Work Text:
Eijirou bangs his head on the steering wheel. Downtown traffic is soul-sucking on the best of days but on the tail end of a five hour drive back from a weekend at his parents, the next car that doesn’t let him merge is going to become closely acquainted with the effects of Unbreakable on a windshield.
Just two more exits, and he’s basically home free.
Eijirou frowns. There’s a pillar of smoke rising above the exit sign. He flips on the radio.
“...bystanders report what appears to be a giant mechanical rabbit stomping around downtown Musutafu, causing property damage and commotion. Folks, if you’re around the downtown area, we’ll have advice shortly on how to avoid this zone and hopefully keep your person and vehicles intact—”
Eijirou sighs, signals, and takes the exit.
He parks behind a small church and runs towards the main street. Hopefully, whoever is controlling the rabbit is respectful enough to leave religious buildings alone—his insurance covers villain-related damages but it’s still a ridiculous pain to deal with.
“Riot!” Chargebolt runs up beside him. “Thought you were on vacation?”
“Overtime,” Eijirou says flatly. “They’re paying me double.”
Kaminari laughs. “That’s the dream! Ultraviolet’s somewhere here, she said she was going to try and find some kind of kill-switch.”
“You tried shorting it out yet?”
“Didn’t work. It’s either made out of some kind of insulator or they’ve treated it to make it resistant.”
“Bummer.”
“Can’t win ‘em all. You need an earpiece?”
“Say you don’t have an extra…you think I’m justified in going home?”
“I won’t tell anyone.”
Eijirou sighs. “Yeah. But I would know.”
The rabbit turns the corner towards them. Its eyes flash menacingly. Eijirou really wishes he’d just gone home.
“Oh, hey! Riot!” An invisible arm punches his shoulder. “Thought you were on vacation?”
“I was supposed to be.”
“No kill switches?” Kaminari asks.
“Found one, but the thing won’t stay in place long enough for me to get at it. Riot, you think you could…”
Eijirou shakes his arms out. Cracks his neck. “Yeah. Let’s do it.”
Kaminari disorients the robot by flashing lightning in its eyes while Eijirou holds its right leg in place and Hagakure activates the kill switch. It’s easy.
It’s too easy.
Eijirou braces himself to hold up the robot as it falls—hopefully minimizing both the damage to the roads and his inevitable mountain of paperwork—but that’s not what happens. The weight isn’t all on him. His arms don’t strain the way he’d expected.
“Relax, Red, I got it.”
Eijirou does not relax. Eijirou does what is probably the exact opposite of relaxing as every muscle and nerve in his body locks up like quick-dry cement.
“Why are you even here?” he grits out. “You like cleaning up your own messes?”
“Figured I’d give you a hand,” Incendiary says, the face beneath his mask stretching into an irritating grin. “Not like any of the extras you like to fight with are at our level.”
“Don’t talk about them like that.”
“If you trusted them, wouldn’t you have just gone straight home?”
“I do trust them and—and I can’t just ignore it when I see—” It clicks, then. “Did you purposefully run your little pet project here to interrupt my commute? Really, man?”
“It was Deku’s idea,” Incendiary says, shrugging. “He wanted to stomp all over—you know Aldera, two blocks down? But I knew you’d get all upset about the kids not having a school anymore, so—”
Eijirou shoves the rabbit up to the side. Incendiary laughs, like he’d been expecting it, and his hands pop as he helps. The rabbit collapses on its side. There’s a plume of dust from its ear falling off.
“How’d you even know I was on vacation?” Eijirou asks, throwing a fist at Incendiary’s perfect jawline.
Incendiary casually blocks it with an explosion. “Checked your work calendar.”
“Funny. Seriously.”
Incendiary takes the high ground, attacking him from above. Eijirou takes cover behind the rabbit’s sedentary corpse and considers his next move. The rabbit’s ear lies in front of him, a flattened stop sign poking out from beneath it.
