Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

UNKNOWN NUMBER:

youve got a cute butt <3

Shota stares down at his phone, trying to comprehend the text message he’s just received. He’s standing in the kitchen with his husband, listening to the other man rant about his new station manager and her crusade to change things that have been working perfectly well for years; it’s one of their rare nights off together, and Shota would like to spend it appreciating Hizashi’s presence, not figuring out who’s mistakenly texted him what is, honestly, a really shitty pick up line.

“Sho? Are you listening to me?” Hizashi asks, turning from the fish on the range in front of him, and groans when he sees his husband staring intently at his phone.

“No,” he says honestly. 

“Don’t tell me that’s work!”

“I hope not,” Shota says dryly, handing the other man his phone.

Hizashi reads the message, looks at Shota, then back at the phone, then at Shota again.

“Wrong number?” he suggests. 

Before Shota can answer him, his phone buzzes again, and when Hizashi reads this message his face starts to redden, darkening all the way up to his ears in the way he only does when he’s truly embarrassed. Instead of explaining, he holds the phone back out to Shota.

UNKNOWN NUMBER:

tell your husband hes got a cute butt too :)

There are only five people on the planet that have Shota’s personal number, and none of them would ever text him like this - or give his number out as some kind of joke - for fear of the swift retribution he would rain down on them, so the only other option is that Hizashi is correct, and this is a wrong number. 

Aizawa Shota:

You have the wrong number.

The reply is almost instantaneous.

UNKNOWN NUMBER:

no i dont ;) 

UNKNOWN NUMBER:

i know exactly who im texting

UNKNOWN NUMBER:

have a good night <3

UNKNOWN NUMBER:

touch your husbands butt for me

Shota offers his phone back to Hizashi, who’s taken the fish off the heat to pay closer attention to what’s going on with Shota’s phone. He’s still red in the face, and the color comes back in full force when he reads the new exchange. 

“Maybe they don’t know?” he says weakly.

“I don’t really care,” Shota says. “I’m blocking the number.”

Hizashi nods and hands the phone back, turning to continue with their dinner. Shota opens the settings on his phone and goes through the three step process of blocking another number. Done with the task, he drops his phone on their small, two-person table, and opens the fridge; the leftover miso soup from earlier in the week is right where Hizashi had said it would be, and Shota returns to reheating it like he’d been trying to do when his phone had first buzzed.

“They’re night, though,” Hizashi says.

“Hm?”

“You do have a cute butt.”

Shota rolls his eyes and pretends like his husband hitting on him - no matter how poorly, apparently - doesn’t make his heart beat faster.

***

UNKNOWN NUMBER:

did you block my number?

UNKNOWN NUMBER:

thats rude

Shota stares down at his phone. 

He doesn’t have time for this. It’s his one free period of the day and he still has a stack of ethics papers to grade by the end of the week. It’s going to be a painful experience - for some unholy reason, this round of second years has decided to dunk their standards and critical thinking skills in the garbage and it’s reflected in their assignments - and he does not have a moment to spare to figure out who’s gone out of their way to bypass a blocked number just to keep texting him.

UNKNOWN NUMBER:

what are you wearing? 

Shota doesn’t hesitate to block the number again.

***

The texts don’t stop coming. No matter how many times he blocks the number, whoever is sending the messages takes less and less time to return to his inbox, spouting woes and heartache about Shota trying to get rid of them. He hasn’t responded to any of the texts since the first night, but that doesn’t seem to have discouraged the stranger in the slightest. He also shares them with his husband. Not because he thinks he’s guilty of anything or that Hizashi would accuse him of being unfaithful, but because there are at least a couple of texts every day addressed to the blonde.

UNKNOWN NUMBER:

tell your husband i think hes pretty

UNKNOWN NUMBER:

tell your husband his hair looks nice today

UNKNOWN NUMBER:

tell your husband taking down that thug at the bank with a single punch was hot

It’s the most recent of these texts that makes Shota think this anonymous sender really does know who they’re texting. Hizashi had been involved with a bank robbery while on patrol that morning, and he had managed to knock one of the criminals unconscious, but Shota is unsure how this person knows that; the news crews that follow some Heroes on patrol in the hopes of getting good footage for the evening news had been too late to set up properly to catch that moment. Which means the owner of the unknown number had to have been there.

When he brings this up to his husband after work, the blonde sighs and says,

“No, there’s video. Some high schooler filmed it on their phone. It’s already been uploaded to multiple sites, and Arakawa is bitching about my public image.”

It’s been weeks, but Hizashi and his new station manager have still yet to see eye to eye. 

“Additional questions,” Shota says, “how do they know you’re married, and how do they know it’s to me?”

Their marriage isn’t exactly a secret, but they don’t announce it either. They wear their rings on matching chains so they don’t get lost or damaged while out on patrol and doing so has the additional benefit of not advertising their marital status. Despite being such a popular and public figure, Hizashi does like to keep the majority of his private life private, and Shota’s job and safety depend on him being as anonymous as possible. It’s not a good thing that some stranger has been digging around in their lives without their knowing. 

“We should probably bring this up to Nedzu,” Hizashi suggests.

Shota feels his lip curl, but knows his husband is right. For all that he hates getting The Rat involved in their personal lives, he’s the best equipped to deal with the situation, especially if they want to keep their names out of reports and, ultimately, the papers. But Shota knows the principal is going to be insufferable and smug and endlessly amused at whatever he finds, and he’s going to give them pieces and hints just to taunt them before patting their heads and solving the problem for them like the psychopathic maniac he is. 

“I’ll tell him after my morning classes,” Shota grumbles.

Hizashi just looks grateful the brunette is willing to take one on the chin instead of demanding they play janken for the dishonor of visiting their boss. 

***

“What an interesting series of messages,” Nedzu says cheerfully when Shota hands over his phone. 

“Either find out who it is or make it stop. Permanently.”

“Surely such texts are harmless,” the animal says, whiskers pointed forward in as much of an imitation of human mockery as he can express.

“They know who I am and they know I’m married to Hizashi. We don’t give that information out for a reason,” Shota says blandly, knowing the moment he expresses frustration the lunatic will latch onto the discomfort like some kind of demented leach digging its teeth into anything it can just for the sake of entertainment. “I want to know why they know.”

“Of course, Shota-kun! You know I take the safety and wellbeing of my teachers very seriously! I shall look into the matter and let you know as soon as I find something.”

Shota barely restrains himself from rolling his eyes as he sees himself out of the principal’s office.

***

Despite Nedzu’s promise of his own investigation into the unknown number, the texts keep coming, appearing in Shota’s inbox with increasing frequency. The subject matter doesn’t change, but whoever has been sending them has grown bolder and bolder the longer Shota has gone without blocking the number. Shota didn’t care to keep repeating the same steps for the results to be undone just a short while later, and it's apparently the sign that the nameless person has been waiting on.

UNKNOWN NUMBER:

you should wear something other than black

UNKNOWN NUMBER:

not that black doesn’t look good on you

UNKNOWN NUMBER:

because it does

UNKNOWN NUMBER:

but i think youd look stunning in red

Shota doesn’t reply just like he always doesn’t and shoves his phone back in his pocket.

***

Of course, because they are monumental and considerable idiots, they tell Nemuri about the texts. 

She’s one of their best friends and they’d all do nearly anything for each other, but she’s also the worst gossip and Musutafu’s biggest shit pot stirrer. This is something she’d never leak to the public - even accidentally; she knows how much their lives and careers depend on them leading quiet private lives - but that doesn’t stop her from collapsing in hysterics on their kitchen floor after two glasses of wine as an appetizer. 

“Let me see ! Please let me see!” she begs from the floor, tugging on the leg of Shota’s pants like a needy child asking for a snack. “Shota, please!”

Before he can decide whether or not he’s going to give in to her demands, a hand that isn’t his slides into his back pocket and takes his phone despite his protests. Hizashi opens the text thread with the unknown number and says,

“Wait, let me find my favorites!”

He’s had just as much wine as Nemuri, and their take-out hasn’t even arrived yet. Sometimes Shota regrets the deal they made when they became Heroes: they'd promised each other - all five of them -  that one of them would always be sober just in case a call came in. Except he can’t complain because he’s the one who made the rule. It’s just bad luck that it’s his turn to be sober.

Hizashi clears his throat in what Shota is sure won’t be the last of the night’s dramatics, and reads out, “I bet you could put that scarf to better use.”

Nemuri pauses and then absolutely howls . 

Shota knows he’s flushing, but neither of them are paying attention to him anymore. 

“‘You look like you could fight Gang Orca and win’ followed by ‘that’s hot’. But here’s the thing!” the blond insists. “They’re right! He does look like he could fight Gang Orca and win and that is hot! My husband is built like a Greek god and people should know!”

Nemuri is laughing hard enough that she’s gone silent, shaking and heaving and trying to suck in a breath. Shota is glad they always drink out of plastic cups when they do this because spilled alcohol is much easier to clean up when they’re drunk than broken glass. As it is, half of her third cup of shitty corner store wine is dribbling down the front of her shirt.

Shota’s saved from further embarrassment - momentarily, at least - by a knock on the door. He steps away from the kitchen to answer it, leaving the other two to continue to crow over increasingly flirtatious texts. He pays the delivery girl with a small wad of bills, and takes their standing order back to his husband and friend, fully intending to make them eat and pour them into bed for an early night. Hopefully. 

“And some of them are so sweet!” Hizashi is saying when he returns. “Like this one just says ‘i want to braid your hair’. That’s just, like, nice. And Shota likes having his hair played with! That's why he keeps it long!”

The brunette reaches down and snatches his phone away, scrolls further down the thread, and reads out,

“‘Tell your husband I want to bite his hip bones’.”

Nemuri gasps; Hizashi squawks.

“Hizashi! You didn’t tell me they were hitting on you, too!”

“No!” his husband complains. “Don’t read those!”

“‘Tell your husband his earrings look nice with his jacket’,” he continues, because if Hizashi wants to play this game, Shota is going to win. “‘Tell your husband last night’s show was amazing’. ‘Tell your husband he looks like dessert’.”

Hizashi wrestles the phone away from him again, and Shota can’t fight him without dumping the take-out containers on the kitchen floor.

“‘I bet you could put me through a wall’,” he says. “‘I’d let you’.”

Nemuri gets a hold of herself just enough to ask, “Are you flirting back?!”

“No!” Hizashi whines. “Shota won’t let me!”

“We don’t know who it is,” Shota says, just to be summarily ignored. 

“You should totally flirt back,” she says. “What if they’re, like, really pretty?”

“I totally bet they are,” the blonde says around the rim of his cup. “Just like so pretty. The second prettiest.”

“The second?” Nemuri asks.

“I already married the prettiest person in the world,” he huff, gesturing at Shota as he lays out their food. “Who’s prettier than that?”

“Uh, Mirko ,” she says, coming to the obvious conclusion that Hizashi is an idiot.

“You are a lesbian ,” Shota’s husband says, scandalized. “Your opinion about my husband doesn’t matter!”

“You literally asked me!”

“The food is here,” Shota says loudly.

Both his husband and their friend perk up from their positions on the floor and swivel their heads towards the table, their ridiculously large order laid out. 

“Dibs on the curry!”

“Hey, fuck you! That’s mine!”

At least fighting over food is their usual.

***

Somehow, some way, getting flirtatious texts from a stranger becomes a normal part of Shota’s day. It’s just something else that happens, like brushing his teeth, or grading papers. And it’s strange that the sudden absence of something he’s come to expect would throw him off.

It’s the night of the third day without any texts when Hizashi calls him out on it.

“What’s going on?” he asks, turning to brace his hands against the kitchen counter on either side of Shota’s hips, effectively pinning him there.  “You’re grumpier than usual.”

Shota thinks about how he could possibly explain his lapse in logic in any way that would make sense, decides that if anyone will understand him it’s his husband, and says,

“I haven’t gotten an unknown number text in three days.”

“Okay,” Hizashi says thoughtfully. “That is a little weird. Is it bothering you?”

Yes, he wants to say.

“I don’t know,” he says instead. “It’s illogical.”

“It’s a regular part of your day that’s suddenly changed,” the blonde says reasonably. “You’re allowed to be bothered.”

Shota hums.

