Shouta was in trouble.
He knew this. He knew this, understood the dangers, and was still unable to stop from freezing when his phone buzzed from his pocket. Several people were forced to move around him on the sidewalk before he had the presence of mind to take several steps and lean against the brick of a building. And stare at his phone.
He didn't open the screen. That would mean discovering what kind of trouble he was in right that minute. Logically, the message was from wither Hizashi or Nemuri. The message could also be from Harry.
They'd exchanged numbers last night, after hours of conversation and hundreds of photos. That was what the number was for: the chance to exchange heroics information, rant about the incompetency of the current system, and send cute child photos.
The problem was, if Shouta actually believed that, he would answer Hizashi or Nemuri's texts and stop hoarding the handsome stranger and the previous evening to himself like a damn Magpie.
Shouta raised his hand to his head and let the phone thunk him the skull.The second, far more troubling, problem was that Shouta didn't want to stop hoarding Harry. Shouta didn't want to stop feeling green eyes watching him, seeing him. Shouta didn't want to let anyone else into their odd night of sharp edges, soft laughter, and quiet fucking peace.
Shouta wanted the text to be from Harry.
He sighed, and spun on his heel. He would go back to UA, check that his class hadn't set anything on fire while under Yagi's supervision (the man could sometimes be persuaded to lie for them, not well, but it was still a habit to be discouraged) and then he'd go beg some work off of Tsukauchi.
The Detective always had something for Shouta to do and, even better, wouldn't actually ask why Shouta was trying to pull extra work on top of his already exhausting multiple jobs. Shouta could put up with some judgemental eyebrows for a lack of questions.
Or Shouta could run into the alley just up ahead and deal with whatever was making a child's
screeches peter off into muffled sobs.
Shouta rounded the corner slowly with his capture weapon ready, slinking slightly to get an accurate read on the situation before interfering. His shock only delayed him by several heartbeats, and he thought that could be excused.
Harry was standing several feet further into the short alley, dark black coat setting a surprisingly strong contrast against dirty grey walls. His hands were up, his voice low, his focus entirely on the other man in the alley and their closed first around a little girl's throat.
Well, not his entire focus. Harry had stepped just far enough into the alley to be in front go the unconscious man who was likely the little girl's father. Harry's shoulders had also tightened just enough that Shouta knew Harry had registered Shouta's presence.
The way those shoulders had relaxed after another heartbeat told Shouta that the other hero had also recognized Shouta's presence as Shouta, at least to some sort of degree. No professional would ever relax with anything but another pro at their back, and sometimes not even then. Just because someone wasn't a villain, didn't mean they couldn't be a nuisance or drive a situation into an entirely new, likely worse, direction.
Harry's uptake was much faster than the villain's. The villain faltered a good twelve heartbeats after Harry's shoulder had loosened, the hand around the girl's throat not relaxing but the second hand with its elongated claws stopping its upwards motion.
Harry didn't waste the moment. The second the villain lowered his claws a fraction of an inch, Harry lunged forward. He wrapped an arm around the girl's waist and kept going till he was a step past the villain. He then made a pushing motion that sent red light out from his palm and the villain flew forward, towards Shouta, while the girl stayed firmly in Harry's grasp.
Only a handful of heartbeats were needed to wrap the villain in Shouta's capture villain and let him face plant into the ground. Harry met Shouta's eye as he cradled a purple-covered back, refusing to let the child turn around until Shouta had confirmed with a nod that the father was indeed unconscious and not dead.
Harry's smile had Shouta blinking sunlight out of his eyes. Shouta was almost glad calling this incident in gave him the excuse to step away, just slightly.
By the time that the ambulance had arrived, Shouta had learned several new things about Harry.
He'd learned that Harry had no trouble sitting in the questionable dirt of questionable alley ways. He'd learned that Harry had a toned down version of his sunshine-smile that was more intermittent star-shine. He'd learned that Harry was really fucking good with children and people in general (the children part wasn't new learning, exactly, but parades of photos and cooing were very paltry when compared to the sight of Harry in the dirt with a quiet yet tear-streaked child in his lap who clutched the collar of Harry's shirt in one small fist and the fingers of her father in another).
It was Officer Sansa who joined Shouta, the two of them watching Harry try to disentangle himself from small arms and a grateful mother. Shouta had been happy enough to leave the explanation to Harry when the mother had shown up, shopping bags flung to the ground in order to get to her baby and husband just a second faster.
