Chapter Text
Midoriya first noticed Tokoyami on the first day at UA High. He had a fascinating, powerful quirk, even then, when Midoriya was constantly overwhelmed with trying to figure out how to use One for All and his insatiable curiosity about everyone else’s quirks.
But the thought of Tokoyami didn’t make his heart pound and flutter right away.
It’s a long time coming, but Midoriya realizes he is truly smitten when Tokoyami comes back from his work-study with Hawks looking more confident, more united with Dark Shadow, and totally, deliciously yoked.
Midoriya always appreciated Tokoyami’s work ethic, his focus, and his unique sense of personal style. But improved self-confidence looks alluring on the bird-headed boy.
Midoriya knows he’s weird by most people’s standards, what with the muttering and intensity, but even he knows he’s going to embarrass himself soon if he can’t stop himself from staring at Tokoyami’s forearms or the way Dark Shadow bonks his head against his host’s companionably.
He can’t stop smiling when he thinks about the sun shining off Tokoyami’s black, glossy feathers. He’s caught himself murmuring questions about the nature of Dark Shadow — are they sentient? Does he consider himself independent from Tokoyami even though he can’t be separated? What does it feel like when Dark Shadow is inside Tokoyami-kun’s chest? He could fill a notebook with the things he wants to know.
Including: what would it feel like if Izuku held Tokoyami’s hand? If they went on a date, would Midoriya be dating them both, or just Tokoyami? So many questions, so few he has the courage to ask.
Sooner than he would have liked, Midoriya is facing the reality of his stupid, terrible friends figuring him out.
“Take a picture, it will last longer,” Uraraka snarks quietly when she catches him watching Tokoyami’s shirt hem flutter in the breeze as he stretches outside the dorms.
“Wish I could,” Midoriya mutters before slapping a scarred hand over his mouth.
Uraraka holds her stomach as she laughs at him, hunching over in her mirth. When she finally gets a hold of herself, as Midoriya studiously ignores her, red flaring across his cheeks, she squeals far too loudly.
“You really do like him!”
He starts loudly shushing her halfway through the sentence, grinning in embarrassment and glancing up to see Tokoyami and Dark Shadow looking at the hubbub with twin deadpan expressions. Dark Shadow tilts their head consideringly and Midoriya throws his arms over his face, turning to go somewhere else. Anywhere else. Perhaps the bottom of the ocean.
“Wait up!” Uraraka says, grabbing her backpack.
“Can’t, have to go defenestrate myself,” he mutters.
“You can’t throw yourself out a window, you’re already outside, dumbass,” Bakugou calls.
“Oh! I’ll go back into the building, then,” Midoriya replies blithely, shooting finger guns at his childhood friend.
“If you hurt yourself, I’ll fuckin’ kill you,” Kacchan growls, moving in front of Izuku’s path back to the residence hall.
Izuku can’t help but smile in response to that, because for Kacchan, that’s an indisputable declaration of friendship.
“Would you quit that and tell me everything, please?” Ochako says, turning huge eyes his way. Kacchan drifts away, more interested in what Kirishima is up to a few meters away.
“You figured it out,” he says, powerless in the face of one of his best friend’s most potent weapons. “I like him. Like him, like him, okay?”
He starts smiling and feels his cheeks redden despite his best efforts and covers up his face, flustered.
“I’m glad YOU finally figured it out,” Ochako countered. “I’ve known you liked him since the sports festival.”
Todoroki and Iida approach as Izuku sputters indignantly.
“How could you know, if I didn’t even know?” He demands.
“The way you got all doe-eyed when he worked with you even though you had the gazillion points headband,” she says.
“Oh, did he figure it out?” Todoroki huffs a laugh. “Took you long enough.”
Izuku abruptly sits on the ground with a harrumph.
“Not you, too,” he grumbles. “Am I the only one who didn’t know?”
“I don’t think Tokoyami knows, but I believe Dark Shadow does,” Iida muses.
“And you don’t think he told Tokoyami-kun?” Izuku stares up at Iida, incredulous.
“He may well have, but Dark Shadow is mischievous,” Iida says. “You should make your feelings clear. Tokoyami may have a flair for the dramatic, but he is honorable. If he doesn’t feel the same, he will be kind.”
Izuku flops all the way back, his green hair mixing in the grass.
“And how exactly am I supposed to do that?” He covers his burning cheeks with his hands.
“He likes apples,” Uraraka says slyly. “You could give him one and use that as a conversation starter.”
“You could build him a nest,” Todoroki teases. Izuku tears a handful of grass out to throw ineffectually at him. Todoroki stops it with a well-aimed puff of icy air.
“You’re terrible,” Izuku mutters.
But that does give him half an idea.
Todoroki notices the glazed over gaze of a Midoriya deep in thought.
“Please tell me you’re not actually going to make him a nest,” he groans.
“Shut uuuuupp,” Izuku laughs, throwing his backpack toward his friend.
After class has finished for the day, Izuku settles down at his desk with a cup of tea, a notebook, and his laptop, ready to research.
He knows Tokoyami is mostly human, but what if he has some bird-like instincts? It’s better to arm himself with the knowledge of all his options than to stumble into a faux pas.
He starts by trying to figure out what kind of bird Tokoyami might be related to. Crow or raven maybe? But his red eyes look different from corvids’ fathomless black eyes.
