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Yuuri’s hustling out the door to make the bus on time, trying to juggle his keys and a smoothie, when his phone starts vibrating against his thigh. He shifts his keys out of his palm, dangling them off one finger, and traps his smoothie cup against his side in the crook of his elbow so he can dig into his pocket and check his messages.
Victor: Good morning! :)
Yuuri shakes his head, but the corners of his mouth twitch up into a smile. It’s after 9:30, and he’s been up for hours. He’s already been to the gym, showered, made breakfast, and changed into his classy khakis-and-polo ensemble for work, but he still gets a little thrill out of his idol texting him good morning when the time comes for him to roll out of bed. It should feel routine after the past couple of weeks since the party, but he’s not sick of it yet.
He doesn’t even begrudge Victor of the freedom he has to sleep that late, although the texts sometimes make him wistful for his bed. Realistically, Yuuri was never very good at sleeping anyway. Even if didn’t have work to do early in the morning, his brain would probably have him up before seven.
He’s trying to shift the stuff in his hands around so he can text back when a hand appears under his nose, grabbing the top of his cup and pulling it from the crook of his elbow. “I can hold this for a minute,” Takeshi says, mouth quirked in mild amusement. He’s wearing worn jeans and a band t-shirt, which seems strangely out of place. Yuuri feels like he only ever sees him in either his work coveralls or his pajamas these days.
“Thanks,” Yuuri says. He types out a quick good morning back to Victor, then quickly locks up the apartment behind him while his hands are free. “It’s a good thing you were here to save me from dumping smoothie all over my pants.”
“Actually,” Takeshi says, handing the cup back. “I was looking for you. I need to run some errands, so I thought I’d offer you a ride to work.”
“Sure,” Yuuri says slowly, tucking his keys into his pocket. He feels something heavy churn in the pit of his stomach, but shoves it down, reminding himself that he was running late for the bus anyway. It’s nice for Takeshi to offer to drive him, he thinks as he trails him out to the parking lot.
It’s just that the last time Takeshi offered to drive him, he was still getting rides to class, not work. And they’d been nearly halfway to campus when Takeshi had turned down the stereo and informed him that Yuuko’s ultrasound had shown not just one baby, but three. A lot in both their lives has changed since that moment - because of it, really - and it set a dangerous precedent for the type of conversations that can happen in Takeshi’s car.
He pushes the apprehension away again, trying to shift his focus to the music playing in the minivan as they pull out onto the street. He doesn’t know the song, so he listens closely to the lyrics, trying to find meaning in the words over the clenching of his own insides.
Then Takeshi turns the radio down, and Yuuri lets out a breath he didn’t realize he’d been holding. At least, whatever this is, he can finally get it over with.
“So I was up feeding the girls a couple weeks ago,” Takeshi begins, tapping the fingers of his free hand on his knee. “It was really late, and I heard your door open. So I looked outside thinking I’m about to yell at you to get some sleep, and instead I see Aura himself in the hallway, coming out of your apartment at two in the morning.”
Yuuri turns to look out the window, not wanting Takeshi to see his face. “I didn’t want to pry, but I did mention it to Yuuko the next day, and she said he saved your ass from that fight you got in, the one where you got the black eye? Which is a bit funny,” he continues, “because you told me that story, but you left that part out.”
“I mean, why wouldn’t you mention to me that you met your idol, after I had to stare at his face taped all over Yuuko’s bedroom walls, as well as yours, for years? That sure seems weird.”
“Takeshi,” Yuuri tries to interrupt, but the older man just continues to send his train of thought barrelling down the track.
“Then one night last week, I’m leaning out the window, sneaking a cigarette you will absolutely not be telling my wife about, when guess who I see again, standing on our fire escape?” He puts both hands on the steering wheel again to make a turn, but he’s still tap tapping his fingers on the wheel. “Even if I wasn’t as familiar with his face as I am my own at this point, it’d be pretty hard to hide him really, given that the man literally glows in the dark.”
Yuuri bites his lip. Damn it. Yuuko had warned him back when they first moved here. She’d said very pointedly that Takeshi wasn’t stupid, no matter how he had treated Yuuri when they were kids. And yet the two of them had managed to dance around him for years, even as they all shared a single apartment: Yuuri sneaking out windows with his costume hidden in a backpack, getting changed behind dumpsters or in gas station bathrooms, and making up excuses about accidents at the gym to cover for cuts and bruises.
