RIP Mike Wheeler’s heterosexuality
“Is being gay contagious?”
Steve stares at his phone groggily before putting it back against his ear. “…Mike?”
“Is it?”
“It’s three in the fuckin’ morning is what it is.” He rubs his nose, Mike’s words finally catching up to his brain. “Seriously, Mike? No it’s not fucking contagious, you’re not gonna get the gay disease or whatever from me. I promise you’ll keep liking girls.”
He’s a little hurt, even though he knows the question is innocent. They’ve been asking a lot of questions, like the inquisitive little assholes they are, but none of them had seemed like they weren’t okay with it. Until now.
“…that’s not what I meant,” Mike says. Steve realizes that his voice sounds shaky, even over the phone.
“Then what—“ he cuts himself off, realizing halfway through his bitching that there was only one reason Mike would call about this. “Oh.”
“Can you pick me up?”
“It’s three in the morning,” he repeats, even as he starts wondering where he left his keys. “Your mom…”
“Steve,” Mike pleads. “Please?”
He sighs. “I’m on my way.”
Mike is sitting on his doorstep when he pulls up, head in his hands. Steve doesn’t have to get out of the car, he stalks to the passenger door with all the vitriol of a boy with too many emotions to hold in, and wrenches the door open hard enough that Steve worries he’s going to break it.
“Watch it, noodle arms,” he says, trying to pretend this is normal. Maybe if he acts like it’s not well past midnight, Mike will relax.
It doesn’t work. Mike slumps in his seat, not bothering with the seatbelt. “Can you just drive?”
Steve drives. Doesn’t really know where they’re going, but it doesn’t matter. Just away seems to suffice.
He eventually pulls into a side road
“I’m scared to even touch another guy now! Because apparently hugging is gay when you’re older, and so is sleeping in the same bed, and telling your friends you love them, and…and I’m fucking scared all the time, ‘cause what if they’re right? How do they know? How can they tell by just fucking looking at me? It’s bullshit!”
“Shit, kid,” Steve says, heartbroken. “Shit. C’mere.”
He pulls him close, and Mike turns his face into the crook of his neck, shaking. His shirt collar starts to get damp.
“I don’t know what to do,” he cries. “I thought it was normal, I thought everyone was just…so scared all the time, and we just didn’t talk about it. But then you said that thing about being afraid and pushing it down, and I didn’t— I tried to ignore it. I tried so hard not to think about it, Steve, I swear I tried.”
“I know you did,” he says quietly. It hits him that he might be the only one who really gets it. Eddie gave up denying it long ago, deciding to evolve into something else for them to focus on. Robin’s a girl. Which doesn’t mean jack shit in most cases, because being a lesbian fucking sucks in a town like Hawkins, but girls aren’t as obsessive about it. Sometimes when they compare notes, Robin will just stare at him.
Mike shakes his head. “I don’t know what I did wrong,” he mumbles tearfully into his shoulder.
“You didn’t do anything wrong,” Steve says with a surprising amount of vehemence. He grabs Mike by his scrawny little shoulders, pulls him away so he can look directly into his bloodshot eyes. “Not a damn thing, do you hear me? There is nothing wrong with you, and anyone who tells you otherwise deserves a swift kick in the balls. Got it?”
Mike responds by bursting into loud, messy sobs.
Steve just keeps holding him, running a hand through his hair and soothing him gently, like he wishes someone had done for him or Robin or Eddie when they were young. Finally Mike pulls away, embarrassment starting to set in.
“Sorry,” he mutters.
“Can I tell you a secret?” Steve asks instead of a meaningless platitude he knows Mike wouldn’t accept.
Mike gives him a suspicious look. “I guess.”
“I’m scared too. All the time.”
“No you’re not,” Mike snorts. “You don’t need to make me feel better just because I’m a pussy.”
“I’m not joking,” he says. “Why do you think I dated girls? Why do you think I went through so many lengths to hide it? It’s fucking terrifying, man. But you know what makes it less scary?”
“Dating girls? Marrying a woman?”
