#Tetsu's been covering Jun's team for four to five months

[fractionallystruckout]

Title: Off the Record Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Isashiki Jun/Yuuki Tetsuya Characters: Isashiki Jun, Yuuki Tetsuya Additional Tags: Alternate Universe, In which Jun didn't attend Seido, Professional Baseball Player!Jun, Sports Reporter!Tetsu, Acquaintances to Lovers, DaiyanoAceRarePairWeek2020 Word Count: 800

Summary: Jun doesn't like interviews. He doesn't like reporters who've never played the sport. This conversation is off the record.

[musicprincess655]

Aya pushed away her laptop. She’d just finished typing up a report on the Joker’s death, based on what the Titans had told her and what she already knew. She almost hadn’t wanted to, but the rest of the Justice League deserved to know that one of the most dangerous criminals out there was dead, and they deserved proof.

She heard someone quietly enter her study, and based on the footfalls, she knew it was Haruichi.

“Okaasan?” Haruichi was already at her side before Aya could finish turning to greet him. He was bigger than she remembered, at that age where he’d grow quickly until he reached his adult height just like Ryou had, but still too small for all the pain in his world. “How do you do it?”

“Do what?”

“You and Aniki, you’re both so strong.” Haruichi twisted his hands together. “How can I be strong like you?”

Aya’s heart broke for him.

“I’m not strong, Haru-chan, and neither is your brother,” she told him. “Not crying isn’t a sign of strength.”

“But Aniki avenged Shun-chan, and I-”

“What your brother is doing isn’t a sign of strength either,” Aya said. “He just thinks it’s a better option than letting himself grieve.”

“Isn’t it?”

Aya sighed. She’d really hoped she would have longer before she had to tell her youngest son her story.

“I know you don’t have Ryou-chan’s experience, but I’ve taught you to be a detective too,” she said gently. “Haven’t you ever wondered why we’ve only met your father’s parents?”

She couldn’t see Haruichi’s eyes, couldn’t see the way they must have gone wide when he figured it out.

“They died?” he asked. “When?”

“When I was a little younger than you,” Aya said. It might have felt like a lot younger to Haruichi if he knew her actual age at the time, but it was so hard for her to stop seeing how small her son was. “And for a long time, I didn’t cry over it. I thought I was being strong, but in the end, I was just so scared that if I let myself break I’d never be able to put myself back together again.”

“So you just never cried?” Haruichi asked.

“I didn’t say that,” Aya said. “Grief’s a funny thing. You can’t ever really get away from it. You just have to let it take its course.”

“So what did you do?”

“For a long time, I thought I was okay,” Aya said. “And I even thought I was getting better. But really, I was just getting better at acting. It wasn’t until Alfred started dragging me to therapy that anything changed.”

“Then what happened?”

“Almost exactly what I was afraid of. I broke. I broke into so many pieces I didn’t think there was a chance of putting them all back together again. I didn’t even know where to start.”

“But you’re okay now.”

“Yes, I am.” Aya sighed. “Your father pointed out to me that I didn’t have to pick up all the pieces on my own. I could let everyone I loved help, and they could put me together when I couldn’t do it for myself.”

Haruichi didn’t look convinced, but Aya also knew he was at his limit for pretending he was okay.

“Alfred was the one who really for me through it, though,” Aya admitted. “I’ve realized now that he was the father I desperately needed when I lost my parents.”

“What did he do?” Haruichi asked. His hands were shaking.

“Reminded me that even if it felt like everything was collapsing around me, the world wasn’t ending. And he was right. My parents’ death wasn’t the end of the world,” Aya said, feeling her face fall into a sad smile. “But for a long time, it was the end of mine.”

“How long?”

“Too long.” Aya took his trembling hands in her own. They were already bigger than hers. “Let yourself mourn Shunpei. It’s not a sign of weakness. And until you’re ready to hold your own pieces together, let me hold them for you.”

It started off as a trickle; a sniff, a wet eye. And then the floodgates burst.

Haruichi flung himself into her arms, tears streaming down his face, tiny body shaking. His sobs almost became screams in his grief and pain and rage.

Maybe the rage should have surprised Aya, but as much as Haruichi was mellower than her and Ryou put together, as much as he took after his father in temperament, he was still her son.

Aya let her own tears fall into Haruichi’s hair, finally letting herself mourn as well for the son she’d lost.

Eventually, Haruichi calmed down to sniffles and hiccups, but he didn’t leave Aya’s arms.

“Do you still want to be my Robin?” she asked quietly. He turned to look up at her. “Now you know the dangers of this life. Do you still want it?”

