Work Text:
“So this is what the great Shadowing-chan has been reduced to. A common murderer.”
On this cold, dark night on top of a roof in the wretched city Saihara calls home, the voice is so out of place that he almost thinks he dreams it. He hasn’t seen D.I.C.E.’s leader in months. Almost a year, which might be the longest without an encounter since they first met at 15. He had been obsessed with it, he suddenly remembers. With what his absence might mean. Had been bothering Akamatsu and the rest of the Teen Ultimates with theories, rough ideas of the schemes Ouma might be committing, until finally even kind, easy-going Gokuhara had gotten tired of him.
But then came the ambush of his uncle, long since retired. The bombing of his apartment complex. The shootout at his part-time job. Over and over, targeted attacks not against Shadowing, but against Saihara Shuuichi, airheaded socialite. On paper, no one should have any reason to act with such malice against Saihara Shuuichi. He had no enemies. His uncle committed enough philanthropic work to ensure he had no enemies.
He had already been running rugged trying to solve this case when the call from Momota came.
“Hey, so… We thought you should hear it from a friend. It’s Akamatsu. She was… Well, nevermind that. It’s bad, Saihara. You should probably get to the League hospital.”
It was bad. And standing next to Akamatsu’s bed, not knowing when she will wake up, not knowing what state she will be in if she wakes up… He had felt something fracture inside of him. He isn’t sure he can ever put it back together.
And still, Ouma’s voice manages to penetrate the haze he had been in since he got Momota’s call. “Tsk, tsk. This is disappointing.”
Saihara refuses to look away from his target. “Shut up, Ouma,” he manages to get out. It’s the first sound he made since he muttered a useless apology to Harukawa, her gaze not wavering from her girlfriend’s still form. His voice sounds grating to his own ears.
“No, no, let him talk,” his target leers at him. The most infuriating thing is that it’s not even anyone important. Not an alien overlord, or a rich evil billionaire. Just a local mafia head, who stumbled on a secret he should have never stumbled upon. Who decided to take revenge against a hero who hasn’t even put him away yet, just because he could. “I have to say, I didn’t think you would be the type, Shadowing. Or should I say, Saiha—“
“You know, I really don’t think you need to be aware for this conversation,” Ouma cuts him off. Saihara can hear the mocking grin in his voice. “Say byebye, scum!” Before Saihara can even process his words–and really, what would his uncle have said about his shoddy excuse for instincts – A dart sticks out of the villain’s neck, and Saihara can only watch as he unceremoniously falls to the ground, unconscious.
Enraged, he turns around to finally face Ouma. He looks the same, even after all those months. Saihara doesn’t know why he expected otherwise. Other than a few minor alterations (and that one memorable time something possessed him to try a catsuit) Ouma’s supervillain outfit had remained the same since they were teenagers. It was only ever Saihara who changed.
Ouma looks unmoved by his fury. “I didn’t kill him, Shadowing-chan!”
“You don’t kill, I know,” Saihara grits out.
“See, that’s what I thought about you too,” Ouma says. His gaze drops to the gun Saihara still holds in his right hand, still trained on the unconscious man to the side. “Guess not, though.”
“You don’t know what he’s done!” Saihara cries out. He doesn’t know when it started, but the rain is coming down heavily now, and even through his kevler-enforced suit he can feel it, each drop a dagger. “All the people he has killed, the lives he has destroyed!” He shouldn’t be doing this. He shouldn’t be trying to justify himself to a supervillain, a thief and a liar and a cheater, the person who has been hounding Saihara since he was only a kid.
Ouma was also just a kid back then, something whispers in the back of his mind. He ignores it.
“No no, I understand. That is, of course, entirely different than when Tarantula nuked a city, or when Deathstroke murdered several families in one night. Remind me again what you did with them…?”
He had arrested them, of course. Asked for back up from Akamatsu and a few others for Deathstroke, but Tarantula he had apprehended alone. And then, like a good little hero, he gave them to the appropriate authorities to be dealt with. As far as he knows, they are both still awaiting trial.
“Of course, there’s also Raptor, and Lady Shiva, and the entire Court of Owls. All of them quite obviously dead by your hands, right Shadowing-chan? Because that’s how you usually deal with never-do-gooders like these?”
For his entire life, Saihara has stood by his uncle’s code. We don’t kill, Shuuichi-kun, that warm, deep voice had told him, the night 9-years-old Saihara found out about his secret. That’s the only thing that saves us from becoming them. We must never become them. That’s our code as detectives.
He swallows, forcing his hand to stay steady. It’s alright. He will turn himself in, after. Harukawa will be the one who handles his arrest, he thinks. She would have the right. It’s his fault, after all, that—
“Or does it only matter if the victims are people you know, Shadowing-chan? I’m sure that will bring great comfort to all the people you have saved in your long, illustrious career. Sorry, you just weren’t important enough to be properly avenged.” Ouma’s voice is mocking, cruel. Saihara doesn’t think he has ever heard him sound like that. Or – maybe he has. When he goes on his rants about other superheroes, the ones he thinks aren’t good enough, virtuous enough. Saihara could never admit that he had found it a point of pride, that Ouma never spoke like that about him. But now he has, and it shouldn’t have felt like a worse betrayal than the memory of his uncle’s voice, but it does.