“No.” He pokes Mike’s chest, right over his heart. “People. Friends who love and accept you. Friends who know what you’re going through, even.”
“Do you…” Mike chews his lip. “Do you think Nancy would be okay with it? With me?”
“Absolutely I do. She was okay with me, wasn’t she? And I was her boyfriend.”
“Yeah, but it’s different when it’s your family, right? Sometimes people don’t care if someone is… people don’t care until it affects them. Do you think Nancy is like that?”
He knows Nancy isn’t like that, but that's a talk they’re going to have to have themselves. “I really don’t,” he encourages. “I think she’d be really glad to know this part of you, actually. She loves you.”
“…I know,” he says, shifting uncomfortably. “I don’t… we made this dumb no secrets pact the first time the Upside-Down happened, I don’t know why. It’s stupid. But…I don’t want to keep secrets from her anymore.”
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More of this.
You know in my mind I was kinda picturing doing Chicken Shop Dates with him and other Pro-Heroes? And Bakugou sees your date/interview with Sero and he’s pouty and jealous because he wants to do one with you.
Bakugou can’t remember the first time he started to fancy you, but it was probably the first time he ever saw you because you’re perfect. He remembers that interview, his first time seeing you. A laid back interview with the Bunny Hero Mirko, the pair of you sat on a plush couch with mugs of tea. And if he’s being honest, the Pro-Hero was the only reason he was even watching in the first place, his childhood crush on the older Pro still prevalent into his mid-twenties.
But he remembered watching the interview, which ended up seeming more like a gossip session between two friends as you delved deeper into the woman behind the Hero name. He found himself watching that video again immediately after it finished, before going in search of others. From up and coming sidekicks, to lesser known Pro-Heroes like Snatch. Bakugou found himself searching through your page for hours as he looked through the videos and photographs with these Pros, frowning when he noticed a new upload with you interviewing the Pro-Hero Cellophane.
Even though Bakugou had been watching your videos for months, he’d never followed you on any of your social media platforms. Content with watching each upload, and religiously checking your page for new photographs or messages. It became almost routine as he’d finish an arduous fifteen hour night shift and immediately check your feeds in the locker rooms before his commute home. Or he’d wake up in the morning to see if you’d posted anything new while he’d been asleep, and in his mind it was almost like waking up with you.
But seeing you interviewing one of his close friends had him feeling almost jealous, even though it seemed to just be meeting in a professional capacity. And Bakugou began to wonder why you’d never wanted to interview him, wondering whether you had contacted his PR team and been rejected or if he was in the pipeline for one. It was that moment when he decided that he was going to follow your socials, and he pathetically hoped you’d notice.
And if you didn’t notice, the internet certainly did. New tweets and screenshots appearing everywhere about the OfficialDynamight Twitter now following your account. Fans speculating whether it was his PR team that had made the connection, or the Pro-Hero himself— but something that everyone seemed to agree on was that an interview with you both was long overdue.
Of course, you’d noticed that the OfficialDynamight account had followed you almost instantly. Checking the notification to see whether it was actually his account, or just another fan-made one. Noticing the blue tick to signal that it was real, it was really him. Trying to calm your racing heart down and convince yourself (like the rest of the internet) that it was just his PR team and not the number two hero. Of course, you’d kept your crush on the Hero mostly secret. Alluding to it in a couple of interviews with Pinky and Burnin’. Interviews that had become a lot more fun and gossipy than the usual news that your company wanted you to report on, ignoring the set questions and talking about love and relationships. But you’d never specifically admitted to your crush, even though the internet continued to speculate.
So when you find out that the Dynamight PR team have responded to you with the approval for your interview request, you’re internally freaking out. Not only because you’re going to be interviewing your favorite Pro-Hero, the man you’ve had a crush on ever since he hit the top fifty. But you have all the pressure on your shoulders to make the interview good, because Dynamight interviews really are like gold dust. And the one thing on your mind is trying to find out is who he has a crush on. Remembering the charity gala interview he did when the little girl asked if he liked anyone.
But you didn’t expect his answer to be you.
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