A change came over Haruichi’s face. Even with half of it hidden, Aya could see the way his jaw set, stubborn and defiant. It reminded her of Ryou at that age.

It reminded her of herself at that age.

“Yes.”

“Then we’ll start training,” Aya promised. “We’ll start with self-defense.”

***

“So,” Jun said, leaning into Tetsu’s side Tetsu lifted an arm to accommodate him. “Do you wanna start, or should I?”

“Start what?”

“You think we’re not gonna talk about completely missing the ‘kill Joker’ mission?” Jun asked. “The only thing anyone in our team has worked on for four months? That thing we totally missed because we were off the grid for five days?”

“That’s not our fault,” Tetsu said. “It was nothing for months. We had no reason to believe it wouldn’t be nothing for months.”

“Still.”

“You always visit your parents around this time,” Tetsu continued. He squeezed Jun’s shoulders. It almost felt like Jun was blaming himself for...what exactly? No one was dead, no one was even hurt. Except for the Joker, but that had been the point.

“So you’re completely fine that we missed it?”

Of course he wasn’t. Tetsu had been just as angry, just as hurt when he’d learned what Ryou and Kuramochi were keeping from them. He’d thrown himself into helping track down the Joker, determined to prove to Ryou how wrong he’d been. He’d been looking forward to paying back the loss of one of their own. He hadn’t known the new Robin that well, but he had been a good kid. Maybe a little violent, but Tetsu considered that one of his virtues.

“What is there to talk about?” Tetsu asked instead. “We missed it. There’s nothing we can do about it.”

“It sucks!” Jun complained, knocking a fist backwards that more or less bounced off Tetsu’s chest. “Ryou still doesn’t look okay, Kuramochi looks like he’s trying to pick up the pieces, Miyuki looks like he’s trying not to puke his guts up, and Sawamura’s just trying to hold everyone together through sheer force of will or something. And that’s just our team.”

“Young Justice isn’t getting back together, is it?” Tetsu asked, to cover up the fact that he thought Ryou was doing okay. He probably wasn’t an objective observer, though. He’d been told he ‘used violence and danger to compensate for lack of emotional stability’, which was completely fair after his entire planet was wiped out, in his opinion.

“Doesn’t look like it,” Jun said. “That sucks too. I know they were our rivals, but they were our friends too.”

Tetsu nodded. The teams had made it almost a game to steal missions from each other. None of the Titans had expected to like the new kids, and they’d all been surprised. To have everyone leave…

Well, Jun had already said it. Twice. It sucked.

“I say we give it a week before we start trying to put everyone back together,” Jun said. “That should give Ryou enough time to get it out of his system.”

“Get what out of his system?”

“Someday, we’re gonna have to get you back in touch with your emotions,” Jun said, but he accompanied it with a friendly shove, so Tetsu figured he was safe for now. “Getting his ‘pretending this is what he wanted’ shit out of his system.”

***

Kazuya dropped his bow as he pulled his equipment off after a patrol with his dad. That was odd. He hadn’t done that in years. The one thing he’d always had going for him was steady hands.

Then as he leaned over to pick it up, his glasses started sliding down his nose, and somehow he fumbled that catch entirely, and only succeeded in dumping his entire quiver. Kazuya whined in frustration, because did the entire world have to be against him now? Couldn’t he do something right?

“Miyuki Kazuya.” Sawamura knelt into his line of vision, picking up stray arrows. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” Kazuya said. He could see just fine with his contacts in, but he felt weirdly naked without anything in front of his eyes.

“Your hands are shaking.”

Kazuya looked down. So they were. That was probably how he’d managed to fumble everything he was holding.

Sawamura had finished gathering up all the equipment, but he didn’t move to hand it back to Kazuya. Instead, he reached out, cupping Kazuya’s hands between his own. It only made the shaking more obvious, even as it stabilized them.

And Kazuya couldn’t take it anymore. He pulled his hands free and threw his arms around Sawamura, desperate for any measure of comfort. Sawamura startled back, but before Kazuya could start regretting his impulse, warm arms circled around his back.

Kazuya leaned his cheek against Sawamura’s neck, feeling more than hearing the beat pulsing there.

All through his patrol, he hadn’t been able to shake the image of shooting down the Joker’s henchmen. Hadn’t been able to forget clearing a path for Ryou to run. Couldn’t forget what he’d been allowing Ryou to do.

He’d barely been able to keep his eyes open when he and Sawamura had walked in and seen what Ryou had done. What kind of hero was he? He’d seen a dead body before. This wasn’t supposed to be anything new.

“It’s okay,” Sawamura said, holding him closer. Kazuya just buried his face in Sawamura’s shoulder, because it wasn’t. “It’ll be okay.”

