Archive of Our Own ^beta

Shouto thinks his life was always meant to be miserable. There’s no other explanation for this, not really. Everything good in his life crumbles to ashes, and no matter how hard he scrubs, he’ll never be free from all of the blood on his hands. It stains his skin, eating away until he’s nothing more than a lifeless skeleton, rotting from the inside out. 

He’s sick, he knows. Sick in a way that medicine can’t fix. His family is rotten at the core and none of them will ever truly be free from the thorns that dig at their skin and tug them into the depths of despair. It’s a kind of evil, a kind of pain, that only destroys and greedily takes what it can, ruining what it cannot.

The source of the rot, of the evil, of the sheer terror he’s been forced to confront day in and day out, is none other than Endeavor, Number Two Hero and savior of countless citizens.

Shouto’s four when his quirk manifests. That's when training starts. Shouto starts being separated from his siblings and even his mommy, because according to his father, they’re just useless distractions. He hates it, hates how scary his father can be, hates how painful it all feels, hates it when his father shouts and bellows and throws things when his brother Touya or his mother try to shield him from the hurt. All he wants to do is play with his siblings again, but then his father always catches him and drags him to the training room for punishment.

At five, the worst day of Shouto’s life happens. It’s not the day his Mommy screams about how unsightly his face is, followed by the worst physical pain he’s ever felt in his life as he screams and cries hysterically, no. 

It’s the day that follows after, when Mommy is gone and he can’t find her, and when he tugs at father’s shirt and asks where she is so much his voice gives out, his father says, calmly, “I sent her away, and she’s never coming back.”. 

That is the worst pain he’s ever felt, left to sob and vomit on his lonesome as his father stalks away, Shouto hysterically dragging his fingernails across his skin until he bleeds. That's when he decides he hates his father.

At seven years old, Shouto wakes up to find his siblings with a haunted look on their faces and his brother, Touya, gone. He screams and cries and demands to know what happened to Touya from his father during the entire training session he’s subjected to. Eventually, his father slaps him across the face, looming over him with murderous intent. 

“You want to know what happened to that pathetic excuse of a son?” He hisses. Shouto’s scared, trembling with fear, but he nods anyways, determination running through his veins.

He’ll never forget the bone-chilling, borderline maniacal grin that spreads across his father’s face as he says his next words. “He’s dead.”

He’s nine years old when he finds a boxcutter hidden in the back of a cabinet drawer, dusty from disuse. He washes it clean and hides it in his bedroom, for reasons he can’t describe. The smallest act of rebellion, perhaps, as just days before, his father had taken away every single comfort item from his bedroom as punishment for trying to talk to Fuyumi.

At ten years old, Shouto is crying on his bed after a particularly bad argument with his father, and through hiccupping sobs he remembers the boxcutter. He grabs it, switches the blade open, and just wanting something to ease the emotional pain, he grits his teeth and makes his first cut.

When Shouto is twelve, his father finds out about the self harming habit and forces him to strip down completely -- underwear and all -- to be checked over for three months straight. His father picks random times to do it as well, ensuring that Shouto isn’t able to cut again without hell’s fury raining down on him.

(“Unbelievable,” his father says, when catching Shouto in the middle of slicing up his thighs for the first time. “I do so much for you and you decide to hurt yourself?!” He stomps forward, grabbing Shouto’s arm so tightly it’s a miracle it doesn’t break, and hoists him up. “I’ll show you what real pain is like,” he seethes, and thus commences one of the worst training sessions of his life.)

To say it’s humiliating would be an understatement. The sudden lack of his only outlet, combined with his father’s obvious disapproval and being exposed in such a vulnerable way, makes him sick to his stomach.

(No matter how hard he scrubs at his skin in the shower, he’ll always be dirty, never clean, never free --)

His only reprieve is that after those few months, Endeavor silently decides that Shouto’s no longer a danger to himself, and ceases the body searches. It takes one month for Shouto to be able to look him in the eyes again, and another six before he stops panicking at the thought of having to change or shower.