“You wanna waste time asking about my intelligence gathering methods or you wanna fight?”
“I want to go home,” Eijirou says, swinging the detached ear like a bat. Incendiary grins, and it gets even bigger as he realizes the ear is too big for him to dodge. A deafening explosion whites out the sky—and broken, smoking bits of metal fall down around Eijirou.
He just stares. Everything is smudged grey and blurry with smoke. He can hear his friends calling his name. Incendiary winks at him, his smile a beacon in the mess of smoke—and then his face changes. His eyes widen, his mouth parts—he almost looks—scared…?
But why—
Something hits him. It’s heavy and hot—burned metal. It hurts. His knees buckle, and give way.
Oh. He must have dropped his quirk. He hadn’t realized.
The echoes of his name are coming closer, but it’s not Kaminari’s voice, or Hagakure’s. It’s low, and raspy, it sounds pretty nice, actually…
“Stupid hero.” A streak of red. A warm, gentle touch on his face. “Why fight if you’re this tired?”
Dumb question. He has to. He says as much, but his ears are ringing and he’s too tired to wait for any answer.
Red Riot’s home is cute like him.
The hospital apparently deems him fine to drive home by himself, so Katsuki follows him back to a nondescript apartment building, the inside of which is as welcoming as the outside is unassuming.
The walls are covered in pictures of family and friends. The coffee table in the living room is crowded with unopened packages and unboxed figurines—the kitchen counters similarly crowded with various snacks and supplements. His fridge is stuck all over with destination magnets, event invitations, and scribbled drawings—thank you notes from the children he saves, Katsuki assumes.
The fridge is full of packed meals, stacked neatly in matching containers. It’s the kind of thing a parent would do—and that’s where he was probably driving home from. That must be where he’d gone off to.
Katsuki had just… missed him. That was all. He’d thought Red was avoiding him, or, the worst case scenario—decided that Incendiary wasn’t a worthy threat anymore. And Deku had finished working on his giant robo-bunny around then and he’d figured it would be good timing. And it had been, right up until Red had collapsed under a hunk of flaming metal that normally would have rolled off his back like water.
It doesn’t matter anymore. Katsuki is here. He’s going to take care of him.
Red is sprawled out on his bed, snoring quietly. His hair is splayed around his pillow and his pant leg rides up one muscular calf.
Katsuki’s never seen him so peaceful—mainly because he’s usually the cause of Red’s stress. Heh.
He looks fine enough. Katsuki is mostly worried about him developing a post-traumatic fever—Red doesn’t sustain tough hits on his plain body a lot, and it must have been a shock. He reaches out, careful, and presses the back of his hand to Red’s forehead.
His temperature is fine.
Katsuki leaves his hand there for a moment longer. His skin is so soft. Like this, vulnerable and asleep, he seems completely different from the strong, indomitable hero Katsuki fights every day.
There isn’t a lot that gets to Katsuki—hasn’t been, for a long time, but the idea of anything or anyone getting to this Red—
It won’t happen. Katsuki is here to make sure of that.
His first order of business is to clean up. A cluttered space means a cluttered mind, and Red clearly doesn’t have time to be sorting through his mail—and why should he? He’s a busy hero—honestly, he should get his assistant to do this sort of thing—maybe not. Katsuki scowls at the thought of anyone else getting their hands all over Red Riot’s blood donation reminders. No. That’s Katsuki’s job.
He sorts out the trash from the actual important stuff. There’s a letter from some brat that Red saved from a bridge collapse that is… touching. Katsuki can picture the soft face he’ll make when he reads it. He’ll probably put it up on the fridge with all the other crayon drawings.
He unboxes the packages too. The protein supplements—right, because Red clearly doesn’t have enough of those—go with the rest in the kitchen cupboards. There’s a figurine of Chargebolt that makes Katsuki wrinkle his nose—they made his muscles bigger, for one, Katsuki’s seen him up close and he’s built like a dehydrated long bean—and then two substantially larger boxes.