It’s taken longer than Yuuko predicted, but the time has come. Of all the things to out him, it had to be Aura, right? Takeshi has a point - it’s much harder to hide when you’re hanging around a human nightlight.
“I’m not stupid,” Takeshi says, echoing his wife’s words. “I know that the most powerful superhero in the world doesn’t just hang around our building as a courtesy check on some guy he rescued from a fight one time.” Yuuri forces himself to turn away from the window and focus on his friend. He’d like to look him in the eye when his secret comes out at last.
“Go ahead and ask me then,” Yuuri chokes out through a tight throat and dry mouth. “You deserve to know.”
Takeshi sighs, and as they stop at a light, he turns to look at Yuuri while he can. “You guys are together, aren’t you?”
Yuuri’s jaw drops. “W- what?”
The light turns green, forcing Takeshi to focus on the road, but Yuuri can see his brow furrowed in profile. “I’m not blind,” he says. “You’ve idolized the guy since we were children. You moved halfway around the world to live in the same city as him, and don’t try to claim that was a coincidence. In four years living here, the only new friend you’ve made is Phichit.” He shakes his head. “Now this guy you’ve been obsessed with forever is suddenly coming out of your apartment late at night? Please, Yuuri. What else could it be?”
Yuuri licks his dry lips and shakes his head. Yuuko was wrong, her husband is an imbecile. Briefly, he considers his options: accept the lie, try to make up something new, or just give in and admit the truth.
Is he really about to say, ‘No, Takeshi. Actually I’ve been operating as a vigilante crime fighter for years, right under your nose, and Aura and I have just been fighting bad guys together’?
No. No, he will not say that.
Then again, is what he has to say instead any easier? Yuuri has always been a terrible liar.
He looks down, focusing on the floorboard, which is littered with stale animal crackers and discarded sippy cups from the triplets. “You. You’re right,” he forces out, too quiet. “We’re. Aura and I are…”
He can’t actually say it.
“Dating?” Takeshi says for him, so now all Yuuri has to do is nod once. That much he can manage. They’re pulling into the parking lot for the rink now anyway, thank god, and Yuuri is almost free. Any minute now, the car will stop and he can get the hell out of here and go to work, where he’s safe.
Takeshi claps him on the shoulder in the universal manly gesture of support. “Look, I’m not going to pretend I understand any of this, okay? And I’m not entirely certain its healthy for you to be seeing someone you had posters of when you were nine. But for now I’m going to just trust that you know what you’re doing and hope that this makes you happy.”
Yuuri stares down at his lap, thinking of the thrill that shot through him this morning, opening his texts and seeing Victor’s name there; or the way Aura looked the other night, face practically pressed against the glass of Yuuri’s window as he tapped for entry before they left on patrol. “Yeah,” Yuuri says, flushing. “I’m very happy.”
“Good,” Takeshi says. “Make sure it stays that way, because I’m not sure I can beat this one up if he breaks your heart.”
The van comes to a complete stop outside the rink, and Yuuri grabs his smoothie from the cup holder and opens the door as quickly as he can. Takeshi’s grip on his shoulder tightens, and he looks back to see the other man staring at him with suspicion.
“One more thing, Yuuri,” he says, his expression flat and serious. “Please be careful, okay? I don’t know if I can handle any more unplanned pregnancies.”
Yuuri’s face is in flames now. He stutters out something that isn’t recognizably Japanese or English, and makes a break for the double doors of the rink. Never before has been so excited to spend six hours spraying disinfectant inside sweaty skates and mopping up spilled slushies.
Once he’s safely back in the realm of sweat, sugar, and disco music, he nods to the blonde girl clocking out behind the counter - Brooke? - and goes to drop his keys and phone in his usual cubby. The notification light on his phone winks at him. Two texts from Victor.
First, there’s a picture. He opens the image to see Otabek’s face in close up, looking more than a little disconcerted. His back is turned to Lynx, who is standing hipshot in the background in a skin-tight tiger striped catsuit. It’s obscene.
