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“Can’t you just change my flight to one that connects through a different city?” Shouto resists the urge to lean over the counter to look at the monitor.
The unfortunate airport employee has no doubt already dealt with dozens of other unhappy travelers (he hasn’t been counting, but judging by the length of time he’s been waiting in line, there had been at least thirty people ahead of him). The last thing she needs is for him to get into her physical space just to check if she’s even trying to do her job.
But is she even trying to do her job?
“I’m sorry, sir,” she says, for the fifth time. “There are no other flights that would arrive in a different city in time for you to catch a connecting flight to Fukuoka.”
Shouto pinches between his brows. “But my existing flight is not going to arrive in Munich in time for me to make my connection. There might be a flight from another city that ultimately will get me there sooner—”
“I’m sorry, sir.” She hands back his boarding pass and passport, along with an additional slip of paper. “Please accept this voucher for food and drink from participating airport vendors.”
This is futile. He sighs, shoves his documents back into his bag, and turns around. Green floods his vision as he walks straight into the person who had been waiting immediately behind him.
“Excuse me,” Shouto says, stepping to the side. And freezes.
Midoriya Izuku. Has Midoriya Izuku been standing behind him in line for an hour and a half?
“Uh.” Shouto swallows, throat dry.
Ten thousand hours of training to deal with hundreds of variations of high-stress, high-stakes situations. A decade of daily five-mile runs resulting in a resting heart-rate of under fifty beats per minute. Still, here and now, an unexpected encounter with Midoriya has his heart racing, adrenaline spiking through his system.
“H-Hi, Shouto. Todoroki. Todoroki Shouto.” Midoriya bites his lip.
“Shouto,” Shouto says, weakly. No one calls him Todoroki anymore, anyway. And the sound of that name coming from Midoriya might just dissolve the glue that has been holding the pieces of his heart together for the past ten years.
“No, uh— I’m Izuku. You’re Shouto.” Midoriya — Izuku — laughs, so awkward it’s painful. A fitting laugh for a painfully awkward joke.
But it’s not the laugh Shouto remembers.
“Oh my god, Shouto,” Izuku wheezes, flat on his back on the floor of the common room. “I can’t—”
“Miruko is Bakugou’s long lost sister,” Shouto says, keeping his tone serious.
Shouto’s mouth twitches as Izuku goes into hysterics once more. That one wasn’t even that funny, but it’s built up to the point that anything will set him off.
Eventually, Izuku gets himself under control. His hands rest on his abdomen, rising and falling with each deep, steadying breath he takes. He sits up and scoots over in front of the couch where Shouto is sitting, folding his arms over Shouto’s legs.
Shouto’s heart squeezes as Izuku lays his cheek against his knee, the pattern of freckles distorting somewhat as it squishes. Those bright green eyes blink slowly up at him, and Izuku smiles. It’s not his blinding hero smile, the one that gets viewed on televisions all across the nation during every sports festival; it’s not the one held for every citizen he’s ever rescued — or even given minor assistance to, really.
This smile is softer. Just for him.
Izuku is smiling now, but it’s not any smile Shouto has seen before. It’s similar to his nervous grin, but he’s gotten better at making it appear to reach his eyes. He would have to have gotten better at appearances, given his ranking. It makes sense.
Someone clears their throat, and Izuku gestures for them to go ahead.
“Have you been waiting behind me this whole time?” Shouto asks, finally finding the capacity to string more than two words together.
“Uh, yeah?” Izuku says, like it’s a question. “It’s probably weird that I didn’t say anything, right? Yeah, that’s weird. I just, um— I figured you’d probably turn around? At some point? And then I’d be like, ‘Oh my goodness, Todoroki Shouto, it’s been such a long time, what a coincidence’—”
He really hadn’t turned around this whole time, had he? He’d been preoccupied trying to look up all possibly relevant flight schedules to arrive at the help desk armed with enough knowledge to sort the situation out. It had been fruitless, in the end, but he couldn’t just do nothing while he waited.
Most people would probably turn around and make small talk with their fellow stranded travelers, maybe. But he’s never been one for small talk.
“—But you didn’t, um, turn around. And then by the time I realized you weren’t going to, I figured it would be awkward to suddenly announce my presence, since I’d been right behind you all that time…”
Izuku’s hand comes up to his face, finger and thumb tugging at his lower lip — there’s one habit that hasn’t changed, at least.
