Enough To Go By (Chapter 7) - A Shigaraki X F!Reader Fic

Enough to Go By (Chapter 7) - a Shigaraki x f!Reader fic

Your best friend vanished on the same night his family was murdered, and even though the world forgot about him, you never did. When a chance encounter brings you back into contact with Shimura Tenko, you'll do anything to make sure you don't lose him again. Keep his secrets? Sure. Aid the League of Villains? Of course. Sacrifice everything? You would - but as the battle between the League of Villains and hero society unfolds, it becomes clear that everything is far more than you or anyone else imagined it would be. (cross-posted to Ao3)

Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8

Chapter 7

Kurogiri snatches you from the alleyway behind the clinic. You’re ready for it, or as ready as it’s possible to be when you don’t know what Tenko’s planning. When you reappear, you’re not in the bar – instead you’re in the hallway outside Tenko’s room, and the door to his room is open. He looks pleased to see you. The hand’s already down off his face.

“You’re here. Good,” he says – but his expression shifts from anticipation into something sharper almost instantly. “What is it? Are you –”

This has been the worst twenty-four hours you’ve had since the night you first saw Tenko again. Between the visit with your family and the news about Kazuo and your encounter with Tenko’s master, you don’t have it in you to pretend. You take an unsteady step closer to him. “Can I, um –”

“What?” Tenko asks, but some part of him must know, because his arms lift from his sides, opening to leave space between them. You take another step closer, until you’re well within the space, and you know when he realizes, because he takes a sharp breath. “Yeah, you can. Go ahead.”

He hugs you back too tightly, but you’re probably hugging him too tightly in the first place. He can’t decide where to put his hands. He keeps trying different spots, but no matter where he touches you, it’s never with more than three fingers down. For your part, you keep your hands still on his back, resisting the urge to run them over his shoulder blades or along his spine. He’s really thin. Almost malnourished thin. No wonder his wounds take so long to heal.

You let your head fall against his shoulder, let your eyes fall shut. “What happened?” Tenko asks. He adjusts his grip on you without fully letting go. “Why do you look like that?”

His master said not to tell Tenko – no, advised you not to tell Tomura. But he also said he’d have no further dealings with you. You don’t know where Kurogiri is, what Kurogiri might say, so you speak as quietly as you can, your mouth just below Tenko’s ear. “I met your master.”

Tenko stiffens. “What?”

“Kurogiri took me to him. I thought he was taking me to you, but –”

“What did he want?” Tenko asks. His voice is tense, already going flat. “What did you tell him?”

“He wanted to know how I knew you. I told him about how we met last year, when you came to the clinic.” You feel Tenko’s shoulders relax slightly at that. “I used the right name. I don’t –”

“Here.” Tenko pulls away from you, but only long enough to pull you through the door to his room and shut it behind you both. “What else did he ask?”

“About my quirk. He said he’d give me one, but he changed his mind.” You try to remember, but it’s hard verging on impossible. All you can think of is the hand closing over your face, the enormous figure looming over you. “He said I was your game piece, not his. What does that mean?”

You look up at Tenko. Tenko’s expression is somehow grim and calculating at the same time. “He says everything’s for me. Everything should be as I want it, so he won’t take you away,” he says. Then, almost to himself: “But he was suspicious. If he finds out –”

“Finds out what?”

“Here.” Tenko pulls you closer than before. This time you feel his chapped lips against your ear. “I was supposed to say goodbye to my old name. When he gave me my family to wear.”

His family to wear. His family – the hands. You almost throw up. Tenko keeps talking, faster now. “I didn’t think about it. I hadn’t in years, until – and I feel different when I hear it. Different than I’m supposed to. I want the same things, but more things. I don’t know how to say it.”

“You’re not supposed to be Tenko anymore.” You feel him nod. “You feel more like that when you’re with me.”

Tenko nods again. “You always know how to say it right.”

“I know you,” you say. His grip on you tightens. “You’re in trouble with him because of me.”

“No.” Tenko’s index finger taps a pattern on your back. “I feel better when you’re here.”

That doesn’t mean he’s not in trouble. It just means he cares about it less, or he’s less worried than you are. “Just be careful with my name,” he continues. “Call me Sensei’s name around everyone else, even Kurogiri. When it’s just us, like right now –”

“Tenko,” you say, and he nods. You feel a little better, maybe. You don’t know for sure. And you know you’ve been hugging him for way too long. You step back. “Sorry about this. I –”

“Don’t,” Tenko says. “I told you. I don’t mind.”

The two of you look at each other for a moment. In your peripheral vision, you can see that the room’s even cleaner than it was the last time you were here. The coffee table still has a pileup of games on it, but there’s also an open energy drink can sitting there. With a flower sticking out of it.

You fixate on the flower. “Where’d you get that?”

“I found it,” Tenko says, but he can’t hold your gaze, which means he’s lying and he probably stole it. “So you wouldn’t get confused this time.”

“About whether it’s a date?” you ask. He nods without looking at you. “Okay. It’s a date.”

“It’s a date right now,” Tenko corrects. “The new members of the League will be here at midnight. Do you have a disguise?”

“I think so.” You’ve been carrying it around in your bag, since you don’t have a way to predict when Tenko will call for you. “Do you want to see it?”

He nods. You fish both pieces of it out of your bag and put it on, situating the veil over your face and peering at Tenko through the filmy fabric. “Can you see my face?”

