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Tonight is a bad night, it's as simple as that. Shouta is caught up in the quiet, emptiness of his bed, and in how everytime he blinks against the darkness of his room he sees dark muscles and spatters of blood and the wide, terrified gazes of his class. He sees the stand-out shards of his Problem Hero's bones-
Those kids, just like every other class of Shouta's, were his the moment he laid eyes on them all. His class to protect and guide. Sometimes that meant making them leave Heroism, sometimes it meant watching over them for three years before leaving them to the massive, awful world.
But the first time that Izuku's death had Shouta thinking, for half a blink, of throwing himself upon Shigaraki's hand himself, just to get back to his Problem Child, his hero, he knew that Midoriya Izuku was His in a new, irrevocable way.
Izuku is his hero, nothing more, nothing less.
See, Shouta is a creature of devotion, he knows. He's always been this way, always kept his promises and people fiercely close, always done his best to keep them safe and true and his.
He has dedicated his entire life to heroism, all he knows is pouring his entire heart and soul and body and mind into it (until he breaks, collapsing into himself, falling apart from the inside-out-), and Shouta has never faltered in that. Even on his darkest nights, his ugliest days, he has never contemplated not being a hero.
But sometimes there is an end to strength. Sometimes there isn't a need for it.
Sometimes Shouta can afford to not be the hero, to let another person protect him. With Izuku, he allows it to happen again and again.
Not once does Izuku seem burdened by it, seem unhappy or annoyed or judgemental over it. He just keeps on throwing himself forwards time and again, shoves his back against Shouta's or presses their knife into his hand, grinning or scowling but never with discontent in his gaze. Oh, there is fear, there is horror, there is such earth-shattering despair that Shouta stumbles just to see it, yet Izuku never once chooses to not be Shouta's hero.
It's no wonder, truly, that Shouta cannot help but devote himself ever-more to this bright, brilliant kid who fights beside him as an equal. Because Izuku is incredible. It truly is as simple as that, at the end of the day, or the end of a loop, because with every single repetition of their deaths, of their failing, faltering attempts to live, Izuku had grown immeasurably. They had grown closer, too.
(It was impossible not to. With so much of each other's blood on their hands, sharing their knife, planning together, keeping the other in one piece when they threatened to fall apart completely, it was nothing short of inevitable. And, well, neither Shouta nor Izuku were complaining about it.
No, they were a little too busy learning each other's fighting and dying heartbeats for that.)
Some combination of all of this is why, when he has woken up from a quiet nightmare for the third time tonight, Shouta isn't all that surprised to have a quiet knock on his ajar door, dark curls tumbling through the gap. Green eyes, too-bright for how dark the room is, blink at him.
"Want some company?"
"If you're about," the man returns, not wanting Izuku to feel pressure, but also unwilling to push him away right now. (Not when he's just watched Izuku die two-dozen times in his memories, clutching at blood and bone and gone-slack hands-)
Izuku doesn't quite falter at Shouta's bedside, but his hand wavers at the edge of it, until Shouta flicks over the edge of the blankets, inviting Izuku underneath too.
Neither of them speak for a long few minutes then, Izuku curling up beneath the blankets, pressing his forehead and the back of his hands and his knees and toes all the way down Shouta's side, patches of pressure and warmth from his shoulders to his knees. Perhaps Izuku's knees are digging into Shouta's hip a bit too much, but neither of them really mind.
"You alright, Problem Hero?" He wasn't intending to use that nickname right now, because in moments like this it can sometimes feel too vulnerable, but it just has Izuku humming, a reverberating thing, half-melodic in a way that was surely learned from Hizashi.
"I'm okay. You?" Shouta's trembling hands as he rolls over, turning his back to Izuku even whilst he entwines their fingers, safe like this, give away far more than he would like. Oh-so delicately, Izuku squeezes Shouta's fingers in between his own, shifting slightly until one of the man's fingertips brushes against Izuku's pulsepoint.
The hero pauses for a long moment, able to faintly feel the kid's heartbeat, but not wanting to press more firmly until Izuku has made it clear that he really is okay with it.