“So you were hoping I just wouldn’t notice?” Shouto asks, folding his arms.
“Maybe?” Izuku scuffs a foot against the floor, rubber sole squeaking on…whatever it is that airport flooring is made of. Tile? No. Whatever. Izuku doesn’t wear chunky red sneakers anymore.
It hurts, a little, to think that Izuku would rather not speak to him at all in order to avoid an awkward moment.
“I figured I’d just coincidentally run into you somewhere else in the airport at some point,” Izuku continues. And, oh. Okay, then.
So he does want to…talk. To see Shouto again, albeit briefly.
Incomprehensible announcements sound through the terminal, tinny speakers unable to overcome the chatter of hundreds of people trying to rearrange their plans to get home, find accommodations, or get ahold of others to manage their work or family responsibilities in their unexpected absence.
“You should get your flight situation sorted out,” Shouto says, nodding towards the desk.
The person Izuku had allowed to go ahead of him is finishing up; the relief evident in their demeanor suggests that their luck had been better than his own.
“R-Right,” Izuku says, eyes wide.
He steps up to the desk as the other traveler moves away, laying his documents out for the airport attendant to look through. Shouto steps aside to wait.
He looks good. His shoulders are tense, understandably — this is a stressful situation — but he’s grown, in height and build, his civilian clothes not as form-fitting as his hero costume but still unable to hide the strength underneath. Not if you know to look for it.
The old scars are still there, along with some new ones. There’s a fading bruise at the edge of his jaw — possibly from a week or two ago, or possibly sustained during the mission yesterday and quirk-accelerated to a later stage of healing. But nothing too bad. He looks healthy, well-rested — or maybe he’s just gotten better at matching concealer to his skin tone.
Shouto has seen footage, articles, social media posts about Izuku throughout the past ten years, of course. It’s unavoidable. But it’s not the same as seeing him up close. His hair is different. Different from when they’d been in school together, different than he styles it for interviews or while he’s on duty. He’s wearing glasses — how is Shouto just now noticing those?
Attention to detail. Situational awareness. Rapid analysis of anything unusual or out of place.
Where are all of his hero skills now?
Izuku is turned away from the desk with a voucher added to the pile of things clutched in his hands. No luck, then.
His eyes widen as they land on Shouto again. “Oh— you waited.”
“You thought I was going to just leave?” Shouto frowns.
Izuku twists his mouth. “Maybe?” The way his brows pull up together just the slightest bit is almost hidden entirely by the frames of his glasses.
Izuku’s hands are full (maybe he’d needed to show more documents in order to try to rebook a flight to the United States?) and watching him try to juggle everything to get them into his bag without dropping everything to the floor is, just—
“Here,” Shouto says, holding out a hand. Izuku, passport held between his teeth, hands him the bag. “Which pocket?”
Izuku nods at the side pocket and takes his passport back in hand. “Thanks,” he says, as Shouto unzips it and holds it out for him.
“No problem,” Shouto murmurs.
Belongings secured, Izuku takes the bag back and shoulders it. He’s still holding the voucher, which he waves in Shouto’s direction. “Do you want to try to find a ‘participating vendor’ and grab a bite with me?”
It shouldn’t hurt. It’s been years.
“Do you want to go get some food together after class?” Izuku sounds inordinately nervous given that eating together is something they do all the time. “Just— Just the two of us, I mean.”
Shouto looks over at him. At the faint pink flush across his cheeks and the bridge of his nose, at the way his teeth are pressed into his lower lip, at his hands fidgeting together on his desk. Just the two of them…
Oh.
His eyes widen, warmth flooding his chest. “Um,” he manages. He’s been an idiot, apparently.
“You— We— Don’t feel obligated,” Izuku says in a rush, once he finds the words. “We can invite Tenya or Ochako or Kacchan or—”
“You want Bakugou to come along for our first date?” Shouto lifts an eyebrow. “Because that’s— that’s what you’re asking me, right? Or am I misinterpreting the situation?”
“No! I mean— Yes—” Izuku swallows, throat bobbing. “Yes, I’m asking you on a d-date. No, I don’t actually want to bring Kacchan.”
“That’s good.” Shouto looks to the front of the classroom as Ectoplasm strides into place. “I don’t want him to come, either.”
