Work Text:
The first time, it happens in the infirmary.
Class 1-A is sleeping. Shouto is not, and while Midoriya’s breathing is even, he’s staring with furrowed eyebrows at the ceiling. He brings the hospital sheets up closer to his chest, and Shouto notices the way the other boy’s hands clench around the fabric. Everyone is reeling from the day’s events, Midoriya especially; and now, his hands, marred and mangled, clench.
Shouto notices. His own twitch.
--
In class, Midoriya answers with enthusiasm. He scribbles notes, taps his pencil, steeples his fingers on the surface of the desk. Shouto doesn’t sit near him, but he watches, and he steeples his own without thinking about it.
He doesn’t have a basis of truth for this, but—Shouto thinks Midoriya’s hands would look smaller against his. Stronger, but smaller.
Shouto wants to check, just to see. He wants to press their hands together, fingers spread out for comparison. He thinks this as he watches Midoriya writing methodically for the nth time that morning; he thinks this when they sit together at lunch and the other clutches his bento, smiling; he thinks this when they’re sparring and he manages to catch a wrist in his grip. He thinks this, and thinks this, and thinks this.
--
Midoriya invites him over for dinner, a year into their friendship. It’s not nearly as uncomfortable as Shouto had maybe feared it would be. He’s still not good at this sort of thing, but Midoriya’s mother is nice, and she smiles at him when he slips off his shoes and asks what he would like to eat.
He says anything is fine. A few pleasantries later, Midoriya is leading him to his bedroom with a shy duck of his head. They’ve been friends for what feels like forever now, but this is the first time Shouto’s been to another person’s home in maybe years, and they’re both (reasonably, Shouto thinks) just a little embarrassed about it.
Midoriya’s room is nothing shy of a shrine to All Might, which, admittedly, is exactly what Shouto was expecting. It’s endearing, he thinks, taking in the colorful posters and scattered merchandise. He takes the chair in front of Midoriya’s desk. The other sits with his legs crisscrossed on the bed, his hands folded in his lap, fiddling. Shouto purposefully doesn’t look at them, but at this point, he doesn’t need to. He’s stared at those hands more times than he can count in the past twelve months.
--
They’re training.
Midoriya is strong, stronger now, and stronger than he looks. They’re on equal footing when it comes to hand-to-hand combat, and when they spar like this, dancing around each other with their eyes locked, they don’t use their quirks. Neither of them has ever said that they can’t, and there’s no self-imposed rule that Shouto is following; he just doesn’t think to use it. It never comes up. They train. The times Midoriya has won are just about equal to the times Shouto has.
Shouto’s on the floor, catching his breath and pretending he isn’t staring at Midoriya—Midoriya, who wipes sweat from his forehead with his forearm, his chest rising and falling evenly, heavily. His shirt sticks to him with sweat, and Shouto can see the outline of his binder. He smiles, and it’s genuine.
“Point for me,” he says, and he offers Shouto his hand.
Shouto takes it and pretends again that he isn’t staring.
--
It’s mundane, when Shouto almost gathers the courage to do it. They’re in Midoriya’s living room, his mother out grocery shopping. They’re meant to be studying, and while Midoriya seems to have made more than sufficient progress, Shouto has had to re-read the same paragraph four different times. He keeps looking over at the other, promising himself it’ll only be a second—but the he notices how long Midoriya’s eyelashes are, or how his nose scrunches up when he’s thinking really hard about something, or how dark the freckles on his cheeks have gotten, more prominent in the summer. His eyes follow a trail from Midoriya’s nose to his jawline to his collarbones to his forearms and then, like it had been Shouto’s intended destination all along, his hands. A finger hooks around the next page for when he’s ready to flip it; he has a freckle on the side of his left pinky.
In his lap, Shouto forces his hands to still, then wonders why he needs to. Only one of Midoriya’s hands is occupied; the other is next to him, open, so close to Shouto’s on the couch that they would be touching in a second, if only he would muster the courage and reach over.
He starts to. Their fingers brush, but the front door unlocks and Midoriya’s mother greets them with dinner and he pulls back.
