Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Shouta groaned as he opened his eyes, awareness as a whole coming back in a slow trickle. There was a heavy weight on his hips, which wasn't an ideal way to wake up, but when one had a party animal for a husband and a dominatrix for a wife, it did happen sometimes. So at first, in the dark of the bedroom, it didn't really register as off right away.

Then he saw the glowing eyes, and everything snapped horrifyingly into place.

The training camp. The attack. The cloud-like mist, interwoven with the poison gas. He hadn't noticed until it was too late. Everything going dark.

"You're awake, Shouta~!" the glowing-eyed person sitting on his hips purred before he could say a word. He blanched. Why… why did this person know his name? Villains should not know his actual name!

"Wh-who…?" he should not sound so affected. He should not. He shouldn't let a villain get under his skin like this!

"I missed you so much, Shouta…" the villain lowered himself down, leaning forwards over Shouta's chest, "When the Boss told us to nab someone from U.A. from that camp to cause a little chaos, well. I just couldn't resist the chance to see you again!"

Shouta shuddered. On the one hand it was a good thing it had been him taken and not one of the students. On the other… he could make out slightly more of his captor's face now. The wide, self-satisfied smile left him feeling uneasy, more so than he already had. Being captured was bad, yes, but being captured by someone with a predatory smile like that was a different kind of bad.

Yet, after a moment, that smile fell. "You don't recognize me, do you?" his captor said, almost sadly. "Even with my mist down… maybe if I turn the lights on?"

And while Shouta was still processing 'with my mist down' — was this the League's warper? — his captor gestured out, a curling wisp of cloud appearing to flip the light-switch.

Light flooded the room, leaving Shouta squinting irritably like one does when they get up to use the restroom in the middle of the night. Bright, far too bright for the darkness from which just emerged; it took him a minute to adjust to it.

His captor was looking down at him, a sort of distant, puppy-sad look upon his face. He did… actually look familiar. The shape of his eyes, although the wrong color. That nose, bisected horizontally by scarring. Those eyebrows, those lips — no, it couldn't be! And yet… and yet…

His heart felt like a wound finally being stitched closed. Something dormant within him stirred.

I know you I know you I know you it's you it's you you're here I missed you —

"…Oboro?"

Chapter Text

Shouta wasn't tied up anymore. Why would he be, when he wasn't trying to escape? He was just… taking in the moment, looking out the window. It was raining out, pouring even. The sound of it only added to the surreality of the moment; Shouta sitting unbound in a villain's hideout with Oboro — Oboro! — hanging on to his arm, happily humming and tracing nonsense patterns on the back on his hand.

How could it feel anything other than surreal? With Oboro here? Not quite alive, but most certainly there, taking advantage of Shouta's stunned state to press kisses to his jaw.

"Why…" Shouta finally spoke into the calm, "Why didn't you come back to us?"

Oboro drew his face back, but kept their hands clasped. His expression changed from giddy happiness to melancholic regret.

"I couldn't," Oboro sighed, "Even if I left right when I first woke, I'll be considered a villain evermore by the Commission. Because I'm not human anymore, I'm a Nomu, so my very existence is evil."

"That's —" Shouta swallowed his words.

"Maybe I'd get lucky and be a subject of study rather than a prisoner, but Shouta, there was no safe way for me to go back. It was safer to stay here, with the people who brought me back."

"Why didn't you tell us?" Shouta asked, slightly desperate, "And what changed for you to tell me now?"

"Honestly? I was scared," Oboro looked sheepish, "And the longer it was since I died, the more scared I got… but then, I saw you at the USJ. And you didn't know it was me. And that… honestly scared me more than you knowing."

"…Oh."

"Yeah."

Silence again. Oboro looked a little upset, gazing towards the baseboards — no, through them, into that blurry everywhere and nowhere — and Shouta realized, deep down, that he understood. He didn't like what Oboro had done, but he understood it.

He shifted closer.