Huh.
Brass curtain rods and soft orange curtains.
Katsuki imagines how nice the morning light will look coming through them. Pictures the relieved smile on Red’s face when he wakes up sore and tired and realizes it’s one less thing for him to deal with.
He gets to work.
Eijirou wakes up to silence, panics over sleeping through his alarm, and promptly remembers that he’s off today, on account of being taken down by a giant hunk of burning metal.
He gets out of bed slowly—he’s hungry, and food will fix whatever sleep hasn’t.
“What the fu—”
There’s a plate on the table for him. It’s piled high with eggs, potatoes, bacon, and slices of toasted bread.
Eijirou blinks.
“Kami? Ashido?”
What is he doing. Neither of them can cook.
“Iida? Uraraka? This is real nice of you!”
Silence.
Eijirou tiptoes into the living room, in case one of them is sleeping on the couch—and stops in his tracks.
The morning sunlight filters in beautifully through the curtains, bathing the room in warm, orange sunlight. It’s like walking into the sunset. He’d mostly just liked the colour—hadn’t expected it would make the room look this nice, take that Hagakure, he is good with interior design—
Except.
Had he hit his head harder than he thought? No. Surely he would remember putting up the curtains. They hadn’t even arrived before he left on his trip, and there’s no way he was in any kind of shape to do it last night.
The living room is empty, though. He goes to check the guest bedroom, and it’s empty too. When he goes back to inspect the breakfast plate, it’s still warm—meaning whoever made his food and put up his curtains just left.
Drive-by TLC.
Eijirou smiles. He has some good friends.
His messages are filled with well-wishes—Uraraka says she’s dropping by with Iida and Yaomomo in the evening, and Shinsou is spamming him with ominously uplifting memes.
No one takes credit for the curtains or the breakfast, so Eijirou types out a vague tweet about really appreciating his village, that he’s already feeling better, and how did they know he likes his eggs over hard?
The next day, his kitchen table presents another beautifully presented plate of breakfast—this one is more traditional, with ochazuke and cut up pear and seared fish.
Eijirou swings by the front desk to ask if anyone’s been by his apartment—he’s okay’d some of his friends for automatic entry, and the concierge knows them—but they just look at him, confused.
So it’s Hagakure, then.
That’s pretty sweet of her—if a little creepy. Eijirou figures it makes sense. Hagakure can get freaked out by emotional things sometimes, so she probably finds it easier to sneak in and out like a very caring, almost maternal ghost.
He invites her over for dinner, planning on just treating her to a nice meal and some expensive alcohol, in thanks for all the silent, steadfast help.
Except Hagakure walks in, sees the new curtains, and gasps, “Wow, I didn’t think you were good with interior design like this!”
Eijirou laughs at first, but then he looks at her—at her wide eyes, and the genuine surprise on her face—and realizes that she’s serious.
She hadn’t put them up.
“You good, man?”
He blinks. “Sorry?”
“You just spaced out for a minute there. Everything okay?”
“Fine,” he says faintly. The orange light flooding the living room feels like it’s drowning him, all of a sudden. “Let’s eat in the kitchen?”
“I have a question,” Red says. He’s pretty conversational for a guy who has Katsuki pinned to the ground. Katsuki relaxes into it. Being cradled in Red Riot’s arms is everyone’s dream, and here he is living it.
“Me first,” he says. “You in any pain at all? Nausea, memory stuff, anything?”
“Wh—” Red’s face twists into a cute, confused frown. “Are you… worried about me? You think I can’t take some debris?”
“I know you can. It’s why it was so fucking weird that you didn’t.”
Red rolls his eyes. “I’m fine. Just tired, because I’d been on the road for hours before your little stunt. Work on your timing, next time.”
“I will,” Katsuki says genuinely. “What was your question?”
