Izuku should have known better. He had absolutely jinxed himself. He'd had an hour of calm and quiet, texting Shouta briefly and laughing to himself at his increasing exasperation with the utter stupidity he was experiencing on patrol. And then a scramble of activity as they got an alert that a takedown of a group of villains by Best Jeanist's Agency was starting to go south-and quickly .
It was all hands on deck as Heroes grabbed their gear and ran towards the alert, Izuku throwing on his headset as he immediately began coordinating his Heroes. As soon as someone confirmed where the fight was taking place, he was pulling up schematics and asking for details on what the Heroes could see in regards to the villain's Quirks. One of them had a fire Quirk, which made Izuku grimace. Those Quirks always ended up with people in the hospital.
He could hear Bakugou through the headsets of some of the Heroes he was working with, and a shudder crawled down his spine even as he tried to ignore it, working with the Heroes from his Agency to minimize the damage and limit civilian and Hero casualties alike . Izuku heard that X- Ray was going into the building to attempt a stealth takedown in tandem with Bakugou and a few other Heroe, and before he could voice a warning through the sudden panic clogging his throat, X- Ray had shut off his headset.
It was procedure to do so if you were attempting a stealth takedown with other Heroes as backup- no one wanted to risk getting distracted from your partners at the wrong moment-but Izuku wished it wasn't procedure in that moment. He didn't have any reason for it, but dread curled in the bottom of his stomach as he considered X-Ray working with Bakugou. The blonde had never shown any hostility towards X-Ray that Izuku was aware of, but still. Still. Something just didn't feel right.
A sudden, loud explosion caused harsh, whining feedback in Izukuk's ear and he swore sharply before it suddenly cut out-along with everything else he could hear. "Shit," he snapped, making Hideo look at him sharply. "The headsets cut out-it sounded like an explosion," he said unhappily.
Hideo rubbed his face roughly, frustration obvious in every movement. "Let me know if you get back in contact," he ordered.
Izuku just nodded, aware that not knowing what was going on was eating at the other man-it was eating at Izuku too. He tried troubleshooting his headset, but just like he'd thought, the problem was with the headsets at the site and not his.
To their relief, after a while X-Ray stormed into the building followed by the other Heroes, his face twisted in a vicious snarl. "We need to fuckin' ban Dynamite from working with us," he spat out furiously. "That little asshole decided to ignore the plan we made and go in guns blazing after I'd already made the stealth entry and was working my way behind the villain with the fucking fire Quirk! The fucking villain got a hold of those gauntlets, and with how much nitroglycerin was
stored in them it's a fuckin' miracle we're all still alive!"
Izuku and Hideo just looked at him before locking eyes. It was unkind of Izuku, and he knew it, but the second he locked eyes with Hideo he knew the other man was thinking it too. This made it easier to refuse to work with Bakugou. He and Hideo both knew that a straight up refusal could cause issues with Best Jeanist if an explanation wasn't given-and they both knew that saying he was harassing Izuku wouldn't be an acceptable reason. It was ugly, but it was the truth. Hideo would have tried, but ultimately it would have ended up with Izuku and Hideo dancing around to avoid Bakugou instead of the other way around. But Bakugou causing significant injury to another Hero was a far better reason for the Agency to refuse to work with the blonde-one that no one could argue.
"You definitely look a little singed," Hideo agreed drily, relief bleeding back into his normal bitter sarcasm. "But I agree. Dynamite put everyone at the scene in danger, and I'm not interested in working with someone like that. I'll let Best Jeanist know." He tipped his head towards Izuku, who nodded and began digging for the paperwork to start the process of banning someone from working with their Agency. It wasn't something used often, so it took a little while to find it.
X-Ray paused, looked slightly off kilter. "I-that's it?" He asked suspiciously. "Normally it's like pulling teeth to get you to refuse to work with a Hero from Best Jeanist's Agency."
Hideo hummed in agreement. "You're not the first person who has made a complaint about him. I like working with Best Jeanist, but I'm not going to put any of you at risk. I don't do this often, he doesn't have any room to complain about it."