“Is it because I don’t hit on you enough anymore?” Hizashi asks, not making fun of him, but trying to make light of the situation. “Have I gotten lazy?! I used to hit on you all the time when we were in school and now I’ve got someone else doing it for me! God, I can’t believe I let it get this bad. Shota, listen, you’ve got, like, the cutest butt. I love touching it. And your eyes are so pretty!”

Shota snorts despite the heat in his face, and tries to push his husband away, but Hizashi resists until they’re squabbling like toddlers, elbows and hair flying as he tries to smack loud, wet kisses to Shota’s face and neck. Hizashi continues to pepper in the most juvenile come ons he can think of while Shota tries to get away, but he does have to admit it’s the hardest either of them have laughed in a long time. 

***

Like fate had been listening to Shota’s silent plea for a distraction from his empty inbox, he gets a call at two in the morning on his night off.

It’s been another week without any anonymous texts, and Shota is still as bothered as he had been when they’d stopped coming. He still hasn’t figured out why either. It’s a stranger who knows far too much about his and Hizashi’s lives, and he’s even told Nedzu to make it stop. Not that The Rat has done anything about it. 

“Eraserhead,” he says as clearly into his work phone as he can. 

“It’s Tsukauchi,” says the familiar voice of the policeman Shota works with the most, “I’m sorry. I know it’s your night off. It’s Magpie.”

“What about him?” Shota asks, wondering what in the world the vigilante could have done to warrant a call when Tsukauchi was supposed to be off shift six hours ago.

“He’s here.”

***

Shota has never made it to the station so fast. He’s up, dressed, and out the window in less than three minutes, a note for Hizashi slipped under the charging case for his hearing aides. The night is cold, the wind colder, and the steel of the fire escape in the back alley behind the station bites into his hands as he slides to the ground. He knocks on the emergency exit twice, and Tsukauchi doesn’t hesitate to swing it open and let him inside. 

“What happened?” he asks, letting the detective guide him to the interrogation rooms. 

“The witness said he got taken by surprise. Two men cornered a woman in an alley on her way home from work. He stepped in, but they had a lookout. Managed to get a blade in between the edges of his armor.”

Tsukauchi stops at the window to the interrogation room furthest down the hall.

Shota has been chasing the vigilante Magpie for four years, hardly managing to get close enough to exchange words, never mind lay hands - or capture weapon - on the other man. All he and the police have been able to put together is a basic profile based on his encounters with law enforcement and civilian statements. And it hasn’t amounted to much.

Magpie is reportedly fast, clever, and skilled with improvised weapons. He’s been seen taking on opponents nearly twice his size with little problem, and ends his fights with a brutal efficiency that leaves them incapacitated, but, in most cases, ultimately uninjured. He enters and exits confrontations quickly and quietly, and always calls the police to report the location of both victim and perpetrator. The only physical descriptions given of him note him to be short with a deep, unnatural voice.

They have no idea what he looks like or what his quirk is. Their investigations have turned up few leads and fewer suspects - only four in as many years. Several underground heroes, Shota included, have attempted to tail him back to his home or some kind of base, and they’ve all been unsuccessful. Magpie is, for all their investigation has turned up, a ghost story. 

“Why is he here?” he asks, gesturing to the figure on the other side of the glass. 

“He let the paramedics wrap the wound, but refused all other treatment,” Tsukauchi says, crossing his arms. “EMTs said he doesn’t have any life threatening injuries.”

The person restrained to the table in the interrogation room is indeed short; his left hand has been handcuffed to the table, but the right arm is in a sling, keeping pressure off the fresh stab wound in his shoulder. He seems utterly relaxed, slumped down, head resting on the back of the metal chair he’s sitting in. 

“Why is he still wearing his mask?”

“He threatened to bite anyone who tried to take it,” the detective says dryly. “I didn’t want to find out he produces venom the hard way.”

Shota hums.

“Ready?” Tsukauchi asks.

Shota nods, and follows him into the room.

Magpie doesn’t sit up when the door opens, but his head does roll to the side so he can see who’s entering the room. Nothing about his posture says he’s concerned about the situation he’s found himself in. Either by carelessness or over confidence, Shota finds the indifference foolish. 

“Detective Tsukauchi, Eraserhead,” the vigilante greets, heavily modified voice getting caught in a yawn. “Nice to see you both.”

“Magpie,” the officer returns.

He and Shota both take a seat across from him, but the pro doesn’t join in on the welcome. Instead he watches, looking for anything that could suggest that the nonchalance is just an act: a tremble in his hand, an aborted movement, a stutter. 

When nothing presents itself immediately, he turns his attention to the vigilante’s mask. It’s black and covers his face completely, blending into the high neck of his suit and the shadow created by his hood. The visor across his eyes is matte, and the half that covers his mouth and nose is smooth, but bulky, obviously making room for whatever mechanics are required to alter his voice. 

“You should buy me dinner first.”

“Excuse me?” Tsukauchi asks.

Magpie’s head tilts in Shota’s direction.

“If you’re going to eye me up like a fresh piece of meat, the least you could do is buy me dinner. Hell, I’d settle for a drink at this point.”

There’s silence for a long moment. Half because Shota refuses to respond to such a taunt, half because he wouldn’t know how. 

“My name is Detective Tsukauchi, this is the pro hero Ereaserhead,” he says, seemingly intending to steamroll over the flirtation. “This interrogation will be recorded for the record. I am legally required to tell you about my quirk. It’s called Lie Detector, and it allows me to know if someone is lying. I cannot turn it off. Would you like to make any statements before the interrogation begins?”

“No,” he says, though his head is still tilted in Shota’s direction.

“I’m going to have to ask you to remove your mask and state your legal name for the record.”

“Sure!” Magpie jerks his wrist the handcuff like he’d forgotten it was there. “A little help?”

“You want us to unrestrain you,” Shota says, and it isn’t a question.

“Why not?” Magpie asks. “You’re a pro hero and I’ve been stabbed. We’re in the middle of a police station. Where the hell am I going to go?”

“Eraserhead or I can remove the mask for you,” Tsukauchi offers. 

“Either one of you tries to touch me,” the vigilante says flatly, voice cold and dead through the modulator, “and I take a finger. I’ll let you handcuff me again after, if it makes you feel better.”

Shota sees Tsukauchi glance at him out of the corner of his eye. Magpie is probably right. There isn’t much he can do locked in a room with a pro Hero and a cop while suffering from a barely-treated stab wound, but they know too little about him for Shota to make the decision. It’s Tsukauchi’s station; he has to make the call. 

“If I uncuff you, can you say in all honesty that you will cause no harm to anyone in this station, be they police, criminal, or civilian?”

“Yes,” the vigilante agrees easily, back to sounding just as pleasant as he had been before threatening the other men in the room.

“Will you also answer all questions posed by either myself or Eraserhead with the truth?”

“I will answer all the questions you have for me to the best of my ability.”

Shota doesn’t miss how well-worded and loophole-heavy that statement is, and from the unhappy look on Tsukauchi’s face, neither did he. But, again, they know too little about this other man, and this is their chance to change that. 

Tsukauchi must come to the same conclusion because he only hesitates a moment before unlocking the cuff restraining Magpie to the table. The vigilante doesn’t make a move against either of them, just tolls his shoulder like he’s been sitting still for too long. 

“Thanks,” he says, brushing back his hood to reveal a head full of unruly green curls, some of the ringlets plastered to his skull with sweat. He doesn’t pause before grasping his mask by the chin and pulling it up and over his head; he sets it carefully on the table. “Hi. I’m Midoriya Izuku.”

Shota isn’t sure what he expected to be beneath the mask, but a round face covered in freckles hadn’t been it. Magpie - Midoriya Izuku - is young, though not as young as his height had made him seem. He’d half feared they’d been chasing a teenager for the last four years, but the man on the other side of the table is obviously in his twenties despite what little baby fat clings to him. 

“You’ve been brought in today under suspicion of vigilantism, assault, vandalism, and property damage, as well as numerous lesser charges,” Tsukauchi states. “There are standard questions that must be answered before we can clarify the specifics. If at any time you believe you need more extensive medical attention for your wound, please let us know.”

“That’s nice of you,” Midoriya says, relaxing back into his seat again. 

“Can you confirm you are the vigilante known as Magpie?” the detective asks.

“Sure,” he says easily. “That’s what they call me.”

“Can you confirm your actions as a vigilante include - ” 

“Oh, no, thank you,” Midoriya interrupts. 

Tsukauchi frowns. “Our agreement - ”

“Oh, I’m definitely the vigilante known as Magpie,” he says, “but the fact of the matter is Magpie isn’t a vigilante.”

Tsukauchi pauses. “Would you care to elaborate?”

“Sure!” Midoriya says. “I can’t be a vigilante!”

When no other explanation seems forthcoming, Shota says,

“You’ve been under investigation for four years. There are eye witness reports from police officers, victims, and bystanders. You’ve been caught on security footage. You cannot possibly think your actions don’t constitute vigilantism.”

“Did you know,” Midoriya says, leaning forward to brace his chin in his hand and flutter his eyelashes at Shota, “that vigilantism laws are worded very specifically? Legislation passed in 20XX legally defines vigilantism as “any person, person(s), or collectives who take the law into their own hands to include the illegal act of unregistered public use of a quirk without recourse to lawful procedures”. I’ve never used a quirk in my after hours engagements, and as such, I cannot be charged with vigilantism.”

The younger man says this in the same flirtatious tone he’s taken every time he’s directed something at Shota. 

“You’re asking us to believe you’ve never used your quirk, even in self defense, during any of your unlawful escapades,” Tsukauchi says.

“I’m not asking you to take my word for it,” Midoriya grins, “but the last time - the only time -  a quirkless person was charged with vigilantism, the prosecuting attorney was laughed into early retirement. He’s living in seclusion in Okinawa.”

Shota’s eyes narrow. “You’re quirkless?”

It isn’t…impossible, he supposes, but Shota knows his experience with quirkless people isn’t typical. 70% of quirkless people are from the generations before his, being well into their sixties at the youngest, and those from this generation… Well. Shota’s never met one who’s murder or suicide he wasn’t investigating. 

“I am!” he says cheerfully. “Got the bold, red Q of shame on my ID and everything. I can get you a copy of the x-ray they took of my foot when I got diagnosed, if you want.”

Shota looks at Tsukauchi, but the detective just nods. Midoriya is telling the truth then. 

“The legal definitions of vigilantism aside,” Tsukauchi says, “the assault, vandalism, and property damage charges still stand.”

“Vandalism, maybe ,” Midoriya admits. “I did spray paint that warning in Nakano, but the building was abandoned and condemned. Who’s going to press charges? Property damage, even less likely, especially considering I stopped back by both the bodega, and Takada-san’s apartment and fixed up the damage. Don’t think they’ll press charges either. And the assault? Every single engagement you do or do not know about was self defense and I can prove it.”

“How?”

Midoriya taps the top of his chest plate. “Embedded camera. Captures audio and video, and automatically uploads to a secure system I built myself. I have a record of every single patrol I’ve ever been on, and I’ve never engaged first. If they attack me, everything after is arguably justified.”

“You put a man in a month-long coma,” Shota says.

“And he was in the middle of kidnapping a child,” Midoriya says, smile sharp and vicious. 

Tsukauchi doesn’t protest, but Shota knows his quirk isn’t infallible. If Midoriya truly believes that the man - Goya Daiki, 41 -  was kidnapping a child, then it would register as a truth to the other man. 

“You seem to have an answer for everything,” Shota says suspiciously.

“Of course not! But I’ll tell you what, if you don’t like my answers, how about I call my lawyer?”

The detective sighs. “I can get you a phone.”

“No need,” Midoriya says, reaching out to tap something on the inside of his mask. The unmistakable noise of a phone ringing sounds throughout the room and whoever is on the other end of the line answers with a simple, “Yes?”

“Hi, Nedzu!” Midoriya says cheerfully. “I’m in custody!”

***

Shota knows there is a difference between terror and horror and dread, and he now knows what all three feel like at the same time. He prides himself on the instincts he’s had beaten into him by teachers and experience both, and there is almost nothing - not death, not dismemberment, not destitution - that frightens him more than Nedzu getting involved in any kind of scheme or conspiracy. There is a reason for his reputation, and Shota isn’t willing to relive his third year internship unless he’s three sheets to the wind and actively bleeding out to try discover what other trauma he’s heaped onto the rest of society. He doesn't know, and he doesn't want to. 

