Chapter Text
Hitoshi coughed into his sleeve again and hates the way he can feel his chest rattle. Class 2-A were in the middle of a training exercise and he had been put with Kaminari, Ojirou, and Yaoyorozu. They were in the middle of working on their plan for trying to “rescue” the hostage from the villains being played by Snipe and Cementos. At least Hitoshi was sure they were putting a plan together, he couldn’t be entirely sure between the pounding in his head and the aggravating tickle in his throat that try as he might couldn’t dislodge which he had resolved himself to ignoring.
“Ojirou, if you create a distraction by taking Chargebolt and blowing out the power, then we me and Mindjack might have a chance of getting around them to the hostages.”
Hitoshi looked up at the sound of his hero name and took a couple seconds to backtrack over the information, frowning at his teammates who had continued talking. Yeah, he could manage doing that, just follow Yaoyorozu and do whatever she said. That would be fine.
He stifled another cough, squeezing his eyes shut and pushing his face into his capture weapon so as to not be obvious, pressing a hand to his chest to stop the shudder as he did. Clearly didn’t do a good enough job as when he raised his head again he saw Kaminari looking at him with a frown.
“What?” he whispered.
“You doing okay, man?”
Hitoshi knew his boyfriend was probably worried, but right now he couldn’t deal with it. He needed to focus on doing well on the exercise. A stupid cough wasn’t going to stop him.
He leaned towards Kaminari, keeping his voice low while their teammates continued to discuss strategy. “I’m fine, Kaminari, don’t worry.” The other boy didn’t look totally convinced, but the crease in his brows lightened.
“Alright, if you say so. Just be careful out there today, you’re looking pretty pale.”
Hitoshi raised an eyebrow. Kaminari rolled his eyes.
“Paler than normal. You know what I mean! Your dark circles look almost black instead of purple and you keep coughing.”
“Wow, with compliments like that no wonder you got me to date you.”
Kaminari gave his shoulder a shove and Hitoshi had to suddenly counter his weight back to stop from toppling over. Maybe he was feeling a little more off than he realised. He’d probably just take a nap or something when they finished the exercise. It would be fine.
Bringing his attention back to Kaminari he saw a small flicker of uncertainty on the other boy’s face so he decided to be merciful.
“Kami, I promise, I’m fine. Let’s just focus on training and I’ll sleep when we get back to the dorms or something. Don’t worry.”
Kaminari pouted but seemed convinced. “Okay...okay fine. But -”
A throat clearing got their attention and they looked up to find Ojirou and Yaoyorozu had finished their planning and were looking at them.
“Are you guys done flirting?”
Hitoshi looked back at them blankly, but felt sure they could see the red that was no doubt tinting his cheeks.
Kaminari meanwhile was unphased, and grinned back, all bright light and too much energy. “Yup! You guys finished with the plan?”
They were and quickly gave them the extra details of what they had worked out but it hadn’t expanded too much beyond what Hitoshi had heard before Kaminari started talking.
He and Yaoyorozu would sneak closer to the building once their teammates pulled the power and from there Hitoshi would use his modifier to incapacitate the ‘villains’ and Yaoyorozu would use her quirk to make restraints. Easy peasy, as Kaminari had said.
It probably wouldn’t be easy peazy, no doubt something would go wrong, but at least he was in a team with some seasoned hero students, one of which was the vice student president, so they would likely be stopped from fucking up too bad.
Hitoshi really hoped they would anyway. He had been moved onto the hero course during first year but he still felt like he was trying to prove himself. He had shown Aizawa and Principal Nedzu that he was deserving of the opportunity but it was still the hero course, if he didn’t keep up his progress, keep trying to match the other students which he was still behind on his training in comparison, then he might lose his spot. And after Aizawa had taken custody of him too, making him no longer hate the periods when the term was over and he had to go back to the cold angry house of his foster parents. If he fucked up and got kicked off he could say goodbye to the warm comfort of the meals cooked by Mic sensei and warm fuzzy cats wanting to curl up on him while he watched Eri learning to colour at the coffee table. All the little domesticities he had gotten used to and would hate to give up. They would probably let him go back to general studies, keep him on at UA so it wasn’t all bad. But if his dream was taken away from him again, now, after everything, all the work he’d put in, he doesn’t think he would be able to stomach staying.
So, he had to keep up,he had to do well. He couldn’t let down Aizawa after all the effort he had put into helping him get here, after giving him a place to live during breaks. Or a place to stop after classes or when the dorms made him feel too claustrophobic. He didn’t want to lose the way his life had changed in the last few months.
