When Touya wakes, it's bright. A lot brighter than he was used to.
It was usually pretty dim in the bar, and he rarely ever really went out during the day anymore.
He squints, taking in his new surroundings. Bright. White everywhere. The sound of water? He groans, confused, and begins pushing himself up a little more, trying to ignore the dull aching in his head.
"Finally." A raspy voice scoffs.
Shigaraki.
Touya groans again, somehow finding the energy to roll his eyes.
"Where's Star?" He slurs, blinking to try and clear his vision.
Everything was still a little doubled, a bit blurry, but he was beginning to make out the vague shapes of the other members of the League.
He just couldn't see in enough detail to distinguish them all from each other. He just wanted little Star. He wanted just a glimpse of her to know she was okay.
"I've got her." Spinner speaks up from the corner of Touya's eye, a green mass with a pink blob from all Touya could see.
"She okay?" Touya asks, reaching out to hold her.
"She's fine." Shigaraki interrupts bluntly.
"She's sleepin'!" Touya hears Toga chime, loudly. His eye twitches from the pain of her voice bouncing through his skull. "She made those boring old heroes all sick! It was awesome!"
"She did?" Touya asks, frowning a little. "You let her?"
"We were just as trapped as you, idiot." Shigaraki snarls, Touya's vision clearing enough to allow him to see his lip curled up on one side.
"Shh, she's still sleeping." Jin hushes, before calling out: "Boy, I sure love yellin'!"
Touya's able to make out the glare Spinner gives him, before gently moving her hair out of her face with his talons to check she's still sleeping.
"I want her." Touya demands firmly, outstretching his arms even further.
"Uh..." Spinner falters, looking a little desperately at Shigaraki.
"She thinks you're dead." Shigaraki informs Touya bluntly, still scowling slightly. "We don't want her getting over excited and losing control of her quirk again."
"What?" Touya asks, his eyes lidding even more than usual in confusion.
He tries to straighten himself even more, realising he's sat on the marble floor of a hotel lobby, his back against the wall.
He looks around properly now he's able to see clearly, taking in the details of the room he's in. There was no doubt about it, it was definitely a hotel lobby, although there wasn't another human being outside of the League within view.
It must be a fancy hotel, wherever they were, because it even had a fucking water feature in the center.
"She saw Gran Torino knock you out and assumed he killed you." Spinner informs Touya, sitting down with Star attached to his chest still, her little arms wrapped around his neck.
If she was awake, or woke up to find herself in Spinner's arms, she'd be humiliated. Touya had seen her blush over a lot less with Spinner.
It was cute, but if she'd already gotten that upset, he didn't want her to be upset when she woke up too.
Then he realises just what they were telling him.
She'd gotten upset to the point of losing control of her quirk because she thought he had died.
She had thought he, Touya, had died. And was upset about it.
He didn't even have that from his true flesh and blood.
He ignores the aching in his chest that threatened to become more painful than the headache he was now sporting thanks to that old fart.
"She lost control of her quirk." He repeats slowly, trying to wrap his head around all the information he'd been fed and the new environment he was in.
"She made everyone sick! Gran Torino threw up. It was gross." Toga giggles.
"It was certainly something." Magne agrees, moving to pet Star's hair as she rests against Spinner. "Pretty much made me and Mister completely useless. I can't believe how strong she is! Quite the little girl you have here."
Touya's heart practically bursts with pride from that, despite knowing he had next to no place to be proud of her. He was just a guardian, he'd had no involvement in her existence until recently.
He wasn't going to let that stop him though. Call him delusional, but this was the only thing he had going for him that brought him any kind of joy.
So if he wanted to pretend she was his, he was going to.
"Where are we?" He manages to ask, still a little fuzzy-headed.
"Sensei's hotel. One of them anyway." Shigaraki explains, kicking his feet up onto the glass table in front of him.
They all looked horrendously out of place within the clinical walls of the lobby. They were all dusty, dirty and most of them were adorned in all black.
Kurogiri appears from seemingly nowhere, announcing that the bags had been placed in their rooms.
"What about our stuff?" Magne asks, looking over at Shigaraki.
"We have to keep our heads down for a while." Atsuhiro muses. "I hope they leave my memorabilia alone..."
"Kurogiri will pick it up when it's safer." Shigaraki replies, his voice thoughtful. "As Compress says. We need to keep our heads down for now. We probably have a four star wanted level right now."
Spinner snorts, telling Touya that it's some kind of nerd gaming reference.
He rolls his eyes, dipping his fingers into his pocket to pull a cigarette out.
"Not here." Shigaraki snaps the second the cigarette is pulled from his pocket.
"Want me to go outside?" Touya asks dryly, holding eye contact with the miffed-looking villain opposite.
They both stare at each other in silence, but Shigaraki rolls his eyes away first, addressing everyone.
"Rooms are split. Dabi and Star, Spinner and Compress, Toga and Magne, Twice and Kurogiri."
"Wait, what about you?" Magne asks, looking at Shigaraki over her glasses.
"I need my own space." Shigaraki says with a shrug.
Touya winces a little as the first toke of his cigarette hurts, his mood souring in annoyance at how much damage the stupid old bastard had done to him despite being a geriatric.
He half listens to Magne and Toga chatting happily about having 'girly nights' every night, Spinner and Twice exchanging little Y/N as carefully as they can, and Kurogiri, Shigaraki and Atsuhiro exchanging quiet words.
Touya continues smoking, hoping it'll help with some of the anxiety that he's feeling regarding what happened to Star and why she's still sleeping.
"Is smoking a good idea with a concussion?" Spinner asks, sitting next to Touya.
He knows that Spinner is acting out of genuine concern. Annoyingly, the heteromorph was one of those bleeding heart types that did seemingly want the best for everyone.
But he can't help but get his back up about it. He wasn't exactly the vision of health, and he wasn't about to have one of his vices snatched from him as well as the home he'd made for himself as Star in one day.
Managing to catch himself in time to stop himself from making a snarky comment, he just shoots Spinner a look.
Spinner seems to ignore it, looking over at Y/N and Jin, who seemed to be having a one sided conversation with her while she was unconscious and snuggled up to him.
"Said he wouldn't be able to see his kid now." Spinner says in a hushed tone to Touya. "Must suck, huh?"
Touya takes another thoughtful breath of his cigarette. He can't remember Jin ever mentioning having a kid, but it explained a lot. He'd been great with little Star from the get-go, making her comfortable instantly with him despite being the type of male that she was most nervous around.
He was always respectful of the rules Touya set too, not smoking around her, and trying his hardest to refrain from cursing around her even with the second voice he seemingly couldn't control.
Touya couldn't bring himself to think of how he'd feel if he couldn't ever see Y/N again.
He wasn't even her dad, or brother, hell, he wasn't even her cousin. He shouldn't find it so painful and depressing to think of a life without her.
After all, she was probably going to get taken from him some day. He wasn't a fool, he knew people like him didn't get happy endings. He hadn't even had a happy beginning.
He clears his throat. "Yeah. Sucks."
He rubs his wrist roughly under the seams of the scarring under his eye, all too familiar with the feeling of a warm trickle coming from between the staples there.
He didn't want to have to explain why he was randomly bleeding from his face.