Sorry for the wait! I had a bit of a hard time with this fic, truth be told, but hopefully it's still somewhat enjoyable (?). This fic is a partial Iron Man AU, with a lot of modifications and plot holes and general messiness because that's the way I roll.

Warnings include shounen-ai, grammar mistakes / general errors, mentions of alcoholism (this is an Iron Man-inspired AU, after all), general terrible-ness in the plot department, me being too lazy to proofread this before I post it, etc. Title from "Close Your Eyes" by RHODES because I was listening to it while writing this and it basically encapsulates the mood of this fic. Yeah.

Enjoy? – Luna

Inside Your Delicate Mind

Kaito liked to think that he wasn't that terrible of a boss –

("Unpaid overtime," Aoko had once said, shortly after she left to shack up with Hakuba. She had looked at him with a gleam in her eyes that probably warranted an hour with the company psychiatrist. Kaito had shifted uncomfortably. "Dealing with scandals every other day. Having to oversee meetings when you don't bother to show up. Trying to get you to quit drinking. Your stupid hero thing. Seeing your face every single day –"

"Now that's taking it a little far," Kaito had frowned. Aoko had hurled a shoe at him.)

– but when his eighth personal assistant in as many months had quit on him in a flurry of thrown papers and an actual emotional breakdown in the middle of his penthouse office, Kaito had decided he may have a slight problem. In his defense, it was hard being the CEO of a company like his, because he'd inherited it from his father, and the press's favorite pastime was to compare the two of them and/or dig around for character flaws to expose. Personally, Kaito thought he'd done pretty well with CLOVER, but he might be biased.

Also, there was the whole Kid thing. As it turned out, being a world (and possibly universe)-saving superhero in addition to a CEO tended to be a source of stress for personal assistants (PAs one, three, four, and seven had all quit in the wake of various alien/supernatural attacks on Tokyo. Kaito quietly suspected some causation).

Unfortunately, as Aoko, Hakuba, his mother, and the universe liked to tell him, Kaito was incapable of functioning on his own. The first week he had tried to go without a personal assistant, he had accidentally overslept and missed an important teleconference with the CEO of Sony and a virus-induced zombie invasion in Osaka. The company stock had plummeted five percent.

So yeah. Kaito had resigned himself to a never-ending string of personal assistants.

But when Kudou Shinichi had walked into Kaito's office for his job interview, straight-backed and looking thoroughly unimpressed in his steam-pressed Zegna, Kaito had… paused. And not just because Kudou Shinichi had been a lot more his type than the Keio-bred brunette he'd just seen out.

He had asked a few basic questions ("What would you say is your greatest weakness?", "Where do you see yourself in ten years?", etc.) and Kudou Shinichi had given basic answers, the kind of rehearsed-sounding lines about "being too detail-oriented" and "eventually settling down somewhere on the countryside" that at least two other potential PAs had given Kaito earlier that day. Kudou Shinichi's expression had been carefully schooled. He had looked as if he'd been trained out of any and all tells he may have once had – his hands had been loosely hidden behind his back, and his posture had been precisely relaxed.

"Why are you interested in this position, Kudou-san?" Kaito had finally asked, and Kudou Shinichi had just lifted an eyebrow at him and said, "I'm between jobs." The snark had been tangible.

Kaito had eyed him, thoroughly fascinated. "Huh."

"Did you expect me to be impressed by you?" Kudou had wondered, and one corner of his mouth had lifted. Kaito had stared, captivated. "Just because you inherited a company and play vigilante on the side? I'm sorry to disappoint." He had smiled, and even though he knew Kudou was being an arrogant little shit and that no one in their right mind would hire him, Kaito had been enchanted.

Later, he had looked at Kudou's resume in detail. The man was the son of a famous mystery novelist and a retired actress. He had worked with the Tokyo metropolitan police force for years, ever since he'd been a teenager, until he'd gotten involved in a shootout and lost most of the fine motor control of his dominant hand. He'd been a private investigator for a few years until he'd applied to be Kaito's PA, seemingly out of nowhere.

Kaito had hired him, in the end, against human resources' and basically everyone's wishes. It turned out to be the best decision he'd made in a while.

There had to be some kind of rule, Kaito thought weakly when his curtains were thrown open and he heard the distinctive sound of Shinichi being judgy at him somewhere above his head, where superhero CEOs didn't have to wake up earlier than eight on Fridays.

"When I said I wanted to wake up next to you every morning," Kaito groaned as he tried to smother himself in a pillow, "this wasn't what I had in mind, darling."

"I'm sending you to another workplace harassment seminar," Shinichi said tartly and made a show of checking his watch. It was silver and modeled after a Cartier, but it also had tranquilizer gun capabilities and a flashlight bulb overlaid on top. Kaito had gotten it made for Shinichi's two-year PA anniversary a few months ago, and as much as Shinichi sighed and made sounds about unnecessary frivolities, he wore it every day. Kaito went a little soft inside every time he saw it on Shinichi's wrist. He didn't doubt that Shinichi could take care of himself, but he liked the thought that maybe something he had contributed was keeping Shinichi safe.

"Anyway," Shinichi continued, and Kaito realized he'd zoned out at Shinichi's hands for a solid thirty seconds, "I got a call. Apparently all the trees are alive."

"Aren't they always?" Kaito mumbled.

"Alive as in sentient, uprooted, and currently running around Tokyo," Shinichi elaborated. Kaito could hear him rolling his eyes. "Ran is already out there, but she needs backup. Hattori is still on his way. Which means you're supposed to suit up and go, I don't know, incapacitate them somehow."

Kaito squinted at him. "How do you incapacitate a walking tree?"

Shinichi arched an eyebrow at him as he pulled out his phone and began fiddling with it. "Between the two of us, who has more experience with fighting off supernatural things trying to destroy the city? That would be you, Kid." He was frowning down at his phone now. "This is ridiculous."

"What's wrong?" Kaito yawned.

"It's nothing. I have to cancel a meeting with the Blacke Group, but my messages aren't going through." Shinichi sighed and then glanced down at Kaito. "You might want to get out of bed soon. They've already trashed the first floor of CLOVER Tower."

"Please tell me everyone's been evacuated," Kaito said as he kicked the sheets out of the way. He was only wearing boxers – it was just more comfortable that way, okay – and he didn't miss the way Shinichi's gaze immediately slid away from him. Kaito swallowed the sad, bitter taste that rose at the back of his throat. "I told Akiyama from reception that I'd take her out tomorrow. I don't know whatever I'd do if she didn't turn out all right."

"Workplace harassment seminar," Shinichi threatened, tapping at his phone. "Nobody had shown up to work yet, so everyone's safe." His scowl started to deepen the longer he looked at his phone. "Did everyone employed by Blacke suddenly drop dead? Did a tree eat their building? Why aren't I getting a response?"

"Maybe none of them are awake, seeing as it's six in the morning," Kaito suggested as he strode past Shinichi into the ensuite bathroom. He left the door cracked, mostly so he could keep an eye on Shinichi's slowly advancing ire while he brushed his teeth.

