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He’s had visitors later at night than this, but really, just barely.
The hour that it is seldom means anything beyond confidence, beyond comfort, and truthfully, there aren’t many less comforting than Izuku.
He isn’t being cruel to himself. It’s just how it is.
Everybody who’s heard his name will know he’s got his own shit. Izuku would be a safe space for any of them, he really would, if they asked him.
They don’t. If roles were reversed, he doesn’t know if he’d come to him either.
He probably wouldn’t.
He hardly hears the knock, thanks to his earbuds, tucked snug as they are into his ears. Softly droning some song he’s recently come to know courtesy of Ochako — or maybe it was Kacchan.
There’s only one friend that visits him late at night recently, and those visits aren’t for comfort.
Although they bring it.
Fumikage started seeking him out for reasons he doesn’t fully understand. Before — the worst of it, they’d always fascinated him enough. Truly incredible quirk, and an oddly comforting-in-its-quiet demeanor.
Somewhere really deep down, he used to envy them, a little. He’s seen them chatting with Dark Shadow under their breath a handful of times now.
How nice it might’ve been, he wonders, to have a built-in friend growing up.
It isn’t that he’s bitter — can’t be, especially, when he now has friends of his own — Fumikage and Dark Shadow being two of them. It just makes him thoughtful, almost, now. Wondering at the feeling of never truly being alone.
Something happened, in the aftermath, when they’d all spend nights holed up in the common room rather than braving personal four walls on their own. When the quiet still meant isolation and isolation meant everyone gone, no way out.
Glances shared curled up on armchairs. Everyone loud, Izuku with arms wrapped around his knees. Dark Shadow curled around Fumikage’s shoulders, muffling noise.
Smiling was commiserating. Sometimes, long after everyone else was out, they’d get to whispering.
Idle commentary about training sessions of the day. What either of them thought of their last English exam. The implications of Sero and Todoroki, sharing Sero’s dorm room every night.
Harmless things. But more than that, sometimes — lingering fears. Smarting, colorful bruises. Well-kept secrets.
Secrets like —
Fumikage is afraid of the dark.
So the late-night visit should be less surprising that it is. Izuku just didn’t realize the hour — zoned out bent over one of his notebooks. The strain’s started to hurt his eyes, honestly, his only source of light a too-harsh glow.
The power’s out in their little section of the dorms. There’s backup generators for this, and quirks, everything’s fine — but restoring energy to the overhead lights at this hour was low on the priority list.
Izuku doesn’t trust himself with candles; the terrible glow of his laptop it was.
It isn’t ideal — but he’s been restless. Nothing high level, but enough for sleep to evade him.
When the knock comes, he sits up straight. Doesn’t startle, but it’s a close thing. He taps a fingertip on the ink on the page. Deems it dry, and turns the notebook closed.
“Come in,” he calls softly, stowing his work out of sight. His voice surprises him, the way it scratches — he tries to think if he’s used it earlier today, and draws a blank.
Fumikage is hunched inside themself. Their eyes are lowered, and Dark Shadow hovers too big, too bright. She’s alert, fingers curled over Fumikage’s shoulders. Her grip holds a little more force than normal, for them.
Izuku understands when he looks. He doesn’t need either of them to tell him the problem.
He reaches out to flip the switch on his lamp, then remembers.
“Ah,” Izuku whispers, apologetic. “Come sit.”
Fumikage nods quietly, and crosses slowly to his bed. Izuku turns slowly in his chair, relieved that Danger Sense is nowhere to be felt.
Fumikage has their control just fine. Their ease, not so much.
“The thunder is loud,” they say quietly, idly, curling up tight there in his bed. Truthfully, Izuku hadn’t realized it was thundering — he hadn’t even noticed the rain.
Fumikage’s in their nightclothes, he notices — soft pants, and a softer-looking sleep-shirt. The neckline of it hangs low enough to dip and expose their collarbones, and Izuku, strangely, finds himself swallowing.
The thunder booms, then, louder. Lightning flashes, and Dark Shadow’s eyes flare. She turns her head.
“It is,” Izuku agrees quietly. Belatedly. Dark Shadow peers through the window, something wild in her eyes. “Does it bother her?”
“No,” Fumikage says quietly. “The lightning, at times, but — it interests her.”
“I see,” Izuku says, and catalogs it. He shifts, itching to write it. There’s a notebook nearby with plenty fresh ink, dedicated just to her, but he thinks Fumikage should have his attention.
They look very small, in his bed. Time hasn’t given them much in the way of height, either of them, but Fumikage has always been slight-looking.
Sleeper-build, some might call it. Izuku knows firsthand from spars that it’s an illusion.
Clearly they didn’t want to be alone tonight. He won’t get distracted.
“I think it’ll return in a few hours,” he says. “The power, I mean. The lights.”
Fumikage nods idly, and laces their fingers together in front of them. They rest their head back against the wall, and close their eyes.
Dark Shadow creeps closer to the window, shifting gently aside the little curtain. It thunders again, and she shivers, feathers twitching.
