Chapter Text
Midobro: hey um i had a really great time tonight and i want to do this again but i kinda have a weird thing i need to tell you first? and also to like check in on you
Midobro: well two things, but the first one is more important
Midobro: or maybe the second one is, depending on how you react
Midobro: but first, and i know you’re super strong and a hero student and everything but there’s a reason i promise, did you get home okay? And did you find anything left for you when you did?
Midobro: I DID NOT LEAVE ANYTHING AT YOUR PLACE
Midobro: I DO NOT KNOW WHERE YOU LIVE, I’M NOT BEING CREEPY I PROMISE
Midobro: just, damn this is hard to say over text, can we call?
Midobro: we need to talk.
Midobro: [2 missed calls]
Midobro: Kiri?
–
It was chaos, but it was the normal kind Shouta was used to walking in on as a teacher of overpowered and over-stressed teenagers with the weight of the world on their shoulders.
There were the usual amount of rhinestones and glitter permanently lodged into the walls of the dorm, so that was not the source of the problem. After the first incident with Aoyama’s cheeses he had just decided to accept a constant standing level of sparkle everywhere. It was structural reinforcement at this point. Which was very good, because at this moment they very much needed it.
Shouta didn’t have favorite students. He also didn’t have least favorite students. He had students and he had kids he’d already expelled, but mostly he had problems. One of which was literally foaming at the mouth and growling while trying to chew through his very much metal and reinforced capture weapon. It could not be good for his teeth.
“Explain.” He was not a man who often needed to repeat himself outside of lessons. He was intimidating and powerful and wielded those two assets like the weapons they were.
He also had about two dozen butterfly hair clips and more braids than he cared to try and take out after putting Eri down to bed woven into his hair. They were the fancy kind because his daughter deserved only the best after being a human experiment for the yakuza. This also meant these butterfly clips had springs and would bounce with every movement of his head.
He chose to believe that in this moment he had drilled the fear of his wrath into his students so well that they were huddled crying in the corner of Mina’s dorm room because of how intimidating he still was and not whatever stupid teenage drama they’d cooked up this time. It would help him sleep at night, if he ever got the chance to.
“Hfiuweihu shfuisenf snfbeu sywhdj susa hfeb!” Kirishima said, or attempted to, through tears. He sniffed grossly in an attempt to clear his voice, but didn’t make it before Mina piped up.
“We were just trying to help!”
Shouta raised an eyebrow, not even needing to directly indicate the shattered remains of what looked like a neon disco roller rink shoved into a student dorm mixed with a migraine. He was pretty sure that was a full cheesecake on the floor. Not on a plate. Not on a napkin. Just a whole raw cheesecake sitting on the dorm room floor.
Not his immune system, not his problem.
“It’s a long story,” Mina amended unnecessarily. “It’s not actually Blasty’s fault. We kinda tempted fate with this one.”
“Hsfhdu nfseu snwbwh.”
“Kiri’s innocent, he was just at the wrong place at the wrong time.”
“Kirishima is also in the girls’ dorm after curfew,” a particularly nasty thrash came from the pile of capture weapon and testosterone. “As is Bakugou. Why.”
The clothes Hagakure was wearing crossed their arms with more sass than was appropriate for the moment, but he would get to that later. They were going to have bathroom duty even after they graduated. He would convince Nedzu somehow.
“They’re literally gay Aizawa-sensei, this is probably better for them.” Horrible visions and flashes of his time with a specific redhead in his office just days ago almost overwhelmed him. Almost.
“I am, against my will, very aware.”
Kirishima had the decency to blush. It was going to be a long night.
–
Kyoka of course heard the commotion. Even with her well-insulated and soundproofed walls, the full series of explosions happening right next door were impossible to ignore.
