Work Text:
The universe had a shitty sense of humor. There was a new movie that you, Kei, and Touya had been looking forward to for months. The boys had made a point of taking tonight off so you could all see it on opening night and avoid spoilers, given that it was the finale of a series. Keigo had been on a case in Okinawa for a few weeks. You hadn’t seen Touya in nearly as long, because you’d had to duck out to Tokyo to consult for the Tokyo National Museum. While in Tokyo, you’d bought new lingerie with tonight in mind.
Naturally you’d woken up sick.
You’d been hoping that if you ignored your cold it would go away. Unfortunately, it only seemed to be getting worse. You’d taken some Tylenol for the headache but sighed, knowing that your lecture was going to be punctuated by sneezes since you didn’t have time to run out to buy cold medication. At least today’s class was a one-hour class intro level one and not your three-hour graduate seminar.
But after class you couldn’t ignore that you needed to go home. You sniffled—half your cold, half your rising emotions because you got weepy when you got sick—and composed a text.
Me: Go to the movie without me. Just a cold, but I feel rotten. I made it through my lecture, but I’m going to go home and sleep.
Both of them began typing immediately.
Touya: I can send a doctor to your place? Enji practically has a platoon of them on speed dial after all the trouble I had with my quirk.
Keigo: There’s a doctor at the Commission that can handle anything viral.
They were both so sweet. But Keigo was fairly unfamiliar with being sick—the Commission was always so fast to react any time they felt he was operating at less than peak efficiency, and he assumed they would offer those very expensive services to you. And while you were sure that there were a number of doctors who were instrumental in helping Touya cement his control over his quirk, you were equally sure that they wouldn’t be experts in the common cold. You thought back and realized this was probably the first time you’d gotten sick since you’d started dating.
Me: You know how I’ve told you before that your upbringings mean that your reactions to things are perhaps a tad…outsized to the problems sometimes? This is one of those times. Normal people get sick and are fine in a few days. Go to the movie. I’ll try to avoid spoilers and catch it next week during my long break between classes on Tuesday. Touya’s cooking for us Wed, so we can talk about then.
You put your phone in your pocket and tired, itchy eyes glanced around your office. It was small, but felt smaller because you’d crammed four bookcases into a space meant for three. One of Touya’s stained glass creations hung in the window, depicting a garden in bloom. A picture of the three of you, your faces squished together to fit in the selfie, taken at a baseball game last year was in one corner, while a photo of you and your twin on vacation in London sat next to it. A small collection of sparkly or interesting rocks from Kei were scattered on your shelves.
You packed your laptop, and the physical galleys for your next books. Your quirk let you know the history of pre-quirk objects—what it was, what it was used for, and who would’ve used it—and you’d compiled your favorite stories into two books, a simplified version for kids and a more comprehensive version for adults. You weren’t doing work tonight with the way you felt, but maybe over the weekend you could review the galleys with some tea.
Touya: What’s the point of having access to Endeavor’s credit cards if I can’t use them to take care of you?
Keigo: Are you sure? They’re always happy to help me.
Me: I’ll be fine by Monday. Tell me how the movie was.
Rather than take the subway home, you called for a cab after hitting a pharmacy for cold medicine and a bottle of water. You kicked off your shoes in the genkan and dropped your bag in your office. Comfier clothes were the next order of business.
You trudged to your bedroom only to stop at the sight of Keigo reclined on your mattress. The three of you had long since given each other keys to your places, but they had tickets for the nine p.m. showing and it was already seven-thirty. “Kei?”
“Hey there, baby bird,” he teased. Then his expression faltered, and he sat up. “You look awful.”
“See, that’s exactly the kind of over-the-top compliment that made me fall for you,” you said, shrugging out of your clothes. You pulled a pair of pajama pants and a tank top out of a drawer.
“Fine, I owe you ten bucks, pretty bird. You can fly here faster than I can ride my bike,” Touya groused from behind you. His voice was softer when he addressed you. “Let me help you, doll.” His warm lips brushed your shoulder.
He took the pants from you, knelt, and slid them up your legs. Another day he’d have made the process so sensual you’d shove them right off again. Bending down to take off your shoes had made your head spin, so you were relieved that he’d offered. Passively you let him help you into your shirt, too.