"I… can't say I don't wish you'd said something sooner," he said, "But please. Tell me this. The League… what are you fighting for? Even if you couldn't come home…"

"For the right to come home," Oboro's gaze lifted, looking out the window now into the rain, far more hopeful. "So that the next person in my situation can have the choice to leave if they want to. For change in the system, for heroes to be held responsible, for the reduction of the bystander effect, for quirks to not be glorified or villainized by default, for the quirkless to still be seen as human. Honestly… we're fighting for a lot of things."

"By… trying to kill All Might?" Shouta frowned. He wasn't sure how these goals led to that action.

"Partially symbolic, partially personal," Oboro shrugged, "From an idealistic standpoint, All Might's Symbol of Peace status contributes to the dehumanization and glorification of heroes, and to the intensity of the Bystander Effect. From a personal standpoint… Iiii got adopted. After I died."

"Congratulations?"

"Thanks!" Oboro smiled and swayed to knock their shoulders together, "The two men who brought me back… they told me they'd take care of me, and they did. One of them has a daughter, much younger than me. My baby sister. All Might personally crushed her dream and then left her standing on a rooftop."

"All Might did…? Baby sister…?" Shouta hadn't expected… any of that. He couldn't really imagine what any baby sister of Oboro's looked like, much less one who got her dream crushed by All Might. She didn't feel real.

"She'd throw a fit if she heard me call her that, though!" Oboro laughed, "She's gotten big. Almost sixteen now. You've met her, actually. She talks about you a lot. It… helped. Me get the nerve up for this, I mean."

And then suddenly, the gears in Shouta's head all ground to a stop at once. "…What?"

"Yep!" Oboro nuzzled at Shouta's jaw happily, like an oversized cat, "I'm not telling you who she is, though. There's secrets tied up in that that aren't mine to share."

"That's… that's alright," Shouta sighed and leaned over onto Oboro's shoulder. He did want to know, but for now, "I'm just happy to see you again. I've missed you. So, so much."

"I missed you too."

A puddle, still but for the little plop-ripples caused by the rainfall, was disturbed twice in a single minute. First, shiny black leather treated against the elements. Second, a dangerously sharp high heel. Husband and wife, looking for their missing third.

There wasn't anyone else with them, which was honestly poor protocol, but the police were insisting that anything officially organized wait for actual leads.

Neither Hizashi nor Nemuri was willing to wait.

In lieu of leads, they followed their gut, random instinct-driven patterning meticulously marked down so that they would not check the same place twice. They criss-crossed neighborhoods and whole cities, aided only by whichever friends or former classmates had the time to lend a little extra work to the effort. Their maps became abstract paintings, every color representing a person looking.

There was an over-abundance of yellow and red-purple, matching slashes peppering the maps more than all the other colors combined.

How had it only been twenty-four hours since they heard? They already felt so run-ragged…

"He's fine," Hizashi's hair was frayed and frazzled, drooping as the rain washed away the gel. "He's fine, right? He's got to be…"

"Yeah," Nemuri swallowed heavily. "He's got to be. If he's not… we'll have to kick his ass, right?"

"Right," Hizashi's smile trembled, facade on the verge of crumbling, "We'll have to."

Chapter Text

"I wonder what the criminal underworld would think if they knew the feared Eraserhead likes to steal and wear his wife's underwear," Nemuri lounged on the bed, her hands up under her chin and her legs kicking back and forth freely in the air. She looked a bit smug for some reason.

"I think they'd mostly be confused that I have a wife," Shouta fired back without looking up from his packing.

"Hm, that is true," Nemuri shrugged, "Even people who should no better haven't figured out we're married."

"Are we trash-talking Yagi again?" Hizashi asked as he walked into the room, flopping down beside Nemuri carelessly.

"It's so easy to do," Shouta sighed, "That man is completely oblivious. To most things."

"He means well," Hizashi stretched, leaning back over top of Nemuri and then not getting back up, "But like…"

"He needs to touch grass," Nemuri cut him off with an eyeroll.

"…I was gonna say 'come down out of his ivory tower', but that works to."

"I agree," Shouta took one of Hizashi's shirts and packed it, "Man's an idiot. I'm glad he's not coming along to the training camp."

