"Can we talk?" Dabi asked from the doorway.
Shigaraki tensed where he sat, shoulder drawing up and teeth grinding together, sending an annoying vibration through his jaw. And though his eyes were fixed downward toward the blueprints of the Yakuza hideout that he had sent Toga and Twice to, he wasn't really seeing them. Blood pulsed behind his eyes as his vision flashed, and he duly noted that there would be an incoming headache after this exchange.
"The silent treatment is a form of abuse," Dabi stated like he was explaining the concept of his own quirk, easygoing and familiar. Even though the words were accusatory, his tone wasn't. It was more like a lighthearted observation than an accusation or a call for change.
Dabi entered the room slowly, but not because he was being cautious, no. He trusted Shigaraki, and even if the man was pissed, he wouldn't do anything to hurt him. One look at Shigaraki, tensed as tightly as a wound coil, hands fisted on top of the desk he was working at, and Dabi knew that as much as Shigaraki was a real threat and feeling real, intense emotions, he wasn't going to do anything.
"It's not the silent treatment," Shigaraki ground out, not turning around to look at him. From his place in the middle of the room, Dabi could see the irritated twitch of Shigaraki's eye that was closest to him. "I'm counting and breathing."
Dabi smiled easily at the explanation and sat where he stood, allowing himself to flop down onto the plush, navy carpet, combing his fingers over the texture as he waited. Dabi smiled at Shigaraki's irritation, and Dabi smiled because he knew Shigaraki had the power to do a lot of damage, and Dabi smiled because he knew Shigaraki wouldn't use that power against him, and Dabi smiled because he always smiled around Shigaraki. He loved him endlessly.
Dabi frowned and looked away, distracting himself by looking at a loose thread on Shigaraki's pillowcase in the opposite direction from where Shigaraki himself sat. Dabi frowned because Shigaraki's pain was his doing, and Dabi frowned because there was no easy solution to their problems, and Dabi frowned because he was in way too deep to just walk away and never think of Shigaraki again, and Dabi frowned because Hawks was growing on him despite his active resistance and distancing from him.
When Shigaraki got his heartrate under control and was finally able to force his muscles to relax enough that he wasn't comparable to that rocky Class 2-A student, he turned around only to see Dabi staring at his bed, an intense concentration on his face.
Taking one last deep breath, Shigaraki muttered, "what did you need?"
It was quiet, but so was everything else, so Dabi heard him loud and clear. Dabi sighed and ran his fingers through his hair, a sure sign to Shigaraki that he wasn't as relaxed as he looked.
"I need to know what you need," Dabi answered. And when Shigaraki didn't respond, Dabi looked up to meet his gaze, and continued, "what do you want me to do?"
The question had undertones of desperation. It wasn't rhetorical or condescending; he was truly asking Shigaraki what he could do to start to mend things between them.
"What do you want to do?" Shigaraki returned.
Dabi looked away again, his hands going back into his hair, but staying there and tightening on his strands instead of just running through. "I don't know. Fuck. Shigs, I don't know."
Shigaraki knew that this answer would be a possibility, but it still stung. A pang of envy and rejection pierced his heart, and his stomach dropped. So, he took another deep breath. And then another.
With a sad kindness in his voice that Dabi had never heard from him before, Shigaraki said, "then you need to figure it out."
"Chargebolt!" Hawks barked. "Are you ready to fly?"
Denki smiled widely and lifted his arms, then suddenly he was no longer on the ground. Hawks had a firm grip on his arms, and Denki gripped him back just as firmly.
Denki kicked his feet out at nothing and laughed, amazed by the feeling of flying through the open air. Hawks looked down at Denki, endlessly amused by the little intern he had taken in. Watching people's reactions the first time flying never got old, even when they weren't flying of their own accord.
On the outer limits of the city, about 2 minutes and 45 seconds of flight away if Hawks was carrying a Denki-sized weight with him, a hospital was experiencing a power outage. There were emergency generators buzzing to give power to the most important things, but they had been due for an update for over a decade and were predicted to give out at any moment. They lasted long enough for Hawks to drop Denki in the mix of rescue heroes and teams working in orderly fashion to try to get a replacement powerline up and running. Until then, though, they needed Chargebolt, specifically.
It was Gang Orca's crew who were the closest when the powerline went down after a neglected tree had fallen and severed the connection. The tree had already been dragged away with the help of Uravity and Phantom Thief, both using Zero Gravity to share the strain of the weight of the tree against the quirk.
Neito about had a heart attack when he realized they called in Denki for help when he saw Hawks's red wings getting closer at an alarming speed. He about rolled his eyes into the back of his head when he saw one of the rescue teams setting up a ladder so that Denki would be able to reach both ends of the broken powerline to resume the current.
"You can't do that!" Neito rushed over, still out of breath and a little nauseous from moving the tree. "Are you trying to kill him?!"
"What's the issue?" one of the workers sneered, annoyed that a teenager had the gall to boss him around.
"You're trying to put an electric-type on a metal ladder, up off of the ground, which is important for, you know, grounding," Neito snapped, rolling his eyes.
