Chapter Text
The first time it happened was before they were even married.
Shouta had been awake for… almost thirty-seven hours, he was pretty sure. Hizashi had tried to drag him away from his work a few hours ago, but Shouta was almost done. He just had one more report to write up, and there was a packet of paperwork for his official Hero license he’d been putting off that was going to get him in legal trouble in a few days if he didn’t finish it. He just needed a few more hours.
It took Shouta too long to recognize the almost sickly sweet scent in the air. It was a smell that he was very familiar with, but it crept in so subtly that he barely noticed until his eyes were watering. Shouta’s eyes didn’t water. He could count on his fingers the number of times he’d cried without some kind of Quirk effecting him. He’d need both hands, but it was still a miniscule amount.
One of the few things that consistently made his eyes water was Nemuri’s Quirk.
It was only then that he recognized the scent, and by then it was too late. It wasn’t a surprise that Nemuri was gassing him, but it was irritating.
Shouta sighed, and watched the barely-visible pinkish mist in the air swirl with his breath. He sorted his papers with a tap, closing the folder and setting it to one side. His motions were slow, almost clumsy, and Shouta barely leaned back in time to avoid passing out directly onto his desk.
Shouta frowned at the ceiling as sleep wrapped heavily around his limbs. By now, Nemuri should have shown her face. It wasn’t like erasing her Quirk would do him any good at this point, and she always liked her chance to gloat at him before he dropped out of consciousness completely.
A face appeared in Shouta’s field of vision that definitely wasn’t Nemuri’s, and his heart lurched, adrenaline racing through him. It was far, far too late at that point, and Shouta’s last thought was mind-racing panic before sleep completely took hold.
To Shouta, it felt as if there was no time between falling asleep and waking up again.
This was good. It meant his paranoia had overpowered his tiredness and he hadn’t fallen into a more natural sleep after Nemuri’s Quirk had worn off. It was also bad, because it meant he bolted upright the instant he was awake and slammed his forehead full-speed into Nemuri’s.
“Shouta!” Nemuri squawked, reeling back and slapping her hand to her forehead. Shouta sluggishly lifted a hand to his own, rubbing the aching bump there.
“Sorry,” Shouta said raggedly. “What…” He trailed off as he fully took in his surroundings.
Nemuri was wearing her hero costume, but the fake handcuffs on her wrists had been replaced with very real Quirk suppression cuffs. Her costume was torn in several places; some of the tears were clearly intentional to spread her Quirk, but there were several that looked like the result of a physical scuffle. Her belt was also missing, as were her boots.
The room around them was bland and dull-looking, completely empty of furniture, with only old carpet on the floor and dull yellowish paint on the walls. The door across from him had a bulky lock that was shiny new and stood out against the general shabbiness of the room. There weren’t any windows.
“We’ve been kidnapped,” Nemuri told him blandly, offering Shouta a hand. He tentatively accepted, allowing Nemuri to pull him to his feet. “They traded their original hostage for me, got Tensei with a baseball bat to his skull, and then held him at knifepoint to make me knock you out.”
“Tensei?” Shouta asked, slowly looking around. They were the only two in the room.
“Not sure what happened to him,” Nemuri said, voice tight, “They said they’d let him go if I cooperated, but I know better than to actually believe them. As far as I know, he didn’t wake up at any point.”
“Nasty concussion,” Shouta mused, idly rubbing his head. Nemuri’s sleep gas usually only worked on him for about half an hour, provided he didn’t fall into a natural sleep, but even that was a long time to stay unconscious from just a blow to the head.
“Or they drugged him,” Nemuri suggested.
“Hopefully, they drugged him,” Shouta agreed darkly. “Any idea why we’re here?”
Nemuri shook her head. “I think you were their end goal. Tensei and I were just collateral.”
Shouta frowned. He hadn’t made much of a name for himself yet, nor had he really made any big-name enemies. He couldn’t think of any reason for them to go after him of all people.
He dragged a hand down his face with a sigh, then paused. He pulled his hand away from his face and inspected it. He wasn’t wearing Quirk canceling cuffs.