Too afraid of the repercussions of being caught self harming again, but desperate for some way to have control of his life, he turns to food. First, it’s through not eating at all, and he takes a sick pleasure in the stomach pains, knowing that not keeping up with his strict diet regime pisses his father off to no end. Unfortunately, starving like that is fairly obvious when he already has meal plans set out for him, and a very thorough training session has Shouto groveling at his feet and promising that he won’t do that anymore.

And that’s not a… lie, necessarily. He stops skipping meals, dutifully shoveling what might as well be sawdust or charcoal into his mouth. He just doesn’t mention that he’ll head to the bathroom right after and puke it all up, fingers reaching deep into his throat. Sometimes he sees what he thinks is blood coming up too, and doing this always leaves him shaky and with a nauseating headache, but it’s still better than just rolling over and being his father’s perfect little toy.

At fifteen years of age, he enters UA. It’s the first time he’s been to a physical school since primary, which he’d abruptly been taken out of when his mother was institutionalized.

(A boiling kettle, chubby arms reaching out, a look of complete horror, the slip of a hand -- 

"You look just like him--”

“When’s mommy coming back?”--

“She never is! The sooner you get that through your head, the sooner you can rise up and become the number one hero! She was just another obstacle getting in your way, Shouto!”)

It’s a little overwhelming, to say the least. While there’s routine, there’s also unpredictable chaos with so many different people, and things are constantly changing in ways he least expects. For some reason, his classmates are insistent on trying to talk to him, so he sends them his best impassive stares and hopes that they’ll get the hint.

(And he hopes that, despite being heroes in training, none of them notice the way his muscles tense up or the subtle flinch whenever they startle him.)

At school, Shouto turns back to starving himself. He doesn’t know why. Foolishly, he thought that he’d be done with this kind of stuff once he was granted the first taste of freedom he’s ever had in his entire life, but instead it seems to have had the opposite effect. Without his father breathing down his neck, he feels safer to continue these bad habits, and that in and of itself makes him feel sick to his stomach.

He has to skip meals entirely or eat as little as he can, as purging whatever he consumes isn’t much of an option here. The bathrooms, for one, are spaced out, and people would definitely notice him high-tailing it to the nearest one after every lunch every day. And, for second, they’re public. Anybody could walk in at any time. He immediately turns to skipping food the first time somebody catches him throwing up on the second day of school.

Mi-Midori… The unassuming green haired kid in his class catches him, and while he believes the shitty lie that he just had an upset stomach, he also insists on sending Shouto to Recovery Girl to rest. Sitting on the hospital bed as Recovery Girl hands him an antacid pill, he decides that continuing that would be much too risky.

He’s sure his body hates him at this point. Constantly yo-yoing back and forth between not eating at school, and then vomiting in the bathroom after dinner at home, has him feeling like complete and utter garbage. He regularly has a throbbing headache now, and his legs always tremble. He does actually eat sometimes, of course, since he’d die otherwise, but even when he eats with the intention of keeping food down, he finds it turning to ash on his tongue and concrete in his throat. Food feels like a heavy weight in his stomach, and no matter how hard he tries, he can’t distract himself from being aware of the feeling, and it takes great effort to not go and puke it all up. 

(Briefly, when he feels immense relief at the feeling of a growling stomach and almost dizzy from lack of nutrients, he thinks that he’s gone too far with whatever this is and he really needs help--)

This continues for a while. Shouto keeps up his routine of starving, purging, training, hiding the injuries from home as best as he can in the changing rooms at school, doing schoolwork, pointedly ignoring his classmates, so on and so forth.

The last part starts to slowly change, though. After the incident with the nomu and villains, he begrudgingly comes to the conclusion that these kids aren’t really nameless faces in his way to becoming the #1 hero. They’re people, even if that thought is foreign to him. His father had always insisted that nobody else in their lives mattered except for the two of them, and they were all just obstacles to their real goals, so to be faced with evidence of otherwise is disconcerting. He doesn’t make an effort to be nice necessarily, and he barely remembers their names, but he doesn’t immediately ice them out whenever they ask him a question or invite him to something, even if he always declines.

