Archive of Our Own

For as long as Shouto cares to remember, he’s preferred to be on his own. 

UA tried to take that away from him, made its very best attempt to destroy the walls he had so carefully built up. But there’s only so much a school and twenty overly-aggressive kids can do, and after graduation, Shouto retreated into his head.

It’s safe there, in his brain, where no one can interrupt him or tell him who he’s supposed to be. Not that any of his classmates would do that, but it’s good to be safe. It provides a layer of protection Shouto needed for most of his childhood. 

So he lives a lonely existence, holed up in one apartment or another, only leaving to go to his job on occasion, or to get groceries. In essence, he hides. And while some may say that’s a cowardly act, Shouto thinks it is, in fact, a necessary one. 

It isn’t cowardly, he thinks, to save himself. Self-preservation is brave. 

People take up space, and Shouto takes up space, and he worries sometimes he takes up too much space, and that is why he would much rather be alone. It’s impossible to be in the way when he’s by himself, impossible to step on people’s toes when there are no other people around.

He lives in a routine: wake up, eat breakfast, brush teeth, work, go home, pass time, eat dinner, brush teeth, sleep. And then again, wake up, eat breakfast, brush teeth, work… 

It’s a good system for him, easy to follow, logical, and planned so there’s not too much time for thinking in between. It’s simple, with no interruptions other than the occasional random text from one of his old classmates, which Shouto does his best to ignore. The only one he’s made an actual effort to stay in touch with is Midoriya, and that’s mostly just because… 

Well, because Midoriya shimmers like the night sky over an ocean. He is a million stars scattered like splatter paint against an endless canvas, and no matter how many doors Shouto tries to slam shut between them, Midoriya shines through. 

Shouto thinks, in another world, he might have been in love with Midoriya. 

But Shouto has no concept of love or infinity or time, only the stars above the open sea, and he’s reluctant to let that go.

His father. His father was dry flames, summer heat in a desert, no water in sight and no escape for miles and miles and miles. Sometimes it felt like Shouto could run forever, and Father’s sun would still glare over him, silently telling him who to be and where to step.

But night always falls eventually, and with the soothing cold came Midoriya’s green eyes, his blinding smile, a tapestry of glowing lights on a dark backdrop. Midoriya was impossible to ignore, even then, and Shouto couldn’t take his eyes off him. 

He still can’t, if he’s being truly sincere. 

But Shouto has closed himself off to everything, and he should probably shut out the stars too. It’s safer that way. Safe in the quiet nothingness of his lonely existence, where he doesn’t have to hear anything but his own heartbeat and the patter of rain outside…

The rain, yes. 

It’s raining now. The forecast said tonight is supposed to be a nasty downpour, a storm lasting through the night and into the next. Shouto prepared, buying extra groceries and batteries, and a few candles just in case, although he doubts he’ll need them, with his quirk. 

He plans on going through the night as normal, maybe reading a book through the day tomorrow, and in that fashion, his schedule will go on uninterrupted. 

The rain has only just started, but it’s already falling fast, pounding on the windows of Shouto’s apartment like incessant knocking, something trying to come in, break down the walls of…

Actually, he thinks some of that knocking might be coming from the door. 

Frowning, he stands and makes his way over, stepping lightly to avoid running into things, even though his apartment is carefully organized, everything put into an exact position and therefore difficult to run into. He probably cleans too often, but he likes the rhythm of it, the feeling of everything going into place and staying there, perfect. The order of it, that’s what he likes. Everything where it should be, and not a hair out of line. 

He answers the door. Midoriya is just outside, hunched over himself a little, both arms wrapped around his right side. Shouto frowns at him a moment, trying to piece together what Midoriya is doing here, sopping wet. A dribble of water falls from his curls, splattering perfectly on the floor. In the silence between them, the drop echoes. 

“I’m an idiot,” Midoriya says finally, without much preamble. “I am also injured.” 