“Thanks, Touya,” you murmured. “It was sweet to come and check on me.”
Keigo was on the phone by the window talking into his phone. You watched as his wings puffed and smoothed in agitation. You only saw him that worked up when a case was making him emotional.
“Lay down before you pass out,” Touya said with a click of his tongue. “You can rest your head on what I’ve heard called my top tier tits.”
Instead of a laugh, your body was wracked with a coughing fit. When you settled you were in a princess carry in Touya’s arms, your chest ached, and your eyes were streaming. Kei appeared a moment later with an insulated thermos and tissues. The icy water was a balm on your burning throat.
“Thanks.” You blink rapidly trying not to cry. You’d cry at ads when you were sick, so your partners taking care of you when you expected to just climb into bed and pray for oblivion had tears at the ready.
Touya climbed on the bed, lifting you with him. Kei left the room—probably to finish his call. “Want my newest Enji cringe story?”
You rested your head on his admittedly plush pec. “Always.”
“So yesterday was Natsu’s soccer game. Musutafu U v. Fukuoka U.”
“A game that divided this house into three factions. I’m aware.”
“Right, wrong, and coward,” he said indicating himself, gesturing towards your living room for Keigo, and kissed your forehead. “Enji showed up in a shirt that said, and I quote, ‘F.U.F.U.’ Now he has to donate a library to Fukuoka University so, really, they won twice.”
Your laughter bounced off the ceiling until your coughing did.
“I had a student ask me if I was certain that people had been to space pre-quirk, because they were pretty sure it was a movie I’d misidentified. That my quirk had ‘misfired.’ It’s to my credit that I didn’t sneeze on him.”
Touya clicked his tongue in disapproval. “But you had perfect plausible deniability. I thought I’d taught you better.”
Your lips twitched as you thought of the student in question. “Well, then, senpai, tell me your most recent tale of pettiness.” You could feel the cold medicine start to take effect—your head feeling a little less blurry, going longer between coughing and sneezing fits.
“Natsu was so annoyed at Enji over the soccer game that I bought him an All Might hoodie. He wore it all through family dinner, according to Shouto.” He snickered.
“And why is your father the subject of your wrath when he dotes on you?” You cupped his cheek in your hand, and he presses a kiss to your wrist.
“He told a reporter about how I used to burn all my clothes. That one time in middle school I accidentally burnt everything but my underwear and he had to bring another uniform to school. I had to wear the principal’s shirt as a dress until he did—I looked damn good, too, but it’s not an incident I really want to rehash.” His mouth twisted in a sour expression.
“Makes me glad the Commission doesn’t talk about my training,” Kei said from the doorway. He crossed to the bed and curled up at your other side. “They’d hate it if it got out that without my visor or something similar I’d fly into glass. Happened all the time when I was like seven.” He wrapped his arm around your waist and leaned over you to kiss Touya. “I forgot to do that earlier.”
Touya gave a low hum as their lips met again. They looked so beautiful together—Keigo’s golden locks and crimson wings gave him the look of an angel, while the glint in Touya’s eyes and the curl of his lip made him look like a fallen one. Touya slipped his tongue into Keigo’s mouth and was met with a chirp. When they separated, you could see the heat in their eyes.
Kei turned his attention back to you. “I have a surprise for you, baby bird. I promised to tweet my thoughts about the movie, and in exchange the studio is sending over a copy for us to watch.” His lips brushed over your crown.
Despite feeling better, tears spill over and down your cheeks. Both of them froze for a moment.
Kei pulled an amethyst geode from his pocket. “Don’t cry. Look, it’s purple, your favorite color! I found it in a shop on Okinawa.”
Touya held his hand open, palm up. A blue flame appeared. “Look, fire.”
Kei knocked his shoulder with a wing. “Look, fire? Do better.”
“Yeah, do better,” you teased.
Touya rolled his eyes and got off the bed. “I’ll be back.
“How’s my KeiKei?” You turned on your other side and slid your hand under the t-shirt you knew had been in your closet earlier to rest on warm, gold skin. You all kept spare clothes at each other’s places, but they availed themselves more frequently—neither had any interest in hanging out in their costumes.
