Chapter Text
Just because a doctor said you only had a few months to live didn't necessarily make it true. That had been the case with All Might, whose doctors had all claimed he only had 3 years to live-- and that was a liberal estimate. That had been, what? Five years ago? Back when Izuku had first met him. Then they'd done a heel-face turn a few years later and claimed he was as healthy as a horse-- likely to live to a hundred. (Honestly, Izuku had to admit that the doctors might have been right; that if All Might had continued the way he was that he'd be long-gone by now. But together they'd managed to get rid of his main source of stress, the threat of All-for-One, and things had been pretty blue-skies from there.)
So yeah, just because the doctors said All Might's grandma wasn't going to make it another year didn't really mean there was cause for worry. Not that Izuku was going to say such a thing to All Might, even in the face of such an off-the-wall request.
The two of them had only been dating for a few months. To Izuku, it seemed like both much longer and much shorter than that. They'd gotten fairly serious fairly quickly, probably by virtue of the fact that Izuku had had a crush on the man since he was old enough to even know the word crush, and that All Might himself had been cultivating feelings for his protege longer than he'd be willing to admit in a court of law. They both seemed to feel that they'd waited long enough, so they got together about as soon as All Might could legally offer to buy Izuku a drink.
But still they'd only actually been dating for a few months. When All Might broached the topic of going with him to America for a family holiday, Izuku pretty readily agreed. It wasn't until the man grimaced and added a curious condition onto the trip that Izuku choked on the air he was trying to breathe.
“You want us to pretend to be married?!”
All Might smiled apologetically. “They're saying she won't last a year,” he explained. “She's been on me about it since the rest of my cousins married, and that was years ago.”
“But is it really that important?” Izuku asked. “You don't think she'll accept us just being in a relationship?”
“There's no reasoning with a woman who's lived a hundred and six years,” All Might said, and the look in his eyes said he'd tried.
Of course Izuku wasn't going to say that Grams would probably be fine, especially being related to All Might, and he wasn't going to refuse to go with him or to play along. So, having only been dating for a few months, they went shopping for wedding rings.
(To be perfectly honest, Izuku found it totally surreal-- because this was some sort of childhood dream of his, and here they were doing it as a well-intentioned prank. He didn't hate it though.)
They went with plain gold rings mostly for practical reasons, such as not wanting to risk messing up anything fancier when they were out breaking in criminals' faces. (There were a few weeks before they had to leave for the US, so they'd decided to wear the rings until then, just to get used to them.) Also they were traditional, and Grams was apparently really into tradition.
That, of course, made Izuku wonder if Grams was even going to accept him as All Might's spouse. There was quite a large gap in their ages, when compared to 'traditional' married couples. What if Grams thought he was too young?
“She'll love you,” Toshinori said over the phone as they both finished their packing. (That was another thing he was still trying desperately to get used to. All Might had insisted that Izuku start calling him by his given name. It wasn't that he cared, but everyone else would think it odd that someone who had been married for nearly a year would still call his husband by something as impersonal as a hero title.)
(And Izuku had at first argued about deciding they'd been married almost a year. “I was still nineteen then,” he mentioned. “Not that I don't think my mom would have agreed if I'd asked her, but don't you think people will be suspicious if they do the math?” All Might shook his head and explained. “The marriage age in America is eighteen. Grams won't know what the age is in Japan.” And Izuku had just said, “Oh” and spent the rest of the day vaguely wondering if the two of them would have gotten together sooner in America, with laws like that. He heard the drinking age was twenty-one though, so he guessed it was a fair trade-off.)
Izuku wasn't nearly as sure as Toshinori (how could he be? He'd never met Grams, or any of the man's other family), but there was really nothing he could do except be his very best self and try to go with the flow. And maybe brush up on his English a little. (Or not; acting like he couldn't understand a word anyone said was a great way to avoid the responsibility of answering questions.)
Luckily, the latter part of November was not too busy when it came to crime, so while some people might notice All Might and Deku's absence, the city would probably manage just fine without them. They filed all the necessary paperwork for a vacation, told all the relevant people that they'd be leaving (the relevant people all eyed their pretty rings and raised eyebrows at them, but mostly didn't ask 'honeymoon?'), and then hopped on board a jetliner to The States.
Though this was the first time they'd traveled together since being together, they'd gone places before-- to hero-related meetings and conventions and special events across the world. Deku had had a lengthy and popular debut a few years back, which had even taken them to America (primarily because of his ties to All Might), so this wasn't even going to be his first time in the country. But it was the first time he'd be going for leisure rather than business (well, advertising), and the weight of the ring on his finger (not to mention its relative weight on his conscience) made things feel very different.