Red coughs. “Do you…do you believe in ghosts?”
What.
Katsuki stares at him. Warm meals, a clean house, someone finally looking out for him, and this idiot thinks he’s haunted?
“No,” he says flatly.
“He’s an idiot, Deku!” Katsuki yells.
Deku sighs. “Can you please watch the—”
“I cook him breakfast, I organize his mail, I put up his curtains, I clean his entire home, and he thinks—”
“That’s fine, I can navigate, no big deal—”
“I’m a ghost? Can ghosts cook eggs and bacon all of a sudden? Can they snake the fucking drain?”
“There are miracles every day,” Deku says absentmindedly. “Last week there was that girl on the news who could walk on water, remember?”
“Deku,” Katsuki snaps. “Can you pay attention? This is important.”
“Can I—” Deku takes a deep breath, and parks their getaway car on the side of the road. “Alright, Kacchan. Have you talked to him?”
“What’d you do that for? They’re still follo—”
“They haven’t been following us for the last twelve kilometers. Which you would know. If you were watching, which is your job.”
Katsuki glowers.
“Whatever. My point is—you do all this stuff, but you haven’t left any notes, or told him—you know, that you—you—okay, I don’t actually know what you think you are. Regardless, he’s not a mindreader. You need to tell him.”
Deku is really fucking annoying. Fortunately for him, he’s almost as smart as he is annoying.
Notes. Now there’s an idea.
Eijirou’s ghost has graduated from spontaneous feng shui to leaving post-it notes—which is, really, the first sign that it isn’t actually a ghost, and Eijirou probably should have been a lot more worried than he initially was.
He finds them all over the house. Besides his breakfast—you need to eat more fiber. Very pointedly, on his weight rack—I almost tripped over this. PICK YOUR SHIT UP. On his washing machine—the detergent you use is too harsh for your skin. Use the new one.
“What new one?” Eijirou asks outloud, as if his empty apartment is going to answer him, just before he locates the new jug of detergent in the cabinet with the rest of the cleaning supplies. It’s a funny idea, the concept of laundry detergent being too much for his skin—his skin that is often toted as the nation’s shield—but it’s also…sweet. Someone is taking care of him. Someone sees beyond Unbreakable.
So Eijirou…maybe…writes back. Leaves the notes stuck to the fridge, so his secret admirer will see them easily.
Your smoothies taste great man! You mind using the strawberry-cream protein powder? It’s my favourite :)
I’ll apologize for leaving my weights out when you apologize for BREAKING IN!!!
Thanks for getting new detergent. I wasn’t sure how much it cost… Buy yourself dinner! On me! (He tapes a few bills to that one, but his secret admirer doesn’t take it. There’s no note, the bills are just tucked back into Eijirou’s wallet. A clear message—keep your money.)
The whole thing is crazy, he knows. He’s a prolific hero. His identity isn’t a secret, and he has a lot of enemies.
And yet… Eijirou just doesn’t feel unsafe in his home.
His job has allowed him to hone his intuition, over the years. They call it a “hero sense” —when heroes can predict an accident, fight, or villain’s identity before anything even happens to prove them right.
There’s none of that. Everything feels safe. Everything feels comfortable.
Eijirou wakes up and there’s breakfast warm on the table. His laundry is folded and his bathroom is sparkling clean and his body wash is this new, fancy brand that makes his chronically-dry skin—cracked from years of hardening—feel soft as a little baby duckling.
It feels… domestic, almost. A warped, ridiculous version of domesticity, but it feels nice nonetheless. Eijirou’s just a little disappointed that his secret admirer doesn’t ever stick around and eat breakfast with him.
Katsuki sneaks in later than he normally does. A new gang is trying to carve space for themselves—which Katsuki normally doesn’t give a fuck about, but they’re camping out at the schools and trying to recruit young runners and that he cares about. It has him and Deku busy, and he doesn’t get to Red’s until the early hours of the morning.
