Seeing is Believing

"Sea Sharp? Really?" Elly stared at the villain rather blankly. He was dressed as a pirate, complete with a peg leg and obligatory eye patch.

"Ha! You'll be changing your tune, kitty, the minute you get wind of my quirk!"

"High pitched noise? No, thank you." She faded into invisibility. Once disappeared into thin air, she pulled her mask up. "Besides, I think we may have one upped you here."

Present Mic glared at the other man. "Back off, man," he warned. "You've got ears, and, voice quirk or not, there's a world of difference between a nobody villain and a pro hero."

Sharp chuckled. "Try me, then."

They were astonished to find out that the man's quirk reflected sound back at a higher frequency. This meant if he timed it properly, he could use Mic as his own weapon of mass destruction.

Elly froze, momentarily stunned, and the poor hero stared at what had until recently been the very sturdy walls of a nearby building. He blinked, shocked, slowly coming out of his quirk pose with his arms thrown back and hands open. His fingers twitched as he stared at the destruction. Glass had also shattered in an impressive radius around them and the anguished cries of animals and anthro type humans could be heard far into the distance. Elly was only partially muffled by her respirator and he could hear her mewing as well.

"Warned you." Sharp shrugged, unconcerned. "That's all on you, hero."

He glared at him angrily and pressed his lips together, sealing them shut.

The fight went on for a short while, Elly skirting the field and trying to get close enough to make an impact. Unfortunately without his quirk and in close range combat, Mic was at a tremendous disadvantage. He picked up a bunch of cuts and bruises from well-timed blows and then a lucky kick from the sturdy peg leg sent him sprawling to the ground. Sharp laughed cruelly and raised his sword.

"No! Mic!" Desperate, she flung herself in front of his crumpled form, taking the thrust instead. It went in just under her ribs on the right side, and she stiffened and fell.

"Ugh, self sacrifice," the villain spat. "That's far more than heroism calls for. I think this one has a crush you, Present Mic."

Elly raised her now-visible head and coughed, a frightening amount of blood gushing from her pale lips before dropping fully to the ground. She did not move again.

"Oops," Sharp murmured, tapping his leg on the pavement. "Looks like she had a crush is the more appropriate tense."

Mic clenched his fists and dragged himself to his feet. He stumbled, but managed to stay upright. Chunks of his once proud, blond hair were stained with blood and falling down to hang about his shoulders and he was missing a studded shoulder pad. Amazingly enough, although his face was scratched and bruised his sunglasses were intact. He pushed them farther up his nose and took a deep breath.

"You're not going to try that again, are you? I'll just raise your pitch double what I did last time. You'll end up putting half the populace in the hospital." He glanced at Elly laying in a growing puddle of blood. "Or the morgue along with your crazy girlfriend."

His mouth a grim white line, the leather-clad hero launched himself at the man's blind side and threw the hardest punch he could.

Elly woke in a cool, white room. She did not feel any pain and knew from the light weight in her arm there was an IV attached. She was in the hospital.

"Oh thank frikkin' god," a familiar voice choked beside her.

"M - Mic?" She coughed weakly.

"Here - the nurse, uh, said you could have this when you woke up." A straw banged her lip and she accepted it gratefully, pulling in some cool water to wet her dry throat.

She sighed, blinking hard to focus when he took the cup back. "Hizashi," she said with some surprise. He had time to clean up and change and was no longer his hero persona. His forehead sported a single haphazardly placed band aid and nothing about him looked injured. "How long..?"

"You've been out about a day." His face was pale and drawn, unlike his usual cheerful self. Something else was different about him and she frowned, trying to think.

"What happened to your hair?!"

He coughed. "Sharp tried to cut me, but missed. Well..." He pointed, turning so she could see half of it had been raggedly hacked off. "Sort of. He didn't miss all of me."

"Oh, Hizashi. That's like, your trademark..."

"Shit, girl! Forget the hair! You damn near bit the big one!" He rubbed a tired hand at his eyes under his glasses. "F - fu ... ah, shit. Why'd you do that? You didn't need to!"

"He was trying to hurt you." She closed her eyes.

"Uh uh, kiddo." He flicked her on the nose and she mewed, surprised. "Look at me. You. Did not. Have to do that. Why? Why put your life on the line? You shoulda waited and ambushed him!"