“Is that a yes?” Izuku whispers. “Shouto? Are you saying yes?”
The lecture is starting, but Shouto flicks his eyes over to Izuku, taking in the barely suppressed excitement making itself known in the bouncing of his knee, the tapping of his fingers.
Shouto nods, a small smile pulling at his lips. Izuku drops his head into his arms on his desk, pink to the tips of his ears.
“Sure,” he says, pulling out his own voucher and examining the fine print. “Sounds good.”
‘Participating vendors’ turn out to be in the next terminal over, but they have time to spare given the two hour delay (likely to turn into four or six or eight) affecting all flights connecting through Munich.
“How was your part of the mission?” Izuku asks, breaking the silence as they walk. “I mean, I know it was successful, obviously, but still.”
“It was fine. I handled it, though it might have been a different story if I had gotten there any later.”
The International Board of Heroics is happy to utilize high speed jets or teleportation quirks to get heroes wherever they need to be in time to deal with a crisis. The same does not apply to the return trip, unfortunately, or he wouldn’t be stuck in this airport.
He and Izuku had both been called in to avert a potentially extinction-level event off the coast of Norway, but Izuku had been assigned to the villain apprehension team while Shouto had been working on mitigating the damage from the villain’s manipulation of several large glaciers. He’d known Izuku was involved, but they hadn’t encountered each other throughout the mission.
He’d accepted a long time ago that it would only be a matter of time before they would share an international-level assignment, but it’s probably for the best that they hadn’t been required to work closely on this one. It had taken all of his concentration to prevent the glaciers from melting and dangerously raising the sea levels.
“And you?” Shouto belatedly remembers to ask. Social niceties still haven’t become totally natural for him. “How were things on your end?”
“It was okay, actually.” Izuku shrugs. “Probably overkill to call me in, since the villain’s quirk wasn’t really suited to direct confrontation. Anyone could have taken them down.”
“Mm.”
“But I’m glad,” Izuku adds, quietly. “I’m glad I came.”
“You’re not annoyed about the delay?”
Izuku hums. “It’s relaxing, in a way,” he says, and Shouto lifts his eyebrows, incredulous. Relaxing? “There’s nothing I can do to fix it, so it’s almost like I’ve been given these extra hours to do whatever I want.”
“Whatever you want,” Shouto echoes. “Limited to activities that can take place in an airport terminal.”
“Well, yeah.” Izuku laughs, lifting a hand to the back of his neck. “It’s not perfect, but it’s something.”
How many times had Izuku complained about being forced to take a break while they’d been in school? Or just blatantly ignored the order to rest?
Maybe he’s finally learned to prioritize his own health. Huh.
They find a shitty airport café that has some questionable prepackaged sandwiches and stale coffee on offer. Shouto stares as Izuku orders his coffee black.
“...whole milk, four sugars, with extra whipped cream, please,” Izuku says to the barista, who makes a valiant effort to hide the flash of judgement that crosses her face.
While Izuku is busy looking up at the menu, Shouto catches the barista’s eye and shoves his credit card toward the register before Izuku has a chance to insist on paying for himself.
“Iced tea,” Shouto says. “Please,” he adds, belatedly. He’s a work in progress.
They take their seats and spread their textbooks and notes from class over the surface of the table.
“I’m pretty sure that’s more sugar and dairy than coffee.” Shouto nods at Izuku’s monstrosity of a drink.
“That’s the idea.” Izuku absently taps his pencil against his chin, frowning at a paragraph in the book in front of him. “I don’t actually like the taste of coffee, but I need the caffeine if we’re going to get through all this tonight.”
Shouto shrugs. “Fair enough.”
He wouldn’t complain about an extra study session with Izuku, though, in the event that they don’t end up reviewing all the necessary topics during this one.
It had been Izuku’s idea to get out of the dorm to study, for a change of pace. The café has a nice atmosphere. The lighting is not too harsh, but bright enough to be able to read comfortably; the windows are large, allowing him to appreciate the trees and other greenery of the park across the street; the food is decent, too.
They sit and study for hours, legs tangled together under the table, silent except for the occasional clarifying question about the material.
A lock of hair falls in his face and he blows at it, hands otherwise occupied making notes and keeping his place in the textbook. He blinks as Izuku reaches across the table and tucks the wayward strands back behind his ear.