The place is in disarray.
Katsuki frowns. Red never makes a mess purposefully, like he expects Katsuki to clean up after him. It’s the opposite. He’s more purposeful—picking up his weights, cleaning the kitchen so Katsuki can cook easily—it’s cute. Making life easier for his stalker.
Red’s boots are strewn across the entryway. Unopened beer bottles crowd the living room coffee table, and the remote is on the floor by the TV.
Katsuki hadn’t watched the news. He pulls a site up on his phone and scrolls through the headlines—and there. Third from the top. Gas Main Collapse in Shinbashi District Leaves Four Injured.
Apparently, a gas leak caused an explosion on the second floor of a department store. Red Riot was on the scene. He evacuated everyone safely and did it in the ethical order—the old woman first, the mother and her child second. The last woman he’d evacuated is also alive—but, the article notes, is sustaining life-threatening injuries in the hospital. She’s a little younger than Red. She has her whole life ahead of her.
Yeah. Red’s bleeding heart can’t have taken that well.
So Katsuki cleans up, first. Clears out the bottles, places the remote in its usual place on the coffee table, and tidies up the entryway.
Once the place no longer looks like the unfortunate victim of Hurricane Red, he heads for the bedroom.
Red’s not wearing pajamas. His street clothes are strewn around the room, and the sheets are rumpled as if he’d been tossing and turning. Even in his sleep, his face is twisted up—not the cute scrunch Katsuki is so fond of, but—agonized. Like he’s in pain.
Katsuki’s body is moving forward before he can even think about it. He looms over Red, hand outstretched—what if he wakes up—but he never has before—he just looks so—like he needs—
Katsuki touches him. A thumb on his cheekbone. Gentle. A summer breeze of a touch. The quietest whisper of care.
And Red… turns into it. His big, hulking body, curling into the impression of Katsuki’s fingerprint.
Katsuki wants to wake him up.
The sheer desire is overwhelming. Katsuki pictures it all—Red’s face scrunching up, the confused look he’d have upon waking and seeing Katsuki—and maybe he’d be scared at first, or shocked, but maybe—maybe when it all subsided, he’d press into Katsuki’s hand, slot his face right there in Katsuki’s palm like he knew nothing would hurt him there.
He flinches back when Red’s face moves in discomfort. But—no. He’s still asleep, eyes shut tight, even as his body thrashes in bed and he mutters something under his breath—unintelligble but audibly frantic.
It feels unnecessarily cruel for him to be attacked now. Sleep-soft and defenceless. A cowardly, one-sided fight.
He’s a deep sleeper, Katsuki reminds himself. Red didn’t wake up when Katsuki accidentally triggered a collapse in the sink from removing one structurally integral plate, and that shit was loud.
Gingerly, he takes a seat on the edge of the bed.
Red is still thrashing.
Katsuki inches closer. He reaches out with steady hands and shifts Red’s head into his lap. Red doesn’t react and Katsuki gets braver. Runs one hand through his hair, scratches lightly at his hairline. Massages his temple. Presses his thumb into the divot between Red’s brows—presses the little furrow out.
And Red quiets.
His handsome face smooths out into serenity. His breathing relaxes, his body melts into the bed. His mouth—initally parted, panicked—tilts up into a small, sweet smile.
Everything is still. Everything is quiet.
Katsuki understands in sudden, searing, clarity—that this is how an addiction begins.
Eijirou has been sleeping better recently. He’s not stupid enough to ignore the clear common denominator here. Once had been an unexpected fluke, especially after a night he was surprised he’d managed to sleep at all. But then it happened twice in a row, then a week, and the other night he’d genuinely woken up feeling refreshed.
People have started to notice. There’s a bet in the office going on, started because he won’t actually tell anyone what it is which means that his coworkers are competing to find the most outlandish answer.
