#hopefully this stage passes quickly. the stuttered ‘oh nothing’ i gave up in response was probably weird to hear lmfao

[musicprincess655]

Sawamura’s bright gold eyes lit up when Kazuya walked into the room, and every single time, it made Kazuya’s heart stutter. Both because of Sawamura’s beauty, and because he was so visibly happy to see Kazuya.

“How’s house arrest?” Kazuya asked, lightly deflecting his feelings with sarcasm.

“Boring,” Sawamura groaned. He leaned easily into Kazuya’s space like it was his right, and Kazuya let him because it was now. “It’s not fair that I have to stay in while you get to go out.”

“One of us has caused millions of dollars worth of damage to city structures,” Kazuya pointed out, trying to keep the smirk off his face just to rile Sawamura up more.

“Come on, that was two times,” Sawamura complained. Kazuya just stared at him. “Maybe three. I’m not that bad. Tetsu-san and Furuya are worse!”

“You’ve got me there,” Kazuya said. He set his hands on Sawamura’s waist, trying to ground himself through touch. “Hey. I need your help with something, and I need you to not ask any questions.”

“Okay.” Sawamura’s expression didn’t change. He just put his hands on Kazuya’s shoulders, the moment close and almost intimate.

“I also need you to not tell Ryou about it,” Kazuya continued. Sawamura, to his credit, didn’t lean back or try to argue.

“Why?”

“That’s a question.” Kazuya wasn’t being fair, and he knew it. He also knew this probably wasn’t a good idea, but he couldn’t leave it alone.

“I didn’t say no,” Sawamura said. “I just want to know why I can’t tell Oniisan.”

“He...okay, here’s what’s happening,” Kazuya said quickly. “I haven’t heard back from Mei or any of his friends since we dropped them off at S.T.A.R. labs. I know they’re definitely still there, because Mei would’ve called if he’d gotten out. He wouldn’t just leave me hanging after asking for help. And I’m worried they don’t want to still be there.”

“You want to break them out,” Sawamura guessed. Kazuya shook his head.

“They might not need to break out,” Kazuya said. “Maybe they’re fine. But Nori and I can’t find anything about them, and that worries me. What if they made it out of one prison just to fall into another?”

“So we have to go check on your friends,” Sawamura said, nodding emphatically. “Of course I’ll help!”

“Keep it down, idiot,” Kazuya hissed, looking over his shoulder. “We’re trying to keep this a secret, remember?”

“Oh, right.” Sawamura dropped his voice to a comical stage whisper that just about matched a regular speaking voice. “So why can’t we tell Oniisan?”

“He has to believe in S.T.A.R. labs,” Kazuya said. “They’re the ones trying to fix Kuramochi.”

Sawamura actually went quiet at that.

“He hasn’t heard from Kuramochi?” Sawamura asked. “At all? It’s been two months since he left.”

“I know, and I’m trying not to stir it up,” Kazuya said. “Ryou has enough to worry about without dealing with us breaking into S.T.A.R. labs. I’ll ask for forgiveness later.”

Hopefully there would be nothing to forgive. Hopefully all four runaways were fine and perfectly happy to still be at S.T.A.R. labs.

“I never asked, but how do you know Mei?” Sawamura asked. “Or Narumiya, I guess.”

“We went to high school together,” Kazuya said. “Nori did too, that’s why he’s helping me try to find them. We’re not still close or anything, but we talk every so often.”

“I’ll help,” Sawamura said.

“You’ll have to follow my lead,” Kazuya warned. “This has to be complete stealth. I don’t want anyone finding out about this that doesn’t have to.”

“I can be stealth!” Kazuya just raised his eyebrows at the volume. “I can! If it’s important.”

“It’s important,” Kazuya said. “Come on. Let’s go see Nori.”

Before they left, Kazuya shoved one of his sweatshirts over Sawamura’s head. They weren’t that different in size, but Sawamura was definitely a little taller and more muscular now, and the fabric pulled across his shoulders. Kazuya tried not to focus too much on that, because really? Was he this lovesick?

Without Wonder Woman’s logo splashed across his chest, Sawamura could almost pass for a normal guy if no one looked too closely. He just had to keep his hood up and his head down so no one could see his eyes.

