Solid Ground

by orphan_account

Summary:

“You should never apologize for your fear’s existence, Lemillion," Sir knits his fingers together. "If you weren’t afraid, I would question your capacity for higher level thinking. And that is something much more vital to being a hero than any Quirk.”

Mirio smiles a little, “I’d probably try to be a hero even without one.”

 

Togata Mirio is really only afraid of one thing. It just so happens it's the one thing he has to learn how to do.

Notes:

mirio phasing through the ground is one of the most terrifying things i've ever heard of.

so here, i wrote a story about it.

Chapter 1

Every inch of Mirio is sore. He’s plowed into more walls in his first few weeks as Sir Nighteye’s intern than in the past seventeen years of his life.

Sir doesn’t care. He pushes him and pushes him, and damn if Mirio doesn’t appreciate it, but his body does not agree. Today was worse than normal, with moving objects and stationary ones all rotating on this carousel of doom that Sir seemed to have put together overnight. Mirio had to run through it all while keeping his boxers on. He’s already better at precision phasing than he was, but he’s not good enough to have made it out without a few bruises.

Not yet. 

When he comes home, nose bloody and with a black eye, his dad’s mouth draws into a long flat line. Mirio knows, he knows that he’s worried. But his dad doesn’t say anything much about it, just heats up their dinner since it got cold, sitting all that time. Mirio staying late to get patched up meant his dad was in the house by himself for two hours longer than normal and he feels bad.

Well, actually it’s become kind of normal for Mirio to come home so late. He worries that his dad is lonely but he doesn’t know what to do about it so he just acts the same way he always does, hoping the normalcy will cheer him up. 

After a long chatty dinner and a soak in the bath, he’s trying (and failing) to do his homework when his phone vibrates.

>>would you want to meet up at the park?

It takes all of four seconds to respond that hell yes he does, then Mirio is tossing his clothes and boots out the window and phasing through his bedroom wall. He re-dresses in the closed-in enclave between his house and the street then tiptoes past the front door and out the front gate.

He’s pretty certain his dad knows when he’s sneaking out but he never stops him.

When he reaches the park, Tamaki looks like he’s about to do something illegal for the first time. He's nervously hunched against the entrance gate, hair in his face even more than usual. It’s through that hair that he catches sight of Mirio, and the corner of his eyes crinkle just a little — enough for Mirio to know he’s happy to see him.

“What’s up?” he asks, a little out of breath. “I came quick as I could!”

“You didn’t have to rush,” Tamaki exhales, looking a little pink in the streetlights.

Mirio takes his hand. “Well, couldn’t have you beating me, could I? Although I guess you kinda did.”

“Don’t… don’t make it into a competition,” Tamaki’s mouth turns up at the corners and his ears twitch, just a little bit, like they always do when he smiles. Mirio moves under the streetlamp and Tamaki’s smile fades.

“What happened to your eye?”

“Didn’t phase quick enough and got slapped in the face with a plank,” Mirio explains as Tamaki’s eyes get big. “I really need to get faster,” he looks towards his feet, a little sheepish, but his eyes catch something on the way down. “What’s going on with your fingers?” he grabs for Tamaki’s right hand, the one he uses the most. The tip of each digit is wrapped all the way to the first knuckle.

“I ah… the skin is cracked from manifesting so much,” he mumbles. “It started bleeding.”

“You have to be careful!”

“I didn’t even know it could happen!” he pulls his hand away, looking mortified. “Fat says I need to eat more liver.”

“Food’s his answer to everything!” Mirio laughs raucously, the sound echoing in the street loudly enough for Tamaki to grab him by the arm and pull them both into the park.

They wander around even though there’s just an hour before curfew. They don’t talk about anything important, but he hasn’t had time alone with Tamaki in days. They can talk about English grammar for all he cares; he’s just happy to see him. It’s the first time since they were little that they’ve gone so long without hanging out. A lot has changed since then.

Conversation sort of falls away like it usually does when one of them has something on his mind but doesn’t know how to express it.

“I know you’re working hard, Mirio,” Tamaki speaks up first, though it's clear that both of them had something to say. Mirio’s pretty sure they’re thinking the same thing. Thinking about how easy it is to work hard when they know the other’s working just as much. How it’s been tough but it’ll be worth it. How much they miss each other. All things it normally would be easy to say, but are a lot harder now that they’re together together.

Mirio laughs because he’s not immediately sure how to respond without saying too much. The trees mute the sound, and he quiets down faster than normal. “Not as hard as you,” he says, taking Tamaki’s injured hand and kissing it.

Tamaki twitches a little, but he doesn’t pull his hand away.

There is a quiet corner behind a small maintenance shed and a line of tsubaki. They used to hide there when they were kids, doing reconnaissance on the park’s visitors. Tamaki checks that they aren’t being watched, then pulls him through the bushes. Unexpectedly, he kisses him on the other side, quick and then slow in a way that makes Mirio weak in the knees. His arms are around Mirio’s neck, and Mirio is fisting the fabric of Tamaki’s cardigan, afraid to grab anything more. It’s not like they haven’t kissed before, they’ve done that a lot. They’ve even done a couple of sexy things but everything has always been in someone’s bedroom where no one can see.

“Are you sure you want to do this here?” he chuckles into Tamaki’s neck.

“My sister and my nephew are visiting,” Tamaki sighs heavily, sounding pleased and worried all at once. “They… ah… they think I’m out buying earplugs. He’s been screaming all night.”

“Well shouldn’t we go get some?”

“They’re in my pocket, Mirio,” Tamaki lets out another shaky breath. “Just- just kiss me before I chicken out.” 

Unclenching his fingers, Mirio reaches for the small of Tamaki’s back and pulls them tight together.

Tamaki’s lips are always chapped and raw because he gnaws on them with his teeth. Mirio doesn’t know what it’s like to kiss softer lips, but he really doesn’t care.

Fingers curl in the hair at the nape of his neck and yank. It’s like Tamaki is trying to pull them so close that they fuse together. Mirio can make that happen if he tries hard enough, phasing just a little bit at a time so that Tamaki melts into him. But it’d just be weird. He’s finding out that things that seem really romantic when people talk about them aren’t always so much. But Tamaki smells nice, like some kind of coconutty sort of thing, and he is so good at kissing and Mirio doesn’t really care what they do as long as they’re doing it together.

Only… kissing really is nice. 

 

“Fat is putting me on a diet,” Tamaki mutters on the slow walk back to his house.

Mirio appraises his slender body then raises his eyebrows, “You’ll die!”

“Not that kind of diet,” Tamaki rolls his eyes just a little. It makes Mirio miss him even though they haven’t gone their separate ways yet. “I have to eat a huge meal six times a day. With milk.”

“So you have to eat during class?”

Tamaki nods miserably. “I have special permission. The teachers want me to scarf it down in-between lessons.”

They walk in silence for a beat. 

“I can’t drink that much milk by myself, let alone in front of people.”

He doesn’t usually laugh at any expression of Tamaki’s anxiety, but this is just too much. His barking laughter rolls down the street. And laughing seems to be the right move, because Tamaki’s shoulders start to shake in silent laughter too. His mouth is a wobbly line, and it’s so cute, and Mirio wants to see it more than once a week.

“Have I told you lately how much I love it when you laugh?” he asks, leaning into Tamaki’s shoulder.

“Uh… a few times,” Tamaki tucks his chin to his chest and slips his mouth under the collar of his shirt. It’s for one of those American electronic music bands that he likes so much. The collar is all stretched out so it hangs off his shoulder when he’s not hiding under it. “If I told you how much I like your laugh I’d um… never stop talking,” he quietly tells the hedge next to them.

Mirio’s face feels really hot. He wants to hold Tamaki’s hand, but that’s a great way to get them noticed, and it’s almost curfew. Tamaki’s house is really close anyway, and he doesn’t want it to look like they planned this. Neither of them have told their parents. If they do, staying at the other’s house will probably be over. The trembling nights of holding and exploring and so much kissing will probably end. They don’t want to ruin things quite yet.

Tamaki brushes his pinky against Mirio’s, something he’s started doing when they can’t quite hold hands. He’s a lot better at this whole keeping-it-a-secret thing, probably because he wants to keep his whole existence a secret half the time.

“Hope you can sleep with those earplugs,” Mirio softly hip checks him. It’s supposed to be a sneaky, funny, cute thing, but it ends up sending Tamaki sprawling across the pavement. 

“Sorry, sorry!” Mirio chases after him, but Tamaki has already stopped himself with his Quirk, long tentacles not just catching, but lifting his entire body off the ground as he rights himself.

It’s awesome.

 

When Mirio phases into his room ten minutes after curfew, his dad is sitting on his bed next to his laptop. A box of condoms that Mirio did not buy is screaming at them from the desk.

“Son, I know we’ve already had a talk about this, but I’m pretty sure we had the wrong one,” he smiles wryly, not fazed at all by the fact that Mirio is naked and, for the first time in a long time, writhing in embarrassment.

 

“And then he said—”

“Mirio please,” Tamaki begs, crammed into their secluded corner of the train. They must look incredibly suspicious, so close together when there’s all that space, but it’s the only way Tamaki will even look at him. “I heard it all from my straight sister last night. I want to bleach my brain.”

“How did they find out?”

“You aren’t very sneaky! Your dad called my dad, and they put two and two together.”

Mirio sheepishly rubs the back of his head. “He said he’d ground me, but I don’t have any free time to take away. He screwed the window shut so I can’t toss out my clothes, though. He’s pretty smart, my dad.”

“I’m not grounded either,” Tamaki grumbles. “They said getting caught was punishment enough. They were right.”

“We weren’t even doing anything!!” Mirio guffaws, before he remembers they’re on the train and tries to calm himself

“Not this time…” Tamaki mutters, the tips of his ears pink. “Kotone laughed for ten minutes when she realized how long it’s been going on under their noses. It was mortifying.”

“I don’t know whether your sister is cool or obnoxious,” Mirio says, still trying to settle down.

He gets a scathing look that says that he should already know what the answer is.

 

Tamaki turns into an entirely different version of himself when they get to school. Really any place where there’s a lot of people with attention and expectations, but especially at school.

A lot of students know about his Quirk — it is phenomenally cool, after all. They bring him snacks then ask him to eat them and manifest different stuff. The one time that he said yes, a girl gave him brownies with her hair baked in. She squealed when he swallowed, then asked him to grow another set of arms.

Of course, she had no clue that eating bits of people didn’t work. Tamaki had eaten enough of Mirio’s hair at that point to make a wig and he’d never once been able to manifest an eye on his palm like they wanted. His Quirk just doesn’t work like that, probably because of the same DNA, or something.

Actually Mirio has no real idea how or why Tamaki’s Quirk works the way it does. Just that it’s amazing.

But the students surrounding Tamaki with dried squid and bacon-flavored crickets don’t know about the hair brownies. They follow them into the building, bugging Tamaki until Mirio puts his foot down. He can’t get them on his side through a shared laugh and they won’t listen to reason so he chases them away with threats of phasing his clothes off. It isn’t a very good threat, actually it’s probably sexual harassment, but they were doing the harassing first and right now he’s not strong enough to do much else.

Only right now though.

At school, Tamaki walks close to the walls, hunched over, his eyes darting all around to make sure he doesn’t get in anyone’s way. Everyone wants to be his friend, he’s one of the coolest guys at UA, but it doesn’t matter because Tamaki doesn’t get that, even if he is given every logical proof. It’s hard for anyone to get close to him because he’s so nervous around people. He’s just a tough guy to know.

Mirio knows how lucky he is that Tamaki talks to him so freely. 

But these days he’s not the only one.

“Hiya chicken-heart,” a waterfall of pale blue wedges in-between them. “How was Fatgum’s last night? Did you fight any villains? What did you turn into? What happens if you bump into him? Do you get sucked in?”

“Hi Hadou,” Mirio says from behind her. He likes Hadou a lot. She’s incredibly smart and strong, even if she doesn’t act like it. Her Quirk is amazing, and she laughs like a donkey. Most importantly, she treats everyone with the same amount of eager curiosity.

Well, some people she pays a little more attention to.

“Oh hey Togata!” she turns and gives him a bright smile, even though he’s an afterthought. “Is Sir Nighteye as scary as everyone says? Does he have torture machines? I heard he has torture machines. Do you train in your regular clothes or your hero costume or do you just get naked?”

“Hadou, please,” Tamaki begs the floor, gradually turning himself to face the wall. There's a long pause where none of them say anything. “How was your internship?” Tamaki finally pulls himself together to ask.

“Ah, Ryukyu is so great! Yesterday she had me fly for ten minutes straight, then try to spar with her in midair. I really want to know more about her Quirk — how does someone just turn into a dragon, anyway?”

She goes on, directing all her words at Tamaki. It makes Mirio feel left out and sort of annoyed. He shouldn’t feel like that, especially since Hadou is one of Tamaki’s few close friends. He doesn’t begrudge that friendship at all. It makes him really happy, actually. But still it’s hard not to be jealous. It’s a terrible feeling, but it’s there all the same. He’s jealous of Hadou and how she has reached Tamaki’s level, while he’s struggling to even keep him in view.

He’s jealous of what they share together that he’s left out of.

He’s been behind so long that people just assume that he doesn’t know what he’s doing. They think he’s a weak goofball with a dangerous Quirk that’s too much for him. When All Might’s old sidekick asked him to be his intern, the entire school lost their minds. It’s still hard for most people to believe.

“Sorry Togata, I don’t mean to keep him from you,” Hadou finally interrupts herself. “I just really wanted to tell Amajiki here that there’s a girl in Class A who is planning on confessing. I can keep that from happening, just say the word.” She turns back to Tamaki, ominously twirling her hair around her finger.

“Please…”

“Okay!” she claps her hands together, blowing everyone’s hair away from their faces. “Now I’ll let you two be, sorry for interrupting!” 

And then she winks.

It’s at that point that Mirio realizes that maybe they weren’t being quite as sneaky about things as he thought they were.

“No.” Tamaki curves closer to the wall. “I… eh… can you please just tell her that I’m just... not interested in girls?”

Hadou blinks, “Are you sure? Because news like that gets around.”

“I’m not embarrassed,” Tamaki turns around and stands up straight. Mirio can see that he’s trembling just a tiny bit but even that stops after a moment.

“Well, you shouldn’t be!” Hadou laughs and punches him on the shoulder. “But that’ll mean even more attention.”

Tamaki smiles weakly. “I’ve got to get used to things like that, right?” he asks her, though his eyes flicker to Mirio’s.

“Really? I just figured you wanted to work in secret and stuff like Aizawa-sensei! Well, anyway, I’ll tell her, but then you’re gonna have boys coming after you. There are two guys in the third year who just broke up. Maybe one of them is looking for a rebound with the second-most powerful student in the second year?”

“Second?” Tamaki asks his feet. He could be should be arguing over the top space, but he’s more likely trying to say he belongs at the bottom.

Mirio desperately wants to interrupt but if he does, it’s only going to hurt Tamaki in the end. There was never a point to their relationship being public in school. The teachers keep them separate enough already, knowing about their long friendship and familiarity with each other’s Quirks. They’re lucky to be in the same class. There’s no need to make it worse, even if Hadou kinda already knows.

And really, in the grand scheme of things, all of this, everything could be a lot worse. He has Tamaki. Sir wants to help him get stronger. And he knows, he just knows he can.

He laughs out loud. Hadou looks at him strangely, Tamaki’s eyes crinkle at the corners even though he’s making a sort of gloomy face.

It could be a lot worse than this. Actually, things now are kind of wonderful.

 

On the scale of classes that Mirio has to take, Classical Japanese has never been too bad. Kayama-sensei has a soothing voice when she reads and sometimes he marks down poems and bits of stories to tell Tamaki in the dark. He hasn’t… actually done that yet, and Tamaki will probably laugh when he does, but laughing’s always a part of his plan anyway.

Today he’s really distracted, though, and he works on phasing his fingers through his desk, over and over, faster and faster. He’s so fixated that he doesn’t realize Kayama-sensei’s there until she slaps his desk with the book they’re supposed to be reading. It echoes through the room and Mirio gets his hand stuck.

He looks up at her, and she stares down at him over her glasses, eyes alight with sadistic glee. “Togata, I’m so glad to see that you’ve volunteered to read the next passage. Please, go ahead, and afterward let us all know what you think it means.”

Laughing at himself, he flips through the pages of his book with his free hand, trying to figure out where the class has stopped at. Behind him, a student coughs out the page number. He needs to find whoever it is and buy them melon bread. He can hear Tamaki’s quiet groan of secondhand embarrassment, and he chuckles at that too.