Izuku is looking at him, fondness written all over his face, in the curve of his lips, the crinkling of his eyes.
Shouto smiles back. How the fuck did he get this lucky?
“It’s getting long,” Izuku says, softly. “I like it.”
“You’re growing your hair out again,” Izuku says, and Shouto’s chest aches. The last time it had been this long had been just after they’d graduated. Up until just after they’d— Well.
There’s no use going there.
“The past few years, yeah.”
He’d kept it short for five or six years, but at some point had accidentally neglected getting it cut for a while longer than usual, and kept putting it off, and putting it off. Until it was long enough to throw into a ponytail, and at that point it’s just easier to keep it long than deal with the maintenance of short hair.
He’d been surprised to find that he’d missed it. It’s a minor thing, but it is what it is.
“It’s a good look,” Izuku says, gesturing vaguely in Shouto’s direction as they find an unoccupied table. “I mean, uh, it’s very striking, which is good for publicity, having a memorable image—”
Shouto snorts. Because having red and white hair split down the center and a giant burn scar on his face isn’t enough for his image to be memorable.
“You’re allowed to like my hair, Izuku.” Shouto sits down.
Izuku exhales a shaky breath. “Oh, uh— Good. Because I do. Like it, I mean. Your hair. Being long.”
“That is what we’re discussing, I believe.”
What is he doing that has Izuku so rattled? His own frayed nerves make sense, but Izuku’s? He’d been— He’d seemed fine, the last time they’d spoken, all those years ago. And Izuku has always worn his heart on his sleeve, so ‘seemed’ is tantamount to ‘was’.
“That power plant rescue you pulled off last month was amazing,” Izuku says, after a few moments of silence. “You’ve really fine-tuned your control to an exceptional degree since we— since we were in school.”
Shouto blinks. That had been a fairly minor incident; it wouldn’t have gotten international attention. Has Izuku been watching him in particular? Probably not. Probably he follows their class in general, or maybe Japan as a whole. He’s probably even more obsessed with hero analysis now than he’d been back then.
“Thank you.” Shouto wets his lips. Should he test that hypothesis? “Did you catch Hanta’s takedown of that helicopter full of hostages a couple of weeks ago?”
“No,” Izuku says, eyes going wide. “Were there any casualties?”
Shouto shakes his head. “He got everyone to safety.”
It’s not their class, then. And it’s not Japan.
“That’s amazing.” Izuku’s fingers find a flaw in the surface of the table and pick at it. “Are you, um— Is he a close friend of yours, then? You’ve stayed in touch?”
“Yeah,” Shouto says, quietly. “We stayed in touch.”
“Ah.” Izuku falls silent, staring at the now-larger section of exposed wood on the tabletop. Inexplicably, the muscles of his jaw flex.
“He’s a good friend,” Shouto adds.
That hasn’t always been the whole story, but it had never been anything serious, either. Izuku does not want or need a laundry list of his past hookups.
Izuku’s expression turns inscrutable. Shouto presses his lips together.
“What?”
Izuku inhales sharply and meets his gaze, smile sliding into place. It’s fake. “What what?”
Shouto huffs. “You know I don’t like it when people don’t just speak up when something’s bothering them.”
Izuku chuckles, but it’s not a happy sound. “Do I know that?”
“What do you mean?” Shouto frowns. “Of course you do.” It’s not a well-hidden aspect of his personality. Never has been.
“We haven’t spoken in a decade, Shouto; I don’t know what I know. People change.”
Ah. He runs a hand through his hair, sits back in his seat. “Izuku…” he starts, but trails off. What is there even to say? It’s true. They’re practically strangers. It had been naïve to think they could just pretend like nothing had happened.
“You know, for a long time,” Izuku starts, voice strained, blinking rapidly, “I told myself you’d probably just— I don’t know, lost touch with everyone. That it wasn’t— wasn’t just me.”
“That’s not fair,” Shouto says, but guilt twists his stomach, puts a lump in his throat. “You haven’t contacted me in years, either.”
“No, you don’t get to—” Izuku’s hands flex and release where they rest on the table. “I did try, I did, for months— Fuck, Shou—” He pulls off his glasses and swipes at his cheek with the heel of his palm.