Kazuya took them on the train system, not wanting to tip anyone off to their intentions by taking a zeta tube. Sawamura had never really lost that childlike wonder about everything to do with Japan, and Kazuya was almost disgusted that he found it endearing rather than annoying.

Nori was already at Kazuya’s dad’s house, firmly tucked into the computer room.

“Any chance you happened to find them and they’re perfectly happy where they are?” Kazuya asked. Nori didn’t even dignify that with a response other than an eye roll. “Cool. So what’s the plan, oh almighty Guardian?”

“Ha ha,” Nori snarked. “I’m still working on an entry route for you two, but the plan is pretty straightforward. Go in, see what you see, and we’ll assess from there.”

“We’re improvising?” Sawamura asked.

“Basically, yeah,” Nori said. “Because I wasn’t stressed enough, apparently.”

He gave a significant look over his shoulder that Kazuya could interpret but knew Sawamura wouldn’t.

“Hey, Sawamura, why don’t you go into my dad’s armory and borrow something other than my sweatshirt?” Kazuya suggested. “We don’t want to broadcast Wonder Boy breaking into S.T.A.R. labs.”

“Okay,” Sawamura agreed easily. Kazuya felt worse for lying to him because it was so easy. “Which way?”

“Door through the kitchen, head down for the basement,” Kazuya said. “Pick anything that works, but plan for stealth, so maybe nothing bright red.”

“I’m not an idiot!” Sawamura snapped, but there was very little fire behind it. He’d learned to take Kazuya’s teasing in stride. Kazuya had yet to decide how he felt about it. On the one hand, it made him feel something soft, but on the other hand, one of Sawamura’s charm points had always been how easy it was to rile him up.

As soon as Kazuya heard him enter the kitchen, he turned back to Nori. Sawamura had good ears, but not good enough to hear all the way up from the basement.

“I finally heard from Katsuko and Seto,” Nori said, quickly and under his breath like Sawamura might return any second. “Haruno and Sanada tried to break in to kill Seto for killing Katsuko, and neither of them are permanently injured, but their cover almost got blown.”

“So they’re getting out now, right?” Kazuya asked. He’d love to not have to pretend anymore.

“Of course not, that would be easy,” Nori muttered. “Haruno brought the message. She’s hanging around to help, but the other three are still in Black Manta’s ship.”

“Help with what?” Kazuya asked. He had a terrible feeling about this.

“Apparently they’ve got some plan to break up the Light and the Reach,” Nori said. “Something about Haruno and Sanada presenting an opportunity Seto and Katsuko couldn’t follow through on with just the two of them.”

“I hate to ask, but what’s their plan?” Kazuya asked. Knowing how Sanada and Katsuko worked, though, he could pretty easily guess it was something reckless, audacious, and just barely this side of insane.

“They didn’t say,” Nori said. “And if you want my head in the game on Mei, I need to not know.”

“That’s fair,” Kazuya said. At least no one was dead. He’d have to live with that.

“Is this good enough for you?” Sawamura was back. Kazuya tried not to stare.

The gear he’d chosen looked a lot like Kazuya’s, but Sawamura had sleeves, and they only went to show off all the muscle in his arms. The shades of black and grey made him look more serious, set his golden eyes to glowing.

“God, quit drooling,” Nori complained. “Anyway, I think I have an entry route through the roof. Sawamura, if you’re flying, don’t touch down until you get to this point, you’ll set off the sensors.”

Great. So Kazuya would be flying with Sawamura. It was one of his least favorite things, which unfortunately meant he had to do it a lot.

“Air ducts?” Kazuya asked.

“None big enough or safe enough for you two,” Nori said, shaking his head. “Your point of entry is a skylight. You’ll have to dodge around people once you get in.”

“Without punching people,” Kazuya added in Sawamura’s direction. “Because we can’t punch scientists and not look like the bad guys.”

“I know that!”

“And maybe keep the flirting to the minimum while you’re in there?” Nori suggested. “You do it really loud.”

That had been aimed at Kazuya, which he found patently unfair, because he wasn’t the loud one. He didn’t think Nori would appreciate him pointing that out, though.

“Anyway, we drop in the skylight, we ninja around the scientists, what else?” Sawamura asked.

“That’s about all I can tell you from here,” Nori said. “You’re there to find information I can’t get to here. You’re going in the skylight because your best bet is one of the top floors, but I really can’t give you anything else.”