“Not really.” Tenko tilts his head, studying you. “What is it?”

“My friends and I dressed up as vampire brides last Halloween, but I went a little too hard on the bride part,” you say. “I was going to use a mask, but it was hard to breathe, and I couldn’t see very well. And the veil covers my hair, too.”

Tenko nods again. “What’s the crown made of?”

“It’s supposed to look like thorns.” You cringe a little bit. “Hirono made me wear it with the costume, and I still needed something to hold the veil in place. Does it work?”

Tenko comes closer. A lot closer. “Not at this range,” he says. You’d have to agree. If you can count his eyelashes through the veil, he can definitely see your face. “I’m not letting any of them that close to you or me. You can take it off now.”

You lift the crown off, and the veil after it, and Tenko takes them from you, setting them down on the end of the coffee table next to the hand he usually wears on his face. They look unbelievably weird laid out next to each other – like the costume pieces they are, things the two of you can take on and off whenever you want to instead of symbols of what Tenko already is, what you’re getting yourself into. “The others won’t be here for a few hours,” Tenko says. “Do you want to play a game?”

“Do you need to do anything to get ready for the meeting?” you ask. “It sounds important.”

“The plan’s already done. I’ll tell you about who will be there, but we don’t need anything else. Just –” Tenko lifts his head as if to scratch at his neck, then lowers it again. “I don’t want to think about it right now. I’ve thought about it enough. Can we –”

“Yeah,” you say at once. “Let’s just play.”

You play Call of Duty again, starting off in co-op mode this time. You were so worried that your skills would atrophy that you made Ryuhei and Mitsuru play with you until you got better, something Tenko remarks on right away. “I can’t believe you practiced.”

“I wouldn’t be much of a sidekick if I stayed dead weight,” you say. “Don’t worry. It won’t last long.”

The two of you still have a ways to go before the intermediate levels, and with the pressure off, Tenko starts telling you about the allies he’s collected. Mostly guys – for whatever reason, there aren’t a lot of female villains. The two women are Hiikishi, who goes by Magne, and Toga, who goes by Toga. Magne’s an adult with a serious record, and Toga would have a serious record if she was an adult, which she isn’t. “Seventeen?” you say, startled. “She’s just a kid.”

“She’s a Stain fan,” Tenko says. He rolls his eyes, then takes out an entire group of enemies advancing on the two of you without looking at the screen. “So are two of the others. One of them’s got a fire quirk. He’s an asshole. The other one – he’s hard to get a read on. Keep an eye on him.”

“I can do that,” you say. You see a solitary enemy sneaking up behind Tenko’s character, adjust your viewpoint minutely, and shoot them before they can shoot him. “Who else?”

Toga apparently isn’t the only kid who’s taking on a life of villainy. There’s another high school student, too, and you think about what Kazuo said, about the question of whether the creation of new villains can be prevented. Two of the other new allies fall into the category of those Kazuo said would be drawn to violence regardless. You recognize both names from the news, and you’ve listened to enough true-crime podcasts at Mitsuru’s behest to know that at least one of them is supposed to be behind bars. “Did you break them out?”

“Kurogiri’s doing that,” Tenko says, unworried. “They’re the distraction. Compress will be doing the real work.”

“Compress?”

“We were lucky to find him,” Tenko says. There’s a nasty grin on his face. “You’ll hear more about him when we go over the plan. We – dammit.”

The two of you leveled up while you were talking, and there are twice as many enemies as before. You decide to drop the line of questioning and focus on the game. Playing with Mitsuru and Ryuhei, you never got through the first of the intermediate levels. Tenko’s better than they are by a long shot, but you’ll need all your wits about you to avoid dragging him down.

You and Tenko play in silence for the most part, working together as a team, and you notice the two of you shifting closer together as the game continues, moving from your separate corners of the couch to the middle of it. You’re paying attention to the game, but every so often your mind drifts – to the flower in the energy drink can, to the fact that this is apparently a date, to the fact that Tenko let you hug him and hugged you back. If this is a date, if he keeps calling it a date, there must be something he wants from you that’s more than this, more than whatever the two of you are doing right now. You could ask what it is. Part of you doesn’t want to know.

You and Tenko clear one or two intermediate levels, but on the third one, you know the two of you are in deep trouble. You’re low on health already, courtesy of getting dinged a few times on the level before, and your skills, while improved, aren’t good enough to let you hold your own. Tenko’s having to protect you, just like you were worried he would, and in the process, he’s taking damage, too. Despite that, courtesy of Tenko’s skills and your weird accuracy, the two of you progress to the end of the level. Almost.

“Come on,” Tenko hisses. He’s two seconds away from disintegrating his controller. “We can make it.”

No, you can’t. Not both of you. But if Tenko can get through, he can get to a save point, and you can finish the level later. If you both die, you have to go back to the beginning. With that in mind, it’s an easy choice. You maneuver your character between Tenko’s and the enemies sneaking up on him from behind, and shoot as many of them as you can before they overwhelm you. Tenko turns to stare at you in horror. “You died?”

“You didn’t. Go!”

Tenko swears, shoots the enemies you couldn’t kill, and clears the level at speed. He saves his progress. Then he turns on you. “What happened?”

You point at the screen, which is showing a slow-motion replay of your character getting absolutely shredded by enemy fire. “You were blocking for me?” Tenko looks unhappy. “Idiot. We could have won.”