Having a child (or twenty) had taught Shouta how to interact better with parents, how to empathize with the terror of not knowing where your child was, or worse, knowing and not being able to do a damn thing. But better wasn't all that great considering his starting point.
He was a professional and proud of his skills, but also fully believed everyone had strengths. If dealing with people was one of his, he'd have been a daylight hero (probably not, he liked skulking and lurking and rooftops too much, but the choice might have been harder).
Besides, Harry was a professional. The man had actually shown Shouta his license last night and Shouta had run a check on it this morning. Because he was also a professional. And paranoid.
And handsome, competent strangers with opinions on militarizing children that weren't stupid don't just appear from nowhere. Though apparently they did just appear from England, where his Nezu-approved contacts had confirmed a very impressive agency with a surprisingly well-balanced track record of big, showy villain-captures, and speedy, underground operation shut-downs.
There was also a very comprehensive record with the hero Phoenix's name on far too many reports. The kind of far too many that didn't speak of fabrication and lies, but rather supported the tired slant of Harry's shoulders, the bruises under his eyes, and the bite to his smile.
The downside of trusting Harry to handle the mother and the consequent handoff of child and father to the waiting ambulance, was that Shouta was left with plenty of time to meet Sansa's dancing gaze.
"How's that day off going, Eraser?"
Shouta didn't growl by dint of being a professional, damnit. Also because Officer Yuki had finished properly restraining and detaining the villain in their police car and flicked her partner in the ear.
Sansa yowled, softly.
Yuki just rolled violet eyes. "Enough. Stop pestering Eraserhead. If we're nice to him we can get our report done quickly and go our separate ways."
Sansa grinned at her words. The grin that had taken the man a year of working with Tsukauchi (and three separate incidents in which Eraserhead had been covered head to toe in mud, paint, and honey) to be comfortable enough to give Shouta.
"Right. The report. Can we start with who the handsome stranger is?" Sansa asked.
Shouta kind of wanted to hit Sansa, which was a shame, because he was highly competent and Yuki had a killer right hook. The cat-headed officer clearly had been working too many cases with Tsukauchi if he was also starting to tease Shouta about his dating prospects.
Which better have been what that tone was, because otherwise Shouta would have to deal with the shot of... mild annoyance that had traced his spine when the officer had called Harry handsome. Which was illogical, because Harry was handsome, if slightly unconventionally so. Or maybe everyone found scars attractive?
Yuki snorted. "You mean handsome hero. I heard the sit-rep he gave the paramedic. And the mother. He's definitely a pro." Her eyes slid to Shouta. "And a competent one, if he's hanging with Eraserhead. Got someone to add to the roster, Eraser?"
Shouta wasn't sure when a good chunk of the local police had all decided to trust Shouta's opinion on people, particularly other pros, but it was definitely a Thing, now. He received at least one text every few weeks from someone asking his thoughts on a new or transferring hero.
It was gratifying in a sense and made his interactions with the police more effective. It also made
his job a bit more stressful (he could be wrong and someone could get hurt and they would stop looking at him like that, like they'd rather have him at their backs, like he was their first choice).
It also put him in a pickle, because Harry was very good. Shouta had no trouble saying that, bur he also wasn't planning on adding Harry to the roster. Shouta tilted his head, considering, when he felt a presence approaching from behind. He angled his head just a little more in order to see Harry approaching, arms open and pace deliberately slow.
"Is there a problem?" Harry asked, one brow rising.
And yes, there was. The paperwork for a foreign hero interfering unprompted in a local case was a nightmare. Harry wouldn't get in trouble officially; he'd obviously been in the right and had a pro witness almost the entire thing. A pro who'd also done the official takedown.
But the Commission would make it messy. Both of them would be trapped for at least the rest of the day, possibly the week, filling out miles of paperwork asking the same thing in seven different ways. They also be kept apart in order to control the story and keep the testimonials untainted.
That was not how Shouta wanted to spend the rest of his day. Begging extra work off Tsukauchi was very different from playing dancing monkey for the Commission. Particularly since he'd only originally wanted extra work to avoid thinking about the person who was currently coming up beside him.
Harry stopped before he was officially in step with Shouta. He kept just a step behind, eyes flicking from the two officers and back to Shouta, smile oddly missing. The press of his black coat was straight and even, accentuating the rigidity of his posture and the preparedness of his hands.