Victor: Yuri was trying out some new costume ideas today. Don’t think this one will make the cut.
Victor: I asked them to come out with us tonight!
Yuuri frowns down at the screen, chewing on his lip. Takeshi was so close to finding him out today, and all because Yuuri is taking stupid risks with his identity. He was so overwhelmed that his idol apparently wanted to spend time with him that he hadn’t stopped to think about how easily he might give himself away.
If Yuuri keeps indulging himself like this, its only a matter of time before everything falls apart.
Yuuri: can’t tonight
Yuuri: sorry
He puts his phone on Do Not Disturb and shoves it into the back of the cubby. He can patrol on his own tonight. He used to do it every night, before he started relying on Aura. He shouldn’t be letting himself lean on others like this anyway. He can handle it, alone.
-
He shoves the other man’s dead weight off of his chest with a strangled gasp. The bad guy slumps to the ground like a puppet with cut strings, and Yuuri doubles over, hands on his knees, resting his weight against the brick wall of the alley. He gasps again, but his chest is tight, his lungs paralyzed.
The panic crests along with the pain, like a punch right in his solar plexus. His vision darkens and blurs around the edges, and the world closes in.
He fumbles the flap of his pocket open to get his phone, but it slips from his numb fingers and falls to the ground. He sinks to his knees, groping around the body of the man he’d been fighting for the familiar texture of smooth plastic. He has to call Yuuko. Call Yuuko. Or Phichit. Everything is getting dark. He smashes his fingers against the call button again and again, but he can feel his body sinking forward.
The screen of his phone lights up. It’s right next to his face now, on the back of the man he took down. He pulls it closer, next to his lips, and tries to form the words, to force out the sound for “Help.” Help.
Did it work? It’s not working. He can’t breathe, can’t see. Everything is dark, except the screen on his phone, which is so bright, glowing. It’s getting brighter. It’s lighting up the whole alley, casting long shadows from the dumpsters, the prone bodies of the men he was fighting.
“Night Owl!”
Someone is shaking him. He can feel his head lolling side to side, uncontrolled. Everything he can muster is focused on remembering to breathe, trying to force his lungs to do their job.
“Night Owl, wake up.”
He bats at the hands on his arms, trying to lift his head. His chest is so tight, nothing can get in. He claws at the collar of his shirt. The phone screen is so bright now, he squeezes his eyes shut against the light.
“Shit, okay,” the person says. “Hold on.” The alley is moving. No, Yuuri is moving. Is he in a car? Phichit.
He tries to open his eyes, but it’s still too bright, and he starts to roll away from the light. The restraints around him tighten, holding him in place. “Please don’t move around. I’d die if I dropped you. You’re almost home, hang on. Hold onto me.”
The ride gets bumpy, and his head snaps back again as they slam to a stop, but then he’s falling slowly into something soft. He clutches his chest with one hand, feeling around with the other - blankets, bedding. He squints open his eyes. Victor is leaning over him, silver hair dripping like strands of mercury, his face so very close to Yuuri’s own.
He turns his head away and sees Victor’s face again, this time on the closet door. They’re in his apartment. On his bed. His chest seizes again, and he curls onto his side.
“I’m sorry. I don’t know what to do. Should I take you to a doctor? I don’t know any doctors. I don’t know what’s wrong,” Victor’s blue eyes are baby kitten wide. “I’m no good with this stuff.”
Yuuri licks his lips, focuses, and tries to force out a response. It’s barely a whisper of air, but Victor’s eyes are focused on his mouth now. He moves in closer, tilting his ear to Yuuri’s lips, his breath ghosting across his cheek.
Yuuri tries again to say, “Yuuko.” Victor sits up, frowning. It didn’t work. Shit. His vision starts to fuzz at the edges again, but then he sees Victor reach deep inside his uniform coat, pulling out Yuuri’s phone.
“Yuuko, you said?” Yuuri nods, and watches Victor shift his attention to the phone, searching for the name. A moment later, his expression clears, and he climbs off the bed, holding the phone to his ear as he moves toward the kitchen. Yuuri can hear him speaking, but can’t make out the words over the rushing in his own ears and the harsh sounds of wheezing breaths. Victor is pacing his tiny kitchenette, gesturing wildly with his free hand, when he abruptly stops, then rushes to open the front door.