He raised an eyebrow. “My nose is functioning, so I think better than you, chickadee.” His wing came up to rest on you like the softest blanket. “Missed you both while I was gone.”
“We missed you, too. Did the case go well?” They could only tell you the bare bones of their cases, but you still tried to be as informed as you could be, given that you were a civilian.
His lips brushed your bare shoulder. “It all worked out, but one of the sidekicks got three broken ribs because I didn’t get them out of the way fast enough.”
“I know you did your best. You always do.” You ran your hand through his hair, scratching lightly, which his bird biology translated as preening his hair. He gave a low trill.
“How’d Tokyo go?”
“Really good. Over the summer I’m going to help them organize a multi-museum exhibit about childhood. How clothes, toys, education, even the role of children and when you were considered to be a child fluctuated during the pre-quirk era. There’s going to be depictions of children in art, pop culture, so much.” He passed you the tissues. A few moments later you continued, “Of course, my favorite part wasn’t work.”
“Meet up with a friend?” He tilted his head.
You realized you were holding the geode. “Put this on the nightstand for me, love? No…I went shopping.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Must have been one hell of a store to top planning that kind of exhibit.”
The mattress dipped, then Touya’s warmth pressed against your back, and his arm wrapped around both you and Kei. “I have a guess,” he said, voice even lower—his I’m going to dick you down voice.
Keigo’s eyes sharpened. “Lingerie?”
You yawned. “While it’s red, I wasn’t planning for my nose to match my outfit.”
Kei’s wings puffed up at the news that the lingerie was in his color. “We should go to the living room before I go looking for whatever you’re going to surprise us with another night.”
You weren’t necessarily surprised when Kei carried you. You twined your arms around his neck and rested your head on his shoulder, mindful of his wings. “Thank you for calling the studio.”
“If you’re not going to let me abuse my position as Number Two to get a doctor to get rid of your cold, you’ve got to let me abuse it to get you the movie you wanted to see.” You chuckled as he deposited you on the couch. His phone beeped. “Speaking of, that’s them. I’ll be back in a few.”
A box of popcorn, assortment of snack foods and candy, soda, some flowers and a SK8 the Infinity blind box were on your kotatsu. “You didn’t have good junk food.” Touya said by way of explanation. “Let me make the popcorn.”
“You know if you’re going to spoil me like this, I’m going to make a point of getting sick more often,” you joked.
“Tch” He headed off to your kitchen, more at home there after nine months of dating that you were after three years of living there. “You do that and I’ll tell Enji about your exhibit. He’ll offer to cut the ribbon or however they kick off shit like that. I bet we can get him to wear an Anthropology Rules, Paleontology Drools shirt or something. Y’know. So he can support you.”
“Don’t threaten me with Dad-deavor,” you whined.
“Then stay healthy once you kick this plague,” he volleyed back.
Kei walked in the door and held up a flash drive. “We had to promise to guard this with our lives. I’ll get it set up.”
You reclined on your couch and let your eyes close, dozing, listening the timbre of Touya and Keigo’s voices as they talked.
“Did she fall asleep?” Touya’s voice was quiet.
You blinked and stretched. “No. Just resting a bit.”
It took a few moments for everyone to get settled with snacks. You were sitting in the center with the popcorn bowl in your lap and a peanut butter cup. Keigo wasn’t the biggest popcorn fan, so he was tossing strawberry Hello Panda into his mouth. Touya split his focus between the popcorn and some Kit Kats.
“Ok, let’s see what happens when a group of car thieves saves the world,” Keigo said. A feather whizzed over to the light switch and flicked it off, bathing your living room in darkness.
Two and a half hours go by so fast. After snacks, you paused the movie to wash your hands thoroughly. Keigo shifted to the floor, and you and Touya separated to the opposite ends of the couch. Kei spread his wings, and you and Touya preened him with the skill born of hours of practice, just like this.
After the movie, the three of you dissected it, with Keigo tweeting vaguely about all the things the three of you loved.
“Doll?”
“Tou?”
“Want the bird and I to stay or fly the coop?”
You smiled. “Stay. Of course.”
With their breathing and heartbeats surrounding you, you fall asleep the way you only do with them—totally at peace.