Just as a test, Shouta activated Erasure. His hair flew up, vision washing crimson. He blinked almost immediately, letting his hair fall back over his shoulders, and automatically dug around in his pocket for his eyedrops. It was only after unscrewing the cap on the bottle that he realized he still had his eyedrops.
Nemuri didn’t even have her boots.
Shouta stuck both hands in his pockets.
“They don’t know who I am,” Shouta said immediately.
Nemuri cocked an eyebrow at him, propping her hands on her hips in a vaguely suggestive but still inquisitive motion that Shouta knew for a fact she had practiced in the mirror.
Without bothering to give a verbal reply, Shouta pulled a hand from his pocket. With it, he pulled an extra lockpick he’d shoved in his pocket about twelve hours ago when a stealthy break-in had rapidly devolved into a violent takedown.
Nemuri clapped a palm to her forehead.
“I’m almost ashamed of myself,” Nemuri groaned. “I can’t believe this guy caught me!”
“He also caught Tensei,” Shouta pointed out, “and just because he didn’t search his civilian captive doesn’t mean he’s completely incompetent.”
Nemuri grumbled under her breath, slowly shaking her head in dismay.
“You good to fight?” Shouta asked. Somnambulist had completely worn off him now, leaving him not exactly energized – he still hadn’t slept in thirty-six hours – but not nearly as lethargic as he had been when he woke up.
“As I’ll ever be,” Nemuri agreed.
“You know anything about these guys?” Shouta asked as he inspected the door’s lock, “The building, guards, whatever.”
“They’ve got at least three guys, probably no more than six,” Nemuri reported briskly, “One of them’s got some kind of armor Quirk, and he’s got an identical twin with knife fingers.”
“Oh boy, knife fingers,” Shouta grumbled, jamming his rake into the lock.
“The last one’s the leader, I think he has superhearing.”
Shouta froze, one hand on the doorhandle. “You didn’t think that was important to bring up?” He hissed.
Nemuri opened her mouth, then closed it shamefaced. “Ah.”
Shouta dove out of the doorway, just barely avoiding the spray of wood and paint chips as someone kicked the door in with enough force to reduce the whole thing to splinters.
“I hate you,” Shouta told Nemuri conversationally as he dodged a wild right hook from a man with scaly dragon-like feet.
“I get that a lot,” Nemuri said gaily, slamming the rim of her Quirk suppression cuffs directly into the throat of a woman with choppy mud-purple hair. She collapsed to her knees with a ragged gurgle, and Nemuri snapped her own knee up into the woman’s face.
Shouta flared Erasure as Dragon-feet – who had been dispatched with a quick elbow to the jaw – was replaced by the armored man Nemuri had promised him. The armor proved to be an emitter-type Quirk, and the man was so startled by his sudden lack of armor that he barely put up any fight at all.
With the doorway providing a decent chokepoint, only two or three people could come at them at once, and Shouta and Nemuri fighting together were more than enough to take them out.
“Cuffs,” Shouta ordered, holding his hands out once the last opponent had fallen. Nemuri gladly offered him her hands, and Shouta jimmied the lock on her Quirk canceling cuffs in only a few seconds.
“The leader’s not here,” Nemuri said, idly rubbing her wrists.
“I’m right here,” Tensei appeared in the doorway, but there was something… off. His posture was wrong, too stiff to be Tensei with his friends, too relaxed to be Ingenium in a hostile environment. His eyes, too, weren’t right. The sclera were blue, and the irises white, inverting the typical arrangement. It was unsettling in a way that went beyond the unnaturalness of such a combination. Shouta was used to Quirks changing people’s physical forms, but to see something so unfamiliar in Tensei’s familiar face was just wrong.
“Not enhanced hearing,” Nemuri said, voicing Shouta’s own thoughts, “body stealing.”
“Stealing is such a nasty word,” Tensei’s voice said coldly. “I’m just borrowing it.”
“It wouldn’t be the first thing you’ve stolen,” Shouta said dryly, slipping a hand back into his pocket.