"I liked Dynamite," Nite-Lite interrupted coolly, her arms crossed. "I'm not opposed to working with him again."
"That's nice," Hideo said mildly. "I'm officially banning him from working with any Hero from this Agency. If you want to work with him, you'd better find another job."
"I think you're just upset because he's been flirting with Izuku," she shot back, her eyes narrowed.
Izuku looked up from where he'd been filling out the form to ban Bakugou from working with the Agency. "Whoa, don't bring me into this. I haven't said a thing to you today," he pointed out, his shoulders tensing. He didn't like that she knew about that. Shouta wouldn't have talked to her about, and neither would Hitoshi. Izuku hadn't spoken to her about it, which left one, very unpalatable option that she could have learned that from.
"More to the point," Hideo said tightly, "I don't owe anyone in this room a goddamn explanation for who I chose to work with-or who I chose to refuse to work with. If you have a problem with it, I suggest you quit," he snapped, before turning on his heel and stalking into his office, shutting the door sharply.
Nite-Lite huffed, glaring at Izuku with more vitriol than she'd ever offered before as she stomped past him towards the locker rooms. Nodding to X-Ray, Izuku turned back to the forms he was filling out for Hideo to sign so they could officially ban Bakugou from working with the Agency. With Nite-Lite gone, and everyone else working on their own things, the rest of the night was actually pretty peaceful and Izuku plowed through the work that had started piling up on his desk after the past few days.
Hideo tapped on Izuku's desk on his way out the door, and Izuku looked up with a smile and tipped his head in acknowledgement. Glancing at the clock, Izuku started to gather his things to make his way out the door as well. "Perfectly on time for once," he murmured to himself, flashing
a smile at the Heroes milling around as he tossed his bag over one shoulder and headed out.
About a minute down the road, Hitoshi dropped down from the roof, landing in front of Izuku in a crouch before standing with a small groan. "I feel like an old man," he grumbled, twisting to crack his back. "My joints should not hurt this much already."
Izuku snorted. "I told you that you should try some yoga to keep yourself limber," he said mildly, biting back a grin at the irritated look shot at him.
"Yeah yeah," Hitoshi muttered, rolling his eyes. "Sensei is busy, so he asked me to walk you home." He made a kissy face. "So sweet!" He cooed, giving a laughing yelp when Izuku promptly tried to trip him and shoved at his shoulder at the same time.
"Shut up," Izuku laughed as well, hooking his arm in Hitoshi's. "How's patrol been going so far?"
"Eh, so far so good," he said easily. "I'm pretty sure Sensei is going to lose his mind though, because he's gotten a lot of drunk civilians causing trouble. Like, I don't want to say he'd prefer a villain..."
"But he'd probably prefer a villain," Izuku finished, grinning. "I get it. If I'm honest, I'd probably prefer a villain too-at least they're semi-reasonable. Drunk civilians are decidedly not ."
"No kidding," Hitosi said drily. "Seriously, the only time I've been injured seriously was because I got between a drunk woman and the man she was harassing."
"Oh, I think I remember that!" Izuku exclaimed. "She scratched the shit out of your face, right? You ended up with five stitches, I think?"
"Yep, that's the one," he said, shaking his head in remembered exasperation. "It was wild. But it did teach me that using my Quirk is the quickest and safest way to deescalate a situation, so there's that I guess."
Izuku snorted. "I mean, yeah, but who would expect you to need to use your Quirk against a civilian. I can't believe she actually put her hands on you."
"Yeah," Hitoshi agreed, "Sensei was furious. She sobered up in a hurry with a pissed off Eraserhead in her face."
"Hell, I would too." Izuku grimaced at the thought. "I don't like people being upset with me at the best of times, but I think a pissed off Eraserhead would make me rethink my everything ."
"Oh believe me, by the time he was done with her she was, in fact, rethinking everything," Hitoshi snickered gleefully.