He reads as best he can, holding the book with one hand. His fingers in the desk are starting to cramp but he ignores them. The passage is extremely romantic, so much so that he’s certain the whole class is completely red by the time he finishes. The embarrassment makes it easier to phase, and he pulls his fingers free.

“I uh… I think the writer is in love, Sensei!” he can’t help but laugh a little, even though it’s mostly because she’s staring at him like she can set him on fire with her eyes.

“What makes you think that, Togata?” she asks evenly.

“Well,” he clears his throat, “because he keeps talking about how all these nice things remind him of someone. So… I think he’s in love with that person. Because that’s what you do when you’re in love. Compare them to butterflies and stuff.”

“You’re not wrong,” she hums. “Yamamoto, please read the next passage.”

He moves at his desk so he can peek at Tamaki in the far back corner. He’s red as a beet.

 

Mirio has lots of friends who aren’t Tamaki. Just because people treat him like he’s incompetent sometimes doesn’t mean everyone does that. He’s a lot more forgiving of that kind of behavior anyway. So he and Tamaki sit with his friends at lunch, even though Tamaki is anxious around nearly all of them and extremely suspicious of the rest.

Everyone has an enormous lunch - all of them are trying to put on muscle — but Tamaki is eating a hilariously large amount of food, complete with a carton of milk. It’s terrible, because he hates people watching him eat. So to draw everyone’s attention, Mirio talks and laughs louder than usual, trying to be charming as best as he can. It works too well: people come over to their table from other classes, surrounding their chairs just to listen to the story of that one time he and his friend (it was Tamaki) got locked into a grocery store after it closed. 

Tamaki leaves quickly when he’s finished. Twice a week he does this. Everyone thinks he has to do some weird digestion thing because of his Quirk, but really he just spends most of his lunch talking to the school counselor.

They really don’t get to see each other a lot anymore.

        

“You got stuck in your desk today?”

He’s sitting on the couch in Sir’s office, directly across from the All Might memorabilia. It’s probably worth a million yen, all the stuff he has. It’s still hard to believe that someone who worked with All Might wants to work with the dreaded Permeation Quirk. But Mirio’s sure not going to complain about it.

“Yes sir... Sir,” he grins, realizing what he’s just said.

Sir coughs into his hand and Mirio swears it’s a laugh. He’s made Sir laugh a total of seven times today, and he’s pretty certain that has to be some kind of record.

“Levity aside, Lemillion, please explain how it happened.”

“Ah, yeah, well I was in Classical Japanese, not paying attention like I should’ve been—”

“That class is worthless. Please go on.”

Mirio doesn’t laugh, which has to be a miracle.

“I was phasing my fingers through my desk, and counting like you said to. Only Kayama-sensei caught me, and I got stuck.”

Sir nods, stroking his chin for a long time before he says anything. “Having observed you for the past few weeks, I’ve come up with what I consider the optimal training regimen. The initial goal is for you to remember what it feels like to phase in each part of your body. You will need to maintain full body awareness at all times. Have you ever practiced yoga before?”

“No I…”

“You are going to start. Centipeder practices every morning at six am. You are going to join him. Similarly, Bubble Girl practices tai chi every morning at seven. You will join her as well. Your tardiness to homeroom will be an allowed absence. You will do weight training after class for an hour. You will take the train to the Akashi station and then run the entire remaining distance to my office, regardless of weather. You will time yourself and strive to consistently increase your speed by at least thirty seconds per week. Once you are here, you will either patrol for me, or train your Quirk using whatever method I’ve devised. And you will rest on Sunday. Do I make myself clear?”

Mirio feels his hands shake in anticipation but he nods.

“We will be remaking your costume. It will look the same, but phase with you. Someone will come to UA on Monday in order to generate the necessary materials. I can’t have you turning up naked when you phase through the ground.”

“Wait… what’s that last part?”

“Please pay attention. I said, ‘I can’t have you turning up naked when you phase through the ground.’ Which you are going to be doing as soon as possible, as I have a theory I am eager to test.”

Mirio’s heart falls to the floor. Things were all looking so wonderful, but now? Not so much. Because if Sir could phase he’d understand that there is nothing in the world more terrifying than falling through solid ground.

Nothing.

Notes:

you have no idea how long i studied mirio's flashbacks in chapter 152.

Chapter 2

Notes:

this is the chapter that earns this fic its extremely soft m-rating. if you want to miss some over-the-clothes sexytimes, skip on ahead to the section that starts with "So... Sir"

“Mirio… don’t look at me like that,” Tamaki whispers.

They’re lying on the futon, pressed together head to toe, legs slotted, breaths shared. 

“Like what?” Mirio whispers back. Their lips graze together as he speaks, they’re that close.

He’s shirtless and Tamaki is too, wearing Mirio’s unzipped hoodie to hide in. Mirio has to peek under the hood to make eye contact and he can’t stop staring whenever he comes up for air. Tamaki smells good and he’s making these tiny noises over and over as they kiss. Mirio’s going to embarrass himself if he doesn’t slow down.

He steadies the rolling of his hips and sits back. Tamaki squirms. No one else in the whole world has ever seen this side of him, all greedy and hungry and unraveled. Mirio is selfish and wants to make certain that nobody else ever does.

They started kissing awhile ago, just a little, they said, so they wouldn’t get caught. Somehow it turned into this. Now Mirio is trying to memorize everything about Tamaki’s ever-changing body while he has the chance.

“What? It’s like you like this or something,” he grins before leaning down to clumsily kiss a line up Tamaki’s chest. He could kiss lower if he wanted, past his cute outie bellybutton and under the hem of his butterfly pajama pants. But neither of them has tried anything like that yet.

There are things Mirio kinda wants them to figure out before that happens.

It’s three o’clock in the morning, which is maybe a weird time to be fooling around, but it’s the only time they know that Mirio’s dad isn’t hovering at the door. They know that mostly because Mirio phased his face into his bedroom to check. They had spent the evening playing video games with the door open. They’d even pretended to be asleep when his dad passed the room at one.

But the night is theirs now. 

“Why… why did you stop?” Tamaki wiggles urgently.

“I needed to get something,” Mirio reaches forward, grabbing at Tamaki’s nose and brandishing his fist as though he’s stolen it. He gets a gaping stare in return, but it doesn’t last long. They both dissolve into hushed snickers at almost exactly the same time.

Eventually Mirio collapses, dizzy from trying so hard to be quiet while he laughs. He rests his head in the crook of Tamaki’s neck. The soft remnants of his laughter turn into gentle caresses, and then more urgent ones. In pretty short order they’re moving against each other again, hands searching and grabbing and desperate. And the kisses… oh the kisses.

Just when Mirio thinks it can’t get much better, he feels dexterous tentacles running through his hair. And maybe that’s supposed to be gross, or some hentai thing, but it’s also Tamaki and they feel so good teasing against his scalp.

Good enough that he shoots off all over his underwear. Weak and unsteady, he holds himself up, not about to leave Tamaki hanging. The friction is already too much sensation but he’d be ashamed of himself if he moved.

“Mirio. Ha… aah Mirio,” Tamaki whispers, rolling against him. And Mirio isn’t sure what he should do, should he slide off and use his hand? They’ve only done that once; it was nerve-racking then and there’s no lotion this time. But if Tamaki asked he would do it.

Still not certain, and not ready to take a risk that might be embarrassing for both of them, he leans forward and gently kisses the flushed, pointed tip of Tamaki’s ear.

“You made me feel really good,” he tells him. He’s not sure what would be sexy to say, so he goes with the truth. “I never thought it could be like this, Tamaki, never.”

That seems to be sexy enough, because Tamaki stiffens and then jerks and it’s all over.

 

“So… Sir gave me a new training regimen on Friday,” he whispers when they’re cleaned up. They’re not ready to go to sleep yet. Tamaki is still wearing Mirio’s hoodie, and his fingers are octopus tentacles again. He’s gently walking them across Mirio’s chest, each suction cup feeling like a cold little kiss.

“He uh…” he chuckles weakly, trying to make it sound exciting, “he wants me to phase into the ground!”

Tamaki sits up so fast the hood slips down over his entire face. His tentacles are a thrashing explosions of emotion, smacking Mirio in the head.

“He what?” 

Before he says anything, Mirio gathers together the willful, tickling appendages and gently holds them in his fist. He wishes people understood just how fierce Tamaki can be under the right set of circumstances. Though this circumstance he’d rather keep to himself.

“He says he has a theory,” he sits up. “Hasn’t explained it yet, though.”

“Does he know how- how terrifying it is? And dangerous?” Tamaki demands, pulling back the hoodie to reveal the disaster that is his bedhead. His voice is soft, but it still carries. “When it happened when we were kids you had- you had nightmares for a month. And you didn’t even go past your chest…”

“Only because you caught me! And I don’t think he knows how it is,” he chuckles despite himself, “unless he somehow got Permeation and never told me. But you gotta be quieter; you’ll wake my dad.”

“It was a hypothetical question,” Tamaki mutters, folding into himself at the embarrassment of being told to calm down. The hoodie comes up again, hiding his eyes.

“I gave you a hypothetical answer!” Mirio laughs softly, desperate to ignore the hollow feeling in his chest that the subject of their conversation elicits. “C’mere,” he flips the tentacles over his shoulder and draws Tamaki to him, lifting him onto his lap. “Don’t be embarrassed,” he nuzzles his neck. “I like it when you’re fired up about things, everybody does.”

“Stop,” Tamaki’s breath ghosts over his collarbone. He sounds tired. He’s gotta be tired after what they’d just been doing. Mirio sure is.

“You’re avoiding talking about this by worrying over me,” he adds, proving just how well he knows him. “Have you told your dad?”

“No?” Mirio laughs incredulously, just a little too loud. “I dunno what to say that wouldn’t freak him out.” 

“What wouldn’t freak me out?” a voice asks from the other side of the door. Before they can even react, a hand phases through the wood to turn the lock. Tamaki stiffens then scrambles off of Mirio’s lap, his fingers retracting as he goes. The door swings open revealing Mirio’s dad, dressed in his boxers and a ratty old t-shirt. He looks sleepy but bemused.

“Let’s talk about that in the morning. We can talk about where your shirts went too. For now, Mirio, you’re going to sleep on the couch.”

 

His dad wakes him up bright and early. He comes into the kitchen to start breakfast, then ambles into the living room, cup of coffee in his hand. Mirio is an early riser by habit more than by nature, but even if he weren’t, the noise combined with the discomfort of the couch would be more than enough to wake him. So he turns on the news and blearily watches for any new villains or heroic situations that have come up overnight. It’s something he and his dad have done together for years, only it was never this embarrassing.

“I don’t know what to do, Mirio,” his dad chuckles, shaking his head. “This is way out of my wheelhouse. I do know I don’t appreciate you taking advantage of my need to sleep.”

“I dunno know what to do either,” Mirio says, uncharacteristically glum. He feels stupid. Of course they were gonna get caught, their apartment is tiny. And his dad had been nice enough to convince Tamaki’s parents to let him stay over even though they’d snuck out. They blew it, and now they’re going to pay the price of never being alone together again.

In the background, the news anchor blithely talks about the weather. Her voice is sunny and pleasant and Mirio tries to let that happiness soak into his skin.

“You and Tamaki have been buddies for longer than I was with your mother, did you know that?” his dad smiles. Buddies is kind of an understatement but he’s trying his best.

And Mirio could have figured it out if he thought to, but he’s never had a reason to consider it. It’s not very productive to think about the person who abandoned the two of them before he was old enough to talk. He doesn’t say anything, just makes eye contact, but that’s enough of an answer for his dad to keep on going.

“Look, all I’m saying is: I know what you have is special. I don’t wanna keep the two of you apart, especially when you don’t get to see each other much. But I’m also in charge of keeping you safe and from doing something both of you regret.”

Everything suddenly seems hilarious. As though anything he could possibly do with Tamaki could be unsafe or something he’d regret. But Mirio is not an idiot, and he knows that that line of thinking absolutely will not work in this situation. He’ll just sound like a dumb kid. Which he maybe is. But still.   

“I told you, we’re not having sex, Dad,” this is almost too much to say, even for him. His dad narrows his eyes, definitely not buying it. “We just ah… fooled around a little.”

“Oh no,” Tamaki softly groans from the hallway. There’s a scuttling sound, then the click of the bathroom door shutting and locking.

“Well, I guess I’m not taking a shower today,” his dad guffaws.

“Dad. C’mon.”

His dad gives him a look. “Just because Tamaki has his struggles doesn’t mean he won’t have to face the consequences of his actions. Now do you think he wants pancakes or something savory? Well, probably both considering how much he has to eat. Damn I wish I still had a teenage metaboli—”

“Police are on the lookout for the thief who broke into the Hitachi Gallery last night,” the news anchor’s sudden change in tone interrupts their conversation. Mirio turns up the volume without even thinking about it and both he and his dad slide to the edge of their seats.

“Though no one present witnessed the crime, it is believed that a Quirk allowed the alleged thieves to pass incendiary devices through the walls of the building. Signs of an explosion were present at the entry as well as within the gallery itself.”

Breakfast forgotten, Mirio and his dad look at each other, jaws loose.

“Law enforcement has partnered with local Pro-Hero Fatgum in order to investigate. We will update you with more information as it becomes available.”

The bathroom door is flung open and Mirio hears the noise of swift feet slipping into his room. Less than a minute later, Tamaki opens the door and rushes down the hallway, fully dressed, backpack in hand. He skids to a stop in front of Mirio’s dad and bows. He’s shaking.

“I… eh… I am very sorry for cau- for causing you trouble,” he tucks his head into his chest. His face is so red it’s nearly purple and he’s swallowing his words. “It was- it was inexcusable. Please don’t come down hard on Mirio. I was the…” he gulps audibly and the shaking gets worse, “…instigator.”

Mirio’s dad laughs. “Tamaki, you’re braver than you let on, you know?”

Tamaki bows again, “I am very sorry, but I need… um… to go to my internship now. Thank you for your hospitality and I—.”

“Ah, actually,” Mirio’s dad stands up, slapping Tamaki on the back as he does so, “I think I hear my phone going off in my room so I’m going to have to leave you boys to your goodbyes! Good luck!”

And just like that, he’s skipping down the hall, phone just visible in his back pocket. He thinks he’s being slick and helpful, but he’s just being a doofus. Tamaki’s blush goes all the way down to his chest and he scuttles over to the wall to mutter about the swift approach of death. Mirio touches his own cheek and realizes he’s probably pink too.

When Tamaki’s finally okay enough to face the world, they don’t say much, just sit in the genkan while Tamaki laces up his chucks. Their knees knock together and Mirio wraps his arm around Tamaki’s slim shoulders.

“You haven’t even eaten anything yet today!”

“There’s what’s in my costume. Fat always has food lying around too,” Tamaki loops the lace around and tightens it. His fingers are still trembling, voice scratchy and low. “And we ate a lot last night. At least four things that I can use. It’ll likely just be patrols anyway, or he’ll send me home,” he turns and presses his head into Mirio’s shoulder, letting out a long, shaky exhale. “I wanted to have breakfast…”

Mirio laughs, “Have I ever told you how cute you are?”

“Stop it,” against his collarbone, Mirio can feel Tamaki’s mouth wobble with embarrassment. “You say it too much.”

Without warning, he stands up and grabs his bag, ready to leave. “You know you’re the… ah… um… cute one anyway.” He spins around frantically, losing his balance and crashing into the wall before his tentacles wrap around the doorknob and he rights himself.

He is having a rough morning.

Mirio rushes after him. Grabbing his shoulder he pulls, turning Tamaki in his direction. With both hands he cups his face.

“Kick some ass, Suneater,” he tells him just an instant before kissing him hard.

 

“So what is it that you’re worried I’m going to freak out about?” his dad asks over breakfast. “I’d like to think that I’m a pretty calm guy. I mean, you’re still in trouble for fooling around with your secret boyfriend twice in three days. I haven’t yelled once.”

“Sir wants me to phase through the ground!” Mirio says very quickly and all at once. He’s supposed to sound happy, but he just sounds crazy.

As expected, his dad freaks out. He phases through his coffee mug and it shatters on the kitchen tile. Neither of them say anything for a long time.

Mirio’s dad has never phased through the ground. It’s not like he doesn’t have the ability to do so. But he’s always had better control of their shared Quirk, though he says it’s because he’s afraid of it. He’s never slipped, like Mirio has. He’s never experienced the sensation of true freefall, suddenly having no air in his lungs, no air to breathe anywhere. No sight, no smell, no sensation at all other than falling. He can’t comprehend the true sense of the void. 