Yuuko hurries in as soon as the door opens wide enough. Her hair hangs loose and long, still wet from the shower, and she’s in her pajamas. She takes one look at Yuuri, turns, and shoves Victor out the front door and into the hallway, closing it behind him before she hastens to Yuuri’s bedside.
“Oh, Yuuri,” she says, sitting on the bed next to him. The worry pulling at her brow is an expression Yuuri sees far too often these days. She pulls up his shirt, running her hands carefully along his sides, a light and familiar pressure against his ribs, then brings both hands up to his chest before putting fingertips to his neck, checking his pulse. She bows her head and sighs, and her hair sprinkles cold droplets across his exposed skin.
“I don’t think you’re hurt,” Yuuko says, and reaches down to guide his legs up, gently pressing his knees to his chest. “You’re having a panic attack.” She takes one of his hands in her own and places it against her chest. He can feel her heartbeat, strong against his palm. “See if you can match my breathing now.”
It’s a struggle to make his lungs cooperate, and his breath stutters, but the pattern is familiar and soothing. It takes a few agonizing minutes, but his body gradually begins to listen to him again, and his breathing evens out, matching the rise and fall of Yuuko’s chest.
“There you go,” she says, letting go of his hand. “You’ve got it now.”
“Thanks,” Yuuri says, trying to force a shaky smile. He call tell from her unmoved expression that it’s not very convincing. “Sorry to make you run over here like this again.”
“You know what?” A smile begins to show through the cracks in the edges of her concern. “I’m not that upset about it this time, given that Aura himself is currently in my apartment, babysitting my children.” Her eyes widen as what she just said really sinks in. “Oh my god, he’s in my house. Yuuri, there’s dried applesauce on the wall in my kitchen.”
Yuuri can’t help but laugh at that, even though it dissolves into gasping coughs. His abs protest the strain he’s put on his diaphragm. “Now you know how I felt the first time he came in here. I still had posters of his face on my closet door.”
Yuuko goes white, and Yuuri dissolves into cough-laughs again, hiding his face against his shoulder with a groan as his eyes start to tear up. Yuuko reaches into this bedside drawer and hands him the solvent for his mask. “Takeshi said you told him the two of you are seeing each other.”
Yuuri shakes his head as he blindly dabs the solvent around the edges of his domino. “He came up with that on his own; I just didn’t correct him. It was that or tell him the truth.”
“You know my feelings about that,” Yuuko says, shifts herself further onto the bed and crossing her legs. “I’m not going to repeat myself again. I think Takeshi might be on to something, though.”
“Please,” Yuuri says derisively. “Aura is incredible. He probably saves the world more often than I call my parents. It’s not like that between us.”
“Why not? You’ve thought about it, have you?”
“It’s Aura,” Yuuri says. “I’ve thought about it every day since I was ten. I also thought I’d be a professional ballet dancer back then, but the Bolshoi isn’t going to suddenly call me up for a staring role.”
“You didn’t see him when he brought you in here, Yuuri,” Yuuko shakes her head at him. “I’m pretty sure he thought you were dying or something. He was a total mess. If I hadn’t physically pushed him out of the room, he’d have been falling all over himself trying to help.”
“We’re just teammates,” Yuuri mumbles. “And barely that.” Yuuko’s look is… extremely skeptical.
“He doesn’t know anything about me, Yuu-chan,” Yuuri says more forcefully. “He doesn’t even know my real name. Hell, he doesn’t even really know what I look like.” He peels the domino mask from his face, feeling the skin around his eyes tingle as it meets the cool air of the room.
“I know, Yuuri, but who does know you around here other than me and Phichit?” She bows her head slightly, smiling down at her folded hands. “You keep everything so secret now. Not to go back to this, but you won’t even talk to Takeshi. Back home, everyone in the village was always in your business. I’m starting to think maybe that was good for you.”
“Now you’re finally letting someone else in, whether you meant to or not.” Yuuri wants to protest that he never ‘let’ Victor do anything, but Yuuko keeps going. “He knows where you live. He’s been in your home. He’s met me now; and don’t think I’ve missed how often he’s here, crawling in your window like a desperate teenager.”