Izuku pressed an affectionate kiss to his cheek once they reached his apartment door. "Thank you for walking with me," he said quietly as they untangled their arms. He hated that Bakugou had made it so he couldn't enjoy the quiet peace on his walks home he had before, but he was so grateful that he had people around him willing to take time out of their days to walk him home.
"Of course," Hitoshi said easily. "I have to get back to patrol, Sensei's covering for me right now, but you should get inside." He paused. "And lock your door," he ordered playfully.
Izuku snorted. "I will. See you later!" He tossed over his shoulder as he entered the apartment, careful to lock his door behind himself. He dropped his bag by the door and then flopped down on his couch, groaning as he took in the mess that he'd dropped the night before that he'd never
picked up. His apartment was a disaster right now, and if he'd been in his right mind the night before he would have been incredibly embarrassed to have Shouta over.
"Hopefully he wasn't paying attention," he muttered to himself irritably, shoving himself off of the couch to start cleaning up. Izuku decided to start in the kitchen, washing his few dishes first before putting everything away and then wiping down the counters and table. His phone rang as he started to pick up in the living room, and he smiled when Shouta's name flashed on his screen.
"Hey," he greeted cheerfully. "What's up?"
"Not much," Shouta returned. "I just finished patrol and dropped Hitoshi off, so I figured I'd talk to you for a bit before I had to get to sleep for the press release tomorrow."
Izuku hummed a bit as he started putting things back where they belonged. "Has Nedzu told you what the press release is for yet?" He asked curiously.
"No," Shouta said flatly, "He has not. Which means I'm going to be either thrilled or furious."
"That sounds about right," Izuku snorted. "You have patrol tomorrow, right?"
"I do," he agreed. Then, "I'd like to take you to dinner again after we're both off tomorrow."
Smiling wryly, Izuku agreed. "That sounds good," he said. "Thank you for having Toshi come walk me home," he added after a moment. "It's appreciated."
"I heard Bakugou fucked up a takedown today," Shouta said quietly. "I didn't want him to have a chance to take that out on you."
"Oh, he messed up big time," Izuku told him. "My Agency was contacted by Best Jeanist since there was a big issue with a take down-from what I heard, there were more villains than expected and one with a fire Quirk that they'd thought had left the building."
"They definitely should have done better surveillance," Shouta muttered.
"Agreed," Izuku said drily, "But Bakugou decided that stealth wasn't good enough for him after everyone else had already agreed to a stealth entry and X-Ray was already inside and working on coming up on the villain with the fire Quirk." Izuku sighed. "Apparently there was a physical altercation and the villain got one of Bakugou's gauntlets that had a huge amount of nitroglycerin stored in them, and he caused a massive explosion. X-Ray was furious, and Hideo wasn't much better, honestly. He was angry enough to have me fill out the paperwork to ban Bakugou from working with anyone at our Agency."
"I don't blame either of them," Shouta said honestly. "If it had been me I probably would have punted Bakugou out of the building. He was better about paying attention to where his teammates were during school-I think he might actually be getting worse with teamwork after graduation, instead of better."
"From what I've been hearing I'd agree with you," Izuku said. "It's getting hard for Best Jeanist to find people willing to work with him from what I've heard." He paused before admitting, "It also gives Hideo a really good reason to refuse to allow him to work with us, so I can't complain about it too much. Although Nite-Lite seems to have developed an unfortunate appreciation for him."
Shouta snorted faintly. "Yeah, I've never been happier to freelance," he admitted. "I can refuse to work with whoever I want, so I can avoid working with Bakugou at all. Which was a goal even before he started harassing you, because he gives me a headache at the best of times."
"Yeah, I get that," Izuku said, putting the last of his scattered items away in the living room. Wrinkling his nose, he decided to vacuum another time and moved on to the bedroom. "Being able to work for yourself and not having to answer to someone else would be pretty great."
Humming quietly for a moment, Shouta eventually asked, "Is that a goal for you?"
"What?" Izuku frowned as he started stripping the bed so he could wash his sheets. "Working for myself?" He stopped and considered that for a moment. "Yes, actually. Doing freelance analysis is sort of the dream, being able to choose who I work with would be fantastic." He continued his work. "But that's for future me to figure out," he added cheerfully. "Right now I'm good with working with Hideo and starting to get my name out there."