“I was slowing you down too much,” you say. “I could help you get through, so I did. Now you don’t have to start over.”

“But you do.”

“I’m the sidekick. It’s okay,” you say. You’re not sure why he’s looking at you like that. “And even if I wasn’t your sidekick – there’s no way I’d let my best friend lose.”

Tenko doesn’t say a word in response. Instead he sets his controller aside, then lifts yours out of your hands and does the same. You’re sitting really close together right now. He said this was a date. You make eye contact with Tenko, or try to. He’s not looking into your eyes. He’s looking at your mouth.

He’s being really obvious. You wonder if he knows. “Have you kissed anyone before?”

“Yeah. You.” Tenko doesn’t look away from your mouth. “Don’t you remember?”

For a moment you don’t. But then you remember the picture of the two of you on Valentine’s Day, and what happened after the picture was taken – you taking the valentine from him, planting a poorly-aimed kiss half on his mouth and half on his cheek, and promptly running away. You’re surprised he’s counting that. But you would count it, too, if it was the only thing you had to count.

“I remember,” you say. “So this is going to be our second kiss.”

“Who said I was going to kiss you?”

“You’ve been staring at my mouth for the last minute and a half. I’m not sure what else you could be doing,” you say. Tenko’s face turns red, which means you’re right, but he still doesn’t make a move. “Did you change your mind?”

“No.” Tenko shakes his head. “I don’t know where to put my hands.”

“Don’t do anything with them for now,” you suggest. Your heart is beating faster. “Let’s just try it and see how it goes.”

He’s leaning closer now, shifting position to close the gap even further. The flush in his cheeks is darker than before. “I’m not going to be good at it.”

“Hey, I was pretty bad at Call of Duty last time,” you say. Tenko starts to argue that kissing and Call of Duty have absolutely nothing in common, and you cut him off. “You know how I got better? I practiced.”

Tenko finally tears his eyes away from your mouth. “You wouldn’t have had anything to practice if I hadn’t taught you how. You should kiss me.”

“I kissed you the first time,” you say. “It’s your turn.”

It’s quiet for a second. “Fine,” Tenko says. He leans in and you tilt your head to the proper angle and your lips meet for the first time in fifteen years.

You really don’t want to count the kiss when you were five as your first kiss, but Tenko’s counting it, so you sort of have to. His lips are rough against yours, not in pressure but in texture, and you’re careful as you kiss him back. Careful for a whole host of reasons. His hands are curled into fists on his thighs, and you don’t want him to move without thinking. You don’t want him to pull away, either, which is what he’ll do if you go overboard. It’s not the hottest first kiss you’ve ever had, but it’s the most intense by far. The fact that your lips are the only point of contact makes it even more so.

You’re trying to be careful, but you’re not careful enough – Tenko’s lower lip splits, and you taste blood. You sit back in a hurry. “Sorry. I didn’t mean –”

“I don’t care.” Tenko closes the gap between you again, presses his lips against yours a second time. “Do you?”

“I don’t want to stop kissing you,” you admit. You feel Tenko’s lips curve into a smile, spilling more blood onto yours. “But you have to let me make it up to you.”

“How?”

You unfold your hands from your sides and raise them, setting them on Tenko’s shoulders. Tenko freezes. You risk dragging your thumbs slowly across his collarbones, too prominent just like his shoulder blades and vertebrae are, and see his eyes fall half-lidded. A slow shudder runs through him, shedding tension in its wake. “Do you mind?” you ask.

“No.” Tenko kisses you again.

Kissing Tenko is – strange. It’s not bad. Definitely not bad, and definitely not something you want to stop doing, but still, it feels strange. Part of it is the taste of his blood on your lips, the almost-starved ridges of his shoulders and spine under your hands, the fact that you can touch him but he can’t touch you. And part of it is the missing piece of time, those fifteen years where you would have known each other if this hadn’t happened to Tenko – whatever this was. It feels almost like a blink. When you look back in your memories, you’re little kids, linking pinkies on the way to school. Now you’re kissing on the bed in Tenko’s room with Call of Duty paused in the background. Or making out. If the total lack of daylight between your mouth and Tenko’s is anything to go by, you graduated to making out already.

You can’t get your tongue involved without tasting even more of his blood, but the sound he makes and the shudder that runs through him when you swipe your tongue across his lower lip to clear it away makes it almost worth it. His fists are no longer resting on his thighs – now they’re on yours, fingers uncurling and curling again. You dare to slide one hand upward, tracing the back of his neck, and Tenko groans, shudders. The thought comes to you, again, that you should be careful with him. He’s so thin, so shaky under your hands. If you push him too far, he might break apart.

Tenko’s trying to talk without disconnecting his mouth from yours. That’s not going to work. You wrap your arms around his neck so he knows you’re not going anywhere and sit back. “What is it?”

“I want to touch you.” Tenko’s eyes are locked on yours this time, and the hunger and desperation you see there takes you by surprise. “I don’t know how to make it safe. I don’t want –”

Something happens to him then. You don’t know how to describe it. Something flashes behind his eyes, and his shoulders tense beneath your hands, muscles turning so rigid and brittle that they feel as though they could shatter. “It’s okay,” you say quickly. You shift closer to him without asking first, halfway into his lap, trying to give him some of the contact he wants without getting his hands involved. “You could go slow. Or be careful. Or if you had gloves –”

Tenko’s eyes light up. “Wait here.”