“Yes, I believe you are!” says the familiar voice of Shota’s boss coming from the speaker. “I’ve already received a copy of your incident report. I’m going to have it framed and hung in my office.”

Midoriya lights up like he’s just been told his finger painting is good enough to go on the fridge. 

“I’ve also been stabbed,” the maybe-maybe-not vigilante says.

“I’m aware,” Nedzu says with just as much amusement in his voice. “I’m less thrilled with that turn of events.”

“Me and you both,” Midoriya agrees. “Can you come bail me out?”

“I’m in the lobby, my dear boy. Do send Detective Tsukauchi to collect me.”

“Sure!” 

The line goes dead. Midoriya looks at them both expectantly. 

“Thanks for the conversation, Detective, Eraserhead, but, as you just heard, my ride is here.”

Tsukauchi looks to Shota, and the pro nods. The detective is free to go see if Nedzu really is here, but Shota isn’t letting Midoriya out of his sight until he’s officially no longer in custody.

As soon as the door latches, Midoriya says,

“Can I ask you questions about your quirk?”

Shota blinks. 

“No.”

Midoriya’s lip juts out. “But I have so many.”

Shota is trying to figure out how that’s his problem when the door opens again. Tsukauchi has returned surprisingly and suspiciously quickly. 

“Nedzu has already spoken with Captain Hirayabashi. Midoriya is free to go.”

“Thanks!” he chirps, shooting up from his chair. 

“His gear, at least - ” Shota protests.

“All legal and licensed,” Nedzu says, scampering up Midoriya’s side to rest on his uninjured shoulder. “I filed the paperwork myself.”

“It was nice to officially meet you both,” Midoriya says. “I’m sure I’ll see you later.”

Tsukauchi is looking properly traumatized - as one does after dealing with anything concerning Nedzu - but Shota’s attention is snapped back to their newly unmasked menace when he pauses in the doorway, winks at Shota, and says,

“Tell your husband I said hi.”

***

Hizashi isn’t out of bed yet when Shota crawls back through their window five hours later. It’s his day off - both of theirs - and they try to sleep in when they can. Shota, however, is in the middle of a crisis and he’ll be damned if he goes through it alone. 

The first thing he does is start their coffee maker because he isn’t a monster and he needs it just as much. The next order of business is to yank all the bedding except the bottom sheet off their bed, scaring the shit out of his husband and causing him to let out a quirk powered yelp that will probably be the cause of another official complaint. Their neighbor across the hall is a bastard. 

“Shota! What the fuck!” Hizashi says, loudly but not backed by anything other than his hearing loss. 

Put your aides in , Shota signs. 

His husband huffs, but reaches for one of the devices, smacking it over his ear in irritation.

“Seriously, Shota. What the fuck?”

“I met the anonymous number,” he says without any extra information because he needs someone else to experience this insanity with him. 

“You - what?”

Hizashi shoves his glasses onto his face so he doesn’t have to squint up at the brunette.

“When? How?”

“Tsukauchi called me at two. They finally had Magpie in custody.”

Hizashi gestures at him to keep going because, to him, nothing Shota has said so far is connected. 

“I will give you seven guesses and all the money in my retirement fund if you guess who he called to bail him out.”

The blonde scoffs. “I already get all the money in your retirement fund. We’re married .”

Shota doesn’t rise to the bait, just stares the other man down. 

“I don’t know, Endeavor?” he huffs. “The Emperor? Who was that Villian from the other day, The Junker? Who? Just put me out of my misery!”

“Nedzu.”

Hizashi stills - which is impressive; he’s like motion personified some days - and gapes at him.

“What?” he chokes out.

Shota isn’t going to repeat himself. Hizashi trips off the mattress in an attempt to get up, but just decides to stay on the floor when he’s unsuccessful. 

“Ned - did he - ”

“Paperwork, legal documents, all of it,” Shota confirms. “He called him ‘my dear boy’.”

Hizashi's eyes widen and the blood drains from his face. His hand trembles as he presses it over his mouth. 

“Okay,” his husband whispers. “Okayokayokay. What does that have to do with the anonymous texts?”

“Magpie - Midoriya Izuku - flirted at me the entire time we had him in custody and when we had to release him, he winked at me and said ‘tell your husband I said hi’.”

The room is quiet for a moment.

“Is it too early in the day to be drunk?” Hizashi whispers.

“No,” Shota confirms. “No, it is not.”

***

It’s been a very long time since Shota has gotten drunk enough to forget anything, but by gods is he going to try.

***

Shota wakes up the next morning with a pounding hangover and all of his memories unfortunately intact. Hizashi is next to him on their still unmade bed, hair loose and wild, still-wet drool slobbering down his chin. It’s amazing how much Shota loves this man. 

He watches the sunlight on their ceiling inch its way further into the room, but can’t place what woke him, and after fifteen minutes he knows he isn’t getting a cat nap in before his alarm goes off. Hauling himself out of bed, Shota grabs both of his phones and makes his way to the kitchen. His work phone has a few new emails from his agency - more of a collective of other underground Heroes than anything like limelights use - and a notification for a new article about Hizashi. Nothing that can’t wait. 

He doesn’t normally check his personal phone until later in the day, but he’s also pretty sure they’d called Nemuri yesterday, and she - knowing they were home and drunk - had spent the day spamming them with memes. His favorites are the ones that have cats or make fun of some of the less pleasant Heroes to work with, and Hizashi’s are the ones that make absolutely no sense unless you have two decades worth of deep and established internet history stashed in your brain. 

His phone says he has three new messages. 

None of them are from Nemuri.

UNKNOWN NUMBER:

good morning gorgeous <3

UNKNOWN NUMBER:

sorry i havent been around to tell you how pretty you are

UNKNOWN NUMBER:

ill make it up to you <3 <3 <3

Shota is far too hungover for this.

***

Hizashi has a meeting at the station after classes are out, so Shota takes the opportunity to plow through another stack of papers without distraction. If he can get through with this he can spend more time with his husband when he gets home. 

He does not expect his phone to ring because no one ever calls him. Everyone who has his personal phone number - with the glaringly obvious exception of Magpie - knows he is allergic to talking on the phone. 

But it’s Hizashi, and if he’s calling then something must be up.

“Shota, did you send me flowers?” he asks before the brunette can even greet him.

“No. Why?”

“Someone sent me flowers at the station, and if it’s not you then….”

He stifles a groan. “Is there a note?”

“There’s just a heart, and it’s signed with a little doodle of a bird - shit, are these from Magpie?”

“Probably,” he grumbles. “What kind of flowers are they?”

“The card says gardenias and violets.”

“Did security check them out?”

“Yeah. Just flowers in a vase. Nothing hinky.”

“Get rid of them,” he says.

The last thing they need is the vigilante - because that’s what he is , legal definitions be damned - somehow finding out that Hizashi kept the flowers and thinking they approve of the gesture. 

“But they’re so pretty,” he whines. “Can’t I just put them in my office?”

Shota sighs. He really does let his husband get away with too much.

“I guess.”

“It won’t…bother you?” he asks cautiously. “Me having flowers from another man?”

“Does it bother you when he hits on me? Even though I’ve never responded to him?”

There’s a small, considering silence before Hizashi answers. 

“Probably not as much as it should,” he admits. “Though I suppose the texts have mostly just been entertaining. Flowers seem more serious, somehow.”

“The flowers don’t bother me,” he says instead of telling Hizashi he feels the same way.

“Okay,” the blonde says, doing his best to cover up how pleased he is at being able to keep the flowers and failing miserably. “I’ll see you at home. Love you.”

“Love you, too.”

Shota drops his phone and wonders what ancestor he pissed off to deserve this. 

***

Shota knows better. 

He knows better.

He knows better than to check his personal phone in the staff room. He knows better than to open any of his texts near his nosy coworkers. He knows better than to think something won’t bite him in the ass at the first opportunity. 

He knows better.

Shota has never gagged on coffee before, but he’s managed to inhale half his cup and spill the rest of it across his desk and the paperwork that’s meant to be filed by the end of the day. Coughing doesn’t seem to help, and it’s only a moment before Hizashi is standing over him, trying to be helpful by patting him on the back.

“Sho, you okay?”

Instead of attempting to reply, he shoves his personal phone at his husband until he takes it from him. Hizashi’s own little gasp is enough to cement the attention of the rest of their coworkers, but he locks the phone and shoves it into the interior pocket of his jacket. Shota doesn’t have to look up at him to know he’s red from his ears down to his chest. 

“You guys okay?” Nemuri asks. 

“Just fine,” Hizashi says too quickly. “Don’t worry about it!”

***

UNKNOWN NUMBER:

I bet I’d look pretty choking on your cock

***

Shota starts leaving his personal phone at home. If he doesn’t have it, then there can’t be a repeat incident in the staff room. If there isn’t a repeat incident in the staff room, then his coworkers will eventually forget what happened. If everyone forgets what happened, no one will wonder why he’d decided to drown himself - literally, this time - in coffee. 

That does not, however, stop the texts from coming. Now he comes home after school or patrol to a backlog of salacious messages.

UNKNOWN NUMBER:

tell your husband he’d look stunning holding you down

UNKNOWN NUMBER:

i bet your hand would look good around my throat

UNKNOWN NUMBER:

can your husband make you beg?

UNKNOWN NUMBER:

can I watch while he tries?

***

And still there are the sweet ones mixed in.

UNKNOWN NUMBER:

i appreciate the work you do

UNKNOWN NUMBER:

i think youd look nice in your husbands leather jacket but tbh i dont think your shoulders would fit

UNKNOWN NUMBER:

you should treat yourself better or im going to do it for you

UNKNOWN NUMBER:

that is a threat

***

Shota doesn’t know if it’s Hizashi accepting the weekly deliveries of fresh flowers or some other nebulous hint, but after meeting him in person the vigilante has grown…bold. Bolder than sending flirtatious and downright lewd texts to the pro hero that’s been attempting to arrest him. 

It starts with the flowers. 

It escalates with the coffee. 

Tsukauchi radios him at the end of his patrol. 

“Someone delivered a package addressed to you, to the care of me.”

Of course Shota’s first instinct is to be suspicious. You don’t make it as an underground hero without a healthy amount of paranoia.

“Give it to the bomb squad.”

“Security says there’s no electronics involved; Ito says there’s no metal.”

Ito Asayo’s quirk is to detect any kind of metal, and it’s accurate down to the microgram.

“Fine,” he grunts. “I’ll come by after I’m off.”

Shota ends up dropping by the station several hours after his official patrol had ended, but finding a couple of kids tying a bottle rocket to a cat’s tail and then tracking down their parents had taken longer than expected. 

The package Tsukauchi hands him isn’t big. It’s a plain brown box taped closed with generic packing tape. It hasn’t been opened. There is no return address or anything else to indicate the sender. That doesn’t stop him from very carefully sliding his knife along the edges just in case. 

When he drops the box onto the detective’s desk, Tsukauchi jumps, most likely expecting the worst. Shota should probably feel a little bad about it, but he’s too tired for anything other than complete frustration.

“It’s fucking coffee,” he says, slumping into the visitor’s chair across from the desk and digging his finger into his eyes until he sees starbursts. 

“Coffee?” Tsukauchi asks, sitting forward to peer into the box.

Shota knows coffee. He and Hizashi spend far too much of their multiple salaries on small batch craft coffees that have to be preordered. Hizashi’s been wanting to spend an excessive amount of money on some Italian espresso machine, and Shota’s only been able to talk him out of it so far because they’re too busy to appreciate that kind of investment. He also knows he’s going to lose the battle sooner or later. 

Shota knows coffee, and the bag that’s been delivered is good coffee.

“Care to tell me why someone sent you coffee like this?” the detective asks. 

Shota sighs, sinking down further in the chair, and knows he isn’t going to be able to get out of telling him about the texts, and, now, the gifts. 

“Four months ago, I started getting messages from an unknown number. Some of them were for me, some of them were for Hizashi. I blocked the number, but that didn’t seem to do any good.”

“Threatening?”

“No,” Shota says shortly. “The opposite, actually.”

“The opposite?” Tsukauchi questions. 

“Flirtatious.”

“You’ve been getting romantic texts from a stranger,” he says like he’s trying to comprehend what the pro is telling him. 

“I don’t know that I’d call them romantic,” Shota says dryly. 

“And they know about Yamada?”

Tsukauchi is one of the few people outside of the UA staff that knows Shota is married, never mind to whom. 