She lowered her ears, sinking down into the plain white hospital bed sheet. "I don't know. I just couldn't let you get hurt that bad."

"Shit," he repeated. "Okay. You're gonna promise me, then..." He patted the blanket where her hand should be and she slowly withdrew the one not hooked up to the IV. She gasped when he took it very gently in his. "Please don't do anything like that. Don't take unnecessary risks. "

She was about to say that's what heroes did when she saw the pain in his green eyes. He had thought her dead and it was still very fresh in his mind.

Elly sheepishly nodded. "I'll be more careful. Sorry."

"Okay, okay." He looked up at the ceiling, his foot tapping restlessly on the floor. Their hands were still entwined as he fidgeted nervously. "All right. I'm just gonna say it, otherwise I'll chickenshit out like the last few times."

"Say it?"

"I think I'm in love with you. Okay, no, shit - yeah. I am. No 'think', just... am." He scrunched his face up in anxiety as he babbled. "I, uh, love you."

"Wait, wait, Hizashi - the last few times?"

He bit his lip, blushing furiously. "Yeah."

"You mean you felt this way before the fight?!"

"Uh... yeah."

"That's why I threw myself in front of you, you adorable idiot!" Elly raised herself up on her elbow. "I couldn't bear to let you get hurt because I love you. I thought - I thought..." She trailed off, realizing what she had half yelled right in his face. A nurse peeked in, concerned about the noise, and smiled when he saw the two so close together.

"Ohhh, shitfuck." Hizashi's eyes went even wider. "You love me too?"

She groaned. "I didn't want you hurt. I never thought you felt the same way."

His mustache twitched. "Y'mean Sharp was right?"

"Ugh. Yes. Yes, he was." She sighed. "About me, anyway. And if you can call what I feel a simple crush... I wouldn't, though."

"Oooooh." Hizashi had regained some of his normal goofy nature. He leaned forward so their noses were nearly touching, his glorious green eyes wide. "Does this mean I can finally do this?"

"Do what?"

Their noses touched.

He brushed past with a devilish grin on his face, his eyes closing, and lightly set his lips on hers. Elly immediately kissed him in some sort of instinctual reflex, moving against him and opening her mouth for deeper access. She felt her lips tingle when he hummed with pleasure, pressing firmer and slipping a careful tongue inside. They finished one and just as quickly started another, and another, starved for each other and giddy that they were both alive.

They would have kept it up except for a loud, less-than-polite clearing of someone's throat nearby. Hizashi parted from the patient guiltily, a light blush staining his cheeks.

"Um. Sorry... hey! Shota!"

The dark clothed man was standing there hunched over with a grimace on his pale face. "If you two love birds are done here, we need to bring Chiyo in again before she can get released." He rubbed at the back of his neck with one hand, absently nodding to Elly.

"I'm ready?"

"Almost." Recovery Girl came bustling in and smacked Hizashi's hand off of hers.

"Hey!"

"Oh, shush. You'll have plenty of time to be lovey later. She needs one more treatment or they won't let her go today."

It took a few hours, but the staff let her go eventually.

Hizashi wheeled her out of the doors himself, his expression elated with a giant smile on his face. She stood up at the street and the nurse that followed nodded to them and took the chair back in.

Elly sighed and covered her eyes with one hand. "Ow," she muttered to herself. "It's bright."

He heard anyway and laughed. "Yeah, you were in that artificial light too long. Here." Placing a gentle hand on her waist, he helped guide her to the waiting car that would take them back to the campus.

"Ahhh." She sat and bounced around a bit on the comfy padded cushion. "The school has nice cars, don't they?"

"They do. Cosy." He sat close to her and wrapped an arm around her shoulders.

She giggled. "You're making it cosy, silly. But I don't mind!"

"Good." He watched the scenery pass out the window for awhile until they were close to the complex the teachers lived in. "Hey, did I tell you we have the day off? Both of us?"

"Awesome!"

The car stopped and he got out, putting up a hand to stop her when she would have crawled after him. He rushed around to her side instead, opening her door with a florid bow marred only a little by his sheepish grin.

Elly laughed again and stepped out after thanking the driver.

"So, ah, what do you want to do?" He glanced around nervously as the car pulled away.

She took his hand. He jumped a little but then grinned down at her, his eyebrows raised. "Anything is perfect," she told him happily. "Anything at all."