“It’s already a lot,” Kazuya said. “Thanks, Nori. I don’t know why Mei would come to me for help when you exist.”

“Because you two are weird about each other,” Nori dismissed.

“We are not!”

“You shoved your tongues down each other’s throats in third year and neither of you wants to admit you liked it,” Nori sighed. “Just say you were attracted to each other but didn’t want to date and move on like adults.”

“Nori!” Kazuya protested with a sideways look at Sawamura. That wouldn’t make him jealous, right? But Sawamura didn’t look bothered.

“Just get going,” Nori said. “If we have to bust them out, we might as well do it while we still have the night.”

Since they weren’t in a situation where Sawamura had to grab Kazuya by his collar and physically fly him away from danger, Kazuya could hop up on his back, and this was definitely better than dangling and hoping Sawamura’s grip strength held out. Kazuya would never like flying, but being able to hide his face in Sawamura’s shoulder helped.

“Ready?” Sawamura asked as they hovered over the building, and his voice had finally dropped down to a reasonable level.

“Let’s do this,” Kazuya said.

Sawamura switched his grip so Kazuya could do the delicate work of opening the skylight without making any sound, and then lowered Kazuya in as far as he could before letting go.

Kazuya landed lightly on his feet, soles of his boots cushioning the sound. Sawamura flew carefully down into the room, gently touching down to stand by Kazuya. Kazuya motioned for the door. Neither of them was the best at covert missions like this, both of them best suited to covering from a long range, but Kazuya could handle it. Probably.

Luckily, the corridor outside their room was empty, and they both moved as silently and quickly as they could, looking in doors and trying to see anywhere that might have information.

What they got instead was the sound of Shirakawa shouting. Kazuya was surprised he could still recognize the voice so many years after high school, doubly because he’d never heard Shirakawa raise his voice.

He and Sawamura were out in the open, in plain view of anyone that might happen upon them, but they had to stay here and listen. Kazuya motioned to his eyes, then pointed Sawamura out at the hallway.

Keep watch.

“We’re sick of all these tests!” Shirakawa’s voice came through the door easily now that Kazuya was listening. “I want a cure, not an explanation!”

“You have to calm down,” an older male voice answered him. “You’re the first humans with a newly awakened Meta-Gene we’ve ever been able to study. The things we could understand-”

“I don’t care!” Shirakawa cut him off. “None of us care! We just want to leave!”

“You can’t do that,” the older man said. “All of you are dangerous.”

“Yeah, thanks Otousan.” Shirakawa’s voice sounded more subdued now. Sawamura tapped at Kazuya’s shoulder, but Kazuya waved him off. He wanted to know more about what was happening.

Sawamura didn’t give him a chance. Before Kazuya realized what was happening, Sawamura had picked him up and run them both around a corner, hand over Kazuya’s mouth to cover his surprised yelp. Kazuya could feel Sawamura’s heart beating against his back, pulled close to Sawamura’s chest, as voices came down the hallway and turned off before they reached him.

Sawamura let off a barely audible sigh of relief. Kazuya patted his wrist.

Sorry for ignoring you.

They stayed put, though, because now Kazuya could hear both Shirakawa and Mei’s voices coming closer. He should step out now, offer to help them escape, but Mei didn’t know him under the mask, and there was no guarantee any of them would trust him.

“I can’t take this place anymore,” Shirakawa ranted. “It’s worse than the Reach.”

“It can’t be that bad,” a voice Kazuya didn’t recognize countered.

“It’s pretty bad,” someone Kazuya recognized as Carlos said. “At least the Reach never pretended they were helping us.”

“Maybe S.T.A.R. is helping us,” the same unrecognizable voice said. “I almost blew up Central City, and I still don’t know why my power is gone. What if it comes back? What if any of yours get worse? Any of you could destroy everything.”

Kazuya’s eyes widened. Neutron was here? And it sounded like it would make things more complicated.

“Maybe, but I still don’t want to be stuck here.” By simple process of elimination, that voice had to belong to Itsuki. “Shirakawa-san is right. This place is worse than the Reach.”

“Then it’s a good thing we’re busting out of here tonight, then, isn’t it?” Oh, Mei. Easily the leader, and always with crazy ideas that shouldn’t work. He hadn’t changed at all since high school.

