Chapter 1: Midnight Confessions Under Bruised Skin
The storm had settled into a steady, metallic drumming against the glass, a sound that usually lulled Izuku to sleep. Tonight, it was just background noise to the conspiracy unfolding in his head. His cheek was pressed to the hard plane of Shouta’s chest, rising and falling with a tired rhythm. The skin there was warm, damp with the night’s heat, and mapped with a topography of old, silvered scars and new, angry blooms of purple and blue.
Izuku’s index finger, its nail painted a meticulous glossy black, traced the line of a particularly dark bruise along his father’s lowest rib. He followed it like a road on a map he couldn’t read, his touch feather-light but insistent.
“Have you seen how the tailor looks at you while measuring?” he murmured, his voice a sleep-thickened mumble against Shouta’s skin. “It’s like she’s about to jump your dick and lick you.”
Shouta’s breath hitched, not from pain, but from a stifled laugh that vibrated through his chest. He stared up at the dark ceiling, one arm curled behind his head, the other resting heavily across Izuku’s slender back. “Jesus, Izuku. She’s twenty-two and just trying to do her job without you glaring holes into her shoulder.”
“I don’t glare,” Izuku protested, his finger pausing. He lifted his head, a cascade of platinum hair spilling over Shouta’s sternum. In the intermittent flash of distant lightning, his dark blue eyes were wide with genuine offense. “I observe. There’s a difference. And her hands linger. Right on your inner thigh. It’s not professional.”
“She’s measuring for a fight cup, kid. It’s kinda the territory.” Shouta’s voice was a dry, gravelly rasp, worn thin from a day of grueling sparring and his son’s relentless commentary. He slid his hand up to cradle the back of Izuku’s head, his rough fingers tangling automatically in the silken hair. “You designed the damn thing to be a ‘strategic second-skin,’ remember? She needs the measurements exact.”
“It is exact,” Izuku said, as if explaining something very simple to a very dim child. He settled his head back down, his nose nudging the old, knotty scar tissue over Shouta’s heart. “The exactness is the problem. She doesn’t need to check the tape three times.”
Shouta did laugh then, a short, exhausted puff of air. The kid was a parrot, repeating phrases he’d heard on fashion documentaries without grasping their meaning, weaving them into his own bizarre worldview. His jealousy was a pure, simple thing, uncomplicated by adult nuance. He didn’t see a young professional; he saw a threat to his prime position on this chest, in this bed. And Shouta, for all his world-weary cynicism, found it endlessly, overwhelmingly endearing.
“You’re ridiculous,” Shouta said, the words soaked in affection.
“I’m perceptive,” Izuku corrected. He yawned, a wide, unselfconscious gape that made him look his full fifteen years. “She wants your money. Or your fame. Or both. Probably both.”
“Everyone wants something, Izuku.” Shouta’s thumb stroked lazy circles on his scalp. “You want me to buy you that obscenely priced silk robe you saw online.”
Izuku went very still for a moment. Then he nuzzled deeper. “That’s different. I deserve it. I make your costumes look good.”
“You do,” Shouta conceded, because it was true. The kid had an innate, clueless genius for it. The designs were often absurdly impractical, verging on theatrical, but they moved with Shouta’s body in a way that felt instinctive. And they sold. God, did they sell. The “Eraserhead” brand, filtered through Izuku’s pretty, petulant imagination, was worth more now than Shouta’s actual fight purse.
The rain softened to a whisper. In the quiet, Izuku’s breathing began to even out, his possessive grip on his father’s side slackening. Just as Shouta felt the tension leave the small body draped over him, Izuku spoke again, his voice barely audible.
“Did it hurt today? The liver shot Keigo got in?”
Shouta closed his eyes. The phantom ache of that perfectly placed blow throbbed dully beneath Izuku’s hand. He’d thrown up in a bucket after the third round, his vision graying at the edges. “A little.”
“You shouldn’t let him do that.” It was a soft, plaintive command.
“It’s my job to let people try, kid. My job to not let them succeed.”
“He succeeded.”
“He landed a punch. There’s a difference.”
Izuku was quiet, processing. Shouta could almost hear the slow, methodical turning of gears in his head, gears that were often gummed up with glitter and gossip. “I don’t like him,” he declared finally, as if that settled the matter of professional heavyweight boxing.
“You’ve never met him.”