"Question," Shouta began slowly. "That 'fun project' you were talking about at dinner the other night. Was it analysis for someone on the side?"
Izuku laughed brightly. "It was!" He grinned, thrilled that Shouta was asking about it. "I asked Hideo, and he said as long as it doesn't impact my work at the agency he doesn't care, so it's a decent amount of side money."
"Aren't you worried about burning out?" Shouta asked, concern bleeding through his tone.
A soft smile curved Izuku's lips. "Sometimes," he said, appreciating the concern Shouta was showing. "But it's something that I honestly enjoy and find fun. If I stop finding it fun, I'll stop doing it on the side for a while," he promised.
"Good," Shouta murmured. "That's all I can ask."
"Question," Izuku said after a moment. "Nite-Lite was even more upset with me tonight than she has been recently. Did you two speak, by any chance?" Her behavior had been in the back of his mind all night, and Shouta finally talking to her was the only thing that made sense.
"Ah." Shouta paused before huffing a little. "Yes. I caught her earlier this evening-probably just before the alert was sent out to your Agency, from what you said. I wanted to make it clear that she should stop harassing you. Apparently she didn't take it well."
Izuku snorted. "No, apparently not. But it's fine, I just wanted to know in case she said anything to me." He paused for a moment. "Did you say anything I would be concerned about if she took it out of context to upset me?"
"No," Shouta said firmly. "I was clear that she needed to stop bothering you because you're a co- worker and not interested, and it's a sexual harassment lawsuit waiting to happen." Shouta paused again then, his sudden silence a little sheepish. "Well, actually. I did say that you were mine and I didn't take kindly to her trying to steal you, but she wouldn't be taking it out of context. I meant it exactly how it sounds," he said, something almost defensive in his voice.
Considering every warning he'd gotten about how possessive Shouta could be, Izuku stayed quiet for a moment before saying, "Ok, we've both had a long night, so what I'm going to say to that is I'm conditionally fine with what you said, but I'm going to need a better explanation tomorrow, ok?" He asked.
"Ok," Shouta agreed quietly, sounding surprised and a little pleased. He sighed after a moment. "I'd better let you go though, I have to get up early for the press conference."
"Absolutely," Izuku agreed. "Sleep well, and let me know how everything turns out." Hanging up, he pursed his lips and glared at the pile of laundry he had before sighing heavily. "I hate
laundry," he muttered in disgust.
The rest of his evening was spent in much the same way, cleaning up his apartment. By the time Izuku was finished, his apartment looked far better than it had, and he was far more relaxed-he'd also decided to go ahead and vacuum while his washer was running, so he was completely caught up on all of his chores he'd let slide.
Pleased, Izuku hummed as he made himself dinner. He was caught up on work, and caught up on his chores, so he didn't have anything else to do except sit down and relax for the rest of the night. After eating and doing his dinner dishes, Izuku sat down and relaxed for approximately ten minutes before his knee started bouncing and he started shifting restlessly. He never had been very good at doing nothing. Sighing, he finally shoved himself off of the couch and started pacing the apartment. When he was this restless, his best option was typically exercise-a run tended to tire him out enough that he could relax, but going out this late was a terrible idea.
Izuku could only imagine Hitoshi's reaction to him trying to go on a run at four thirty in the morning, let alone Shouta's. He was almost positive they would decide to slap a tracker on him for the rest of his life if he decided to do that. Groaning, he finally decided on a shower before heading to bed.
The next day Izuku woke up stupidly early and glared at the ceiling in frustration. He was going to be so tired later on, but he physically could not get back to sleep. Finally, he reached over and grabbed his phone, shooting Shouta a quick good morning text before dragging himself out of bed.
Shouta: You're up early. Do you have plans this morning?
Izuku snorted as he got dressed.
Izuku: I wish. I ended up going to bed early and now I regret it.