“They never call him by name, but it’s obvious they know who he is. They’ve commented multiple times on his show or the events of his patrol.”

“This is dangerous,” the detective says, almost like he thinks he has to convince Shota of it. 

“We put Nedzu on it.”

The other man’s face pales - a normal reaction after dealing with the creature in any capacity - and he sits back in his chair.

“He hasn’t told us of any developments, but after he picked up Magpie when he’d been brought in, he doesn’t have to.”

“Magpie? He’s the one that’s been sending the messages?”

“When he left he told me to ‘tell your husband I said hi’. That was one of the first messages I received, and it’s how the sender addresses Hizashi.”

“And now he’s sending you coffee?” Tsukauchi asks, baffled.

“He started sending Hizashi flowers at the station a couple weeks ago.”

“ Why? ”

Shota resists the urge to throw his hands in the air and settles for shrugging instead. 

“Are you going to stop him?”

“Without Nedzu’s help, I don’t think we can. Hell, I don’t think we’re the ones he’s helping in this mess.”

“You think Nedzu - your boss and the principal of a high school - is facilitating a vigilante in flirting with you and your husband.”

“I think Nedzu - psychopathic mastermind and lunatic - is facilitating Midoriya Izuku in flirting with me and my husband,” Shota corrects. 

Boss and Principal are not all Nedzu is, and at this point Shota would put real cash money on The Rat not only helping his “dear boy” Magpie in flirting with them, but encouraging it as well. If for nothing other than entertainment. Shota knows things get weird when Nedzu is bored, and he’s always bored. 

“What do you want to do with the coffee?” Tsukauchi asks after a few silent moments.

“Toss it,” Shota says regretfully. 

The detective looks surprised. He knows exactly how much Shota appreciates a good cup of coffee.

“Flowers are one thing, but I’m not drinking that,” he explains. 

***

With the next morning comes another text.

UNKNOWN NUMBER:

did you throw away the coffee i sent you?

UNKNOWN NUMBER:

what the fuck shota

It's the first time Magpie has called him by name. It’s almost…strange to be called anything other than ‘gorgeous’ or ‘babe’ or any other epitaph the vigilante can think of and he wonders if he’s actually managed to upset the smaller man. Up until now he hasn’t seemed bothered by the lack of returned attention, but something about this exchange feels different. 

“I’m not taking his side,” Hizashi says when Shota brings it up, “but I can see where he’s coming from. It was nice coffee. He went out of his way to send it to you. And you are in the right to not drink it, or even keep it. Half of your job is being paranoid, and for all that you’ve seen his face now, we don’t know him.”

Shota sighs and tries to relax back into the couch. He should absolutely be working on lesson plans for the following week, but he also just cannot bring himself to care at the moment. Most of his attention has been trying to figure out why he feels so weird about the whole situation, and he knows Hizashi knows he’s been distracted. 

In the beginning, the messages had been concerning, mostly because they were from a stranger who knew far too much about them. And that’s still a good point - Magpie, Midoriya Izuku, whatever they call him, he is a stranger - but it’s further down the list than it was. Vigilantes operate in very grey areas of law and morality, and even though he’s had at least four and a half months of opportunity, it doesn’t seem like he’s done anything with their personal information other than flirt with them. 

Shota’s biggest problem at the moment seems to be that he’s come to enjoy the attention and is upset that he’s upset the other man. It’s illogical, and emotional, and it makes no sense to him, but Hizashi has been telling him for years that people don’t have to make sense. He knows his husband is right, he just doesn’t like it. 

“Want to tell me what you’re thinking?” the blonde offers. 

“I don’t…like that I upset him,” he says slowly. 

Hizashi sighs and shuffles over to lay down and rest his head on Shota’s thigh. 

“We probably should have talked about this a while ago, huh?”

“Probably,” he grumbles, dropping his hand down to run it through Hizashi’s hair. 

“It doesn’t bother me that someone else is hitting on you,” his husband says peacefully, “because I know you’d never do anything to hurt me. I have complete faith that you love me, and you’d never take up with another partner without us agreeing on it first. Just like we promised, like, ten years ago.”

“Never,” he promises. 

“Does it bother you that he hits on you?”

Shota takes a moment to think about it, running back through the last few months to try and track his own emotional evolution concerning the situation.

“At first,” he admits, “but it was more of an annoyance, and concern that it was a stranger.”

“And now?”

He pauses again.

“The attention is nice,” he admits. “You were the only one who ever…saw me in any kind of romantic light. Having it happen again…”

“I would like to take a brief break from this conversation to remind you that I absolutely am not the only person to ever be attracted to you,” Hizashi says lightly. “There were several people in our class in school who found you very attractive, but high schoolers are cowards and I was the only one brave enough to say anything about it.”

Shota rolls his eyes. “You had an emotional breakdown and told Tensei you had a crush on me and his solution was to lock us in a closet until something happened.”

“And it turned out great!” 

He snorts, and gathers a handful of Hizashi’s hair, straightening it out to start a simple three strand braid. 

“And that’s not what I mean.”

“Hm?”

“The other people that find me attractive, it’s surface level. You’re the only one who’s ever found me to be,” he pauses, “palatable.”

“That’s because people have shit taste,” Hizashi says bluntly. “Shota, dear, love of my life, you are one of the most terrifying people I’ve ever met. You are frighteningly intelligent, you know what you believe in and you stand by it, and I’ve seen you strangle a man with your thighs. I love you, and I love everything about you, and if other people can’t get on board with that, they can go fuck themselves.”

“Exactly.”

It’s Hizashi’s turn to pause. 

“What do you mean?”

“The messages don’t feel like surface level attraction. They feel like he means it. And I don’t know what to do about it if he does. I don’t like that I upset him, but I don’t know if it’s because I upset him or if it’s because it might end up stopping the messages. They’re nice. There’s not a lot of - outside the apartment, outside of you, the world isn’t nice, but the attention is.”

“What you do is a thankless job, Shota,” his husband says seriously. “It’s okay to find multiple points of happiness, even if those points aren’t necessarily traditional. I know you’re happy with me, with our lives, but there’s nothing wrong with trying to be happier.”

They sit in silence for a while, Shota combing through Hizashi’s hair and moving on to more complicated braids. The blonde seems content to let him process his thoughts.

“I know I can be intense.”

Hizashi snorts. “That's an understatement, babe.”

Shota yanks on the braid, not enough to hurt, but like an unspoken rebuttal. 

“I guess I’m wondering…why.”

“Why he’s interested in you?”

“Hm.”

“Well, you are very handsome, and you’re a great hero, but,” Hizashi shrugs, “I don’t know. I’ve never met him. You’ve barely met him. He seems to know a lot more about us than we do about him - which, Nedzu is involved, so I’m not surprised. Maybe if you want to know more, you should actually talk to him.”

“You’d be…okay with that?”

“I’d like to meet him, too,” Hizashi says. “If he’s going to flirt with my husband the least he can do is meet me for coffee.”

“He’s been flirting with you, too,” Shota reminds him. 

“That’s different.”

“How so?” 

“It seems less…focused? When it’s directed at me. Like, if he wants to flirt with me the same way, why is he doing it through you? He got your personal number somehow, why couldn’t he get mine?” 

“Maybe you should ask him,” Shota says dryly.

“Maybe I will,” he says, but it sounds more considering than teasing.

***

There are no texts over the next week. 

Shota tries not to think about it.

***

There are no flowers on Monday. 

Hizashi tries not to show how disappointed he is, but they’ve known each other for almost fifteen years, and he isn’t nearly as good an actor as he thinks he is.

***

Shota decides the best distraction is to pick up extra patrols. Not exactly the best for his already erratic sleep schedule, but he’s spent the last three nights staring up at the ceiling. At least if he’s on the street he can do some good. 

Or get stabbed. That works, too.

Shota can’t say he wasn’t taken by surprise because if he’d seen the guy he wouldn’t be bleeding from a moderately deep gash along the back of his shoulder. It’s stupid, dumb luck that he’d avoided taking the blade through the neck. 

The man across the alley holds his knife like he might know what to do with it; whatever his quirk is doesn’t seem to be combat applicable because he doesn’t react to having it erased. He’s slighter than Shota, but taller, with a longer reach and the advantage of not actively losing blood. 

Shota has to consider his options carefully. Depending on how deep the wound actually is, he could do even worse damage if he’s not deliberate in his movements. A close quarters fight won’t go well for him, not with this wound, not against this opponent, and his capture scarf is out as well; it requires too much flexibility and dexterity and he can already feel the fingers on his left hand going numb. 

He is quickly running out of options, and the asshole with the knife is running out of patience even quicker. 

“Where are your manners, Kido?” asks a cold, metallic voice. 

The man with the knife flinches and turns toward the mouth of the alley, but Shota doesn’t take his eyes off him. 

“Y-you stay over there!” he demands. “You don’t scare me, Magpie! I don’t have to listen to you!”

“You know the rules,” Magpie says.

Shota still hasn’t turned to look at him, but he can hear the fury through the voice modulator. The vigilante doesn’t move - hasn’t since he first spoke - but Kido backs up a few shaky steps anyway, Shota completely forgotten. 

“Fuck you!” he spits, holding the knife out like it’s some kind of shield instead of a weapon. “Fuck you!”

Magpie takes a single step into the shadow of the alley, and Kido draws up into himself like a child afraid to be disciplined by a particularly heavy-handed parent. 

“Drop it.”

The knife hits the pavement without hesitation. 

“Sit down.”

Kido collapses, practically dropping to the ground, knees hitting concrete so hard Shota is surprised his kneecaps are still intact. Magpie watches for a moment, and the other man cowers, shoulders hunching to become as small as possible. 

“If you make me chase you,” Magpie says, “I take a tooth for every step. Am I understood?”

Kido nods frantically.

Shota leans heavily against the wall behind him and finally lets his gaze slide over to the smaller man. He’s closer than he should be, and he’s unsure if that’s a testament to the vigilante’s stealth, or if it’s proof he’s hemorrhaging faster than he thought. 

Magpie presses into his space, and Shota doesn’t have the wherewithal to stop him. His fingers are numb, and his vision is watery, and in the haze that is mostly blood loss and exhaustion, he is keenly aware of who this man is and what he is capable of.

“Look at you,” Magpie says softly. He ghosts gloved fingers up Shota’s neck to tilt his chin back until his head is resting against the wall; he knows he’s delirious when he thinks he can feel the warmth of the vigilante’s fingers through the rough fabric. “Aren’t you a sight?”

They stay like that for a moment. Shota exposed and vulnerable, Magpie resting his hand around his throat. 

“Tsukauchi is on his way,” Magpie says, finally dropping his hand and stepping away. It makes Shota’s stomach drop for some reason he is far too light headed to think about. “Told him you’d need medical attention. They’re about three minutes out.” 

He steps closer to Kido, who hasn’t so much as looked in their direction again. He flinches back when Magpie looms over him and says,

“You’re going to stay here and let the detective arrest you, aren’t you?” 

For all the voice modulator is cold and robotic, he still manages to sound patronizing, like he’s explaining a simple concept to a child who refuses to see reason. 

Kido nods and keeps nodding even as Magpie pats him on the cheek and steps away. 

“Magpie,” Shota rasps. His eyes are dry and he will not be standing for much longer. 

“Have a good night, Eraserhead.”

And he’s gone. 

Shota tries to chalk the overwhelming feeling of loss and bitterness and heartbreak up to his injuries, but he’s never been good at lying to himself. 

***

Hizashi picks him up from the hospital. He’s sore and disgusting, but his wounds have been closed and scabbed over thanks to a very gracious visit from Recovery Girl. She’d even allowed him to escape without smacking him in the shins for being stupid. 

“I called you off from patrol for the next few nights,” Hizashi says when Shota’s managed to slump down into the couch. 

If he’s lucky, he might be able to get a cat nap in before they have to leave for class. 

“Thanks,” he says. 

“Tsukauchi said Magpie was there.”

It’s not really a question, but it is an opening. 

“Yeah,” Shota sighs. 

There’s a long silence as Shota tries to compile his thoughts in some kind or order, the only sound from Hizashi as he putters around the kitchen. 

“He was different,” Shota finally decides.

“Different how?”

“He was distant, cold. He didn’t talk much. Normally,” he snorts at the word choice; nothing about Magpie has ever been ‘normal’, “he never stops talking, even when he’s being chased. Even in the middle of a fight.”

