Work Text:
In.
Out.
In.
Out.
Shouto has been repeating those steps to himself for a few minutes now, hoping that if he just performed some breathing exercises, he would calm down before his anxiety got out of hand. Unfortunately, it seems like all he’s managed to do is delay the inevitable. The knot in his stomach hasn’t gotten any smaller since it formed, and it’s getting harder to take these slow, measured breaths.
He glances around the conference room he’s been sitting in for the past half-hour. It’s large enough to fit a long conference table and many chairs, almost all of which are currently filled by several heroes and a few police officers. Everyone is focused on the police chief, who’s giving a presentation at the head of the room on a villain ring that’s been forming in the district.
Shouto has only been briefly acquainted with most of the heroes surrounding him, but there are a few friendly faces from his years at UA—two of which, he came here with. To his right a few seats down, Katsuki sits with a slouch, his eyes directed down at the conference table. An outsider might think he’s not paying attention, but Shouto knows Katsuki listens best like this. Izuku, in contrast, sits with perfect posture a couple seats to his left, gazing intently at the chief. Uraraka and Kirishima are also here, sitting farther down the table. The former scribbles notes while the latter scans the presentation slides displayed on the TV screen.
Under better circumstances, Shouto would smile at the differences between his friends and reminisce about going to class with them. As it is, he pushes himself away from the table as quietly as possible and stands, hoping his departure doesn’t disrupt the meeting. He turns toward the door on his left to leave, but Izuku catches his eye first, raising his eyebrow in a silent question. Bathroom, Shouto mouths, and Izuku nods, though he gives Shouto a strange look he can’t be bothered to decipher right now.
Despite having a million thoughts ricocheting off the walls of his brain, Shouto calmly leaves the room and strolls through the corridor, nodding politely at the few people he passes. He doesn’t dare take a single breath, fearful that one more attempt at breathing normally may just push him over the edge instead. He makes his way to the end of the corridor before realizing he has no clue where the restrooms are. His eyes dart around frantically, searching for any doors that look promising, but none look like they’ll lead to his preferred hideout spot. Sighing internally, he looks over at a lone door at the end of the hall. It looks like a janitor’s closet, and that’s probably his next best option. Sure enough, when he approaches he sees a sign next to it that reads, “Storage—employees only.”
Ignoring the sign’s instructions, he swiftly slips inside the room, checking behind him to make sure no one sees. He shuts the door immediately, darkness overtaking the room. Running his hand along the wall until he feels a light switch, he flicks it and a lone light fixture in the corner of the ceiling bathes the room in yellow fluorescent light. The bulb inside is dim and it flickers every few seconds, but it does the job.
The closet is fairly small, but the space is packed with metal shelving racks that are filled to the brim with various maintenance equipment. Shouto passes by a couple racks that are packed with tools and cleaning supplies, stepping over boxes and rag piles to reach a dusty back corner. There’s a bucket that’s holding some brooms in his way, and he pushes it away with his foot, leaning the broom handles against the concrete wall so the weight doesn’t tip the bucket over. He sinks into the corner in between the wall and another shelving rack, feeling more secure now that he knows nothing can be behind him. He pulls his knees into his chest and finally allows himself to breathe again.
It ends up being more of a gasp than an inhale, which is exactly what he had been afraid of. There must be even more dust in here than he thought, because the next moment he devolves into a coughing fit that ends in a shuddering, almost painful exhale. Nevertheless, he gasps again, giving up entirely on the breathing exercises his therapist had suggested he try in these moments. It actually feels good to let it out—it had taken way more effort to keep his breathing controlled during the meeting before.
The feeling is short-lived, however, when the gasping continues with no signs of slowing down. Shouto struggles to pull in any air despite his attempts, and the longer this problem persists, the more nervous he gets. He runs his hands up and down the length of his jeans, trying to ground himself in the sensation of rough denim, but it doesn’t seem to make a difference. He lets out a few more sputtering coughs in between gasps, idly wishing he had picked a less dusty hiding spot.
