no white flags

“You’ll know soon,” you say. You’ve known Dabi for two weeks. How come you know whatever it is before Tomura does? You answer Tomura’s question before he can even ask it. “He said he wanted to talk to somebody who didn’t have a stake in it. That’s why.”

Tomura definitely has a stake in Dabi’s career. What the hell is going on with Dabi’s career? Tomura glances around the hall and finds Dabi sitting next to Hawks. The two of them are talking, leaning over the empty seat between them. There’s an empty seat on Dabi’s other side too, between him and Himiko. Was there assigned seating or something? “Hey,” you say, and Tomura looks at you. “What did you do this afternoon?”

“Aizawa made me help run the rehearsals for the third fight scene. He’s aiming way above their skill level. It sucks.”

“I get the sense that most of this movie is aiming above its skill level,” you say, and Tomura nods. “I think it’s kind of nice.”

“Until it crashes and burns and none of us get paid,” Tomura says. You nod. “Why do you think it’s nice?”

You lean over until your head’s on Tomura’s shoulder. “I’ve been in a lot of shows. Directors have a choice about how they handle the ones that have been done before — play it straight or try to reimagine it into something new. The ones where it’s a reimagining always feel more exciting. The stakes are higher. Taking a big risk means you’re passionate about something. It’s more fun to be part of a show like that than the latest rerun of Hamlet or something.”

“I can see that,” Tomura says. He doesn’t think he’s ever worked on a movie like that. Except maybe this one, depending on how crazy Midoriya went this afternoon. “I still want to get paid, though.”

“Me too. I can only live on instant noodles for so long before I start pining for vegetables.” You sound like you might be joking. Tomura doesn’t know you well enough to tell, so he laughs. “What? You’re not a vegetable person?”

“I eat it. I don’t pine for it,” Tomura says. “I like strawberries.”

“Really?” You sit up to study Tomura. The look on your face makes Tomura wish he’d never opened his mouth. “I wouldn’t have guessed that. Do you like strawberry flavor or just real ones?”

“Why do you care? It’s not that weird.”

“Just trying to decide what flavor of edible underwear to buy,” you say, deadpan, and this time, Tomura knows you’re joking. He laughs. “You have a sense of humor. That’s a good sign.”

“A good sign for what?” Tomura asks, but you’ve clammed up. You look really embarrassed. “Hey —”

“Hi, everybody!” Midoriya’s here. Iida and Mirio are chasing after him, Iida carrying a stack of three-ring binders and Mirio toting a whiteboard with a sheet over it. “Thank you all for coming out here. I know things have been a little weird —”

Midoriya doesn’t look like a guy whose movie just got canceled. Tomura cautiously raises his hopes of getting paid. “But I’m really excited about the new direction we’re taking,” Midoriya continues. “If everybody could take their assigned seats —”

You squeeze Tomura’s hand and let go. “I have to go. See you soon, okay?”

Right. You’re an actor. You have an assigned seat. Tomura nods and watches you cross the room, sitting down in the seat between Dabi and Hawks. The seat between Dabi and Himiko stays empty, and Tomura drums his fingers against his arm, annoyed. Whoever this is, they’re holding things up, and Tomura can’t go back to sitting with you — or doing anything with you — until this stupid meeting is over.

Someone clears their throat, loudly. Tomura looks up. “What?”

“We’re waiting on you,” Iida says. He points at the chair between Dabi and Hawks. “Over there.”

“Why?”

“Now,” Iida says.

“If I were you, I’d haul ass,” Hawks says. “The sooner you sit down, the sooner we can leave.”

What the fuck? Tomura thought he knew what foreboding was after the sneak attack this afternoon, but this feels even worse. He looks at Dabi’s expression, then yours. Neither of you know what’s going on, or you’d have told him, and Iida’s poker face is unreal. Tomura gets up and makes his way over to the seat between Hawks and Dabi, at which point Iida bangs a giant three-ring binder down on the table in front of him.

“What is this?” Tomura snaps.

