The hug turns into a squeeze, All Might gently breaking his face away from the caresses to lean down and bury it against Nighteye’s shoulder instead. It’s an uncharacteristic display of shyness, something he rarely showed even back when they’d been working as hero and sidekick, but it’s the only response he could give to the mess of feelings currently swirling around inside him.
The stress of the day, the last dregs of adrenaline still pumping around, the sudden uncontrollable relief he’d felt at seeing Nighteye here… It all blended into one until the only thought left was the need to comfort and be comforted, to fill this moment with as much softness as he could and prove that they were more than just clashing opinions and arguments waiting to happen.
Hearing the thickness in Nighteye’s voice only makes All Might nuzzle is head closer, stepping forward until he swears there’s not an atom’s worth of space left between them.
❝ I couldn’t ask you to do that for me. ❞
His voice is a little muffled, seeing as how he’s still refusing to raise its head from it’s warm resting place, but he makes an effort to make sure he can be understood.
❝ I knew you’d come if I asked, even despite everything I’ve put you through… but what if something had gone wrong? I didn’t want to risk you getting hurt. ❞
Not only that, but what if he’d gotten hurt? What if Nighteye had had to watch him die in person rather than on a television screen?
All Might’s head finally raises, his eyes wet and shining with his own unshed tears. Today could have ended so many ways, most of the possibilities unpleasant, and yet he was here, alive, holding the man he loved. How lucky he was.
❝ I’ve missed you… So much… But I couldn’t allow us to reunite under such dangerous circumstances. I love you too much for that. ❞
I love you too much for that.
The present tense makes Nighteye’s heart burst with affection and longing, even as it breaks in two at the sight of All Might’s tears - what a silly thing, the human heart is, to be built up and torn down by the same man simultaneously.
But, well - such had been the nature of their relationship, after all, and would Mirai have really had it any other way, seeing as it still hadn’t been enough to keep them apart?
“I love you, too, Toshinori,” he says, finally, one hand reaching up to stroke All Might’s cheek, tracing those now-hollow cheekbones as if they were art, wanting to tug him back down, too, to feel the warmth of his beloved former partner pressed against his neck. “And it is because I love you so much that I-”
(That he - what? That he left in the first place? That he would have come back at a word?)
“-That I couldn’t bear to see you suffer,” he decides, finally, because not only is the sentiment true, but it captures all of the emotions that he cannot voice. “Your happiness and safety mean the world to me. You mean the world to me - more than anyone else ever has.”
(He doesn’t want to see those unshed tears spill over - All Might crying would be a sight to shatter Nighteye’s already-crumbling heart, and he opts instead to stretch up and kiss him again, as soft and tender as any man had ever kissed another.)
“More than anyone else ever will. Which is why, anytime you need me...You know I will come to help you. I- To know you are still alive, to see you before me again- It’s as if the future is suddenly brighter...”