto’s mother stood up on tiptoe to kiss him on the forehead, then moved to his side, out of his line of sight.

“He’s waiting for you,” she murmured in his ear, turning him to face toward the chairs set up around the edge of the dance floor. There sat Izuku and Inko, side by side, having finished their own mother-son dance not long before. Both wore identical expressions, with beaming smiles and shining eyes. As Shoto and his mother approached, they stood, and when they finally met each other at the edge of the dance floor, Inko pulled Shoto into a rib-crushing hug, with a surprising amount of force considering she only came up to his shoulder. 

“Welcome to the family,” she whispered.

“Thank you,” Shoto replied, “but I hope you know that I’ve considered myself part of your family for a long time now.”

“Of course,” Inko said tearfully. “I wouldn’t have it any other way.” Shoto smiled down at her, heart swelling with love for the woman he was thrilled to now call his mother-in-law. 

“Mom,” Izuku cut in. “Could I steal my husband for a little bit? I believe we’re owed our first dance.” 

“Oh, yes, of course,” Inko replied with a wet sounding laugh. “I’m sorry. Sometimes I forget myself in my old age.”

“It’s okay, Mom,” Izuku said, leaning down to give her a kiss on the cheek before reaching over to take Shoto’s hand in his. 

“Are you ready?” he asked softly, emerald eyes locking with heterochromatic ones.

“You know I’d follow you anywhere, and into anything,” Shoto replied. “For better or for worse.”

“Till death do us part,” Izuku answered, leading him out onto the dance floor. They began to move together as the music started, tracing slow circles across the floor while keeping to a waltz step, as Izuku had insisted that anything more complex would inevitably cause him to trip over his own feet. Shoto didn’t care. The complexity or lack thereof of the dance didn’t matter, only who he was doing it with, and he couldn’t have asked for a better partner, in this dance or in life.

With the hand that was held in Izuku’s, Shoto twirled him, and as he reeled him back in, he saw that his eyes were shining with tears and his cheeks were wet with them.

“Why the tears, my love?” he murmured, cupping Izuku’s face between his hand and brushing his tears away with the pads of his thumbs.

“Tears of joy, I promise you,” Izuku replied with a wet laugh, like his mother’s earlier. “This is the happiest day of my life.” 

“Mine too,” Shoto agreed. 

“Midoriya,” Izuku muttered, apparently to himself. “Shoto Midoriya.” He laughed. “I still can’t quite believe it.” At that, Shoto couldn’t not kiss him, and they finished their dance swaying together while mid lip-lock.

Later, they sat at the sweetheart table, recieving well wishes and congratulations. There were quite a lot of those, as it turned out, from quite a lot of people- All Might, Aizawa and Present Mic, Ururaka, Shinso, and the Bakugos, even Katsuki, who, despite his glowering and grumbling, clearly held true, friendly affection for Izuku and was happy for him, congratulating him by growling, “You two idiots deserve each other,”

Last came Fuyumi and Natsuo, Fuyumi pushing her husband Tensei in his wheelchair while his brother followed in their wake.

“Welcome to the family,” Fuyumi murmured to Izuku, echoing Inko’s sentiment to Shoto from before, letting go of Tensei’s wheelchair to pull Izuku into a hug.

“It’s great to have you,” Natsuo said when they pulled apart, clapping Izuku on the shoulder. Tenya, ever their stiff and formal class rep, despite the fact that they’d all graduated years ago, touched his fists together and bowed to Izuku, saying, “It’s an honor to have you as a brother-in-law.” Izuku beamed at all of them, eyes shining.

“Thank you all so much,” he said. Shoto leaned over and pressed a kiss to his cheek, overcome with joy himself.

“How did I manage to get married before you, Natsu?” he teased, fixing his gaze on his brother. “Didn’t you start dating your girlfriend when I was in high school?”

“Give me a break, you had a head start!” Natsuo exclaimed, playacting at being offended. “You’ve known Izuku for longer than I’ve known my girfriend.”

“I absolutely have not,” Shoto countered. “You two were dating at the beginning of my first year, I’m almost certain.”

“We’ll get here soon, I promise,” Natsuo said with a conspiritorial smile that made Izuku gasp aloud and Fuyumi squeal and immeditately begin pestering Natsuo for details.

After that, the group dispersed, leaving the newlyweds to spend time alone with each other, which they did happily, the crowd and rest of the world falling away until it was just them two. But every time a slow song played, they got up to dance, swaying together in gentle circles, and the night was filled with love and laughter and a joy too great to express.