But he’s just as scared of it as Mirio is. 

“He’s the smartest man in the country, isn’t he?” Mirio’s dad finally asks, staring at the puddle of coffee that’s seeping across the floor.

“Yeah, and maybe the world! Nobody can agree what ’smartest’ means so they can’t decide.”

“If he uses his Quirk, doesn’t that mean he can tell you what’s going to happen? He wouldn’t let you risk yourself like that. He couldn’t do that to a kid.”

Mirio laughs, feeling an overwhelming sense of relief, “Yeah! You’re right. Sir couldn’t do that!”

Of course he couldn’t.

 

Monday morning comes and Mirio gets up before the sun. His dad gets out of bed to see him off, making breakfast for both of them. Mirio wonders how stupid his mom must have been to leave a guy who’s so good to everybody. She’s pretty much the only person in the world he resents, but then again, she deserves it.

He takes the train to Centipeder’s yoga studio, stretches himself into a pretzel, and then walks a few blocks to the park where Bubble and a lot of other sidekicks are doing Tai Chi, or, as he now likes to call it, Fancy Standing.

He doesn’t know if he’s aware of his body when he finishes, but he definitely feels a little different for awhile. He’s rushing to make his way to the train to get to UA so he has a little bit of time to talk to Tamaki about the investigation with Fatgum when the headline on a television in an electronics store window catches his eye.

“Second Robbery in Days: Coincidence or Crime Spree?”

The screen shows the smoldering remains of a door, as well as an ambulance, all focused around another gallery. He doesn’t have time to stay and read the subtitles, but Fatgum is on the screen, flanked by Tamaki, who looks nervous enough to swallow his own tongue.

“They didn’t stop them,” Mirio murmurs.

But the train is coming and he’s going to be late for actual class if he messes around any more.

 

He gets to the classroom just before Aizawa-sensei, tripping over desks to reach his seat in the front left corner. In the back right corner, Tamaki looks exhausted. His arms are folded, and he’s lying on them, hiding under his hair. His only message had been a “made it home” at four in the morning.

Math isn’t Mirio’s worst subject, but it’s his least favorite. It’s boring, and he has never once made Aizawa-sensei laugh, or even smile. He’s Tamaki’s favorite teacher, so theoretically he can’t be that bad, but Mirio isn’t sure if the man likes him, or hates him.

Today though, it’s the worst. All he wants is to get out of his seat and ask Tamaki what’s going on. What did they do last night? Was there any action? Are they going to look for them again? Who is this criminal and can they really phase things through walls?

As soon as the bell rings, everyone seems to have the same idea, and they rush Tamaki’s desk. Hadou gets there first, but only because she’s the closest. Mirio, who is the farthest, has to push his way through some very large classmates on his way. Tamaki’s been surrounded, so he can’t face the wall. Instead he’s burrowed more deeply into the cradle of his own arms.

“Wow Amajiki, what was it like being on television?”

“He’s the first one of us!”

“Yeah, pretty funny huh? Of all people!”

“Not that funny; he is the best in our year.”

“Hey now,” Mirio laughs, finally reaching Tamaki’s desk, “everybody, give the man some air.” It’s not really a funny situation, but he doesn’t think that just yelling will do any good.

“Can’t you tell he’s really tired?” Hadou adds, leaning her elbow on Tamaki’s head. “Let him sleep. Actually, I wonder what happens if you just stop sleeping. Do you think your eyes die? Hey, Amajiki, could you grow new eyes if your eyes died? I guess you’d have to make new ones every day, though. Whaddya think?”

 

A first year Support student is nervously waiting outside of their classroom when he, Tamaki, and Hadou finally leave for lunch.

“Little chicken-heart, you’ve gotta get used to your adoring fans sometime,” Hadou is pinching Tamaki’s cheeks. He shakes his head and backs away, right into the tiny purple-haired student. An instant later, they are both apologizing frantically, Tamaki to the wall and the girl to her feet. Hadou interrupts them, demanding to know what the girl’s Quirk is and how it works.

“What are you here for anyway, little one?” she asks after the girl has timidly poured out her life story.

“Maijime-sensei sent me!” she squeaks. “I’m looking for Togata-senpai. He wants him to come up to his shop. It’s about his costume!”

He’s never been called senpai before, and it makes him chuckle. “That’s me,” he pokes his chest with his thumb.

The girl jumps. “O-oh! Do you know where it is? I can show you.”

“Nah, I’ve seen it before. Hey, what’s your name?”

“Sakura Kimiko!” she squeaks much louder and higher than necessary.

“Well, thank you very much Sakura-chan,” he gives an exaggerated salute and a wink.

“You’re welcome!” she wails, careening down the hall to get away from him.

His hero persona is a work in progress.

 

Maijime-sensei is busy at his workbench when he arrives, but there is a willowy woman wearing jeans and a denim jacket leaning against a chair near the entrance. Her hair is extremely long, and piled on her head in a really fancy updo. His teacher tips his head and indicates Mirio should listen to her.

“I am Mane,” she says all languid and borderline sexy, which is kind of weird, “a sidekick of Best Jeanist. I’m here on Sir Nighteye’s request.”

“Oh yeah! Nice to meet you! He said somebody would be coming to help.”

“Well. Here I am,” she pushes him into the chair. A set of clippers he didn’t realize she was holding buzzes to life.

Before he has chance to argue, half of his hair is completely gone, scattered across the floor and stuck to his uniform. He’s never shaved his head before — he’s always been pretty sure it would make his eyes look even more unsettling than they already do. But here it is, happening.

“Hey, what exactly are you doing there?!” He phases his head and the clippers go right through it, but she’s holding him down by the shoulder and she’s surprisingly strong. In order to fight her, he’d have to really try, and he still doesn’t know what her Quirk is. There’s no point in fighting her now anyway, since half his hair is already gone.

“My Quirk is hair manipulation,” she answers his unasked question. She tosses her head and the fancy hairstyle falls to pieces like there wasn’t anything holding it together. “I can grow someone’s hair very rapidly, but it works best if I start from the scalp.”

“Oh, well,” he unphases, chuckling, and she immediately attacks his head again, “you might wanna tell a guy that first.”

“There we are,” she turns off the clippers, “all finished. Now you need to eat like your life depends on it, or you will black out at some point during the day.”

“Well that’s really cool,” he gingerly touches his bald head, “but… why do you need my hair?”

“We’re gonna make your costume out of it, kid,” Maijime-sensei says from his workbench. “Come back here's at the end of the day and I’ll chop it all off.”

Whatever Mane’s doing, it doesn’t feel like anything. Not at first anyway. But then his scalp starts to prickle, and his hair is growing. Not as fast as he imagined it might, but still quick enough that by the time he leaves the workshop, he’s got a bob.

Lunch is ridiculous. He’s supposed to be doing his homework, but he has no time for that. Half the class laughs at him until they’re rolling on the ground and the rest actually spar with each other for the right to braid his shoulder-length hair.

Hadou wins, like she wins everything. She braids different parts of it and then twists everything into a bubbly thing at his neck. A chignon, she calls it. It kinda feels like his old ponytail. He doesn’t mind all the attention, it’s actually a lot of fun, but he’s a little worried about Tamaki and he really wants to know what happened with Fatgum last night. 

By mid afternoon, his hair is down to the floor. Hadou gets permission to sit behind him and she spends the entirety of their last class braiding it so that he can walk. The guys who come over to make fun of him keep tripping over the thick woven rope and he laughs enough to crack a rib every time.

 

He only gets to talk to Tamaki for a minute after his haircut, and that conversation is shared with the wall. Students are everywhere, getting ready to go to their internships, and the hallway is just chaos. The fact that he’s willing to talk instead of just scuttling away says a hell of a lot about what Tamaki is willing to put up with for him. He pushes his boundaries like this all the time. Mirio just wishes he could see himself doing it.

“Are you okay? You’ve been sleeping all day!”

Tamaki narrows his eyes but Mirio feels the unmistakable graze of a pinky against his.

“I didn’t get to eat yesterday,” Tamaki mutters. “Neither of us did. They had Fat talking to the police and me on patrol most of the day. I… ah… forgot how sick it makes me if I go that long without eating. Fat didn’t want me there at all, but he really needed the help so I stayed.”

“Did you see anything?”

“No,” Tamaki sighs heavily, “Whoever it is, their Quirk is tremendous. I don’t know how we can possibly find them. They’re getting explosives through the walls and knocking everyone out. People were hurt last night, and Fat blames himself.”

“Be careful then, Tamaki!”

“You worry too much,” Tamaki looks at his feet, swaying with exhaustion. “Your hair looked… delightful, by the way. You should grow it out again.”

Even though he’s just teasing, Mirio grins and blushes through his entire workout.

 

Sir isn’t there when he finally arrives at the headquarters.

All of the sidekicks are off doing important hero things, so Mirio has the space to himself. He strips down to his underwear and goes through punching drills on the wall in one of the gyms. All of the anxiety that he’s pushed down all weekend has come back in a rush. Working out with his Quirk takes up all his concentration so he doesn’t have to think about it.

He’s moved from punching to kicking (which is a lot harder) when Bubble opens the door and tells him Sir will be back any minute and he should wait in his office. He throws on his costume and runs up the stairs, happy to see that he can easily make it even after a long day full of training and hair growing. But nothing else about this moment is particularly happy. He knows what Sir’s going to want to talk about, and his stomach turns at the thought. He’s not used to being afraid like this. Phasing into the ground has always been a distant fear, like falling off of a twenty story building. It’s something that if he’s careful, he’ll never do, and he’s almost always been careful.

He skids to a stop at the office entrance, coming up on his tiptoes before he opens the door. Maybe it’ll all be okay. Maybe it will.

The office is empty, everything about it looming tall and dark, kind of like Sir himself. Mirio’s face falls for the brief moment that he knows no one is looking at him. He feels crushed, obliterated, lost over everything that is about to go wrong. Then he takes a deep breath. He thinks about everything he’s done so far, and how much better he’s gotten already. He can do this. He just has to be honest. It’s his Quirk, after all.

Sir will understand. He’s a smart guy.

He will.

He’s pulled his shoulders back and lifted his head when Sir bursts through the door. As usual, he starts talking right away.      

“I’m impressed Lemillion,” he crosses the room, hands behind his back. “You’ve followed your training schedule to the letter. Now, if you’ll have a seat we’ll discuss your Quirk training from now on. As I’ve mentioned, I would like you to begin phasing yourself into the ground completely. I am convinced that when you do so you will…”

Mirio does not sit. This isn’t a conversation he should have sitting. 

“Yes?” Sir settles his lanky frame behind his desk and crosses his legs, “It seems you have something to say on the subject.”

“I’m not going to do it,” Mirio says, standing up straight. There’s no point in dancing around it.

“I see,” Sir sit up. His eyes are unreadable. “Explain.”

“Well, Sir, phasing into something thick is like walking into… nothing. I can’t breathe or see or smell or anything! Falling into the ground is… um…”

“Unthinkable?” Sir suggests.

“If I don’t have at least a finger in the world, there’s no way to get back! No one in my family has ever done it before. I’ve only done it halfway but I still have nightmares about it. I… I can’t do it, not unless you have a really good reason. Not unless you know for sure that I won’t just fall.”

Sir’s eyes narrow. “We both know I am your most likely route to becoming strong, and yet you’re willing to refuse because you’re scared?”

“It’s just the truth,” Mirio tries to keep his voice level even though he’s panicking inside. It feels like some kind of animal is clawing it’s way out of his lungs. His stomach is churning, eyes twitching.

This is how Tamaki feels all the time. He makes it through, even though it’s terrible. The thought gives Mirio the strength to stand tall.

“You deserve to know the truth about me,” he finishes, “even if it means you send me back to UA.”

There’s a long pause then Sir raises an eyebrow and leans back in his chair, “You’re also wondering if I can see the outcome in advance to ease your mind.”

“Well, I would be kind of silly if I didn’t,” Mirio laughs, a mix of honest and extremely nervous.

“My Foresight will not work in this situation, I’m afraid,” Sir exhales, steepling his long fingers. “Or rather, the answer will always depend on your mindset when I use it.”

“I don’t understand what you mean, Sir.”

“The situation is a catch-22. If you have decided to do this, I will see you phasing and perhaps failing in the attempt. However, if you are relying on me to make your decision,  I will see you doing nothing. Just as I cannot promise you safety as you patrol, I cannot promise you safety if you choose to do this.”

“Sir, I’m sorry but I can’t,” Mirio’s shoulders slump, but he holds himself together. Sir asked him to be his intern for a reason, and it couldn’t have been just so he could phase through the ground. He’s more than that.

“You should never apologize for your fear’s existence, Lemillion. If you weren’t afraid, I would question your capacity for higher level thinking. And that is something much more vital to being a hero than any Quirk.”

Mirio smiles a little, “I’d probably try to be a hero even without one.”

“There, that, that is your strength. Your buoyancy in the face of despair. You will be strong, whether or not you phase into the ground. But I sincerely believe that if you do, you will become one of the most powerful heroes of our time.”

It’s hard to tell if the feeling in his stomach is dread or anticipation.

Chapter 3

Mirio’s optimism and pragmatism are in an all-out war.

He has a dangerous Quirk. Extremely dangerous. His grandma only had one hand, thanks to an incident with a train door. His dad’s come close to dying on the job in ways that make Mirio sick to think about. He’s been taught since the moment his favorite toy fell through his fingers to avoid certain things at all costs. Number one on that list was phasing into the ground. 

It isn’t just reckless. It’s suicide. Sir is asking him to jump off a building with no parachute.

Only the building is the size of the planet and there isn’t any air.

But Sir is the sort of person who puts a lot of pressure on you just by acknowledging your existence. Not to mention how much he’s already changed Mirio’s life. He’s needed someone like him since middle school. His dad let his dream of becoming a hero catch fire and Tamaki has been fanning the flames for nine years, but only Sir has the fuel to finally feed it. But with that comes daunting responsibility. Someone so powerful and smart putting his faith in him is a heavy burden.

Mirio wants to believe him. And a part of him, the part that carries him through his darkest days with a smile, does.

But the part that spends every waking moment figuring out how to time his phasing just right to make it through a wall while punching something, that part doesn’t.

After his internship, he just wanders through the rain, heart and mind heavy.

He ends up in a place that he probably shouldn’t be, at least not dressed in his uniform. It’s seedy and poorly lit and he could very easily get mugged. He can fight, sure, and he’s not exactly easy to stab or hit. He’s stronger than anyone he knows who doesn’t have super strength.

But is that enough in a fight with someone with a powerful Quirk?

He’s so tired of being behind it aches. He wants to stand at Tamaki’s side. He wants to be a hero. He wants to save people. He wants—

A slight woman wearing a long black smock and a strange black orb as a helmet slams right into him. She falls on the ground and Mirio stops completely, kneeling down to help her up. It’s impossible to tell what kind of expression she’s making with that helmet, but he tries to be a hero, even if he doesn’t really feel like one today.

“Are you okay?” he offers his hand. “I’m sorry I ran into you, can I help you home?”

The helmet shakes from side to side, and he takes that as a no. It’s a strange thing to wear, but not unheard of — some people’s Quirks are just really hard to handle and the extra support from certain equipment can make a huge difference.

He knows all about difficult Quirks.

The air around them feels fuller than normal — probably from the rain — and Mirio’s hair is standing on end. He thinks that might be weird, but then his hair grew seven feet today. Maybe it’s growing a little more.

But his arm hair is standing on end too.

Before he has the chance to figure out what exactly is going on, Black Helmet wiggles free from his grasp and gives several shallow bows. There’s no time to say anything before she ducks into an alleyway. Even though he follows, it’s like she’s disappeared.

He wonders if pro heroes have encounters like that all the time.

 

The thing about Mirio’s optimism is that it’s a conscious choice, something he pursues every day, because if he doesn’t, he might as well phase through the ground. But some days, it’s a choice that’s really hard to make.

The morning starts out miserable. Yoga is hot and slippery and he falls on his face in the middle of a crow pose. It’s not really the best weather for tai chi either, but that doesn’t stop Bubble. All this new activity is bothering muscles Mirio didn’t know he had. He’s one step closer to full body awareness, if only because every part of his body hurts.

Tamaki messaged him early to say he’d be with Fatgum all day, so there’s one less thing to look forward to. He’s failed half of his exams, which means remediation classes. Hadou decides that in the absence of Tamaki, she’s going to pick on him. It would be good fun in any other circumstance, even a sign that she’s starting to see him as an equal, but Mirio feels raw and exposed today.