Shouto reassesses the way Midoriya is standing, and decides he is mostly unsuccessfully attempting to hide an injury. He nods, opening the door wider and stepping back to let Midoriya in. 

“Thanks,” Midoriya says, hobbling in. “I got in a villain fight, but it’s raining too hard out there for me to make it to the hospital, so here I am instead. Shadowing your doorstep like a— wait, wait, you never told me you had All Might merch! Is that the limited edition—”

“Sit down,” Shouto says, nudging Midoriya into a chair. “I’m going to get the first aid kit.”

Every good hero keeps a first aid kit in case of emergencies. Shouto has two, but he only grabs one now, dragging it out from under his bathroom sink and lugging it back outside. 

Midoriya’s taken off his shirt already, and he’s no longer sitting in the chair, but has rather climbed to his feet again and made his way over to stare at the All Might figurine. 

Shouto sighs and Midoriya scuttles back to the chair, sending a guilty look in his direction. “I’ve been sitting the whole time, promise,” he says, a grin starting across his face.

Shouto’s never been able to understand how Midoriya can continue to work through injuries like they’re nothing. Especially this one, an ugly gash across his side. Shouto scowls at it, trying to decide what to do as he administers basic first aid. 

“It needs stitches,” he says finally, glancing up. “You should have gone to the hospital.”

“Shouto, have you looked outside? No one’s going to the hospital in this storm. Plus…” his grin widens, “you know how to administer stitches and stuff.”

“I can, but it’s going to hurt like hell,” Shouto says. “I can drive you.”

“Shouto,” Midoriya says firmly. “Look at me. Look outside. You are not driving in this.”

Shouto looks at Midoriya, at his dripping hair and damp shoulders. He looks outside at the rain streaking down in lines outside, each droplet splashing ripples into the rapidly forming puddles on his balcony, the crooked trails of water on his window. He looks at all this, and he acknowledges that maybe Midoriya is right this time. Driving in this weather would be opening himself up for disaster. 

Shaking his head, he turns back to Midoriya, looking over his wound. It’s not bad enough Shouto thinks he’s in danger of blood loss, and he should be fine if they just keep pressure on it. Shouto will deliver emergency stitches. 

“Hold still, then,” he says, digging into his first aid pack for the supplies he’ll need. He starts to thread the needle and then stops, glaring up at Midoriya. “But as soon as this storm blows over, we’re going to the hospital.”

He catches the we too late, and doesn’t want to attract further attention to it by backtracking, but he knows he’ll regret that later. Especially since Midoriya’s eyes have lit up at the sound of it. 

Shutting Midoriya out of his life would be an impossible task, possibly Herculean in its difficulty. Every time Midoriya comes by, Shouto’s reminded of this fact again and again, because Midoriya brings something to Shouto’s lonely existence that he… can’t explain. 

He’d like to say he brings something to Midoriya’s existence too, but he wouldn’t be able to say what it is, exactly. Stitches in the middle of a rainstorm, ice on bruises, silence to talk to. 

“Hospital, yes,” Midoriya says, nodding. “We.”

Shouto scowls at the needle, just barely managing to get the thread through the loop. “Especially you,” he says, reaching over. “I’m going to put my hand on your side now, and it might hurt a little.”

“It already hurts, Shouto,” Midoriya says quietly. “Do your worst.”

Disgruntled, Shouto leans in and presses a hand into Midoriya’s side, slowly starting to deliver the stitches. 

The first name basis thing was something Shouto didn’t realize was… a thing until he told Midoriya to just call him Shouto and Midoriya nearly went into a panic. A very flustered panic, face bright red and arms flailing around like he was trying to fend off the request. Unlike with Tsu, though, Midoriya immediately took to calling Shouto by his first name, only stumbling over it the first few times. He told Shouto he could call him Izuku if he wanted, face bright red, but Shouto… 

To be honest, he was afraid of Midoriya’s trust. He was afraid to break it, afraid to have it at all. So he held Midoriya at a distance too, albeit a closer distance than everyone else. For safety. 