"Maybe you can work on Midoriya then too," Nemuri hummed, "Poor boy seems constantly like he's trying to be just like All Might. It's… something about it feels performative to me. And I don't know his audience or why he's performing at all."

Shouta clicked his tongue and closed his suitcase. "I've picked up on that too. It rubs me the wrong way… I think it's tied up in his rivalry with Bakugou. I'm hoping I'm wrong, but. Well."

"That feels out of character for the listener," Hizashi put in his two cents.

"But that's the thing, Hizashi," Shouta pointed out, "If what I fear Midoriya to be hiding is what I think it is, then we never really knew him at all."

Chapter Text

The first day with the League of Villains, Shouta didn't interact with anyone other than his lost-and-found thought-dead fourth. He did learn that he was being held — for a given value of held, given that he was not bound and could probably leave if he tried — in Oboro's bedroom. When night fell, he curled up next to Oboro's corpse, still and quiet but soft and warm and safe.

Oboro's body almost felt like it was humming.

The second day, Shouta woke with the sun, blinking sleep from his eyes with his cheek set against a still chest. For a moment — confusion, alarm. Then, suddenly, a heart started to sluggishly beat beneath him, and the circumstances seemed to all come flooding back.

He pushed himself up, smiling slightly as he watched Oboro shift and begin to wake. A large breath was sucked in, gasping, like the first breath after the Heimlich is performed, or after successful application of CPR. Golden eyes slit open, finding gray-black.

"Hey, beautiful," Oboro yawned, making grabby hands at Shouta, "I love you."

"I love you too," Shouta fell back down into Oboro's embrace, tucking himself under Oboro's chin.

He was letting himself be soft, letting himself put his guard down in an unknown situation, but it was Oboro Oboro Oboro. Wonderfully, impossibly, Oboro. He thought he'd never get to have this again. Was he supposed to reject it? He wasn't going to.

A knock at the door.

"Dad, are you going to come down for breakfast?" the voice was familiar, but off somehow. Shouta couldn't quite place it.

Oboro sighed. "In a minute!"

"Alright!" the voice responded. Footsteps could be heard retreating.

"Dad?" Shouta asked, sitting up.

"Yep," Oboro hummed peacefully, stretching as he rose, "Tenko was a runaway. Now he's mine."

Shouta elbowed Oboro in the side. "When were you going to tell me that we had a son?"

"We?" Oboro yelped. "Um. Wow Tenko's never going to — uh, nevermind. Well, yesterday was a little floaty, so… today? Probably?"

Shouta huffed and shook his head fondly. He couldn't deny that yesterday had been, as Oboro described it, floaty, but this was also maybe information he wanted to know sooner.

"Ah, we should. Get dressed," Oboro stumbled slightly as he stood, something that made him laugh lightly. "I got some clothes for you… are these okay for today?"

Oboro handed Shouta a stack of clothing, which… looked familiar. Wait — yep, okay. What the hell.

"These are my clothes."

"Yep."

"From my house."

"Yeah huh."

"Oboro, what the hell."

"Um, I can teleport…?" Oboro tilted his head at a forty-five degree angle and gave a sheepish smile. "And I thought you might be more comfortable in your own clothes."

"…I'm not sure if that's thoughtful or creepy."

"It can be both!" Oboro chirped, and then sped off to put his own clothes on. Shouta couldn't help watching as he did so, cataloguing every new scar Oboro had acquired, from the jagged myriad cuts on his limbs and back to the surgically precise autopsy scar on his chest. And the claw-like scars over his right eye…

The scars were new, but so were the clothes Oboro used to cover them. Nice dressy slacks, a button-down in white covered by a dark navy vest shot through with swirls of sky blue, shining leather belt with a silver buckle. Hair pulled back into a ponytail.

"You look good," Shouta couldn't help but stare. Oboro really did look a vision. How was he supposed to look away?

"You look like you still need to put clothes on," Oboro shot back with a smile, "But thanks."

"Er- Right," Shouta began to pull his clothes on, "You're right."

Oboro laughed at him the whole time he was getting dressed. Rude.

