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“Thank you for calling.”
The words come out almost automatically; politeness for the sake of it before Shouto hangs up the call. Sitting on the side of the bed, he rests the phone on his knee. After a few seconds, the screen dims. The bedroom is dark again. Shouto doesn’t move. He barely even breathes.
Behind him, Izuku moves, throwing an arm around him, curling it around his waist. Shouto shudders, at the same time grateful for the grounding touch and trying not to pull away from a contact that feels like too much right now.
“Was ‘at the agency?” Izuku mumbles against his hip. “D’you have to go in early?”
“Not again,” Katsuki protests, his words muffled. “Supposed to be our day off together.”
The temptation is there to say yes, it was the agency, to kiss them goodbye and leave for a few hours, just to have some time to process. But these are his husbands, his soulmates, the loves of his life. The people who’ve been at his side for over a decade, who have supported him in ways he didn’t even know he needed. He can’t lie to them. And he can’t run from them either.
“It was Endeavor,” he says. He keeps the words quiet. It’s the early hours of the morning, after all. “Touya-nii and Hawks are dead.”
Somehow, saying the words seem to make them more real. Cold seeps through his whole body; it might be the first time in his entire life he actually feels the cold.
Behind him, the bed shifts. He can guess they both just sat up. Still, the silence stretches, to the point that he starts wondering whether he actually said the words, or just thought them. He doesn’t usually mind silence, being with Izuku and Katsuki is enough, he doesn’t need words to fill the space. Except that right now, he does.
“They went to Hawks’ apartment after the party. They came out a few hours later and their escort says they were arguing. They got in the car, and the escort followed them all the way to the Tartarus bridge. The cameras caught the car stopping in the middle of the bridge, and blue flames erupting inside. The whole car burned so hot that it melted the bridge’s support. Part of the bridge collapsed into the ocean, and the car with it. The waters are choppy so they’re having trouble retrieving it, but the fire was so hot, they don’t know if they’ll find anything anyway.”
He hear himself repeat what Endeavor said, and it strikes him that his voice sounds exactly like his father’s did: devoid of absolutely anything.
He knows, without the shadow of a doubt, that Endeavor is heartbroken. For all his faults, one thing is clear: he loved his firstborn, more so than he did his other children. In his more introspective moments, Shouto has speculated that maybe Endeavor didn’t love the rest of them as he did Touya because he’d put so much hopes in him, only to be disappointed and to end up pushing him away. He put the same hopes in Shouto, but the love? Not so much.
Endeavor has made the trip to Tartarus for years, even though he could never be sure whether Touya would agree to meet him, even though Touya refused, until he didn’t have a choice anymore, to be in the same room as him. And during the same years, he made next to no effort to visit with Shouto and his growing family. Not that Shouto wanted him to visit, but he did notice the difference. He thought of telling Touya, a few times over the years, when for whatever reason he ranted about Endeavor’s latest visit--of telling him, You know you’re still his favorite child, right? You always were. He stopped training you because he didn’t want you to lose you, not any other reason. He never did, because he knew Touya wouldn’t have believed him.
Now he wishes he had said it when he could. Because he can’t anymore. Because his brother is dead--again. Because he died in a fire of his own making--again. And this time he’s not coming back, is he?
It’s only when gentle lips brush against his cheeks that he realizes he’s not sitting on the edge of the bed anymore. Somehow, he’s against the headboard now, between Izuku and Katsuki, and though it’s too dark for him to see their faces, he can feel in the way they kiss his tears away, in the way they each hold one of his hands, how much they worry. How much they love him.
“I’m okay,” he tries to say, but the words remain stuck in his throat.
He remembers asking Touya, earlier tonight, whether he should bring soba the next time he visits. What he was asking, really, was whether he should visit at all, given how upset Touya was the last time he did. He remembers with a sudden shattering clarity how Touya hesitated just a second too long. Did he know, then, that there would be no more visits? Had he decided already that he would end it?
And also... did Hawks know? Touya was wearing quirk-suppressing cuffs. He wouldn’t have been able to take them off without help. So Hawks must have had a hand in this. Was this what they were arguing about before getting in the car? Was one of them having cold feet? Hawks has been depressed for a long time. Shouto only met with him a handful of times a year, mostly for birthdays, but he could see it as clearly as he could see Touya was running ragged. Should he have said something? Done something? But done what? Said what? He’s a hero, he’s saved more people than he can remember, why couldn’t he save these two?
His heart aches.
No, his whole chest aches.
Wait... he’s felt this way before.
The whooshing sound in his ears clears up a little, just enough for him to hear counting.
“Four, five, and hold.”
That’s Izuku on his left. On his right, Katsuki whispers in his ear.
“Try to hold your breath for just a second, love. Just try. I know it’s hard, but it’ll get easier.”
Love, he calls Shouto. He never does, not unless he’s scared or worried. Of course he’s worried. Shouto is breathing too fast. He can feel himself breathing too fast, can almost see himself like an out of body experience. He can see his own hand on Izuku’s chest more than he can feel his skin, his heartbeat, his long exhale under his fingertips. Izuku’s fingers are curled around his wrist, holding his hand there as delicately as though it were porcelain on the brink of breaking to pieces.
“And breathing in again,” Izuku murmurs. “Nice and slow. Ready?”
He starts counting again. Shouto tries to follow along, to breathe with him, but his breaths still come out as gasps that burn his lungs and make him lightheaded. He keeps trying, clinging to the soft words and even softer touches that plead for him to calm down.
It takes a long, a very long time before he can breathe right again.
It takes even longer before the tears stop rising.
Katsuki and Izuku never let go of him.
Somewhere deep inside him, he hopes that, on that bridge, Hawks held on to Touya until the very end, too. And he hopes Touya knew he was loved with the same certainty Shouto knows he is.