You shift out of his lap as requested and he gets to his feet, heading for one corner of the room. You take a second to get composed.  You can still taste Tenko’s blood on your lips, and when you raise your hands to touch your cheeks, they feel hot. Kissing him feels good, is good – but you’ve always liked your makeouts a little more hands-on, and once Tenko’s able to touch you safely, you can’t vouch for how well you’ll behave yourself. Are you really the only one who’s ever kissed him? He must be a quick study. Even with his blood on your lips, you’re already missing the heat of his mouth on yours.

Tenko’s back a moment later. He has a pair of gloves on – gloves that are missing the first three fingers. It takes all five to activate his quirk, which means you’re safe, and he still has the chance to touch you directly. He hesitates before he sits down again. “Do you really want –”

“Yes.” You catch his hand – it’s safe to do that now – and pull him down beside you. He makes a startled sound, which you immediately muffle in a kiss. It’s cute, but there are sounds you like better. “I want you.”

You were going to be more specific with what you wanted – I want you sounds heavy as all hell when the two of you have only just gotten physical – but Tenko doesn’t give you the chance. He wraps his arms around you tightly, so tight that it’s almost hard to breathe, but he doesn’t hold you that way for long. Soon enough his hands are roaming across your back from shoulder to hip, freezing briefly when they encounter your bra through your shirt, all while he deepens the kiss to an almost unsustainable degree. It’s like he’s trying to steal the air out of your lungs.

Tenko’s hands seize your shoulder, your hip, and grip hard. You don’t like being handled roughly, but held – that’s something different. You swallow a gasp and press closer to him, almost in his lap again. His grip on you tightens further and he pulls you the rest of the way. Your lips unlock from his in the move, coming loose with a slurping sound that would probably make you cringe under other circumstances, with someone else. As it is, you seize the opportunity to catch your breath.

Tenko looks up at you. His fingers are pressing deeply into your skin, hard enough to bruise through your clothes. His chest rises and falls rapidly, pressing against your own, and his red eyes are wide, pupils dilated. When you shift, trying to get settled in his lap, he sucks in a sharp breath. “Hold still.”

You’re comfortable now. You don’t mind. You look at him, studying the small things, the ones you remember from before. The tousled, slightly messy texture of his hair. His eyelashes, always a little longer than you expect them to be. The birthmark at the corner of his mouth, which you lean in to kiss lightly. You’ve always wanted to do that. Half the reason your first kiss was so messy was because you couldn’t decide whether to aim for the birthmark or his lips.

When you draw back, you see a surprised look on Tenko’s face. “You like that?” he asks. You nod, and a strange expression flickers across his face. “My grandma had it too.”

“I don’t remember that.”

“My other one. I saw in a picture.” Tenko’s thumb moves in slow circles over your hip, like he’s rubbing a worry stone. You don’t think he even knows he’s doing it. “She was a hero.”

“Really?” You didn’t expect him to say that. He nods. “You never told me.”

“I was going to.” Tenko’s eyes shift away from yours. “I found out that day.”

That day. It takes you a second to parse that, but once you do, your blood runs cold. The question balances on the tip of your tongue, a question you’ve been asking yourself for fifteen years, a question you know you shouldn’t ask him. You don’t need to know what happened. You saw what happened. All you need to know is that he’s here.

“Hey,” you say softly. Tenko won’t look at you, so you reach out, cupping the curve of his cheek, turning him back to put you face to face, if not eye to eye. “I’m glad you told me now. Better late than never. It would have been good to know for our games.”

Tenko scoffs at that. “We used to play some stupid games.”

“I liked them,” you say. “I like any game I play with you.”

Tenko’s been avoiding eye contact, but now he looks at you, and your breath catches. You can’t let him look at you like that. You’ll say more than you mean to. “Do you want to keep talking?” you ask. “Or do you want to make out some more?”

For a second you think Tenko will opt for talking. He looks like he’s thinking about it. Then the hand on your shoulder shifts to wrap around the back of your neck, and he drags you down for another kiss.

This position seems like it works for the two of you. The difference in your heights is perfect for it, and it gives you a little more control over the kissing while giving Tenko the chance to put his hands wherever he wants. He keeps them well clear of anything too forward, and eventually he finds a place he likes for both of them – one on your lower back, beneath the hem of your shirt, and the other around the back of your neck. It keeps you close, as if there was any chance you’d pull away.

You’re kissing too deeply to talk, except for once, when Tenko pulls away to make eye contact. “No more dates with heroes.”

You only went on that one date with Sugimura. After the night on the rooftop in Hosu, you had to accept that your feelings were elsewhere. “None for you, either.”

Tenko snorts. Then, almost as an afterthought: “No more with anybody.”

“You’re trying to lock it down already?” you tease. “It’s only our second date.”

“I don’t care.” Tenko’s expression is serious. “I don’t want another sidekick. You shouldn’t want another –”

He trails off, searching for the word. The word that follows naturally is ‘hero’, but you understand why he won’t use it. “I don’t want that,” you say. “You can lock me down. As long as I get to lock you down. It’s only fair.”

When you’ve had talks with guys about exclusivity in the past, they’ve looked vaguely annoyed. Tenko actually looks pleased with the thought. Not that that stops him from ribbing you about it. “You’re the one with seven siblings. You don’t like sharing?”