God, it cuts just as deep as it ever has, seeing Izuku hurting. “Izuku,” he says, again. “I’m… I needed…”
“Time? Space?” Izuku laughs wetly. He presses his hands to his face, shoulders rising and falling with a deep breath. “No, sorry. It was a long time ago. I’m sorry — it’s been a rough few days.”
Shouto inhales, unsteady. Exhales slowly. “It’s okay,” he says, quietly, and reaches across the table to lay a hand on Izuku’s arm. “Maybe we should talk about it.”
Izuku’s hands slide down his face, pulling at his cheeks. “Yeah?” The word comes out soft.
“Let’s find somewhere quiet.”
“We need to talk about it,” Izuku says, fingers combing through Shouto’s hair. “What we’re doing after graduation, I mean.”
Dread swells against the inside of Shouto’s ribs. “Right now?” he murmurs, rubbing his cheek against Izuku’s chest, body curled around him. Izuku’s All Might pajamas may be an assault on the vision center of the brain, but they’re soft, at least.
Izuku’s arm tightens around his shoulders, and Shouto nestles closer, squeezes his eyes shut, wills Izuku to switch to literally any other topic.
“When, if not now?” Izuku’s voice is gentle; fingers in his hair, gentle; everything about him, gentle. All that fucking gentleness and he’s still about to shatter Shouto’s heart into a million pieces.
Shouto suppresses a full-body tremor. “Fine. Let’s talk.”
“I’ve been doing…research.” Izuku’s hand retracts from Shouto’s hair and comes to his jaw, instead. “Relationships between heroes are overwhelmingly likely to, um, to fail. Long-distance relationships, for any longer than eighteen months or so, are also unlikely to last. High school relationships… Well, you get the point.”
Shouto stays silent. He knows where this is going. He’s known for months. Izuku is going to America for three years. Shouto is…not. His mother has been doing so, so much better since he started visiting her weekly. He can’t do it to her. She’s been through enough.
“I just…” Izuku pauses, takes in a ragged breath. “I feel like if we say we’re going to try, and then it falls apart anyway, I’ll lose you completely.”
Izuku could never lose him, no matter what.
“And you— Shouto, god, you mean so much more to me than just being my boyfriend.” Izuku’s shaking, and Shouto tightens his arms around his middle. “I figure, maybe, if we— If it’s amicable, if we’re on the same page, then…maybe we’ll be okay. As friends.”
Friends. Right.
Izuku had been his first friend, after a decade of childhood isolation. If this is what it takes to keep him in that capacity, in any capacity…
“What does that make us now?” Shouto’s voice is pathetically hoarse even to his own ears.
“Oh, Shou—”
Izuku’s thumb swipes across Shouto’s cheekbone. Wiping away tears. Fuck, he’s crying. A sob threatens to wrack his body — he tries and fails to stop it. He’d managed to keep it fairly quiet, at least. The rest of their classmates won’t have heard him — with the exception of Jirou, but she’s discreet enough not to pester him about anything not intended for her ears.
“It doesn’t have to be right away,” Izuku whispers. “It’s not like I can just flip a switch and stop loving you, anyway.”
Shouto pulls out his phone to check his flight status as they settle beside each other on the somewhat-more-comfortable seats of an empty lounge area. Sure enough, all flights to Munich have been pushed back another two hours.
“I didn’t intend to cut you out of my life, you know,” he says, after weathering Izuku’s expectant look for several long moments. “Every morning when I woke up, for weeks after you left, it would take me a second to remember that we weren’t together anymore, and it would hit me just as hard as the first day. And when we talked— Fuck, Izuku, I was always wanting to tell you I loved you, that I missed you, that I saw something that reminded me of you that day, but I thought… I didn’t think you wanted that from me, anymore. And I didn’t know what else to say.”
Damn it. He’d gotten over it. He’s been over it for years. But it’s like he’s reliving it all over again now.
“You could have told me you missed me. I missed you too.” Izuku pauses to scrub at a fresh upwelling of tears spilling down his cheeks, knocking his glasses askew. “I loved you, and it hurt enough to lose that when I left. I didn’t know— I didn’t think I would end up losing my best friend, too.”
Shouto swallows hard. His eyes sting. The words won’t come. He hadn’t realized that within all of Izuku’s unanswered messages of hey Shou, how was your day? and it must be amazing sidekicking with Miruko there had been an underlying message of I miss you, please talk to me. He’d written it all off as Izuku reaching out out of pity or obligation — which wasn’t fair, had never been fair.