“Your copy of the new script,” Iida says. “Try to keep up.”

Before Tomura can call him an asshole, Midoriya speaks up. “I was going to try to explain a little bit beforehand, but I think it might be easier if you experience it the way audiences will. So we’ll be doing a table read, blind. Your scripts are personalized to make it easier — anything that’s highlighted is yours to read. We’ll start with Scene 1.”

If this is a table read, how come Tomura needs his own script? He does stunts. He doesn’t have any lines. But he’s not interested in getting shouted at, and he still wants this to be over as fast as possible. He cracks open the script to the opening scene. It’s still the failed transition from Apocalypse’s old body to the new one, the one that ends with him getting locked up under a pyramid for three thousand years. Not much has changed there.

In fact, not much changes at all until Apocalypse starts trying to recruit the Horsemen. He grabs Archangel, then Beast, then Psylocke —and then Tomura flips to the next page and sees Quicksilver’s name all over it. Huh?

He glances over at Dabi to see how Dabi’s taking it. Dabi looks sort of confused, but he starts reading off his lines anyway. You’ve got lines in that scene, too. Makes sense. If Midoriya really wants that romance subplot, he needs to start building it from a lot earlier in the movie. Tomura thinks that for a few more pages. Then he flips one, comes up with a page full of highlighted dialogue, and almost slams his binder shut. “What the fuck?”

“Shh,” Dabi hisses from next to him. “You’re ruining up my death scene.”

He sounds like he’s pissed, but he’s wearing a stupid smug grin. Death scene? Quicksilver doesn’t die in the original script. Tomura missed something while he was zoning out, thinking about how annoying it’s going to be to watch you pretend to fall in love with Dabi for the rest of the shoot. He flips back two pages and figures it out. Apocalypse asks Quicksilver to join the Horsemen. Quicksilver says no and tries to run, so he can warn everyone that Apocalypse is coming. Apocalypse orders Psylocke to freeze time and kill him. Which you do.

What the fuck. Hawks elbows Tomura out of nowhere, and Tomura jumps. Hawks is nodding down at Tomura’s script, which Dabi has been turning the pages of to get back to Tomura’s dialogue. Tomura’s entire fucking page of dialogue. “Uh —” What is Tomura supposed to do, anyway? Why is he even in this scene? Why is he in this script at all? “Fuck — You can’t die. The others need you. They can’t win without you.”

“I know.” Dabi fakes a convincing dying cough. “That’s why they’ll have you.”

Iida reads the stage directions aloud. “With his dying breath, Quicksilver passes his powers along to his twin brother, charging him with the task of both defeating Apocalypse and avenging his death. Quicksilver’s brother looks in the direction where Apocalypse vanished as the scene comes to a close.”

It’s quiet for a second. “Does Quicksilver’s brother have a name?” you ask.

“We’re working on that,” Midoriya says brightly. Tomura’s going to hurl. “Any other questions?”

“I’ve got one,” Hawks says. “Since when does Quicksilver have a twin?”

“In the comics he has a twin, but it’s a girl. Scarlet Witch. But we don’t have the IP for her, so —” Midoriya shrugs. “The point is that a twin for Quicksilver isn’t unprecedented. It’s also one of the only things the franchise hasn’t done. We’ve had resurrections, time travel, aliens, clones. The only thing we haven’t done is twins.”

“So why are we doing them now?” Dabi asks. “Don’t get me wrong, I’m on board with this — this death scene is lit —but is it really just because my stunt double making out with Psylocke looked good on camera?”

“It looked great on camera,” Himiko says. “I saw.”

“How did you see? You weren’t even there.”

“I filmed it,” Dabi says, and Tomura turns to glare at him. “The angle was shit, but I got the point across.”

“Don’t fucking film me.”

“I was being a good friend! I wanted to capture your fifteen seconds of fame and the most action I’ve seen you get in half a —”

“Guys, can we focus for a second?” Midoriya protests. “It’s a fair question, Dabi. It’s not because Shigaraki and Psylocke have incredible chemistry. It’s because the X-Men franchise has a problem with stakes.”

