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The first sign was when Izuku woke up to Katsuki's alarm. It wouldn't have been strange if the reverse had been true, or if either of them had woken up to Shouto's alarm, but in all the years the three of them had been sleeping together, Katsuki had always been the easiest to wake up. But this time, when Katsuki's alarm was set for before sunrise, it was Izuku who woke up first, to the loud rock song ringing in his ears.
"Kacchan," Izuku grumbled, still half asleep, "That's your alarm, isn't it?"
Shouto started to stir as well, curling in towards Izuku in an effort to block out the noise and avoid waking up, but there was no response from Katsuki. Lazily, Izuku opened his eyes and sat up a bit, looking across Shouto to see Katsuki, still asleep. "Kacchan," he said, more insistently. Katsuki didn't stir, and Izuku reached out and shook his shoulder. "Kacchan, wake up."
Katsuki pulled himself up and looked at Izuku, groggy and questioning. Izuku gestured to the alarm and Katsuki's eyes widened as he moved to turn it off. "Shit," he cursed, "Sorry, Deku."
Izuku waved it off and lay back again, wrapping his arms back around the mostly asleep Shouto. Katsuki got up and out of bed to get dressed and eat breakfast before heading to work. When Shouto and Izuku finally had to get up themselves, there was breakfast waiting for them like normal, though Katsuki had left long before.
----
The second sign was when Shouto came home to the television running intrusively loud. Katsuki had been the first one back, so Shouto walked in to see him lying on their couch, blasting out the eardrums of everyone in the apartment complex.
"Jesus shit, Katsu," Shouto practically yelled when he was in eyeshot. "I could hear that thing from the lobby, you're gonna get us a noise complaint!"
Katsuki blinked up at him, then grabbed the remote and turned it down. "Sorry," he grumbled, turning all his focus on the television. "I didn't realize it had gotten so loud."
Shouto shrugged and kissed his boyfriend. "It's not that big of a deal," he said, walking to the kitchen to grab some lunch.
A few minutes later, Katsuki grabbed the remote and aggressively turned the television off. He turned to see Shouto staring at him and growled, "I couldn't focus. It's a fucking shitty show, anyway," by way of explanation.
Shouto was still concerned, but his thoughts scattered as Katsuki pulled him close and into a deep kiss, the other man's tongue flicking into his mouth teasingly. Shouto leaned into it, and any worries he might have had vanished.
----
The third sign was in a more dangerous situation. A villain had attacked, and the threat it posed was so large that all three of them--Ground Zero, Deku, and Shouto--had been called to the scene. The villain was elephantine in nature, stomping around on big, grey legs, waving its big, grey trunk in the air, and causing general mayhem in the city square. It wasn't the biggest villain any of them had faced, but they were having trouble containing the damage. Still, Shouto had managed to freeze enough of its legs to stop it from trampling anyone, and he and Deku worked together to evacuate the citizens while Ground Zero kept watch.
Deku was helping an old woman to her feet when he saw, out of the corner of his eye, a second villain flying in from behind Ground Zero. "Kacchan, watch out!" he yelled, but the other hero didn't react until the praying mantis-like villain had knocked him over and cut through the ice at the elephant's feet. Ground Zero started after them, hands blazing, but somehow they managed to round a corner and pull out of sight.
The three of them helped finish the evacuation and start the reparations process before heading back to Deku's agency--the nearest one of theirs. Once they had arrived, Izuku turned on Katsuki and yelled, "What the hell, Kacchan? Didn't you hear me yell? That bug villain was right behind you, you got hurt!" He gestured wildly at the sharp scratches on Katsuki's back, bleeding mildly. "What if it had been trying to kill you, not just help its friend?!"
Katsuki glared back at Izuku. "What the hell, Deku? Are you saying you saw it coming for me? Why didn't you fucking warn me?!"
"I did, you imbecile!" Izuku yelled back.
" I sure didn't fucking hear it!" Katsuki retorted.
"Chill out!" Shouto called out, holding his hands up between them, his right side glittering with ice as if to accentuate his point. "No one got hurt badly, it's okay."
Izuku turned on him. "Shou, you heard me yell, right? And you were even further away than he was!"
"Well--yeah, I did hear you, 'Zuku, but I don't think Katsu did," Shouto said quietly.
"The fuck you saying about me?" Katsuki yelled, turning his focus onto Shouto.
Shouto turned to face him fully. "Katsuki," he said, making sure to pitch his voice louder and move his lips clearly, "Are you going deaf?"
----
"I still think this is bullshit," Katsuki grumbled at the doctor's waiting room.
Izuku turned to face him. "Kacchan, you know it makes sense! You've been slower to react to noises, and with your Quirk and everything...You're lucky it didn't happen sooner, now that I think about it!" He started muttering to himself about how self Quirk protection only went so far, and, while Katsuki's hands were naturally tougher to protect from the blasts, his hearing was still unprotected from loud noises, and Katsuki huffed in frustration, unable to follow it all.