Ashido thinks it’s ashwagandha. Kaminari thinks it’s some kind of black market melatonin. Jirou and Sero both think it’s a secret boyfriend. Iida, when pressed, announces he’s above immoral pursuits like gambling, but Eijirou’s pretty sure he saw him slipping Kaminari some cash and whispering something about hypnosis.
Out of all of them, Jirou and Sero are the closest—not that Eijirou’s telling them that, especially when he doesn’t know what exactly his secret admirer is doing to help him sleep—only that it’s working, and working well.
Are you slipping sleeping pills into my food or something? he writes on the fridge.
The reply comes the next morning—so non-committal that Eijirou laughs. No. Do you want me to?
Eijirou debates asking them what they’re doing, then, until he gets a better idea.
His admirer isn’t the only one who’s allowed to be sneaky. Eijirou’s been letting them have the upper hand for a while now, but enough is enough.
…It’s not exactly rocket science. Eijirou slams three Redbull’s before he heads home, and makes sure to toss the cans out at work, lest his admirer find them in the kitchen trashcan and put two and two together.
A few hours later, he’s lying awake in bed, staring at the ceiling, when he hears the quietest click of his door opening.
It used to creak, he remembers, but now the only sound is that of the lock turning. Did his admirer oil the hinges? That’s dedication.
Eijirou closes his eyes and works on keeping his face still, despite the anticipation rising in his gut. He feels like a kid staying up late to catch Santa Claus—cataloguing every tiny sound with glee. The soft thump of shoes being toed off. Footsteps approaching the bedroom.
The door opens, but no light floods in. His admirer can navigate the apartment in the dark, then. He’s that familiar. Knows Eijirou’s home like it’s his own.
The door clicks shut. It’s just the two of them, alone in the dark.
The footsteps come closer.
A soft huff—and then the mattress dips.
Oh.
A soft touch between his eyebrows, smoothing out the wrinkle there. His admirer’s thumb strokes back and forth. The skin is tough and calloused, but the touch is gentle. He touches Eijirou so sweetly.
“What is it this time? Thought you had a good day today.”
Eijirou bites down on his tongue hard.
It’s a nice voice—low, raspy—but, above all, familiar. Eijirou’s just never heard him sound so fond, is all.
“C’mon,” Incendiary coaxes, massaging Eijirou’s temples. “Relax. There you go.”
He runs his fingers over Eijirou’s face the same way he’d walked through his hallways blind. Familiar. Routine. Like he knows exactly what to do to make Eijirou relax. His fingers rub gentle circles over Eijirou’s eyelids, nose, his forehead—releasing tension Eijirou hadn’t even known was there.
The breaking point comes when Incendiary lightly scratches his nails against Eijirou’s scalp—and Eijirou can’t stop the sigh that escapes him, pour satisfaction.
Incendiary just laughs. “Yeah,” he murmurs, affection dripping from his voice like honey. “C’mere, sweetheart.”
He tugs Eijirou’s head into his lap and plays with him properly—fingers raking through his hair, fingertips branding the crown of his scalp.
Incendiary's hands touch Eijirou like it’s a discipline he’s studied his whole life. This—the honed focus of his ring finger, tracing Eijirou’s laugh lines and lingering at the corner of his mouth.
Some amount of time later, he gently moves Eijirou’s head back onto his pillow, tucks him in, and stands up—and stays there, for a while. Just looking. Like he wants to stay, but doesn’t know if he’s allowed.
Eventually, Incendiary walks away. Eijirou listens to him start the stove up and cook something. Whatever it is, it smells good.
This is the last time I’m letting you leave, Eijirou promises—transmits the thought down the hall, into the kitchen, where his secret admirer and greatest rival is frying bacon.
And then, because he really is tired now, he goes to sleep.
Katsuki goes through his routine like normal. He avoids Red’s bedroom—he’d gotten stuck there, last time, and barely gotten up in time to make breakfast.