“Almost done,” he says, looping the final stitch through.

“You’re good,” Midoriya says through gritted teeth. 

Shouto ties off the thread, scowling at the newly forming bruise spreading over Midoriya’s side. “Gauze now,” he decides.

“Thanks!” Midoriya says brightly, bouncing right back from what Shouto was sure was an incredibly uncomfortable experience. 

Shouto pulls out a roll of gauze and some tape. Thunder crashes outside and he glances out. The storm clouds are angry out there, low and a furious dark gray. “You’ll have to stay over,” Shouto says, turning back to where he needs to administer the gauze. He presses it into Midoriya’s side and ties it there by rolling tape around his waist and up over his shoulder. 

“Sorry,” Midoriya murmurs. 

Shouto meets his eyes and finds guilt there, written in the lines between his eyebrows, the tightness in the corners of his lips. “It’s fine, Midoriya,” he says quietly. “There’s plenty of room.”

“But I’m being a nuisance,” he says, stabilizing the gauze with his hand so Shouto can finish tying the wrap up. 

Shouto would call Midoriya many things: a constant, an inspiration, a friend , but he would never call him a nuisance. That sounds like something Bakugou would come up with. “You’re not,” he says, packing away the remaining first aid supplies. “I wouldn’t have offered if I minded.”

Midoriya nods, hands balled into fists on his knees. He’s avoiding Shouto’s eyes now, but Shouto knows a lot about self-preservation tactics and decides to let him be. Sometimes eye contact is too much. 

After carrying the first aid kit back to his bathroom, he glances at the time. It’s almost ten at night already, an hour past when Shouto’s schedule says to go to sleep. Midoriya breaks down Shouto’s walls one at a time. It’s why he’s so dangerous to be around, and also maybe why Shouto continues to stay around him anyway. 

He gets the guest room ready and comes back for Midoriya, who is, as probably should be expected, examining the All Might figurine again. 

“Do you need pajamas?” Shouto says blandly, making Midoriya jump. 

“Um…” Midoriya looks down at himself and then nods sheepishly. “Yeah, I don’t think sleeping in my suit is a good idea.”

“Probably not,” he agrees, passing over a short stack of clothes. They’ll be too big for Midoriya, who comes up to about half a head shorter than Shouto, but they’ll work for the night. 

“Thank you,” Midoriya says, wrapping his arms around the garments. He hugs them close to his chest, and Shouto wonders abruptly if Midoriya is lonely too. It wouldn’t seem that way, with how popular he was at school and the amount of friends he’s managed to gather up, but maybe it’s possible to have friends and be lonely at the same time. 

For some reason, that seems sadder than shutting people out like Shouto does. At least Shouto does it intentionally. 

“The guest room’s over here,” Shouto says, moving away. He shows Midoriya down the hall, pointing out the bathroom, and waits kind of awkwardly while Midoriya disappears into the guest room, for some reason feeling… weird to be separate from Midoriya while in the same house. It just… yeah.

Well, regardless, Shouto goes to his room, finishes out his daily schedule, albeit an hour or so late, and goes to sleep. 

It’s a rough night, wind tearing into the side of the apartment, buffeting the house, rain shooting down like wrath from the heavens, but somehow Shouto manages to fall asleep.

He dreams of Midoriya and the ocean, and when he wakes up, he knows he’s done for. 

In another world, Shouto might have been in love with Midoriya Izuku. And in this world… he is.

He starts his daily schedule and then realizes Izuku’s probably going to throw a wrench in that today, so he abandons it and heads out of his room.

“Okay, so are you aware that this figurine is probably worth more than my entire childhood?” Izuku asks as Shouto walks into the kitchen. He’s sitting on a stool at the counter, holding the All Might figurine upside down, presumably for examination. 