Kazuya wanted to ask how he could be so sure. But he wasn’t sure he would believe the answer, and he needed to believe it. He needed to believe everything would be okay.

Even if it didn’t feel like it could be.

***

Takako wasn’t good at following people unseen. In fact, if she didn’t have Wakana helping, she didn’t think she’d have been able to follow Katsuko at all. Not when Katsuko so clearly didn’t want to be followed.

But Katsuko hadn’t answered her phone in days, and they were all that was left of Young Justice, and Takako had to know why. She knew Wakana wanted to know, as well. If they were supposed to be all each other had left, why was Katsuko avoiding them?

Why was she going out alone at night, in a plain black costume that no one would ever connect to Artemis?

Maybe it shouldn’t have surprised Takako when Katsuko dropped onto a roof and Nightwing stepped out of the shadows, but it did.

“Is there a particular reason we’re meeting in costume?” Katsuko asked.

“I’m confirming a suspicion,” Ryou said. “Do you even still have your Artemis gear?”

Takako almost scoffed at the question. Of course Katsuko still had it, what else would she patrol in?

“Toku-san is holding onto it for me,” Katsuko said. “He said I might want it back someday, but I don’t think I will.”

“Why not?”

“Artemis was Robin’s partner. Artemis was Young Justice’s archer.” Katsuko sighed, her shoulders slumping. “I’m not either of those things anymore.”

“Young Justice needs a leader,” Ryou said. “You were Robin’s partner. You should be next in line.”

“I can’t,” Katsuko said. “You know I can’t.”

“So you’re just leaving?” Ryou asked.

“I’m going back to America,” Katsuko said. “I can’t...be here, anymore.”

“And you’re not saying goodbye, are you.”

“They won’t understand,” Katsuko sighed. “Batgirl has your family, and Zatanna wasn’t on the team that long. She’ll be fine. They’ll both be fine. They don’t need me.”

“Sounds like an excuse.”

“Takes one to know one.”

Katsuko and Ryou stared each other down.

“Are you ever coming back?” Ryou asked.

“Maybe,” Katsuko said. “I took exams at school early, so I can go back if I want. But I need to get away.”

Takako was done listening. She could already barely contain her sobs. And then Wakana was there, and Takako muffled herself against Wakana’s shoulder.

That was it. Their team was gone. Takako had nothing to return to but an empty house and a father that wasn’t coming home, stuck as the host to the world’s greatest magician.

Though silent, Takako could feel Wakana’s shoulders shaking. It really had to be over, then.

***

Ryou tried to go back to business as usual, he really did. There was double the work to take care of now that Young Justice was permanently dissolved, and Ryou should’ve already planned out how to take care of it.

But instead, he was holed up in his room, choking on his own emotions.

Joker was dead. Joker was dead, he wasn’t supposed to feel this way anymore, but instead, Ryou only felt the pieces of his chest flying apart faster.

“Ryou-san?”

Ryou was turning before he could think, desperate to just feel anything that wasn’t pain and guilt. He grabbed fists full of shirt, hauling Kuramochi in and slamming him against the wall. Kuramochi made a sound of surprise against his lips as Ryou shoved his tongue in.

This could’ve been anyone and Ryou wouldn’t have cared, but a distant part of his mind was glad it was Kuramochi.

Kuramochi kissed him back, moaning into his mouth, gripping his hair with splayed fingers. Ryou’s jaw almost ached with how wide it had dropped to get his tongue as far down Kuramochi’s throat as possible.

Ryou shoved his knee between Kuramochi’s legs, grinding up, felt the strong runner’s thighs clamp down on him, just for a second, before Kuramochi’s lips went still. He pushed against Ryou’s chest and mumbled against the lips Ryou still had smashed against his mouth.

“No,” Kuramochi repeated, trying to escape back into the wall and push Ryou away at the same time.

“Why…?” Ryou asked, unable to ask anything else. He couldn’t be wrong. He knew he wasn’t wrong. Kuramochi had feelings for him, that was a known fact, and Kuramochi had kissed him back.

“Not while you’re grieving,” Kuramochi said. “I can’t be just a one night stand, or a fling, I...this can’t be just because you want to feel something that doesn’t hurt.”

“But I…”

“I thought we didn’t lie to each other.” And Ryou fell silent, because they didn’t. “You haven’t exactly been the poster child for healthy grieving, you know. And I bet you thought if you could just kill Joker, this would all go away. And it hasn’t. And you want it to.”

“Wouldn’t you?” Ryou asked. “Don’t you?”

Kuramochi had cared about Sanada. How could he not be hurting just as bad?