It’s quiet for a few seconds. “Say what you mean, Deku!” Bakugou shouts from wherever he’s sitting. “You cut all my scenes. You’d better have a damn good reason!”

“I didn’t cut all your scenes. You have new scenes! In fact, everybody’s more involved in the plot now because —” Midoriya’s voice pitches up and cracks. He stops, sucks down a couple of deep breaths, and starts over. “Comic books in general have a problem with killing characters. Nobody dies for real except Uncle Ben and Gwen Stacy, and even if somebody else does die, it’s always right at the end of the story, in this big, dramatic, heroic sacrifice. We all know that story. We know it so well that we can predict every last beat before the title card even shows.”

It’s weird to hear Midoriya say the kind of things Tomura complains about all the time. Movies are predictable. Superhero movies are even more predictable. “For this movie to work, we have to show that there are consequences. The heroes taking a big loss right at the beginning of the story establishes Apocalypse and the Horsemen as a real threat, and the fact that it happens this way shows that we’re not playing cartoon tropes straight. In a comic, Apocalypse would monologue for a while and give Quicksilver time to escape. In this one —”

Apocalypse orders Psylocke to kill Quicksilver, and she does it without hesitating. Is Tomura’s character really supposed to hook up with yours after watching you murder his brother? “Yeah,” Midoriya says into the silence. “Quicksilver’s death sets the tone for how this movie is going to work. It’s a superhero movie, but it’s not a foregone conclusion. Quicksilver’s powers stay in the game, but they’re with somebody who doesn’t have his experience and who isn’t reincarnated and so on and so forth — like I said, it’s faster if we just read it.”

“Yes,” Iida says loudly, over Bakugou’s arguing that he should have been the one with an important death scene. “Scene six. The interior of the Professor’s shrine —”

The table read continues. Tomura feels like he’s in an alternate reality. Maybe he died or something, because there’s no way he’s reading lines while Dabi sits next to him, chugging water and eating candy out of the loudest package in existence. There’s no way he’s trading lines of dialogue with you in scenes that seem written to kill him specifically. Quicksilver’s not the only character who dies. Midoriya offs Cyclops, too, in an effort to protect Phoenix that ends up failing. That leaves the heroes’ side without a telekinetic character, or a psychic character who can physically fight, too. And they have to go fight Apocalypse anyway.

That’s where Psylocke comes in. After a whole script setting up your thing with Quicksilver and your internal conflict over all the shit Apocalypse orders you to do, Midoriya lets you switch sides mid-battle and help the heroes take Apocalypse down. There’s a pretty good scene afterwards where the heroes decide that new Quicksilver should choose what happens to Psylocke, since she killed his brother. So Tomura gets to spare your life. You get to be weird about it, since you thought you were going to die in battle and atone for your sins that way. And he gets to kiss you again in front of everybody.

Tomura started this meeting hating Midoriya. He still sort of hates Midoriya. But he fucking loves Midoriya’s script.

Dabi seems to like it, too. The other actors whose characters are killed don’t look mad about it. Bakugou’s been appeased because his death scene is more epic than Quicksilver’s, and Uraraka’s been smiling since Iida read the stage direction about Phoenix dying. Present Mic, who’s sitting against the far wall with the rest of the crew, even comments on it. “What’s got you so hyped?”

“I’m not playing half of the superhero genre’s most annoying straight couple anymore,” Uraraka says. “I can finally come out.”

“You — huh?” Present Mic looks shocked. “My gaydar must be busted as fuck. I didn’t have a clue.”

“I’m a good actor.”

Tomura glances over at Himiko and notes that Himiko’s eyes are basically bugging out of her head. He’s going to pick on her about that later. He elbows Dabi, nodding in Himiko’s direction. “Do you see this shit?”

“I see my thunder getting stolen,” Dabi grumbles. It takes Tomura a second too long to figure that out. “I’m bi too. If anyone gives a shit.”