“He won’t stop!” Saihara bursts out, anguish coloring every word. “Don’t you understand, Ouma? He will go after every person I know, every single one! Other superheroes, random civilians, you. And I can’t stop him, because–Because–“ He falters, unwilling to admit to his biggest failure. His greatest shame.
But Ouma had always been able to read him best. His voice softens away from its earlier harsh edge. “Because who knows who you are.”
He swallows, nods. The weight of his capelet feels like it's growing with every passing moment.
Ouma looks at him, his purple eyes piercing even behind his domino mask. Even now, almost seven years since they first met, Saihara doesn’t know his real name, or what his face looks like without the mask. How can it be that he feels like he knows so much about him, while knowing so little?
I missed you, he wants to say, but the words can’t sneak past his throat, choked with grief. Grief for his uncle, already buried 6 feet under. For Akamatsu, who most likely will never walk again. For all the people whose only crime was being near Saihara Shuuichi, teen sidekick turned adult hero.
For the teenagers him and Ouma used to be, constantly chasing each other’s capes, foiling each other’s plans. Some days it feels like he only remembers that version of himself when Ouma is around, buried as it is under years of fighting and losing.
“Would you like me to kill him for you?” Ouma asks. The question is as startling as his initial presence on this roof was.
“You don’t kill,” he protests. It took him years to realize that, much to his embarrassment. That for all the hare-brained schemes concocted by Ouma and his group, they never had casualties, not even once. It’s why the Teen Ultimates had initially given up on seriously trying to catch them, even as Saihara never gave up the chase.
Ouma’s eyes are as serious as he has ever seen them. “I could. For you.”
For a moment, Saihara can’t breathe, the weight of all that Ouma isn’t saying as heavy as his rain-soaked capelet. What would it be like, if Saihara said yes? His hands would stay clean, even as Ouma’s would be stained with blood. He has such long, slender fingers. Saihara always noticed them during their fights, gotten indefensibly distracted by them. He thinks Ouma noticed, because even as his costume undergone minute changes, gloves never made an appearance.
“Don’t say that –“ he bites out, suddenly almost as furious with Ouma as he is with himself. “Don’t offer that, not for me. Not when you never crossed this line before. Why would you even –“
“So I can’t cross this line for you,” Ouma cuts him off. “But you can do it for this scum?” He waves his hand at the crumpled villain. “That hardly seems fair, Shadowing-chan. I’ve known you for much longer.”
“Seven years.”
“Longer, Shadowing-chan. Why do you think I even started D.I.C.E.? I saw your dazzling debut! You looked so gallant, saving those kids on the school bus. I thought the pixie boots were an adorable look.”
Even with the horrors of the past month still haunting him, Saihara manages to blush. He will never outgrow the humiliation, even if he long since outgrew the outfit. But then the rest of Ouma’s words filtered in. “You became a supervillain because of me?”
Predictably, Ouma’s face twisted at the term. “Don’t be so crude, Shadowing-chan. You know I prefer evil mastermind!”
But for once, Saihara doesn’t let himself get distracted. He remembers that first time, suiting up next to his uncle. He had only been in training for a year at that point, and he had felt sickly anxious and excited when his uncle agreed to take him with him. There had been no supervillains involved – just an earthquake which caused a bridge to collapse, trapping several cars and buses under the rubble. They had spent hours combing the wreckage for survivors, and it had been Saihara who found the school children, miraculously alive.
The Boy Wonder Saves The Day! Who Is This New Mysterious Vigilante?! Was the headline the next day. Had Ouma read it? Had it really been Saihara who…
He thought he made his peace with disappointing Akamatsu’s still form, and his uncle’s ghost, but it’s the thought of ten-years old Ouma, who saw a kid just like him who wanted to do good, that finally turns the guilt swirling inside of him into nausea. The gun clutters against the concrete, and his knees follow it as he collapses into himself, the adrenaline of the night finally leaving his body completely.
He hears Ouma sigh. “Ah, Saihara-chan, whatever shall I do with you and your golden heart?” A shuffling noise and then a new weight around him, but this one softer. Warmer. Ouma’s cape, he realizes. “You know seeing shiny things makes me want to steal them. You shouldn’t tempt me like this.”
Saihara’s laugh turns into a sob, and he shakes under Ouma’s cape. The smell of the rain is almost overpowering, but he thinks he can still smell jasmine under it. It’s a smell he has always, always associated with Ouma. “So you do know.”
Ouma hums in agreement. “For a while now. I’m very good at keeping secrets, you know!”
“I know,” Saihara says. And then, because he’s feeling reckless and wild, he adds: “I wanted to tell you.”