"Not everyone is you, Kuroba," Shinichi replied. (Kaito kept trying to get Shinichi to call him Kaito, but every time he suggested it, Shinichi got a wrinkle between his eyebrows that meant he still didn't quite see Kaito as a friend rather than an obnoxious employer. Which was a little disheartening, but Kaito was willing to wait for that to change.) With a sigh, Shinichi tucked his phone into the back pocket of his trousers and disappeared out of sight, heading towards Kaito's closet. "I'll just have to stop by their headquarters to tell them in person."

The thought made Kaito pause in the middle of dragging his razor down his cheek. He only realized he was frowning when he made eye contact with his reflection. "Don't bother. We don't need to renegotiate the contract with them for at least another week." The thought of Shinichi going out while there were sentient trees lumbering around, trying to kill everyone, made him a feel a little seasick. Yes, Shinichi could handle himself, but Kaito would prefer that he wasn't in a situation where he needed to.

Shinichi gave a contemplative hum. "I thought you were extremely interested in their startup, though. Or were you just extremely interested in the president's assistant?" There was nothing but snark and sarcasm in his voice. Kaito made a conscious decision not to drive himself crazy trying to detect any trace amount of jealousy. He mostly failed.

"As lovely as Vineyard-san was" – and she had been lovely, even if she'd been blonde and blue-eyed and the opposite of the kind of dark-haired, pretty-eyed sarcastic that was apparently Kaito's weakness – "I really was just interested in their startup, but the contract can wait. We've got enough partners for now." He stepped out of the bathroom to find that Shinichi had laid out his Kid uniform on the bed, arranged in order of how he put it on – steel-reinforced shirt and flame-resistant trousers, then bulletproof waistcoat and jacket. "Thank you, darling."

"No problem, President," Shinichi simpered, startling Kaito into a grin, before he clopped out. Kaito heard banging around in the kitchen. He was mostly into his suit, just about to clip on his cape and put on his hat, when Shinichi reappeared with a banana and a piece of toast.

Shinichi handed them both to him with a small, sincere smile that sent shivers down Kaito's back like nothing else had (or ever would). He reached up to straighten Kaito's monocle before he stepped back.

"Go save the world, Kid," he said, and Kaito smiled helplessly back at him, thinking, For you, I'd do anything.

Kaito still remembered the first (and last) time Shinichi had yelled at him.

It had been two or three months after Shinichi had first been hired, and Kaito had been certain that Shinichi had been on his way out. The way his mouth had pinched every time Kaito had shown up in a rumpled suit to a board meeting had been indication enough.

It had been something small, something stupid. Kaito had been in a club, suffering through a line of shots and bad dubstep, and there had been a blonde supermodel sliding around in his lap and roughly four people with camera phones within a ten-foot radius. He hadn't cared. It wouldn't have been the worst thing he'd been filmed doing.

But Shinichi had appeared out of nowhere, wearing a rumpled dress shirt and a look of concerned irritation, and yanked Kaito up by the arm. The supermodel had made an affronted sound and pouted at both of them as she pulled the straps of her dress back up her shoulders,. Kaito had just given Shinichi a lazy, unimpressed glare.

Shinichi had been unmoved. "We're going home," he had announced, throwing the supermodel a hard look.

"Normally I wouldn't mind going home with you, darling, but I'm a little occupied at the moment," Kaito had slurred, rolling his eyes. He had gestured to the general debauchery around him.

"No. We're going home." There had been no room for argument in Shinichi's tone. His eyes had been indifferent, and Kaito had recoiled at the sight, because Shinichi may have been longsuffering at times, but he had never been indifferent. Then Shinichi had dragged Kaito out of there. Camera flashes had gone off in blinks of blinding light, and Kaito had stumbled over someone's bag trying to keep up with Shinichi's pace. Shinichi hadn't even bothered to look back at him.

Ten minutes later, they'd found themselves in Kaito's apartment. Shinichi's expression had been something terrifying and unreadable as he had shut and locked the door behind them, but the way he had yanked his shoes off almost violently had been clear enough. Shinichi had been furious.

Realization had washed over Kaito. Shinichi had gotten tired of dealing with Kaito. It had made sense, of course. Shinichi had gotten tired of cleaning up after Kaito, of spending hours with his PR team and buying off magazine editors. Shinichi had gotten tired of Kaito. Shinichi was going to leave.

Everybody had left him. Shinichi would be no exception.

"Is this it?" Kaito had asked, swaying a little on his feet and feeling disconcertingly cold all over despite his current blood alcohol concentration. When Shinichi had glanced at him with confusion, he'd added, "Are you going to leave now? Will I be seeing your letter of resignation on my desk tomorrow?" He'd slumped into one of the decorative armchairs that had come with the apartment. "You didn't last as long as I thought you would. But I suppose I underestimated myself."

Shinichi had stared at him, speechless, for a long moment. Kaito had let his head loll against the back of the armchair. Shinichi wasn't the type of person to throw insults or cry, which meant he would cut into Kaito with scalpel words designed to leave scars. Kaito had survived those. He would survive Shinichi's.

"Is that what you think of me?" Shinichi had finally said. When Kaito had looked at him, his jaw had been clenched so tightly that Kaito could see muscles straining along his neck. "Do you think that's what I'm angry about?"

"Uh…"

"Because that's not it," Shinichi had snapped. His eyes had burned hotly. "I'm angry that there's something wrong, and resorting to alcoholism is apparently better than talking it out. It's not about all the inconveniences and the time. It's not about how many shareholders I have to apologize to. I don't care about any of that. I'm here because I care about you!" He had been shouting at that point, and Kaito had been speechless, watching as Shinichi's face went flushed and upset. "I care about whatever it is that's making you act like this, and I care about why you've gotten it in your head that I'm going to leave!" He had a steely look in his eyes. "You know what? I'm done letting you do this to yourself." He had turned and poured the contents of Kaito's entire liquor cabinet down the kitchen sink, all the while glaring at Kaito with a challenge written in the clench of his jaw.

Kaito had stared. Kaito had thought, Oh no, because he had known in that moment that there was no going back. There was and would be no one else for him.

The first time he'd met her, Kaito had been convinced that Mouri Ran was the most terrifying person he would ever come across. He'd been right. Mouri Ran was the kind of scary that adjectives couldn't even describe. She wore Chanel perfume and had the sweetest smile and hid stilettos in her hair. Kaito had once seen her snap an informant's femur without batting a mascaraed eyelash. She had won several karate championships and owned a dojo in Haido. Her superhero name was Angel.

Also, she was Shinichi's best friend, which said more about her than anything else ever would.

Ran was in the process of ripping several branches off of a screeching pine tree when Kaito landed behind her. She was surrounded by what looked like several forests' worth of tree limbs. There was a streak of dirt on her cheek. She looked like a Dior advert come to life.

"Nice of you to finally show up," she called once she'd finished tearing the pine apart (with her bare hands). Kaito wondered, not for the first time, if she was even fully human. "I've been going for nearly an hour."