Shouto shakes his head, pulling out a mug, and then on the afterthought, a second one for Izuku. “Tea?”

“Oh sure. But seriously, like. Seven-year-old Izuku would have killed for this thing. I’m not even exaggerating. Murder, Shouto. Murder.”

“You can have it,” Shouto says, starting water on the stove.

Izuku makes a weird noise, half a choke and half a gasp. Shouto checks to make sure he’s not dying and finds indignation written all over his face instead. “Shouto! You can’t just give away priceless All Might merch!” 

“I think I just did.”

Izuku freezes, working through that. 

Shouto takes the opportunity of his silence to look outside and get an idea of how bad the storm is. Outside is still a dark grey, angry storm clouds tumbling over themselves in the sky. How something so fluffy can look so angry, Shouto will never understand. Rain pours down from the sky in a torrent, going so fast it bounces on the ground and off the walls of the house. It’s a hell scape out there in the storm, and Shouto’s glad to be inside where they have warm lights and tea mugs.

Lightning flashes and thunder rolls and Shouto looks away to take the water off the heat.

“Shouto,” Izuku whispers. “You can’t just give me your—”

“How about we keep it here, and you can stare lovingly at it every time you come over?” Shouto suggests, only half-sarcastically. 

Izuku blinks a few times, coming out of a daze, and nods energetically. “Okay, good plan,” he says, still looking at Shouto with complete wonderment in his eyes. 

Shouto realizes he basically just invited Izuku to keep coming over, and decides he’s doing a poor enough job of shutting Izuku out of his life, he should just give it up. 

“Hey…” he says, setting a cup of tea on the counter in front of Izuku. His mouth works over… something, some expression of feelings he never seems to have the words for, and after a second he moves on. Shouto’s never been able to express himself well like that, never been able to sort through his feelings well enough to say them out loud. “So, what do you want to do today?” he says instead.

Izuku shrugs. “Well, we’re stuck inside, so our options are watching all the All Might movies again—“

“Absolutely not.” The first time was torture. No hero shouts that many cheesy lines while fighting for their life — the concept of that is ridiculous.

Smiling, Izuku finishes, “Or we could just talk. Or we could sit in silence, or you could listen to me ramble about stuff for forever, or you know, we could read or something. Or I could watch All Might movies, and you could sit there and be grumpy.”

Shouto shakes his head. “Not the last one. This household has a ban on All Might movies.”

Just as he says that, the apartment is plunged into darkness. Izuku makes a weird squawking sound. 

“I think the power went out,” Shouto says flatly, lighting up his left side so he can go find his many flashlights, lanterns and candles. 

“That rules out almost everything I just said,” Izuku says, activating his quirk too and casting an eerie green glow over everything. Shouto pulls a few flashlights out from under the kitchen sink and passes them over. Switching a few on, Izuku says, “Our options are now talking and sitting in silence.”

“Fine with me,” Shouto says, opening the pantry to find the candles. He pulls them out and lights them with one sweep of his hand.

Izuku starts lining them up on the counter, carefully positioning each one. His eyes squint slightly as he focuses, ducking his head forward to measure between each candle, lining them up. 

“Okay, so,” Izuku says finally, looking up from his candle organization. “Ummm… how have you been?”

Shouto shrugs, taking the stool next to Izuku and wrapping his hands around his mug. “Good. I’ve just been working.”

Izuku laughs. “That’s pretty much me too. Uraraka says I’m a workaholic.”

That’s probably true. Where Shouto overworks. Izuku patrols himself into the ground. Sometimes Shouto wonders where he gets the energy, no — the determination to do that. Izuku is just so… he’s so passionate about heroics, to a degree no one Shouto knows can match. 

He has wondered before whether Izuku is capable of loving anything other than his job. The only thing that convinces him otherwise is Izuku’s love for Eri. The way Izuku’s eyes light up when Eri shows him something she made, when Eri talks to him about school, when Eri smiles… Nothing can match it. Not even how obsessed Izuku is with his job.

