Izuku's first thought was to just...walk away. Just walk away and ignore the very familiar explosions. But Bakugou had never allowed Izuku that option, and the blond stalked out of the dark line of trees. The explosions popping in his palms made Izuku's pulse jump, and he pressed himself a little more firmly against Shouta's side.

"Bakugou," Shouta bit out. "You're interrupting a private conversation."

His gaze didn't even flicker away from where it was fixed on Izuku. "Deku, I can't believe you're letting him treat you like this."

Closing his eyes, Izuku firmly told himself to not take the bait.

"And exactly how am I treating him?" Shouta asked, a mocking little smile playing at his mouth

now. Izuku's eyes snapped open. He hadn't expected Shouta to take the bait.

Bakugou's eyes finally slid away from Izuku, narrowing on Shouta instead. "You're fucking objectifying him," he spat out, "Asking to take him to bed like that." Shouta opened his mouth, and then slowly shut it. He couldn't find a single word to say to that accusation.

For once, Izuku didn't have that same problem. "What?" He asked incredulously. "Bakugou, he's so far from objectifying me it's actually hilarious you'd think that."

The heavy sigh Bakugou let out sounded so condescending it set Izuku's teeth on edge. "I'm your best friend, even if I want to date you. I know you, and I know you're not OK with how he's treating you. You can say it, it'll be fine," Bakugou said in a coaxing manner, like he was speaking with a stubborn child.

Well, that was a problem. Grimacing, Izuku acknowledged that his calling Bakugou his best friend well into Middle School probably played into this fantasy world the blond was creating in his head. Time to try and fix this as much as he could. "You're not," he said quietly, slipping his hand in his pocket. Luckily he was familiar enough with his phone that he could start the recording without looking at it..

"What?" The question was confused, but there was a warning edge to Bakugou's voice that said he knew where Izuku was going with this, and that he'd better not.

Izuku hadn't gotten this far in his life by paying attention to warnings, implicit and otherwise. "You're not my best friend," he said clearly. "You and I haven't been friends in a very long time. We're not friends, and I don't want to date you. I'm not romantically interested in you at all, and

I'd really like for you to leave me alone so I can go on a walk in the moonlight with my boyfriend like I'm in a fucking romance novel or something." Izuku had never done the whole 'walking in the moonlight' thing before, and he'd been having an excellent time before the interruption.

Bakugou just...stood there for a moment. The silence from him was eerie, and Izuku knew it wasn't just him worrying when Shouta's grip on him tightened slightly.

"Bullshit," was the answer they finally received, and Izuku couldn't help the disappointment that swelled in him. He had hoped...well, it didn't matter. "That's fuckin' bullshit and you know it. You've let this fucker move you into his apartment and stop you from talking to me, and you don't even realize that literally everything bad in your fucking life has happened after you met him," he spat out furiously, taking an aggressive step forward.

Shouta took his own step forward, shifting and placing himself half in front of Izuku. "This isn't the time or the place," he warned.

There was something anticipatory in his voice that made Izuku raise an eyebrow, until he considered the situation. A dark night, a park with no cameras. The ideal place for Bakugou to confront them. As Bakugou's temper visibly snapped and he lunged towards Shouta, Izuku took several quick steps back. It was also the ideal place for Shouta to finally vent his temper without anyone getting in the way.

Shouta smoothly dodged the punch Bakugou threw at him and tackled him down onto the ground. Izuku liked to think he was a good person, but he was pretty sure a good person wouldn't be enjoying watching Bakugou getting punched in the face again as much as he was. He was also fairly certain a good person wouldn't be disappointed when Bakugou managed to get a lucky shot and catch Shouta on the cheek, making the man rear back just enough that Bakugou could squirm out from underneath him and sprint for the cover of the trees.

"This isn't fucking over," Bakugou spat out, swiping the blood from split lip carelessly and smearing it over his face. He hurriedly retreated into the trees when Shouta took a half step closer, and Izuku snorted faintly as he moved closer to Shouta.

Reaching up and turning Shouta's face towards him, Izuku hissed in sympathy as he brushed his thumb over the red mark on Shouta's cheekbone. "That's going to be a nasty bruise," he murmured.

Shouta offered a half shrug. "It would have looked bad if he turned up beat to hell and I didn't have a mark on me anyway," he pointed out.

Izuku's eyes narrowed. "You're not saying you let yourself get hit on purpose, right?" He asked sharply.

Raising his hands in defense, Shouta shook his head slightly, careful to not dislodge Izuku's hand. "No, I wouldn't do that." His eyes softened and he reached up and caught Izuku's hand with his own. "I know it would upset you, and I would never want to do that."