"Yeah, well, Shinichi didn't wake me up until five minutes ago," Kaito said, rolling his eyes. A chestnut tree that he recognized from Beika Park lumbered towards him, swinging its branches threateningly and shrieking (somehow, despite its lack of a mouth). He sidestepped it and reached for his gun, firing at the heart of the tree until it made a groaning noise and collapsed, at which point he hopped into the foliage and got to work with the knife he kept in the brim of his hat.

When Kaito had finished dismembering the tree (and also sending a silent apology to whoever was in charge of Beika Park's plant life), Ran was saying, "Of course. Leave it to Shinichi to prioritize your sleep schedule over me getting mauled to death by rabid trees." Scowling, she tore the sapling she was holding in half, holy God Kaito was never getting on her bad side.

"I doubt that was what he was trying to do," Kaito offered weakly as he stuck his knife back into his hatband. He took the opportunity to reload his gun (this time with the antibiotic acid pellets that the R&D department had given him after that bioterrorist attack last year). In a very transparent attempt to change the topic, he added, "Anyway, isn't Hattori supposed to get here soon?"

"You know he has to fly in from Osaka," Ran reminded him. She broke an entire oak tree over her knee. Kaito was equal parts terrified and impressed. "Don't change the subject. When are you going to get your shit together and propose to him?"

"To Hattori?" Kaito tried. He shot at a pine tree and watched it scream as it dissolved.

"To Shinichi," Ran shouted, rolling her eyes. She threw a cherry blossom tree at him, and Kaito barely managed to get his knife out in time and drag it up the length of the trunk before it strangled him. "You can pull all the millionaire playboy bullshit you want. I know Shinichi's got you whipped."

"We're not even dating," Kaito protested once he had split the tree in two splintery halves. He could tell that his face had gone red beneath the monocle, and Ran was lifting her eyebrows at him. He tried again. "He doesn't even think of me like that. I'm like his – his younger brother. Or a – a rock. An entirely non-romantic, non-sexual entity." He coughed. "And anyway, I'd only put him in danger if we were to date. Everyone would target him to get to me."

Ran looked supremely unimpressed.

"Sickening," she remarked before she turned on one kitten heel and launched herself bodily at an advancing pine tree. Kaito stood and sulked at her until an oak tried to throttle him from behind and he was forced to extricate himself and shoot it.

"We will take everything you love," it gurgled as it melted. "You will experience true pain."

Kaito looked forlornly its liquidy remains. "I already do."

"Any gaping wounds or missing limbs?" was the first thing Shinichi asked Kaito when Kaito stumbled into the remains of first floor of CLOVER Tower. He was holding his phone and an expanded first aid kit that he'd put together the third time Kaito showed up to the office in need of stitches. There were bits of plant matter and dirt everywhere, and most everything had been turned to a mess of rubble and crushed tile, but Shinichi still somehow managed to look impeccable as he leaned against what had been a decorative alcove. It was one of his many superpowers.

"Nope," Kaito told him, hopping onto Akiyama's mostly ruined desk with a pained wince. He'd taken a header into an apartment building, but his hat's shock-absorbing system had kicked in, so he probably (?) didn't have a concussion. Even if his head hurt and his brain felt stuffed with cotton.

Shinichi gave him a Look. "We are not having another Los Angeles."

"I swear I'm fine, darling," Kaito insisted, squinting. Shinichi was never going to let Los Angeles go, was he? Kaito had set his leg and arm himself; it had been fine.

"Hm," Shinichi hummed in a way that meant he probably didn't believe him. He tapped at something on his phone screen before he glanced up at Kaito. "By the way, I've already contacted some contractors to rebuild the tower, but until then, what do you want to do? Move to the Kyoto location?" He frowned. "Wait, no, we can't go to Kyoto yet. You have that gala at eight tonight in Ekoda. The one for that children's foundation."

"Uh." Kaito blinked, and then rubbed at his temples. He couldn't remember for the life of him which children's foundation they'd last funded. "What foundation?"

"If you say that at the gala I will personally strangle you," Shinichi informed him tartly, but Kaito could tell he was texting Kaito the foundation's website even as he said it. "Anyway, if you're not dying and you haven't broken both your arm and your leg without seeing a doctor –"

"You're seriously never going to let go of the Los Angeles thing, are you –"

"– I have someone waiting to drive you home." Shinichi tucked his phone into his pocket and got to his feet, dusting off his shirt. "Tanaka hadn't come in to work when the attack started, so he and the car are fine. He's waiting around the corner – there was too much debris around the building for him to park any closer. He can take you home whenever you're ready." He eyed the torn cuff of Kaito's shirt. "I get the feeling that you probably want to go home and relax."

Kaito frowned. He was pretty sure there was something wrong with that statement. "Where are you going, darling?"

"I've still got to get in contact with the Blacke Group," Shinichi answered, an eyebrow lifting slowly. "I haven't been able to get in contact with any of them. I heard a pine tree took out one of the cell towers in the area, though, so I'm not too worried. I might drop by their headquarters to reschedule the appointment, though."

"What? Who?" Kaito stared at him. "The Blacke Group?"

Shinichi was regarding him with something like concern. His hand twitched towards the first-aid kit as if he was considering whipping out a thermometer and stabbing it into Kaito's mouth. "The Blacke Group," he enunciated slowly, brow furrowed. "You know, the American startup that you wanted to partner with? The one you were planning to license to sell our tech products in the States?"

"Uh," Kaito said blankly.

"Did you," Shinichi began, his voice dangerously calm, "happen to hit your head anytime within the last three hours, by any chance?"

Kaito winced. "I may have… bumped into a building? Headfirst?"

"Bumped." Shinichi's face suggested that Kaito had just tried to convince him that water was dry.

"Crashed… gently?" Kaito tried. When Shinichi's expression only darkened, he squawked, "It was barely a tap, I swear!" He hurt his argument a little when yelling made his head pulse and he ended up cradling his head in his hands, groaning lowly at the back of his throat.

When he looked back up, Shinichi didn't even look angry anymore, just resigned and a little sad. His mouth was slanted in an unhappy tilt, his eyebrows lying low over his eyes. Kaito immediately felt two thousand times guiltier.

But when Shinichi spoke, he sounded perfectly normal, his usual brand of efficiently sarcastic. "Let's get you to the hospital, then. We need to get your head looked at before it gets any worse. If that's even possible, I mean."

"Yeah." Kaito smiled faintly at him. "I don't know where I'd be without you, darling."

"Probably dead in a ditch somewhere," Shinichi muttered, but he bundled Kaito into the waiting car without further comment. All the way to Beika General, he muttered something about contacting R&D about getting Kaito a helmet, what the hell had they been thinking, sending Kaito out to fight aliens in a top hat? When Kaito reminded him it was a specially designed top hat with knife storage and shock absorption, Shinichi gave him a look like dry ice and pointedly ignored him as he resolutely typed out a message to the head of R&D. Kaito was lucky Shinichi was distracted enough that he didn't notice the way Kaito was smiling uncontrollably at him.