“You might be,” he says simply.

Izuku makes a face, taking a sip of tea. “I probably am. But the world isn’t going to save itself, and I don’t know what else I would do with my time.”

“You could come here,” Shouto points out, words coming unbidden from his mouth. Before he can stop them.

Izuku frowns at him, hands slowly sinking to put his mug on the counter. “Wouldn’t that bother you?” he says slowly — carefully, like he’s not sure of his steps here. 

Shouto thinks about it, but Izuku’s never bothered Shouto. He likes having him over, actually, likes the color he brings to Shouto’s grey world. Where Shouto is boxes and straight lines, Izuku is a giant squiggle, spirally green over everything, loose curls falling wherever. His presence bends Shouto’s rigid way of life the same way Shouto straightens Midoriya’s messy one. 

And, to Shouto’s constant surprise…

“No. I don’t mind.”

He likes it. Likes Izuku — loves Izuku. And he doesn’t think he’ll ever be tired of him coming into his apartment, even in the middle of a rainstorm.

“I’d like to,” Izuku says seriously. “Come over, I mean. I’d like to.”

“Well, you can,” Shouto says.

Izuku watches him almost warily, running his fingers over the rim of his mug in a slow circle. “You could come over to mine too, you know,” he says.

“Your house?” Shouto asks, feeling surprised for some reason. 

“Yeah,” he says, nodding. “Whenever you want. If I’m not, you know, working, I’ll be there. Waiting for you to knock.” 

Shouto feels his lips twitch into a smile. “In the middle of a thunderstorm?”

Izuku laughs. “Then too. Or… whenever. My door’s open.”

His door and his heart, it might seem. 

Thunder rolls outside, like a child pounding the floor, and Shouto leans back, frowning out the window. It’s dark out, even though it’s still morning. Raindrops trace a maze across the windows, and Shouto thinks he can enjoy it more with Izuku here than he ever would be able to by himself.

Shouto’s learned to be alone. He’s made peace with the quiet of it, the silent surety of being on his own, where he doesn’t have to rely on anyone else. Where he can sit and watch rain dribble down the window and not worry about who’s sitting next to him.

Izuku’s next to him now, but it’s still silent, and Shouto can still watch the rain splashing on his balcony rail, pattering against the window pane.

Shouto doesn’t know much about love, but he thinks maybe the secret to it is hidden in these silences, the ones that are quiet and warm. When nothing needs to be said, because it’s already known.

Maybe Izuku loves Shouto too.

Maybe their love can be steady, like a ship at sea, like droplets trickling down a pane of glass.

Shouto looks over at Izuku, blinking in surprise when he finds Izuku studying him. They make eye contact, and Izuku looks away, dropping his gaze to the mug wrapped in his hands. 

“What?” Shouto asks, wondering absently if something’s on his face.

Izuku shakes his head. “Nothing, sorry.”

Shouto squints at him, but Izuku’s expression is unreadable, and he can’t tell what he’s thinking.. “Hey,” he says, nudging Izuku with his foot. “What is it?”

Shaking his head again, he says, “I just… I don’t know, it’s going to sound creepy, but… I like it when you think. I like… watching you think.” His face starts turning red and he covers it with both hands, mumbling, “It’s just— you get… your expression, it’s…” He drops his hands and stares at his mug again, cheeks bright red. “I don’t know.”

“I don’t think that’s creepy.” Shouto says, mostly because he feels the same way about hearing Izuku ramble about one thing to another. 

“Yeah, well.” He shakes his head. “I don’t know.” Meeting Shouto’s eyes again, he asks, “What were you thinking about?”

“Rain.” And Izuku, but that might be off putting to say.

“Oh…” He frowns out the window, watching the storm outside. “Yeah.”