“I give a shit,” you say. Tomura leans out around Dabi to look at you and sees you smiling. “Now you can play something other than Good Luck, Babe, on a loop.”

“You’re bi?” Himiko says, shocked. “Since when?”

“Since the whole time,” Dabi says. He flops back in his chair. “It feels good to get that off my chest.”

“Why didn’t you tell us?” Spinner’s gotten up from the back wall and come over. “Did you think we’d be dicks?”

“Wasn’t about you,” Dabi says. “My fucking dad.”

Oh. Dabi and Tomura both won the asshole dad lottery, but Tomura’s dad isn’t a famous director and producer who micromanages his every move. The way Tomura heard it, Todoroki Enji wanted to be an actor but couldn’t hack it, so he’s settled for being a director and running Dabi’s life out of a corner office in Los Angeles. He’ll be pissed when he finds out Dabi isn’t straight. And that’s not even the only thing. “What do you think he’ll be madder about? You coming out or your character getting killed off?”

“Flip a coin,” Dabi says, and snorts. “I hope he has a heart attack.”

“Is anybody else queer?” Magne asks. She’s come over, too, pulling Twice with her. “One more and we’ve got the majority. Twice, baby, what about you?”

“I’m straight as a three-dollar bill!”

“Straight,” Spinner says. “Sorry.”

“You should be sorry,” Dabi says, and Himiko cackles. “What about you, Shigaraki? How do you identify?”

Tomura figured out that he liked women and stopped thinking about it. “Not available.”

The instant he realizes what he said, he cringes. Not available? What the fuck does that mean? It’s not like you and Tomura have had some kind of talk. You haven’t even gotten past second base. Tomura’s a moron. “Damn,” Magne says, and sighs. “We almost had it.”

“If it helps, I’m bi,” you say. Magne grins. “But I’m not available, either.”

“Tomura-kun has a girlfriend!” Himiko hugs you one-armed. “I want a girlfriend, too.”

“I thought you wanted a boyfriend.”

“Maybe one of each.”

“Everybody! Please pay attention!” Midoriya’s whipped out the megaphone. “I’ve sent contract updates to your agents to review — for those of you who need updates, at least. Take your scripts with you. Don’t let them out of your sight. And get some sleep, please. Reshoots start tomorrow, and we’ve got a lot of work to do.”

There are a lot of changes to the script. Based on what Tomura saw, they’re going to have to reshoot at least half the movie. He spends half a second wondering how they’re going to finance it, then remembers that Midoriya’s producer is the only guy in the movie industry with more money than Dabi’s dad. Money’s not going to be a problem. What is going to be a problem, though — Tomura’s phone pings with a text from his agent, congratulating him on his upgrade from stuntman to actor, and his insides pull themselves into a knot. Tomura may have started out wanting to be an actor, but it’s been a long time since he did any acting. And his part isn’t anything close to small. What the hell is he going to do, other than all his own stunts?

Dabi gets a call — from his dad — and leaves to go take it in private, followed by Himiko, Twice, Magne, Spinner, and Hawks. You sit down in his old chair. “You look like I felt when I got the call,” you say to Tomura. “How are you doing?”

“I’m pretty sure I’m fucked.” Tomura leaves his hand open on his thigh, wondering if you’ll take it, and when you do, he feels his stomach untwist itself slightly. “This isn’t going back to acting. This is getting launched into it out of a cannon.”

“Or off that launchpad Hatsume built,” you say. Tomura could have done without being reminded. “Keep talking.”

“It’s not like with you. You might not have been in movies before, but you were at least acting the whole time. I haven’t.” Tomura glances your way and finds you watching him, your elbow on the table and your chin in your free hand. You’re listening way too closely to whatever stupid thing he’s going to say. “This is a huge role. I don’t see how I’m not going to fuck it up.”

“You’re going to fuck it up,” you say. “Everybody fucks it up. There hasn’t been one scene in this movie that was shot in one take.”

“Your fight scene.”