“Not like this,” Kuramochi repeated. All the awful feeling in Ryou’s chest coalesced back into rage, and he drew his fist back before he knew what he was doing.

The hit never landed, though. Kuramochi was too fast.

“Ryou-san,” he said again, holding Ryou’s wrist against his heart, fluttering oh so fast.

“No!” Ryou snapped, screeched, choked out. “No, fuck you, fuck you!”

Kuramochi just pulled him in closer, ignoring how hard he struggled to get away. Didn’t comment when he finally stopped.

Ryou’s sobs were cut off, shoved down, as quiet as they could be against the storm inside him. He was supposed to be okay, he was supposed to be okay, why wasn’t he okay?

Kuramochi’s chest trembled against Ryou’s cheek with his own sobs, his own pain, cut into his heart as deep as Ryou’s. They slid down the wall, Ryou protected between Kuramochi’s knees, face buried to hide his grief and guilt and shame.

Kuramochi just held him close, grip tight on his wrist, although there was no risk of Ryou throwing another punch now. And slowly, Ryou didn’t have any sobs left to give.

He sat up then, pulling his wrist away from Kuramochi and wiping his face.

“Sorry,” he said hoarsely.

“‘S fine,” Kuramochi told him gruffly. “Just...you know what you’re feeling is normal, right?”

“He thought I hated him,” Ryou said, instead of a real answer. “I never told him I didn’t. He died thinking I hated him, and I can’t take it back.”

Kuramochi didn’t say anything to that. There was no answer to a problem it was too late to solve.

“You know you can always talk to me, right? I’m always here.”

“I know,” Ryou said, despite the fact that he had no intention of talking about this anymore. He’d deal with it.

He had to.

“And when you’re done figuring this out...then we’ll talk,” Kuramochi said. “I want to talk about us. And I want to do it when you’re not still angry and sad.”

“When will that be?” Ryou asked. “When will you decide I’m ready to have this conversation?”

“You’ll know, and if you want to, you’ll come to me,” Kuramochi said. “I...hope you’ll come to me.”

Then he stood up, as if he could sense that Ryou needed to be left alone now, and edged out of the room, closing the door behind him.

And Ryou was left with the broken pieces of his soul.

[musicprincess655]

Ryou tilted his head back. He could practically feel his eyelids scraping across his dry eyes every time he blinked. He’d had five solid hours of chasing himself in circles around the internet and had hacked at least three major corporations, one of which had realized he was hacking in and then he’d had to spend an hour covering his tracks.

When he closed his eyes, bright spots floated in the darkness. If he sat too still, he could feel himself drifting off.

“Hey.” Ryou left his eyes closed, tracking Kuramochi’s movements by ear. “You should take a break.”

“Is it regularly scheduled?” Ryou asked, smirk not quite translating into his tone like he’d intended. He really had to be tired.

“More like penciled in,” Kuramochi said. “I’m worried about you.”

Ryou opened his eyes just enough so he could see Kuramochi leaning on his desk, looking down at him with his eyebrows pushed together.

“Neither of us is the paragon of health right now,” Ryou pointed out, because it was true. Kuramochi had dark circles to match the ones Ryou had developed under his eyes.

“That’s not what I meant,” Kuramochi said. “Something you said is bothering me.”

“And that is?”

“Do you not think you deserve to be happy?” Kuramochi asked. Ryou studied him instead of answering. “What will you do when this is all over?”

“I haven’t thought a lot about it,” Ryou said, because he couldn’t see Kuramochi’s angle and he was too tired to try and avoid the subject. “I’m putting too much into this to worry about that right now.”

Kuramochi pressed his knee into Ryou’s. Ryou allowed it because he knew it would comfort Kuramochi more than it would himself. Kuramochi had never been clingy the way Miyuki could be, but he was still tactile, and it cost Ryou nothing to indulge him. And maybe it was the exhaustion, but the warmth pressed into the side of his leg really did feel good.

“Weren’t you gonna go to college this year?” Kuramochi asked. “You didn’t bother showing up to school unless it would make you fail. College classes are supposed to start soon. Are you gonna go at all?”

“I can defer,” Ryou said. He wasn’t actually sure it was allowed, but it was probably nothing that couldn’t be fixed with the kind of money a Kominato could throw around if he still wanted to go. “This is more important.”

“Ryou-san.” Kuramochi pressed his knee harder into Ryou’s leg. “What happens after?”

“Why does it matter?” Ryou was trying really hard not to snap at Kuramochi. He couldn’t see the point, and he was tired, and much as he enjoyed Kuramochi’s company, he really wanted to get to the point already.