"I'm not fucking deaf, the two of you are," he grumbled under his breath.
That doesn't make any sense, Shouto thought, but he reached out and grabbed Katsuki's hand anyway. "We'll get our hearing tested too, Katsu, don't worry."
Izuku snapped out of his mumbling fit and grabbed Katsuki's other hand with a bright smile. "Yeah, Kacchan, we'll be right there with you! We spend enough time around you that our hearing is probably at risk too, so it does make sense. Don't worry, it'll all work out!"
Katsuki rolled his eyes, but he didn't pull either hand away, so the three of them waited together like that.
----
Shouto and Izuku both had slightly damaged hearing, but nothing out of the norm for hero work, and certainly not enough to inhibit their lives. Katsuki walked out of the building with bright orange hearing aids in his ears.
"They won't work for the rest of his life," the nurse had told them, "Because at this rate, he'll be completely deaf by the time he's forty. But they will help for a while, so you'll all have a chance to start learning sign language. And don't worry about the hearing aids while he works--they only amplify human language frequencies, so the explosions won't be any louder than they already are." She'd told this to Shouto and Izuku, because Katsuki had stubbornly refused to look at anybody or put his hearing aids in since they had handed them to him.
"Thank you," Izuku said with a smile. "He's thankful too, I'm sure, he's just--" he broke off, at a loss for words, and Shouto cut in.
"He's difficult in the best of circumstances," he explained, "And this is hard for him."
The nurse smiled back at them. "It's fine. Getting a disability later in life is difficult, especially for proud types like him. He's not the worst patient we've had to deal with, don't worry."
They thanked her again and turned back to Katsuki, who let them lead him out to the lobby, but then hung a sharp right and walked into the bathroom instead, slamming and locking the door behind him. Shouto and Izuku gave each other a worried look, but decided to let him be, settling back into the lobby chairs.
Katsuki gripped the edge of the bathroom sink with white-knuckled hands and glared at his reflection, seething. He was supposed to be the best, to have the best Quirk, to be the number one--so why was his body failing him now? He smelled smoke and quickly let go of the sink, glancing down at his smoking hands--he should have better control than this. He took a couple deep breaths, trying to calm down. He wished he could have noticed on his own. Sure, he'd wondered occasionally--the whole sleeping through the alarm clock and turning the television on too loud things had concerned him--but he hadn't been able to put the pieces together, not like his stupid pretty smart loving boyfriends had. It hurt his pride more than he'd like to admit.
He felt the buzz of his phone in his back pocket more than he heard the text alert--and didn't that just rub it in--and angrily pulled it out to see the message. Or, messages--his phone buzzed a second time as he was unlocking it.
Fucking Deku: we made sure to get you orange ones to match your hero costume, kacchan! whenever youre ready, well be happy to see you <3
IcyHot Asshole: Calm down, we're not going to judge you or anything. Remember, 'Zuku used to shatter all the bones in his arm every time he punched something, and I've burned myself and given myself frostbite lots of times, it doesn't mean any of us are weak.
Fucking Deku: and it DEFINITELY doesnt stop us from loving you!!! <3 <3 <3
IcyHot Asshole: Yeah, and that.
IcyHot Asshole: <3
Katsuki huffed a quiet laugh at their antics. Stupid fuckers, he'd prove he wasn't worried. He pulled the hearing aids out of his pocket and looked at them for a moment, being careful to take deep breaths. He put one in, then the other, and carefully clicked them on.
It was like being born again. The harsh ringing in his ears, ringing he hadn't even noticed had slowly taken over his hearing, vanished, replaced by subtle sounds that suddenly seemed so loud to him. He could hear the hum of the air conditioning vent above him, and the quiet murmur of voices out in the lobby, and even the scuff of his shoes as he turned around. It wasn't perfect, still, but...it was better, for sure.
Out in the lobby, Shouto's and Izuku's phones buzzed at the same time.
Exploding Idiot/<3 Kacchan! <3: Fucking idiots, like i'd be worried about some stupid shit like that
Exploding Idiot/<3 Kacchan! <3: <3
----
Many years later, Katsuki's orange hearing aids are no longer used--they don't help, anymore. But if Katsuki has to wake up early, Shouto and Izuku set their own alarms, and their efforts to pull him awake usually lead to a simple, one fingered sign from Katsuki. And if they watch television, they keep the volume low with the captions on, and Katsuki makes elaborate comments in sign language, making Shouto and Izuku laugh until they've all forgotten the plot. And when they're out working as heroes, they make sure at least one person with Katsuki knows sign language, and Katsuki makes sure to keep everyone in eyeshot.
It's not a perfect system, but it works well enough, and these three heroes are happy with it.