Tensei’s body let out a sharp bark of laughter, so unlike Tensei’s wholehearted grins and full-chested laughter. “And what do you know of that, Aizawa Shouta.”
“Well, you’ve stollen both of us for starters,” Shouta said. “I doubt even that is a first, but I can’t say for sure. Care to read us into your reasoning behind this? Kidnapping two pro heroes – especially newer ones, like Midnight and Ingenium – is going to end with the law cracking down on you hard.”
“I don’t care about the heroes,” the puppeteer scoffed, “You were the one I wanted.”
Shouta tensed. Had he been wrong? Was the puppeteer playing the long game, getting Shouta to let his guard down and underestimate his opponent? It wouldn’t end well for him if he was.
“Do you have any idea what your fiancé-” he spat the word like it was venom, and Shouta didn’t think he’d seen Tensei’s face so angry at anything before, “-has done to me?”
Every train of thought in Shouta’s head abruptly cut off. He could see Nemuri failing to hide her shock beside him, openly gaping at the man.
Finally, Shouta’s brain successfully rebooted, and he found he was angry. His fiancé? This whole thing was to get at Hizashi!?
The world washed red, and Shouta felt his hair fly up, bristling like an angry cat. Not-Tensei’s eyes widened, and then his form wavered, something like smoke billowing out of him. The puppeteer was forcibly ejected from Tensei’s body, reforming into a man with black smoke billowing out of his eyes and a furious scowl marring his face.
“How did you do that?!” The villain demanded. That was about as far as he got before Tensei slammed an elbow into his face.
Usually, Tensei was careful when elbowing people to not jab his exhaust pipes anywhere important. Usually.
Shouta almost winced as Tensei’s exhaust pipe cracked against the villain’s skull. The man dropped like a bag of rocks.
The three of them looked down at the fallen villain.
“Anyone care to claim this one?” Shouta asked, nudging the man’s unconscious body with one toe. Nemuri and Tensei shared a look, then both turned to Shouta.
“I just got here,” Shouta grumbled.
“You’re also the only one who did anything useful,” Nemuri pointed out blandly.
“I’m too tired for this,” Shouta sighed. He stepped over the villain and out the door. He needed to finish his paperwork and then sleep. He could not possibly care less what happened to the villain, as long as he didn’t come back to attack Hizashi again.
Shouta stepped out of the building – a condemned apartment complex, as far as he could tell – to find several police squad cars, a hostage negotiator gearing up to enter, and a cluster of costumed pros.
Shouta blinked.
The hostage negotiator, in the middle of clipping a microphone to her jacket, blinked back.
“If you’re looking for the villain, he’s knocked out on the third floor, just inside room 306,” Shouta told a person who looked like they were in charge. “He’s got Midnight and Ingenium watching him, but there are like… half a dozen other people knocked out around them, and Midnight is coming down from Quirk-canceling cuffs of unknown origins and I think Ingenium has a concussion.”
“Who the heck are you?” demanded one of the heroes standing nearby – Shouta didn’t know his name and was too tired to care.
“I’m Present Mic’s civilian fiancé,” Shouta said, and promptly walked away.
If Shouta could go back in time, he would tell his stupid younger self to never, ever, under any circumstances, reveal any sort of personal connection anywhere near the media. Some lucky reporter with a microphone had caught his confession, and someone else had managed to film Hizashi’s reaction.
Hizashi wasn’t one of the top ten Heroes, but he was very quickly rising in the rankings, and his radio show was already incredibly popular. He was charismatic, practically everywhere, and impossible to miss. Shouta might be a little biased, but it made sense that everyone was interested in Hizashi. Once it hit the news that he had a fiancé – and a supposedly civilian one, at that – the media went wild.
At the time, Shouta only grumbled at Hizashi’s rabid fanclub and hoped the hype would die down sooner rather than later. He failed to take into account that, while most villains were sensible enough to leave Heroes’ spouses alone, it was the ones who’d lost that last vital bit of good sense that were the most dangerous.