“You’re in that one with me,” you say. You smile at Tomura. “Come on. You’re not even a little bit excited? What would little-kid you say if you time-warped back twenty-five years and told him you were playing a superhero in a big-budget film?”

Little-kid Tomura would be so hyped he’d piss himself, faint, or both. But little-kid Tomura hadn’t figured out the way the world really works. Little-kid Tomura was still dumb enough to hope for things. “Do you ever think shit is going a little too well?” he asks you. You tilt your head to study him. “This was just some movie of Dabi’s I was working on. And now it’s — this. And maybe if it was just that, I’d buy it, except now there’s this.”

He wants to gesture between the two of you, but he’d have to let go of your hand. “I don’t get that kind of luck. Other people get it all the time, but not me.”

“So you’re overdue,” you say. “I think this might be your fault.”

“Huh?”

“I mean, you spent all this time pretending you didn’t want to be an actor. You didn’t spend any time thinking about what it would be like or what you would do if you got your shot,” you say. “I didn’t spend a lot of time daydreaming about being in the movies, but I didn’t not think about it, either. So when I got the call, I was really shocked — but I was excited, too. You’re having to cold-read the excited part.”

Tomura sits there for a second. “Do you like calling me out or something?”

“I like getting to know you,” you say. “Besides, you can call me out on something, too.”

“Over what? Like you said, you’re handling this way better than me.” Tomura thinks about it for a second. If he wasn’t so damn sleep-deprived, he’d have been on it as soon as you finished talking. “You didn’t spend a lot of time thinking about people liking you back? Seriously?”

“It’s a cliche,” you say awkwardly. You were staring at Tomura a second ago. Now you won’t look at him. “I’ve been in a ton of shows with front-row tickets to a billion showmances. If that was going to happen to me it would have happened already.”

“It’s happening now,” Tomura says. He pulls on your hand a few times, hoping you’ll look at him, but you don’t. “Sorry about the unavailable thing. That was weird. We haven’t even done anything.”

“I said it too,” you say, instead of telling Tomura it wasn’t weird. “But you’re right that we haven’t done anything. You owe me cuddling and a good night’s sleep. Are you going to back out?”

Tomura’s mood improves so fast it’s stupid. “No.”

The two of you grab room service first. It’s not cheap, but you point out that the two of you have stuff to celebrate. Tomura’s sort of hoping he’ll get a second wind, at least enough to get through a real makeout session with you, but it totally backfires. After he’s eaten something, his exhaustion pulls the fire alarm, and it’s an effort to take off his shirt and plug in his phone before flopping over onto the bed.

You climb in next to him and make yourself comfortable, knees folded into the bend of his, arm draped over his waist, cheek pressed to his shoulder. Tomura makes a surprised sound. “Sorry,” you say. “You said you make cuddling weird, so I thought I’d make it weirder.”

“This isn’t weird,” Tomura says, even though he’s never been the little spoon in his life. He doesn’t like that he can’t see you, but he likes knowing that you’re there, that you’re holding onto him instead of the other way around. On the whole, he’s into it. Otherwise his eyelids wouldn’t be getting heavy. “Are you going to be okay like that?”

“Yeah.” You blink, and your eyelashes brush against Tomura’s skin. “Go to sleep, okay? Dabi said he kept you and Spinner up all night, and he said he’d mess me up if I let you go to your first day of filming sleep-deprived.”

Tomura will tell Dabi where he can stick his advice tomorrow. He risks leaning back against you a bit and you adjust your arm around him, holding him closer. Fuck. “Are you even tired?”

“Yes,” you say. “It was kind of dumb, to be honest. I was up all night wondering if this guy I danced with actually liked me.”

Tomura shouldn’t be smiling at that. It’s a good thing you’re not looking at him. “Stop wondering,” he says. “I like you. Go to bed.”

Your eyelashes brush against his shoulder again. So do your lips, a second or so later, which would drive Tomura crazy if he wasn’t mostly asleep. He’s almost all the way asleep when he hears you answer him. “I like you, too.”

<- Act 5

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