The sports festival comes. For the most part, it’s nothing too special, though the way the green haired kid boy uses the landmines in the race to his advantage to win as him deciding to keep an eye on him. After that follows the chariot game and Shouto can’t deny that he feels a little smug when he watches the angry blond-- Bakugou, his name is, scream and punch the ground like an overgrown child. Though Shouto’s had few interactions with him, he really does seem like a spoiled toddler in a teenager’s body. He’s got a sense of superiority that makes it nearly impossible to be around him without feeling sick, he insults everyone around him, and for some reason, he really hates that green haired (Midoriya, he remembers, his name is Midoriya-) boy.

The part everyone, Shouto included, anticipates the most is the actual fighting portion, for obvious reasons.

What’s less obvious to him is why he finds his feet trailing after Midoriya as the teachers set up for the finale.

“Midoriya,” he says, and the shorter boy whips around violently. 

“O-oh, Todoroki-kun! Hi! Um, can I help you…?” Midoriya trails off, visibly shaking. Shouto feels kind of bad for him, the other’s obvious discomfort making him feel like a thug trying to harass an innocent child. “I need to speak to you. In private.”

Midoriya blinks owlishly and then pulls a face like he’s pretty certain doing so would lead to his death, but he nods, so clearly he has little self-preservation skills. Shouto motions for him to follow, despite the fact that he actually has no idea what he’s doing or where he’s going, and soon enough, they find themselves at the Student and Faculty Entrance. 

“So, what is it that you needed to talk to me about…?” Midoriya asks, after a few seconds of silence. He wrings his hands together nervously. Shouto tucks his hands into his pockets, leaning back against the wall.

“Your power, at the cavalry battle was like All Might’s,” he starts, a part of him still wondering what the fuck is going on, despite the fact that he’s initiated all of this. He doesn’t know why he’s doing this. Shouto doesn’t care that much about his classmates, and yet here he is, confronting his Midoriya kid because, what, they might be more alike than he thinks?

Still, the way Midoriya immediately starts waving his hands, face turning red and eyes round, has him confirming his suspicions. Something is up with them. And maybe, just maybe, they really are alike. 

(He thinks of how Midoriya easily and violently startles, how he has the resolve to always help those in need, how he’s willing to destroy himself to do what he believes is right--)

“Are you All Might’s secret love child, or something?” he asks bluntly. Immediately he regrets the words, because framing such a sentence like that is a sure fire way to make Midoriya so suspicious that he doesn’t open up about shit, but it’s too late to turn back now.

Midoriya freezes. “Um?” He asks. “S-Secret love… child…?” He sounds legitimately confused, like he can’t fathom what Shouto’s saying.

“You’re not?” Shouto asks him, now the one at unease.

“Um.” Midoriya shakes his head, a nervous smile on his face. “No. Not at all.”

“Oh.” He figures Midoriya must be telling the truth about that. While he doesn’t know him well, he’s been able to see that he is, quite frankly, a terrible liar. 

“Is that all you wanted to ask me about?” Midoriya asks, feet shifting towards the exit. His brows are furrowed in confusion, like he isn’t sure if he should leave or not.

And, honestly, Shouto has absolutely no fucking clue what drives him to say the next things. Maybe it’s because even with the denial, he still finds himself painfully relating to Midoriya, maybe it’s because this is the first time he’s ever initiated a conversation like this, maybe it’s because he remembers how concerned the boy had been when he caught him that afternoon, maybe something about his round face and warm smile makes him easy to talk to, but in the end, it doesn’t matter what the reason is, because the end point is that he says it.

“I was created to defeat All Might,” he blurts out. Then, he wonders if he can perhaps flee this conversation entirely and act like nothing ever happened, but obviously that’s not an option as the boy’s brows fly into his hair.

Midoriya blinks. “What?”