“I hate it.” you say, and he laughs. “You would, too, if you were me.”

Tenko smirks. He leans back from you without loosening his grip. “Go ahead, then,” he says. “Lock me down.”

He really shouldn’t challenge you like that. It gives you ideas. You lean in like you’re going to kiss him again, diverting at the last second to kiss the side of his neck, and Tenko’s complaints about how you don’t get to lock him down if you won’t even kiss him evaporate in seconds. You keep kissing him anyway. He wants you to lock him down? Fine. You’ll make sure everybody who looks at him knows that he belongs to somebody, even if they don’t know who that somebody is.

His neck is sensitive, and he’s not the quiet type. As high as his pain tolerance supposedly is, he’s almost absurdly sensitive to pleasure, and you like the idea of making him feel good a little too much. You know it’s working when Tenko’s grip on you changes, when he starts scrabbling for purchase on your back or your hip rather than holding tight, but even better than that is the unsteady sound of his breathing in your ear, the little noises he makes. You like it when guys are vocal. After one sound that crosses the line into a moan, you stop, and speak without lifting your mouth from his skin. “Locked down enough for you?”

“Fuck,” Tenko mumbles. You draw back to look at him and find his face flushed. “Maybe a little more –”

You kiss his mouth this time. You’re getting used to the taste of blood.

You don’t hear footsteps in the hallway or hear the door open, but you absolutely hear Kurogiri’s voice issuing from the doorway. “Shigaraki Tomura. It is nearly midnight.”

You pull away from Tenko, but not completely enough – there’s a rope of saliva stretching between your lips and his, which you deal with by leaning in to kiss him again. Tenko’s clearly embarrassed by Kurogiri’s presence, but that doesn’t stop him from kissing you back before he pulls away. “Knock next time,” he snaps at Kurogiri. “Are they here?”

“I will retrieve them shortly. Once the two of you are presentable.” Kurogiri apparently doesn’t trust the two of you not to go back to making out. He stands in the doorway, watching as you scramble out of Tenko’s lap and Tenko gets to his feet. “So the date went well?”

There’s that syntax shift again. “Shut up,” Tenko mutters. “Don’t act like you didn’t break my rule. You took her to Sensei. You’re lucky I don’t kill you.”

“If his orders contradict yours, my instructions are to follow his,” Kurogiri says. Tenko’s head snaps up. “I thought you were aware.”

“Now I am.” Tenko straightens his shirt and settles the hand over his face. He turns to face you and you wince. “What?”

You’ve seen the sketch of him from the USJ incident. It’s been all over the news for the past few weeks. “The hands for your neck – you might want them. There’s, um, evidence.”

“Evidence?” Tenko repeats, puzzled. Then his face turns red around the hand. He hurries to the far corner of the room and lifts a set of hands out, quickly securing them around his neck. “Can you see it now?”

You shake your head. “It is well hidden,” Kurogiri remarks. He looks to you. “Your disguise?”

You forgot about that. You collect the veil and crown off the end of the coffee table and secure both over your head. “I will retrieve the others,” Kurogiri says. “But first, the two of you.”

Warp gates open beneath your feet and Tenko’s, and when they close, you find yourselves in the bar again. Kurogiri himself vanishes, and Tenko settles into his usual seat. You stand there awkwardly. “Where do you want me to be?”

“Sit here.” Tenko taps the bar, and you scramble up. “Watch everybody. Keep an eye on the Stain fans. Act like you already know the plan. I should have told you already. I just –”

“You had other things to think about.” Your veil hides your face better than the hand hides Tenko’s – your face can flush until you’re practically glowing and no one will be able to see it unless they’re right up close. “How will I know if you want me to step in?”

“You’ll know when, if you need to. I trust you.” Tenko looks left, then right – then down at his hands. “Fuck. I can’t wear these. They’ll –”

“Here.” You hold out your hands for Tenko’s, and when he extends them, you peel the gloves off and tuck them away. With the model hands on and all ten fingers exposed, he’s different. You’re not sure how to quantify it, but you know it’s there, and it prompts a question. “Should I call you Shigaraki or Tomura?”

“Shigaraki,” he says, and you nod – but then, as the first warp gates begin to appear, he changes his mind. “Tomura. You’re different than they are. They should know from the start.”

So he’s planning to make your status distinct from the others, right from the beginning. You don’t know if that’s a good idea, but before you can protest or push back even slightly, the first of the allies Tenko’s gathered step through the portals, and you fall silent. Unless something goes horrendously wrong, you’re going to stay that way for the duration of the meeting.

The first two villains to arrive are also the youngest – the girl, Toga, and the boy who named himself Mustard, after the gas. Next up is the fire quirk-user, notable because of his patchwork skin and the staples holding the living tissue to the dead. You stare from behind the safety of your veil. You have no idea how his body is holding together. It shouldn’t be possible.

Next is a heteromorph, green-skinned and purple-haired, wearing a Stain mask. He must be the one Tenko – no, Tomura – said was hard to get a read on. The one you’re supposed to watch.

Magne arrives, followed shortly afterwards by a masked man – Compress, definitely, because the two men who arrive last are the murderers Kurogiri must have just broken out of prison. They scare you in a way the others don’t, and you’re so wary of them that you almost miss the arrival of the last villain. And you really shouldn’t miss his arrival. After all, he’s the only villain here who you’ve met before.