He guesses it doesn’t matter a whole lot, since Tokoyami is a person with a bird head and not a whole bird, but sets that thought aside for now. He looks up crow and raven behaviors and laughs at videos of crows sledding down a roof. He reads about people who have befriended crows, slowly, over time, with gifts of food and a quiet place to eat and drink. He finds out that if his aim is to gain a crow’s trust, he will have to be patient.
Of course, Tokoyami isn’t a crow. But he figures patience is a good start, taking copious notes.
Later, he blushes as he navigates to a website about bird courting rituals. He finds a list, torn between academic interest and the mortifying prospect of the practical application of his newfound knowledge.
The first item on the list is singing. Izuku nearly gives up there, not having much confidence in his singing voice. But he keeps researching, because he’s never been tripped up by walking into a new situation with too much knowledge.
Another website shares some interesting facts about how crows sing to attract a mate that have Izuku feeling a bit of hope.
Instead of singing loudly for the whole neighborhood to hear, crows get close and sing softly, the website divulges. This ritual includes “soft cooing, rattles, growls, bowing movements, and mutual nuzzling” as well… Midoriya doesn’t know about rattling or growling, but his cheeks redden at the thought of mutual nuzzling with Tokoyami.
He thinks maybe he could sing softly. It’s not that different from talking softly, and he does that all the time, without even realizing it. He just has to sing a song that interests Tokoyami and his shadowy quirk.
He’ll need advice for this. He checks the time and groans; it’s already well past his bedtime. Izuku attempts to sleep despite his newfound knowledge and the half-baked plans tromping around his head.
The next day, at lunchtime, Izuku gently snags Jirou’s arm before she can sit down.
“Um, Jirou-chan, can I ask you a quick question?”
Her ear jacks tremble and she looks uncomfortable. Izuku wonders for a moment if she thinks he is going to confess to her right there by the line for Lunch Rush, his face reddening.
“It’s about music! And, um, Tokoyami-kun?” He says in a rush.
She smiles, her ear jacks taking a more relaxed posture.
“Oh, ok, sure!”
He sighs in relief.
“I am -- Um, I’m interested in listening to some new types of music, and I was wondering if you might have any recommendations? Especially something you know Tokoyami-kun might like?”
Jirou covers her smile with one fingerless-gloved hand, all worries about Izuku’s line of questioning seeming to have evaporated. He takes just a moment to be embarrassed at himself for being so utterly transparent, but then Jirou is talking again.
“When we did the school festival performance, I think he said he likes, like, kind of dramatic, emotional rock, or goth rock, like Velvet Web, or the Fallen Bones,” she says.
Izuku whips out his “Wooing Tokoyami” notebook, code-named “Economics,” and jots those down.
“Thank you, Jirou-chan!” he gushes. “This is so helpful! I owe you one. Do you have any other recommendations?”
She lists a few other music groups unfamiliar to Izuku, all with similarly spooky-sounding names, and wishes Izuku good luck with a subtle wink and a point of her ear jacks.
He ducks into the line for food with a blush, ignoring the glances his friends cast his way. He’s armed with a question about class for Iida-kun as soon as he approaches the table in an effort to avoid the line of questioning he knows is coming from the look on Uraraka’s face.
He is able to keep his earnest class representative and friend talking for most of the lunch period, but Iida-kun eventually runs out of steam, more focused on eating his lunch before it’s time to return to class.
“What were you asking Jirou-chan about, Deku?” Uraraka finally asks excitedly.
“Oh, just wanting to listen to some new music,” he says in an attempt at an off-hand manner, clenching his jaw as he feels his ears heating.
“Don’t you usually listen to soundtracks from All Might movies?” Todoroki asks, quirking a pale eyebrow at him.
“Yes,” Izuku says, nodding sadly. “But I don’t think he is going to be making any more movies, do you? All the more reason to branch out.”
“So what kind of music do you want to listen to now, Midoriya-kun?” Iida asks.
“I thought I’d ask around, starting with Jirou-chan,” he said. “She is the Hearing Hero, after all.”
“What did she recommend?” Uraraka looks genuinely interested.
Shit. He hadn’t gotten this far in his plan to keep his “Wooing Tokoyami” plan to himself. Izuku begins shaking a leg under the table as he tries to think quickly.
“She told me about some rock bands I might like,” he said, listing off a few names.
“Those sound scary,” Todoroki says. “Sounds like something Tokoyami might listen to.”
Uraraka’s gaze snaps to Izuku.
“What are you up to, Midoriya?” she says, eyes narrowing.
The lunch bell rings, and green crackling lightning races up and down Izuku’s body as he books it from the cafeteria.
“Gotta go!” he calls out as Iida shouts, “NO QUIRK USE IN THE CAFETERIA!”
.
Izuku spends the evening studying while listening to the bands Jirou-chan recommended. A lot of the tracks are really long, featuring many different movements, kind of like classical music. And there’s a lot of orchestral instruments, in addition to heavy guitars, drums and even synths.
It’s admittedly out of his comfort zone. He doesn’t think about music that much, in his spare time he is mostly focused on hero analysis, and more recently, harnessing One for All. But he finds his head bopping to some of the songs as he slowly makes his way through his homework.
One song on a playlist he finds is particularly catchy and reminds him of Tokoyami. The mood reminds him of Tokoyami intoning, “Revelry in the dark,” before the test of courage on their field trip.
“And when the adrenaline is rushing high
and you're reaching for the very sky
You can't go down down down down
You can't go down downForget your grey life
Forget your tomorrows
Get into the bliss
Get out of control”
He puts “Get Out of Control” by Daniel Ash on repeat and settles in to do as much homework as he can before dinner.