“You have a plan, Mei-san?” Kazuya and Sawamura held perfectly still as the group passed their hiding place. Everyone looked healthy enough, if a little pale from lack of sunlight.

“Of course,” Mei nodded. “We could leave right now, if everyone’s ready.”

“Can’t be too soon for me,” Shirakawa muttered. “I’m in.”

“So am I,” Carlos agreed. “I need more space to stretch my legs.”

“I’m coming too,” Itsuki added.

“What if we’re not here to protect us?” Neutron asked. He looked just as young as the others when he wasn’t in an explosive death cycle. “What if we’re in here to protect the rest of the world from us?”

Mei shrugged.

“I’d still rather be out there than in here,” he said. “Let anyone try and take us.”

Suddenly, an alarm started blaring, and Kazuya closed his eyes for a brief second to wonder how everything went wrong so quickly. He leaned around the corner to see that Neutron had pressed the alarm button.

“What the hell?” Shirakawa demanded.

“I can’t let you guys do this,” Neutron said.

“Then stay here on your own!” And the other four took off running. Kazuya grabbed for Sawamura once before both of them were running too. Even if none of the runaways would trust them, they’d probably need help.

They caught up just as the four had reached a door, Mei throwing himself against it.

“The building’s on lockdown,” Carlos pointed out. “The door won’t open.”

“I can see that, thanks,” Mei snarled. “Okay, so Shirakawa can teleport us out!”

“No I can’t,” Shirakawa snapped. “I can only teleport myself, and only in my line of sight, and in case you didn’t notice, this is a windowless locked hallway.”

“Okay, okay, fine,” Mei said, holding up his hands. “So Itsuki can do his thing.”

“You know I can’t control it,” Itsuki protested. “I can’t even do my thing.”

“The scientists said you just had to calm down and focus.”

“I am not calm right now!”

“Hey!” Kazuya already had an arrow ready to fly at the new voice. S.T.A.R.’s security had caught up with them. “You kids get back here!”

Even from here, Kazuya could see Shirakawa’s eyes narrow.

“Fuck that,” he spat, and then he disappeared.

He reappeared on the other side of the guards, raising his hands.

“Catch me if you can, fuckers,” he snapped.

“But don’t look away too long,” Carlos added. By the time the guards tried to turn back to him, Carlos had already launched himself at them with superhuman speed. He didn’t seem like a speedster, though. It was more like he had somehow launched himself forward.

“This is for your own good!” one of the guards cried.

“Heard that one before,” Mei said, static electricity crackling at his fingertips as he levitated a fire extinguisher. “Didn’t like it back then, either.”

Kazuya was ready to step in, but it looked like Mei and his friends had it pretty well under control. Which meant they just had to find a way out.

“Nori, you getting all this?” he muttered.

“Loud and clear,” Nori answered. “The cameras in your glasses were a good call.”

“Any chance you can get us out of lockdown?” Kazuya asked. “Now that the alarm is going?”

“I still can’t hack my way around their systems, at least not without getting caught,” Nori said. “I might have an idea for the lockdown, though. Give me fifteen.”

“I don’t think we have fifteen,” Sawamura whispered. It was true. More guards had showed up, and even with their new superpowers, Mei and his friends couldn’t hold them off forever.

“Ugh, fine, let’s move,” Kazuya groaned. This was the very definition of what he’d been trying to avoid, but it was all they could do. “Hey, ugly!”

He shot a taser arrow at a guard before said guard could even react. Kazuya had another two at the ready before all the guards had turned their attention to him.

“Get them!”

Sawamura was good at fighting at a disadvantage, though, and he and Kazuya had had years to get used to fighting around each other. Kazuya could aim around Sawamura’s strike pattern, and Sawamura could keep the guards from getting to Kazuya.

“Mei-san!”

Kazuya paused in his firing to see that a guard had grabbed Mei, twisting him back by the hair. Itsuki had retreated to a corner when the fighting started, obviously panicked, but Kazuya could see something in his eyes clear as he stared at Mei.

Itsuki closed his eyes, and started to grow.

Or rather, a form grew around him. Itsuki stayed the same size, eyes closed at the center of a giant glowing avatar. The roof lifted over him, and the lights shut off. Kazuya’s glasses switched to night vision as he tried to track everyone’s movements.