The first time that Kaito had landed himself in the hospital with something serious during Shinichi's employment, Shinichi had abandoned work for a whole week to stay at Kaito's bedside. Kaito had been mostly unconscious and/or doped up on morphine (he'd ended up with multiple gunshot wounds from a firefight with a crazed metahuman), but he still remembered waking up every now and again and seeing Shinichi in the visitor's chair, flipping disdainfully through a paperback mystery or a magazine.

When Kaito had actually woken up for good, Shinichi had barely looked up from his phone, but he had tossed a hideous get well card at Kaito's head and spared him two seconds of disdainful glaring.

"How long have I been out?" Kaito had croaked after struggling to get the card off of his face. (He had given up when he realized he couldn't really move his arms. Shinichi had taken pity on him after a minute and set the card on the nightstand beside his head.) "How long have you been… waiting?" Shinichi had been there every time he'd drifted into consciousness.

"You've been out of commission for a week," Shinichi had answered promptly, lowering his phone to raise an eyebrow at Kaito. "You were shot twice, Kuroba. What do you expect?"

Kaito had squinted at him. "How long have you been here?"

"A week," Shinichi had grumbled after a long, slightly embarrassed-sounding pause. When Kaito had bent his neck enough to look at him, he was rubbing at one shoulder and studiously staring at the linoleum. Kaito had noted the wrinkles in his suit jacket and the tightness around his eyes. "The doctors weren't sure they'd gotten all the shrapnel out. I was… worried."

"Darling," Kaito had said delightedly, "you skipped an entire week of work, leaving my multibillion-dollar company unattended, just to stare at my unconscious body in a hospital room?"

"It'll be your dead body if you keep saying things like that," Shinichi had informed him acerbically before he went back to doing whatever witchcraft he did on his phone. But Kaito had seen the flush rising on his cheeks, the way his had mouth twitched upwards, and known.

That memory came to mind when the doctor nodded decisively at Kaito and announced, "Yeah, he's got a mild concussion," and Shinichi instantly got the kind of determined look on his face that made Kaito recoil instantly.

"I'll watch him," he told the doctor, even as Kaito sighed.

"Really, darling, I've taken care of myself when I've have concussions before," he told Shinichi, frowning when the doctor ignored him, nodded agreeably at Shinichi, and turned to scrawl down a prescription for painkillers. Shinichi gave Kaito one of his patented thousand-yard stares, the one Kaito categorized as his "I know you probably aren't lying, but I'm choosing not to believe you anyway."

"And look how well that turned out," he said, narrowing his eyes. "Brain damage from poorly monitored concussions would explain a lot of your personality." The doctor choked on a laugh. Kaito glared at his back.

"I resent this treatment," he decided and hopped off the examination table. His attempt at a dramatic exit was ruined when he almost fell over and Shinichi had to grab only his shoulders to steady him. Behind them, the doctor sounded a little as if he was dying.

"We're going to the hospital in Ekoda next time," Kaito sniffed before he tripped into the doorjamb. Shinichi rolled his eyes and put an arm around his waist to steer him through. He was very warm, and he smelled a little like jasmine tea. Kaito couldn't help but lean into him a little, fitting his head into the space between his jawline and his neck. If anyone asked, it was strictly for support.

There was something a little jarring about seeing Shinichi shed his linen shirt and wool trousers for a t-shirt and old sweatpants with a hole in the knee. It was like watching a butterfly emerge from a chrysalis.

"Should I be concerned about why you have clothes stashed around my apartment, darling?" Kaito asked as Shinichi shuffled around in the kitchen, squinting at the directions on a can of soup. He leaned back against the gigantic tower of pillows Shinichi had somehow deemed necessary to his recovery, letting his head fall against his shoulder.

"They're from when I used to spend more time around here," Shinichi informed him absently, prodding dubiously at the stove controls. It took Kaito a minute to realize that by "when I spent more time around here," Shinichi meant "when I was your live-in addiction counselor for six months and spent every night making sure you didn't fall asleep in an alleyway." Kaito swallowed and looked away. He'd never make it up to Shinichi.

Oblivious, Shinichi made a sound of triumph when he managed to turn on the stove. He poured the soup into a pot and set it on the range. "That should be ready in a few minutes."

"I think it may be time for you to get a raise," Kaito remarked, rubbing speculatively at his chin. "You know how to reheat canned soup. Clearly you're a genius."

Shinichi cast a look at him that would have weaker men flinching back. Kaito just grinned fondly at him, which seemed to confuse Shinichi a little, because he reached for a ladle and stirred at the soup with much more concentration than chicken noodle soup really warranted.

"Oh, by the way," he began once he'd managed to get the soup into a bowl with minimal dribbling, "Hattori said he'd stop by, since he's in the area already."

"What?" Kaito jerked upright. His head throbbed, and he gasped in pain, groaning as he clutched at his face. Shinichi got a hunted sort of look in his eyes that meant he was considering throwing the soup over his shoulder and strapping Kaito to the couch.

Kaito ignored him. "You invited Hattori to my house? Where I live?"

"It's an apartment, technically," Shinichi said shiftily.

"Darling!"

"Don't yell. You're not supposed to exert yourself," Shinichi snapped, setting the bowl of soup onto the kitchen counter hard enough that Kaito winced and wondered if porcelain could hold up against the force of Shinichi's fury. The scowl Shinichi gave him instantly made Kaito shrink a little. He wondered wildly how Shinichi always managed to guilt-trip him so easily.

"I'm not supposed to be socializing, either," Kaito mumbled, settling back. Shinichi smiled at him as he reached for a spoon.

"You won't have to interact with him," he insisted as he handed the soup to Kaito. When Kaito didn't do anything but glare sulkily into the depths of the bowl, he sighed and raked a hand through his hair. Kaito watched in fascination as it crumbled out of its gel-enforced shell into a mass of cowlicks and spiky bangs. "I haven't seen him in a while. I just wanted to catch up."

"Does it have to be here and now, though?" Kaito asked plaintively, but it was then that the buzzer rang and Shinichi had to go let Hattori in.

Hattori was, in a word, annoying. In a few more, he was the kind of person that Kaito liked under very specific conditions. He wasn't so bad to have around when they were up against shapeshifting alien crabs or whatever, because he was great with a knife and excessively aggressive, but in more everyday situations, he liked to be an asshole to Kaito about Kaito's –Shinichi… thing. Kaito suspected that Ran might've said something to him about it, because there was no way that Hattori had figured it out on his own. The guy had the emotional sensitivity of a particularly dense brick.

However, he was Shinichi's friend, and therefore, Kaito would put up with him. Kaito put up with a lot when it came to trying to make Shinichi happy.

"Kudou, it's so nice to see you," Hattori said loudly as he breezed into Kaito's apartment. He pulled his sunglasses off so as to gloat more effectively at Kaito. "You too, Kuroba. I heard you took a header into a building. The concussion must be loads of fun."