He’d never meant to go so long without speaking to Izuku, but after a certain length of time after Izuku’s less and less frequent messages had dwindled away to nothing, it had seemed impossible to contact him out of nowhere. And unlikely that Izuku would even want to hear from him, at that point. He’d rationalized that Izuku had better things to do than deal with baggage from an ex-relationship.
He’s been a fucking asshole. There’s nothing he can do to fix it, but at the very least, Izuku deserves…
“I’m sorry,” he says, finally. “I should have tried.”
“It’s… Um. Thanks, actually; it’s nice to hear that.” Izuku runs a hand through his curls. “I wish… I could have been more— could have told you what was going on with me, how I was feeling. I didn’t want to be needy, or whatever, I guess. Didn’t seem like you wanted to hear it.”
Silence stretches between them, heavy and suffocating.
Izuku’s voice is small when he asks, “Do you wish we’d never been together?”
“No,” he breathes, automatically, and pauses. Frowns. “Maybe? If it means we would have stayed friends.”
“Maybe we should have tried long-distance.” Izuku folds himself over, head between his knees, body shaking.
Shouto lays a tentative hand between his shoulders, ready to pull back, but Izuku doesn’t flinch. He exhales a shuddering breath, instead, and some of the tension in his muscles releases under Shouto’s touch.
“No,” Shouto says, more slowly this time. “I couldn’t see it at the time, but I think you were right. We were kids — we’ve changed a lot, and what are the odds that we would have grown in complementary ways? Most likely we’d have crashed and burned. And then who knows if we’d even be able to sit here and talk it out? Maybe it would have been worse, and we’d never be able to be friends again.”
Izuku turns his face, cheek propped on steepled fingers. Shouto tilts his own head to make the viewing angle less awkward. “Does that mean you think we can be friends again?”
Shouto glances away. “Do you even want to? I didn’t speak to you for almost ten years. You said it yourself, you don’t know me anymore.”
“I’m sorry I said that,” Izuku murmurs, sitting up. “Of course I know you.”
Shouto’s gaze drops to Izuku’s extended hand.
“Friends?” Izuku’s eyes are wide, hopeful, achingly beautiful even through the tears.
He takes his hand. “Friends,” he confirms.
Izuku pulls him into a crushing hug. Something deep within his chest feels like it becomes — maybe not whole again, but something closer to healed, instead of just stitched together. The angle is a little awkward, but Shouto slowly brings his arms around Izuku, returning the embrace. He breathes him in, lets his eyes fall shut, lets himself relax.
Despite the overall sense of well-being that Izuku’s pulling him close has provided, there’s an ache behind his sternum — he can’t really have this. All of this.
Izuku yawns suddenly. “Sorry.” He pulls back, blinking, surprised. “I didn’t sleep well last night.”
Shouto nods. Post-mission jitters. It’s hard to rest with adrenaline still pumping. “I don’t mind keeping watch while you take a nap.”
“Really?”
He rolls his eyes. “No, I just said that to get your hopes up. I’m going to walk away as soon as you fall asleep.”
Izuku shoves his shoulder, shaking his head, but there’s a smile spreading across his face. “Okay, okay.”
Watching Izuku try to use the airport seating as a bed and his lumpy carry-on as a pillow is… Well, it looks so uncomfortable that it feels uncomfortable to witness. Izuku sighs, flips onto his other side, then after a few minutes of that, rolls onto his back with his feet dangling over the armrest.
After another few minutes, Izuku huffs a sigh, the crease between his brows deepening.
“Izuku,” Shouto says, “this is painful to watch.”
“Dude, airport benches are not the easiest place to nap,” Izuku grumbles.
Shouto sighs. “Just come here.”
He lifts an arm in invitation. He’s probably not as comfortable to sleep on as, say, Momo, but he’s certainly better than the seats with barely any padding.
Izuku sits up, teeth worrying at his lip. “You sure?”
“I really don’t mind.”
It takes some shuffling, but Izuku gets settled against him. Within minutes, he’s breathing deep and even, fully relaxed against Shouto’s side, head dropped onto his shoulder. He’s going to end up with lines imprinted on his face by his glasses and the seams of Shouto’s jacket.