Shouto can remember other rainstorms they’ve been through together, 1-A screaming at the thunder, movie nights while the dorm shook with wind, fights in downpours. They’ve been through a lot, the two of them — all their class has, really, but Izuku seems to be hit with disaster the most, and Shouto is always right there with him. “Remember that day?” he says as lightning flashes outside. “In UA… After we came and got you.”

Izuku nods, eyebrows furrowing as he remembers— rain pelting down on their heads and the screaming of a desperate crowd. “Yeah.”

What Shouto feels, what he wants to say is, I thought you were beautiful. You’re beautiful, Izuku. But the words catch in his throat, and instead he says flatly, “It was raining then.”

Izuku smiles, eyes flitting up to meet Shouto’s. “It was.”

And Shouto curses himself for not having words when he needs them.

The rain continues on throughout the day, power flickering on and off occasionally, and finally, just before dark, it reduces to a drizzle.

They’ve been quiet all day, Izuku and Shouto, but it’s been the good kind of quiet, not the tense kind that creates fissures instead of filling them. They talk when they have something to say, and otherwise they watch the rain, and through it all, Shouto realizes again and again that he is in love with Izuku. 

Love, he thinks, is a sort of reliance. Shouto fears love because he’s more comfortable not needing to depend on anything. But he’s not scared to rely on Izuku, because he trusts Izuku, probably more than he’s ever trusted anyone in his life. Izuku’s always there to have Shouto’s back, and Shouto likes being there to have Izuku’s too. They can lean on each other, and also stand alone, and that’s what could make it work between the two of them.

Shouto kind of wants to see if it would work. If they could be in a relationship, and not fall apart. He doesn’t think he’s ever seen a relationship that lasted, but he thinks he can make one with Izuku, and part of him, a big part, wants to try. 

“Shouto,” Izuku says, poking his arm to pull him out of his thoughts. “Do you have roof access?”

“Um…” he frowns, trying to remember. “I think so? Why?”

Izuku just grins. “Show me.”

Shaking his head, Shouto gets up and grabs a coat, and then a second, smaller one for Izuku, and leads him up a few flights of stairs to the roof. It takes Izuku a bit longer on the stairs, since he’s compensating for an injury, but they get there eventually and Shouto pushes open the door. 

The rain has slowed from earlier, but it’s still falling, drenching the roof so much Shouto’s almost afraid it’ll flood the building. The pitter patter of drops sends ripples across the puddles covering the concrete roof, but Izuku’s not looking at that, he’s looking straight up at the gray sky, a smile slowly spreading across his face. He looks like he could take flight at any moment, weight shifted slightly onto his toes, and Shouto reaches out and takes his hand because if Izuku flies, Shouto wants to go with him. 

Izuku looks over, delighted surprise in his eyes, and he drags Shouto out into the rain.

“What are you doing?” Shouto gasps, feeling the rain splattering his head, his shoulders, drumming on his heart. 

“I wanted to feel it,” Izuku says, smiling back at him. “The rain, it’s nice. I like the smell.”

Izuku sees the brightness in everything, and Shouto wants to see it too. Izuku is Shouto’s light in the darkness, his lamp over the ocean, his stars in the sky.

Izuku closes his eyes so he can tilt his face up to the drizzling gray sky. The rain catches on his eyelashes, turning them dark, almost black. Droplets streak over his crooked nose, down his cheeks, hovering over his freckles before slipping down his neck. 

Shouto has never seen anyone more beautiful than Midoriya Izuku. Shouto has never loved anyone as much as he loves Midoriya Izuku. And Shouto… is tired of being alone. 

Something about the roof, something about being above a wide expanse of the world, makes Shouto brave. Maybe because he knows that the witnesses he has here are storm clouds and a skyscrapers, maybe because magnificent things are meant to happen in magnificent places, maybe because Izuku is even more beautiful when he’s surrounded by sky and falling rain.