Shinichi gave him a disapproving look. "Hattori, I don't know why you're acting like we've forgotten the time you tripped into that dimensional vortex –"

"Hope you feel better soon," Hattori cut in hastily. He sat down on the couch opposite Kaito's, angling a glance at the bowl of soup. A shit-eating grin overtook his face. "How's Kudou's home cooking? Enjoying getting nursed back to health?" He adopted a thoughtful expression. "You know, I've got a nurse costume somewhere; he could probably fit –"

"Have I mentioned that I don't like you?" Kaito mumbled at the same time Shinichi smacked Hattori on the back of the head. From the way Hattori squawked and then whimpered, Shinichi hadn't bothered to hold back. Kaito smiled dopily at Shinichi. He was so in love.

"You know what?" Hattori jabbed a finger at both of them. His eyes were watering, Kaito noticed. "Neither of you are allowed to be my best man any more. Your names have been scratched off the list of prospective best men."

"Hattori, you don't have any other friends," Shinichi reminded him. "What you going to do, let Hakuba be your best man?"

A muscle twitched around Hattori's eye. He looked slightly seasick. "I'll hire someone," he said decisively. Kaito snorted.

Hattori gave him a wounded look. "I came out here to have a nice conversation with my best friend and this is the treatment I get?"

"Yeah, because you're in my apartment," Kaito said. He closed his eyes pointedly and rubbed at his temples. "Also, you're really loud and your voice is making my head hurt."

He almost regretted saying that when Shinichi was on him in a flash, holding a glass of water in one hand and the prescription painkillers they'd gotten on the way home in the other. "Take these," he demanded and then towered threateningly over him until Kaito had dutifully swallowed the allotted pills. Hattori watched the proceedings with the ravenous intensity of a birdwatcher seeing a red-crowned crane for the first time.

"Truly incredible," he remarked.

"You, shut up," Shinichi directed Hattori without even looking at him. Hattori made an affronted noise. Shinichi leaned over and stomped on his foot – Hattori made an unearthly sound – before he motioned for Kaito to finish the water. Once Kaito was done, he took both the empty glass and the bowl of soup back to the kitchen. Behind Shinichi's back, Kaito gave Hattori a smug look. Hattori was cradling both his head and his foot and looking annoyed.

"Kuroba, try to get some sleep," Shinichi said once he'd returned. He glanced at Hattori. "We can go somewhere else to talk." Kaito tried not to feel too disappointed. Hattori looked viciously satisfied.

"In that case, I'll see you later, Kuroba," he chirped, patting Kaito on the ankle as he got up. "Sorry to cut into your Kudou time." He waggled his eyebrows in a way that made Kaito feel unclean.

Shinichi ignored Hattori, which Kaito appreciated more than words could say. "Call me if you don't feel well," he ordered, one hand lifting to push hair out of Kaito's face. He touched Kaito as if he were a precious thing, something meant to be handled with the greatest care. Kaito had long since stripped out of the suit, and he had a concussion and smears of dirt everywhere he didn't have purpling bruises, and yet Shinichi still made him feel like something special.

"Of course I will, darling," he murmured, and Shinichi offered him a rare, unrestrained smile before he headed for the door. Hattori, who had been watching them, looked caught between amusement and affection. He settled for rolling his eyes and making disgusted sounds.

"You two are so gross," he announced before he sauntered out. Shinichi gave Kaito a last look before he followed Hattori.

Kaito relaxed against the pillows and allowed himself the luxury of a long, drawn-out groan.

"You know, you're not like how the papers say you are," Shinichi had remarked after two weeks of being Kaito's terrifyingly efficient and organized PA. Kaito had been a little scared of him. They had been walking out of a board meeting, Shinichi sliding his phone into his pocket as he had watched Kaito's profile.

"Don't believe everything you read, darling," Kaito had laughed, throwing an arm around his neck. (He'd tried "Shinichi," and gotten a flustered stare in response; "Kudou" had received a confused frown, so "darling" it was.) "Am I not what you expected?"

"I didn't say that," Shinichi had said, patting Kaito's hand indulgently as they had reached the door to the executive offices. "I just said you were different from what the papers think."

It was late (later?) when Kaito woke to the sound of his front door opening, head feeling overfull and eyes gritty. He wasn't worried – the doorman only ever let up one person without ringing ahead, except for that time the doorman himself had been impersonated by a foreign spy and… yeah. Anyway. The salient point was that it could only be one person.

He opened his eyes muzzily, squinting in the murky darkness. Neither he nor Shinichi had bothered to open the curtains when they'd first gotten back. He could just make out the shape of Shinichi running a hand over the light switches by the front door.

"Is that you, darling?" Kaito croaked. Shinichi twitched, probably startled, before he turned the lights on to full brightness. Kaito was momentarily blinded.

"Was that really necessary?" he demanded, rubbing his eyes furiously.

"Probably not," Shinichi agreed.

Once he had stopped feeling as if were staring into multiple suns, Kaito dragged himself into a seated position. His lower back was twinging in a way that meant he either needed a new couch or to actually use his bed. "What time is…?"

He trailed off, abruptly speechless. Mostly because Shinichi was standing in front of him in a tuxedo, a sight that was widely acknowledged as the eighth wonder of the world (or should be). He looked – he looked – Kaito felt a little bit as if someone had dropped him into a tank of electric eels. Stunned. (Also attracted beyond words, but.) It wasn't even that Kaito hadn't seen Shinichi in a tux before – he had, many times – but not like this. Not in Kaito's apartment, next to his coffeemaker and breakfast bar.

"What's the occasion?" Kaito finally managed once he'd untied his tongue. Shinichi blinked at him for a second before he apparently remembered that he looked like a reimagined James-Bond-Hugo-Boss-model hybrid.

"Oh, it's that gala I mentioned earlier. The one for the children's foundation. You're exempt, obviously, because of your concussion, but I still need to make an appearance. It's black tie," he added, very unnecessarily.

"Right," Kaito somehow got out (he wasn't sure how he did; his mouth had gone bone dry). He swallowed. "Uh, well, you look…" Adjectives failed him. He settled on a weak, "Great."

"Really?" Shinichi scrunched up his nose, tilting his head to one side, and Kaito quietly died inside. "I don't know. I'm never comfortable in tuxes."

"Well, it doesn't seem like that," Kaito said reassuringly. He tried not to look as if he was thinking about the many and varied ways he could take that tuxedo off Shinichi. "Why are you here? Shouldn't you be at the gala?"

"I wanted to check on you before I left," Shinichi informed him. He gave Kaito a critical onceover that immediately made Kaito realize he was lying there in sweats, probably with awful bedhead and bags under his eyes. "I put the soup in the refrigerator. You think you can reheat it?"

"Yeah, I got it," Kaito assured him, leaning against the back of the couch. "Don't worry about me. Have fun at the gala."

"I'll try, but I doubt I'll be able to without your charming presence at my side," Shinichi told him, an eyebrow lifted, but he did brush a hand over Kaito's shoulder before he started back for the door. Kaito tried not to ogle him from behind, but it was basically impossible. His pants were really tailored, okay, and Kaito was only human.

"See you later," Shinichi called, halfway out the door. "Remember, no exerting yourself. No TV, no going out for a flight, no calling Hakuba to argue for fun."

"I only do that on Tuesdays," Kaito reminded him. Shinichi grinned and waved at him before the door shut and Kaito was left alone in his silent apartment.