“I kept flipping all the switches,” Fumikage admits quietly. Runs a thumb over their nails, and their throat bobs. “Thinking maybe one of them will work. One of them will make it less suffocating.”
Izuku tips his head down, and nods. Fumikage doesn’t continue, and Izuku has nothing to offer but apologies.
Fumikage doesn’t enjoy those.
He sort of wants to ask, why him. Why Fumikage came here, when they have friends with brighter quirks. People who could easier offer them warmth, and comfort.
Izuku could light himself, if they asked, but Fumikage doesn’t. They just breathe with their eyes closed, and let Dark Shadow peer out at the balcony.
In Izuku’s room. In Izuku’s bed.
“You can sleep here tonight,” Izuku offers quietly, and Fumikage’s nodding before he even finishes saying it.
“I would really appreciate that.”
Izuku flushes, then, and doesn’t really understand why.
Maybe it’s because of the speed they agreed. Maybe it’s because Dark Shadow has turned her head, and is now choosing to watch Izuku.
The sight of Fumikage in his bed, shoulders easing from their ears, chest rising and falling in something that’s hitting even, is making him feel really strange.
Maybe it’s that.
“The power should be back in the morning,” Izuku says, and he doesn’t know why he does it. Everyone knows that. It was a group announcement.
“I know,” Fumikage answers. They peek an eye open, and Dark Shadow is still watching him.
She hasn’t spoken, which is strange for her. She usually greets Izuku, with words, and even sometimes, to Fumikage’s embarrassment, with physical affection.
Izuku’s flush warms, depeens. Maybe some time ago, he would’ve found her eyes eerie, glowing in the dark.
She’s sort of smiling. At him.
Izuku picks idly at his thumbnail. His laptop dims, but there’s no power for his charger. He watches Fumikage carefully, but both their eyes are closed again, and Dark Shadow continues her own close watching.
Nobody stiffens at the fading light source. Fumikage’s body is seemingly drooping, almost, as stiff as it was when they entered the room.
Izuku doesn’t think it’s polite, but he’s staring.
At the stretch of their leg, strewn across his mattress. At the hand over their belly, which shifts as they breathe. Fumikage’s feathers flatten against the wall where their head rests, and they stick out in all directions, making them look almost spooked.
It’s endearing.
There’s a fluttering in Izuku’s belly. Dark Shadow’s eyes are starting to dim, and she settles lower. Down, against Izuku’s mattress, curled against his pillow.
His chest squeezes. Something very, very important clicks into place.
Oh.
Fumikage inhales, and their feathers ruffle. They might’ve dozed a little, while Izuku zoned out. Beak tipping downwards, eyes hazed, Fumikage asks, “Shall we go to bed.”
Izuku’s stomach heats. There’s nothing to take beyond the question at face value, but it’s a twin-size mattress.
Fumikage staying here tonight means they’ll be cuddling.
Izuku nods quickly, and he can’t look them full in the face. He keeps his eyes trained fast on his rug, even as he stands. Fumikage shifts aside the comforter to slip beneath it, and his heart is beating way too fast.
When Izuku slips into bed, Fumikage slips into his arms. Dark Shadow moves away from her spot on his pillow, to wrap around the back of it, head settling on his shoulder. Face boiling, pulse rabbiting, Izuku allows Fumikage to rest their head there on his chest.
Their feathers are soft to the touch. It’s something Izuku knew in passing, from grazing them, or — once, only once, when he and Fumikage hugged.
But now Fumikage’s laying on his chest. And they’re soft.
It’s quiet for a moment. Izuku rests his arm, tentatively, at Fumikage’s waist, and wills his heart rate to slow.
They rub their cheek there over his chest, and breathe out. Hand brushing over Izuku’s ribcage, the touch awakens dormant nerves.
“She settles around you,” Fumikage admits, and Izuku inhales once, wholly startled, and reels.
He doesn’t have to ask for clarification. Dark Shadow makes a little sound, soft, and tucks her head into the side of Izuku’s neck. He’s never quite realized that she breathes, before, and maybe it’s just another thing she picked up from Fumikage and doesn’t need, but the sound of it whistles delicately, muffled into the space where she rests.
Nice and slow. Settled, with no more attention given to the rain. Fumikage’s knee pulls to rest over his hips, and he finds himself tipping his face into their crown. Breathing in.
He doesn’t feel quite so restless anymore. There’s information he needs to keep track of, freshly collected, about the person in his arms, and their incredible little quirk, but it can wait.
Izuku feels eased. He thinks, maybe, that there’s plenty of time to work his curiosities out. Room for more questions.
Plenty of time to work out everything.
His lamp flickers on at one point. When Fumikage is well and out, and Dark Shadow is curled delicately somewhere between his chest and shoulder. Izuku realizes he never re-flicked the switch.
He leaves it on. He has less than zero incentive to move, and takes comfort in the fact that if Fumikage wakes in the night, they’ll be able to see it.
He sleeps.