Yuuri feels himself flush, but Yuuko just smiles and reaches over to pat his hand. “I’m not saying you should run out and buy rings or anything. I just want you to really think about this. Regardless of what you think you deserve, maybe he deserves at least your name.”
“I… I’ll think about it,” Yuuri says, gently squeezing his friend’s hand in return.
“Good,” Yuuko says. “That’s all I wanted to hear” She gets up from the bed, placing her hands on her lower back to stretch for a moment. “Now I have to get back over there and pay Aura back for rescuing you by saving him from my children.”
“That’s so strange,” Yuuri says, hiding a smile behind his hand. “I’m pretty sure the closest he’s come to babysitting is looking after Lynx…”
Yuuko blanches, drops her stretch, and scurries to the door as Yuuri chuckles.
He slides over to the edge of the bed, testing his weight on the balls of his feet. Even though he knows Yuuko was right, and it was just a panic attack, he’s still apprehensive about being too active right now. When he’s sure he feels steady, he stands, taking a look around.
The window beside the bed is still open despite the chill in the air, forgotten with the urgency of their arrival. The wind is making the plastic blinds clack clack against the glass. Now that he’s noticed, it’s annoying, so he reaches over to still them.
He hears the click of the front door opening. He’s so not ready for this conversation, and he feels his heart start to pound again. Before Victor can get inside, he ducks out through the window and onto the fire escape. As soon as the cold wind hits him, he feels stupid. What kind of coward climbs out a window to get away from the person he admires?
Seen through the spaces between the blinds, Victor looks almost like any ordinary man, smiling as he comes into the apartment. He peeks around the edge of the door, looking immediately to the bed, and he clearly expects to find Yuuri waiting for him. When he sees the empty bed, his expression shifts to alarm. He looks at the unoccupied bathroom, then leaves the floor, the glow around him erupting once again as he hovers to scan the room.
Seeing him panic, Yuuri feels a stab of guilt for causing him so much grief. He sticks his fingers through the open window, wiggling them until Aura spots the movement. His expression lightens again as he floats over, then lands and sticks his head out the window.
He looks up at Yuuri, opening his mouth to make some comment, then immediately slaps both hands over his eyes. “Whoops,” he says cheerfully. “I didn’t realize.”
Oh, right. Yuuri took his mask off. He touches the skin under his eyes. It’s really such a thin barrier he puts between himself and the world, nothing but ordinary clothing and a little strip of fabric. At the party, it had become almost his defining characteristic. Most of the other members of the JF maintain lives which are separate from their work, but Yuuri’s the only one who kept a physical block between himself and the rest of the room.
Victor wears a mask, too, Yuuri realizes, just not when he’s fighting crime.
“You can come outside if you want,” he says. “I think the moon is full.”
Victor is trying to climb out the window with his head down and his eyes still covered, so Yuuri takes him by the arm, guiding him out onto the platform. They stand silently side by side.
“I can’t tell,” Victor says mournfully after a moment. “I keep trying to remember if I saw the moon earlier tonight and what it looked like, but I don’t know.”
“The moon is outshining the street lights tonight,” Yuuri says, eyes fixed on Victor. He should look silly with his hands covering his eyes like a child playing hide-and-seek, but Yuuri’s attention is caught by the interplay of the lights and shadows on his cheekbones. “It’s the brightest I’ve ever seen it.”
“I want to see, but…” He takes his hands from his face, keeping his eyes tightly closed. “I know you don’t want me to see you right now.”
“I don’t want you to see me at all,” Yuuri says quietly. Victor’s hands fall to his side. “All I want is to hide all my ugly parts from you, so that you can see this nice version of me. I know I’m nothing special, but I thought maybe I could at least be the kind of ordinary person that you might like. No matter how I try, it seems like you keep seeing the worst of me.”
“You’ve seen me awkward and drunk. You see me getting beat up and failing over and over again. You’ve seen me panicking and crying and at my most pathetic.” Yuuri grips the metal railing of the fire escape, feeling the rust and paint flaking off beneath his palms. “But you keep coming back here, and I honestly don’t know what to think. Is this pity? Or do you just not understood how weak I truly am?”
“Weak?” Victor shakes his head. “Never that. I told you weeks ago that I think you’re amazing. Why are you still doubting me?”