He’s not sure how many minutes pass as his body wreaks with shuddering half-breaths. He rocks back and forth, moving along with the gasps as they hit him. His vision gets spotty, which is never a good sign, but at least if he ends up passing out then his panic attack will stop. It’s that logic that keeps him from fighting very hard to stay conscious when his head starts to spin and the closet light seems to grow dim. He forces his body to lean against the wall, so at least he won’t be slumped over on the floor.
I guess there are worse places to pass out from a panic attack, he thinks, thanking his lucky stars that he gave up on trying to stick out the meeting. He’d rather get up at the crack of dawn to go running like Katsuki does than deal with a situation like this in front of everyone.
But before he can fully welcome the sweet release of unconsciousness, he hears the door creak open.
Shit.
“Shouto?” He hears a voice call out, and he would look up to see who it’s from if he thought he could do so without blacking out, which he definitely wants to avoid now that he’s not alone. “Kacchan, he’s in here!”
The voice—it must be Izuku’s, and Shouto wonders if it’s better or worse that the person who found him is one of his boyfriends—sounds distant when it yells that, but then it’s replaced by the sound of two sets of footsteps, one drawing near immediately and the other faint but quickly growing louder.
“Shouto, can you hear me?” he hears Izuku ask next to him, and at first he only wheezes in response. He manages to lift himself off the wall and nod, but that makes him dizzy all over again and he sways.
“Woah,” Izuku startles, kneeling to the floor before grabbing him gently by the shoulders to steady him. “Never mind, don’t worry about responding. Can you breathe with me?” he asks, taking an exaggerated breath as an example. He repeats the motion, and Shouto follows along as best he can this time, holding the air he managed to inhale in his lungs for a moment before forcing it out all at once.
“Good, that’s good,” Izuku praises, even though it really wasn’t. It’s still enough to clear his vision a little, and he glances over at his boyfriend’s face, worry etched into his expression. He hears the door creak open then shut completely, and this time, he’s able to look up and see Katsuki approaching, his bright red eyes trained on him.
Shouto sees what’s about to happen right before it does, and even if he was capable of warning Katsuki about the bucket full of brooms in the blonde’s way, there isn’t enough time as he barrels toward them. Katsuki crashes into the bucket, and brooms begin to fall.
Shouto yelps at the commotion, instinctively calling on his ice and forming a wall of it that cages him and Izuku, separating them from any falling brooms, and subsequently, Katsuki. It turns out to be unnecessary when the brooms miss the ice entirely and clatter onto the floor, the bucket rolling on its side. The close-proximity chaos still makes him freeze up and wince, barely registering Katsuki’s swears just a few feet away.
“It’s okay, Shouto,” Izuku tries to reassure him after turning around to make sure their boyfriend is unharmed. He feels Izuku’s hands tighten to rub up and down his arms, and he frantically grabs his forearms in return and squeezes.
“Sorry princess, that was an accident,” Bakugo says, and Shouto can hear the wince in his voice. Of course he isn’t mad at his boyfriend for accidentally knocking over some brooms, but any relief he had begun to feel from his panic attack was gone now. He tries to take in air again but only ends up heaving. He can hear Izuku saying something to him, sees his mouth moving, but it might as well be a different language. This goes on for several long seconds until he registers movement out of the corner of his eye. The giant shelving rack he had curled up next to was being hauled away from him, leaving an opening his ice hadn’t reached. A few seconds later, Bakugo is crawling inside and placing his hand on Shouto’s shoulder.
“Kats’ki,” he rasps.
“Hey, babe. I know it’s hard right now, but you gotta breathe or you’re gonna pass out on us,” Katsuki reminds in the gentle tone he reserves only for those closest to him. He’s proven right when Shouto sways again, but he’s held upright easily by the two sets of hands that are keeping him tethered to himself. He feels himself being pulled forward by one of them, and he allows himself to fall against Izuku’s shoulders and be enveloped by his baggy hoodie as he feels arms wrap around his waist. Shouto forces himself to take a staggered breath as Katsuki moves to rub up and down his back, and he manages to exhale halfway normally.