Shouto carefully maneuvers Izuku’s position so he can tug off his glasses, at least. No use risking the frames getting bent. Izuku sighs softly as Shouto’s fingers brush against his temple in the process. Shouto’s chest feels tight.
Izuku turns over in his sleep and slings an arm across Shouto’s middle, snuggling closer. The wind’s hollow whooshing is loud in the otherwise quiet dorm. Through the screen, the shadows cast on the walls form a grid in strange perspective. The moon must be especially large and bright tonight.
He’d designed the layout of his room to mimic his room at his father’s house, in hopes that the familiarity would help him settle in better. But since that house hasn’t felt like a home in a long, long, time, this room hadn’t felt like one, either. Until Izuku.
“Shou,” Izuku murmurs, semi-conscious. “Sleep.” His hand fumbles against Shouto’s shoulder, neck, jaw, his thumb stroking in that way that always somehow works to help the tension drain away.
“I will,” he says quietly, turning onto his side and letting his hand come to rest at Izuku’s waist. He just wants to…experience this for a while, first.
“Am I keeping you up? Was I snoring? Drooling on you?” Izuku pushes back, more awake now, eyes searching, features grayscale in the near-darkness. “I can go back to my room if you want.”
“No,” Shouto says, quickly. “I want you to stay.”
Maybe he shouldn’t have suggested this. His heart thuds against his ribs, trying to make an escape. Having Izuku pressed up against him like this, a solid, warm weight; dark lashes fanned out against freckled cheeks that still have the tiniest bit of squish to them; curly hair tickling Shouto’s neck, so close he can smell the shampoo — lychee? — it’s…a lot.
He never could have imagined being grateful for a delayed flight, but…it seems like that’s the way this is going.
Maybe it’s just been a while since he had close contact with someone. Enjoying this doesn’t have to mean anything. Maybe it’s just nice not to have to spend six hours in an airport bored and alone. Maybe it’s relief that he and Izuku have managed to achieve some semblance of closure.
Or, judging by the sudden urge to tenderly stroke his thumb across Izuku’s cheek, maybe this is actually the furthest possible thing from closure he could have gotten out of this encounter.
Fuck.
He shouldn’t want this. Most of the factors that made their decision to break up a reasonable one are still in play. Even if they’re not teenagers anymore, they’re two heroes who live half a world apart. It’s been a decade, so despite the sense of familiarity, the time they’ve since spent not knowing each other dwarfs their time together. There’s no telling whether they’d even get along for more than a few hours at a time.
So why does none of that feel like it matters at all?
If he could only suspend time, they wouldn’t be heading for opposite ends of the Earth in a matter of hours. Even if Izuku has no interest whatsoever in rekindling a relationship that really, really shouldn’t be rekindled anyway, at least Shouto could keep this little bit of closeness.
But time manipulation quirks are exceedingly rare, and he certainly doesn’t have one either way, so a couple of hours pass and Izuku wakes up.
Shouto doesn’t really get cold outside of the context of quirk overuse, but cold seeps in anyway when Izuku sits up and all points of contact between them vanish.
“Thanks,” Izuku says, rubbing at his eyes. “How long was I out?”
“Around two hours.” Shouto fidgets with a loose thread at the pocket of his jeans, itching to reach out and pull Izuku close again.
“Wow, I guess I really needed that.” Izuku runs a hand through his curls. “It just hit me all of a sudden, you know? Feeling fine one minute and then totally wiped out the next.”
“Yeah.” Shouto flexes his hand. He’s not going to comb his fingers through Izuku’s hair. He’s not.
“Sorry for trapping you here for so long.” Izuku flashes him a smile, and damn, how is that still as effective as it ever was?
“It’s fine,” Shouto says, weakly. “I had stuff to read on my phone.”
“Any news on the flights?” Izuku bends over and unzips his bag, pulling out a couple of protein bars. He holds one out to Shouto.
Shouto takes it. “Looks like whatever was causing the delay has been cleared up, because they’ve started setting departure times for all the delayed flights. Can’t send them all at once, obviously. I don’t know your flight number, but the earliest departs in an hour, so you should probably check.” He gestures with the protein bar. “And thanks.”
Izuku shakes his head. “It’s nothing; I’ve got a bunch. When’s your flight?”
“Another three hours before boarding.” Shouto sighs. Three hours (or less, depending on Izuku’s flight) until he and Izuku go back to their separate lives again.