“You should be able to get out now,” Nori’s voice chimed in over the comm. “I cut the power.”

“We have bigger problems, but thanks,” Kazuya said. He knew Nori could see what he saw.

Itsuki’s large glowing form picked up his friends, and Kazuya felt Sawamura grab him under the arms. Kazuya grimaced, but it was for the best.

They were leaving.

They got all the way outside of the city before Itsuki finally let them down. By the time Sawamura and Kazuya landed, Mei already had Itsuki cradled in his arms. All four looked at Sawamura and Kazuya in distrust.

“Why are you two here?” Mei demanded. “Why did you help us?”

Kazuya sighed, and reached up to pull his hat off and push his glasses into his hair. There was really no getting around this one.

“Hey, Mei,” he said with a fake calm.

“Kazuya?” Mei asked. “You’re Arsenal?”

“That’s me,” Kazuya said. “I got worried when you didn’t answer my texts, so we came to bust you out.”

“And you brought Wonder Boy with you,” Carlos added, looking at Sawamura’s face with interest. Even in a different costume, Sawamura was recognizable.

“What now?” Shirakawa demanded. “We can’t go home. Half of us don’t even have homes to go back to.”

“Well…” Mei trailed off. Shirakawa pinched his nose.

“You were planning on going home, weren’t you,” he sighed. Mei had the grace to look sheepish.

“My family misses me,” he said. “It’s not my fault the Reach thought I was a runaway.”

“You know, you could probably come with us,” Kazuya said, already trying to figure out how he’d explain this one to the team. “People with superpowers are kind of our specialty.”

“Join the same team that’s associated with S.T.A.R. labs?” Shirakawa asked. “Pass.”

“We’re not going back in a cage, Kazuya,” Mei said. “Not after everything.”

“So where will you go?” Kazuya asked. The four looked at each other helplessly, and Kazuya felt something give in his chest. Maybe he was going soft. “Okay, here, give me your phone.”

Mei was the only one to hand one out to Kazuya, and Kazuya tapped an address into the maps app.

“This is an armory of my dad’s in Star City,” Kazuya said. He reached into his pocket for a key. “And this will get you in. You can lay low there for a few hours before anyone realizes you’re there, and there are probably some supplies you can use.”

“Why help us?” Shirakawa asked suspiciously.

“Doesn’t really make sense to come bust you out of S.T.A.R. and then let you get caught again,” Kazuya pointed out.

“No, why help at all?” Shirakawa pressed. “Why even come when Mei asked for help?”

“Because I’m a hero, and I answer when a friend asks me for help.” For Kazuya, it was just that simple. He couldn’t have ignored Mei’s call any more than he could’ve ignored a similar one from Nori. “Get going. You don’t want to get caught.”

“Kazuya…” There was a complicated emotion on Mei’s face. He was bad at saying thank you, worse at accepting he wasn’t good enough on his own, and Kazuya could understand it. “Thanks.”

The four of them took off, and Kazuya and Sawamura watched in silence.

“How many people do you think have Meta-Genes?” Sawamura asked.

“Probably a lot, if the Reach came here just for that,” Kazuya said. “More than we realize.”

“Would you ever want, you know…” Sawamura trailed off. “I know it comes out because of trauma, and the Reach tortured them to give them their powers, but do you ever wish you had superpowers too?”

“No.” Kazuya didn’t even have to think about it. “I can do enough like I am. I don’t need superpowers, and I don’t think I want them, either.”

“You wouldn’t need me to protect you if you had something to protect yourself,” Sawamura pointed out.

“In case you haven’t noticed, the reason we work is because sometimes you need me to protect you too, and I can do that as I am,” Kazuya said. He jumped when he felt Sawamura’s lips press to his cheek.

“Good,” Sawamura said. “I like you the way you are. I don’t want you to try and change yourself like that.”

Kazuya could hear the unspoken fear behind Sawamura’s words, that Kazuya might have an idea that could get him killed.

“Aren’t you supposed to be the straightforward one?” Kazuya scoffed. “If you’re worried about something, say so. Brat.”

“Miyuki Kazuya!”

Kazuya snickered, and then he laughed, and then he couldn’t stop until he was nearly crying. His sides hurt, the laughter half from relief and half from something like hysteria tearing through him until it was done.

“Come on,” he said, wiping his eyes. “Let’s go home.”