Work Text:
‘I have to talk to him.’
Shouto thinks this to himself as he sits cross-legged on the floor of Midoriya’s bedroom, his math book and notebook both laying in front of him with his pencil in hand. He had been at the desk at first, but eventually moved to the floor. He’s been trying to study for the past hour but barely has half the page filled. He keeps getting distracted by something that happened earlier that he wants to talk to his boyfriend about.
‘I have to talk to him, sooner rather than later.’
He looks up to the bed where Midoriya sits, reading through a book on the history of quirks. Shouto knows that if he drags this out for too long it’s only going to keep eating away at him until he bursts and dumps all the baggage on whoever’s nearby. His grip tightens on the pencil he’s holding as he lets out a breath of cold air.
‘It’s just a talk. It’ll be okay. You just have to say something .’
“Are you...alright, Todoroki-kun?”
It’s only then that Shouto notices his boyfriend staring back at him. Had he been spacing out again? He’d probably been accidently glaring at Midoriya since he, apparently, has a “resting bitch face”. He’s about respond with the usual “I’m fine” before catching himself.
“I wanted to, um...” he tries to drop the pencil before realizing it’s frozen to his hand. Midoriya snorts as he scrapes it off and Shouto thinks about how he hasn’t had to deal with stuff like that for a while. “I wanted to talk about something.”
Midoriya grimaces and seems to shrink into the bed. “D-did I do something wrong?” he asks, voice wavering. Shouto shakes his head.
“No, it’s not that,” he explains. “It’s more of what you didn’t do, or what I’m not...what we’re not doing, I guess?”
That only makes Midoriya look even more anxious and Shouto feels like maybe he shouldn’t have brought this up. “What we’re not d- doing ?”
“I was just wondering,” Shouto continues, deciding to just nip it in the bud, “do you think we should be...moving faster, in our relationship?”
His expression doesn’t change after Shouto asks that, and he’s not sure if that’s a good thing or not. Midoriya’s eyes shift to the side as he fumbles for a response. “I mean, you’ve never r-really asked about stuff like this b-before. Do you think we sh-should?”
Shouto shrugs at that. “It’s just...”
*******
“Never have I ever, uh...hmmmm...” Kaminari said.
The whole reason he was there was because Shouto had been trying to be more involved with the class as of late. Sure, he’d hang out with Midoriya, Iida, Uraraka, Asui, Aoyama, and Yaoyorozu, but other than them he wasn’t very social. Of course that also made it hard to interact with the others as well, but that didn’t mean he shouldn’t try. So when Ashido mentioned having a game night in the common room, Shouto thought it’d be a good idea to join. He wasn’t exactly wrong. They’d played games like Mariokart, Shiritori, and Truth or Dare, which were all varying degrees of fun.
The game they were playing at the time was called Never Have I Ever. He thought it was an American game in origin, but he wasn’t entirely sure. The rules were fairly simple: everyone holds up ten fingers and they take turns saying something they’ve never done and anyone who has done it puts a finger down. It went on until only one person had fingers left, or they got tired of playing. Thus far Shouto had been winning, and he wasn’t sure how to feel about that. It seemed like he had missed out on a lot of things. Because of that fact, the others had started to target him specifically. They said things like “ran into the Hero Killer” and “had dual-colored hair”, the latter Kaminari was also upset about as it brought him down to one finger. The incident happened on said boy's turn for that round.
“GOT IT!” He finally shouted, “Never have I ever made out with anyone!”
“Damnit Kaminari!” Ashido exclaimed while putting her last finger down and slamming her fists to the ground. Kirishima and Ojirou also put their fingers down, the former with a grimace and the latter with red cheeks. Sero commented that Kaminari was just dissing himself that way and Jirou, Hagakure (who also put a finger down on her gloved hand) and Kouda snickered as the blond told him to shut up.
That was when Kaminari turned to him with an angry pout, not quite a glare. “Todoroki, put your damn finger down!”