His hands were not in fists. For some reason, Shouta was quite sure that was a deliberate act.
By the time Shouta's gaze had made it back to the wary tenseness of his jaw, his mind had already scrambled to several parts of last night's conversation. To mentions of corruption and betrayal. To downcast eyes and avoided topics. To complete incredulity at descriptions of support and training for his students with the police.
Several parts of this morning reports were next. Reports of an agency that operated as much in isolation as possible. Isolation that may not be driven so much by terms of attention-hogging or fame-seeking, but by protection. Like a castle behind a moat filled with paranoid alligators.
Shouta had a deep, acidic feeling in his gut that Harry was used to there being a problem, and that problem he was suspecting wasn't the same as the paperwork problem Shouta was anticipating.
So Shouta took a half step back, forcing himself into the edges of Harry's space. The other man startled, just a little, but reacted by putting a hand on Shouta's arm, both of them conditioned enough by last night's photo-and-booth-sharing to not flinch as they might have otherwise.
Shouta tilted his head back as well, trusting his hair to hide his smile, one of his sharp and slightly manic grins that had every student in his class other than Midoriya and Hitoshi repressing shivers down their spines (Midoriya and Hitoshi were little shits and he didn't love them for it).
Harry clearly had some little shit in him too, because his eyes widened just slightly and he got a little lopsided grin back that was just the same if not better than a nod. Harry would play along.
Sansa and Yuki were just finishing trading the glance they'd started when Harry had touched Shouta's arm and Shouta hadn't pulled away. Which was admittedly a little unusual.
Shouta waited until he had both of their attention before starting. "This is Phoenix, visiting from England. We were on a date. I gave him permission to enter the alley while I followed to case the situation and maintain the element of surprise for my quirk."
The only sign that Harry was surprised came from a brief tightening of his fingers at Shouta's elbow. That, and the deepening of his smile into a smirk.
Foreign hero licences weren't technically active in Japan, but they functioned much like provisional licenses in that they could go active in case of emergency if a full licensed pro, like Shouta, gave the go ahead. This was a wonderful loophole for national disaster scale emergencies and useful for quick skill exchanges with visiting pros.
Shouta had never used the loophole before, but he was pretty sure the shock on the officers' faces was more for the actually admitting to a date thing. Which was kind of rude, but also kind of fair.
"Tskukauchi's not going to believe this," Sansa breathed.
"I wouldn't mind, you know," Harry said once the preliminary report was finished and they were about a block away from the alley. He also didn't pull away from Shouta's tugging of Harry's wrist to keep them moving away from Shouta's embarrassing not-friends.
It had taken Shouta too damn long to realize that Sansa was keeping Shouta occupied with stupid questions so Yuki could interrogate Harry as Eraserhead's date, not as a hero involved in a capture.
"What?" Shouta looked to the side only to see Harry blushing and hiding behind his hair, which wasn't actually long enough for that move to be effective.
"If it was a date. I wouldn't mind."
Shouta didn't stop, though he did snort. "You don't need to lie."
Shouta was logical. While he knew he wasn't exactly old, he also knew that he was tired, raggedy, and put no attention into appearances whatsoever. He worked two jobs that took up all of his time and all of his focus and was generally considered to be surly, grouchy, rude, or some combination thereof.
He also possessed no desire to change whatsoever, was quite proud of his hero record, and even prouder of his students. He just wasn't a good catch romantically, which didn't usually bother him. And it wasn't going to bother him now.
Harry pulled to a stop, yanking Shouta back a step because he had, for some reason, still not let go of Harry's wrist.
"I don't lie." The flatness of Harry's tone was jarring, and Shouta raised his head to try and look Harry in the eye. Shouta had noticed that while the younger man was often affable in expression, his brilliant eyes were much less likely to be successful in disguising emotion.
Harry wasn't looking at Shouta, though, but rather down towards his hand. Shouta thought for a moment that Harry was focusing on Shouta's hold and quickly prepared to let go. Shouta then realized that it was Harry's own hand that was drawing his eyes.
With something approaching trepidation curling in Shouta's stomach, he ran his fingers down Harry's wrist until his fingers picked out the bumpy scars of the phrase I must not tell lies carved into his skin.
Shouta traced over the lettering with his thumb, even as questions writhed in his throat and he felt the weight of Harry's gaze return.