Shota hasn’t had too many occasions where he’d responded to a call quickly enough for the vigilante to still be at the scene, but the times he has are memorable. He’s fast, he’s intelligent, and he’s a chatterbox . Twice Shota has caught him giving combat advice mid-fight like he’d been trying to coach his opponent into being a better assailant. 

“Maybe because it was you,” Hizashi suggests.

“What do you mean?”

Shota wants to cross his arms, but he’s already tried once and it pulls at the scabs on his shoulder. 

“Well,” he says, putting away the last of the clean mugs and closing the cabinet, “he’s been pretty clear he holds some kind of affection for you. If I’d been there, I’d have been angry at the situation, too - I am, actually, but I wasn’t there to respond in the moment.”

Hizashi leaves the kitchen to stand behind Shota on the couch, and the brunette lets out a breath he didn’t know he’d been holding when his husband starts to comb his fingers through his hair. 

“And it was lucky.”

“Lucky?” he mumbles.

“That he found you. What if he hadn’t? What if he’d been a few minutes later? The thought scares me, and I know you’re alright. In the moment I would have been terrified.”

Shota hums. Hizashi starts braiding his hair. 

“He touched me,” Shota admits.

His husband’s hands still for barely a moment before continuing on. 

“How?”

He doesn’t want Hizashi to stop playing with his hair, but there isn’t a good way to describe the action to him, so Shota tugs on his hand until he circles the couch and takes a seat across his lap, knees on either side of his hips to get as close as possible. Shota skates his fingers up Hizashi’s throat and tips his head back with his thumb. 

“Told me I was a sight,” he says quietly. 

He drops his hand down to the blonde’s hip; Hizashi looks down at him. 

“Well that’s…intimate.”

Shota hums in agreement. 

“He said Tsukauchi was on his way, and he left.”

Hizashi reaches up to thread his fingers back through his hair, and Shota doesn’t hesitate to let his head drop onto his collarbone to give him better access. 

“I miss him,” Shota whispers. “It’s stupid, but I miss him.”

***

The next two days of classes are rough. 

He’s still recovering from his wound because Chiyo says he’s too exhausted for another healing, and the heartache from Magpie turning his back on him and leaving is still fresh. He’s frustrated at himself for feeling that way at all, but something about the smaller man has managed to burrow under his skin over the last few months. 

He doesn’t think he’s wrong in what he told Hizashi: people only find him attractive until they spend time around him. He was nine the first time someone called him unsettling, and it’s a descriptor that followed him through school and into his career. His husband says it’s because most people can’t focus like he can, can’t pick apart a problem until it unravels itself, but Shota knows it’s also because of his quirk. Meeting someone that can take away the thing that makes you special must be terrifying. 

But Magpie has spent time around him. He’s been the subject of Shota’s unsettling focus. Their cat and mouse game through the streets of Musutafu has been going on for years, and it hasn’t seemed to deter the younger man in any way. 

Maybe that’s what makes the loss so sharp. Maybe something in Shota hoped that someone - for the first time since his husband - could look at him and decide that what everyone else found to be faults were actually strengths. Maybe, after all the years scouring alleys and finding victims and getting knocked down and getting up again and again and again, it was the kindness. 

***

By Monday morning, the scabs on Shota’s shoulder are itchy and peeling. His mood isn’t helped by the lack of sleep or his class’s awareness that he is not in top form; he’s had more teenagers testing his patience in the last week than he has the rest of the semester. Ectoplasm is probably plotting his demise just for the uptick in the detentions he’s handing out. 

Nemuri meets them in the hall by the staff room and seems ready to vibrate out of her skin, but brushes off Hizashi’s questions about it. It is immediately obvious, however, what she is excited about. 

There are flowers on Hizashi’s desk - gardenias and violets - and a bag of coffee beans on Shota’s, the same brand and roast that had been delivered to the police station, the same that Shota had reluctantly tossed. 

There haven’t been any new messages from Magpie, and there are no notes attached to either of the gifts.

Shota very calmly sets his to-go cup on his desk, picks up the beans, and walks back out of the staff room. He hears a faint, “Don’t,” as his husband warns their coworkers to let him go.

The door to Nedzu’s office is already open when he arrives - something The Rat does to make them all uncomfortable - but Shota doesn’t let it stop him. 

He sets the beans on Nedzu’s desk. “Why?”

“Please be more specific, Shota-kun,” the creature says, whiskers pointed forward in the approximation of a human smile.

“Why is Magpie sending us gifts?”

“I’m afraid human courting rituals are beyond my purview,” he says, though with less amusement than expected. “However, most species offer gifts to prospective mates in hopes of solidifying some kind of relationship. He’s found you both quite suitable.”

“You’re enabling him.”

“Of course,” he admits freely. “I am as inclined as any other father to see his progeny succeed.”

Shota stops breathing. 

Progeny. 

Progeny?

“Progeny,” Shota says blankly.

Nedzu doesn’t respond, but his whiskers tremble like he’s holding back a laugh. 

Shota shoves the thought of The Rat God finding someone worthy enough to be called his offspring into the deepest corner of his mind, and hides it behind the worst of his other memories: his first murder case, Hizashi’s mother passing, the accident in their second year. It is a gut-dropping thought, this chaotic mastermind of lawless manipulation and absence of human ethics and morals taking in and claiming someone as his own, and he isn’t sure he has the physical, emotional, mental, or spiritual fortitude to process the idea, never mind admit to the reality. 

“What does he want?” Shota asks, and something in his voice or on his face must clue Nedzu in that he needs a clearer answer than what he’s been given. 

“You should ask him,” Nedzu says. “Far be it from me to speak for my son.”

***

“So,” says the last voice Shota wants to hear right now, “a little birdie told me there’s been some drama on the back streets of Musutafu recently.”

He groans. “Who called him? Why?”

“Hey, fuck you,” Oboro says good naturedly, leaning over the back of the couch to grin down at the brunette. “I’m a delight!”

Shota is glad Hizashi called him off from patrol the next few nights because he’s going to need so much more alcohol than he’s already had to even begin this conversation. 

“I did,” Tensei says freely. “Figured this required the entire Council.”

“Traitor.”

“I flew all the way from Tokyo to get treated like this?” Oboro asks, jumping up like he’s going to land his full weight on Shota, but softening the blow with a cloud. “It’s cold out, you know? And clouds are, by composition, damp.”

“Wouldn’t have had to fly in if you hadn't left,” Nemuri mutters bitterly.

Oboro going so far has been and continues to be a sore spot for most of them, cloud boy included.

“It’s only for a year,” he whines. “I can take it! Please don’t make me any more miserable than I am!”

“Be miserable,” she says unforgivingly. “Just like the rest of us.”

“I’m not miserable,” Hizashi chimes. “I know you’re coming home.”

“Thank you!” Oboro says. “Someone with sense! Besides! Tensei’s in Hosu!”

“That’s a forty minute train ride,” the accused says. “Bit shorter than four hours.”

“And he comes around regularly,” Nemuri says. “We haven’t seen you in two months!”

“You try arguing with Jet Setter!” he complains. “Man believes in working twelve days straight and taking half a day to recover!”

“I’ve never worked a day straight in my life,” Nemuri says, followed by groans from the rest of her friends. She laughs and says, “You should all appreciate my humor.”

“You’re such a dad, though,” Tensei says.

“I’m a lesbian,” she says.

“With total dad energy,” he argues. 

“I’d like to call this meeting to order,” Hizashi says, tapping his can on the table and interrupting a fresh bitching session among them. “The three of you need to call off on emergencies tonight because Shota has news and it’s awful and we’re going to need so much booze.”

“Is someone dying?” Tensei asks immediately.

“I want to,” Shota mutters, but his husband whacks him on the knee.

“No one is dying,” the blonde says. 

“I’m already off the next two days,” Oboro says. 

It doesn’t take long for the other two to alert their respective teams that they will be unavailable for the next twenty-four hours. There are always other heroes on call, of course, but the less time wasted looking for backup in an emergency situation the better. 

“Okay,” Nemuri says, passing a beer to their cloudy friend and opening a new one of her own. “Hit us with it.”

Shota figures the best way to get it over with is to just rip the bandage off.

“Nedzu has a son.”

He’s glad they rolled up their living room rug because both Tensei and Nemuri immediately start choking on their beverages, dribbling the cheap beer on the floor. Oboro, who hadn’t had a chance to take a sip, upends his can and chugs until it’s gone. Hizashi has already had his freak out, Shota having warned him as soon as they were home. 

“What the fuck , Shota!” Nemuri coughs. “What do you mean he has a son ?”

“You should probably start at the beginning,” Hizashi recommends. “I think Tensei and Oboro only know the basics.”

Shota turns an unhappy look at his husband.

The blonde sighs. “So we all know Shota has been getting anonymous texts from a prospective paramour.”

“Don’t call him that,” he grumbles.

“He’s hitting on my husband,” Hizashi says reasonably. “I’ll call him what I want.”

“He’s hitting on you, too,” Nemuri says.

“Whoa, hold on,” Oboro interrupts; Tensei looks interested, as well. “You didn’t tell us they were hitting on you, too. When did that start?”

“From the beginning,” Nemuri says. “And he didn’t tell me either. Shota dropped that bomb.”

“Yes, sure, he’s hitting on me, too,” Hizashi says. “It’s not as serious; his focus is mainly on Shota. Anyway . I’m sure we are also all aware of the vigilante that Shota’s been chasing for the last few years, Magpie.”

“Yes, we know all about his cat and mouse game,” Nemuri says. “What does this have to do with The Rat God having a son ?”

“Six weeks ago,” Shota says, taking over for his husband, staring up at the ceiling so he doesn’t have to make eye contact with anyone, “we had Magpie in custody. He called Nedzu to come bail him out, and the Rat did . When he left he said ‘tell your husband I said hi’.”

“That’s how all of the texts to me have been phrased,” Hizashi chimes. 

“So the vigilante you’ve been chasing for four years,” Tensei says slowly, “called the scariest living creature on the planet to come bail him out of jail. And he complied.”

“Yeah.”

“And then he started sending…gifts,” his husband says.

“Gifts,” Oboro echoes.

Nemuri hasn’t said anything, but she looks like she’s slowly going through all five stages of grief. 

“He started sending flowers to Hizashi’s office the Monday after he was released,” Shota says, “and two weeks after that he sent a bag of coffee to the station.”

“Is that where the coffee on your desk came from?” Nemuri asks.

“Shota didn’t keep it - underground paranoia and all that - and it really upset Magpie. Things were a little tense.”

“That’s why you’ve been so morose?” she demands. “You fucked things up with your boyfriend?”

“ Not my boyfriend,” Shota says.

“Yet,” she mutters, but not quietly enough.

“Why didn’t you tell me about this?” Oboro asks the room, but the question is mostly directed at Shota.

While the five of them are as close of friends as they’ve ever had - and even though two of them are married to each other - Shota and Oboro have always been a little closer. It’s been difficult for the both of them, being so far apart. 

“We’ve been having emotions,” Hizashi says.

It’s a roundabout way of saying that Shota has been having emotions he’s been having to talk about outloud with his own mouth and that he’s been struggling with it. It isn’t an unfair or incorrect statement, so Shota lets it stand because arguing will just make everything worse at this point. 

“Okay,” Tensei says. “So we’ve been having feelings about the vigilante Nedzu himself deigned to bail out of custody. Are they good feelings?”

“No, hold on,” Nemuri says. “Before we get to the feelings part of tonight, I’d like some clarification. You’re telling us that Nedzu claimed the vigilante you’ve been chasing as his son?”

“Yeah. I asked him why Magpie was sending us gifts.”

Oboro snorts.

“Excuse me for asking for my own clarification,” he says, kicking at his best friend’s knee. “Nedzu said that Magpie had found Hizashi and I ‘suitable’ and that he was helping him because he is, and I quote, ‘inclined as any other father to see his progeny succeed’.”

“I cannot believe this is about to come out of my own mouth,” Tensei says, “but if Nedzu is helping someone he considers his child to woo you and Hizashi, that means Nedzu also finds you ‘suitable’ in some capacity.”

“Oh my god,” Oboro says faintly. “Nedzu is going to be your father-in-law .”

“ No ,” Shota immediately denies; Hizashi chokes on his own beer hard enough that Nemuri has to smack him on the back a few times. 