His left brow raised at the command. “But that’s against the rules?”
Jirou’s eyes had widened and she attempted to interrupt the conversation, but Kaminari didn’t notice her. “Whaddya mean?! The rules are that you put your finger down if you’ve done it!”
“Right,” Todoroki agreed, “so I shouldn’t put my finger down.”
The confusion only became more prominent on his face. Ashido then came forward to ask, “Wait, have you really never made out with someone? Ever ?” Todoroki had shaken his head.
“No way!” Hagakure had shouted, “Todoroki-kun, you’re the most handsome boy in class, the school's heart-throb! There’s just no way!”
“I don’t see your point here,” he responded.
“And don’t you have a boyfriend ? There’s no way you two haven’t at least tried it,” Kaminari tried again.
Shouto had begun to feel uncomfortable at this point, but he wasn’t going to just lie to get them off his back. “Midoriya and I haven’t tried anything like that. It just hasn’t crossed my mind.”
“Woah, that’s so weird,” Ashido said in awe.
“Aren’t you a guy?” Mineta had questioned. He’d come to play, but was banned from playing after Shiritori and could only observe everyone else. “It’s only natural for us to want stuff like that.”
Kirishima looked like he wanted to say something to that, but Kaminari interrupted once again. “Exactly! Even if it ‘hasn’t crossed your mind’, how do you know it’s never crossed Midoriya’s?”
It felt like a stone settled into his stomach. Shouto wasn’t sure what to say to that. He’d thought his boyfriend would’ve mentioned if he wanted something more from their relationship, but maybe he should’ve asked about it? He wasn’t sure that was what he wanted though.
“I really don’t wanna say this,” Mineta continued, “but honestly, you guys should just hurry up and-”
“SHUT UP!!!” Jirou shouted, jamming her jacks into their ears and causing them to scream in pain. “What they do in their relationship is between them! It's none of our business, so just zip it !!”
The two had kept quiet after that, and Ashido had guilt written all over her face. The party didn’t last much longer and they all went to head to their rooms. Jirou had caught Shouto before he left and asked if he was okay. He had brushed her off and said he was fine before heading to his room.
He couldn’t stop thinking about what they’d said that night.
*******
“...it’s just, it got brought up the other day, and our classmates made it sound like we were going too slow or something. I was just wondering if we should be doing that, I guess,” Shouto finishes after thinking back on that day.
“...they said...” Midoriya trails off. He takes a deep breath in and lets it out before gently closing the book in his hands. The book is tossed to the floor with a thump and Midoriya scoots over on the bed, patting the spot next to him. Seeing Midoriya beckon him over he starts to unfold his legs so he can get up.
‘ How do you know it’s never crossed Midoriya’s?’
Remembering that question makes him falter. Maybe it won't be just a talk like he'd thought. Had Midoriya been wanting this and just hadn’t said anything? Should Shouto have been asking about it from the start? Hell, should he have wanted it from the start?
‘ It’s only natural for us to want stuff like that. ’
He forces himself to his feet. Maybe it was natural for others, but not for him. He’d never experienced that type of craving before; he’d barely even had a crush before Midoriya. If it’s “only natural”, then why didn’t he feel this way?
‘ Honestly, you guys should just hurry up and- ’
He settles down on the bed next to Midoriya, gripping the fabric of his pants just above his knees. Shouto didn’t think he’d try to initiate something like this so quickly. Then again, maybe he just wasn’t being a very attentive boyfriend. Maybe it was his fault after all.
“Todoroki-kun, do you want more from our relationship?” Midoriya gently asks.
“...Well, the others were saying we shou-”
“That's not what I asked,” his boyfriend interrupts. Shouto looks over to see green eyes gazing only at him. “I asked if you wanted that.”
The way Midoriya looks at him is so patient and gentle, making butterflies flutter in his stomach. Shouto blinks and turns away, looking down to his lap. He doesn't know if Midoriya will accept his answer. At the same time though, he can't bring himself to lie to his boyfriend.