Yet Izuku only shuffles closer once again, pressing his forehead to the nape of Shouta's neck, letting his shins brace against the man's lower back, extending his arm over Shouta's waist to make keeping their fingers intertwined an easier position for them both. Shouta can feel thick eyelashes brushing against his skin, seemingly blinking against the trailing ends of his hair. Breaths seep heat down the back of his collar, regular and mostly-deeply and okay.
Shouta starts breathing more deeply without even really processing it.
They didn't break. They aren't broken.
With that mantra seeping a soft, steady calm through his bones, Shouta forces himself to relax further, to consciously loosen more muscles with every gone-deep breath, gradually sinking further into the bed and himself. Izuku presses impossibly closer at some point, still breathing deeply, every assurance of his skin and warmth a blessed, precious thing.
Because Shouta may be a protector at heart, his bones carved from devotion, his blood running with the need to be there, to keep close, somewhere in between possessiveness and sheer care, but he is not necessarily used to having that same commitment returned. He is, contrary to what many might believe, just as used to being too much as not enough.
And yet some people understand him, can match his devotion in a way that he long thoughg impossible.
He finds it in his husband, because his Sunshine has always clung on fiercely, and loved deeply, and softened for so few people, trusting in a way that is vulnerable and irrevocable, showing the parts of himself that he never normally allows to take the spotlight.
He has found it in both of his best friends. In Oboro, who even now is still in Shouta's every day life, is still in the clouds of the sky, how the sun echoes yellow light through the clouds and sky, who has never left him despite being killed.
In Nemuri, who has been there for every twist and turn in their lives, who drags Shouta out of his shell yet never criticises him for that same shell. Who sat beside Shouta at Hizashi's bedside whenever his husband was hurt, and who never fails to check in on Shouta just because, yet so often with a sixth-sense timing.
And, for several long months now, Shouta has had his Problem Hero.
He has an ally, another best friend, a hero, all in one person. Izuku is full of a brilliant, fierce determination that mirrors Shouta's own, an unerring need and want to just help people, to prevent others from being hurt. Izuku is nothing if not a hero. More than he is a child or an adult, a student or even a Deku (and oh, how Shouta loathes that name-), he is a hero. It is an indelible part of his being, truly.
Before Izuku, Shouta hadn't met another person who was so purely meant to be a hero. That isn't to detract from how brilliant and dedicated a hero Shouta's other friends and colleagues are, but it's still true. Izuku is... He is more than even Shouta, in all honesty, because there is at least a second calling for him in teaching, and in his opinion Izuku would make a very good teacher, or detective, or fire fighter, or many other things, but none of them are as good a fit as heroism.
Izuku does not hesitate to throw himself into danger for the sake of others. And, yes, he does so more sensibly now than he ever did before, however at a base level there is still that almost-recklessness to him, that desperate, stubborn will to save above all else, no matter the personal cost.
And for those he loves? Izuku is feral. Shouta can empathise with it, remembers bitterly how he had lost himself at the sight of Hizashi broken upon the ground, and knows that both he and Izuku have quite simply shattered at the loss of the other, have fractured in a way that left their jagged edges cutting into everyone around them, the brains of a Nomu spattering across their faces and fingers snapping beneath their feet.
Izuku is a lot like Shouta, in many ways, and that shared devotion is something that is rooted deeply in them both, roots that have begun to intertwine between the two of them.
So Shouta trusts Izuku, deeply and truly.
He trusts him, particularly in moments like this, to be Shouta's Problem Hero, to be good, understanding, curled close together in the night, where Shouta has been haunted by the horrors that are far too tangible, far too real. Izuku is keeping him safe.
Hizashi comes home to a nigh-on silent flat, despite the fact that it's already nine o'clock. Even on a Saturday morning, Izuku and Shouta would usually be up well before now.
The cats seem calm enough though, so Hizashi takes the time to feed them and dump his bag by the kitchen counter before heading to Izuku's room, first, as the door is ajar and he'd like to check on the kid before going to get changed, because he's in casual clothing for the studio but he's been wearing it for over twelve hours straight and he'd really like to just grab a pair of Shouta's too-short trackies and maybe one of Izuku's fake Eraserhead merch shirts which will also be too short but quite possibly too broad across the shoulders at the same time and that's fine. He can handle some bare midriff to be able to see Shouta's face at the shirt.