“Twice?” you say, startled, and Tomura looks up at you. Luckily, everyone else is still getting their bearings, and at least you said it quietly. “Sorry.”

He shakes his head. “Tell me later,” he says, and then he faces the other villains.

You’re not sure what he’s going to say, where he’s going to start, but in spite of the hands and the crew of monsters he’s assembled, all you can see is your childhood friend when he speaks. He sounds like he always did, laying out the details of the story before the game begins. “The heroes have regained their confidence. Because they dealt with Stain, they think it’s all been solved. I know that at least a few of you have questioned the effectiveness of what the League’s done so far. So have I. So we’re going back to what worked last time. We’re going to attack UA.”

Your stomach lurches. No wonder Tenko didn’t tell you. He must have known you wouldn’t approve. “They’ve tightened up security since your last attack,” Toga pipes up. “I took a look around, like you said. Nobody noticed me, but the whole campus is locked up tight.”

“Good work,” Tomura says, and Toga grins. Her incisors are sharp. “Toga’s reconnaissance confirmed my conclusion: UA is impregnable for now, which is why we’re not attacking the school itself. They’re running a summer training camp at a remote location, with significantly less security. That’s where we’ll hit them.”

“Them,” the fire quirk-user repeats. “Not All Might.”

“Not yet. We need to level up before we take him on.” Tomura’s shoulders are tense. “Hitting the camp, threatening their precious students – if the heroes can’t even protect their own kind, they can’t claim to be capable of protecting everyone else. Besides, that’s not the only reason we’re going there. You all are a good start, but we’ll need more allies if we want to win.”

“Why do you need more?” Mustard asks. “You’ve got us. We’re not good enough?”

Based on the belligerence, this is a sore spot. If Tomura can’t navigate it, you’ll step in – but somewhere beneath the hands, Tomura’s still the kid who knew how to make everybody feel included. “We can’t fight a war on just one front,” he says. “You and the others will win the strategic battle by destroying UA’s sense of superiority. And while you’re doing that, Compress and Toga will collect what we need to win the PR battle as well.”

“Indeed,” Compress agrees. “Are there other students you’d like me to capture, Shigaraki? Or are you interested only in the victor from the Sports Festival?”

The explosion kid. You remember him – the one who was so batshit berserk that he had to be muzzled and chained to a pole for the award ceremony. Tomura wants him for the League? “Use your discretion,” Tomura says. “He’s the priority. If you see others who are better suited to us than to the heroes, take them, too.”

“And I’ll get the blood,” Toga chimes in. Everyone turns to stare at her. “My quirk lets me turn into the people whose blood I drink! I can make myself look like a student, and I can say anything I want.”

Like a living deepfake. You knew Tomura was smart, but this is verging on diabolical. “What about the rest of us, then?” Muscular asks. There’s a sharp smile on his face, and just like Tomura, he’s tense. “Are we supposed to just stand around?”

“There will be pro heroes present,” Tomura says. “Mustard will incapacitate the students, but the pros will be more difficult to handle.”

“Difficult? For me?” Muscular scoffs and takes a step forward. “Just because an underground hero handed you your ass doesn’t mean I’ll have a problem.”

“If Eraserhead cancels your quirk, you’ll be in the same spot as me,” Tomura says shortly. He gets to his feet. Not good. “If you think I’m that easy to defeat, try your luck.”

It looks like Muscular wants to. Tomura’s hands are open at his sides, rising slightly, and just like you did in the convenience store last year, you speak up. “Both of your records speak for themselves,” you say, and Muscular turns to stare at you. “Tomura recognizes that the pros pose a threat to the success of the plan. And he recognizes that you’re well-equipped to handle them. That’s why you’re here.”

It’s quiet for a second. Muscular doesn’t step back into line, and neither does Tomura – but neither of them make a move, and when Tomura speaks again, Muscular doesn’t interrupt. “If you haven’t been given a more specific assignment, your job is to sow chaos,” he says. “Dabi, Spinner, Magne, Muscular, Moonfish – deal with the pros. If you have the opportunity to kill them, do it, as slowly or as quickly as you’d like. If not, keep them out of the way.”

“What about the students?”

Moonfish sounds like he’s speaking through a mouthful of razors. It makes your skin crawl, but Tomura doesn’t flinch. “The focus needs to be on the heroes and their failings, not on a bunch of dead kids. If that happens, that’s all anyone will talk about,” Tomura says. “Hurt them. Don’t kill them. That goes for all of them – except one.”

“Which one?”

“Midoriya Izuku.”

“No.” The green-skinned heteromorph speaks up for the first time. “Not him.”

Tomura turns towards him, incredulous, and the heteromorph keeps talking. “Stain spared his life. He recognized him as a true hero. I won’t subvert Stain’s will like that.”

A joke pops into your head – Stain’s not gonna fuck you – and you clench your jaw shut. “Stain’s will?” Tomura repeats. “Stain lost.”

“His ideas still live,” the heteromorph – Spinner, you think – says. “Are you following in Stain’s footsteps or not?”

You see Tomura’s shoulders tense again and realize that you’ve got approximately three seconds before he blows his top. “Stain and Tomura share a belief that hero society is rotten to the core,” you say. “The fact that the only examples of true heroes Stain could find are All Might and a fifteen-year-old illustrates the decay. Don’t you think?”