"Not...really, no."
"Then we won't," he responds, laying his head on Shouto's arm.
The taller boy looks back to the mop of green hair resting on him and blinks in surprise. He then squints, his lower lip jutting out a tad. “Really?” he asks, “Just like that?” In a playful tone, Midoriya repeats his words back as a statement rather than a question. His boyfriends response makes him uneasy, Kaminari’s accusation from before ringing in his mind. “Midoriya, you can’t just make a decision like that solely because of how I feel. What about you?”
The other tilts his head back so he can see Shouto’s face again as he says “It’s not just because of you. And even if it was, there’s this thing my mom used to tell me.” He looks back down and puts his hands together so he can twiddle his thumbs. “She said that when you’re in a relationship, you have to make sure to be considerate of each others feelings. When you have two have two people dating, they're called a couple because it’s not just one person or the other. It’s a partnership between everyone involved. So if it’s not what one of us wants, then it’s not what we want. She actually used to give me a lot of relationship advice and it made me super embarrassed, but I agree with most of what she said. Especially that.”
“Besides,” Midoriya lifts himself off his arm and settles back next to Shouto, taking his left hand in his scarred one, “even if I did want to speed things up, I’d never want to do anything to make you uncomfortable--or worse--hurt you.”
The gentle devotion in Midoriya’s eyes attracts Shouto’s gaze like a magnet. Just a single look from those green eyes can help to ease Shouto’s worries. Even with how comfortable he is around his boyfriend, he still has some concerns. “I don’t want to hurt you either, ever.” Shouto squeezes his hand. “I never really thought about doing those things in the first place, but if I’m being honest, I’m also worried that I’ll do something wrong. What if I end up hurting you, like he hu-”
“I’m gonna stop you right there, Todoroki-kun.” Midoriya interrupts one again as he pulls Shouto’s hand closer towards himself, his thumb caressing it afterward. “That’s a very silly thought, but I understand why you’re concerned about that. I hope you know though, the fact that you’re even worried about it in the first place just shows me how unlikely it is that it’ll happen.”
“But that doesn’t mean it won’t,” Shouto argues, panic leaking into his voice, “What if I do? Even on accident?”
“If you do accidently hurt me--and that’s a big if --we can work through it together. There may be a chance that things won’t end well, but we should be okay as long as we’re honest with each other and we trust each other.” His gentle stare shifts to a teasing smirk as he continues. “Besides, do you really think I can’t take you?” he asks, tugging their hands down into an impromptu arm wrestling match.
Being forced to use his left hand only makes it that much harder and Shouto ends up losing, not that he would’ve done much better with his right hand anyway. Midoriya has way more muscle than him. He turns his head away, slightly embarrassed about just how weak he is. “You may have a point,” he admits.
“Don’t worry. It’s okay to be uncomfortable,” Midoriya reassures him, adjusting to face his whole self in Shouto’s direction, “and it’s okay to be scared. I don’t wanna start anything like that either y’know. We can wait until we’re both ready for those other things.”
And therein lies the other problem. Shouto moves so he sits on his legs, staring down at his knees while turned toward his boyfriend. The other asks again if he’s alright and he says, “What if...what if I’m never ready?”
A hand comes to softly rest on his right knee. “That’s okay too. You can’t help the way you feel, Todoroki-kun.”
“Neither can you!” he throws back, “I mean, wouldn’t you much rather have someone who can give you what you want?” His hands curl around the blanket below and his eyes sting. He feels ridiculous for getting so worked up, but god he’s so scared to lose what they have.
Midoriya’s scarred hand caresses his cheek and he almost flinches from being so wound up. “There’s no one I’d rather be with than you,” he soothes. Shouto looks back up to see watery green eyes, a wobbly smile and red freckled cheeks. “You’re right that I can’t help the way I feel, but please don’t let that make you think that you’re not enough,” his thumb brushes Shouto’s cheek, on the edge of his scar, “because just being with you makes me so happy.”