The plane ride with Toshinori was about the same as ever, except that they openly held hands this time (instead of just sort of 'accidentally' brushing against each other), and when they fell asleep against each other half-way through the flight and woke up with slightly damp spots on their shoulders (Toshinori's shoulder; Izuku's hair, ala the height difference) they only felt a little embarrassed.
Toshinori didn't have any siblings, and his parents had passed away some years ago, but he did have more aunts and uncles and cousins than anyone could be reasonably expected to remember, and that was who they were here to visit. (Aside from Grams, of course.) It was his favorite cousin, Brenda, who met them at the airport.
“Toto!” she yelled as she dashed across the baggage claim to hug Izuku's traveling companion. Izuku stopped dead in his tracks. 'Toto???' That was something he was going to have to ask about later. The two hugged and greeted each other like old best friends for a few moments before Brenda's attention slid over to Izuku and she broke away from Toshinori so they could have introductions. She grinned at him with a shine in her eyes that he couldn't help but find familiar (and charming). “This must be the Izuku I keep hearing about!”
“Um, hi. Nice to meet you,” he said, sticking out his hand for a nice American hand shake.
Brenda didn't go for it. She said, “Oh, come here!” and pulled him into a hug. Izuku kinda figured he should have known All Might's family were going to be the hugging type. He mentally prepared himself to have his space thoroughly violated all week. (He did resolve to hug back though.)
The cousins chatted animatedly in English as they collected their luggage and hauled it out to Brenda's SUV, periodically throwing in bits of Japanese where they could for Izuku's sake (or Toshinori translating whole paragraphs for him, if he thought it was important). They'd piled their luggage and themselves into the car, with Izuku sitting in the front next to Brenda (at her request), and were most of the way out of the maze of an airport before Brenda glanced at him and said in stunted Japanese, “I know you're lying.”
Izuku would have been freaked out if they hadn't already discussed that. Brenda, as All Might's favorite cousin, always kept up with the goings-on in his life, and there was simply no way she was ever going to not know if he'd gotten married. In fact, she had been the one to make the suggestion to him, about this fake-marriage scheme.
“You aren't telling anyone?” he asked, in English to be fair.
Brenda lapsed back into her native language. “Nope. Just my husband, Greg, but he's not interested in family gossip. Everyone else got the same story as Grams.” She glanced back at Toshinori in the rear-view mirror. “She's pleased as punch, by the way. I hear she's been watching your guys' videos all week, and she's already in love with Deku.”
Izuku blushed, but he guessed it was nice to hear from someone other than his very biased boyfriend (er, 'husband') that Grams was likely to approve of him.
Despite the relative lack of traffic, it was a long drive to Brenda's house, which seemed to be out in the middle of nowhere (in a community of other houses apparently called a 'sub-division'). It was a nice house though, on a big plot of land, with tall pine trees scattered around it. As he and Toshinori brought all their bags in, he realized what Brenda needed all that land for, when he was accosted by five large dogs.
'Oh god,' Izuku thought. 'This is it. This is the best part of the trip.' The dogs barked excitedly at him, a few licking his face (and he had to consciously ramp up his quirk in order not to get knocked over), though they turned their attentions to Toshinori when he followed Izuku through the front door. He was in muscle form, carrying their bags, or Izuku was pretty sure he'd be on his ass, covered in canines. It didn't seem like he would have minded very much though.
“Oh, get down, you guys!” Brenda yelled at the dogs, whistling and luring them outside. They stampeded out the door and left the guests to catch their breath and make their way upstairs to the guest room. (It was where Toshinori always stayed when he came to visit, so he led the way.)
Izuku sat down on the soft bed and fell back, his arms spread out. “I'm exhausted already,” he said. “Everything in America is so huge.”
“Is that right?” Toshinori asked, giving him a playful smirk, the suggestiveness of which was lessened only slightly by the fact that he'd reverted to his usual form. But he brushed his own comment aside before Izuku could even properly react to it. “You don't regret coming with me, do you?”
“No! I think it's gonna be great,” Izuku assured him, because he really was excited, and he knew how much this meant to Toshinori. “I just need to sleep off the jetlag before I meet the rest of your family.”
That was a reasonable request, and Toshinori seemed to think it was a good idea too, so they finished putting up their luggage and he went downstairs to go let Brenda know they were going to nap for a while. Izuku was already half asleep by the time he got back, although he wasn't asleep enough to forget to ask, “'Toto'?”
Toshinori laughed as he laid down next to Izuku. “Brenda is several years younger than me, and when she was little she couldn't say Toshi, so she went with Toto.”