He spent an hour trying to think of modifications he could suggest for his suit, but then his head started hurting and he was forced to stop. After that, he reheated the soup, ate it, and took a shower that almost ended badly when he slipped on some soap scum. Shinichi probably would murder him if he knew, Kaito thought, and somehow that was comforting.

Kaito found a copy of some Sherlock Holmes story that Shinichi must've left around (it had to be either him or Hakuba who had, and Kaito decided to go with the less disturbing possibility). He was partway through The Sign of Four when he checked the clock. It was almost two in the morning. Shinichi had said he would be coming back, hadn't he? He never stayed out later than one if he could manage it. And the gala should've been over…

"I am not going to be an overprotective stalker," Kaito announced to the room at large, even though he knew he was going to be an overprotective stalker. He threw himself onto his bed and stared at the ceiling until his eyes swam. Then he fumbled around for his phone, found it on his nightstand, and scrolled through his contacts until he located Koizumi Akako's contact info.

She picked up on the second ring when she called him. "Kuroba-kun." There was the sound of voices and a clanging that Kaito recognized as a live band.

"Hey, Akako," Kaito said, rubbing a hand through his damp hair and wincing. Akako was the only daughter of a wealthy family, and there had been some awkward moments where she had tried to get a marriage arranged between the two of them, but that was all in the past. Now, she spent her time attending high society events and dabbling in supervillainy, and Kaito tried to subtly avoid her. "Uh, by any chance, are you at a gala for the Yamazaki Children's Foundation?"

"I am," Akako replied warily. "Is there a reason you're asking, Kuroba-kun?"

"Uh, yeah." Kaito coughed. "You know Shinichi? Kudou Shinichi?"

"That PA you tossed me over for?" At least she sounded appropriately admiring. "The one who looks edible in tuxes?"

"Yes. Him. Exactly," Kaito agreed. She wasn't exactly wrong, after all. "Uh, have you seen him?"

"As a matter of fact, I did see him earlier," Akako told him. There was a sound of movement, as if she was leaving the main hall, and then some of the background noise faded away. "I heard you're out with a head injury and that's why you couldn't make it. How are you feeling?"

"I'm fine, I'm fine. I've dealt with worse. Do you know where Shinichi is right now?"

"Not quite," Akako hedged. She sounded a little shifty. "I – have you two been dating for a while?"

"What are – we've never dated." Kaito rubbed his eyes. "Just tell me what's going on."

"Well," Akako started, "I… saw him leave with a woman earlier."

Kaito froze. On a purely intellectual level, he knew that Shinichi had to – date, or at least have one night stands or something along that vein, considering how attractive he was, but he'd never encountered any of Shinichi's girlfriends before, so he'd sort of… put the thought away. Shinichi never mentioned anyone, so.

"Oh," he finally said, after a pause that he knew was way too long to sound natural. "Uh, what did she look like?"

"I think she was American," Akako offered. She sounded sympathetic and maybe a little pitying. "She had blond hair and blue eyes. She looked like a model, too. She was there with a guy with really long hair, but I don't know where he went. Kudou-kun left with her a little while ago."

An American. Kaito mentally flipped through the catalogue of Americans he knew. All he could come up with was Hakuba, and he wasn't even American. Maybe that was why Kaito hadn't known about Shinichi's love life. If Shinichi exclusively dated Americans, Kaito wouldn't have known. The thought made something ache behind his eyes. How much did he really know about Shinichi?

"Thanks, Akako," he mumbled, staring listlessly up at the ceiling.

"If you ever need comforting," Akako began, and Kaito hurriedly hung up on her. He rolled onto his stomach and buried his face in his pillows. Shinichi probably wouldn't be coming back tonight, he decided, and spent the next few hours staring at the wall.

Kaito woke to the sound of his phone ringing beside his head. He hadn't moved it after he'd called Akako. When he forced his eyes open, the world beyond his window was still dark. Far below, the city lights gleamed, a vast, sparkling sea filled with pinpricks of light. Kaito fumbled for his phone.

"H'llo?" he slurred when he answered without checking the caller ID.

"Kuroba Kaito?" an unfamiliar female voice asked. "This is Chris Vineyard of the Blacke Group."

"The Blacke Group." Kaito sat up and tried to clear his head by shaking it, which only served to reignite his concussion. He slumped back. The Blacke Group – he vaguely remembered something about a partnership that needed to be negotiated or something like that. "I'm sorry, but could I redirect you to my assistant? He's the one who does all the scheduling." That was, if Shinichi ever got back from… whatever he'd been doing with the American.

"I'd love that, but he's a little tied up right now," Chris informed Kaito. Something in her voice made the hairs on the back of Kaito's neck stand up.

"What do you mean?" he demanded.

"I mean it literally," Chris responded. Her voice had gone soft and malicious. Kaito's hands clenched. His nails cut into his palms. His heart was pounding in his chest, blood pouring past his ears. "He's tied to a chair right in front of me. I had to cut this lovely, lovely Tom Ford off of him. Hope it wasn't too expensive."

"What do you want," Kaito gritted out. Dark gray bled into his vision, trickling in along the corners of his sight. His head throbbed.

"Oh, nothing too horrible," Chris purred. There was a sickening sound like a knife being sharpened, and Kaito could feel his heartrate elevating. "Just you. Alone, unarmed, at our headquarters within the hour."

"As if I'd –"

"Shinichi-kun is so pretty," she cut in, seductive and stomach-turning. "Usually you don't call a man pretty, do you? But Shinichi-kun has such pale skin, such soft hair. I can't think of a better word for him." She paused theatrically before she continued in a dark whisper, a voice used for secrets and threats. "I wonder what color he bleeds. I'm sure it'll be just as pretty as he is. Red would look so exquisite against all that skin. What do you think, darling?"

Kaito hung up and lurched for his closet.

There had been a time, during Kaito's recovery, when he had been the one to yell at Shinichi. It had been remarkable because it had been distinctly different from his usual playboying, slacking ways; it had been a direct attack on Shinichi, rather than an event that Kaito orchestrated to produce trouble for him. Kaito still doesn't understand why he'd done it, but maybe it was another one of his self-destructive instincts rising up: push away the best thing he ever had, because he didn't deserve him.

It had been a month or two into sobriety. Shinichi had dragged him out to some function, some gallery opening, and Kaito had suffered through it mostly because the media had caught wind of his "change of character" and it would be good PR. The thought had made Kaito stiff with impotent anger. His character hadn't changed; the way it was presented had. Before, he had been a playboy alcoholic with textbook narcissism; now, a panderer who was only pretending to reform for the publicity.

There had been paparazzi everywhere, reporters mixed in with the debutantes and shareholders. Kaito hadn't been able to breathe without someone getting a shot of him, let alone glance at anyone of the female persuasion without someone making a snide comment about him keeping it in his pants. After an hour of that, Kaito had been at the end of his rope. When a waiter bearing champagne had strode past them and Kaito had stared longing after him, Shinichi had placed a hand on his elbow, expression earnest, and Kaito had relaxed.