While all of this is going on his classmates expect him to be the life of the party. They look to him to lift their moods after nearly everyone fails their Modern Literature exam. And he does it — he can’t not — but his laughter is not quite as strong as usual and he assumes someone is going to notice.

No one does.

Well, almost no one.

“You know, just because you’re a sunny person doesn’t mean you have to shine every day. Rainclouds happen and stuff,” Hadou sits on the edge of his desk, chomping away on her gum. It’s kind of scandalous but right now he just doesn’t care.

He beams at her.

“What makes you so happy anyway? Everything is harder for you than it is for everybody else. You should be gloomy, shouldn’t you? It’s funny; everything comes easy for Tamaki, but he’s the gloomy one.”

“Don’t,” he holds up his hand, pencil phasing through it to clatter on the desk. “Don’t say he doesn’t work hard.”

“I didn’t!” she kicks out her feet. “Well I guess I kinda did, but that was by accident. Hey, did you know you have all of these different laughs? Like they’re some kind of code, I bet. Did you know that?”

He… didn’t, actually.

 

Tamaki is on television again. This time he’s using a crab’s claw to wrench open a broken door at the scene of the most recent gallery robbery. He doesn’t seem to realize there are cameras around, and the set look in his jaw is something to see.

Mirio’s dad records the broadcast on his phone to show Tamaki’s parents, which is ridiculous because it’ll show up the internet anyway. But he’s old and excited so Mirio just laughs and goes to do the dishes, phasing halfway through the wall to the kitchen because he’s too exhausted to walk the whole way. When he reaches the other side, he doesn’t know why he did that, because his pants are now around his ankles and his shirt is impossibly twisted around his torso.

“Your clothes are never gonna phase with you!” his dad calls after him, laughing uproariously.

Mirio can’t wait to show him his new costume. A hair costume. Won’t that be itchy? He’ll just have to see. Sir seems to know what he’s talking about pretty much constantly, so he trusts him.

At least as far as costumes go.

“Hey, hey, hey get in here!” his dad calls the instant he puts his hands in the soapy water. “Hurry, c’mon!”

Mirio skids around the corner, only to see some uninteresting security footage.

“They’re playing it again,” his dad says, leaning forward in his chair. “Watch close.”

A man is looking at what might just be porn on a computer in an otherwise empty gallery. Which is hilarious, but not that interesting when he’s exhausted and has homework to do. Mirio is just about to tell his dad that hardee har, it’s all very funny but he’s got dishes to wash, when it happens.

It’s hard to see in the footage what it is exactly, but a bright spherical kind of… thing phases through a far wall, headed straight for the man at the computer. He glances up, does a double take, then leaps backwards against the wall. The sphere stops, gets even brighter, and then the camera cuts out.

The next piece of footage is Tamaki finally pulling off the twisted remains of the door. He’s noticed the cameras now, and he’s trying to work while also hiding. He’s not doing a very good job of either, and Mirio might laugh at how cute he is if he weren’t so shocked by what just happened.

“Any idea what that was?” his dad asks as Tamaki pulls his hood completely over his face. “Cause I sure as hell don’t.”

“It phased through the wall by itself,” Mirio says softly. “And I think it exploded.”

“That’s a powerful Quirk,” his dad leans back in his seat while the voice of the anchor repeats police tip lines for any eyewitnesses to call. “Doesn’t look like an actual person went through, though. Whew! I’m relieved. Didn’t wanna get caught up in some witch hunt.”

“But what happened?” Mirio falls into a chair. “Something went through the wall! And it had to be solid on the other side or it wouldn’t have blown anything up! How’d it fly while it was impermeable?”

“Far as I knew we’re the only people in the world with a Quirk like this. Been scanning message boards and registries and stuff while you’re at your internship, and it looks like it’s just me and you, Mirio.”

“And whoever that is,” Mirio clenches his fists.

 

“I… I don’t this person think will be… easy to find,” behind the wall of Mirio’s body, Tamaki slurps down a clam then chases it with a swig of milk. “Fat and the police have been searching around the clock. They’re only stealing paintings, and not very expensive ones either. It makes no sense.”

He all but inhales a salad as soon as he finishes speaking, head down, eyes darting. His new philosophy has apparently become to eat as quickly as possible so that no one can watch him doing it. He’s got flecks of garlic on his upper lip, and a little bit of salad dressing on his nose. The way he tears into a piece of fried chicken is so visceral that Mirio feels a familiar and very unwanted tug in his lower stomach.

“Mirio,” Tamaki comes up for air and wipes his face with his hand, “are you… thinking about doing something reckless?” He still has a dribble of something at the corner of his mouth and Mirio can see himself kissing it away in very sharp detail.

“Uh… I… um…” he pulls himself together, “Well, I… hah…” he’s blushing now, he can feel it. “Sorry, I just got a little distracted.”

“By watching me eat?” he can all but feel Tamaki’s stomach drop.

Mirio gives a sheepish grin, “You’re just really cute.”

“I’m never eating food in front of anyone ever again,” Tamaki turns his entire desk towards the wall.

“Wait it wasn’t like that! You just…”

“I just…?” he forlornly looks at the rice he has left to finish.

“Are really cute,” Mirio smiles.

Tamaki doesn’t say anything, he just shovels rice into his mouth like he wants to drown in it.

Mirio should say something now. He would have before. He would have told Tamaki just how shaken up he is over the whole idea of phasing into the ground. He’d reveal how desperate he is to get information that can help him make a decision about it. How much he wants to be brave and just try, but how impossible and reckless that seems.

Three months ago, he would have been able to tell him all this. He doesn’t know what is keeping him from speaking up now, but it’s the same thing that keeps him from saying the three words that he most wants to say when they’re holding each other in the dark. It makes his stomach hurt, because this is Tamaki and they tell each other everything. If a single kiss in the rain had the power to ruin their ability to talk to each other, he never, ever would have went for it.

But he can’t bring himself to regret it either.

It turns out, most types of falling are the same, and Mirio’s afraid of all of them.

“I think that maybe if someone talked to that guy, they could figure out why they’re doing something so rotten and stop them,” he says instead.

He doesn’t mention what other things they could possibly talk about.

“It’s possible,” Tamaki admits, closing up his bento and putting it in his bag, relief rolling off him in waves. “But… some people are bad at talking. Especially the ones who are trying to commit a crime.”

 

It’s PE and they’re sparring one-on-one while the rest of the class watches. Tamaki is in the middle of fighting Okabe Midori and as far as Mirio can tell, having a hard time of it.

Okabe’s Quirk is actually kind of similar to Mirio’s in a round-about sort of way. Her body can dissolve into sand that she has control over, so it makes it really hard to actually hit her. She also has issues with keeping her clothes on, but usually she just makes herself a kind of sandy bodysuit out of her own skin.

Tamaki is both a ranged and a close combat fighter. It’s part of why he’s so strong. But he works best when he can grapple or throw things. He can’t get a grip on her, there’s nothing around to throw, and they’re in front of a large group of people. All bad news. Okabe’s gotten a few good hits in, and Tamaki’s cheek is angry red from the friction of sand against his skin. He can take a lot more of a beating than that, though.

Despite the people surrounding them, Mirio is pretty certain Tamaki is getting frustrated. With every step, he seems less and less aware of the crowd, and more focused on his opponent. He’s been doing so much better, distancing himself from onlookers, and Mirio is so impressed. 

A tendril of sand shoots out, going straight for his eyes, when it just stops, blown to pieces.

“I hate this,” Tamaki groans into his hand. He flaps the scraggly wings that have sprouted out of his back, blowing Okabe back once, twice, three times and then she’s dispersed enough that she can’t pull herself back together without help.

The class explodes in cheers while Tamaki and the pieces of his shredded gym uniform run away to hide somewhere.

Mirio’s sparring partner is Ueno Saburou, who can make clones of himself from loose stuff like dirt. He really can only fight when he’s outside, or in a ball pit or something, but lucky for him that’s where they are. Outside, that is.

Lifting one foot at a time, Mirio phases out of his shoes. They’re not going to stay on anyway. He drops his shirt as well, hoping against hope that he can keep from flashing everyone for once. It’s not as though everyone in the whole country hasn’t already seen the crown jewels on television, but he still feels bad for the girls who didn’t sign up to see a naked guy every PE class.

The trick with somebody like Ueno is to get to him as quick as possible, before he can set up a wall of clones. Unless you’re Mirio, in which case, you just phase through them.

Ideally.

He still can’t phase flawlessly, and the first clone he passes through, his arm gets stuck. A piece of rock slices open his forearm, and blood explodes everywhere. Biting his lip against the pain, Mirio pulls his arm free.

Standing solid, he feels the cool air blowing against his bare ass. He sighs.

His other arm gets stuck on the next pass and Ueno finally has enough sense about him to start punching. The clone awkwardly swings its arm, wrenching Mirio back and forth and causing another deep gouge and several bruises.

“Shit,” he hisses. He pulls his arm free then kicks the clone, sending it careening into several others.

Ueno is a nice guy, and Mirio can see him wincing at the blood. His face is full of pity, and that’s about the one thing that can get Mirio mad. He doesn’t want pity. He’s just as good as any of them. He’s going to master his damn Quirk and when he does, he’s going to beat them all.

There’s only a single line of clones between him and his goal, and if he tries hard enough, he can get through them in a single push. A flying jump, feet first, solidifying  at the last minute to kick into Ueno’s face. It will all be perfect if he pulls it off. It means he has to be completely permeable for at least a tenth of a second, but he can do it, he can definitely do it. He doesn’t have to phase into the ground to be strong.

He takes a running start and, jumping in the air, he phases.

The world falls away. His throat tightens, no longer any air to breathe. Light and sound are gone. His lungs scrabble to take in breaths that just aren’t there. He’s panicking and he has no way of grounding himself. He reflexively moves his body, and then vertigo takes over. He has no idea what direction he’s going.

He’s going to fall.

Phasing back, his legs are no longer angled the way he needed to hold them for a solid kick. Instead he’s almost vertical. Centimeters away from his target, he slams into Ueno face first. Their heads crack together and they fall to the ground in a messy heap.

He’s still naked.

Their session ends up being a draw.

After Recovery Girl fixes his broken jaw, he kisses her on the cheek. She smiles and ruffles his hair, calling him a nice, hardworking young man.

Mirio grins and jokes with her, but the reality is he’s not hardworking. At least not the way he could be. He’s terrified of his own Quirk, unable to use it in a way it could potentially be used.

He has to talk to the one person who might understand.

But he has to stop them first.

 

Sir’s schedule makes it very hard to hunt for a criminal that Mirio can’t even recognize by sight.

“Tell me, Lemillion, have you ever tried to phase through electricity?” his head is resting in his hand.

Mirio is standing in front of a wall of shimmering light that’s big enough for him to step through. If Sir wants to test his Quirk, that’s all well and good, but he could just use his hand or foot. A body-sized electric wall is a little bit of overkill. Of course, Sir also has a creepy machine designed to tickle people if they aren’t lighthearted enough, so Mirio doesn’t really know if overkill is just his thing. He could even just use his Foresight for this — Mirio isn’t scared of electricity at all — but he probably saves it for emergencies.

“There’s never been any electricity just hanging around to phase through. And I didn’t really stick my hand in any outlets to find out!” he laughs. “I know I can phase through fire though!” 

“Indeed, quite amusing,” Sir adjusts a knob on the electric wall then slams his palm against it. His arm bounces back violently, but he doesn’t look like it hurt at all.  “As you can see, the voltage and amperes of this barrier are very low. Phase through it or not, it won’t hurt you. Now, if you please.”

Mirio leans forward and phases his entire torso to drop his shirt. It’s always weird when he solidifies and has to deal with a hanging sleeve. Figuring if he’s going to go for it he might as well go for it, he punches his phased hand into the barrier as hard as he can.

The instant his knuckles should be passing through, he’s thrown backwards with explosive force. He slams into the wall and slides down, hair blown out into an enormous poof.

“Very interesting,” Sir says, adjusting his glasses. “Though just as I expected.”

 

His hands are trembling, holding out the article — in English — on Quirk-enhanced particle physics that Sir gave him.Though Mirio knows more about physics than the average person out of Quirk-based necessity, he hasn’t even taken it as a class yet. When he does, he’ll probably fail. And even though he’s passably okay at English, he’s definitely not physics okay. There’s no way in the world he’s going to understand it. But Sir had shoved it at him, telling him to “read up on this to ease your mind.”

And oh does his mind need easing.

He’ll pop back up right out of the ground, Sir said. Squeezed out of the surface of the earth like atomic toothpaste out of an atomic tube.

That hadn’t been very reassuring.

It sounds insane. If he shares this with his dad or Tamaki, they’re going to freak out. There’s no one in school who understand his Quirk or physics well enough to talk to about it. Maybe Thirteen might understand the physics part, but since Mirio’s Quirk keeps him from getting sucked into their Black Hole, so he doesn’t think so.

Sir lets him leave early, giving him time to think things over. He’s being strangely gentle about all of this, and Mirio doesn’t know why. He almost wishes he would yell, that would be a distraction from the roar of disappointment that’s been echoing in Mirio’s ears.

He pulls out his phone to message Tamaki only to see that a message is already there: a recommendation for a band Mirio should listen to. He sends five thumbs up emojis and a heart as a response and smiles a little, glad that Tamaki was thinking of him too. There are a bunch more messages there from his classmates, and he responds to them as thoughtfully — and as quickly — as he can.

Then he puts his phone in his pocket and gets on the train, going the opposite direction of home.

 

Hitachi Gallery doesn’t look like the sort of place anyone would want or need to rob. It’s the first floor storefront in a drab little building. Nothing that special. It’s covered in police tape and a half-burnt flyer on the boarded up window says “Portrait Exhibit, Solid Gold Cafe,” but that’s about all there is.

Mirio doesn’t know what he’s looking for. Why would someone come back to the scene of the crime, anyway? But it’s the only lead he has, so he decides to just stand around for a bit until he gets a better idea.

He’s slouching against the wall of the next building over, sending his dad his typical “Be home late, sorry!” message when an older woman walks past him, talking on her cell phone as she takes in the building.

“I’m walking past it now. Such a pity, but you know, Tani’s work wasn’t there to be stolen! She has an exhibit set up at that cafe, you know the one with the little flowers at the—? Yes there. It’s opening tonight, I’m on my way. I thought I’d go to show my support. Yes, I know, they are fairly odd but Hiro, I think she’d appreciate it…”

Her voice falls away as she turns the corner. He looks at the burned up sign on the gallery window. And it’s not much, it’s hardly anything, but it’s a whole lot more than nothing.

Mirio has never had the two divergent paths his life can take put before him in such an obvious way before. In one direction, there is a warm apartment, dinner, homework, and above all else, the knowledge that he is safe and following the rules as he should.

In the other is an unknown path. It may end up leading him nowhere extremely fast. It’s also a step, however minor, toward deceit, danger, and destruction. But at its end, there may just be the answers he’s been looking for. He doesn’t know. He doesn’t have Foresight, he can’t know. But he has just a few seconds to make a decision.

Mirio takes a deep breath.

Mirio stands up straight.

Mirio steps toward the unknown, and he doesn’t look back.

Notes:

don't be reckless, mirio.

 

in case you were wondering, kaminari doesn't get a hit on mirio (even his phased form) when mirio takes on all of 1A

Chapter 4

Notes:

"Ah! Hey, listen to this! Did'ja know? A while back there was a kid who got so frustrated he completely gave up on becoming a hero and caused all sorts of problems! That Togata, he really had it rough! So you really gotta think things through properly, or it will only be hard on you!" - Hadou Nejire, ch 123

Tamaki was wrong. This isn’t reckless at all. Just a little information-gathering.

Mirio follows the woman as she chatters happily with whoever Hiro is. He stays in the light and on the opposite side of the street so as not to seem like a creep. There’s no way to make following a strange woman not a creep thing, though.

It’s not a big deal. He’s just going to a cafe to see a little art exhibition. Only he has to follow a complete stranger in the dark in order to do so.

She turns at the next block, blissfully unaware of anyone following her. There’s an hour and half until curfew, minus the half hour home on the train. He’ll just step in, pretend to look at the pictures, and listen for any kind of chatter.

The cafe looms ahead of him, gold and inviting in the darkness. People are milling around in front of it holding drinks, talking and laughing. They don’t seem to care about the shell of a storefront a few blocks away. Maybe they don’t even know it’s there. It’s impossible to tell.

Mirio slides past a chatty couple to get in the door, and immediately makes conversation with a barista as he orders a hot chocolate. He makes her laugh with a joke about the cafe’s name, and it’s easy to forget for a minute why he’s there. Only for a minute, though. It’s not hard to get her to talk about the exhibition, a series of portraits by an artist named Tani Mira. She notices his UA uniform and asks what year he’s in. If she remembers him from the sports festival, she keeps it to herself. Thankfully.