Leaving Oboro's room felt odd. Shouta was walking through a villain lair, and they knew he was there, and yet there was no fighting. He wasn't even dressed for fighting.

Not that he was dressed for upscale socializing either. He was wearing the kind of outfit he'd always preferred on his days off — sweatpants, t-shirt. There was a non-zero chance he looked straight-up slovenly. Despite that…

Despite that, he was going to meet Oboro's family. His own family, because he was claiming Oboro and therefore his family was likely to be along for the ride. In sweatpants and a t-shirt emblazoned with a scene from a pre-quirk comedy music video he thought was funny.

Yeah this was going to be a disaster.

Oboro led the way into the common area with a light hum and a bounce in his step, and the inhabitants all looked up when he entered. Smiles abound, on faces Shouta didn't know but Oboro obviously did. It was strange.

And then eyes fell on him.

"Is that him?" a teenage girl, blonde, surged out of her seat to ask, "Is that your boyfriend, Obo-giri?"

"One of them, yes," Oboro nodded, "Himiko, sit in your seat properly."

The girl, apparently Himiko, made a "hmph!" sound, but sat, the force of it causing the stool to rattle.

"This is Oto-san, then?" the same voice from before at the door spoke, this time from somewhere Shouta could see him. It was… the young man from the USJ? But he sounded more well-hydrated, and there was a distinct lack of hands grasping at him. But…

"Yes, this is Shouta," Oboro said with a nod. "Shouta, this is Tenko Shirakumo. My son."

Oboro's son.

Shouta's son.

Pale blue hair framed ruby-red eyes. Everything was alive and yet still.

Shouta took a step forward.

Chapter Text

A lone figure sat on the roof, weeping.

Female, school age… yes, she was wearing the uniform of the school. Good.

Why was she crying? Her tears, like a waterfall, soaked her stockings where her knees were pressed against her face. She had been sitting there so long that, no matter how warm her tears had been when they left her eyes, they were long-cold now. That could not be comfortable in the chill of the autumn weather.

Should something be done? Crying on rooftops was rarely a good thing. It often led to things even worse.

The door to the roof-top opened. Two more students came out onto the roof, male this time. Both of them. Was this worrisome?

Ah, no. The boys sat down on either side of the girl, and she leaned onto one of them instantly. The other took her hands.

Now there were three figures on the roof, weeping.

Should something be done?

Shouta quickly found himself unable to keep up with the multiple rapid-fire conversations and activities occurring at all times with the League of Villains. Breakfast was surprisingly elaborate and contained both modern and traditional elements, many of which didn't seem to naturally go together well — or at all — yet someone was taking some of everything, mindless chatter carried on with knowledge but not care of Shouta's presence.

Each plate had a different spread of food on it. Tenko's, for example, was a colorful array of toast-slices, each with a different topping on. There were flavored butters, multiple jams and jellies, cheese-spreads and fruit-butters all. Variety, and yet similarity as well. Oboro, seated opposite, had a full traditional breakfast set, which was disappearing at a rate that was almost alarming. For some reason, Dabi was glaring at Oboro, but then stopped when all the salmon was gone.

Shouta himself wasn't exactly used to eating a large breakfast — or lunch for that matter. Usually his only big meal of the day was dinner. But if breakfasts with the League were always like this — loud, jovial, warm — maybe he'd make time for it more often.

He took a bite of his toast.

Chapter Text

There was slowly-growing more commotion around Shouta's disappearance. This made Shouta nervous — how was he going to return? Without admitting the so-called 'villains' had let him go? — and while Oboro insisted they had a plan for that, he was also growing increasingly nervous. This was worrisome, although thankfully the level of nerves the other League members had was much lower.

Finally, on the third day after Shouta was taken, Oboro got a text message.

Well, actually, Oboro had gotten a number of text messages while Shouta was present, but this one had him sitting up and snapping out that it was "Go time," which apparently meant time to clean up. And pace. Oboro was pacing back and forth across the main portion of the bar floor, while the rest of the League scurried around moving personal affects upstairs and doing basic chores like sweeping and wiping down the counter.