“Shoto,” Izuku whispered. In the darkness of their bedroom at night, he could just barely make out the curve of his boyfriend’s shoulder, the curve of his hip, the white half of his hair glowing in the bar of moonlight slanting through the gap in the curtains. It took a moment, but eventually Shoto rolled over to face him.

“What is it?” he murmured.

“You tell me,” Izuku replied. He heard a rustle of sheets as Shoto shifted backwards slightly, likely out of surprise.

“You’ve been off since you got home today,” Izuku explained. He reached over and switched on the bedside lamp so that he could see Shoto, could actually look him in the eyes as he talked to him. The light from the lamp let him see that the shadows that had been lingering in Shoto’s eyes since he’d gotten home that evening were still there, and that despite the exhaustion in his posture, he looked no closer to sleep than Izuku himself was.

“Please, Shoto, just talk to me,” he whispered, voice pleading. “You know I won’t be able to sleep until I know what’s wrong and I’ve at least tried to fix it.” Shoto sighed, so deeply and heavily that his entire body moved, first up, then down, in time with it. 

“You can’t fix this, Izuku,” he said quietly.

“Even if that’s the case, I still want to know what’s wrong,” Izuku countered. “I want to be there for you, however I can.” Shoto was silent for a long time after that.

“I went to see Touya today,” he said at last. “I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want you to worry.”

“And because the Commission swore you to secrecy, no doubt,” Izuku replied. “Why do they still think that they can use the familial connection between the two of you to get Touya to divulge information about the League? They doremember that he tried to kill you, right? Multiple times?” He heard the anger in his voice and didn’t care. He still had nightmares about burning to ashes in Touya’s blue flames, of watching him immolate Shoto right before his eyes. As far as he was concerned, he had every right to be angry. He hated the Comission for continuing to put Shoto through unnecessary pain.

“I’m sure they remember, they just don’t care,” Shoto said, the bitterness in his voice matching the anger in Izuku’s. “All they care about is taking down the League, and damn the consequences to the people they use to accomplish that goal. Really, they’d have better luck using Natsuo if they think a familial connection is the thing that’ll get Touya to turn on the League.”

“But they won’t, because Natsuo isn’t a pro hero,” Izuku put in. “So they don’t have any control over him.” Shoto nodded.

“In any case, talking to Touya went about the way you’d expect,” he said.

“So not well,” Izuku replied. Shoto shook his head.

“The only thing he would say to me was that I should have never been born,” he whispered, voice turning shaky. “That my existence is a mistake. That our father destroyed our family trying to create me, his perfect little masterpiece, and if not for that, he could have been a good father and our family could have been happy and whole. And I… I don’t know that I believe he’s wrong.”

“Oh, Shoto,” Izuku murmured, feeling his heart break for him. He pulled him close, scooting upwards so he could rest his cheek on top of his head, as if he could somehow shelter him from his own pain.

“Ofcoursehe’s wrong,” he whispered, running his fingers through Shoto’s hair. “Of course he is.”

“If I’d never been born, my family would never have suffered the way it did,” Shoto mumbled in a broken voice.

“You don’t know that,” Izuku argued. “You can’t know that. And besides, if you’d never been born, I would still be the sad, lonely person I was before you and became a part of each other’s lives. If you had never been born, all the people you’ve helped, everyone you’ve saved, would not be here today. You’ve changed so many lives for the better, including mine. The suffering Endeavor inflicted on your mother and your siblings is notyour fault, and you’re not responsible for it. Your existence is nota mistake. You deserve to be alive. Touya is wrong. I promise you, he’s wrong.” Shoto began crying, horrible, heartbroken sobs that shook his whole body, evidence of just how long he’d been holding his brother’s words inside his mind, letting them echo in his thoughts and poison his soul. Izuku could only cry with him, switch off the lamp, and hold him tightly in the darkness, running his fingers through his hair in an attempt to soothe him and whispering sweet nothings and reassurances in his ear until at last his tears subsided and he quieted, and they both fell at last to sleep.

Shoto was sitting at Izuku’s desk, working on homework to pass the time while the person in question slept off his bought of illness, when he suddenly sat up in bed with a gasp.

“Careful,” Shoto murmured, getting up from his seat to gently lay Izuku back down and brush sweat soaked curls back from his forehead. “Your fever only just broke.” The confusion clouding Izuku’s gaze cleared at the sound of Shoto’s voice, and he locked eyes with him, a smile spreading slow and sweet as mollasses across his face.