“You’re having feelings ,” he argues. “Romantic ones.”

“They’re not romantic.”

“They’re not not romantic,” Hizashi says. “We are very solidly in crush territory.”

“We?” Oboro asks.

“What?” the blond grins, completely unashamed. “I can’t have a crush on the man hitting on my husband?”

“You two are a fucking wreck,” Nemuri says.

“So they are good feelings?” Tensei asks again.

“They’re not bad,” Shota grumbles into his own drink. 

“So we’re having not bad not not romantic feelings for Nedzu’s vigilante son,” Oboro summarizes, stretching out the cloud he’s been sitting on so he can lounge. He turns himself to fully face Shota, and grins in the same unsettling way the brunette knows he does when he’s about to tear a case open. Oboro had to learn it from someone. “Tell us about him. What’s he like?”

“Fuck that,” Nemuri says, cracking the seal on another beer. “You said he was in custody. Did he take off his mask? Is he pretty?”

“What’s his name?” Tensei asks, keeping his voice even and conversational like he’s any more sane than the rest of them. 

“Yes,” Hizashi says gleefully, “tell us more about our new boyfriend.”

***

After both far too much and not nearly enough booze, their friends shuffled onto spare futons crowded together in the living room, Shota rolls himself over so he’s laying across Hizashi’s chest, ear pressed over his heart. 

“Nemuri was right,” he says.

“About what?” Hizashi asks, already mostly asleep.

“He is pretty.”

***

Shota can’t say the situation isn’t weighing on his mind. Despite drinking too much with his friends and husband and letting his alcohol-loose tongue hold court to spill his feelings about everything with far more ease than he would have himself, he hasn’t actually untangled any of the strings that have hooked themselves around him and Hizashi and Magpie. 

He doesn't know if what he feels for or about Magpie qualifies as a crush because he doesn’t actually know the other man. But then the question becomes: does he want to know the other man? And his answer isn’t automatically no. 

And despite the fact that they haven’t had a conversation strictly about either one of them taking up with the vigilante, Hizashi has made it clear that it’s Shota’s choice to pursue or evade. 

And maybe that’s what’s holding Shota up. Hizashi seems to think that the majority of Magpie’s attention is for him, and that he’s only being sweet on the blonde to keep from stepping on his toes, but Shota isn’t so sure. No, Magpie hasn’t gone to the lengths of acquiring Hizashi’s personal phone number like he had with Shota’s, but he’s also made it clear that he finds Shota’s husband just as attractive. 

And Nedzu said Magpie had found them both ‘suitable’.

***

“Do you think he’ll…like them?” Shota asks.

He’d spent a week waffling over the decision, and then another four days with dread sitting in his stomach while trying to pick out an adequate gift for the vigilante despite knowing next to nothing about him. Hizashi had suggested a couple of things, and they’d finally settled on a pair of kevlar lined gloves. Shota had noticed that Magpie’s were in rough shape during their last…encounter. 

Not that he spent much time thinking about it. 

“Yes, but even if he doesn’t, I think he’ll appreciate the effort more,” Hizashi says. 

Shota tucks the gloves into a pocket on his utility belt. It’s his first patrol back after nearly being skewered and Magpie coming to his rescue, and while he isn’t nervous about his shift, he can admit - even if it’s just to himself and Hizashi - that he’s a fair bit anxious about the gift. 

“Be safe, come home,” Hizashi says, kissing him on his way out the window. 

Magpie isn’t known to haunt one particular area of Musutafu over another, appearing wherever he sees fit to apply his attention, but Shota’s usual patrol routes are normally south of the city center. It’s a rougher part of the city, especially nearer the docks and waterfront warehouses, that lends itself to baser crimes like drugs and assault and robbery than the nicer areas roamed by limelights and the camera crews that follow them around. Shota is much more likely to deal with an everyday criminal than someone who actually qualifies as a villain. 

It’s still early in his rounds - creeping up on the back side of midnight - when Shota decides he probably isn’t going to see the vigilante. Hardly does the smaller man pass up an opportunity to bother Shota as soon as possible if they’re in the same area, even if it’s just to wave at him before disappearing back into the shadows in a way the pro has never been able to track. 

Plan B - dictated by his husband - is to leave the gift on a roof in an area Magpie has been to before and text him the coordinates. Shota had argued that the vigilante would probably suspect a trap, but the blonde had countered that he could wait until the sun was up and the streets occupied before checking it out. He’d relented, and hopes that the gloves are left unbothered. It probably wouldn’t send the right message if Magpie showed up to an empty rooftop at Shota’s request. 

AIZAWA SHOTA:

35.64116457521132, 139.8130968024795

***

UNKNOWN NUMBER:

<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3

***

“I think he likes them,” Shota says dryly, offering his phone to his husband, screen open to the message thread with Magpie.

There are half a dozen messages, all sent within minutes of each other, displaying various and varying amounts of heart emojis. 

“Good!” his husband says. 

His smile is bright enough that Shota finds himself echoing it, though to a far lesser degree.

“Now…what?”

“You could text him back,” he says. 

“And say what?” 

Hizashi snorts. “Tell him he’s pretty. Send him a picture of one of the hundreds of stray cats you’ve met. Ask him if he wants to choke on your cock.”

Shota nearly inhales the noodles he’s just shoved in his mouth.

“Hizashi!” he hisses.

“What?” the blonde asks, completely unrepentant. “He offered.”

He doesn’t have a response to that so he turns from his husband and goes back to his dinner, face hot, ears surely reddening. 

“You don’t have to do anything special, Sho,” he says. “He already likes you.”

Hizashi is right, of course, but that doesn’t mean that there isn’t the urge to reciprocate. Magpie has done all the heavy lifting so far, and all Shota has done is upset him and offer a measly apology gift. 

Though, now that he's given himself permission, Shota is finding that he doesn't actually know how to flirt with someone who isn't his husband. Actually, he's not good at that, either. Hizashi had done all the initiating in the early days of their relationship, even if - technically - Tensei had been the one to take the first step for them. The months of gloating from the older man is the number one reason he and Hizashi hadn’t told the rest of their friends Magpie’s real name. The last thing they need is one of them - or, heaven forbid, all three of them - thinking a repeat performance is a grand idea that won’t end in an apocalyptic disaster.

***

With their apparent reconciliation comes an influx of new messages. 

Flirtatious, salacious, and affectionate in turn, Shota is never sure what chaos his inbox will be when he has a moment to check his personal phone. 

UNKNOWN NUMBER:

i think thirty-seven collars in a night is record for you thats hot

UNKNOWN NUMBER:

i want to touch you without gloves next time

UNKNOWN NUMBER:

i bet your hand would look good around my throat

And there are still the ones addressed to Hizashi.

UNKNOWN NUMBER:

tell your husband i think hed look pretty in my bed

UNKNOWN NUMBER:

tell your husband id let him step on me in those boots

UNKNOWN NUMBER:

tell your husband he looks like he gives the best hugs

***

Shota can’t say he doesn’t know why his husband calls him. Hizashi knows he hates talking on the phone; their usual exception is emergencies or something that needs immediate attention, but even those calls are far and few between. The most recent exception has come to be Magpie, and while he still dislikes answering his husband’s ringtone, he can’t say he isn’t interested in any kind of development. 

“He sent flowers,” Hizashi says. 

That’s nothing new, and it shouldn’t warrant a call.

“And?” Shota prompts. 

“And a bracelet.”

Hiz phone vibrates with an incoming text, and he drops it from his ear to get a look at the picture he’s been sent. The bracelet is pretty, delicate and silver; there’s a dark green music note charm dangling near the clasp.

“It’s nice,” he says.

“Should I…keep it?”

“Do you want to?”

Shota suddenly feels like their positions have been reversed. Up until now it’s been Hizashi walking him though accepting the vigilante’s gifts and attention.

“Yeah,” the blonde says softly.

“Then what’s the problem?”

Hizashi hesitates, then says, “I don’t have a problem with anything he’s given you, but it just seems…strange? That he’s giving me things, too.”

“Hm?”

“I didn’t think he was actually flirting with me,” he admits.

“Why?”

“We’ve never met. He only talks to me through you. The flowers seemed,” he pauses again, considering his words, “placating.”

“You think he’s being nice to you so he can hit on me.”

“Thought,” Hizashi corrects. “I think he might like me, too.”

Shota can’t help the short bark of laughter that escapes.

“Shut up,” he grumbles. “How was I supposed to know he was serious about it?”

“We have his phone number. You could have asked.”

“Yes,” Hizashi says sarcastically, “because you immediately asked for clarification when he started messaging us in the first place. You said I wasn’t allowed to flirt back!”

“We didn’t know who he was,” Shota reasons. “Now we do and that he’s related to Nedzu .”

“So I’m allowed to flirt back?”

“If you want.”

“I…might want.”

“Then do.”

***

Shota waits a week for Hizashi to make a decision about whether or not he’s going to message Magpie, and then decides he’s going to have to be an adult for once and actually talk about his feelings with someone who isn’t his husband. 

He has a double patrol lined up for Thursday night, and he only lets himself hesitate for a moment before texting Magpie another set of coordinates and a time. He only hopes the vigilante will show and keep from spooking when he realizes it’s Shota waiting for him and not another gift. 

***

“This is a surprise,” says a cold, robotic voice that absolutely does not set Shota’s stomach in a knot. 

Magpie is less disheveled than he normally sees him. There are no rips or blood staining his suit, like it’s either new or he hasn’t encountered anything he’d deemed needed his intervention. 

“Figured we should talk,” Shota says.

Now that the vigilante is right here in front of him, his mouth has gone dry and he’s forgotten half of what’s brought them to this point. 

“There’s no cameras that capture this particular rooftop,” Magpie says.

“No,” he confirms. 

“Thoughtful.”

He shoves his hood back and peels off his mask, baring the same green eyes and freckles he’d revealed while in custody. He looks both better and worse off; he’s either healed well from the stab wound or is very good at faking it, but the shadows under his eyes rival Shota’s and that’s never a good thing. 

Magpie stalks towards him, but Shota doesn’t move. If whatever they're doing is going to hold, he can’t be afraid that the vigilante might strike out at him, even if his instincts are whispering that that is a predator and he should be cautious. He stops right before the toes of their boots touch, gazing up at Shota like he’s captivated at being allowed so close.

Shota looks right back, and quickly realizes that Magpie is actually a little taller than he seems, though he still has to tilt his head down to look the other man in the eye. It’s almost like he’s used to making himself smaller. Shota doesn’t expect the quick flare of anger that thought brings.

“And what,” Magpie breathes, barely above a whisper, “would you like to talk about?”

“Intent,” Shota says because he doesn't know what else to call it. 

Whatever they’ve been doing is far beyond casual, but it hasn’t been defined in any concrete way. It would help - both Shota and Hizashi - to know what the other man actually wants; he knows they’d both be a mess if someone they were interested in, who showed interest in return, never intended to take either of them seriously, if they were only in it for entertainment and were planning to leave as soon as they found them boring or too familiar in some way. 

“Intent,” Magpie echoes. 

“This won’t work if it’s just…one of us. It’s both or neither,” he says bluntly. 

Falling back on brusque straightforwardness has been Shota’s backup plan since he was old enough to understand most other people depend on unspoken social rules that have never made much sense to him. 

Magpie blinks at him.

“Of course it’s both of you,” he says, both as a statement and with a small amount of surprise. His eyes have widened the slightest bit, lost the calm coolness he puts forward as a vigilante. “I didn’t realize I hadn’t made that clear.”

Shota thinks about his reply for a moment; the last thing he wants is to put words in his husband’s mouth.

“Hizashi thought you were sending him flowers and being nice to him so he wouldn’t be upset about anything else.”

Magpie - though Shota supposes at this point he isn’t talking to the vigilante, but to Midoriya - jerks back a little. He drops his gaze down and to the side.

“Why?” he asks softly, eyes locked closer to Shota’s elbow than his face.

“You only talk to him through me. You managed to find my personal number, but not his.”

Midoriya’s mouth folds into a frown. “We’ve never met,” he says. “I thought it would be rude. Who wants messages from a stranger?”

Shota’s eyebrow ticks up.

“We were strangers when you started messaging me.”

“No, we weren’t,” the smaller man protests. “We’d met, we’d spoken.”

“I didn’t know your name until two months ago.”