Izuku searched his face for a moment before nodding, deciding to believe him. Shouta hadn't lied to him before, and he didn't have any reason to think he'd start now. "Are you ready to go

home?" He asked softly. Izuku was pretty sure neither of them were overly interested in staying in the park at this point. He turned his phone off, disappointed but not surprised that Bakugou hadn't said anything that could really be used against him-everything he'd said could be construed as a friend being concerned.

There was a curious look on Shouta's face for a moment that quickly became victorious. "Yeah," he agreed smugly. "Let's go home."

Izuku laced their fingers together, squeezing Shouta's hand affectionately. "We'll have to get you some ice when we get back to your apartment," he commented absently, already starting to make a mental list about what he needed to get done.

"Home," Shouta said mildly.

"Hm?" Izuku shot him a quick, confused look. "When we get home," he repeated.

Izuku looked puzzled. "Yeah, that's what I said. We'll have to get you some ice when we get home." The satisfied look that slid across Shouta's face confused Izuku, but he dismissed it after a moment.

Shouta hummed slightly. "I think we have some ibuprofen somewhere too."

"If you don't, I definitely have some in my bag," Izuku agreed. "Hopefully we can keep it from swelling up too much."

Entering the apartment, Izuku promptly prodded Shouta to the couch. "I got punched in the face, my legs aren't broken," Shouta protested. "I can get the ice pack at least."

"Nope," Izuku said, perfectly cheerful as he popped the 'p'. "You sit down, I'll get the ibuprofen and the ice pack." Shouta huffed a little bit but settled down on the couch, something fond and affectionate in the curve of his lips. Izuku left him there and went into the bathroom first to dig through the medicine cabinet to find the ibuprofen, and then to the kitchen to find the ice pack in the freezer and get a glass of water.

"Thank you," Shouta said as he took the ibuprofen and water, taking several pills with a large swallow of water before accepting the ice pack handed to him as well.

"Of course," Izuku murmured. He considered the bare ice pack for a moment. "Do you want a dish towel to wrap around that?"

Shouta shook his head, placing the pack against his face with a small grimace. "No, I'm good. I would like for you to come here and sit with me though," he said, holding out an arm.

Smiling, Izuku took the invitation and tucked himself against Shouta's side. "One day, we're going to get a date that doesn't end up crashed by Bakugou," Izuku said drily, shaking his head as he thought about the evening.

Snorting, Shouta agreed. "One day." He pulled the ice pack off of his face and grimaced when he touched his cheekbone. "I don't think we're going to be able to stave off the swelling," he admitted.

Izuku pulled away slightly so he could twist and take a look himself. "You're right, it's already swelling pretty badly." Luckily for them, as an Underground Hero Shouta got weird bruises all of the time, so no one would look twice at it. "Well, we tried. Maybe if you keep icing it and take some more ibuprofen later it'll keep it from getting too bad."

Shouta sighed in disgust. "I can't believe he actually got a punch in." Izuku patted his arm sympathetically.

"It's like you said when you sparred with me-you thought you had him, so you let your guard down."

Shouta paused. "You're right." He frowned slightly. "That seems to be a habit with me. Something to improve on," he decided, sounding pleased with the thought of having something specific to work on during his training.

Ducking his head, Izuku hid his silly little smile. Shouta looked entirely too cute when he was pleased to have been given something specific to focus on. It was entirely distracting. The two of them relaxed for the rest of the night, Shouta icing his cheek off and on, before finally heading to bed.

Izuku had, thankfully, gotten enough sleep the previous day that he was up with his first alarm. A quick shower and a slightly longer kiss to a sleepy Shouta still sprawled out in bed, and then he was off to work. Hideo gestured Izuku into his office as soon as he was in sight. "I take it Nite- Lite didn't take the reprimand well?" It was the only reason he could think of for Hideo to be pulling him into his office at the moment.

"She did not," Hideo agreed drily. He rubbed a hand over his face, exasperated with the entire situation. "She blamed you for the entire thing-said you were making drama where there didn't need to be any. I don't think she believed me when I said you hadn't made a complaint and that I was reprimanding her based on what I'd seen on the cameras."

"I can't imagine she would," Izuku murmured. "If she accepts that you watched the entire thing and found her at fault, it would undermine this little fantasy she's built up that she's the victim and Shouta the villain."

"And you?" Hideo asked curiously. "Where do you fit into her little fantasy world?"

"I think I switch between love interest, victim, and villain pretty interchangeably for her," Izuku said slowly. "I'm placed into whatever role fits her narrative at the time."