“Sho,” he mumbled dreamily. “I’m so glad you’re here.” Shoto frowned. That sounded dangerously like someone still in the grips of fever-induced delerium, but he supposed it was possible this behavior was simply due to exhaustion and there was no need to worry. Fighting off an illness could take a lot out of a person, and it certainly seemed to have taken a lot out of Izuku.
“What do you remember?” he asked, trying to determine for sure whether he should be worried.
“I wasn’t feeling well,” Izuku replied, still in a mumble, as if it took too much effort for him to speak at his regular volume. “But I couldn’t afford to let myself get behind, so I decided to suck it up and go to class anyway.”
“You came down with the flu that’s been going around,” Shoto told him. “But instead of staying home and letting yourself rest and get better, you decided to force yourself through it, and you collapsed in the middle of Hero Basic Training. That was two days ago.”
“Two days?!” Izuku exclaimed, trying to sit up again. This time, Shoto slung an arm across his back and helped him upright.
“Ssshhh,” he whispered. “It’s alright. Iida and Ururaka copied down the notes and assignments from all the classes you missed for you so you won’t fall behind.” At that, Izuku relaxed, slumping against Shoto’s side as if he no longer had the energy to hold himself upright.

“What about you?” he asked. “Have you been here that whole time?” Shoto nodded. 

“I got permission from Aizawa to stay with you and take care of you until you were better,” he explained. He took a deep, shuddering breath at the memory and added, “I didn’t know what was going to happen. I was scared I might lose you. I was even more scared that instead of helping you get better, I’d make you worse. I’ve never taken care of someone when they were sick before, and I’ve never had anyone to take care of me when I was sick.”

“No one?” Izuku asked, sounding concerned. “Not even-”

“Not even my sister,” Shoto interjected. “Fuyumi is… soft, like you are. Gentle. Caring. When I was younger, she tried to take care of me when I was sick or injured. But our father would have called it a weakness, my having to rely on someone else for anything. It would have angered him, and he would have taken that anger out on her. So I learned how to take care of myself instead of letting her do it. I’m sure it hurt her in the long run, but our father would have hurt her worse than that ever could. I did what I had to do to make sure she was safe.” Izuku leaned further into Shoto’s side, his head coming to rest in the hollow of his shoulder. 

“I’m so sorry, Shoto,” he whispered.

“Well, what can you do?” Shoto asked with a levity he did not truly feel, lifting the shoulder Izuku’s head wasn’t resting on in a half shrug. “It’s already been done. It’s in the past.”

“Still,” Izuku said, obviously not reassured. “You were a child. No child should ever have to go through that. Children should feel safe in their home, and cared for, not like they have to sacrifice their own well-being to ensure someone else’s.” Instead of answering, Shoto reached up to run his fingers gently through Izuku’s hair to soothe away the tears he’d heard threatening in his voice.

“I won’t lie and say that it doesn’t hurt at all anymore,” he said. “But at least it doesn’t hurt as much as it once did. I’ve finally moved on.”

“And I’m really proud of and happy for you for that,” Izuku replied. “But it doesn’t mean I don’t want to hurt Endeavor for everything he’s done to you.” His statement was punctuated by a yawn that took some of the bite from his words.

“You’re exhausted,” Shoto said. It wasn’t a question- Izuku’s state of exhaustion was apparent in his every word and action.

“I need a shower too,” Izuku replied. “I feel all sweaty and gross.” Shoto chuckled softly at that.

“Go shower then,” he said, gently shoving Izuku out of the bed and toward his bathroom. “And then you can get some sleep.”

“Will you still be here when I’m done?” Izuku asked, pausing in front of the bathroom door. 

“I’m not going anywhere,” Shoto reassured him. “Now go.” Izuku nodded and, finally, disappeared into the bathroom.

By the time Shoto heard the water shut off, about an hour later, he’d gotten himself comfortable in the bed and was starting to fall asleep himself, two days worth of missed sleep from worry and stress finally catching up with him. His eyes drifted closed, and he didn’t open them even when he felt Izuku get into bed and settle in beside him.

“C’mere,” he mumbled, reaching blindly for him in the darkness behind his eyelids, finally cracking his eyes open so he could wrap his arms around him and pull him close. “I want to kiss you. I couldn’t for two days because you were sick. I want to make up for it now that you’re getting better.” His eyes drifted closed again, and he heard Izuku huff out a quiet laugh and felt his lips brush gently against his own. He returned the kiss lazily, his movements slow, feeling heavy with the sleep he was still trying to hold back. He kissed Izuku languidly, once, twice, then three times, before he finally let himself slip fully beneath the heavy blanket of sleep settling over him, tangled up with Izuku, feeling the warmth of his body beside him, a blissful smile on his face.