As a budding hero, she and everyone within the building came bolting out only to once again find Bakugou the sole source of explosions. Under normal circ*mstances, they probably would have grown used to the sound, and to a degree they were. They were used to them going off at all hours. Used to leaping up, immediately ready for action, checking what was the cause, and then either dealing with the problem or just going back to sleep knowing Kirishima or someone would calm Blasty down enough to not be the whole class’s problem.
It was a testament to Bakugou’s sheer frequency with his outbursts that it really was a fifty-fifty toss up between him or villains. Well, more like thirty-thirty-forty with the fourty being the explosive blond and villains waking everyone up at the same time. Something about his personality called them to him. It was fine though, at some point the school would get an unpaid intern to help Hound Dog with all their therapy appointments. Whenever those started up.
But for now, it was Kyoka and her noise canceling headphones against whatever the f*ck Bakugou thought he was saying next door. It sounded like mostly expletives, so pretty normal. Except she was so. f*cking. Tired.
Aizawa was handling it, but not quietly enough. She stumbled her way to the door and didn’t bother to wince when she slammed it open.
“What. Time. Is. It.” She was not asking and believed she was making that clear with her tone and evil sleep-deprived glare.
Kirishima helpfully pulled his phone out of his pocket anyway to check, only for all of the blood to drain from his face.
“Oh no…”
That reaction seemed a bit dramatic to Kyoka, but she was glad he was taking this seriously. He would be the last one she would throttle when she finally in about thirty seconds snapped.
“He– he said ‘we need to talk’… two hours ago.”
Never f*cking mind.
“Oof.”
“RIP,” Mina crossed herself, “what did you even do? When you came back you were all smiley, I thought it had gone well! Let me see–”
“So did I–”
“The answer I was looking for,” Kyoka jumped in before this train wreck could fully tumble off the rails right in front of her sleep schedule, “was ‘too late to have this outside the door of the person with the heightened hearing quirk.’ Didn’t think that one would be a hard answer.”
“Oh sh*t– I mean sugar, sorry Aizawa-sensei, we’ll take this downstairs.”
“I think– may I be excused sensei? I have to call my bro back, I think something is wrong.”
A muscle in Aizawa-sensei’s jaw twitched to communicate that he was right in the middle of catching them breaking the rules and trying to discipline them before visibly giving up and letting his well-accessorized head fall back against the wall in defeat.
“Sensei, please, Kiri just went on his first Not A Date Date with this guy he really likes–”
“Again. I am, unfortunately, all too aware.”
“--and that guy texted him ‘we need to talk’ two hours ago!”
“I have been here the entire time Hagakure, including up to ten seconds ago when this revelation was first made.”
“Oh my god, wait Kiri, did you actually read all of these texts?” Mina whipped her head up from his phone, alarm blaring all across her face.
“No, you took my phone,” Kirishima’s reply was muffled from where he was hiding in his hands. “What, does he hate me? Was I not cool enough during the attack? Is it because we got captured? Oh my god– oh no, he said he was fine with what happened in the coffin thing but how could he be that was–”
“You were attacked and captured on your excursion off campus?”
“It was a date, sensei.”
“Oh yeah! I forgot with the kiss and everything–”
“WAIT OMG, YOU GUYS KISSED?!” And now the screaming was back.
Kirishima pulled his face out of his hands to reveal a blush the same shade and vibrancy as his hair, but even that wasn’t enough to distract from the goofy smile he was sporting, shark teeth and all. It was endearing enough to honestly make Kyoka interested in the gossip, or it would have been at a lower decibel.
“OMG EI YOU DOG!”
“On a first date? Damn!”
“How was it? How did it happen? Paint the scene—“
“The next person who speaks takes Unicorn Sparkle Lemillion Jr to the vet to get his cast removed.” Aizawa’s voice was quiet, low and gravely with exhaustion, and yet laced with enough venom to cut through Mina and Toru’s piercing squeals.
Unicorn Sparkle Lemillion Jr was Eri’s pet hamster. Her precious pet hamster. Who had mysteriously developed a cast on one of his paws the last time the class was left to take care of it.