His thoughts were whirring as he followed Yaoyorozu, but tried to keep focused on their plan. They crouched around beneath the window they would be going through when they got the signal and waited. He closed his eyes and ignored the way the sudden movements had made his head swim, leaning his weight against the wall and clutching his capture scarf like a lifeline. He hated that it had become a sort of comfort blanket for him when he was wearing it, but try as he might his hand kept getting drawn back to it when he was stressed or nervous. He had thought he had been doing better with it, but the way he was feeling today was probably pushing him back into old habits.
Taking a steadying breath as much as his aching lungs would allow, he opened his eyes to find Yaoyorozu looking at him out of the corner of her eye where she had been using the keys made with her quirk to unlock the window. “Are you sure you’re up to this, Shinso? If you’re not feeling good we can tell Aizawa-”
“I’m fine,” he said, sharper than he had intended. But the notion of being the reason his team failed their training exercise made him want to scream, so in comparison snapping at her was probably okay. “Don’t worry about me, I just needed a minute. Feeling tired is all. I’ll be fine to do the exercise.” It wasn’t a lie, he was feeling pretty tired. Like his bones felt heavy and he wanted to go lie down and sleep for about ten years. But that wasn’t too different to normal. He wasn’t going to tell her any of that though.
She seemed less convinced than Kaminari had, showing why she was the class vice president. Shit.
However, before he had to think of any more excuses to stop her from stopping the exercise or contacting Aizawa they heard the buzz of the power and shouts which meant Kaminari had taken out the electricity.
Yaoyorozu didn’t move though.
“Creati!” he whispered harshly, half from emotion half from the way it made his throat burn, and pulled his voice modifier up, fixing it in place quickly. “Let’s go.”
Without waiting for an answer he stood and pulled the now unlocked window open, jumping in, landing less soundlessly than he usually would. A moment later he heard her do the same, hitting the floor more delicately than he did, and pulling the window closed behind them to disguise where they entered. He heard the soft whoosh of her quirk and felt the shape of the night vision goggles as they were pressed into his hand and quickly strapped them on. The blurry darkness of the room switched to a vague green glow. Looking to Yaoyorozu to thank her he found her shape glowing in reds and oranges and took a step back, the stimulus making the pain in his head flare.
“They’re heat vision too,” she whispered, mistaking his reaction for surprise. Hitoshi gave a grunt of acknowledgement, and gestured for her to go first.
He fell back and let her lead the way, not trusting himself to not lead them into an ambush with the way his brain was, or rather wasn’t, working.
They crept along darkened corridors toward where they thought the ‘villains’ had holed up. Eventually they found the room with Snipe in along with the dummy hostage. The man was standing with his back to the wall with a view of the windows along the other side and of the doorway they were just outside of. Could the goggles that were part of his mask help him see in the dark too? Hitoshi couldn’t remember. Fuck, that was the kind of thing they should know. Hopefully Yaoyorozu did, but he didn’t dare ask, not with how close to the doorway they were.
As he was thinking she gave him a gesture to use his voice modulator and he nodded. Really he needed to cough again, but he would have to push past it. He fiddled with the buttons on the modulator, setting it to Cementoss’s low tone and inhaled around the tightness in his throat to project his voice louder.
“What happened to the lights?” he tried to say, Cementoss’s voice coming out weak but loud enough to be heard. But he didn’t get further than “What hap-” before he devolved into a coughing fit that had him doubling over. The noise resonated weirdly through the voice modulator, sounding tinny and crackling as he tried his best to minimise the volume, aware that he was giving away their position. He ripped the modulator down and buried his face in the capture weapon but neither seemed to do more than muffle it slightly.
Yaoyorozu should be taking the opportunity to attack, or run away leaving him to his own fuck up, but instead she was crouching next to him talking softly where he now realised he had fallen to his knees still coughing. Fuck, the pain in his lungs was getting worse and there was a distant awareness that he was shaking. He didn’t even know where Snipe was anymore. Had probably just taken the dummy and jumped out the window. Fuck they were going to fail, he was going to fail, he couldn’t fail, he coludn’t-
His thoughts started getting harder to parse and his view through the night vision goggles was starting to get worse. Like it was somehow getting darker. Could night vision goggles stop working?
He finally felt the coughing peeter off into raspy gasps and felt a strong arm around his shoulder to join Yaoyorozu’s fingers gripping onto his arm as he bent forward. Fuck he was tired. And suddenly it felt like there was no reason not to just go to sleep right here.
So, Hitoshi let go of the last threads of consciousness, and allowed the darkness to slip in further to claim him.