Shoto, Izuku was having the great pleasure of discovering, was a romantic. It was unexpected, given that he’d said himself that he’d grown up without any true example of what love should be, and that the enviroment he’d been raised in had taught him that it was nothing but duty, and suffering, and pain, but it wasn’t unpleasant or unwelcome. 

It started shortly after they began officially dating. Waiting for Izuku before and after class and saving him a seat at lunch evolved into meeting him in the kitchen with breakfast after his morning runs and bringing him coffee when he stayed up late studying on the increasingly rare occasions that they didn’t study together. When he fell asleep while spending time with Shoto late at night, exhausted from a busy day, instead of jerking himself awake with profuse apologies, he would wake slowly to find himself tucked into bed underneath the covers, wrapped up in his boyfriend’s arms. Their midnight meetings in the kitchen when nightmares kept them awake became sleeping together in one or the other’s room in a tangle of limbs to keep the bad dreams at bay. Every day, Shoto found a hundred different ways to quietly express his feelings for Izuku, and Izuku loved every single one of them. He would never stop treasuring the fact that Shoto had granted him access to his innermost thoughts and feelings that he had not given to anyone else.

Then came the love notes. The first time Izuku was left one, he woke up one morning to find that a small white envelope had been slipped under his door while he’d been sleeping. He opened it to find a note in what he immediately recognized as Shoto’s handwriting. It wasn’t long or written in any particularly flowery language, stating simply that Shoto had been thinking about how lucky he was to have Izuku and hoped he had a good day, but Izuku loved it just as much as if Shoto had written him a glowing three page long love poem. It was enough to know that Shoto had been thinking of him enough to want to write him a note.

After that, Izuku found love notes from Shoto almost every day. They weren’t always slipped beneath his door- sometimes he’d find them sitting on his desk when he walked into class, or tucked into the side pocket of his backpack, and once even in the briefcase that his costume was stored in- but like their author, they quickly became a constant in Izuku’s day to day life. Before long, he began to expect them and couldn’t imagine his days without them.

Izuku cherished those notes, each and every one of them, and given his passion for collecting and information gathering, it was inevitable that after a while he would begin to desire to have a way to collect and preserve them that was better- or at least more organized- then the system he had in place now, which was simply storing them loose in a shoebox in his bottom desk drawer. Eventually, he saved up money to buy an expensive leather journal for the purpose and placed the love notes within it, gluing each one down and covering the page he’d placed it on with observations and analysis of what he loved about the note and how it made him feel.

Years passed with Shoto continuing to write Izuku love notes and Izuku continuing to collect each one in the journal, each of them quietly yet joyfully engaged in their labor of love for the other. On the day of their engagement party, having no other gift to give him that would have felt like enough, Izuku presented Shoto with the journal filled with every love note he had  ever written him throughout the course of their relationship so far. He could only hope that it managed to convey even a fraction of how much those notes had meant to him.

“Shoto,” Izuku said, stopping just outside the classroom door to wait for him as they headed to lunch. “Can I talk to you? Somewhere private?” Shoto nodded and followed him to an empty and- judging by the dust coating nearly every flat surface in it- unused classroom. 

“What is it, Midoriya?” he asked. When the other boy frowned, he corrected himself “Sorry, Izuku.” Calling Midoriya by his given name out loud instead of just inside his head was something he was still getting used to, and he still slipped up sometimes.

“Winter break is coming up,” Izuku said, unnecessarily, in Shoto’s opinion. He’d been watching the date of the end of term on the calendar approaching far faster than he would have liked, and dreading the weeks he would have to spend with his father before classes resumed again.

“I’m aware,” he said, knowing that Izuku no doubt expected a response. He did his best to keep his voice in its usual flat, carefully emotionless tone, not wanting to give his friend any reason to worry about him, but judging by the crease between Izuku’s eyebrows, he hadn’t succeeded. “What about it?”

“I was wondering if maybe you wanted to stay with me over the break instead of going home to your father,” Izuku said. “I already asked my mom, and she said she’d love to have you.”

“Wait, you didn’t tell her why, did you?” Shoto asked, feeling sudden apprehension flood through him.

“Of course not,” Izuku replied. “I just told her that your dad works a lot and isn’t home very often and I didn’t want you to be lonely over the break.” Shoto found himself breathing a sigh of relief. It wasn’t technically a lie- Endeavor was often working and out of the house, which was the only thing that had made the thought of going home for break even slightly bearable.

“I’d like that very much,’ he said. “I’ll have to ask my sister, but I doubt she’ll say no.” The advantage to Endeavor leaving so much of the day to day management of the household and the care of her younger brothers to Fuyumi was that she had final say in most matters concerning them, and Endeavor, however much he might hate it, could do nothing about it.