“Names aren’t everything,” Midoriya says, and something about the statement strikes Shota, like it means something deeper that he doesn’t understand. “Actions are a better judge of character than who we think we are. I knew who you were before we’d ever spoken.”

Shota isn’t sure what he means by that, but he says it with such conviction that he almost believes him. 

“Explain,” he says.

Midoriya worries his lip between his teeth, eyes still lowered. “You put more effort and pride into being a hero than most of the pros I’ve met. You don’t give up just because evidence goes cold. You check on the victims of the cases you work and you put them in contact with people who can help when you can’t. You always make time for your students and your friends, even at the expense of your own health. You care, and above all you are kind.”

Shota sucks in a breath, mouth dry as he tries to make himself understand the faith this man has in him.

“And I can’t imagine you’d settle for marrying anyone who didn’t reflect your beliefs, so maybe I don’t know your husband as well as you, but I want to.” Midoriya shrugs, eyes still lowered. “Everything else is just details.”

Shota stares down at the smaller man in something close to wonder. It’s a wild thought that someone - anyone - has come to the conclusion that he’s compassionate or considerate in any capacity; he knows he’s never been considered the nicest person, too candid and plainspoken for most people’s tastes. Even other underground heroes he’s worked with have told him he’s an acquired taste. 

“Plus,” Midoriya says, clearing his throat and interrupting Shota’s small crisis, “it doesn’t hurt that you can strangle me with your thighs.”

***

Shota crawls through the window thirty minutes before Hizashi’s alarm is set to go off. He sits down to unlace his boots, hangs his capture scarf on the hook his husband put up specifically for that purpose, and crawls onto the mattress, nudging the other man until he rolls over and squints up at him.

Ears? Shota signs, a question since sometimes Hizashi likes to spend his mornings in silence.

The blond reaches over for one of his aides and hooks it around his ear.

“What’s wrong?” he mumbles.

“I made a mistake,” Shota says, leaning forward to brace his arms on either side of Hizashi’s head so he can give him a - frankly gross and smelly - good morning kiss. 

“What happened?”

“I talked to Midoriya last night.”

Hizashi quirks an eyebrow at the use of the other man’s real name; up until now they’ve only ever called him by his vigilante moniker. 

“You’re very bad at this,” he teases, soft eyed and smiling. “Spit it out. What’s our future boyfriend done now?”

“He said he’s sorry he didn’t make it clearer that he wants to date us both. He doesn’t use your phone number because you’ve never met and he thought it would be rude. He thinks it’s hot that we could easily murder him.”

Hizashi’s eyes are wide and his face is reddening, blotchy down his neck. Shota half collapses to lay on top of him, tucking his face in his husband’s shoulder. 

“Oh,” he says, but he sounds hoarse, “okay.”

“We should take him out for coffee,” he mutters, lips brushing against Hizashi’s collar bone. 

The blonde pauses. “Just for coffee?”

“Well lit public space,” Shota says, half slurring as he closes his eyes. “Somewhere not too busy. He’ll probably tail us home, stake out the apartment, figure out our routines; might get a hold of the building schematics, decide whether or not we could stage an ambush in such tight quarters.”

“What the fuck, Sho,” Hizashi says.

Shota's shoulders move in what would be a shrug if he wasn’t currently trying to become one with their mattress through his husband.

“It’s what I would do.”

***

Hizashi adds an appointment to their joint calendar for their next day off, titling it “NEW BF DATE” just in case Shota didn’t understand the directions of “I made reservations, make sure he’s there.”

AIZAWA SHOTA:

My husband says to be here at noon. Don’t be late.

He follows the text up with an address.

UNKNOWN NUMBER:

is this a trap?

AIZAWA SHOTA:

It’s a date. Don’t wear anything nice.

***

Shota thinks it’s the height of irony that Hizashi demanded he and Midoriya be on time - like Shota’s ever been late for something in his life - and is now running late himself. 

Cafe - the literal name of the place - is a modest cat cafe, scaled back from the flashy places in Musutafu proper that tend to attract teenagers and parents with small children. It contracts with a local shelter so all their cats are up for adoption, and the only thing keeping Shota from picking one out every time they visit is that if they’re too busy for Hizashi’s fancy espresso machine, they’re far too busy to take care of something that needs to be fed.

The girl behind the counter spots him from the large front window and has his usual order ready before he makes it inside.

“Is Yamada-san coming?” she asks.

“He’s running late.”

“Still a reservation for three?”

“Yeah.”

“Cool. You know the rules. No outside toys, don’t feed the cats, let them come to you, etc., etc. Have fun.”

She turns back to the book propped on the register and leaves him to make his own way into the enclosure. There’s a couple sitting at one of the far tables chatting quietly, but Shota turns from them and selects one of the deep, wide, sinfully comfortable couches. A fat calico with a round face is stepping into his lap before he even sets his drink down on the side table. 

The chime of the door opening again makes Shota look up. Midoriya has just stepped inside looking nervous and like he might bolt any moment. He’d probably been waiting outside until Shota showed up, but the brunette is distracted from the thought by what is probably the worst shirt he’s ever seen in his life. It’s a garish neon tie-dyed t-shirt with holes in the collar and hem; the front of it reads ‘Nice Shirt’. The younger man is also wearing a pair of running shorts - bright blue -, a compression shirt - neon green - and leggings - black. 

Midoriya speaks to the girl at the counter - Shota feels a little bad he can never remember her name - and she directs him to the enclosure. His eyes find Shota before he’s stepped to the door, and he only hesitates a moment before stepping inside. 

“That has got to be the ugliest shirt I’ve ever seen,” he says.

Midoriya’s face starts to turn red. “You told me not to wear anything nice.”

“I didn’t mean to go out and find the worst thing you could.”

“I like this shirt!”

“Really?” Shota asks. “You dress like this on purpose?”

“Your hero costume is practically pajamas!” Midoriya says indignantly. 

“It allows for ease of movement,” he says. 

Something about Shota’s face must clue Midoriya that he’s teasing because his shoulders loosen just a little. 

“Do you want a cat?” Shota offers.

“Yes,” he says mulishly, sitting on the opposite end of the same couch Shota had chosen.

Shota is about to offer him the fat calico, but a smaller kitten takes the opportunity first, climbing into Midoriya’s lap and shoving their head under his hand. It makes him relax further into the fabric, hands carding through the kitten’s long hair. Shota uses the opportunity to get a better look at him under bright light instead of whatever street lamp they’re closest to on patrol.

His hair is still very green and curly, but it isn’t as dark as sweat and his hood had made him believe. His face is splattered with freckles, slightly rounded like he hasn’t managed to lose the last of his baby fat despite being an accomplished almost-hero. His mouth is plush, but dry and cracking on one side; there are several piercings in the lobes of his ears, though none of the jewelry dangles. All in all - despite the ugly shirt - Midoriya is a very pretty young man. 

“Where’s Y-yamada-san?” he asks.

The stutter keeps Shota silent for a second, unexpected as it is. He’s never seen Midoriya less than confident in his every move, but - he reasons to himself - that may just be the difference between the man and the vigilante.

“Running late,” Shota says dryly. “He got called into the station for a meeting with the new manager. Cross your fingers we don’t have to go bail him out of lock up.”

“They…don’t get along?”

“She’s new, and she wants to change things that don’t need to be changed. Hizashi thinks it’s some kind of power move.”

Shota hasn’t taken his eye off of Midoriya even though his hands have been busy with the fat calico. Midoriya, on the other hand, has barely glanced at him, eyes locked on the kitten sprawled out on his legs. 

“You should call him Hizashi,” Shota says.

Midoriya glances up at him quickly, then drops his eyes back to the cat. 

“Should probably call me Shota, too.”

His shoulders hike up a little.

“You don’t have to.”

“I w-want - ”

He’s interrupted by an over dramatic gasp that Shota is intimately familiar with. Hizashi has just stepped into the cat enclosure; he’s dressed casually and his hair is down, and he looks like someone just told him there’s no more music in the world. 

“Oh, no,” he says woefully. “Nemuri was right .”

The kitten in Midoriya’s lap squeaks in protest when he scoops them up to use as some kind of shield. 

“Hizashi - ” Shota starts because his husband is making the other man nervous and that’s the exact opposite of what they’re trying to do.

“You are pretty.”

Midoriya stills, half stood from the couch.

“W-what?” he chirps.

“Nemuri bet me you’d be, like, super pretty, and she was right! Now I owe her a bottle of wine and a week of the good coffee from home.”

“Hizashi,” Shota says sharply, “stop betting with my coffee .”

“Y-you didn’t thi-ink I’d be…uh-h?” Midoriya stumbles out. 

The husbands turn to him; his shoulders are tense, brow creased. Hizashi softens some. 

“No, I bet Nemuri you’d be handsome, like Shota, but she was right and I’m going to bring her so much coffee.”

“They bet on everything,” Shota explains, “and Hizashi always loses.”

“What else are we supposed to do when we get drunk and you won’t let us leave the house?” the blonde protests. “Just because you’re a sad drunk and you want to stay home - ”

“I am not a sad drunk,” Shota objects.

Both of Hizashi’s eyebrows fly up.

“Would you like an example?” he asks.

“No,” Shota says quickly. 

He knows a losing battle when he meets one. 

“Yeah, I thought so,” Hizashi snorts.

Midoriya relaxes the slightest bit, just enough to be noticeable, until the blonde swings his attention back around. Backed up to the couch as he is, still half standing, he has nowhere to go when Hizashi takes a half step towards him, looming just enough that he has to look down and the younger man has to tilt his head back to look him in the eye. 

“Besides,” he says softly, “it’s not like I’m upset the man that’s been hitting on my husband is so pretty.”

Midoriya’s face starts to darken again, head back, eyes wide and looking like he isn’t sure what to do now that he’s the prey instead of the predator. It’s a good look on him, even if it is paradoxical to the front he puts on as Magpie. 

“You don’t have a drink,” he continues, just as softly. “Can I change that?”

Midoriya hums out a little squeak. “I’-m n-not - ”

“You’re not?”

This is the point where Shota would pull back, afraid of pushing too far and upsetting the precarious position they’re in, but Midoriya doesn’t seem like he’s going to bolt. He’s transfixed by Hizashi, eyes glued to the blonde instead of desperately searching for the best exit. Instead, he’s subtly leaning into the taller man, probably without realizing it. 

Hizashi looks like the cat who bypassed the creme entirely and caught himself the canary.

“I’m n-not al-lowed to have caffi-ine on nights I’m not-t working,” Midoriya stutters out. 

“So you’re free for the rest of the day?” Hizashi asks slyly, smile slow and syrupy. 

His face reddens further, but he doesn't answer, lip sucked between his teeth like he’s holding back words.

“Tea okay?” Hizashi asks. 

MIdoriya nods.

The blonde takes a full step out of his space, winks at Shota, and turns to go back to the counter. Midoriya watches him go, then suddenly sits down on the couch like a marionette who’s strings have been cut.

“I-is he - ”

“Always like that?” Shota offers. “No, but he’s been wanting to flirt with you for a while so he’s laying it on thick. If you don’t like it, say so, and he’ll stop.”

“No, th-at’s fine. It’s f-fine.”

Midoriya continues to stare down at the kitten in his lap, but the blush spreads farther down his neck, not lessening in the slightest. Shota thinks he might just be embarrassed, but the thought doesn’t sit right. 

“Oh,” he says quietly.

The younger man hunches in on himself, shoulders practically riding up to his ears. Shota reaches out slowly, telegraphing his movement as much as he can without disturbing either the cats or the shaky silence of the moment, until the back of his hand is pressed against Midoriya’s wrist. He’s trembling ever so slightly, but pushes into the contact instead of pulling away. 

“You didn’t actually expect any of this to happen. You thought we’d ignore you or tell you to go away. You didn’t think we’d…want to find out if we like you back.”

Midoriya flinches, and Shota knows he’s right. He pushes further into the touch - gently, to keep from spooking him - until he’s got a few of his fingers resting across the other man’s palm. Midoriya hesitates for a moment before letting his fingers curl around Shota’s.

“We’re here because we want to be,” he says softly. “Everything else is just details, right?”

Midoriya nods and takes a deep breath. 

“How long have you been holding hands?” Hizashi asks when he comes back with his own coffee and their date’s tea.

“Does it matter?” Shota asks.

“ Yes . He can’t drink his tea and hold someone’s hand at the same time, so if you get five minutes, I get five minutes. You’re not going to cheat me out of this, Shota. It’s bad enough you knew he was so pretty and then didn’t tell me .”