"He won't be able to reach otherwise," the worker argued as he shifted the rim of his yellow hard hat but looked more hesitant now as he regarded the ladder. He didn't want to be the reason a teenage intern died, and during a rescue mission that didn't involve any villains, no less.
"He won't be able to reach when he's dead either," Neito grumbled, moving forward to get the ladder out of the way. "I'll copy his quirk. Between the both of us, we should be able to reach."
The rescue worker regarded Neito for a moment and then moved forward to take the ladder from him. Neito was about to argue, but the worker nodded at him, awkwardly tucked the ladder under his arm until it was balanced and strode away with it.
Neito only had time for one more deep breath before Denki was right there next to him. Like a well-oiled machine, even after avoiding him for so long, Neito reached out to meet Denki halfway. The second their hands touched, and Denki's quirk was copied, the boys ran to either side of the disaster area, building charge even as they ran. Ignoring the shouts of alarm and without hesitation, they each grabbed onto one side of the broken power line and wrapped it tightly around their wrists as they started dragging their respective ends back toward the center.
The onlookers were nervous; electricity was nothing to mess with, which is why they had wanted them to go slower and be more careful. The heroes that the interns worked directly with and other student interns from the hero course at UA watched intently, but with something akin to excitement in their eyes rather than hesitant nervousness at the delicateness of the situation at hand.
When the boys met in the middle, they each gave one last tug at the thick, coated wire around their wrists as they reached out, meeting each other's eyes for the first time in over a week, grabbing onto each other's forearm, and connecting the hospital to grid power once again. The heroes, interns, and civilians cheered. The other members of the rescue team looked on in awe at the surprising success. They were kind of expecting an explosion or something. The other interns were kind enough to explain that when Phantom Thief uses Chargebolt's quirk so often that it's almost like it's his own, and that they work together so well that it's like they read each other's mind, they don't have to hesitate and second-guess. It's like muscle memory for them.
"So," Denki started, a smile tugging on his lips. "Now that I have you stuck here—"
"Yeah, yeah," Neito grumbled. "We should talk." He took a deep breath, squeezed his eyes closed, and offered, "if you only want to be with Hitoshi from now on, I'd understand."
Neito turned his head away just in case he was tempted to open his eyes to peek at Denki's reaction. Neito didn't need his eyes for Denki's reaction, though.
Neito whipped his head around to openly stare at Denki when he laughed aloud, basically heaving while having so little room to move, arms stretched out as they were.
Those who had moved forward to connect the new powerline looked over at Denki. Neito was about to snap at them to mind their own business, but he saw genuine concern in their eyes and started to move quicker.
"He's fine," Neito called out. "Seriously, take your time. Don't rush on our account."
"Yeah," Denki heaved, unable to wipe the tears from the force of his laughter from his face. "I'm good. Phantom Thief is just so funny."
"I'm not trying to be funny," Neito insisted then, in a quieter voice as more eyes left them and focused on the task at hand after they were assured that Denki wasn't becoming delirious from the current rushing through their bodies.
"It's always been the three of us," Denki said, a seriousness lacing his tone that was a vast difference from only seconds before. "And I hope it always will be."
"Even after I said… all that," Neito grimaced, unwilling to delve into the details of the insults he had thrown.
"Your words under a stray quirk mean nothing to me."
"They should, though," Neito argued.
"They don't. At all. Because the way you treat me every second of every minute of every day shows me how you feel about me. Five minutes of insults can't undo all of that."
"I don't do anything special."
"And, just because you think that, it makes it all the more impactful!" Denki insisted, gaining energy to his voice as he continued, "you and Hitoshi never make me feel like I'm the odd one out. You treat me just like you treat him, and you'll never know how much that means to me, Nei."
"Stop, I—"
"I love you," Denki said, but his brow was furrowed, and he said it like it was a warning. "Don't you go insulting my boyfriend, now."
Neito laughed then, for the first time in what felt like forever.
"What if Hitoshi or I had been hit with that quirk?" Denki asked then, to really drive the point home. "Think of the worst things we could ever say to you. Would you be upset?"
Neito snorted. "Of course not. Even if you weren't under a quirk, I—"
Neito cut himself off and turned to look at Denki. Denki's smile was growing wider and wider.
"You love me, and I show you every day how much I love you, and words wouldn't be able to undo all of that?" Denki finished for him. He would have been bouncing in joyful smugness if remaining on the ground wasn't so vital in that moment.
"Yeah," Neito grumbled, but he smiled. "Something like that."
When the rescue group successfully transferred the flow of current from the broken line to the newly attached one, Neito and Denki collapsed on the ground in exhaustion as everyone around them clapped. It would never fail to give Denki the chills, and so he smiled and waved in appreciation as Neito hauled himself up, offering a hand to help Denki do the same.
As they walked away and were completely out of earshot, Neito asked, "did you put the League up to this? Was this their doing?"
"No," Denki said, shaking his head. "But I do need to call Spinner and cancel an event I had scheduled for tomorrow."
A laugh bubbled out of Neito without his permission. He didn't ask Denki if he was serious or just joking. Maybe Denki had been spending too much time with Todoroki, and his dry sense of humor had rubbed off on him. In any case, Neito didn't really want to know, and it wasn't important either way.