(Eri had very carefully signed it, her short name big enough to take up the entire cast, only to become upset that Unicorn Sparkle Lemillion Jr might feel lonely having only one friend’s signature and so a card had been sent around the dorm. Aizawa-sensei had very purposefully stood next to Bakugou while he wrote out his part of the card. Koda had been brought in to read it out to the hamster and sunflower seeds were eaten.)
“Now, we will be heading downstairs after everyone apologizes to Jiro. Once in the common room you will each do three hundred push ups,” there was a pause in case of complaint, but they knew better by now. Push ups were nothing compared to Eri’s teary-eyed gaze. “And I expect a detailed essay on my desk tomorrow morning before class explaining what this was from each of you, having written them in separate rooms without consulting one another to get your story together. I will know if otherwise.”
Their teacher slumped back into a semi-standing position, glittery butterflies dancing madly around his head as he made his way down the hall, capture weapon pulling with him and turning a silently snarling Bakugou over and over again as he was partially unwound like a cartoon mummy.
“Kirishima.”
“Sir?”
“A report on the villain incident is due as well. You know the drill by now,” boy did they. “Or you should. Not reporting this to the school immediately is something we will deal with tomorrow.”
“Understood.”
Aizawa, his butterfly clips, and Bakugou shuffled out of sight. Kyoka closed her door and was back to sleep before her head hit the pillow. It was not as good as books made it sound, as the impact promptly woke her back up with a start and her fight instinct kicked in, but she’d stabbed through enough pillows her first few years in Aizawa’s hell class and had invested in more solid sheets and pillow cases. Eventually the final adrenaline boost waned as they always do, and she slept.
–
Izuku opened the facetime from Kiri and immediately dropped his phone. That did not silence the rhythmic panting breaths from ringing in his ears.
“So– hah– sorry Mido I– ahn– was getting chewed out– ah– by sensei– ah– and have to– ahn– do three hundred– mmm– pushups– ah– as punish– ngh– ment.”
“...what?” A quick look into Izuku’s brain at the moment would have been quite informative for Kirishima, even with all his googling of boys kissing and Aoyama’s video links.
“Wanted to give– mmh— bestie the Post– hah– Not A Date Date– ah– debrief but– uhn– forgot about– ah– dorm policy.”
Absolutely none of what Kirishima was saying was computing in Izuku’s poor overwhelmed bisexual brain. It was currently too busy memorizing every pixel shown of the jacked as hell torso hovering over the phone and glistening with sweat as it descended along with the heavy breathing. A drop of sweat rolled down the side of Kirishima’s face, tracing along a jaw so sharp he could have been using his quirk and no one would be the wiser.
The redhead would push up away from the phone, clearly set on the ground so he could still look down and see Izuku’s reaction– eye contact is super important bro, nothing is more manly than being always there for your friends and making sure they feel heard when they need you– and then he would descend, all the muscles in his chest activating in a manner meant to kill all pathetic gay boys in line of sight.
Possibly even the not pathetic gay boys. Kirishima was just that shredded.
Shirtless and with abdominals rippling like a terrible grocery store pulp romance love interest, Kirishima was clearly doing push ups over his phone. Had clearly been doing it for quite a while by the state of his breathing.
This is how he would look on top.
Izuku could feel his cheeks burning. Sure there had been the coffin… thing. Experience. Occurrence or whatever. But there had already been thoughts and feelings, many of both in fact. Hell, they’d kissed and it had been wonderful and he hadn’t even had time to daydream about it and experiment with taking it further in his head before everything went to absolute sh*t with Kachan’s flowers.
The reminder had him looking up to the door of his room, closed thank goodness or else he would have way too much explaining to do about the sounds coming from his phone, out to the living room where the mangled vase and its flowers sat.