“Why does this matter if there’s no after?” Kuramochi asked, gesturing vaguely with his arms. “What’s the point of all this if you’re not gonna be happy after?”

“I’m not doing this to be happy.”

“Then why? To punish yourself?”

Ryou kept quiet. Kuramochi had gotten uncomfortably close to the truth.

“You don’t deserve that,” Kuramochi said softly. The forgiveness in his tone hurt so much worse. “I can’t believe any of this is worth it if after doesn’t happen.”

Not for the first time, and probably not for the last, Ryou cursed his complete inability to tell Kuramochi Youichi to go fuck himself. Kuramochi had carved out a place in Ryou’s chest without permission, and Ryou was beyond the point of evicting him.

“Good, you’re both here.” Kuramochi jumped away from where they’d pressed together. Ryou looked over his shoulder languidly. Miyuki leaned against the doorframe, Katsuko and Kawakami looking past him.

Ryou felt an uncomfortable twist of guilt again when he looked at Miyuki. But then, guilt wasn’t an unusual feeling for him these days, much as he tried to force it down.

“What are you all doing here?” Kuramochi asked. “And why did you bring Nori?”

“He helped me find this,” Miyuki said, holding out his hand. He held a flash drive.

“What’s that?” Ryou asked, sitting up, interest piqued.

“It’s...okay, you’re not allowed to ask how I got it,” Miyuki said, eyes shifting to the side. That was interesting. “We found the Joker.”

Ryou froze. He felt Kuramochi freeze next to him.

“You’re kidding.”

“I’m not,” Miyuki said. “It’s all here.”

Ryou would’ve liked to say he didn’t snatch the flash drive from Miyuki, but that’s exactly what he did, grabbing it and shoving it into his computer. He felt like he’d been staring into the abyss for months, and Miyuki had just handed him a candle.

He scrolled through documents, photos, coordinates…

“This is from two days ago,” Ryou said quietly. Reverently.

“He could still be there, right?” Miyuki asked. “This could be it.”

Even if it wasn’t, this was everything Ryou had been looking for since Sanada died. Even if the last known location wasn’t any good, this was plenty to establish a pattern. Whether Miyuki had brought the Joker’s head on a silver platter or not, he’d certainly brought a way to get it.

Ryou opened his comm. link, calling Jun and Tetsu. Of all times for them to go visit Jun’s parents…

“I think Jun-san said it would be hard to get ahold of him,” Kuramochi said. “They’re pretty far off the grid.”

Ryou looked back over his shoulder. While his back had been turned, Sawamura had wandered in, rubbing at his eyes. He was the only heavy hitter in the room. Usually, a fight like this meant they had to rely on Sawamura, Tetsu, and Jun together. In any other case, Ryou would hesitate to go in with only one.

But beyond that...he’d already been burned by cutting out his team. Doing it again would cause more damage than he could reasonably fix.

“I’m setting this to call them again every hour,” Ryou said. “If they get it, they should be able to get to the nearest zeta tube and here in a few hours. I’ll give them twenty four.”

“And then?” Kuramochi asked.

“We’re going in without them,” Ryou said. “If we wait any longer than that, there’s no chance we’ll make it in time. I want to finish this.”

Everyone nodded grimly. No one liked the idea of going in without Jun and Tetsu, but if they couldn’t get in touch, there was nothing else for it.

“We should get some sleep,” Kuramochi said, with a pointed look at Ryou. “We need the rest so we can kick ass.”

“Everyone meet back here in twelve hours,” Ryou said. “We have to plan around Tetsu and Jun in case we have to go in without them. Katsuko, call Takako and Wakana.”

“On it,” she said, disappearing. Everyone else started to filter away, and Ryou gave Kuramochi a significant look before reaching for Miyuki’s arm.

“Wait. I have something to say to you.” He could address this layer of guilt, at least. “I shouldn’t have tried to keep you out. Even if you hadn’t found this, you’re still a member of this team, and I shouldn’t have forgotten that. I should have told you all from the start.”

Miyuki blinked a few times in obvious surprise.

“I uh…” he coughed. Ryou could understand not wanting to do mushy stuff. That had never been a defining feature of their friendship. “Thanks. And it’s okay. We’re okay.”

“Good.” Ryou let Miyuki’s arm go. “Get some sleep.”

“On it.”

If Ryou was any less tired than he currently was, he would’ve stayed up obsessing over a plan, running over and over what they were about to do, eager to finally be free of this mission. But as it was, the second he lay down, he couldn’t stay awake.

Kuramochi was right about this, at least. They needed their sleep. Ryou was starting to fear that Kuramochi was right about everything.