"She's fucking batshit," Hideo surmised flatly. "Great. If she wasn't actually useful I would just straight up fire her, but she actually gets shit done around here."

It was a hard situation for Hideo, and Izuku sympathized with him. It was hard to attract Heroes to an Underground Agency at the best of times, and with the massive fight between All Might and the League of Villains having just recently happened, too many young Heroes had stars in their eyes to want to look into Underground options. Nite-Lite was useful and a competent Hero-when she wasn't harassing Izuku or making everyone else uncomfortable with her comments.

It wasn't like Bakugou, where she caused more destruction than she saved-during her patrols she was competent and professional. It was just in her personal life that she was making a mess-and unfortunately for everyone, she spent enough time at the Agency that her personal life was spilling into her professional one.

"I think we're past hoping that she'll get some sense knocked into her," Izuku sighed. "But maybe this will convince her that continuing to bother me is more trouble than it's worth." It was really the only hope he held at this point for Nite-Lite or Bakugou-that eventually they would find following and harassing Izuku too much trouble to bother with. But if Izuku was honest with himself, he didn't have high hopes for that outcome either.

"I fucking hope so," Hideo grumbled. "I don't have time to deal with her shit." He paused, looking at Izuku as a guilty expression crossed his face. "You're not to blame for her. You came

to me when she started affecting your work, which is exactly what you were supposed to do. Nothing that came after that was your fault. Nite-Lite is the one causing all of this."

Taking a slow, deep breath, Izuku nodded. "I get that. I wish that none of this had happened, but I tried to shut her down when I realized she was flirting."

Hideo nodded firmly. "The fact that she won't take no for an answer isn't your fault." He waved that off after a moment. "Anyway, I gave her today off so she could get herself together." Hideo grimaced at Izuku's surprised look. "She was...erratic," he finally decided on his wording, "After I reprimanded her. So I told her to go home, take today off, and come back with her head screwed on straight."

Izuku headed to the door. "Fingers crossed," he said drily as he headed out towards his desk. He sighed when he saw the work piled up on his desk. Izuku knew he was currently the only analyst working at the Agency, and he normally enjoyed keeping busy but sometimes he would like to be able to take a day off and not come back to find his desk drowning in paper.

Settling down at his desk, Izuku dove headfirst into his work. He had no plans to stay late to finish it when he could go home to Shouta, so he needed to make sure to stay on task. Of course, that's easier said than done in a place full of very nosy Pro Heroes.

A chair scraping over the floor caught Izuku's attention, and he looked up to see X-Ray dragging a chair to Izuku's desk. The older man straddled the chair, arms propped on the back of the chair as he stared at Izuku. "So. Let's talk about Nite-Lite."

Izuku dropped his pen with a small, irritated noise. Literally the last thing he wanted to talk about tonight was Nite-Lite. "Exactly what do we need to talk about? I'm not interested at all in her romantically, I've made that clear, and she's still insisting on pushing her luck."

X-Ray arched an eyebrow. "A little defensive tonight, I see. She brought up a good point the other night-if Eraser is isolating you from your friends and already moving you into his place, there's a reason to be concerned there."

Izuku tipped his head back and counted to ten. And then to twenty. And reminded himself that, at least with X-Ray, this was coming from a place of genuine concern, and he couldn't be upset about that. "You're missing a lot of context there."

"Maybe you should provide some," X-Ray suggested quietly, his voice and face very serious. "Nite-Lite has made it clear that she's concerned, and while she's not going about it in the right way I can see why she would be."

Tapping his fingers on his desk slowly, Izuku pressed his lips together tightly. It was one thing to admit what was going on to Nedzu, or even Hizashi. It was something entirely different to talk about it to a co-worker who wasn't Hideo. But it was obviously necessary. Izuku had been ignoring Nite-Lite so much that he hadn't realized that she'd been spreading rumors through the Agency, and he couldn't let that stand.

"Here's the thing. Pro Hero Dynamite and I were childhood friends-it ended very poorly. Recently he decided that he wanted me-I was very much not interested. Eraser and I were already dating, and he took that badly-he's been saying that he's my friend and Eraser is separating me from him because he's jealous, which is not at all what's happened." Izuku hoped that the rough explanation would be enough.

His hopes were in vain. "That all makes sense," X-Ray said slowly, "But moving in with him this

quickly? It looks bad."

Izuku sighed. "Bakugou broke into my apartment at least once-he grabbed me and bruised me up pretty good. And when my apartment was broken into a second time while I was out, Eraser and I both agreed that moving in with him and having that extra layer of protection wouldn't be a bad idea."