He could see it still, the violent orange of the lily surrounded by small yellow tarragon flowers in the mimicry of an explosion coming from the hands burned into the small pot. A firework of a threat standing out starkly in their previously soft and comforting apartment built of greens and natural wood and very very flammable things. The juxtaposition had been too much to look away from; he’d had to seal himself away to seek refuge from the flames taking momentary shape as petals inside a space that had never seen them before. Had been his safe space.
Could be once again, but it certainly didn’t feel like it currently. He’d done so much work already to get past this fear the first time. You never really got over it, you just got used to not being found.
How long has he known where you live?
“Midobro?” He looked down into deep red eyes gazing worriedly into the phone camera as if waiting for a reply. Izuku wished he could go back to just being distracted by abs.
“Sorry, just got… distracted for a moment.”
“That’s no problem,” the redhead had at some point stopped his push ups to catch his breath while Izuku was lost in his thoughts. “I just wanted to apologize for getting back to you so late and I got worried ‘cause it sounds like something is wrong? Did I–?”
“Oh! No! You did nothing wrong! You actually did everything right! You fully stopped and captured a villain and everything!”
“I did also get captured by said villain,” Kirishima was smiling, pulling any real sting from his self depreciation.
“Hey, I did too.”
“We were distracted, it happens out on the field sometimes you know.”
“You were distracted? You were literally right on top of him! What were you even distracted by?”
“You!”
“HRGLDJASNSJA?” Had he really just said that? In real life?
“Do you not remember cradling my face with your hands and gazing into my eyes? Because I’m not expecting to forget that at any point soon,” his laughter, bright and deep, filled something in Izuku.
“I was checking you for a concussion, you had just been smashed in the head! Anyone else would have been taken down!”
“Oh, so you’ll just take anyone out for dinner and ice cream and kiss them at sunset if they get clipped by a passing candelabra? Damn, if only I’d known this sooner–”
“Yes, definitely, that is exactly what I meant. I’m so glad you understand.” Izuku rolled his eyes even knowing it wouldn’t detract from the goofy smile he was wearing.
“Part of being a hero is putting all the clues together, I’m just doing my job.”
“Part of being a support hero is making sure the fighter heroes aren’t concussed on the field.” Well, mostly it was yelling at them while screwing and soldering things back together, but same thing. Cough Shindo cough. “I was just doing my job.”
“You did do pretty well.”
“Only ‘pretty?’” He was embarrassed the second the words passed his lips, god was he fishing for compliments now? A guy calls him a hero and he right away needs more confirmation? Maybe he needed to have more grace for romance novel characters. Not that he read many. Not too many. Not more than would be reasonable.
“I suppose handsome could apply too, beautiful, cute, hot, the whole shebang. Hold up, my thesaurus is upstairs– oh sh*t! I’m so sorry Midobro, I really meant to call earlier but like I said–”
“You were shirtless doing push ups, I was not listening to anything you said.” It was saucier than he normally would have been face to face, or more like screen to screen like this but hey. If Kirishima was going to be all flirty like this, it was probably fine to flirt back.
“You normally reply just fine when I send selfies.”
“Yes, with a solid few minutes of just staring and then another of rebooting my brain so I can actually form words normally.”
“Is that why it takes you so long to reply sometimes?”
“Hey, I’m doing my best here!” No way was he outright confirming that. “Anyway, you were saying?”
“What? Oh! Yes! Earlier! What I was saying,” the other boy started to get up, jogging across a room and making his camera bounce. And pecs, but that was not where Izuku was looking anymore. Nope. “I meant to call you right away, let you know I made it back and had a lovely time and ask you out on a real date–”
Izuku made a noise too high pitched to actually make out any specific sound, just the fact that it happened. Unfortunately, it was not high enough for the other boy to miss and so Izuku got a full sharp-toothed grin.