He runs his thumb over the back of Izuku’s scarred hand to get his attention. “I love you,” he says, quietly because his throat is doing its very best to choke down his words again, to close off before he says something he can’t take back. It’s too late now though, Izuku turning fully around to look at him, rain dripping from his hair. He looks curious, not horrified or angry, and Shouto makes himself keep going. “I didn’t know, before, if it was okay to. But… Izuku, I…”

Izuku stops him by closing the little distance between them and wrapping Shouto in a hug. 

Shouto… doesn’t think he’s ever been hugged like this before. He can count how many hugs he’s had on one hand, and this… this is going to have to take up his entire other hand, because this is the nicest hug Shouto’s ever had. 

“I don’t want to mess things up,” he whispers, terrified of scaring Izuku off. 

Izuku shakes his head. “You haven’t messed anything up,” he answers, pulling back and brushing some of the rain off Shouto’s forehead. “I’ve loved you since high school, Shouto, and I never stopped. You’re what keeps me grounded when I feel like I’m going to fall. You’re also very funny. That’s a good combination.”

Shouto’s having trouble processing this, maybe because emotions are just… hard to read. “So, you…”

“I love you, Todoroki Shouto,” Izuku says over the pattering of rain. “I don’t ever want to let you go.”

Shouto swallows once and nods. Izuku takes his other hand and pulls him across the roof, to the center of it where the puddles are deepest. “I saw this in a movie,” he says, slipping his left hand up to drape over Shouto’s shoulder. Shouto’s hand comes up under Izuku’s shoulder blade on instinct, and they sway, waltzing in the rain. 

“Was it an All Might movie, by any chance?” Shouto asks drily and Izuku snorts, dropping his head down on Shouto’s shoulder. 

“No, actually,” he says. “It was a really bad rom com my mom was watching on TV. I thought the rain scene was the best one.”

“Very romantic,” Shouto says, a smile starting across his lips. 

“Oh, shut up.”

Shouto shuts up, lifting his arm so Izuku can twirl underneath it. He does, snickering, and accidentally runs into Shouto on the way back, kicking water up over both of them. 

“If you haven’t noticed,” he whispers, tucking both arms around Shouto’s waist instead of continuing the waltz. “I’m a terrible dancer.”

“It’s beautiful to me,” Shouto says, and Izuku’s face turns bright red so quickly Shouto almost gets worried. 

“You can’t just say things like that!” Izuku whines, yanking one arm out to lightly smack Shouto’s shoulder.

“Sorry,” Shouto says complacently, but he fully intends to never hide any of his feelings about Izuku again. He’s spent too long doing that now, and he’s tired of it. 

Lightning flashes in the distance and he pulls away. 

“You do recognize how unsafe this is?”

Izuku sighs. “I just wanted to splash in the puddles.”

Shouto barely suppresses a laugh, because Izuku can go from godlike to extremely immature in the span of two seconds. He’s a wonder. 

“We should go inside,” Shouto says, heading for the door but not dropping Izuku’s hand for a second. Now that he’s holding it, he never wants to let go. “We can find something to do in there.”

“My vote is All Might movies,” Izuku says, and Shouto sends him the blankest look he can muster, sending Izuku into peals of laughter. 

Love is a scary thing. Especially to someone who has spent so much time trying his best to stay alone, in the safety of his own heart. It’s terrifying, and part of Shouto wishes he could go back to being lonely, for the sake of self-preservation.

But sometimes, he thinks, it’s important to take risks too. And going with Izuku… dancing in the rain and joking about All Might and sitting in comfortable silence… honestly doesn’t feel like that much of a risk at all. 

It feels safe, actually. 

So Shouto goes with Izuku back to his apartment, and swears he won’t be alone anymore. He’ll be with Izuku instead, and that just might be enough for both of them. 

Rain falls, lightning flashes, and thunder rolls, but Izuku still shines brightly through the storm, leading Shouto steadily home.