A hand, over the cape, over his head. He pretends he can feel its warmth through the fabric. “Some might have called that ill-advised. And by some, I mean the ever loud Siren.”
Saihara shrugs, though he makes sure it’s not a dramatic enough of a gesture to dislodge Ouma’s hand. “She managed to deprogram a child assassin and convince her to become a superhero when we were only 16. I think she would have understood.” He falls silent for a moment. “The doctors don’t know if she’s going to wake up.”
Ouma, who has known Akamatsu for almost as long as he has known Saihara, understands all that he’s not saying; all the I don’t know if I can do this without her, and it’s my fault, she will hate me. “You might not be giving her enough credit, Saihara-chan. That annoying brat is tough.”
Saihara manages another laugh in the span of minutes, when an hour ago he had thought he will never laugh again. “You can’t call someone else a brat, Ouma. That’s too hypocritical.”
“Wow, such insults from a man who was ready to commit cold-blooded murder tonight! I don’t want to hear about hypocrisy from you, Saihara-chan.”
Saihara stills, and then pokes his head out from Ouma’s cape. The rain has stopped. “Do you think I would have gone through with it?” he asks, looking up at him. He doesn’t think he knows the answer himself, but more importantly he wants to hear Ouma’s.
“Hmm…” Ouma taps his chin. His other hand stays on Saihara’s hand, now buried in his hair, grounding him. “Maybe. You probably have it in you, Saihara-chan.”
Saihara flinches, stung. He shouldn’t have the right to feel hurt, and yet –
“But if you had," Ouma continues. "I would have killed you right after. Probably."
“What?”
“Ah, Saihara-chan. I don’t want to be on one side of the line, and you on the other. Isn’t it better if we stay on the same side?”
“It is,” he whispers. “I think I would prefer it if we stayed on this one, though.” There’s something horrifyingly comforting about the thought of Ouma killing him. He tries not to think about it.
Ouma’s hand pets Saihara’s head condescendingly. “I always knew you were a smart guy, Saihara-chan.”
Saihara groans and shifts his joints, getting ready to get up. “I should… call someone. About… him.” It’s still a problem. His identity is still compromised. He will just have to find a different solution. But to his surprise, Ouma stops him.
“Let me take him.”
Despite everything they just talked about, Saihara still eyes him suspiciously. Ouma notices and takes offense. “Hey, I wasn’t the one who was trying to kill him earlier! Give me some credit, Saihara-chan. I pinky promise I will return him to you safe and whole… mostly.”
Saihara does him the courtesy of ignoring that last muttered word. “I’m not much for pinky promises,” he says dryly, finally getting up. He catches Ouma’s cape before it falls on the wet concrete. Ouma looks smaller without his cape. He doesn’t think he has ever seen him without it, but he likes it. It makes him look… more real. Less like a figment of Saihara’s fevered imagination.
“Hm…” Ouma taps his chin with his finger. “Then I suppose… We will just have to seal it with a kiss~” Quick as lightning, he gets his hand on Saihara’s capelet fasting and pulls, surprising enough that Saihara just goes with it.
Their lips meet. It feels like quick fights in alleyways and daring escapes, taunts and barbs exchanged over rooftop chases. Seven years, and not once had Saihara thought of what Ouma would taste like, but now it feels like the worst kind of oversight; a clue missed in an investigation. He tastes acrid sweet, and Saihara can remember hundreds of candy wrappers left in crime scenes, crushed soda cans left in place of stolen precious gems. The warmth of his lips on Saihara’s frozen skin is scalding.
As quick as it starts it ends, Ouma darting away, pulling his cape with him. “As much as I miss you cape, Saihara-chan, you can’t have mine!” He winks cheekily. “Although if you want to wear it with nothing else on…”
Saihara blushes furiously, taking a step back. “Ouma!”
Ouma just cackles in reply as he whirls around, somehow perfectly encased in his cape once more. “Well then, my dear detective, I must be off now! Villains to punish, promises to keep, places to mayhem! You know how it goes.”
Saihara doesn’t want him to leave. Ouma’s presence feels like a wall between himself and the real world. The space around them liminal. If he leaves, Saihara will have to face the fact that he was prepared to murder a man; that his best friend is lying in a hospital, never to walk again; that his identity might be compromised forever.
His anxiety must show on his face even beyond the domino mask, because Ouma’s grin mellows, becoming less sharp. “Only for tonight, Saihara-chan,” he says, gently. “I won’t deprive you of my presence for so long again.”
Ouma is a villain, a liar, a cheat. But Saihara doesn’t think he has spoken anything but the truth tonight: when he told him he would kill for him, when he told him he would kill him, and now, too. So he just nods, and steps back once more, closer to the edge of the roof. He will have to go to his safehouse before he heads back to the League hospital, to change clothes in a last attempt to ward off the fever he can feel coming. He will have to submit a detailed report of tonight, and already he is trying to figure out exactly how to explain Ouma and all that he has done. But for now—
“You better not, Ouma,” he says, something of that teen hero he used to be in his voice. “Or I will have to come chasing after you again.”