Shouta didn't ask a question. Instead, he let his head thump onto Harry's shoulder, absently noting the sharply in-drawn breath.
Harry had stared down a villain who'd wrapped a hand around a child's neck without flinching, without showing the slightest sign that he even realized flinching should be an option. Yet, with just a little contact Shouta could feel the the growing not-quite panic in the fluttering of the hand that Shouta had yet to release.
Shouta let out a deep breath. "I'm quite sure that I'm older than you by a fair amount. I'm blunt, slightly sadistic, and am terrible with emotions. All emotions. I'm a pro hero and a teacher of pro heros and have embraced the many and various issues and paranoias that come with that. I'm underground largely because I don't like attention or press or some days even people. My hours are terrible, even before considering that I work two jobs, one that dictates I spend a lot of time living in a secure building with teenagers."
He took a deep rattling breath and pressed his forehead into the shorter man's collar bone before continuing. "You would always come second to my daughter. And, though I will literally never say this again, probably the rest of my kids because I doubt I'm ending the year without twenty extra. I haven't done this in years, have a metal leg, never brush my hair, and am a terrible, horrible prospect."
Harry let Shouta breathe for a moment, but then slid a terrible, gentle hand over Shouta's shoulder and around the back of his neck. A hand that, inexplicably, Shouta didn't want to move away.
Harry leaned forward a little, not to get closer, exactly, but so his quiet words could be heard.
"I killed my first man at eleven and died at seventeen. I'm inpatient, more than slightly temperamental, and terrible with leaving things well enough alone. Ever. I'm a child soldier and a war veteran and have nightmares that I've been reliably informed could wake the dead. I'm daylight because I wasn't really given a choice, even though I once set a reporter on fire. My hours are all over place, particularly considering the fact that I'm here on a mission that took me an embarrassingly long time to realize is more a vacation and medical leave in disguise."
Shouta felt Harry's hand, the one Shouta had ended up holding, tighten, and was deeply glad that he hadn't looked up for this.
"You would always come second to my godson. I'll be gone in an instant if my family or agency need me, because they're the same damn thing. I've never done this, excepting a few school yard crushes and one stupid attempt with my best friend's younger sister that was more comfort than anything else. I have lingering nerve damage, brush my hair even though it does nothing, and am a horrible, terrible bet."
They stood there for a long moment, tucked just off the side in another alley between two buildings. Harry pulled away first, taking a step back but not releasing Shouta's hand.
"So." Harry's cheeks were still very red, but he was calmer, more settled in his skin and mischief shone out of green, green eyes as he looked up at Shouta. "Foiling a kidnapper counts as an
excellent first date in my books, but I've been told that food is also pretty common. And dealing with the police always makes me hungry."
Shouta looked at those eyes, then at at the scars, then at the hand he still hadn't let go. He then spun on his heel, dragging Harry out of the alley and in a new direction.
If the man wasn't going to take the implicit warning of Shouta's fucking possessiveness from the fact that he'd adopted twenty-one kids that weren't technically his, then that wasn't Shouta's problem.
Harry was deadly and pretty and broken and could keep the fuck up. Shouta wanted him. "How do you feel about cats?" Shouta threw over his shoulder.
Without a single pause, Harry answered. "Hermione has a giant beast of one called Crookshanks who almost caught a terrorist when we were kids. I've snuck him high end treats ever since and consider being his second favourite person one of my top life accomplishments. Why?"
"There's a cat cafe a few block away with excellent coffee."
Harry hummed, and ran forward a step so they were walking side by side without letting go of their now properly entwined hands. Shouta had also never gotten around to telling Hitoshi or Hizashi about this particular cafe, so he wouldn't have to potentially run into them and die of embarrassment.
They walked in surprisingly comfortable silence for ten minutes before Shouta had to ask the one question that kept burning no matter how hard he tried to quash it. "How did it feel to set a reporter on fire?"
Harry laughed, a surprised, bursting sound that made Shouta prouder than handing that kidnapper off to the police. "Absolutely amazing. Truly cathartic. But the better story is still the time Hermione trapped one in a glass jar."
The lopsided grin that Harry sent Shouta's way wasn't as bloody as the one he'd given the kidnapper and was a bit too bashful to be a smirk. Shouta grinned back, full of teeth, but maybe still had to duck behind his own hair for an instant, (a much more successful move with it's longer length), to avoid blushing.
So much trouble.