“Okay, so that can happen, good to know. But anyway, on my way back I was remembering all the times my best bro Mina has gone on dates and when she taught me about the mandatory second part of dates, even Not Really A Date dates and Accidental Dates where you meet up with a friend to give the full debrief.” Does this mean he’s talked to his friends about you? What did he say? “I’ve never gone on a date before,” holy sh*t, “so it’s always just been her recounting hers to me and I wasn’t sure how to start it. Plus, I was so in my head about what I was gonna say I totally forgot about gender roles and things and then it turned out she had gotten some heavy intel for an operation we’re working on– oh! I’ll definitely need to tell you about that at some point–”
“Kiri, you know I love a ramble and will listen to any of yours in their entirety, but it sounds like there is something important to get to soon.”
“We really are the two worst people to try and have a short conversation, but I like that.”
Izuku wanted to scream into his pillow but settled for taking a deep breath.
“Okay, main points: um… operation intel gathering was successful, but the target caught us red handed and blew up. Our teacher got called to stop the fight, no one was injured, don't worry. We’re all hero students, we just play hard. Well, I don’t think this was play. He seemed really upset and I’m still kinda worried about it. But Aizawa was there but we were all too excited about our,” he gestured between himself and Izuku, “Not A Date date to pay enough attention and we wound up with a lot of punishment. Three hundred push ups and an essay on what went down since Aizawa-sensei was too tired to deal with us right then.”
“Three hundred? And it’s Saturday? He wants you to turn in essays on a Sunday?”
“Yeah, we kinda messed up big time. I’ve only done half or so of the push ups but wanted to call asap to see what was up with what you were saying. So basically, I was worried but a lot went down and got in the way but how are you?”
Izuku couldn’t take it anymore. He burst out laughing.
He had gone through so many mood swings in one day. Hell, in just the past hour he’d gone from awful traumatic flashbacks to horny to remembering he was being stalked and terrified and back to feeling okay again thanks to the boy on the phone.
“Hearing that does lead me to think you’re doing alright, so I’m glad.”
“Yeah, I am doing a lot better now, and it sounds like, punishments aside, you’re safe and sound.”
“Yup!” Kirishima flexed to show just how fine he was.
“Thank goodness. Well, it’s kinda a lot to say all at once over the phone, and it sounds like you’ve got a lot of work to do by tomorrow morning, but I do owe you an explanation. Any way you could, I don’t know, meet up with me again? Soon?”
“Like tomorrow?”
“Only if you have the time!”
“I do for you!”
Izuku wondered if he would ever get used to so much sweetness. He hoped not.
They set up a time when Kirishima should have completed all of his tasks and hung up after extended goodbyes. It was stupid really, how much there was for them to say to each other.
It had been easy at the park, not hurried and rushed like this. They’d been trying to pull out the time with the ease of knowing they had more to spend and something about talking like that felt like there was so much they knew about each other. This rushed or as rushed as it could be considering its participants, conversation was grounding for Izuku.
Grounding in the fact that he wasn’t some weak middle schooler with no one around to save him anymore, but a force of his own with friends and family and a boyfr– another friend. Grounding in that he didn’t know everything about Kirishima, but that he didn’t have to. There was so much more to say, so much more he wanted to hear, but he truly still knew so little about the other boy.
Izuku had a crush and it felt so nice. But.
Hands on his hips and his thighs and his shoulders and burns and the smell of his own skin cooking and being useless no good for anything but someone else’s stress release in whatever form it may take and flowers at his front door orange lilies meant hatred and disdain he knew he had looked it up tarragon flowers meant lasting feelings he knew he looked it up and Kachan had always been like that always testing him to show him just how far behind he was but he’d figured this one out he knew what that meant he saw the threat it was and–
And he was scared.
It was time. Now when he knew he wanted to continue this and whatever it would turn out to be with Kirishima. Now before he had fallen too hard and it would hurt too much if his quirkless status and the reappearance of an old bully were deal breakers. Mostly the former.
Izuku wanted more. More hand holding, more kisses, more dates with this boy and he’d confirmed Kiri wanted that too.
It was time to talk with Kirishima.
–