“Great!” Izuku replied, bright with enthusiasm. “I can’t wait! We’re going to have so much fun!” With that, he grabbed Shoto’s hand before he could react and ran down the halls to the cafeteria with him in tow, glancing behind him every so often to flash Shoto a smile over his shoulder.

The start of winter break found Shoto following Izuku through the door of the Midoriya’s small apartment, taking it all in as if he were seeing it for the first time. Everywhere he looked, he could see signs of inhabitance, the inevitable mess and clutter that was a part of life. Unlike the house he’d grown up in, this place felt lived in. It felt like a home.

Once they’d gotten settled and everything set up, Izuku declared that the rest of the first night of winter break would be filled with what he said were “required sleepover activities”- playing silly games, stuffing themselves with junk food, and staying up way too late goofing around and watching movies- for make up for a childhood’s worth of sleepovers Shoto had missed, the memories with friends that he’d never had a chance to make. He was only too happy to oblige his friend, and as the night progressed he knew he would treasure these new memories he was making with Izuku forever, would hold them close as a balm against the suffering he must surely endure every time he was forced to return home.

Later, they were sitting on the couch watching a movie- Shoto had already forgotten which one, tired as he was by the lateness of the hour and just how much they’d done that day- when a throw pillow hit him in the face, waking him up in an instant.

“What was that for?” he demanded, shoving the throw pillow away from himself and glaring at Izuku, the only person it could have come from.

“A pillow fight!” he exclaimed. “No sleepover is complete without a pillow fight!” Shoto had no idea what a pillow fight was, but when Izuku tossed him another throw pillow before diving across the room to retrieve the one he’d thrown before and charging at him with a cry of “Have at thee!”, his eyes bright with laughter, he got the gist pretty quick. And in hindsight, the memory of his very first pillow fight was his favorite one from that winter break.

From the very first time that Izuku texted Todoroki, during the Hosu incident, a pattern emerged. Izuku hadn’t had many- or really any, if you didn’t count Kacchan, and most people didn’t- friends before UA, and consequently not many people he could text with. Because of this, though he’d first established this new connection with Todoroki in a moment where his life had been threatened, he didn’t hesitate to continue it after the danger had passed.

From that point on, Izuku found himself texting Todoroki more and more often. If he saw something that reminded him of the other boy, he sent him a text about it. If the cafeteria was serving cold soba, he texted him. Any random thoughts or insights he had pertaining to their training or classwork, he texted him to share them. He made the unfortunate discovery that his tendency to ramble when he spoke found its way into his texting as well, but thankfully Todoroki didn’t seem to mind. His own manner of texting was similar to that of his speech as well, at least if the replies he sent to Izuku were anything to judge by. If he were honest with himself, it gave him no small amount of pleasure to hear Todoroki’s soft baritone voice in his head when he read his messages. 

After a while, one consistent pattern developed in the messages exchanged between Izuku and Todoroki. Every morning, he texted Todoroki “Good morning”, and every morning Todoroki would reply “Good morning, Midoriya”. Every night before he went to bed, he texted Todoroki “Good night” and every night he would respond “Good night, Midoriya”

As their friendship grew stronger and their relationship began to evolve, the nature of their greetings to each other each morning and each night changed along with it. Izuku’s “Good morning, Todoroki” and “Good night, Todoroki” changed to “Good morning, Shoto” and “Good night, Shoto”. Along those same lines, the response, rather than being “Good morning, Midoriya” and “Good night, Midoriya”, became “Good morning, Izuku” and “Good night, Izuku”. By the time they started dating, the names that accompanied their “Good morning”s and “Good night”s to one another had become “Sho” and “Izu” rather than each other’s full given names.

And so it went, every morning and every night, as Izuku and Shoto graduated from UA and began their careers as pro heroes side by side. Then one day things changed again, in an unexpected but not unwelcome or unpleasant way. Izuku was on the first morning of an extended out of town mission, and he’d tossed and turned all night, finding it hard to get to sleep in a strange bed in an unfamiliar place, without Shoto lying beside him. But he put all his exhaustion and stress aside to text him good morning just as he’d been doing every morning for years now, though by now only if he woke up before him or if one or the other of them was away from home as he was now. 

Good morning, Sho, he wrote, unable to resist adding a few hearts and smiley faces to the message.

Good morning, my love, came the reply. Izuku gasped, the emotions he felt at those words translating themselves into a keysmash that he ended up unthinkingly sending to Shoto.

Izuku? he replied. Are you alright?

Yeah, I’m fine, Izuku managed to respond. Just… call me that again when I get home from this mission. I want to hearyou say it to me.