You’ve put Tomura and Stain on the same conceptual level, and you’ve put Spinner on the spot – and most importantly, you’ve contained Tomura for the time being. “I guess,” Spinner says after a second. “I still don’t think –”

“If you’re worried about following in Stain’s footsteps, follow them by killing false heroes,” Tomura interrupts. “There will be plenty to choose from at the training camp. Don’t concern yourself with Midoriya Izuku. Act as your ideals demand.”

Tomura glances around the room. “That goes for all of you. Use what methods you’d like. Act as you see fit, so long as those actions don’t imperil our common goal. Disrupt the camp, disable any pro heroes who get in your way, kill them if you want, and assist Toga and Compress in completing their objectives.”

It’s quiet. You can tell Tomura’s waiting for an argument, and when one doesn’t come right away, he picks one. “Does anyone have issues with their assigned role?”

“I have an issue,” the fire quirk-user says. Dabi, you think. The one Tomura said was an asshole, and when he points one finger at you, you decide you agree with Tomura’s assessment. “What’s your role? Who are you?”

“Yeah,” Muscular says. “What’s under that veil? And why do you talk so much?”

“She’s our medic,” Tomura says. “She’s trustworthy.”

“She’s hiding her face.”

“So am I,” Twice pipes up. “And Compress. Shigaraki, too. Besides, it’s good to have a medic! If the medic’s good.”

You owe Twice for having your back, even if he doesn’t know you. Dabi doesn’t look convinced. “What’s your name?” he repeats.

“You get her name when I get yours,” Tomura says. “My alliance with her existed before the League did. She’s trustworthy.”

Toga squints at you, then takes a few steps closer. “I like your costume,” she says. “You look like a bride.”

“I can’t see your face at all,” Magne says. “Hopefully it’s cuter than the veil is.”

“I hope so, too,” you say. Magne laughs.

Tomura doesn’t like that. You can tell. “Kurogiri, bring the maps,” he orders. A warp gate opens in the middle of the room, disgorging a map taped to a rolling whiteboard. “I don’t know your quirks as well as you do. We’ll devise this attack plan collectively.”

Tomura wasn’t in school long enough to learn what a pain in the ass group project are, but given that villains don’t like being bossed around, it’s not the worst strategy. You hang back, physically and verbally, steering clear of Dabi and Muscular and only stepping in when the temperature needs to be turned down. You’re the least powerful person in a room full of people who think nothing of throwing their weight around. In some ways, it’s just like being at home with your family.

Tomura asked you to watch, and you start piecing together an understanding of the group’s dynamic. The most stable individuals in the group are Kurogiri, Magne, and Compress, all by a long shot. The most easily dysregulated is Mustard, and while you think Dabi and Muscular can probably control themselves, you also think they’ll choose not to. You have a pretty good grasp on Twice from your previous meeting. Moonfish doesn’t say enough for you to be able to tell, but he also doesn’t start fights, and Toga’s a dark horse. So is Spinner.

Spinner’s hard for you to figure. He’s got no criminal record, but unlike Toga and Mustard, he’s old enough to have collected one. He’s probably the biggest Stain fan of the group, the only one who pushed back against Tomura on ideological grounds, but he’s also something of a team player. His role in the attack gets settled early, and he shifts to the outskirts of the group. After a few minutes psyching yourself up to do it, you slide down from the bar and join him.

He glances over at you, then double-takes. “You look like a ghost in that thing,” he says. “It works, though. I’d hide my face if my face mattered.”

“How do you mean?” you ask. “You’re joining the League of Villains. Your face is about to get pretty famous if you don’t cover it up.”

Spinner laughs, but there’s a rueful note to it. “I’m not exactly breaking hearts by turning to a life of crime. At least this way I’m doing something with my life.”

Weird and weirder. “What were you before this? If it’s okay for me to ask.”

“Only if it’s okay for me to ask how long you’ve known Shigaraki.”

You think about that. “Does ‘a long time’ count as an answer?”

“That depends. Is it months or years?” Spinner asks. You don’t know if you should answer that, and Spinner can tell. “I know I pissed him off earlier. You shut it down pretty fast. I figure either it’s your quirk or you just know him really well.”

“It’s not my quirk,” you say. You think back to the first time Tenko told you his new name. “Less than forever, more than a year.”

“I was a shut-in,” Spinner says, answering your question without responding to your answer to his. No wonder he’s got a record. It’s hard to get a record when you don’t leave your room. “That video of Stain’s is the first thing I ever saw that made sense. If you all have the same goal as Stain did, then I’m in the right spot.”

You nod. Someone is raising their voice in the group, and you key in – but it’s just one of the versions of Twice, getting excited about something. Spinner glances curiously at you. “You sure you don’t have an alias or something?”

You shake your head. You might be at a meeting of villains, wearing a disguise, listening to them plan to kidnap one high school student and traumatize the hell out of a few more, but picking out a name for yourself feels a little far. If Tomura thinks you need a name, he’ll probably give one to you.

The meeting breaks up two hours after midnight. You missed hearing the date the attack will take place, possibly on purpose, and when the group splits, leaving just you and Tomura and Kurogiri, you don’t ask what it was. Kurogiri pours drinks for you and Tomura. You sit down at the bar next to him, and he speaks without looking up from his glass. “What did you find out about Spinner?”

“He was a shut-in before. As long as you can tie your goals to Stain’s, he’ll follow along,” you say. Tomura nods. “How did the rest of it go?”

