Chapter Text
Monoma Neito slumps down into the passenger seat, deftly loosening his tie and the first three buttons of his shirt as he does. Damn but this has gotta be the longest amount of hours that he’s ever gone in his hero suit before.
And he would have taken a couple of minutes to change before leaving except…
“Your seatbelt hon,” Shouto says softly, his voice pitched low over the soft classical music filtering through the car speakers.
Neito nods tiredly, slapping clumsily at the strap before finally managing to yank it all the way across his chest. His eyes burn and exhaustion has him slumping even further against his seat as he absently tries and fails to get the tab into the buckle onehanded.
After his fifth failed attempt Shouto clicks his tongue and gently takes it from him, latching the seatbelt for him in one swift motion. His fingers brush against Neito’s own and that familiar cool touch, that rush of icy cold racing through him as his husband’s right hand touches him, has Neito half sobering up from his punch drunk exhaustion already.
Shouto starts to pulls his hand back with a frown. “Shit no, I didn’t mean to–”
He cuts off as Neito takes his hand and pulls it closer, dragging Shouto’s knuckles against his own cheek and the back of his neck in an effort to wake himself up even further.
“Can’t sleep yet,” he mumbles, absently pressing Shouto’s icy palm to his lips before finally letting go to rub tiredly at his eyes. “Still need to… tell you what happened.”
“I see,” Shouto says, a huff of amusement escaping him as he finally shifts the car into drive. “Are we finally going to talk about the elephant in the room?”
“Not an elephant,” Neito mumbles, icing over his own hands with the borrowed quirk and pressing his now freezing palms against his cheeks. “Kai.”
Shouto glances in the rearview mirror at the small child passed out sleeping in the backseat. “Ah see, I was so sure it was an elephant.”
Neito groans at that even as he can see the small smile pulling at the corners of his husband’s lips.
“There’s coffee for you in the cupholder you know,” Shouto says, the turn signal clicking on with a graceful flick of his finger. “Though perhaps I should have gotten you an iced coffee considering the makeshift ice bath you’re currently attempting.”
Despite the situation, despite the way that Neito knows that Shouto is masking his nerves with attempts at their usual banter, despite all that, Neito can’t hold back a laugh.
“I am. Fucking exhausted,” he says as the car rolls to a stop at a red light. He forgoes the coffee for now and instead turns in his seat to face his husband head on. “And it’s a really long story”
Shouto turns to face him and nods with a more solemn air than his previous tone had allowed. “Try me,” he says, turning back to the road as the light changes to green. “We’ve got a long drive ahead of us and nothing but time.”
~ ~ ~ a few hours earlier ~ ~ ~
Pro Hero Phantom Thief steps into the precinct with a sigh that is almost pure exhaustion. He’s a Nightlife Hero dammit, he’s not supposed to still be awake when the sun is coming up.
His phone buzzes in one of the inner pockets of his suit, probably Shouto wondering why he never came home last night, and Neito makes a mental note to call his husband back as soon as he finishes up here.
Stifling another yawn behind one hand, he swipes his special issued consultant card at the door and then shoulders it open with as much energy as he has left. He’ll never regret pulling all nighters like this– much less when the result is busting up a kidnapping ring that’s been terrorizing the Kanto region for months now.
But maybe he shouldn’t have assured the victims that he’d stay with them for as long as it took for them to feel safe again. That shit had lasted the rest of his shift and then some, and now here he is, the sole hero that took part in the raid that has yet to write up his report.
Man, freelancing through the police force has never felt this depressing before. At least at a cushy hero agency there’d be sidekicks for paperwork like this. Oh well, that’s just par for the course for Nightlife Heroes. And Neito would put up with far worse for the occasional chance to work with Eraserhead like this.
With yet another wide yawn, Neito grabs his printouts as soon as they spill out of the printer and stumbles his way towards the interrogation rooms. At this hour they’re sure to be empty and there’s simply no way he’ll be able to focus on getting this shit done with all the morning hustle of the day shift cops coming in. The rooms should all be empty and he can be in and out within the hour so long as he doesn’t fall asleep at the table.
The panel beside Interrogation Room One beeps as he slaps his card against it and he tiredly pushes the door open before abruptly freezing in the doorway.
There is a small child sitting at the table.