The portraits are kind of weird-looking abstract pencil sketches in a lot of wild shapes and sizes that don’t look like people at all. But in the middle of every piece is a hyperrealistic drawing of eyes.

It’s hard to say when Mirio realized his eyes were not… right. His dad and grandma had the same ones, and for the longest time everyone else was just strange with their whites and their colors. It wasn’t until pre-K that he started putting two and two together. Kids made fun of him once and awhile but it never really bothered him much. People have a lot more dramatic physical Quirks: animal heads, or arms made out of concrete, or hooves instead of feet and they all get by. Mirio’s even got good eyebrows, so it’s not like he can’t make expressive faces.

But it’s still kind of weird to go to an exhibition that seems completely focused on eyes.

The barista passes him his hot chocolate with a bright smile, and he grins back. She’s about to say something more, when her bright green eyes get wide and her mouth drops open.

“What on earth…?”

He turns around to see a glowing ball just finish its pass through the wall. It’s beautiful, almost too bright to look at, lightly floating just a few feet over everyone’s heads.

Reaching out for the barista, Mirio throws them both to the floor

“Get down!” he yells to the cafe, just seconds before the orb explodes. He feels the impact shake the room, shattering glass, rattling mugs from the shelves, and knocking the art off the walls.

All he can hear at first is ringing. He didn’t phase to protect the barista beneath him, and now his ears aren’t working right. He’s covered in dust from the explosion and his uniform is most likely ruined. Not that it matters.

“Is everyone alright?” a woman in a suit crouches in the rubble and debris. Her voice echoes over the buzzing in Mirio’s ears. “I’m a doctor, is everyone alright?” There’s the sound of a man crying, and a woman groaning pathetically.

Gingerly getting off of the barista, Mirio, runs across the scattered mass of bodies, jumping into the gaps between them as best he can. There’s someone out there, someone who tried to kill a dozen people at least. Someone who can phase things through walls. And Mirio no longer cares about talking or gathering information. He’s going to stop them because he’s the only one who can.

Running at full tilt, he drops his clothes and phases straight through the wall.

 

He skitters into the alleyway, naked and shivering. There’s garbage under his feet, something slimy in-between his toes. He crouches down, trying to stay hidden, when he sees her. A small figure in a black poncho and a spherical black helmet. In front of her is a glowing orb. It’s so bright he can barely look at it to see what it really is.

It’s her. The woman he ran into. She’s right here in front of him, he could have stopped this if he’d only had better instincts before. If he just had more experience in actually fighting villains than with wrestling with his own Quirk.

She’s looking at him, head cocked to one side. Maybe she remembers him, but it might just be the fact that he’s naked.

“Okay… ma’am… you’ve gotta stop this…” he tries, worried that yelling will make things worse.

Instead of responding, she leans down and pushes her hands forward, sending the orb phasing through the wall. A muted thudding sound followed by screams is more than enough evidence of an explosion.

“STOP IT!” he phases through the trash, not sure how words will stop this but trying all the same. “What are you doing? There are people in there!”

There’s a pause, and he wonders if, against all hope, she’s about to answer him. But then, dropping her hands, the woman runs.

She rushes down the alley and then turns sharply to the right, skipping through an absolute disaster of trash and construction debris. Mirio follows, plowing through it as he phases. Running should be no difficulty after Sir’s training regimen, but his lungs burn, constricting in on themselves. Adrenaline is searing a hole through his heart, sharp and relentless like the screaming pain of the nail he’s stepped on.

There’s a wall in front of them, one of the thick concrete barriers that block the noise from the train.  Even if she can phase herself, she’s trapped: the wall is too thick to phase through without falling into the ground. She skitters to a stop. She has nowhere to go, no way to escape.

Mirio digs his heels in, running as fast as he can. He steps on some glass and feels hot blood gush from the bottom of his foot. His hands are almost on her, just a few more steps.

And then she turns and climbs the wall.

He jumps, trying to catch her heel, but it slips out of his grasp. She climbs slowly, deliberately, like it’s difficult for her to move her arms and legs, but she’s clearly crawling against the surface like she’s stuck there.

What kind of Quirk can this person possibly have?

Taking a running start, Mirio tries to climb high enough to grab her. He makes it only a few steps before sliding back down, his fingertips and toes raw.

She’s made it to the top and is turning to go back down the other side. She has hurt who knows how many people, innocent people. But she is slow and clumsy and out of her glowing spheres. If he can catch her, he can stop her.

He just has to catch her.

He looks at the ground in front of him. Gravel over asphalt. He can phase into it and come out on the other side, if what Sir says is true. Tackle her to the ground and stop anyone from being hurt by this person ever again. And people are definitely, definitely hurt.

Taking a breath and closing his eyes, he phases his feet and starts to sink into the ground as the activation of his Quirk rolls up his body. 

He’s five.

His dad is taking him to go get some ice cream after the last day of school. They’re crossing a high bridge, one that his dad helped build. There’s a neat rock on the ground right near the railing and Mirio wants to get it and give it to his dad as a present. He leans down to pick it up, bracing himself against the metal. But it’s hot, and the railing is slippery with his sweat and he does what he always does when he touches something that feels yucky.

He activates his Quirk.

One phased arm is just enough to squeeze him through the railing and the gap above the bridge, and he falls.

It’s hard to remember falling. It’s hard to remember the fear. But he does remember the terrible terrible slap of water against his belly. He remembers sinking under the surface, too dazed to fight.

He remembers the feeling of freefall. Of the darkness as he slowly sank.

Pulling himself out of the ground, he crawls onto his hands and knees, body wracked with tremors.

He can’t do it. He just can’t.

 

Four major injuries. Everyone else escaped unharmed, mostly thanks to a quick-thinking UA student on the scene. That’s what the news anchors will say. But Mirio doesn’t feel like a quick thinker at all. He’s failed these people, and everyone else who this criminal will hurt next.

Sphere. They’re calling her Sphere, thanks to his description of the bombs she uses and her helmet.

The police don’t let him go inside the charred remains of the cafe as the paramedics bring out the injured on gurneys. He’s questioned for nearly an hour once they realize he’s not just some drunken pervert. They salvage his uniform pants and backpack. His shirt is beyond saving, and his shoes smell like burnt rubber. He’s wrapped in a blanket, leaning against the side of a building in a nearby alley, when Fatgum arrives.

He thinks he’s alone, doesn’t even hear steps, until Tamaki’s hands are sliding across his cheeks and his lips are warm against his. Tamaki kisses him like it’s the last time they’ll ever touch, greedy and almost delirious with desperation. The hands clutching his face are shaking. Mirio kisses him back with the fervor of a man returned from the dead, as though Tamaki’s kiss is the only thing keeping him from falling through solid ground. He can feel the warm wetness of Tamaki’s tears as they run down the dried tear-tracks on his own cheeks.

Tamaki may be a nervous wreck a lot of the time, but Tamaki does not cry easily.

Mirio is terrible.

“What are you doing here, Mirio??” Tamaki whispers as he pulls away. He has a look in his eyes that’s completely terrifying. They’ve had their fights, everybody has those, but there’s never been a single moment before where Mirio could say that Tamaki was really and truly angry at him.

Not until now. So he panics.

“Well, I just saw a sign for an Open Mic night, and I thought that maybe—”

Tamaki’s mouth drops open and he looks like he’s been punched in the gut. “Why… why are you lying to me?”

“Just because it’s hard to tell the truth doesn’t make lying easy to get away with,” is a wonderful lesson that Mirio is learning ten seconds too late. Of course Tamaki would be able to tell. Tamaki knows everything about him.

Everything but this one thing.

“If you knew something, you should have told the police,” Tamaki’s pulled away from him. Mirio can hear his breathing get quicker and quicker. “You chased her down… You… you could have been killed…”

“It was just a stupid guess! I just wanted to ask some questions! Then I was the only hero on the scene and everything happened so fast—”

“You could have been killed, Mirio!” Tamaki shouts into to the ground. “Have you seen the blood splattered against the walls? Just… everywhere. At the last bombing I saw a man’s arm three meters from his body. That could have been you!”

“Look, I know I’m weak. Okay? I get it. But you aren’t the only hero here, Tamaki!” Mirio spits out, his voice echoing against the alleyway.

Tamaki looks up at him and his eyes are wide and full of sadness. “Of… of course I’m not. Mirio… I would never say something so… so… terrible. How could you think that I would…” He stumbles away and leans against the wall, holding his stomach. He’s making terrible tiny gulping noises that are all Mirio’s fault.

“Is it okay if I rub your back?” he asks softly, coming to stand at his side. It’s where he should be, but it suddenly feels like he doesn’t belong there.

Tamaki shakes his head. He’s crying in earnest now, his sobs getting sucked into each hyperventilating breath. Mirio’s supposed to help him, and all he’s doing is hurting him.

“Suneater?” an enormous voice calls down the alley. The largest person Mirio has ever seen follows. Almost too big to fit in-between the buildings, he’s so much huger than he looks on television. 

Fatgum doesn’t know him. He doesn’t know how close he and Tamaki are. He doesn’t have any reason to think that interrupting right now is the absolute worst thing he could do. 

So he interrupts.

“I’ll help him out, kid. Saw some pretty rough stuff in there. First few times are the worst. Togata, is it? You should get home. Your dad’s here. Looks kinda pissed, so get ready.”

“Hey… uh… Tamaki? Let me know you get home okay?” he asks weakly.

Tamaki just sobs into the wall.

 

“I don’t know who you are anymore, Mirio!” his dad yells the moment their car doors are closed. “This is the third time in the span of a week that you’ve been sneaking around behind my back! If you are that desperate to get laid, just… go for it, it’s not like you can get each other pregnant. But this kind of danger is… it’s just… argh… not okay!”

Mirio puts his head in his hands, pulling hard on his hair. “I’m sorry, Dad.”

“Look, I don’t know what to do. I never expected that someone with my Quirk would want to be a hero. I don’t know what to do to keep you safe, I don’t know how to help, don’t know anything. And I think I’ve been really, really lenient with what I’ve let you get away with. But over the next few days we’re gonna sit down and come up with some hard and fast rules. And honestly, this all started when your internship with that Nighteye guy got going.”

“Dad, no it’s not like that! I was just being stupid!”

“I’m gonna call him tomorrow, first thing. Dunno know anything about the guy, and my son is risking his life working for him. I deserve some kind of peace of mind.”

Mirio pulls harder on his hair. His dad is breathing angrily, but not saying anything else.

“Is Tamaki okay?” he asks after they’ve been driving in silence for a few minutes. “He looked really sick when we drove past.”

“I… dunno,” Mirio says softly, hoping he doesn’t hear.

 

The next day is a nightmare. Someone’s relative knew someone’s friend who had a neighbor who works for the press, and suddenly everyone knows that Mirio was at the scene of the crime. That he’s being lauded as a hero. It’s an accolade that Mirio knows he doesn’t deserve.

But he’d put up with any humiliating praise, as long as Tamaki would talk to him again. But he isn’t. His head is down on his desk, and he won’t look up at anyone. Least of all Mirio. And of course, why would he? Mirio accused him of the worst possible thing, the last thing that Tamaki would ever, ever do. He just wants to talk to him. To say he’s sorry. And to tell him other things that he’s sick of holding inside. Tamaki would understand, of course he would, and Mirio doesn’t know why he’s been hiding from him. His own actions don’t make sense anymore.

He can’t focus on a single word of his lessons, and the teachers are furious with him.

On top of everything else, Mirio has never been scared of anyone more than Hadou Nejire. She pets Tamaki’s head gently, then smiles at Mirio across the classroom. He’s one of the only people her powers don’t work on — she can’t send him flying when all that’s unphased is the soles of his feet — but it seems like that doesn’t matter to her much.

During lunch, Tamaki disappears. Mirio doesn’t know what to do with himself, he hurts so bad he could cry, so he wanders out of the cafeteria and out onto the school yard, hoping against hope that he can find Tamaki and they can talk this out.

He finds Hadou instead.

“Hey, what did you do to Amajiki?” she crosses the empty yard. She sounds actually curious, instead of just threatening. “He’s been shaking all morning. He won’t look at you. Did you know that? Did you, Togata?”

Mirio doesn’t phase. Whatever is coming his way, he deserves it.

Hadou moves like nothing he’s ever seen. She takes four steps towards him, and it’s like she’s walking up a staircase, lifting herself on air until she’s hovering five feet above the ground.

He doesn’t realize she’s hit him with a shockwave until he’s sliding down the side of the school head first.

“Did you ever wonder what you did to deserve someone like him?” she sends him spinning across the grass, pinning him against a concrete column.

“Every day,” he croaks, wondering if he has a cracked rib.

“Why aren’t you phasing, Togata? I wonder if it’s because you think he’ll like you again if you suffer? Is that it? Romance doesn’t make much sense to me. I really want to know!”

She lifts her hand to hit him again, looking sad and confused.

“STOOOOOOOOOOP!”

The sound of Yamada-sensei’s voice disrupts her shockwaves and she falls to the ground. He’s stalking his way across the grass, looking as mad as Mirio has ever seen him.

“How did you know that would stop me, Sensei?” she demands as she escapes from the twisted mass of her own hair. Her eyes are bright and excited, all of the sadness gone.

“Look at you two, fighting in broad daylight! Thought you’d be a little smarter than that.”

“Oh but Sensei, didn’t you know?" she blows a piece of hair out of her mouth. "I was beating him up.”

Happy now that she's beaten him down, Hadou walks Mirio to the infirmary, chattering about Yamada-sensei's Quirk all the way. He tries to laugh at the stuff she says, at least to make things a little less awkward. But when Recovery Girl has him lie on his stomach to fix his rib, his tears leak into the pillow.

 

He’s terrified of meeting Sir, knowing his dad called him. But that just means he really, really has to see him. But he doesn’t get to, not right away. Centipeder sends him to the gym, where he’s supposed to spar with both of them. Bubble takes him on first.

Bubble is phenomenal. She has one of the weakest Quirks that Mirio has ever seen in a pro, and yet she’s the sidekick of someone like Sir.

She’s also really hard to fight.

Every time he kicks her, she sends him flying, using his momentum to spin him around. Lightning quick she finds the parts of him that aren’t phased and grabs and flips. He thinks he might have cracked a rib for a second time today when she grabbed it. It’s like she can see what he’s doing before he does it.

“Lemillion, are you okay?” she asks after a particularly brutal slam against the wall.

He gives her a weak thumbs up as he slides down the cinderblocks.

“You favor whatever side you’ve phased,” she stretches her arms over her head. “It makes it really easy for me to predict what you’re going to do.”

Nodding, he tries to keep that in mind for future reference. If he can even become a hero anymore. The thought that he’s done for has been steadily growing in the back of his mind, and no amount of optimism can hold it back anymore.

He’s setting up to spar with Centipeder when the gym door opens and Sir makes his way down the stairs.

“Bubble Girl. Centipeder. Lemillion and I need a moment.”

Mirio’s stomach is suddenly nestled in-between his feet.

“I’d like to spar with you,” Sir says, as though he’s just telling him what time it is. “Now that you are experienced enough to begin investigations on your own, I’d like a demonstration of how far you’ve come in such a short time.”

“Do I have to keep my clothes on?” Mirio tries to laugh and does a pretty bad job.

“Effervescent, as usual. Do what you like, the end result will still be the same.”

Sir just stands there, waiting for him to move. He doesn’t even take off his jacket. Mirio doesn’t want to hit his boss, he really doesn’t, but he also doesn’t want to drag this out. Running at top speed, he pulls his arm back for a hit, only to see Sir’s leg moving to sweep his legs out from under him. He phases his legs, just to get clocked in the face when he isn’t paying attention.

As he careens toward the ground, Sir takes a single step back. Mirio scrabbles to his feet, immediately attempting a roundhouse kick. Sir punches him in the side, and he falls a second time. This time it hurts a lot — he’s been beaten up a lot today — and he struggles to stand.

“It would do you some good to anticipate your opponent's movements,” Sir takes a cloth out of his pocket and cleans his glasses. “Your lack of experience is obvious. I think that’s enough for today. Put on your clothes and come up to my office.” 

 

His hero costume is draped over the couch, cape folded in a neat pile next to the bright yellow and green and white. A symbol of dignity. Of strength.

Mirio aches to touch it. 

“I spoke at length with your father this morning,” Sir begins, settling behind his desk. “Good man, wonderful sense of humor. Also very reasonable with regards to your safety. He believes in you a great deal, Lemillion. As do I.”