"Do I need to be doing something?" Shouta asked.

"Sit there and look pretty," Oboro leaned down to give Shouta a kiss over the back of the couch, "Everything should be fine… I hope."

"I HAVE THE SACRIFICE!" Himiko shouted, and a large form was shoved loudly down the stairs. When it landed, it was revealed to be…

"Muscular?" Shouta questioned why the serial killer was 1) here and 2) tied up and unconscious.

"He wanted to join the League, but we didn't like his vibe," Tenko shrugged, and then kicked the man while he was literally down.

"Hey, hey, hey!" Oboro clapped his hands together to get their attention, "Don't do anything that'll show up as a mark, it'll ruin the plan!"

"Sorry." Tenko did not sound sorry.

The door to the bar opened. Tako-san? From high school? Walked in, followed by Hizashi and Nemuri both. They were all in costume, but while Tako-san looked like she'd just gotten dressed, both Hizashi and Nemuri were frazzled and frayed from a long day's work.

Oboro yelped and dissolved into a cloud of mist. And then tried to hide behind Shouta.

"…Really?"

"Shouta!" Nemuri spotted him first, surging forward with Hizashi on her heels, "You're okay!"

"I'm okay," Shouta leaned into her hug, "Sorry for worrying you."

"What's… going on?" Hizashi glanced around with some trepidation, clearly taking in the scattered League members, the downed form of Muscular, the fact that Shouta wasn't tied up at all. Without context, it really didn't make any sense at all. Well, frankly, it hardly made any sense with context, but that wasn't the point. The point was, it was completely understandable that Hizashi was lost.

"This one," Shouta jabbed a thumb over his shoulder at Oboro, "Decided to stop being a coward in the most needlessly dramatic way possible."

"Hey!" Oboro protested, but the other League members laughed in agreement.

"This one…?" Nemuri peered over Shouta's shoulder, and Oboro wilted under her gaze, turning into a dense, ankle-high fog twining about their feet.

"Stop that," Shouta kicked at him lightly, "Get back here and explain yourself."

"I would like an explanation…" Hizashi brought up a hand to fiddle with the dials on his directional speaker, something that was both nervous habit and threat, Shouta knew.

Oboro must still know it too, for he did begin to coalesce, growing into a taller and taller cloud until finally, his body reformed out of it. For a moment, only staring occurred; looking at Hizashi and Nemuri's faces made it clear that they knew he looked familiar, and yet, neither had yet managed to place it. Then Oboro began to speak, sheepish.

"Hey, Hizashi, Nemuri. Long time no see?"

Chapter Text

He wasn't sure how long it would take for him to stop crying himself to sleep. How long it would take for the memory of them to stop hurting. It might never stop hurting, but he hoped… He hoped, eventually, it wouldn't be all he could think about.

They were the only thing he missed.

That sounded awful, but it was true. What else did he have to miss? Friends he always felt on the verge of losing, a father that ignored him more often than not, a grandmother obsessed with his masculinity or lack thereof. Always striving to prove himself and prove himself, more and more and more, and for what?

For what?

For people who would declare him irredeemable now? For events beyond his control? For daring not to stay dead?

He believed himself to be terribly lucky. To get to be, if not still alive, still present as he was.

But the society he lived in… They would not see him as lucky. They would see him as a villain by nature, made unwanted and unlovable by an accident turned miracle.

Would his lovers think the same? And even if they didn't, could he be so selfish as to ask them to choose between him and their dreams?

No. No he couldn't. At least… not right now.

So he cried himself to sleep, missing them. One day, he hoped… he hoped that he would see them again.

Chapter Text

According to the news, Shouta was rescued by Hizashi and Nemuri from the clutches of the League of Villains, and captured League member Muscular as they did so. The students were happy to have Shouta back, the government was happy to have Muscular in custody, and the truth was happy to stay buried.

Purple mist-swirls were quick to become a common sight in the Aizawa-Kayama-Yamada home. The League, while publicly considered a threat, was never one Shouta brought up in class. The world… just carried on, a little happier than before.

And really, did it need to do anything else?