“Sorry,” Izuku says, and Shouto looks at him in alarm. Is he being that obvious? But Izuku continues, “I know you don’t like waiting,” and Shouto relaxes.
“It’s not so bad with decent company,” he mumbles, and Izuku blushes. Blushes.
Goddamnit.
Shouto clears his throat. “So,” he says, so fucking awkward, ugh— “you’re in San Francisco these days, right? How’s that? Any amazing quirks at your agency?”
Izuku lights up. The opportunity to discuss his hero work and other heroes still does that to him, it seems. He’s in his element rambling on, filling Shouto in on everything he’s missed over the past few years. Occasionally he seems to catch himself and stops to ask Shouto something or other in return, but Shouto is more than happy to allow the next few hours of conversation be dominated by Izuku’s enthusiastic retellings of the most memorable events of his life in America thus far.
He’s missed this. Missed Izuku so fucking much.
But three hours are nearly up, and Izuku offers to walk him to his gate. They’re quiet on the way back through the passage between terminals, and the stone in Shouto’s stomach seems to be gaining mass with every step.
Izuku’s eyes were already red-rimmed from the night before, but they’re even puffier after he pulls away from his mom.
“You have the recipe cards I gave you?” Inko says, her expression a mirror image of Izuku’s. “I want you eating some real food, not just instant noodles and cheeseburgers.”
“Yes, mom.” Izuku laughs a wobbly laugh. “I’ll take good care of myself, okay? I promise.”
“And you’ll call every day?”
“Every day.”
Inko nods, and takes several deep, steadying breaths before stepping to the side, clearing the way for Shouto.
Izuku’s eyes land on him. He holds his arms out, and it takes everything Shouto has to walk, not run, into his embrace.
“We’ll talk, right?” Izuku asks, muffled against Shouto’s shoulder, voice breaking a little.
“Of course,” Shouto murmurs, tightening his arms around Izuku’s waist. He tries and fails to swallow down the painful lump in his throat. “Of course we will.”
Izuku pulls away, and for an instant, his eyes flick down to Shouto’s lips.
Shouto’s breath catches. Please, yes. One more. Just one more time.
But Izuku just swallows, throat bobbing, and smiles through his tears. “I’ll see you around, Shou.” He squeezes his hands once before letting go.
What?
What kind of goodbye is that? Like they might run into each other anytime. Not the kind of goodbye that would suggest that he’s leaving for years. Not one that says anything about everything between them being over and done because of a few thousand kilometers.
And then he’s gone, through the door to the jetbridge. Out of sight.
“Oh, sweetheart.” It’s Inko, at his elbow, with a gentle hand on his arm. A tear drips off his chin. “You know you’re welcome at the apartment anytime, right? You’ll always be family, even if things aren’t quite the same between you and Izuku anymore.”
He just nods, throat too tight to speak.
“I really am sorry,” he says, almost a whisper.
The flight attendants are calling for Group A to start boarding (which is his group, but Izuku doesn’t know that, and there’s no rule against boarding with a lower priority group).
“Shou,” Izuku says, and there’s too much— too much fucking emotion in one syllable, it’s not at all fair.
He blinks back tears. Fuck. His heart is beating too fast or too hard or just wrong, somehow, it’s not working right.
“I fucked everything up between us,” Shouto says, scrubbing at his face. “I’m a h-horrible friend.”
Izuku’s hand grasps his arm, warm and solid. “It’s in the past. We can stay in touch, if you want. I hope we do.”
Group B.
Maybe there is someone with a time manipulation quirk fucking with things, because everything is going way too quickly.
He clenches his jaw, tightens his grip on the strap of his bag, forces himself to meet Izuku’s gaze. Izuku’s eyes are glistening, but he’s okay, of course he’s okay. Shouto has always needed Izuku more than Izuku has needed Shouto.
“Yeah,” he says, exhaling a shaky breath. “Sure.”
Izuku pulls him into another hug, one hand finding the back of his head, the other arm looped around his shoulders. He drops his face against Izuku’s neck. It’s probably super fucking weird, but Izuku just holds him there anyway.
Group C.
Group D.
And then they’re calling for him specifically, looking for their missing passenger.
Last call.
No time left.
“Well, anyway,” Izuku says, hands dropping to his sides as he steps back. “I’ll see you around, Shou.”