“I’ve seen his tattoos. They’re tacky.” Izuku sighed, a world-weary sound that perfectly mimicked Shouta’s own. “You need a bath. You smell like the gym floor.”
“You’re the one glued to me.”
“Mmf.” Izuku didn’t deny it. Instead, he hooked a bare leg over Shouta’s thigh, anchoring himself. “Carry me.”
“Izuku.”
“Please? My slippers are all the way over there.” He gestured vaguely toward the en suite bathroom door, a good fifteen feet away, without opening his eyes.
Shouta looked at the glowing digital clock on the nightstand. 2:17 AM. Every muscle in his body screamed for stillness, for the blessed nothingness of sleep. The bag work from yesterday, the split knuckles he’d taped himself, the deep bone-weariness of a career spent absorbing punches—it all coalesced into a single, heavy urge to sink into the mattress and not move for a week.
He pushed back the duvet with a grunt.
Izuku made a small, satisfied sound as Shouta’s arms slid under him, one bracing his back, the other hooking under his knees. He was light, almost shockingly so for how much space he occupied in Shouta’s life. He curled instinctively into his father’s chest, a practiced bundle of warmth and lavender-scented hair.
Shouta stood, the world tilting for a second as blood rushed from his bruised head. He walked across the deep, silent pile of the rug, past the monolithic windows where the city glittered wetly below, and into the marble expanse of the bathroom. He didn’t turn on the main light, just the soft, golden glow of the vanity lamps. It caught the platinum of Izuku’s hair, turning it into a stream of molten metal.
He deposited Izuku gently on the closed lid of the toilet. The boy immediately slumped against the towel rack, eyes still closed, a picture of pampered exhaustion. Shouta started the water in the deep, sunken tub, adjusting the temperature until steam began to fog the mirrors.
“The robe is a bribe, isn’t it?” Shouta said, pouring in a capful of the bath oil Izuku liked. The scent of jasmine and sandalwood filled the humid air. “So you’ll stop accusing the tailor of plotting my seduction.”
Izuku cracked one eye open. A slow, sly smile spread across his pretty face. “Is it working?”
“No.” Shouta shook his head, fighting his own smile. “But I ordered it this afternoon anyway.”
The smile blossomed fully, bright and triumphant. Izuku held out his arms. Shouta leaned down, letting the boy wrap his arms around his neck in a tight, brief squeeze. “You’re the best, Daddy.”
“I know,” Shouta mumbled into his hair. He straightened. “Get in. Don’t drown.”
Izuku peeled off his silk sleep shorts and tank top, letting them puddle on the floor, and slid into the steaming water with a contented sigh. He sank up to his chin, his hair fanning out around him like the petals of some rare flower. Shouta leaned against the vanity, watching him, the sharp lines of his own reflection in the foggy mirror a stark contrast to the languid boy in the tub.
This was the peace. This was the only thing that ever truly quieted the noise in his head—the crowd’s roar, the bell’s clang, the sickening thud of glove on flesh. This oblivious, beautiful creature who thought boxing was about tattoos and tailor’s lingering touches.
“Are you just gonna stand there staring?” Izuku asked, his voice echoing slightly in the tiled room. He gestured with a soapy hand. “You reek. Get in.”
The tub was enormous, a custom monstrosity Izuku had insisted on. There was room.
Shouta sighed, a long, surrendering exhalation, and shucked off his boxers. He saw Izuku’s eyes track the fresh bruising along his ribs, the dark shadow over his liver, a flicker of something that wasn’t quite childish concern passing through the blue depths before it was gone, replaced by simple appreciation.
“See?” Izuku said as Shouta lowered himself into the water with a pained groan. “Tacky. Keigo’s bird tattoos are nowhere near as cool as your scars.”
Shouta settled opposite him, the hot water lapping at his aches. “Scars aren’t cool, Izuku. They’re just mistakes you lived through.”
“Your mistakes are cooler than other people’s successes.” Izuku declared, and then he slid through the water, ending up perched on Shouta’s thighs, his back against his father’s chest. He wiggled until he was comfortable, a familiar human blanket. “Wash my hair?”
Shouta reached for the shampoo.
The tailor arrived at eleven the next morning. Her name was Anya, and she was, as Izuku had noted with distaste, young, pretty, and profoundly efficient. She also possessed a steely professionalism that seemed utterly impervious to both Shouta’s casual presence and Izuku’s focused, narrow-eyed scrutiny from the velvet chaise lounge in the corner of the dressing room.
