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Izuku sighs shamelessly as he sinks into Shouta’s side.
It’s been… a rough night. That fact is a shame, considering that it started off really rather really well, in all truth. They got home and none of them had too much homework or paperwork to get done, so Hizashi and Izuku had cooked together, humming along to the radio as they copped vegetables and washed rice and seared meat, not chattering but quite content with the relative quiet of the music and each other all the same, no need for conversation. It was lovely, and an ever-more familiar routine. All three of them tend to take turns cooking in various degrees, separately or together, depending on who is most busy or feeling like it. It’s a good, albeit irregular, system.
Particular for evenings like this, when Shouta is sprawled out on the sofa, Choco-bun and Optician curled up on both his legs and the cushions as the man snores quietly in a pre-patrol nap. It’s another level to the subtle sounds of their home. And if, or rather when, he lets out a louder snore every so often, Izuku and Hizashi exchange a fond smile, then it only adds to the heart-soft familiarity of it all. The absolute fondness.
The food is nearly finished soon enough, however, and whilst Hizashi gets them all drinks for the table, Izuku rounds the sofa to crouch just a little bit back from the sofa.
"Shouta, love, dinner's ready. You know Hizashi will eat your portion if you don't get up."
"Mmph," the man grumbles, face screwing up. Izuku isn't quite able to help the tiny laugh that escapes him then, except he also speaks once more, not wanting to touch the man whilst he's still half asleep. (He knows, all too well, how disconcerting that can be, how terrifying, even from a familiar hand-)
"C'mon Shouta. Time to get up."
"Hm, fine," Shouta manages, the words slightly slurred except his eyes are open and he's very half-heartedly glaring at Izuku.
"Want dinner or not?" he returns, only a wee bit snarky. Shouta rolls his eyes, except his expression is a soft not-scowl, and, as he swings into a sitting position, he shoves his foot into Izuku's hip, just enough to knock him off balance from his crouched position.
Except Izuku just grabs the hero's leg and yanks him down too.
Shouta huffs out a very winded breath as he lands unceremoniously on his arse, both of them twisted around so that they're facing each other, on the floor, with the cats suitably unimpressed from their dislodged position still on the sofa.
"You're a fucking brat."
"And you should watch your language," Izuku returns, except he's smiling, and it matches immaculately to the way that Shouta's eyes are bright, his lips just that tiniest bit upturned. And, hey, he's awake now either way.
"You two coming, loves?" Hizashi is peering over the sofa at them both, outright smiling as well, undeniably fond for all that his eyebrow wiggle is a purely teasing thing.
"We are, Hi-chan," Izuku chirps, earning a suitably unimpressed grumble from Shouta, except the man's gaze is utterly fond-warm-affectionate in how it is settled upon Izuku, and the teen's heart is so very full.
But, later that night, or rather the next morning, Izuku is worried. He can’t help it.
Shouta should be back by now. His patrol technically ended at half three, and his route finishes up a point twenty minutes away, and it’s normally necessary to allow up to another twenty minutes on top of that for if anything overran or got literally side-tracked, or maybe if he encountered something extra at some point. And in those additional twenty minutes, Izuku had started to worry a little, foot jiggling rapidly, but with all logic he had worked to push that down, petting Twig in lieu of letting himself fall any further into concern.
But then those twenty minutes pass, and another ten, and there is no sign of Shouta. And Izuku is very, very far from happy about that fact.
Which is probably why he’s pacing, now, keeping his steps very carefully light, not wanting to risk waking Hizashi up even though Shouta’s Sunshine sleeps like the dead without falter or difficulty the majority of the time, glad when he’s able to at least keep his own heartbeat and breathing steady with it.
He’s doubly glad when Shouta finally turns up. The man is a little worse for wear, a scrape along his jaw, some dirt and what smells like blood lingering around his capture weapon, but he isn’t favouring any particular part of his body or wincing either. His eyes are clear.
“Hey, kiddo.”
“Shouta.” He can’t help the slump to his voice, and to his shoulders, in that moment, because thank fuck his hero is home.
“Language, Problem Hero.”
“Oh, just come here,” Izuku huffs, raising his arms slightly for all that he doesn’t actually lean in, not wanting to force the touch on Shouta, particularly not after what might well have been a fairly stressful patrol.
“Sure, sure,” the man agrees, soft and fond and affectionate, already slumping on top of Izuku, just draping his full body weight over the teen, and Izuku is so very glad for it, happy to have the weight of his hero no matter that Shouta is letting his knees go weak, a slow version of a cat-flop.
Izuku revels in it, including the iron-rot scent and the steady heartbeat and the rough-soft-worn texture of the capture weapon. Shouta is safe. They all are.
Things are okay.
They pull away eventually though, because Shouta is clearly achy from the specific way that he was leaning against Izuku, and they do need to at least attempt to sleep sooner or later, or, if nothing else, give themselves the pretence of it.
As such, it doesn't take them all of ten minutes to be settled in a pile of blankets on the sofa, Shouta freshly showered and Izuku having grabbed them drinks and the blankets and an extra towel so that he can make the hero sit sideways on the sofa, Izuku doing the same behind him, making it far easier to carefully dry Shouta's hair. The man is tired, understandably so, and the tactile assurance of each other, the chance to help him in some way, is a comfort to both Izuku and Shouta. It helps things feel right again. Balanced.
(They are fine, now, most of the time. They can be apart, they can fight without each other, they can go about their days without the constant, insistent urge to check in with the other. But sometimes, just sometimes, it doesn't work like that.
Sometimes another student brushes their hand just wrong against Izuku's skin, or Shouta has a bad patrol, or really any other little trigger at all, and everything slides back into decay and death, the no-control tumble of falling down an almost-sheer cliff face, limbs catching, scrabbling for grip, desperate, but it doesn't work. It doesn't help.
They still fall.
Very few things can help that, and the obvious, easiest, and the one that always works, is being shoulder to shoulder once again. It is feeling that heartbeat, and knowing that it is steady, safe, not bleeding-out stumbling or, even worse, gone entirely. So when they worry, when things go wrong, it is moments exactly like this that they need most.)
Once Shouta's hair is mostly dry, they rearrange themselves until Izuku is tucked under his arm, pressed into each other's sides, flicking the telly on, subtitled and muted. A nature documentary makes for easy enough watching.
Perhaps they'll wake up in a few hours to sunlight streaming through the gap in the curtains, the telly still playing, albeit a new documentary this time, and Hizashi padding around in the kitchen, quietly pulling things out of the cupboards and fridge. But, for now, they just get to rest, together and safe and home, their Sunshine and cats with them, knowing that they are all okay.
It's a new day, and it will be a good one, Izuku thinks.