Shouta: Ugh.
Izuku: Yeah. I was restless last night, but my apartment isn't big enough to let out any energy.
Shouta: You didn't go out that late, did you?
"Called it," Izuku muttered. He'd known Shouta would not be pleased even at the thought of him going out alone at that time of night, let alone if he'd actually done it.
Izuku: Nope, I knew better. Hence why I went to bed stupidly early.
Shouta: If it happens again let me know, I wouldn't mind going on a run or to the gym with you. Izuku's lips curved affectionately.
Izuku: That's sweet, thank you. But I'd hate to wake you up or interrupt you decompressing. Shouta: You wouldn't interrupt anything but a jelly packet and maybe cats.
Izuku: Healthy. Kidding, kidding. Seriously though, thank you.
Shouta: I'm serious.
Izuku: I know. Looking forward to the press conference?
Shouta: Ha. Ha.
Izuku: At least with Nedzu you know it'll be entertaining!
Shouta: For him, at least. Got to go, Nedzu is actually going to tell me what this is about now.
Izuku laughed, dropping his phone onto the counter and poking around in the fridge to see if anything sounded good. The sound of his phone buzzing against the counter startled him, and he moved over to it quickly.
Shouta: You may want to turn on the TV and take a look at this press conference.
Shouta: I think you'll appreciate it.
Arching an eyebrow, Izuku texted back an affirmative and then headed towards the living room to turn on his TV. He smiled when he saw Nedzu perched on a chair, feet swinging merrily as he smiled politely in the face of the press. When his gaze slid to Shouta, he swallowed back an embarrassing noise. The dark suit, tied back hair, and faint smile was a fatal combination to Izuku. "Shit," he breathed out, mouth dry as he stared, a little bit spellbound as the press conference started. It was incredibly rare for Izuku to be so physically attracted to someone, so he didn't really have a baseline on how to deal with this.
There were probably worse problems to have than being attracted to his own boyfriend, but at the moment Izuku couldn't think of any. He managed to eventually tear his gaze away from Shouta as Nedzu started talking, and as soon as the words started registering his breath caught in disbelief.
"It is a long held belief of mine," Nedzu began somberly, "That the Entrance Exam to the Heroics Course at UA is unfairly weighted towards physical Quirks, and does not offer options for those with less physical, or even no Quirk, to be able to pass it effectively."
Tears started filling Izuku's eyes. Were they really going to do this?
"Therefore, effective immediately, the UA entrance exam will be changed!" Nedzu stated with true delight, his smile unchanging at the sudden clamor from the associated press. Ignoring the noise and questions, Nedzu continued on with explaining the changes that would take place.
The words faded to buzzing in Izuku's ears, however, and he sat down heavily on his couch as he pressed his face into his hands. He let the tears flow as a smile spread across his face. Nedzu had promised him on the day of graduation that he would change the Entrance Exam one day. Izuku had been well aware that the Board had a lot to do with why it hadn't already been changed, so he hadn't at all been expecting this to happen so quickly. But it absolutely explained why Nedzu had wanted Shouta there-a prime example of someone who fought mostly Quirkless, and who was an excellent Hero.
He sent a keyboard smash to Shouta, getting a laugh emoji in return. Which was impressive, since Izuku could see that he was still on screen fielding questions for Nedzu without even blinking.
Without the robots, Izuku would have stood a chance in the Entrance Exam. His whole life would have been different if he had thought that he'd had a chance at the Heroics course. Izuku didn't regret what he did now, but he was desperately glad that one day, another Quirkless child would have the opportunity to do what he'd wanted to.
Another text from Shouta.
Shouta: Also, All Might is going to be the guide within the new program for any Quirkless applicants, with oversight from Nedzu.
Izuku absolutely should have known Shouta wouldn't let what All Might had said to him go, and apparently he had even dragged Nedzu into it, instead of it being the opposite.
He couldn't help it-he tipped his head back and laughed. He had to be honest to himself at this point, even if it seemed stupid.
"I think I'm in love," Izuku said out loud, staring at the screen.