“I never doubt you,” Yuuri says, riled immediately to defend his idol.
“You are, though. I said you’re incredible, and now you’re saying you still don’t believe me. You want to impress me? You impress me.” He pauses, and Yuuri struggles for something to say to fill the silence, but then Victor just gathers his thoughts and continues.
“You told me back at the party that you thought it was sad that I never had a choice. That’s true in more than one way. When you’re born with something like this,” he puts his hands out, and the light gathers again, pooling and spilling from his palms like water. “You never really get a choice. It can’t be contained within you forever, and once it’s out, everyone wants your attention. They demand that you help, even when sometimes you don’t feel like helping.”
“I’m a hero,” Victor says quietly, “Because other people held me up and made me one. That’s true for many of us with powers. You either use your gifts for good, or you use them for evil. If you’re lucky, you get something easy to hide, and you can choose to live a normal life. But, Night Owl, you were given a normal life, and you choose this, even though it hurts and you have to fight harder.”
“The parts where you fall down, and you get beaten, and you come back? Those are my favorite parts. You’re a hero because you want to help, not because you have to.” Yuuri’s laugh at that must sound a little shocky, because Victor says, “What? You don’t agree still?” The light dissipates from his hands, and he puts them back over his eyes. “If I say these things are wonderful, and you call them ugly, I can only imagine what the best parts of you must be.”
Yuuri shakes his head, and reaches out to hold Victor’s wrists, guiding his hands away from his eyes. “Well, I guess if you’re so blind to my faults, you might as well see the rest of me too.” Victor’s eyes are still closed, and Yuuri huffs in exasperation. “I said you can look now. Don’t make me wait.”
“I’m scared,” Victor whispers, but he slowly cracks first one eye, then the other. There’s only the light of the moon to see by, and Yuuri immediately wonders what Victor can see - the old bruises? The dark circles under his eyes from lack of sleep? He doesn’t say anything, but he doesn’t look away from Yuuri’s face until Yuuri turns his head, breaking the stare.
“My name is Katsuki Yuuri,” he says quickly, focusing on the city lights stretched out ahead to get through this part. “I’m from a town called Hasetsu, in Japan. I moved here with Yuuko and her husband when I was nineteen to attend college, but I dropped out.” He can’t help but check in with Victor again as he says that, but there’s no change to his expression. “I work part-time at a roller rink,” he adds. “Some hero, huh?”
Victor reaches out, and Yuuri has to force himself not to move away as the other man’s hand comes up to cup his face. His thumb brushes his cheekbone, where Yuuri knows there must still be a yellowing bruise. “I don’t see anything ugly here, Yuuri,” he says quietly, stretching the syllables of his name.
“Oh my god,” Yuuri says, reality dawning like the sun slowly rising in his brain. “You like me.”
“See, you do have super powers,” Victor says, his unguarded smile underlying his words. “Your powers of observation are clearly world class.”
“Shut up,” Yuuri mutters, appalled, but then Victor’s hand migrates down to his chin, tilting his head up, and it becomes pretty hard to miss what’s happening here. Yuuri squeezes his eyes closed, waiting.
Nothing happens. He cracks one eye open, and Aura’s face is centimeters from his own, his eyes focused Yuuri’s lips. It only takes a slight shift in weight, just a lean forward, a little hop up to his toes, and maybe it’s a bit more of a lunge than Yuuri intended it to be, but he closes the gap.
It’s a lot better than kissing his own hand while looking at posters of Aura in his childhood bedroom. His lips taste faintly of strawberry lip gloss, a detail Yuuri’s fantasies had never included, but which he files away carefully for later. The kiss is chaste and gentle, a fairytale illustration. Then Victor’s hand slides up from Yuuri’s chin, burying his fingers in the hair at the nape of his neck and tugging lightly. Yuuri’s lips part in a gasp, his face heating. The kiss deepens, then ebbs back - an exploration, a caress, and then a final, lingering press.
Victor pulls away first, but his hand doesn’t leave Yuuri’s hair. “Oh my god,” he whispers against the skin of his cheek. “I think I like you.” Yuuri drops his head onto Victor’s shoulder, laughing helplessly with how ridiculous it all is.