It takes a lot of effort to pull his gaze from the costume, but Mirio does it. “Yeah,” he scratches his head, feeling overwhelmed by words that he doesn’t think he deserves. “My old man’s pretty alright.” It’s a weak statement, but then, if the past twenty-four hours are evidence, he is a particularly weak person.

“You know what danger is,” Sir pushes back his glasses. “You do not need me to tell you what you did was stupid. You have others available for that purpose. So, I will tell you something else.”

“Thank you, Sir,” he chuckles despite all that’s happened.

“When I was a younger man,” Sir kicks his feet up onto the desk. His legs are long and hang over the far edge, “there was someone who I idolized. Someone I was desperate to work with, it felt like my entire raison d’être was to support this man in the few ways he could not support himself.”

They both know who he’s talking about.

“In order to get him to notice me, I followed him into danger, constantly putting myself at risk, all to prove that I was worthy to stand by his side. I cannot see my own future in the way I can see the future of others. It was reckless beyond sanity. There were dozens of times in which I could have been killed. In the process I lost both lovers and friends. But I made a choice to risk all I had. And that risk bore fruit.”

Mirio does not know where this conversation is going anymore. This isn’t the sort of lecture he was expecting.

“You have so very, very few chances in your life in which you should be reckless, Lemillion. But part of being a hero is understanding when those chances arrive.”

Sir pulls his feet off his desk and stands.

“The other part is taking them.”

Notes:

look i'm sorry okay.

Chapter 5

Notes:

sorry this took so long! this chapter was tricky and i had to take a bit of extra time with it.

His new costume is folded and placed on the top of a shelf in Sir’s office, the green and yellow catching in the light from a nearby lamp. There’s even a pair of underwear — the tight kind he doesn’t really like — and socks, since he’ll phase through regular ones.

The shelf is just out of reach.

Mirio’s grounded. Or whatever the equivalent is when your boss won’t let you do any hero things. It was something his dad insisted on, and Sir agreed to happily. Now Mirio is learning how to fill out paperwork, something he is really, really not any good at. Centipeder isn’t a very patient teacher, either. He explains how to fill out the boxes without actually demonstrating, and it’s not like Mirio can memorize something he hasn’t even seen.

He tries to keep up his spirits, but Centipeder’s sense of humor is highbrow. He does not like the doodling or the knock knock jokes or the physical humor or really… any funny thing that Mirio does. Mirio has the distinct feeling that they’re both wasting each other’s time. And they both know it. 

For all his talk of chances and taking them, Sir is coming down hard.

Tamaki wasn’t in school today, and neither was Hadou. Mirio is pretty certain they were out on patrol, trying to prevent new bombings and apprehend Sphere. And that’s good! They’re heroes, after all. But it left Mirio surrounded by classmates who wanted him to recount the goings on from two nights ago. Mirio dodged their questions, making a joke about running around naked in an alleyway, covered in trash. Self-deprecation is really not his style, but the only person who would notice that would be Tamaki. Since Tamaki wasn’t there, everyone just laughed. He laughed too, though he wondered the whole time what Hadou would say about it.

On the way to yoga that morning he’d taken a photo of the sunrise. After tai chi he’d taken another, this one of a tiny blue butterfly. All he wants now is to send them to Tamaki, but he won’t because they would be a small apology, and Tamaki deserves a big apology in person. Mirio would bring flowers, if he thought they would help, but unless the two of them were hidden away somewhere private, Tamaki would probably just get embarrassed over them.

Maybe one flower, though. Blue, like that butterfly. Maybe he could take Tamaki to that one park in Ibaraki where there’s nothing but blue flowers. There’s probably a million butterflies there too. Although there’d be a lot of people, so… maybe just the one flower.

He can’t do any of that while he’s doing paperwork.

Centipeder leaves him, finally, and he pulls out his phone, using the one percent of battery he has left to look at the pictures again. For the thirtieth time he wishes he could just talk to Tamaki. He’d ask if he could hold his hand, and if Tamaki said yes, then he would, as gentle as he could, and then he’d—

“Lemillion,” Sir is pinching the spot in-between his eyebrows and sighing, “put your phone on my desk.”

Mirio doesn’t know what he was expecting.

 

The call comes in a half hour after Mirio arrives. He’s nose deep in paperwork over an arsonist who Sir had taken down simply by telling the authorities where he was going to go next. It should be easy, nothing complicated, but Mirio’s already confused, pulling at his hair. Sir’s pocket starts to buzz and he pulls out his phone. He answers with a “Yes?” and then does nothing but hum until he finally says, “We’ll be there shortly,” and hangs up without waiting for a response. He sits his phone next to Mirio’s on the desk. They have the same dark blue All Might phone case, but Sir doesn’t say anything about it.

“Bubble Girl, Centipeder,” he presses down on the intercom on his desk. “Prepare to leave the agency.”

“Lemillion,” Mirio perks up, hoping that just maybe Sir is asking him to come along. “Once you finish that paperwork, feel free to train in the gym until the end of your shift. As you have probably guessed, I’ve been asked to add my considerable assets to the Sphere investigation. Under no circumstances are you to follow.”

“Understood,” Mirio salutes, not giving himself the opportunity to be sad over another thing today. Sir crosses in front of his desk then reaches back to grab his phone and tuck it into his pocket.

 

The gym is in the basement. There’s nothing below the wooden floor but solid ground. Mirio stands in the middle of the space in his boxers, staring at the polished wood between his feet. He should do it, just phase and drop all at once. Just try. If Sir is right, he could basically teleport from one spot to another, faster than anyone could follow him.

If Sir is wrong, the only way anyone will know he’s dead will be from the crumpled up pair of boxers sitting alone in the middle of the floor.

He jumps and phases, trying again and again to let himself fall, but the reflexes he’s developed his entire life keep catching him. Letting go would be like holding his hand into a fire. Something he can do, but he has to really, really decide to do it.

Punching the wall eventually wins out.

He’s getting good. He can do combos now, two punches and a kick over and over from different directions and at different speeds. He even sets up a little target that he kicks as he pulls his foot free of the wall. Most of the time he just phases right through it, but every four of five tries he knocks the piece of foam flying across the room.

It’s all thanks to Sir, but Mirio has also worked hard to get this far. This isn’t the end, he just has to keep trying and things will get better with practice and experience. Things aren’t going to be like this forever. They won’t. They can’t. He won’t let them. Tamaki will forgive him, as soon as Mirio gets the chance to apologize. Maybe he’s even staring at pictures on his own phone, his eyes crinkling up at the corners while he…

For some reason, the sketches in the cafe come to mind. They’re probably showing what’s left of them to Sir right now, asking what he thinks about them. He’ll probably say that they’re ridiculous and everyone will laugh because they are.

But will he care about the eyes? He’ll notice them, but will he focus on the squiggles instead? Or will he think about something else, like the way Mirio said that Sphere walked or how she climbed up the wall or the sort of people who were at the galleries at the time of the attacks?

Mirio doesn’t feel like punching the wall anymore. He’s not smarter than Sir, not even close, but he just can’t stop thinking about those eyes.

Grabbing his clothes he runs back upstairs. No one’s there to see him in his boxers. Even if they were they’ve seen him in less. He pulls the door to Sir’s office open and sits in one of the rolly chairs at the computers in the back of the room. Every time he logs in he smiles because he has an account, a real live account, in a hero’s office. This time is no different, and as he opens up a browser, he’s half convinced himself that what he’s doing is stupid.

He doesn’t search for anything special, just the name of the city and “art” and “eyes.” The results aren’t very useful, mostly just eye doctors’ offices, so he tries adding the word “exhibition,” since that’s what got him in trouble in the first place.

Solid Gold Cafe is the first result. Then a bunch of junk. He does the unthinkable and goes to the second page of results. There he finds three other galleries, all with old news stories about long-past eye-related exhibits. He recognizes two of them as the other galleries that were bombed. The third is just a nowhere place, hidden away in a mostly residential part of town, far from where Sphere has struck before.

Someone has to have noticed this already. There’s no way someone could just take down the place without heroes being there to stop them. There’s probably a patrol set up.

But what if there isn’t?

 

The phone on Sir’s desk looks like his. It weighs the same, and it has the same case: All Might in profile looking especially heroic. But it’s a lot cleaner and when Mirio tries to put in his passcode, it doesn’t work. Because it’s not his phone. It’s Sir’s.

Sir’s passcode is not 1234 or All Might’s birthday or anything easy like that. Mirio can’t figure it out, so he stops trying. Sir will notice it’s not his phone right away and he’ll probably recognize the office number, Mirio just has to call it. Jumping over Sir’s chair, he reaches for the landline at his desk. After four or five tries and reading the instructions underneath the phone, he figures out he has to dial eight before his own number.

The phone goes straight to voicemail.

Mirio hangs up. He paces the room. This is stupid, he’s being stupid, the police are taking care of this, everything’s fine. But in the off chance it isn’t, he calls Sir again. Nothing but voicemail, which is probably because his phone’s battery is dead.

Nothing has changed to increase his level of urgency, other than this feeling that he just can’t shake. Most people have normal eyes, they’re a part of art all of the time. They’re not something a normal person would even think twice about.

But Mirio is not a normal person, and that knowledge is what has him dialing the police tip line.

The woman who answers is polite, but it’s pretty clear she’s used to taking down information and passing it on to someone who doesn’t tell her what they’re going to do with it.

“Hi uh, ma’am,” Mirio laughs even though nothing is funny. “I’m Togata Mirio, you know, the naked kid from the other night?” He laughs again, but she is not laughing with him. The quiet on the other side of the line makes him incredibly nervous, and everything he planned on saying flies out of his head and he has to start from scratch.

“Okay, well, yeah…” he clears his throat. “I’m calling because I think I know where Sphere is going to strike next!”

“I see. Please, continue.”

“Alright! Okay! Alright! So, it’s all about eyes, y’see. Every place she’s gone so far has had eyes as part of the paintings, and so I looked up eye exhibits, and they were all places she’s been! So there’s this other gallery, with other eye stuff and it’s… it’s…” he stretches as far as he can to see the computer, only to realize that the screen has gone black.

He stands on one foot and taps the space bar with his toes.

“Okay!” he squints, reading off the name and address of the place. “I think she’s gonna go there next.” He bites his lip to keep from admitting how crazy it sounds. Heroes need to sound sure of themselves at all times, to keep people calm, and he’s a hero, even if he’s grounded.

“Thank you very much for your information, sir,” she says in an even voice. Mirio knows when people aren’t taking him seriously and this is definitely one of those times.

“If you can just make sure that Sir Nighteye hears,” he takes a deep breath to hide the desperation in his voice. “He’s my boss, and he definitely wants to know.”

“Don’t worry, sir, there are professional heroes patrolling all likely locations. Your information will be passed along to the investigation. Now if there isn’t anything further, I’d like to keep the lines clear.”

“No,” Mirio’s shoulders droop. “Thanks so much, ma’am.”

The line goes dead.

She’s not going to tell them. At least not right away, and she’s not going to tell the right person. If he leaves this office after everything else he’s pulled so far this week, he’ll be done for. The chances he’ll become anything other than a two-bit sidekick are next to none. He needs Sir. He needs his trust, his experience, and his help. Leaving is the best way to lose all of those things.

But people could die.

There’s one more call he needs to make.

 

“Hello, Kimora Gallery,”

“Hello! I’m calling from the station downtown! I just wanted to make sure that your patrol arrived?” Mirio has no idea how police officers talk about anything. He just tries to sound like he knows what he’s talking about.

“Oh yes! Hello! Are you calling about that shy young man? Sun… something or other? He’s definitely here, just walking around the block, I think.”

Mirio almost drops the phone. “Okay! That answers my question. Have a good day, sir!”

He hangs up without waiting for a response.

His new costume is still folded and placed on the top of it’s shelf, the green and yellow still sharp and crisp in the light from the lamp. It’s a symbol of strength, of hope, of achievement.

A symbol of the dignity Mirio has never been allowed when using his Quirk.

With a running start, he jumps up and grabs it.

   

It’s dark when he reaches Kimora Gallery. It’s a storefront in a decrepit looking building in an even rougher neighborhood. The fact that they sent a second-year intern here by himself has to show how thinly they’re spread. Mirio had no idea there were this many artsy places in the same town, but he must live in a much more sophisticated area than he thought.

Everything seems quiet and if he leaves now, he can get back to Sir’s office without having to explain himself to Tamaki or getting caught. It’s mostly the first thing that he’s worried about — Tamaki will understand if Mirio just gets the chance to talk to him.

But part of him, maybe it’s instincts, maybe it’s stupidity, says that he has to stay.

He must look ridiculous, standing in an alley in his bright costume, but he doesn’t want to just run in and act like Tamaki doesn’t know how to handle himself. He does, Tamaki is so strong but Mirio is familiar with the situation and people have been hurt so badly and he…

…probably feels exactly how Tamaki did when he yelled at him outside the cafe.

He looks at his hands, fingers snug in perfectly fitted gloves. He hasn’t tried to phase just his hands yet. It’s all or nothing, when he finally does it. That’s the way it should be now: he should just go for it. He should just walk in the front door, tell Tamaki his worries, and they can patrol together. Maybe they’ll even catch Sphere and while they wait for the police to come she can tell them what it’s like to phase things into the ground.

The shattering of the building’s windows interrupts his pleasant imaginings.

Mirio does not think, he just moves. Except he does think, because there’s a wall in front of him, and the steps required to go through it never stop being complicated. It’s a normal crumbly sort of building, nothing fancy about it, so as he turns on his heels and steps forward, he phases his leg, pulling his body forward afterwards, letting himself phase everywhere but his feet.

For the first time in his life, he feels something that isn't his own skin.

It’s the supple cloth of his costume rubbing against his armpits as he moves his arms in time with his rapid stride. It’s phasing with him and halfway through the wall, his tears of relief are sharp and hot as they gather in his eyes. He unphases his face and blinks them away just in time to see Tamaki on the other side of a smashed up column. He’s standing unsteadily, the costume at his shoulder torn away exposing a terrible bubbling burn.

“Mir— L-Lemillion?” he asks, stunned. His fingers are octopus tentacles and he’s holding a piece of the wall, poised to throw it. Mirio follows the line of likely trajectory and there Sphere is, standing with her arms held up like she’s holding onto some kind of invisible puppet. Around her spin three of her orbs, moving fast and crackling with energy as they grow larger.

His hair is standing on end.

It’s then that Mirio realizes what he should have figured out a long time ago. Sphere isn’t phasing things through the walls. She couldn’t phase if her life depended on it, that’s not her Quirk.

She’s making balls of lightning.

The balls stop moving and she raises her arm, aiming straight for Tamaki. He’s shaking, and he has to be in a lot of pain, and Mirio has no idea if he can move quick enough to get out of the way. Mirio runs full tilt at the column, figuring out in his head as he moves just how long and how much of himself he has to phase at once. He dives headfirst into the concrete, unphasing just in time to pull Tamaki to his chest and roll onto the floor, back first. He throws his hands over Tamaki’s ears and phases his head.

The three balls of lightning meant for Tamaki explode with concussive force, rattling the foundations of the building and taking a huge chunk out of the column. Mirio thinks it might be what’s holding the ceiling up, because pieces of it are falling down all around them. The cloud of dust is everywhere.

“Are you okay?” he pulls his hands away from Tamaki’s ears. There’s dust and bits of rubble all over Tamaki’s shoulder and it looks like it has to hurt a lot.

“I’m fine,” Tamaki pants, even though he doesn’t look fine. “The gallery owner is behind the counter, he was hurt a lot more than me. She’s pulling ball lightning out of thin air. I didn’t even think it was real, but…”

Mirio has no idea what ball lightning is, but he does know it can go through walls and it explodes and that is more than enough information to run with.

“Okay, well, we have to do something until the other heroes get here,” he strokes Tamaki’s uninjured arm, not realizing he’s doing it until about halfway through. Tamaki isn’t stopping him, in fact he’s leaning into it a little bit, and they meet eyes and blush, despite the fact that really, they have a lot more important things to worry about.

“You’re hurt, so why don’t you work on getting that guy out of here safe, and I’ll try to distract her.”

“Don’t let her get too many hits in. Even if they phase through you, they’re still going to rip the building to pieces.”

Tamaki doesn’t know that Mirio can’t phase through electricity. But the truth is a luxury neither of them can afford right now.

“Got it.”

After rolling back on his hands and knees, Tamaki looks at him for just a beat too long. Mirio wants to take advantage of the dust and lean forward to kiss him, but he doesn’t because they are heroes and a man desperately needs their help.