“There you go,” Katsuki says approvingly. “Just copy ‘Zuku’s breathing.” Shouto tries to follow his boyfriend’s instructions, matching his inhales to Izuku’s as best he can until he’s finally able breathe on his own accord.
When Shouto is finally composed again, the three of them sit in silence for a few minutes, Izuku hugging him with the perfect amount of pressure to soothe him and Katsuki rubbing circles on his back. Shouto’s grateful for the quiet time for two reasons—one, he’s worn out. He feels like he could close his eyes and easily fall asleep in his boyfriend’s warm embrace.
Two, as much as he loves the two men sitting with him, he’s embarrassed as hell that they found him like this. He always is when they find him in rough states like this, no matter how many times they assure him he doesn’t have to be. Shouto was raised by a man who punished showing emotion no matter the circumstances, and old habits die hard. He’s spent years learning how to deal with his shit on his own and he prefers it that way. It’s far easier to let his guard down and allow himself feel whatever he needs to when he’s alone.
Even so, he can’t deny that being sandwiched between his two boyfriends feels a lot nicer than being sandwiched between a metal rack and a concrete wall.
“Sho?” Izuku eventually speaks softly. He hums in response.
“Do you want to—can you talk about it?”
Shouto blinks. He knows what Izuku means by that question; he’s asking if a flashback caused the panic attack. But he doesn’t have a good answer. “There’s not really anything to talk about. I don’t know why it happened.”
Izuku hums in thought. “That’s rare for you.”
Shouto agrees. He almost never has panic attacks out of nowhere like this. They’re almost always triggered by something, but he can’t think of anything that would’ve—oh.
“The presentation,” Shouto remembers, “the chief was explaining the training that the new villain recruits are forced to go through when they join, how the elder members put them through tests and—”
“Easy, princess,” Katsuki interrupts, massaging Shouto’s shoulder. “We remember what he said. Don’t force yourself to go over it again.”
Shouto hadn’t realized he was tensing up again, but Katsuki must have. In any case, he didn’t need to spell out why the chief’s descriptions had caused his anxiety to shoot through the roof. They knew enough about his father to put two and two together.
“You should’ve told at least one of us,” Izuku reprimands gently, but Shouto just buries his face in his neck.
“I would’ve been fine either way.”
Katsuki hisses at that. “Bullshit, you nearly passed out.”
“And I would’ve been fine.”
“But we’d rather help you before it gets to that point,” Izuku interjects quickly before Katsuki can bite back a response. Shouto’s can’t see his face like this, but he can imagine how his boyfriend’s eye must be twitching right now and and the thought makes him smirk ever so slightly.
Izuku’s words make him frown again as he considers them. This is far from the first time he’s heard them from the man, but Izuku’s tone is patient all the same. “I know you would. I’m sorry.”
He feels Izuku shake his head. “Don’t be sorry.”
“Maybe be a little sorry,” Katsuki says before flicking his finger against Shouto’s back lightly, “just sorry enough to make this the last time you run off to handle your shit alone.”
Shouto huffs in amusement. “I’ll try, but no promises.” Katsuki gives him an exasperated sigh before returning to rubbing his back.
“Is the presentation still going?” Shouto asks next, lifting his head off Izuku. As much as he enjoys being doted on by his boyfriends, it’s far more important that they get all the information they need before they bust that villain ring in a few days.
“No, it ended a few minutes after you left. You didn’t miss anything important, don’t worry,” Izuku answers.
“Which means we can get our asses off this gross floor and go home,” Katsuki suggests gracefully, making the other two snort.
“That does sound nice,” Izuku smiles. “Are you ready to go, Sho?”
Shouto nods, raising himself off of Izuku with a little help from Katsuki. “Let’s get out of here.”
Just sorry enough to make this the last time you run off to handle your shit alone.
Maybe he could let this be the last time. He sort of likes the idea.