“I did tell you,” Shota says.

“You did not go into any kind of detail to prepare me for this,” the blonde says, gesturing to Midoriya with the tea he still hasn’t handed the other man. “I feel so betrayed right now. How dare you.”

Shota rolls his eyes because sometimes there isn’t another response to his husband’s theatrics. But for all the show Hizashi likes to put on, taking the attention off of Midoriya again seems to have given him a chance to breathe. He’s still holding Shota’s hand, but he’s adjusted to lace their fingers together, grip firm but not tight. 

Hizashi offers Midoriya his tea and the kitten gives a shout of protest when he has to stop touching them completely in order to take it. The blonde plops down onto the couch adjacent to theirs, butting his boot up against Midoriya’s red sneaker. Midoriya’s face darkens even more, but he shifts his foot forward ever so slightly to press into the contact.

“So,” he says, propping his head in his hand and fluttering his eyelashes, not unlike Midoriya had done when he’d been arrested, “tell us about yourself. What do you do when you’re not stalking the back streets of Musutafu?”

Instead of answering right away, Midoriya stills, eyes focused near the bottom half of Hizashi’s face; Shota tracks the look to the silver bracelet around his husband’s wrist.

“I’m, uh, I’m a quirk analyst,” he says slowly, almost like he’s thinking about the syllables to keep from tripping over them.

Shota’s eyebrow ticks up. “Is that why you asked about my quirk when you got arrested?”

“Wasn’t technically arrested,” he corrects. “I was detained under suspicion of several crimes, but I wasn’t actually in official custody or formally charged.”

“Yes,” Hizashi says. “How did you get out of that?”

Midoriya cuts his eyes over Shota then back to the kitten in his lap; his hand tightens around his, but it isn’t painful.

“You didn’t tell him?”

“Not my business,” he says. “Not that either of us care.”

Hizashi clearly has questions, but is holding off. Midoriya looks like he’s thinking through his decision, but it’s going to come out sooner or later and Shota thinks doing it now will keep the younger man from stressing about it. 

“I’m quirkless,” he bites out.

Hizashi sits back in his seat, giving him a more thorough look.

“Well, fuck,” he says; Midoriya starts to pull into himself again, though Shota keeps him from letting go of his hand. “I’m even more impressed.”

“W-what?” 

“Quirks are kind of like cheating, you know? No two are the same and power and ability vary to a ridiculous degree. Like, you can learn new skills and practice until they're near perfect, but I’m never going to learn how to breathe fire, yeah? You’re going out to help people even with what most people think is a disadvantage just because you didn’t get some genetic cheat code. That’s impressive.”

“Oh,” Midoriya says shakily. “Okay.”

Midoriya squeezes Shota’s hand for a moment, then lets go. He hesitates for just a second before swapping his tea to the other hand and offering the drink-warm one to Hzashi. The blonde looks elated, happily twining their fingers together. Midoriya also looks happier, like he’d been expecting an adverse reaction to the news of his quirk status. Which, well. The statistics are statistics for a reason.

“So how did you get out of charges?” Hizashi asks. “And please don’t say Nedzu because while I’m really glad you have some kind of parental figure in your life, I absolutely do not want to talk about the most terrifying creature on the planet while on this date. Also he’s our boss and that’s weird.”

“Uh, okay, but Nedzu isn’t really that bad?”

“He absolutely is,” Hizashi says cheerfully.

Shota agrees.

“If you say so,” Midoriya says, looking at them both doubtfully. “So vigilantism laws are written very specifically.”

***

Midoriya actually lets them walk him out of the cafe and down the street. Shota isn’t sure if it’s the direction he needs to go, but he would have bet on the smaller man disappearing as soon as they stepped onto the sidewalk. He’s holding Hizashi’s hand again, having swapped between them every ten minutes “to keep things fair”, he’d said. 

He’d relaxed more and more over their time in Cafe, and they’d even managed to run over their reservation time in the enclosure, though the girl at the counter - Nakahara-san, Hizashi says - came in to tell them that it wasn’t a big deal because they have plenty of space on the calendar for the day. He stuttered less and less over time, only picking back up for a few minutes after Shota had gotten up to get them refills and had sat back down to Midoriya much closer than before. The blush across his cheeks told the husbands that it hadn’t been a misstep on their part. 

“Can we see you again?” Hizashi asks.

“Yeah,” Midoriya says bashfully. 

Hizashi raises their hands and kisses his knuckles. 

“Midoriya - ”

“You can c-call me Izuk-ku,” he says quietly. 

Hizashi’s face lights up. He takes a step closer to Izuku, effectively pressing him into the side of a building. 

“Call me Hizashi,” he says.

“O-okay.”

The blonde kisses his knuckles again and steps back, but Shota steps in to take his place. He presses a soft kiss to the younger man’s cheek and is rewarded with a quiet gasp.

“Get home safe,” he murmurs.

Hizashi takes his hand as they leave, and when Shota looks back after half a block Izuku is gone. 

***

“We are so fucked,” Hizashi says, toeing off his boots and leaning against the wall of the genkan.

“Undoubtedly,” Shota agrees.

***

Something about following through with Izuku settles Shota. He no longer feels like he’s on the precipice of something, even if this thing is new and underfed. As Magpie, Izuku had been all bravado and spirit, but as the man he’s more real, unashamed imperfections and an authenticity on display that is noticeably absent from his nighttime personality. Shota knows why any hero does so - he himself isn’t as cold or brusque with his friends (he hopes) - and being allowed to see under the construct of a consciously built counterfeit feels significant in a way he has yet to comprehend.

***

“Shota,” Hizashi whines, “he’s so cute .”

“I know.”

“And he was so sweet .”

“I know.”

Hizashi grumbles as he turns over so he can smash his face into his pillow. Shota’s eyes have been closed for the last ten minutes, but sleep has escaped him as his husband extolls upon Izuku’s virtues. 

“We should bring him home,” the blonde says, turning his face back to Shota.

“Should probably wait a little longer.”

“Why?”

“Paranoia.”

“Uh,” he gripes. “You and your underground hero logic. Despicable.”

“Love you, too.”

***

Because they both are teachers, pro heroes, and just adults in general, it takes a week and a half to see Izuku in person again. In his absence, Hizashi sets all their numbers to a group chat and commences to abuse their collective inbox. 

Hizashi (#^.^#):

I think you’d look just as pretty on your knees as Shota does.

Hizashi (#^.^#):

I can’t wait to bend you over the back of our couch.

Hizashi (#^.^#):

Your hair looked so soft. Do you like having it pulled?

Izuku <3:

i am working!!@!!!!???

Aizawa Shota: 

Now you know how we feel.

***

Despite doing their best, they have to learn to make time. 

“Hold this,” Hizashi says, shoving a bag of takeout at Shota.

Izuku has just appeared at the edge of the roof, hood shoved back but mask still in place. 

He still seems nervous whenever Hizashi brings them dinner, like he’s expecting it to be a trap every time. Though that could just be a reaction to Hizashi himself. Izuku seems more comfortable - settled - with Shota, most likely due to their interactions as hero and vigilante, but Hizashi is still somewhat of an unknown for the younger man. They’ve managed to meet up in one way or another half a dozen times in the weeks since their initial date, and Hizashi still seems determined to keep Izuku on his toes. Be it salacious texts or gifts delivered via Shota or left for the other man to find, the intensity he’s focused on Izuku hasn’t wavered.

Izuku doesn’t seem to mind. He’s perpetually flushed around the blonde, but he clearly isn’t afraid of him. It’s still a toss up to whether he’ll stand his ground when the pro stalks towards him like he does every time Izuku makes an appearance, but it’s never out of fear. If Shota had to guess, it’s more - embarrassment isn’t right - it’s more like prey recognizing predator and leaning into what could be a fantastic chase if either were so inclined. 

Izuku pulls his mask off, face flushed rosy, like he’s spent his hours on the streets in constant motion.

“Hello, pretty,” Hizashi says, reaching out, unmindful of the perspiration, to cup his face and brush a light kiss to his cheek.

Izuku stares up at him and leans forward until his chin is against Hizashi’s sternum, letting the taller man take some of his weight. The adoration on his face is plain.

“You’ve been busy,” the blonde says.

“Yeah,” Izuku admits. “There was a mugging out near the docks. He was fast,” his smile turns sharp, “but I was faster.”

Hizashi laughs. “I’d have liked to see that.”

“Should we be encouraging such lawless behavior?” Shota asks absently as he unpacks the to-go containers his husband brought. “Legal definitions aside, it is still vigilantism.”

“My lawyer says it’s not,” Izuku says, snickering at the way the other two flinch and shudder any time Nedzu is mentioned.

“Your lawyer has half the government in his pocket,” Shota says flatly. “And he may be correct on a technicality, but he’s pushing it.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Izuku says. “It’s not half the government. He’d only need thirty very specific people in his pocket. Thirty-six if he wanted things to go as smoothly as possible; as few as fourteen if he wanted a challenge.”

The shorter man takes the container Shota hands him and turns his face up expectantly until Shota also presses a kiss to his cheek.

“You terrify me,” Hizashi says fondly.

“Don’t give us any more details,” Shota says. “The less we know the better.”

Izuku smiles. “It’s okay,” he shrugs. “Knowing wouldn’t change anything.”

***

“You two have been acting weird,” Nemuri declares over one of their bi-weekly dinners.

Tensei’s even had the time to join them this week.

“We’re not acting weird,” Hizashi protests. 

“You’re being hush hush about something and half the time we try to make plans you two mysteriously can’t make it. I’m tired of being canceled on, damn it.”

“We’re not!”

“No, you are,” Tensei agrees around his udon.

“See?” Nemuri says. “If Tensei’s noticed then it’s definitely happening.”

“Hey,” he protests softly.

She smacks a kiss in his direction then turns her attention back to Shota and his husband. 

“Spill,” she demands.

Shota feels Hizashi look at him, but doesn’t break. If Nemuri finds out about Izuku too soon, she’ll drive him off in her - well meaning, but passionate - enthusiasm to bring him into the fold. 

“We’re not acting weird,” Hizashi says again.

Nemuri puts her chopsticks down and crosses her arms. Shota ignores her and continues eating his curry.

“Lying is against Council policy,” Tensei says.

Hizashi slumps. Shota is well aware that the best way to get his husband to give in is to play the guilt card when he’s actually guilty.

“Shota,” he whines. 

He sighs. “We met with Magpie.”

“Shut! The fuck up!” Nemuri all but yells.

Tensei stops eating to pay better attention.

"Met up how?" he asks.

"We took him out for coffee," Shota says.

“Fuck you both, you took him on a date and didn’t tell us ?” Nemuri demands. “I want every detail you have. Now .”

“Oh my god,” Hizashi says, slumping further into the table. “Nem, he’s so pretty . I owe you so much coffee.”

“Stop betting with my coffee,” Shota says bitterly.

“Pretty how?” she asks. “How pretty?”

“Ten out of ten, will climb like a tree at first chance,” Hizashi says. 

Shota snorts. “He’s a little short for that.”

“Ten out of ten, will let him climb me like a tree at first chance,” the blonde corrects. 

“How short?” Tensei says.

“Five-five,” Hizashi says. “Maybe five-six.”

“You’re giving us a whole lot of information, but you’re not actually telling us what he looks like,” Nemuri complains.

“We’re not going to,” Shota says. “No identifying information.”

“Why?” she whines.

“Do you remember the last time I went on a date?” Tensei says. “You ran her through the system to check for previous addresses, places of employment, and whether or not she had a record.”

“So?” she says. “I just want to make sure everyone’s okay!”

“You checked her credit.”

“You’re from a legacy family,” Nemuri defends herself. “How else am I supposed to make sure whoever you date isn’t some gold digger?”

“She was a primary teacher who was also from a hero family.”

“No identifying information,” Shota says again. 

She huffs. “I could ask Tsukauchi.”

“Nem,” he says, “think about this. You want to run Nedzu’s son through the system.”

Hizashi, Nemuri, and Tensei all pale. 

“Never mind,” she says weakly.

“Just no identifying information?” Hizashi asks his husband.

Shota nods, certain that the conversation will move on from Izuku’s identity.

“Nemuri, the fucking thighs on this man,” the blonde says. “Like tree trunks. I can’t wait to let him wrap them around my head.”