Tamaki crawls off of him, heading behind the large counter that is cracked and shattered in places. Mirio rolls onto his shoulders and then snaps himself into a standing position with his hands, managing to not step on his cape in the process.

“Ma’am! I’m going to have to ask that you stop destroying the building!” He tries to sound calmly authoritative, but he just ends up laughing at himself, which is probably making Sphere mad. She’s going to think he’s laughing at her. But the situation, asking someone calmly to stop blowing things up, is just ridiculous and he is so nervous he can’t help but laugh.

He wonders what Hadou would have to say about that.

Sphere is somewhere just ahead, he can see the blackness of her clothing as the dust clouds flow around her but he can’t pinpoint her exact location. If Hadou was here, this would all be gone in a moment, and Sphere would be on the street on her back. But she’s not here, it’s just him and Tamaki, who is so injured he can’t stand without shaking.

Filing away the need to tell Hadou how amazing she is, Mirio rushes for the murky blackness. The motion sends dust swirls around him, catching in his cape and making a small tornado behind him. The air around him is tingling with static electricity that jumps from the dust motes like little stars. Mirio phases, even though it’s not going to do a single bit of good. He doesn’t know a thing about ball lightning, but he’s pretty sure that all this dust is making Sphere even more powerful than she was

When he slams backwards into the wall after running straight into an electrical barrier, he’s certain of it.

The motion of his unphased body and cape flying across the room clears away the dust and Sphere is standing before him. She’s small, no more than 155 cm or so, and her body is tiny. So small that the helmet she’s wearing looks weird and, given the circumstances, pretty creepy. She has to be looking directly at Mirio, and her head tilts, as though she recognizes him.

“Yeah, it’s me! Again! We just keep running into each other. Sort of weird, right?” he earnestly wants to know.

It is hard to have a conversation with someone who is just staring at you, but Tamaki is standing up, hefting the injured gallery owner over his good shoulder with octopus tentacles coming out of his back. If Mirio is really engaging, they can creep away without being noticed. And if he is good at one thing, it’s keeping people entertained.

“So, I don’t know if you know this, but I accidentally gave you a name,” he puts his hands on his hips, shifting his weight from one foot to another. “It’s ‘Sphere.’ I dunno if you like it or not, but you’re always welcome to tell me your real one.” He laughs.

Sphere’s head tips in the other direction.

“Look, I think you’ve got some kinda issues with eyes. You and me both! But the people that have been hurt,” he doesn’t say that she’s hurting them because he’s worried that might make her do something crazy, “they didn’t make my eyes weird. It’s just the luck of the draw, you know? I’ve got a lot of other awesome things going for me, and I happen to think I’m pretty handsome the way I am.”

She takes a slow step towards him, hands at her sides. And then another. And then another.

Tamaki uses the opportunity to move toward the building’s exit. The gallery owner is nestled inside a feather-lined clam shell attached to his back. Mirio didn’t even know he could do that. If things keep going as they are, Tamaki’s going to pass Sphere and then it’s just a quick run to the door.

But a piece of rubble cracks under his feet and Sphere turns around. Instead of spinning lightning balls around her body, she holds her hand up and a thousand tiny sparkles fly from the dusty air into the space right above her palm where an enormous orb forms. She whips it at Tamaki as hard as she can. Tamaki is forced backwards and at the very last minute, a latticework of tentacles are there to catch the brunt of the explosion.

The air smells like charred octopus and Mirio runs as fast as he can to Tamaki’s side. Sphere’s already charging another lightning ball, and there’s nothing Mirio can do but push them backwards into the corner, where they’ll be farthest from her. He’s about to turn back around and rush her, when he sees an orb floating towards them, less than a meter from his face. With nothing else in mind to do, he unphases his hand and punches into the ball of electricity. He slams backwards into the wall, but the ball’s trajectory changes just a little and instead of hitting Tamaki and the old man, it explodes into the column that Sphere had already hit at least three times.

It cracks at the top and bottom, and starts to slide loose.

There’s a groan, as the building begins to destabilize, dust and debris falling through the drop ceiling. But then, Tamaki is there, holding the column steady with two writhing masses of tentacles that go all the way down to his armpits. Where his legs should be are the strangest things Mirio has ever seen.

“Cricket legs,” Tamaki gasps, straining under the pressure. “I decided to try them out. They’ve extremely strong.”

Mirio turns, ready to rush Sphere, not caring if he can’t phase or not, when she crouches down and lifts her arms and suddenly the specks of dust are sparking and an enormous bubble of shimmering impossibly-bright light spans from wall to wall, trapping them against the corner.

The building is old, shaken from earthquakes with walls pocked from the explosions Sphere has already wrecked on it. Mirio doesn’t know how long it will be able to stand, even with Tamaki holding it up. He’s trapped behind the wall of electricity, and even if he can’t get electrocuted when he’s phased, he still can’t make it through the barrier.

He looks down at the ground. The building probably doesn’t have a basement, these kinds usually don’t. If it does, then…

Next to him, Tamaki hisses, “You’re going to do something reckless, aren’t you?”

Mirio reaches out his pinky and grazes the mass of tentacles where Tamaki’s hand should be.

“Mirio… please…” his voice is strained from the effort of holding up the ceiling and the pain of the burn on his shoulder. At his feet, the old man groans, his exposed back raw and bleeding. Tamaki has a strong heart, the strongest Mirio knows, but his body is only as strong as his skeleton.

That’s not strong enough to hold up a building.

They’re going to get crushed if someone doesn’t do something about it.

“Tamaki… have I ever told you how crazy in love with you I am?” Mirio asks, soft and gentle. He knows it’s unfair to say this now but he’s allowed to be a little unfair before he maybe dies horrifically.

“Don’t say that!” Tamaki grits his teeth. It’s all he can do, holding on to the column. There’s no time, Mirio has to go. He can’t stand here and brush Tamaki’s hair back from his face and tell him how sorry he is and how he hopes that maybe someday he’ll forgive him. That is something that has to wait.

Mirio drops his hand.

“No wait, Mirio! I mean…” Tamaki’s eyes are full of something that, even after nine years, still brings nothing but wonder into Mirio’s heart, “don’t say things like that when you’re going to come back.”

It’s complete, unwavering trust.

“No sweat! I’m just taking care of this. Be right back, okay?”

“I’m glad you came, Mirio.”

“Me too.”

This is a big deal. Something should be happening, there should be some kind of noise other than Tamaki’s strained pants and the crackling hum of the lightning ball. But there isn’t anything. No fanfare, no tense music, no gasps from any audience.

Just a job that needs done.

Mirio steps forward, phases his entire body, and falls straight into oblivion.

 

There is falling and there is nothing. Time no longer exists. It’s so much more terrible than he ever imagined, but he has one chance at this before the ceiling collapses. One chance to stay alive.

His gloves are too snug. He can’t feel his hands against them, not in the normal way, but he knows they’re shaking. This is what dying must feel like. He’s going to fall and fall until the magnetism in the center of the earth unphases him and he instantly melts. Or maybe until he asphyxiates halfway down. Then if Sir is right, his dead body will shoot a thousand meters into the air as the final throes of death deactivate his Quirk.

But he can’t die. There are people to save. One of them is Tamaki. And he needs to apologize for saying he loves him in such an unfair way. 

What is time? How far has he fallen? How is he supposed to angle himself? If he comes at that lightning barrier going at the speed Sir expects, it’s going to slice him right in half. He leans forward, stretching out his arms, feeling the muscle move even if he can’t feel his skin.

He’s going to die. He’s going to fall forever, or smash into jelly. He’s going to leave his dad alone in the world. He’s going to leave Tamaki to be crushed. This isn’t going to work. This isn’t going to work. This isn’t going to work.

He’s going to die…………

 

He might as well die trying. 

 

He deactivates his Quirk and suddenly the world explodes with light and noise. He takes a deep shuddering breath.

Seventeen years of terror are obliterated. His dad and grandma’s lifetime of fear was for nothing. They can’t fall into the center of the earth. There’s nothing to be afraid of. Sir was right. It works.

But now is not the time to celebrate. Sphere is in front of him, holding up her arms to maintain the enormous barrier of ball lightning she’s created around herself. She doesn’t know he’s there — he’s popped up behind her and the barrier is loud. Her cape is shredded and he can see her trembling under the strain or out of fear, he doesn’t know which. Strewn across the floor are paintings from the gallery walls. They’re all of beautiful people with soulful eyes.

He doesn’t like the idea of sucker punching someone. Especially not someone so tiny. But she’s a villain and he needs to get over it. Tamaki and the gallery owner desperately need help, so he does it, slamming her in the kidney with his fist.

She staggers forward and the barrier falters, then roars back to life. Weakly moving her hand, she calls down pieces of the flickering luminescence and throws them at him.

He ducks as they fly over his head, skidding across the ground as low as he can to keep from searing his face off on the barrier. It hums and crackles the closer he gets to it, and all of his hair is standing on end. Kicking out his leg, he trips her then spins across the ground to her other side, ready to fight. But she’s already landed on her back, her helmet rolling away. She curls into a ball, pulling the electricity even tighter around them until Mirio can’t even stand. 

“This barrier can’t hold up the entire ceiling!” he calls out. “You’re gonna die with us if you don’t let go! Please, let me help you!”

He could escape now, he can easily run away because phasing into the ground works, but he can’t free Tamaki, not to mention the old man with burns so bad he can’t stand. He’s not leaving without them.

Sphere whimpers, curled up on the ground. He pulls her by the shoulder, trying to knock some sense into her one way or another. The face that looks back at him is surreal. Her electric blue eyes are enormous, bulbous and still, like an owl’s. They dominate half of her face and jut out past her nose. She blinks slowly with clear eyelids, staring back at him. He always thought that villains were supposed to be ruthless, but he sees nothing but fear and confusion in her wide-eyed gaze.

“We’re going to die,” he says as gentle as he can. “Please drop your barrier. I’ll get us all out of here, okay? Then we can figure out what’s going on.”

She smiles. With eyes like that it is a truly terrifying sight but he doesn’t turn away. Reaching up her hand she caresses his cheek. She’s trembling like a leaf, and he doesn’t know how to take this gentleness. This woman has hurt people. A man lost his arm. The gallery owner is showing more muscle than skin. She has caused nothing but devastation.

For a long moment, she looks at him, almost as if she can see through him. Then, reaching her hand up past his face, she makes a fist and yanks it downwards. The electricity disperses into the surrounding air while he’s holding her, a surge of power that takes his breath away.

“MIRIO!” Tamaki screams, his voice shredded.

Mirio stands up, Sphere in his arms.

“You… you’re alive,” Tamaki shudders. He’s still holding up the pillar, but he looks deathly pale, like he can’t handle it much longer. “I… I… don’t ever do that to me again!”

“Let’s get out of here, Suneater” Mirio strides forward, slinging the unconscious gallery owner across one shoulder. Sphere rests light in his other arm. She’s still caressing his face. Burdened as he is he takes a few uneven steps towards the door, but Tamaki isn’t following.

“Go,” Tamaki grits his teeth, “the longer I hold this up, the safer you’ll be.”

“What? No! I’m not leaving you!”

“You’re not the only hero here!” Tamaki’s voice is weak and hoarse, “Now get out while you can. I’ll follow as soon as you’re out.

“But—” There’s no argument. Tamaki is right, this is the best, most secure way to save these people. And that is a hero’s number one job.

“GO, Mirio!”

Mirio runs to the entrance of the gallery, then looks back at Tamaki. His head is bowed, legs shaking. Mirio can’t leave him. He just can’t.

Tamaki lifts his head. His eyes are more determined than anyone Mirio has ever seen or imagined.

“RUN DAMN IT!” he yells.

And Mirio runs.

 

The building groans the instant he escapes it, making shuddering creaking sounds. He drops the old man and Sphere as gently as he can, far from any potential danger of crushing, then turns on his heels, running back. He can see through the window as Tamaki watches him. Seeing the all clear, Tamaki carefully lets go of the concrete column, and then he runs. The column slides sideways then crashes to the ground. Debris is falling everywhere.

Mirio has made it a few steps from the door when an enormous chunk of something falls down and hits Tamaki right in the head.

He stops moving, shakes his head, and then drunkenly leans against the wall, desperately trying to make it out. Mirio doesn’t take the door, he phases through the ground, popping up about five feet behind Tamaki. He doesn’t have the time to worry that he’s not precise enough yet. He doesn’t have time to ask if Tamaki is alright.

All he has time to do is pick Tamaki up in his arms and run out the door, just as the ceiling collapses.

Notes:

the last chapter's finished! i'll be posting it on thursday.

Chapter 6

Mirio sits on a bench, holding onto Tamaki’s sister. Across from them, Tamaki’s mom has buried herself into his dad’s chest. Mirio’s own dad is at his side, arm tight around his shoulders. They’re all too scared to cry.

Mirio’s still wearing his hero costume and the cape is all twisted underneath him. Fatgum is pacing the ER, knocking over chairs and tables and scattering magazines everywhere.

“Never shoulda sent him to that place alone,” he mutters to himself, stress eating a handful of candy bars.

No one else is saying much of anything. Mirio figures he should tell his dad what happens when you phase through the ground, but if Tamaki doesn’t wake up, he’s never going to talk to anyone again.

In the grand scheme of things Tamaki could be a lot worse off, the doctors say. He has stress fractures in his shoulders and hips which they’re bringing in a specialist to heal. The burn on his shoulder needs skin grafts, but someone can grow those easily. The biggest fear is the hit he took to the head. His skull’s not fractured but they can’t say much about his brain until he wakes up.

If he wakes up.

“He’s gonna be okay,” Mirio announces, not quite realizing he’s said it out loud.

His dad squeezes his shoulders, and Kotone laughs a little in his arms. Across the hallway, Fatgum grunts out a, “Damn straight he is.” Tamaki’s mother smiles weakly.

“He will, Mirio. You’re right.”

 

He’s mostly right.

When Tamaki wakes up, his family goes in first, so as not to overwhelm him. Mirio paces the hallway, full of things he wants to say. Most everything is some version of “I’m sorry.”

“I’m sorry for scaring you.”

“I’m sorry for lying to you.”

“I’m sorry for being reckless.”

“I’m sorry for saying ‘I love you,’ for the first time in such a stupid way.”

He hopes Tamaki’s parents will give them a little privacy at some point so he can say that one.

“Mirio, you can come in now,” Kotone says, tears in her eyes but a smile on her face. “He won’t stop talking about you.”

He holds the door open for her and then goes in. Tamaki is avidly talking to his dad and doesn’t notice him at first. His head is bandaged, his hair sticking out at weird angles. His loose hospital gown is falling down over one shoulder to reveal a huge dressing and strange jagged marks that look like dozens of tiny lightning bolts tattooed on his skin.

Letting the door close, Mirio steps inside all the way, and that’s when Tamaki sees him.

His eyes light up and crinkle at the sides. His ears twitch as his lips curl back in a megawatt smile. “MIRIO!” he calls out, lifting up his arms. “Ouch,” he adds, lowering his right shoulder and wincing.

Mirio doesn’t know what’s going on, but he rushes across the room anyway. He slides into a chair by the bed, and moves to take Tamaki’s hand, but Tamaki is too fast for him. Tentacles reach out and grab Mirio by the collar, then drag him in for a kiss. Mirio wants to kiss him back so badly but his parents are right there. So he tries to kiss him lightly, and it’s not very satisfying at all.

“Alright son,” Tamaki’s dad clears his throat and Tamaki finally lets go. His dad sounds like he’s trying not to laugh. “I think Mirio gets the point.”

“He has a concussion,” his mom says, brushing the hair out of Tamaki’s eyes. “The doctor said he might act a little loopy and… uninhibited for awhile. We need to make sure he rests. Calm down, Tamachan,” she strokes his head.

“Mirio said he loves me,” Tamaki tells them, his voice soft and pleased.

“We know, sweetie, you’ve said,” his mom pats his arm fondly. Mirio briefly considers phasing through the floor and falling into the center of the earth. But he decides not to when he sees the happiness in the faces of Tamaki’s parents.

Also he now knows that it won’t work.

“I have something important to say,” a completely unembarrassed Tamaki turns to Mirio, looking very grave.

There’s a lot of serious things he could be saying. Mirio didn’t even get a chance to apologize yet. With a huge gulp he asks, “Yeah? What’s that, Tamaki?”

“I’ve decided,” he shakes a finger in Mirio’s face, “I’m going to eat more bugs.”

Mirio isn’t certain whether he’s crying or laughing, but either way, he’s hysterical. 