But Izuku's room is empty, bedsheets pushed neatly aside, his slippers gone.
Hizashi can't help but smile, albeit a little bittersweet, because it seems like one of his boys had some sort of nightmare, or maybe just wanted some company, which is completely fine, he certainly doesn't mind, but it still aches, somewhere deep between his heart and blood, to know that they might well have been hurting when he wasn't here to be able to help.
Still, Hizashi takes unabashed comfort from the fact that they were here for each other, and that if something had been truly bad, he would have been asked to come home, and the cats would be far less relaxed.
Which is why he doesn't rush to get to his own bedroom, more worried about not potentially waking them up than getting to their sides quickly. It's also why his heart melts, rather than drops, at the sight of his husband on his side, half curled up in that loose, just-defensive way of his that he gets sometimes, often when he is feeling most vulnerable.
Izuku, their sweet, sweet, oh-so strong hero, is curled up against Shouta's back, not quite a big spoon but more of a pressed-together sort of thing, a freckled forehead against the nape of Shouta's neck, their long hair intertwining in a dark mass, Izuku's only distinguishable for how much curlier it is than Shouta's waves, the combined splay as much a storm cloud as a halo but lovely either way.
Hizashi doesn't want to disturb them. Well, he would actually love to curl up with his little family, to just cuddle and be warm on a quiet weekend morning together, but he more-so wants to let them rest, rather than to wake them up just for the sake of getting in some extra cuddles of his own.
And, frankly pretty miraculously, Shouta hasn't woken up yet despite the fact that Hizashi even just stepping into the room normally wakes him up, and to be honest Izuku is almost as light a sleeper, Hizashi has found. So the fact that they're both still asleep says a lot about how exhausted they must have been in the first place.
His boys, honestly. The poor loves must have had a really shit night.
Despite his very strong urge to just cuddle his husband and their little hero, Hizashi knows better, and instead retreats as quietly as he can, glad when he can see, peeking around the door, that neither of them have really shifted, let alone blinked over at him, and so he grabs some of their freshly-washed blankets for the sofa on his way back to the kitchen, not really having the energy for cooking a full-on meal but they had some leftover curry in the fridge that he can put onto the hob to start warming through, putting some rice in the cooker too.
Hizashi then promptly flops on the sofa, humming contentedly when he gets Optician and Choco-bun settling along his side. He'll have to get up every so often to stir the food, but for now he can just relax.
He doesn't fall asleep, but Hizashi does doze on and off, then, eyes drifting closed, breaths deepening. It's nice just to rest. To be calm and safe at home, even if he can't currently be close enough to his family to be able to hear them breathing in that way he loves. (Hizashi isn't above admitting that the loops have affected him too, even if he was never able to remember them himself; he worries after Shouta now, ever-more fiercely so, and craves that assurance of both he and Izuku being okay, something as simple as being able to hear or see them breathing, or to feel a heartbeat against his own.)
A time later, there's a loud meow from the hallway, and Hizashi sighs to himself. Of course one of the cats had to wake them up. Although, that being said, it was probably about time they woke up, if they're not going to eat as soon as they wake up, given that the food isn't far off ready, even if it will be a brunch rather than a breakfast. Well, it is a Saturday. They can afford the late start.
He drags himself up from the sofa, then, heading into the kitchen to stir the curry, unsurprised that it takes a few minutes before Izuku and Shouta wander in, blatantly sleepy, but eyebags certainly not at their worst.
"Morning loves."
"Morning, Hi-chan." Shouta doesn't say anything, but he quickens his pace slightly all the same, Izuku matching him for it, as they come over, Hizashi stepping closer himself to allow for how his husband comes to lean his shoulder against Hizashi's own, pressing their sides together.
Hizashi just leans right back, and reaches up to press his wrist against Izuku's shoulder, the teen having taken over stirring the curry and checking on the rice, too. It earns him the flash of a still-sleepy smile over a broad shoulder.
Judging by how Shouta is still listing into Hizashi's side, it was his husband that had a rough night, but that's okay, now. Izuku has been here for Shouta (his Problem Hero indeed-), they seem to have slept well this morning, at least, and now they're all together, set out to have a calm, quiet, content day together.
Things will be okay (they won't break-) so long as they have each other.