--
All Might is injured, badly.
Midoriya is shaking. Shouto might be too, but he can’t really tell. The hallway is filled to the brim with people, students, parents, heroes Shouto has met only in passing—all wearing the same worried face, the same scared, terrified, shaking expression. Midoriya is not alone in his shock, in his anger, in his grief. No, he’s not alone, but he turns and starts down the hallway, away from everyone else, like he is.
Shouto follows. He doesn’t know why he does it, except that it hurts even worse to see Midoriya go off on his own. Neither of them say anything, but they aren’t silent. Midoriya is crying. It starts off quiet, timid, like he’s afraid of someone hearing—and then Shouto takes a step towards him, arms outstretched, and it turns to sobbing. Shouto doesn’t care about the noise, except that it breaks his heart for a second time.
They don’t gravitate to each other so much as fall in; Shouto almost stumbles with the sudden weight of Midoriya against him, hugging him so fiercely that for a moment he can’t breathe. Midoriya’s arms wrap around Shouto’s waist, his blunt nails digging into Shouto’s back. He’s clutching, like he’s afraid Shouto is going to disappear if he doesn’t hold on tight enough.
Shouto isn’t going anywhere, but he doesn’t say that. He hugs back, tucking his chin into the crook of the other’s neck and ignoring how badly his eyes sting. Midoriya is warm, and he’s still shaking.
When he finally pulls away, his hands linger on Shouto’s waist one last time. Midoriya is afraid to let go.
--
They make a good team, and they celebrate this with a trip to an ice cream parlor that just opened.
Shouto is used to being recognized, but Midoriya is not. He’s surprised by the looks that they get, and while they wait in line to order, he leans towards Shouto and mumbles, “People are looking at us.”
“Just you,” Shouto says. Midoriya pouts. This is obviously not the answer he wanted, and he nudges Shouto’s side when it’s their turn to order. They leave with cups of chocolate and strawberry five minutes later, Midoriya sighing the moment they step out.
“That was,” he pauses, “weird.”
He’s still getting used to being a hero, Shouto thinks. While he’s comfortable in his job (there’s a certain calm Midoriya gets when he’s fighting, a comfort in his environment that most heroes his age can only dream of), he’s not used to the fame that comes with it. Up until recently, Midoriya had been another generic, easily forgettable face in a crowd of a million generic, easily forgettable faces.
Not anymore.
His fingers wrap around his spoon carefully, staring at his ice cream. He’s probably still thinking about the people in the parlor, or the way the woman taking their order had startled when she looked up, Shouto thinks.
They finish their ice cream quickly, for fear of it melting in the heat otherwise. As subtly as he can, Shouto nudges the back of his hand against the other’s. Midoriya doesn’t say anything about it, but he nudges back.
--
When they pull away, Midoriya’s eyelashes flutter, once, twice, and Shouto resists the urge to lean in and kiss him again.
Then Midoriya is beaming and the corners of his eyes crinkle and he laughs, once, at their stupidity. “All this time,” he says, but he’s not angry about it. Their second kiss is just as soft as the first, and through their closed eyes, Midoriya’s hand finds Shouto’s.
--
Midoriya wakes, as hard as Shout tries to stay quiet. He blinks groggily but doesn’t sit up. “What’re you doing?” he asks, his voice slurred. His bedhead is horrible, tufts of green curls sticking up even worse than normal. It’s unbearably cute.
Shouto is out of bed now, but he leans down and gives his boyfriend a quick kiss. “Showering,” he says, nodding towards the clock. “I need to get ready.”
Midoriya rolls over so he can see their bedside table. He glares at the time. “’S too early,” he mumbles, grabbing Shouto’s hand and tugging him back. “Sleep again.”
Shouto already woke up five minutes later than he was supposed to, but he gives up when Midoriya rolls over and pulls the sheets up, inviting him back under the covers. He crawls into bed, knowing he’s going to regret this later when he’s rushing to shower and eat breakfast. Still, that doesn’t stop him from pulling his boyfriend to his chest and entwining their hands.
He realizes as he’s falling back asleep that Midoriya’s hands are smaller than his.