And then someone had called, "Your PA's got you by the balls, huh, Kuroba," and Kuroba had stormed off into the bathroom to glare at the baskets of scented hand towels and backlit vanity mirrors lining the sinks.

Shinichi had turned up a minute later, brow crinkled. "Don't listen to them," he had insisted, reaching for Kaito's shoulder. "They don't know anything."

"You know, I was fine before," Kaito had snapped, pushing Shinichi's hand away. "Maybe I wasn't a paragon of virtue like you, but I got along fine. The company was fine. I saved the world all the time. I survived."

"There's a difference between surviving and living," Shinichi had said, quiet.

"And I'm living now?" Kaito had shouted at him. Shinichi's face had remained impassive. "This is what living is like?" Everything had felt too sharp. Something had risen at the back of his throat. "I think I'd rather be dead, thanks."

"Don't say that," Shinichi had retorted. He hadn't raised his voice, though, just looked at Kaito with something not dissimilar to sadness. "I know you don't mean that."

"You know, I think I preferred it when nobody cared about me," Kaito decided loudly, ignoring him. "Everyone left me alone. Nobody tried to change me into whatever they thought would be better."

That had been when Shinichi's face had hardened. "Nobody may have said anything," he had said, eyes dark, "but everyone was worried about you, Kuroba. Did you know that when it first got out you were going to stop drinking and partying, Nakamori-san called me to thank me?"

"What?" Aoko hadn't said anything to him.

"Nakamori-san's been worried about you for years, but she thought that if she tried to talk to you about it, you'd just pull away from her. You've got this idea in your head that people always leave you, but at some point you've got to recognize that you're the one walking away." Shinichi had taken Kaito's face in his hands. His eyes had been expressive and open, his mouth a downward curl. "You think I'm perfect? Hardly. I've got more secrets than you know. There's no way you can clean me up. But you? You're something worth saving, Kuroba."

"Darling," Kaito had stammered, out of words.

"I know you have things you don't want to talk about, things you don't want to tell me," Shinichi had said. "And that's fine. You don't have to tell me anything. I'll be here no matter what."

Looking at him, Kaito had wanted to say it all: how he hated that Aoko had abandoned him to marry Hakuba, how he resented his father for dying and leaving him in charge of an entire company when he had barely figured himself out. How every time he put on the suit, he felt as if he was lying to the public, pretending to be a hero. How some nights he lay awake wondering if one day, he wasn't going to be able to save the world, to protect everything that mattered to him.

Instead, he had said, "Shinichi, I," and held Shinichi as closely as he dared. His mouth had been pressed against the side of Shinichi's head when he murmured, "Shinichi, I don't know what I'd do without you."

Shinichi had locked his arms around Kaito's neck and clutched him just as tightly. "You'll never have to find out." A promise.

The Blacke Group's main building was a mass of gleaming, darkened windows and a plain façade. In the stillness, it seemed ethereal, a hulking monster waiting to lunge at him. Kaito stared up at it for a long moment. He didn't doubt that they had seen him and were waiting for him to make a move.

Carefully, he took off his top hat and placed it on the sidewalk beside him. He made a show of demonstrating that the knife was still tucked into the hatband. They didn't need to know that his spare was in his shoe. He unclipped his hang glider next, letting it flutter to the ground in a swish of fabric. To finish, he pulled the monocle off his face and added it to the pile.

He started for the front doors, pushing at the door handle. The doors swished open, eerily noiseless, and Kaito entered. The lobby was empty, quiet and dark with only the receptionist's desk and some armchairs scattered around. There was the telltale glint of a camera in one corner of the room – surveillance.

Kaito almost jumped when a voice crackled to life over the intercom. It was Chris's voice again. "Hello again, Kid. I'm so glad you decided to show up. Will you be all right? I heard you got a concussion in the tree attacks we launched."

"You set that up?" Kaito asked warily, glancing around. The lobby still seemed abandoned.

"Oh, yes, wasn't that a brilliant move? Our scientists are really quite talented." A staticky sigh filled the room. "The plan was to lure Shinichi-kun to us during the attacks. He'd come to reschedule the meeting, of course, being the good little secretary that he is, even if there was an alien attack going on. All the other heroes would be busy, and when you went missing, everyone would assume that you were buried somewhere in the debris. Nobody would suspect us. But as we know, that didn't go as planned." Chris's voice went soft and mocking. "Instead, I had to seduce your boy at that gala. It wasn't hard. Who would've known that Shinichi-kun was so easy? Really, darling, you've got to keep him on a tighter leash."

"Where is Shinichi?" Kaito shouted, frustration making his head swim. He only got a laugh in response.

"Oh, wouldn't you like to know!" Chris trilled. "But that's going to have to wait until –" Her voice abruptly cut off, and Kaito spent a moment staring at the camera until he ran for the elevator. It dinged, incongruously cheerful, before the doors slid open and Kaito hurried in. He stared at the button panel for a long time – it wasn't as if "evil lair of doom and kidnapping" was written anywhere on it – before he hit the button for the twenty-fourth floor (completely at random) and hoped for the best.

The elevator was just passing the tenth floor when it started to slow. Alarmed, Kaito had his knife out of his shoe a second before the doors opened and –

Shinichi stood in front of him, looking completely unruffled. His tux had been cut up; he'd lost his suit jacket entirely, and most of the buttons on his shirt were gone, but there was only a thin, sluggishly bleeding cut on one arm. There was a blonde, blue-eyed woman thrown carelessly over one of his shoulders. She was apparently knocked out.

"Oh," he said when he saw Kaito.

Kaito gawked.

Apparently interpreting his silence as a question, Shinichi gestured over his shoulder. Kaito managed to look around him to see a chair with leather straps sitting in the middle of the room, surrounded by tables of serrated knives and razors and bottles of sickeningly green liquids. Kaito's stomach turned.

"She was going to torture me, I think," Shinichi informed Kaito, very unnecessarily. He shrugged the woman higher on his shoulder. "She wanted to wait until you were in the building, maybe so you could hear me screaming. Anyway, I thought she was going to say something more interesting in her monologue, so I waited until she was almost done before I broke out of the chair, but. Nothing new. I shot her with the tranquilizer you gave me. And then I hit her on the head with that just to be sure." He nodded at a heavy-looking club sitting on one of the tables beside a wicked-looking handsaw.

"What," Kaito finally managed. He knew Shinichi was capable of protecting himself, but what?

"I –" Shinichi began, but at that moment, a swarm of armed men came pouring out of a far door, and Shinichi set Chris down against the elevator before he reached into the ankle holster that he was apparently wearing and pulled out a revolver.

"Give me a second," he told Kaito before he absolutely obliterated them. Kaito stared, openmouthed, as Shinichi gracefully roundhouse kicked someone into a wall before he caught a yelling man under the chin with an uppercut, effectively knocking him out. Another went down when Shinichi clubbed him with the side of his gun, snapping the man's head back until he crumpled to the ground. By the time Shinichi was done, he was surrounded by bodies, and he hadn't even fired a shot. He wasn't even sweating.

Kaito wasn't entirely sure he wasn't dreaming.