There is a small child alone at the table, head resting on folded arms as the little boy shakes with near silent sobs.
There is a small child in this room, cold and abandoned, slowly lifting his head to fix watery, hopeful eyes on Neito, that immediately turns to a more crestfallen expression as he sees who is actually at the door.
There is a small child at the precinct, no older than five years old, huddled on a chair much larger than himself, as he blinks at Neito with wide mismatched eyes that serve to pull at something in Neito’s chest as he invariably thinks of Shouto.
If Neito were perhaps more widely awake he would maybe have felt better equipped to handle this just then.
As it is, all he can do is nod his head at the kid and slowly back out of the room to pull the door shut once more behind him.
What the fuck?
“Hey you!” Neito calls, snagging the closest detective by the wrist as the poor unsuspecting man has the misfortune of being in the middle of passing him by. “The fuck is this?” He jerks a thumb over his shoulder as the dumb sop blinks at him uncomprehendingly.
“Uh… Interrogation Room One?”
Neito seethes internally and has to resist the urge to shake the stupid right out of him. “No shit sherlock!” he hisses, leaning in closer until he has the man all but crowded up against the opposite wall. “I am clearly referring to the literal child in there!”
The man blinks at him again. “Oh. You mean Kai?”
And Neito all but sees red at that bullshit response. “You already know his name?” he spits. “You knew that he was in there?” He’s gotta struggle to rein himself in at this point because the last thing he needs is to get banned from the premises right now when he’s clearly the only authority figure in the entire precinct that gives a shit about this. But he’s fucking raging at the implications of this random ass cop that he’d happened to snag for answers already knowing about this without needing to go and look into it first.
“Of course–” the dumbass defends like there’d ever be a justifiable reason for treating a literal child worse than a literal perp. “I mean, I didn’t know he was here today, he must have been dropped off some time last night before I clocked in. But he’s the only kid that gets brought in on a regular basis so it makes sense it would be him. We wouldn’t hold just any old kid like that, you know?”
He shoots Neito a look like he thinks he’s made his point.
Neito reacts by narrowing his eyes as far as they’ll go and whipping out his finest menacing loom. Thank god for platform shoes and the way they allow him to tower over sniveling fools like this.
“Enlighten me.” he says, his words clipped and harsh, overly enunciated and spoken slowly to properly convey his current opinion of this man’s clear lack of intelligence.
His unspoken insult clearly lands its mark as the officer bristles with indignation. “Oh come on, don’t pretend like you don’t get it! He’s got one of them bad quirks, the kind that’s only good for hurting people! If he would just stop touching people and landing them in the hospital maybe he’d manage to get one of those foster situations to stick!”
It takes everything Neito has not to flinch back at the words ‘bad quirk’. It feels like they ring through the air almost, echoing in Neito’s head with an ache that he’d thought to be long healed– even as this guy keeps prattling on with quite frankly an impressive amount of skill to be speaking so clearly with his foot so far in his own mouth like that.
“Poison quirks like that are no joke, you know! When his latest caregivers inevitably dump him on us to take over temporary custody, it’s all we can do to just hold him there till his case worker clocks in to come and–”
“Stop.” Neito cuts in, his fingertips pressing against his eyes at the sheer audacity and absurdity of this entire situation. “Just stop talking.”
“But we–”
“Shhhhh,” he chides, his finger pressing harshly against the other man’s lips for emphasis. He’s so beyond done with this bullshit excuse for a conversation, as if a touch based poison quirk is a reason to leave unsupervised and unentertained for hours at a time.
And also he can’t deny that a small part of him relishes the excuse to touch the man, to satiate the morbid curiosity at just what kind of quirk an officer could possibly possess to be feeling so superior to a damn child that he finds it perfectly reasonable to regularly leave them alone in a LITERAL INTERROGATION ROOM.
“You disgust me,” Neito hisses, his tone leaving no room for argument as he whirls around and storms down the hall towards the vending machines. After all, in the asshole's own admission the child has done nothing wrong to warrant the continued isolation. Meaning Neito is well within his rights as a hero to keep the kid company until said social worker finally arrives.
And thanks to the asshole detective’s semi useful quirk of being able to heat drinks to the perfect drinking temperature, Neito is about to bestow the child named Kai with the most perfect hot chocolate of his gosh darn life.