“I’m leaving some of the on-site planning to them. I’m not there to give orders, so they need to be able to adapt.” Tomura takes a sip of his drink. “Dabi’s a pain in the ass, like I thought, but I’m giving him temporary control of a Nomu to use during the fight. That should keep him quiet for now.”

He’s thought of everything. “You’re good at this stuff,” you say. “You barely needed me.”

Tomura looks up. “Yes, I do.”

It’s quiet for a little bit after that. You and Tomura drink, you staring down into your glass and Tomura staring at you, until you look up at the clock behind the bar and realize what time it is. “I have work in the morning. I have to go home.”

“Stay.” Tomura catches your sleeve with three fingers, but a small portal opens, depositing your bag a few feet away on the bar. “Kurogiri can take you to work from here.”

“I can’t show up in yesterday’s clothes. And I need to sleep. So do you.” You’re right, and Tomura knows it. He scowls anyway. He’s never happy when you leave, but right now he looks unhappier than usual. “What is it?’

“Once the attack happens, I can’t bring you back until things settle down.” Tomura’s looking unhappier by the second. “The brat can’t see you until I know he’s with us.”

“Oh,” you say. You wonder how long that will take. “That’s okay. I understand.”

“It’s not okay,” Tomura snaps. “It’s – take that thing off. I need to see you.”

You take it off quickly. “Kurogiri,” Tomura says. “Turn around.”

“I will return in five minutes.”

Kurogiri vanishes, and once he does, Tomura lowers the hand from his face, pries the other two from around his neck, and just like that, he’s Tenko again. “It’s not okay,” he repeats. “I need you with me. I feel different when you’re here.”

“Different than what?” you ask. He must think it’s a positive change, or he wouldn’t want you to stay. Tenko doesn’t answer. “Send Kurogiri to get me as soon as it’s safe, Ten. I’ll be waiting.”

You see his eyes light up ever so slightly, but it fades fast. “You’ll forget.”

Your heart aches, but this is something you can fix. “Let me show you something.”

The last forty-eight hours have been chaos, and you’ve spent most of it miserable, terrified, drunk, hungover, or making out with your childhood best friend on his couch. But somewhere in the middle of that, you managed to get into one of the two boxes you brought home from your parents’ purge and take something out. You couldn’t bring yourself to wear the locket, but you tucked it into your bag along with your disguise, and when you put your disguise away, you fish it out.

Tenko looks suspicious. “Who gave you that.”

“My parents, probably. That’s not the important part.” You close your eyes and struggle to come up with an explanation, one that doesn’t make you sound obsessed or insane or too invested in this, in him. “I found this in a box in my parents’ house. There was a lot of stuff in there about you and me.”

“Like what?”

“Pictures,” you say. “A birthday gift from you. The valentine you gave me. I put all that stuff in there when I was ten and taped it shut.”

“Why?”

“My parents were taking me to get my memory wiped the next day, so I really would forget.” You see Tenko’s eyes widen. “I hid that stuff from them, but I saved it for me. So even if the memory wipe worked, I could open it up and remember you again.”

You open the locket and hold it out for Tenko to inspect. You see his expression twist. “I never forgot about you,” you say. “When we saw each other again, that’s why I reacted that way. I always hoped you were alive. If I didn’t forget you in fifteen years, a few days or weeks or months isn’t going to make a difference.”

Tenko’s jaw is clenched. The tendons in his neck stand out, and his hands are curled into fists at his sides. You were trying to help, but it looks like you’ve made it worse. “I’m sorry,” you say. “I shouldn’t have –”

Tenko seizes you and yanks you into his arms. “Shut up,” he mumbles, his voice muffled by your shoulder, or maybe your chest. “How am I supposed to let you leave now?”

“You have to. It’ll be okay,” you say. “I did promise not to go on any dates with heroes.”

It’s quiet for a second. Your arms are around Tenko, and you feel his shoulders shake. “That’s not funny.”

You know that particular note in his voice. It makes you feel better. “Don’t laugh, then.”

Tenko snorts, hugs you closer and tighter. Then he lets you go. “Next time you’ll stay,” he says.

“If I have the next day off, sure,” you say, and Tenko smiles slightly. “We never got to have sleepovers before.”

It’s true. You asked and so did he, but your parents said you were too young, even though neither of you would have been farther from home than right across the street. You see Kurogiri reappear out of the corner of your eye and know you’re out of time. “Be careful,” you say to Tenko. “Come find me as soon as it’s safe.”

“I will.” Tenko gets to his feet. “Turn around, Kurogiri.”

“Believe me, there’s nothing going on over there that I want to see.”

One of these days you’re going to ask Tenko why Kurogiri’s like that, why he seems like he’s two people in one. Not tonight. There isn’t time. You have time for one more kiss with Tenko, but that’s all – and the instant the two of you separate to take a breath, Kurogiri warps you away, dropping you back in your apartment. Your bag lands on the couch next to you. You still have the locket clenched in one hand. There are still a few drops of Tenko’s blood on your lips.

You lick them away, feeling twenty kinds of insane as you do it. Your mind is crowded with dozens of questions, thoughts, images, memories, all of them demanding to be addressed at once. You kick off your shoes, move your bag to the floor, and lie back on the couch. Your eyelids are heavy the instant you’re horizontal, and by the time it occurs to you that you should let go of the locket or at least put it somewhere safe, you’re fast asleep.