Shinichi looked toward Kaito, mouth partway open, before he swallowed and looked away. "I guess I, uh, have some explaining to do."

"You might have noticed that I'm trained in combat," Shinichi began. They were sitting in Kaito's living room, where they had gone after police had arrived to arrest Chris and the rest of the Blacke Group. Shinichi had watched the proceedings with a frown before he'd muttered something about a guy with long hair not being there and Kaito kind of didn't want to know. He was still in shock.

"That's one way of putting it," Kaito answered. Shinichi didn't look any different from usual, except that his suit was in pieces and he looked hesitant, less self-assured than usual. There was the same slope to his eyebrows, the same curve to his mouth. Kaito swallowed, heart pounding in his ears. "You – who are you?"

"Kudou Shinichi," Shinichi replied promptly. His expression was pleading. "I've never lied to you. Except about, well. My resume left some… things… out." He looked abruptly shifty.

"Things," Kaito said blankly.

"Have you heard of the Bureau of Metahuman Security?" Shinichi tried. When Kaito just stared at him, Shinichi ran a hand through his hair and rubbed at the back of his neck. "Well, uh. Just think of it as the organization behind most of the mainstream superheroes. Generally speaking, we train and oversee the individuals known to the public as heroes. How do you think I met Ran and Hattori?"

"But you're," Kaito started, and then couldn't finish. He settled for, "I've never seen you out on the field. Shouldn't I have seen you out doing something, since you're a superhero?"

"I'm more of a covert operations type. My identity wasn't publicized so I would be able to go undercover more easily, should need arise," Shinichi explained. He hesitated. "My call sign is Night Baron, if you were wondering."

"Night Baron," Kaito repeated. It seemed so foreign (though not entirely incongruous; he'd known all along that it was a dangerous thing to get on Shinichi's bad side, and this only reaffirmed that), trying to think of Shinichi as someone other than his snarky, gorgeous PA. He stared at Shinichi a little longer. He wasn't sure whom, exactly, he was looking at. "Why were you pretending to be my PA? Why weren't you off – dismantling criminal organizations or whatever?"

Shinichi winced. He cleared his throat. "I was assigned to help you… recover. As you know, you never crossed paths with the Bureau – you're a self-made hero, after all – so you were a bit of a wild card. But we knew you were an asset, and we knew you were at risk of, ah, self-destructing, so I was sent to help you in whatever capacity I could. As it happened, your PA position was open."

There was something lodged in Kaito's throat. He tried to swallow, but his throat was too dry and he ended up choking. "So… I was an assignment to you?" Had Shinichi been laughing at him this whole time, rolling his eyes at all of Kaito's theatricalities? Had the last two years been Shinichi putting up with him?

"No," Shinichi said so vehemently that Kaito desperately wanted to believe him. There was a certain sharpness to his voice, a stark disagreement, and it made Kaito meet his eyes, which were warm with fondness. "You started off as a mark, yes. But since then, I've never once thought of you as anything less than what you are."

"And what am I, darling?" Kaito asked, his voice so quiet he wondered briefly if Shinichi had heard him.

"A better man than I am," Shinichi told him with such certainty that Kaito could only let his head fall back as he laughed disbelievingly.

"If you say so." As if he could ever be better than Shinichi.

"One day I'm going to make you believe me," Shinichi promised. When Kaito lifted his head, he had gotten to his feet and was standing directly in front of Kaito. Kaito's breath caught, trapped in his throat, when Shinichi leaned forward till he formed a lazy angle above him, one arm braced against the cushions beside Kaito's head. Shinichi's eyes were dark and hot when they met Kaito's. "One day I'll prove it to you."

"Prove what to me?" Kaito murmured breathlessly.

"That no matter what you think of yourself, I'll always love you enough for the both of us," Shinichi replied, shocking Kaito to his core, and then he was kissing Kaito and all Kaito could do was kiss back frantically and wonder if he had died, because if this wasn't heaven, he wasn't sure what could be.

Kaito resurfaced a few minutes later, one hand pressed to the cut of Shinichi's cheek and the other creeping up the back of Shinichi's shirt. His mouth felt bitten raw, and he could feel Shinichi sucking a kiss along his neck, hair tickling the underside of Kaito's jaw. He whined, toes curling. That felt ridiculously good.

"This is – so unfair." He gasped when Shinichi nipped him. "I thought you were a PA. I bought you a tranquilizer dart watch. I tried to keep you from going outside during the stupid tree attacks like you were some – helpless civilian. Oh God."

"That watch comes in handy," Shinichi mumbled as he pulled back. His hair was a mess, probably from Kaito's hands. He licked his lips, deliberately sinful in a way that made Kaito flush hot from head to toe. "And it was cute, seeing how much you worried about me."

"Cute," Kaito squawked indignantly, and Shinichi soothed his complaints with liberal application of his mouth, which Kaito really couldn't argue with. He got the feeling that Shinichi was going to use his newfound powers for bribery and winning arguments, but even he couldn't be upset when Shinichi did that with his tongue.

Well, he decided as Shinichi manhandled him towards the bedroom, he could get used to this.

"I've got news," Shinichi announced as he threw open the blinds. Kaito groaned and groped for Shinichi's pillow, intent on smacking Shinichi with it, but Shinichi dodged him and curled up beside him innocently. "There's an update from the Bureau."

Kaito cracked an eye, wincing at the brightness of the room. It was worth it, though, when his eyes adjusted and he was treated to the sight of Shinichi in one of Kaito's shirts and nothing else, sprawled out on his side of the bed with his hair sticking up in clumps and brandishing his phone. "What is it, darling?"

Shinichi reached down to tangle a hand in Kaito's hair, and Kaito shivered inadvertently, squirming towards his touch. Shinichi gave him a Look, which Kaito had slowly realized was his version of a besotted sigh. "I got a message from Megure. Apparently the Bureau wants to form the world's first team of superheroes. Something about putting up a unified front and responding in emergency situations."

"He better not be putting me on it," Kaito grumbled, wiggling until he could fit his head into the space between Shinichi's hip and his knee.

One corner of Shinichi's mouth twitched up. "No, he's putting me on it."

"He better be putting me on it." Kaito scowled.

"As a matter of fact," Shinichi started, scrolling with his thumb, "the initial team is supposed to include Angel, Western Sun, you, and me." He grinned down at Kaito. "Are you up for it?"

"As long as we don't have a stupid team name," Kaito muttered into Shinichi's hipbone. He pressed a kiss to the skin just to feel Shinichi exhale slowly. "I'm still surprised that they let you stay my PA, you know." Just last week, Kaito had seen him bisect a gigantic leopard-human hybrid with nothing but a butter knife.

Shinichi just laughed. "As if I'd let them reassign me." The I'm not leaving you went unsaid, but Kaito heard it anyway. He smiled uncontrollably.

My whole plot going into this fic was "YOU THINK SHINICHI IS PEPPER BUT NO HE'S ACTUALLY NATASHA!" I don't know how well that went. Anyway, hope you enjoyed this fic, even just a little (if you did, please consider dropping me a review!), and I'll see you all soon(ish)! - Luna