He clears out the mail, tidies up the living room—Red must have had some heroes over, because it’s messier than usual—and gets to work in the kitchen. Red’s graduated from post-it notes—now he just tells whatever journalist finds him after a fight that he’s craving some fuckass TikTok recipe and it’s up to Katsuki to figure out how to make it.
So Katsuki makes his stupid clickbait concoction that, at least, smells good—and restocks the medicine cabinet because the idiot’s First-Aid kit is empty.
His eye starts twitching at the thought of Red. Katsuki had watched him jump off a building today. He’d been fine, of course, but the ease with which he’d launched himself off the roof had given Katsuki heartburn so bad he’d needed to pick up antacids.
I’ll just check on him, he tells himself, heading down the hall. In and out. Five seconds. A minute, tops.
Red is starfished out on his bed, shirtless and snoring. His pajama pants have sharks on him. He’s propped up against his pillows awkwardly—his laptop open to the side, quietly playing sports reruns.
Probably tired from his long day of jumping off buildings. Katsuki imagines that takes a lot out of a person.
Regardless, his neck is going to hurt if he stays like that for too long, so Katsuki reaches over to move him—
And yelps, when a hardened hand clamps down around his wrist.
Red’s eyes are still closed, but his lips are tilted up. Katsuki would bet Deku’s life savings on the asshole trying his hardest not to laugh.
He tugs his arm experimentally. No give. Tugs a little harder. Red’s laugh lines are in full effect now.
“You’re impossible,” Katsuki tells him. “You’re supposed to call the police, dumbass. Call your hero friends. Incapacitate me yourself. How long were you awake? You tried staying awake to catch me and fall asleep like a fucking five-year-old?”
Red frowns. He finally looks up at Katsuki—visibly trying to focus despite big, sleepy blinks. It is completely and utterly disarming.
“I’m tired,” he says very simply, like Katsuki is inconveniencing him. “Can we talk about this in the morning?”
“Talk about—no, jackass, there’s nothing to talk about—”
“You’re right.” And Red yanks him down onto the bed.
Katsuki lets out an embarrassing noise as he tumbles down onto the mattress—looks at the pro hero, completely bewildered, as he manages to tuck Katsuki beneath the covers. He flinches back when Red moves closer.
Red looks offended. “Stop that.” He burrows into Katsuki's side and throws his arm across his chest, tugging him even closer.
“What are you—”
“Take your socks off,” Red orders. “Who the hell wears socks to sleep.”
“Don’t tell me what to—get your fucking toes away from my feet, you freak—”
Katsuki splutters in disbelief as Pro Hero Red Riot hooks his bony toes inside Katsuki’s socks, peels them off, and kicks them out to the edge of the bed.
“Hm. Better.” Red yawns. “I’m tired. Aren’t you tired?”
Katsuki feels like a dog about to be put down. “You’re—you—”
“I wanna have breakfast together, in the morning.”
“Right.”
Red eyes flash open. He pokes Katsuki in the ribs with one hardened finger. “I’m serious.”
“Ow! Fuck, fine, what do you want?”
“Mm. Eggs. And bacon. Ooh, and Kaminari imported these freaky maple syrup beans from Canada, I wanna try them.
“I’m not feeding you illegal Canadian beans. They’re probably laced with Canadian magic mushrooms—”
“They’re beans.”
“At least let me look at it in the lab first.”
“In the—so you can throw me through a wall but you draw the line at making me beans for breakfast?”
Katsuki frowns. He doesn’t see what the big deal is. “Just wanna make sure you’re eating good. That’s all.”
Red makes a noise that would make more sense coming from a tweenage girl at a BTS concert. “God, I knew you would be like this.”
“Like what?”
“Just—good to me. I’m gonna be good to you back, okay?” He says it soft, like a light left on. Like a homecoming.
Katsuki exhales. The bed is warm and his chest, despite the pro hero sprawled on top of it, feels light. “Yeah. Yeah, okay.”