X-Ray was pale. "He broke in ?" He hissed in disbelief. "Why didn't you say anything to any of us?"

"It wasn't work related," Izuku said flatly. "I do my best to keep my work life and my private life separate-they've been bleeding into each other a lot recently, and I don't like it at all."

"We could have helped you," X-Ray protested. "At least we would have known not to listen to Nite-Lite!"

Izuku paused and considered that. "OK, I'll give you that. I should have given all of you a heads up when I realized she and Bakugou had some sort of communication going on, and I'm sorry I didn't. But I actually have a lot of help-Nedzu, Eraserhead, Hideo, Psyren," he listed off, ending with Hitoshi's Hero name. He hadn't considered that Nite-Lite would try to manipulate their co- workers, and he felt a little stupid for not thinking about it.

"Quite a list," X-Ray murmured, looking a little more relaxed now. "It's good that you have so much help with this. I actually forgot you're friends with Psyren-obviously Eraserhead isn't isolating you from your friends if that's the case."

Rolling his shoulders to release some of the tension building, Izuku nodded tightly. "Yeah, he's not doing anything like that. He'd never do that, and I'd never allow it." It was hard to swallow the irritation, but he managed to keep his voice manageably polite.

X-Ray opened his mouth, paused, and then eyed the tension in Izuku's frame and the tight press of his lips. Rethinking his next words, he instead said, "I'll let everyone know that Nite-Lite was just being a fucking psycho about you like she has been recently."

Watching X-Ray walk away, Izuku stood up abruptly and stalked to the door.

"Where are you going?" Hideo stared at Izuku from where he was standing in their little kitchenette getting coffee.

"I'm taking a smoke break," Izuku snapped as he shoved the door open.

"You...don't smoke?" Hideo blinked at the door for a few moments before taking his coffee and returning to his office. He might be the boss, but that was way above his pay grade.

Izuku leaned against the building and breathed in the night air, letting it cool his temper. Any other time he wouldn't have been so close to losing his temper with X-Ray, but with everything that had happened his emotions were a little closer to the surface than they normally were. Which was saying something, given that he could cry at the drop of a hat.

X-Ray had been reasonably concerned, and had brought up a good point that Izuku hadn't considered before-that Nite-Lite and Bakugou could be spreading rumors about his and Shouta's relationship that neither of them were aware of. Neither of them paid attention to gossip, which could be a problem when it came to this sort of thing. Thinking and discarding plans quickly, Izuku felt his calm return back to him.

Pushing off the wall, Izuku re-entered the building and returned to his desk. The fresh air had helped clear his head and calm his temper, and now he was contemplating options to see if rumors were spreading farther than Todoroki and the Agency. He had to think they were, so he and Shouta needed to plan on how to nip the rumors in the bud-it would be more difficult in the wider Hero community than it had been here at the Agency. X-Ray and the others knew Izuku well enough to believe him when he explained the situation, and he had Hideo backing him up as well.

Glancing up when X-Ray hesitated by his desk, he offered the older Hero a tired smile. "I'm sorry," he offered. "I was very close to losing my temper, and you wouldn't have deserved that. You didn't deserve how short I was with you either."

X-Ray came closer then, offering his own smile in return. "It's fine kiddo, this entire situation has obviously been rough on you. I explained what's actually going on to everyone else, and we all have your back. We won't let Nite-Lite play us again-and we've agreed to run some interference for you so you don't have to deal with her bothering you all the damn time."

"Thank you," Izuku murmured gratefully. "I really do appreciate it. Just knowing that I can get a little bit of peace from her here helps a lot." He saw X-Ray open his mouth and then shut it again, and told him, "Go ahead. I promise I won't get pissy again." He offered a small smirk when he said that.

"Keeping things like this secret doesn't help anyone but the person who's harassing you," X-Ray said after a few moments of obvious struggle.

Izuku exhaled sharply. "You're right," he admitted. "I was...embarrassed about the situation, and a little ashamed that I'd somehow let it get to this point. But you're right, my being embarrassed and not wanting anyone else to know about it has just helped Bakugou and Nite-Lite harass me."

X-Ray tapped his knuckles on Izuku's desk. "Keep us in the loop-we'll do what we can to help you."

Sitting back in his seat, Izuku watched the other man walk away-presumably to start his patrol. He had never been more aware that he was so, so lucky that he had the co-workers he did. The fact that they were all willing to back him up, even when they could all just collectively take a step back instead, was a kindness on their part that hit him hard. WIth so many people willing to help him, Izuku had never felt so loved before in his life.