Shouto finally lets go, tears streaming down his face. His left hand raises to press Midoriya’s more into his cheek. His boyfriend lets out a watery chuckle and his other hand goes to rub Shouto’s upper arm. He can’t see clearly enough to know if the shorter boy is crying as well, but he wouldn’t be surprised if he was. They tenderly hold each other through their sniffles and hiccups. Neither knows how much time passes before they’re calmed down.
“Sorry about that,” Shouto speaks, rubbing at his red-rimmed eyes, “I shouldn’t be acting like this.”
“Hey, don’t give me that. Weren’t you the one who said ‘even heroes can cry’?”
He chuckles at that. “Yeah, I did. Though I have to say,” Shouto changes the subject, “for only being in one relationship, you know a lot about how they work.”
“What can I say? My mom knows everything,” Midoriya shrugs and leans back on the wall. “I feel kinda bad for her though. It’s kinda tiring being the responsible one.”
In a completely monotone voice, Shouto quips, “Ah yes, because the student who’s broken his arms and legs multiple times in one year is the responsible one.”
Midoriya scoffs at that, “Like you’re one to talk, Mr. Nearly-Threw-Hands-With-The-Chief-Of-Police Shouto!” he jokes back, hands raised as if he’s ready to block a punch.
“He had it coming,” Shouto defends, putting his hands over the others fists.
“Did not!” Midoriya chuckles, pushing Shouto’s hands back.
Shouto giggles along until he feels his backside start to slip off the edge of the bed. It’s not the first time something like this has happened. His boyfriend had a bad habit of underestimating his strength. Shouto yelps as gravity starts to pull him down, but Midoriya’s hands grab his wrists and pull him forward before he completely falls. Due to underestimated strength once again, he flops right back into the smaller boy who keeps them both from collapsing on the bed. His heart beats hard in his chest not only from nearly falling, but from the sudden proximity to his boyfriend as well.
He pushes himself up and tries to ignore the heat in his cheeks. “You nearly threw me off the bed!” he says attempting to hold back a laugh. Midoriya grins back up at him the red in his cheeks barely subsiding.
“But I didn’t!” he tosses back, as if that changed anything. Shouto shakes his head and calls him crazy. “You’re the one who asked me out, so now who’s crazy?”
Instead of joking back, Shouto sighs and rests his forehead on the others. His right hand rises to gently hold Midoriya’s cheek, mirroring how he did earlier. “I guess I am.”
Midoriya’s eyes widen and his blush darkens once again. His expression soon relaxes. Smiling, he brings his hand up to hold Shouto’s right. “Maybe we both are,” he says as he nuzzles their noses together. They both start to lean in when-
Knock knock knock.
“Hey Midoriya! Dinner's ready! Better hurry down before we eat it all!” Kirishima’s voice calls through the door.
“ Fuckin’ -” Midoriya quietly swears. Shouto snorts at his boyfriend’s sudden language. Kirishima’s voice calls once more due to a lack of a response.
“Thanks Kirishima! We’ll be right down!” The taller boy calls back. Kirishima sounds surprised, but leaves anyway only asking that they hurry once more. Shouto looks back to see a tiny pout on Midoriya’s face. His forefinger taps the bottom of the shorter’s chin and he says, “We really should go eat,” leaving Midoriya surprised he heads to the door.
“Wh-what was that about?” he stutters out. Shouto shrugs, knowing that’s not a satisfactory answer for him. He beckons the other to come eat once more but Midoriya refuses, looking back to the book he tossed aside. “We still have some studying to do…”
“Pretty sure we’re having Katsudon tonight.”
Midoriya perks up and immediately jumps off his bed. “It can wait!” he shouts as he dashes out the door, grabbing Shouto’s hand and practically dragging him behind.