“Toto,” Izuku repeated. “Cute.” He didn't think he'd adopt it himself (it was still hard enough to go with Toshinori; the furthest down he could imagine going was Toshi), but it was still pretty adorable. He fell asleep grinning, with 'Toto's hand twined in his hair.
xXx
He was much more clear-headed when he woke, which of course meant he was going to start over-analyzing the situation. These days, with their major threat gone and Izuku's dreams all pretty much come true, there wasn't nearly as much to over-analyze, but his brain still did its best with what it had to work with.
Now he was thinking about the fact that he and All Might-- uh, Toshinori-- were sleeping in the same bed. Again, this was not a first, but it wasn't commonplace either. They'd actually shared beds just out of convenience before, even when they hadn't been dating. Hotel accommodations were always luck-of-the-draw, so sometimes they ended up in situations where they had to fit more people in a bed than social convention usually called for. And in those cases, it just made sense for them to share, since they were so comfortable with each other, and also both fairly thin in their powered-down modes.
And they'd fallen asleep together a few times outside of traveling circumstances as well. Sometimes after a long day of crime fighting or training, it just happened. And on couches, when watching long movies late at night, it definitely happened. But as of yet they hadn't consciously laid down with the intention of sleeping a full night together. Still they hadn't, because this had just been a nap, and they were fully clothed and laying on top of the plush quilt.
But later-- later there would be no choice. And it wasn't like Izuku was avoiding it or anything, but sleeping together was pretty closely related to, well, other things they hadn't done either. And they weren't avoiding that either! They just hadn't gotten around to it. Izuku kind of thought they were both still trying to get past the conditioning they'd put themselves through during the first few years of their friendship, that 'better keep my hands to myself if I don't want someone going to jail' sort of instinctive response any time either of them thought about getting a little physical.
Now probably wasn't the time to worry about that, but it was quiet and getting dark and everything seemed peaceful, so there was nothing much else for Izuku's brain to hyper-focus on. Just Toshinori's sleeping face, and his disheveled hair, and his hands which were curled into the fabric of the pillow case and the comforter. Still drowsy himself, Izuku leaned forward and brushed their lips together. His heart fluttered as Toshinori made a surprised noise and his mouth twitched up into a soft smile. He sighed as he began to return to the waking world.
“Morning,” Izuku whispered, though it was in fact about to be nighttime.
Toshinori cracked open an eye. “I hope not,” he murmured. “Brenda was making a pot pie. She won't be pleased if we missed dinner.”
“Neither would I,” Izuku agreed, just as his stomach rumbled.
They took a few minutes to wake up and put themselves back in order before going downstairs, where Toshinori's cousin was pulling something savory-smelling out of the oven. They helped her carry dishes and silverware out to the dining table, where Izuku was introduced to her husband Greg, who didn't seem terribly interested in who he was-- but in the friendliest way possible.
“Izuku, huh? Nice to meet ya. Make yourself at home,” he said (in English; he only knew about four words of Japanese, apparently). Then he thanked his wife for the food, dug in, and returned to whatever he was scrolling through on his phone.
Dinner conversation was the slightest bit awkward, as Izuku could only follow maybe half of it, but the atmosphere was comfortable and the classic American comfort food more than made up for it. Chicken pot pie wasn't exactly katsudon, but if someone forced him to rank the foods, he thought the pot pie would be pretty high on the list. The peach cobbler they had for dessert was pretty good too.
The rest of the evening was pretty low-key. Toshinori and Brenda sat on the back porch, catching up on each others' lives, while Izuku made friends with the small domestic wolfpack that served as their hosts' pets. He ran with them around the huge backyard, playing keep-away with their toys, and generally cementing his place as the third best human ever-- after their mom (#1, obviously) and Toshinori (a fairly close #2).
(Toshinori watched them as they played, his blue eyes glinting in the darkness. Even from the distance, Izuku could tell he was happy. He also had the feeling the man was now seriously considering getting a dog when they got back home. He'd always been a dog person-- a prerequisite for American citizenship, of course-- so he was a little surprised he hadn't amassed his own pack already.)
“What kind?” Izuku asked, as they were getting ready for bed.
Toshinori was confused for a moment, and then a little surprised, but he smiled. “I don't know,” he said. “Maybe a Golden Retriever?”
“Doesn't get much more American than that,” Izuku replied, laughing as Toshinori shoved him playfully for his recent overabundance of jokes about his Americanism. They continued joking and discussing dog breeds as they changed and got into bed, and the soft meandering of their conversation distracted Izuku from worrying about their first night together. He fell asleep in the middle of comparing Shibas and Chows, before concern could even think of crossing his mind.