“Just need to confirm the inseam, Mr. Aizawa, for the new fight shorts,” Anya said, her voice crisp. She knelt on the padded measuring stool, a tape measure in her hands. Shouta stood in his standard training shorts and a worn t-shirt.
Izuku, draped in the new, obscenely expensive silk robe—a kimono-style thing in emerald green with black floral embroidery—sucked loudly on a strawberry milk through a straw. The sound was deliberately pointed in the quiet, sunlit room.
“Of course,” Shouta said, his face a mask of neutral patience.
Anya’s hands were quick, precise. She measured, noted the figure on her digital tablet, and moved on. Her touch was clinical. When she measured the inseam, her fingers brushed the inner seam of his shorts for no more than half a second.
From the chaise, there was a definitive, plastic crunch. Izuku had bitten his straw flat.
Anya didn’t flinch. She stood, brushing a speck of lint from her stylish trousers. “That’s everything. The mock-up will be ready for a first fitting next Tuesday.”
“Perfect. Thank you,” Shouta said, seeing her to the door of the suite.
The moment the door clicked shut, the dam broke.
“Did you see it?” Izuku launched himself off the chaise, the silk robe flaring dramatically. “It was the look. The one she gave your leg. It’s a claiming look.”
“A claiming look.” Shouta walked to the minibar and poured himself a glass of cold water. “You’re inventing verbs now.”
“She wants to be your next baby mama.” Izuku followed him, clutching his strawberry milk like a sceptre. “It’s obvious. She gets her hooks in, gets pregnant, gets a settlement. I’ve seen the documentaries.”
Shouta took a long drink. The cold felt good on his throat, still raw from yesterday’s exertion. “And which documentary channel is running ‘The Tailor’s Illegitimate Gambit’ at three in the afternoon?”
“It’s a pattern!” Izuku insisted, his voice rising with conviction. “First it’s the careful measurements, then it’s ‘Oh, Mr. Aizawa, you have such difficult proportions to fit,’ then it’s a glass of wine after hours, and BAM!” He clapped his hands together for emphasis. “You’ve got a gold-digging stepmother and I’m sent away to boarding school in Switzerland.”
Shouta looked at him then—really looked. At the genuine fear swimming beneath the absurdity in those wide blue eyes. The boy’s world was so small, so perfectly contained within these mansion walls and the radius of Shouta’s own presence. Anything foreign was a threat to that ecosystem. It wasn’t just brattiness; it was a deep, childish terror of abandonment, dressed up in the only vocabulary he had—the melodrama of trashy television and fashion scandal blogs.
He set the water glass down. He crossed the room in two strides and cupped Izuku’s face in his hands. His thumbs smoothed over the high, worried arches of his cheekbones. Izuku’s rant cut off, his lips still parted around a silent protest.
“Listen to me,” Shouta said, his voice low and certain, leaving no room for the dry humor he usually wielded like a shield. “There is no boarding school. There is no stepmother. There is no one. There’s just you and me and the cats and a very overpaid, very uninterested tailor who probably thinks we’re both insane.” He held Izuku’s gaze, letting the words sink in. “This is your home. I am your father. Nothing is changing that. Ever.”
Izuku stared up at him. The fear receded, replaced by a slow, dawning relief. Then his eyes, predictably, welled up. “You promise?”
“I’d have to retire from fighting to have the time for a scheming mistress, and you know I’d rather die.”
A wet, hiccupping laugh escaped Izuku. He nodded, his cheek rubbing against Shouta’s calloused palm. “Okay.”
“Okay.” Shouta dropped his hands. “Now go bother the housekeeper about lunch. I’ve got sparring in an hour.”
Izuku sniffled, wiped his nose with the back of his hand—a jarringly mundane gesture in the exquisite silk robe—and trotted out of the room, his crisis momentarily averted.
Shouta waited until the patter of bare feet on marble faded. He picked up his water glass again, his own reflection looking back at him from the dark TV screen. He saw the fatigue, the healing bruises, the permanent crease of responsibility between his brows.
He thought of Anya the tailor, her polite, detached efficiency. He thought of Keigo’s fist meeting his liver. He thought of the countless eyes on him, wanting a piece—of his title, his money, his mystique.
And then he thought of the weight of a sleeping boy on his chest, the smell of lavender in a steamy bathroom, the crunch of a bitten straw in a quiet room. It was the only thing that was real. The only thing that was his.