 

Mirio spends the weekend in the strangest way possible. Half the time, his dad is furious, yelling at him like he’s never yelled before. The other half, they spend in the basement, phasing into the ground and giggling like little kids. They’re both stark naked, but nudity has never really been an issue in the Togata household. Before bed on Sunday night Mirio’s dad tells him he’s proud of him and that he probably made the right call. It’s all very confusing, but he thinks his dad was going through some stuff.

Monday comes. Mirio skips yoga and tai chi. It’s not like there’s anything he can do at this point to keep Sir from firing him. He’s got something more important to deal with than full body awareness.

Everyone stares at him as he walks through the halls. They all saw him on the news while he was fighting with the paramedics. He was trying to get into the helicopter with Tamaki and the old man but there wasn’t enough room. That didn’t really matter at the time, but he’s pretty certain he looked insane. He’s a little worried he’s going to turn into a meme. But it’ll probably be a funny one.

He stops in front of a pack of girls who are all debating whether or not it’s better to hit someone with an elbow or the heel of their hands. He has some pretty strong opinions on the matter but he keeps them to himself.

“Hadou, can we talk for a minute, in private?”

She leaves the arguing girls behind her and follows him into the most secluded place he can think of: the janitor’s closet. He phases through the lock easily and they step inside. The place has a light, and there’s enough room for at least seven people so it’s not really inappropriate, but—

“Togata, did you know, people are going to think you’re feeling me up in here?”

Mirio laughs, “Yeah, I guess they will.”

She doesn’t laugh, and the look on her face is almost calculating for a few seconds, then it fades back into curiosity. “So what’s up? I went to see Amajiki yesterday. I’m so happy he’s gonna be okay! Did you know concussions could mess you up so bad?  I wonder what part of his brain got bruised. Oh! And did you know he’s telling everyone that you—?”

“Yeah,” Mirio rubs the back of his neck as he blushes, “I know.”

“So, what do you need to talk to me about? Are you gonna surprise him when he comes back? I don’t know if he’d like a surprise party, though…”

“No, this isn’t about Tamaki. It’s about you and me.”

Hadou tilts her head, almost the same way that Sphere did, and Mirio’s almost as scared now as he was then.

“Back when all that stuff was going down at the gallery,” he continues as quick as he can, “I thought about how much better it’d be if you were there. I just couldn’t stop thinking about how much I wanted to tell you how amazing you are and—!”

Mirio has never thought much about girls’ faces, but Hadou’s angry face is adorable. 

“Togata, you’ve got some nerve. Telling Amajiki you love him and then confessing to his only friend who isn’t you!”

The laugh that bubbles out of his chest explodes the minute it touches air. Mirio leans backwards against a stack of mops and they fall every which way, making a horrible clattering noise. But his laughter is louder than that, even. He’s crying big hot tears of mirth. They’re rolling down his neck and getting his collar all wet.

In about five seconds, Hadou catches on.

“Oh. You didn’t mean it like that, did you?”

Mirio shakes his head, making terrible wheezing sounds that are supposed to be laughter, but just sound like some kind of animal dying.

Hadou laughs like a donkey. It’s loud and braying and she falls to her knees with the force of it. Losing control of her Quirk she sends a shockwave rattling through the closet that knocks everything off the shelves. Mirio phases to keep from getting hit, and his shirt falls off, and they fall silent, looking at each other nervously.

And then they start laughing again.

“I just…” Mirio sucks in air, “I just want to be… your friend… Hadou!” He knocks his head back into the mops and laughs again. “I think you’re amazing and I don’t want one of us to always be the third wheel.”

She falls on her side, wheezing. “But… you and Amajiki are like… so close… and… in love!”

Mirio gets on his knees in front of her, still shirtless but he’s calmed down enough to let his earnest desire to make things better shine through, “We won’t make it weird, I promise.”

She sits up, her hair a disaster, “Do you know, I’ve wanted to be your friend for awhile?”

With a huge smile, Mirio pulls her into a hug.

Just then, the door swings open and Yamada-sensei stares down at them.

“What is with you two?” his eyebrows lift to his hairline. “Look, I know what it’s like to be young and hormonal. I’ll pretend I didn’t see this, but you gotta clean this mess up. And stop fighting and… necking on school grounds!”

Mirio has never had so much fun cleaning a janitor’s closet in his life.

 

Bubble reads the report from the scene with a Russian accent in an effort to make it funny. 

It’s still not funny.

“Due to the actions of provisional heroes Lemillion and Suneater, the static electricity villain known as Sphere was taken into custody at the Kimora Art Gallery. Her apartment was discovered and searched the following day. All stolen art was on location. The eyes of each painting had been sliced out with a common kitchen knife. Nothing else of note was contained in the apartment.”

She takes a deep breath and her accent gets even worse.

“Sphere, whose given name is Hano Mai, has not responded to multiple verbal interrogations. As there is overwhelming evidence to suggest she worked alone, no telepaths will be required. The investigation is closed at this time. Commendations will be issued to the agencies of pro heroes Fatgum and Sir Nighteye…” 

“That was profoundly boring, Bubble Girl,” Sir tsks, interrupting her. She angrily looks at the door, like she’s about to stomp out of it, but it turns out she doesn’t have to. Instead of putting her on that awful, creepy tickle machine, Sir waves his hand. “That’s all for today. You may leave.”

Bubble dashes out of the office. Mirio heaves a sight of relief and turns to follow her.

“I was not talking about you, Togata.”

The door shuts behind Bubble, and Mirio turns slowly to face his doom.

Sir is no longer sitting at his desk. He’s started pacing the room, looking more worked up than he’s ever been. Mirio is shocked to realize that he’s worked up about him. Not that there isn’t something to be worked up about.

“You,” Sir growls ferociously. 

This is it. The end.

“You put yourself in grave danger chasing after Suneater. Your relationship should not have clouded your judgement. Heroes do not allow personal entanglements to effect life-saving decisions.” He punctuates his last sentence with a slam of his fist on the top of a bookshelf.

“Yes sir… Sir.” Mirio doesn’t regret his decision and he’s pretty sure he’d make it again, but he still knows it was probably the wrong one.

“I will not lose you to sentimental insanity as well,” Sir mutters, barely audible. Mirio doesn’t know who else he’s talking about, but now’s not the time to ask.

“I’m sorry, Sir. I didn’t think about what I was doing.”

“That’s right you did not. Left unchecked, running ahead without thinking is going to be your demise.”

Heaving himself away from the bookshelf, Sir stomps to his desk and sits down, bowing his head. He moves like a spider, and for the first time, Mirio is truly afraid of him. If Sir wanted him dead, he would without question end up in a ditch somewhere and no one would ever know how.

Luckily, he’s about ninety-seven percent sure Sir isn’t like that. So he takes a step forward and opens his mouth, probably for the last time as Sir’s intern.

“I know I’m probably fired. But I wanted to thank you, Sir. You’ve helped me get so much stronger. And if it weren’t for you I never would have been able to save those people. I never would have tried it if you hadn’t—”

“Tried what?” Sir interrupts him, leaning forward with an unreadable expression. Mirio isn’t sure if he already knows or what, but he plows forward because he desperately wants to tell him.

“It worked the way you said it would!” Mirio can’t hide the thrill in his voice. “Phasing into the ground, I mean. It was the scariest thing I’ve ever done, but when I deactivated my Quirk, I popped right back out. It was like teleporting! I came up right under Sphere’s barrier and stopped her. I never would have tried it if you hadn’t said to. So thank you, Sir.”

He takes a deep breath, ready to say goodbye, “I’ll go get my stuff.”

“Wait.” Sir holds up his hand. With long slow movements he he pulls a sheet of paper out of a drawer and writes something on it. He slides it, face down, across his desk.

“This is for you.”

Mirio steps forward. His trembling fingers graze the polished wood and snag on the edge of the paper. He pinches it to pick it up, then turns it over.

999,997, is written in Sir’s angular, precise handwriting.

“While you are in my employ I expect to see this number decrease, Lemillion,” Sir says. “Do not disappoint me.”

And he smiles.

 

Mirio’s never been to a prison before. At some point in the past they’d been a lot simpler: locked rooms where groups of people with no Quirks were crowded together. Now things are different. Prisons are highly sophisticated places where only extremely dangerous people are kept, sometimes in special solitary cells if their Quirks are strong enough.

As the guard leads him down into the third basement level where the really high-risk prisoners go, Mirio begins to realize just how dangerous Sphere is.

“She won’t talk,” the guard says as the elevator descends, “not to anybody. Doesn’t have any family or friends that the police could find. Guess she had a job, but it was something online. Didn’t need to talk. We’re not even sure if she can. Dunno what you want out of this, kid, but I doubt you’re gonna get much.”

Mirio straightens his cape and stands tall, “I still have to try.”

“Whatever you want, it’s your right as the hero who brought her in. But don’t set your heart on it. Sometimes people just go crazy.”

When they arrive at the cell, there’s a wall of what looks like frosted glass, only it can’t be that because that would shatter easily. The guard presses a button on the wall and says, “Hano-san, you’ve got a visitor.”

He waits a minute and then presses another button. The glass wall in front of Mirio suddenly turns clear, and he can see the thickness of it — it has to be plexiglass. Sphere is in front of him, sitting behind a desk that’s placed right against the wall. They’re face-to-face. The guard brings him a chair and a small device with a button on it that he’s meant to use for talking.

“I’ll be by the elevator,” he tells him. “Gives you the illusion of privacy. You got five minutes.”

Mirio adjusts his cape and sits down.

The room he looks into is simple. There’s not a bit of metal, everything inside is made out of wood or plastic. Small rivulets of water are running down the plexiglass wall. Sphere’s dark hair is hanging lank against her forehead and droplets of condensation are forming on her arms. The moisture must be to keep her from pulling any static electricity from the air, but she’s either freezing in there, or extremely hot.

He hopes it’s the second one, but even that is a terrible, terrible life.

She blew a man’s arm off, Mirio reminds himself. She came very, very close to killing Tamaki, and Mirio too. But he feels bad for her anyway, trapped for the rest of her life in this muggy cell. He doesn’t know how he can be a hero if he has sympathy for terrible people like this.

“Hey,” he presses down on the button, “I don’t know if they told you, but my name is Togata Mirio. Or Lemillion, I guess. But you can call me Mirio, if you want.”

She tips her head, her hair hanging at a weird angle. Her face is still really, really hard to look at.

“They told me your name is Hano. Is it okay if I call you that, Hano-san? I know Sphere is just a name people made up.”

She nods and across the room the guard curses to himself before talking frantically on his radio. Mirio guesses no one has managed to get her to respond before.

Now that he’s sitting here, he’s not sure what to say. He’s not even sure what he wanted out of this visit anyway. Closure? Some kind of motive behind her actions? Some reason he can cling to that will drive away his guilt at putting someone in jail forever?

It’s pretty obvious he’s not going to get any of those things.

“So, I don’t think you knew it at the time, but that octopus guy? He’s my boyfriend. My best friend, really. I mean, he’s both. I got pretty lucky, huh?”

Her eyes aren’t very expressive, but her mouth and eyebrows are. The face she’s making might be longing? Or maybe shock? He doesn’t know her well enough to tell but he’s smart enough to notice that what he said affected her.   

“He’s okay, though! Just a burn and a concussion. Well, the concussion’s gonna take awhile to get better. He’s so funny right now; he just says whatever he thinks and it’s crazy because he’s normally really careful about what he says,” he laughs, probably too loudly. “He’s gotten really handsy too and…” okay maybe he shouldn’t have said that.

Hano-san’s look is definitely, definitely longing. Mirio had two lonely days of what felt like isolation and that almost pushed him over the edge. The guard said she had no family. No friends. Not even any coworkers. How long had this woman been alone? Long enough to go crazy. And now she’s going to be alone for the rest of her life. What she did wasn’t okay. It was terrible! But Mirio can’t resolve the two issues in his head. He’s not built that way. Heroes are supposed to save everyone, and this woman needed to be saved way before he ever met her.

“Hey, so, I know we don’t know each other very well, but do you think it’s okay if I come and talk to you once and awhile?” 

Her mouth drops open in shock.

“I know you don’t like talking much, but maybe you can write me a letter? I’m not a very good writer, but I’ll still write you back! And I’ll try to stop by once a month, if I can.”

Slowly, tentatively, her hand reaches up to touch the plexiglass. The drops of water gather and fall around her fingers and palm. Mirio reaches out and touches the glass on his side, his hand enormous compared to her small one.

“It was nice to talk to you, Hano-san,” he says. And he means it. 

 

There’s no one in Japan with a Quirk that can heal a traumatic brain injury. That leaves Tamaki’s housebound for two weeks.

The first week he acts like a little kid, one who’s never had a reason to be anxious. Since he’s not allowed to read or write or even watch tv, Mirio buys him a butterfly coloring book. In-between Tamaki’s many naps, they spend the weekend filling the wings with bright, vibrant colors. He’s not allowed to manifest anything, but he does it anyway, ripping his shirt open when he unfurls the beautiful golden wings of some unfortunate rooster.

The next week he’s a lot more like himself, except he cries at the drop of a hat. Some unresolved guilt about the extremely carnivorous nature of his Quirk comes out. Mirio strokes his hair while Tamaki cries into his shoulder, mourning all the octopus he’s going to kill in his lifetime. Apparently they’re really smart, which just makes it worse.

By the third week, he’s back to school with permission to fall asleep at his desk whenever he wants. He usually makes it about halfway through the morning before his snores disrupt the lesson and someone, usually Hadou, leads him to Recovery Girl’s office. Mirio took him once, but he just stayed in the infirmary and watched him sleep, so he wasn’t allowed to after that. 

The fourth week they meet up in the park. They don’t have to sneak out this time. Tamaki is still a little unsteady on his feet and he gets tired real easy, but he insists on meeting Mirio there without an escort. So they find each other at the most secluded bench they know of.

It’s been kind of awkward, since they haven’t been able to talk about everything that went down. Mirio has wanted to apologize, but he’s refused to do it until Tamaki was acting more like himself. Now that he is, there’s tension between them that they’re not used to dealing with. Casual conversation falls away, each of them with something on their minds.

It’s Mirio’s turn to break the silence.

“So ah, Tamaki, I’ve been thinking and I wanted to say that I’m sor—”

“Thank you,” Tamaki interrupts him.

“To be honest, I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Mirio laughs, nervous and genuine all at once. He wants to apologize and Tamaki is not letting him, but he’s not about to interrupt whatever Tamaki’s trying to say, either.

“Thank you…” Tamaki takes a deep breath, “for letting me save you.”

“Well, you were the only one who could!”

He can see the wheels turning in Tamaki’s head, all of the ways he can disagree flashing in his eyes.

“You were like… like a supernova,” he says instead.

“Supernova-eater is not nearly as cool a hero name as Suneater, Tamaki. It’s pretty hard to say,” he teases because compliments like this are hard to take, especially when guilt has been resting heavy on his chest for weeks.

Tamaki bites his lip, but he doesn’t laugh. “I always imagined life or death confessions would be really romantic,” he worries the soft skin with his fang, “but they aren’t.”

“I’m so sorry! I know that wasn’t fair but I—”

“But when I saw you come back, I knew I could hold up the entire building by myself,” he’s looking at his feet and the words come spilling out. “You… bring out the best in me, Mirio, enough that I can… even believe you when you say I do the same. You’ve always made my life so bright and,” he lifts his head and look Mirio straight in the face, “of course- of course I love you. I’ve loved you since I was nine.”

“Wow. That’s a long time to hold that in, Tamaki!” His heart is flying out of his chest and all he can do is make a dumb joke.

Tamaki leans forward to kiss him, but he’s still not very balanced. He misses, kissing Mirio’s ear instead. An instant later he curls into himself, mortified.

Wrapping an arm around him, Mirio tips up Tamaki’s chin. He leans down to kiss him as deeply and as gently as he can. After what might be a million minutes, or maybe just one, Tamaki pulls away, only to press their foreheads together.

“I forgive you, okay?”

Mirio flops back on the bench, arms and legs nothing but jelly. Tamaki looks at him, eyebrow raised. Throwing his head back, Mirio laughs. And if Hadou is right and his laughs are a code, then this one is easy to break.

He is so, so happy.

Notes:

thank you everyone for reading this story and exploring the possibilities of mirio's quirk with me. i love him so much.

i'd also like to thank "italian ice," a fellow roller derby player who allowed me to experience in great detail what happens when you get a severe concussion.

i'm sorry i'm not very good at replying to comments, but please know that every one encouraged me so much and kept me writing.

also!!!!!! here are some wonderful drawings from @thehauntedboy.