Well, he dug this hole himself, might as well make it a few inches deeper. “My father, Endeavor, is obsessed with defeating All Might. He’ll stop at nothing to surpass him. Have you heard about quirk marriages?”

Midoriya nods, a little unsure. 

Shouto sighs. “I was a product of a quirk marriage between my father, a fire user, and my mother, an ice user. I was the perfect combination of their traits. That said, my father isn’t a…” He can’t help the scowl that crosses his face, “particularly nice man. He especially wasn’t to my mother. In nearly all of my memories, she’s crying. When I was five, she was indefinitely institutionalized, after she poured boiling water over my face and called my left side unsightly. You wondered why I seemed to pick a fight with you. It’s because I’m determined to win without using my left side.”

Midoriya’s eyes are round and wide, clearly not expecting Shouto to just dump his trauma onto him. He immediately feels shameful, both because he might have made a huge mistake, and because Midoriya didn’t sign up for this. He’s pretty sure this is the first time they’ve ever talked in a personal matter, actually. Even when Midoriya found him vomiting his guts out, they didn’t exchange many words.

“That’s… Very unfortunate, Todoroki-kun. I’m sorry your childhood was like that.” 

Shouto nods. “Well, that’s all I had to say.” He shrugs and takes his leave, eager to act like he totally meant for that to happen and not that he just spewed word vomit of very dangerous knowledge onto a boy that can’t lie for shit.

“I…” He pauses as Midoriya speaks up. “I don’t have a motivation like yours to win, but…” Although Shouto isn’t looking, he can hear the way his fist curls up. “I'll give it my all to defeat you!” Midoriya shouts.

“Good luck,” Shouto nods, before speeding away as fast as he can, hopeful that maybe they’ll never have to ever speak to each other again.

He isn’t so lucky. As it turns out, he definitely underestimated Midoriya, because when the two of them are put up to fight, he practically destroys his body to get Shouto to use his fire. It works, even if it’s just temporary, and Shouto has no idea how to feel about it as he numbly watches Midoriya get carted away to the infirmary. Still, it feels… strangely invigorating, to use his left side, and the strangest part is that he didn’t think about his father at all. Maybe… maybe his fire isn’t so bad, after all.

Well, he had thought that at first, but then he meets with his father again and the man actually looks proud, like Shouto had done this for him, and it takes all of his effort not to scream or double over and vomit right then and there. 

The feeling follows him up to his fight with Bakugou, and it ends with his demise. He feels bad, almost, how desperately Bakugou tries to get him to use his fire again, but the mere thought of doing so makes him feel disgusted to the core. Bakugou goes as far as to knock him out with his efforts, though it never works. 

When he wakes up, it’s to Recovery Girl giving him a big smooch, and then ushering him on his way to the award ceremony. He stands, impassive as ever, as he’s awarded a medal, while Bakugou snarls and snaps like a rabid dog.

So the sports festival was definitely not what he expected. He learned much more than he realized, and both learned to embrace and reject his fire. 

Still, despite that, despite the fact that the feeling of flames dancing across his skin makes him want to recoil with disgust, he sort of has a friend now, somebody he kind of trusts, and with Midoriya comes Uraraka and Iida and Tsuyu. They’re nice, friendly people, though much more affectionate and rowdy than he’s used to, aside from Tsuyu.

What he hadn’t anticipated is that with friendship, it becomes much harder to hide the things he’d rather keep secret. Perhaps the most obvious part of this is now that Shouto has been roped into the so-called “Dekusquad”, it’s expected of him to eat lunch with them, every single day. 

He never really has a good excuse to leave and he stops using the bathroom as one when, concerned, Iida takes him aside one day and asks him if he’s having bowel problems. Shouto would rather never have to go through something like that again, but it leaves him at a stand-still. 

Before the sports festival, he would usually sit at the emptiest table he could, or sneak out and sit on the stairs to eat as much (or as little) as he liked in peace. There was the occasional time one of his more outgoing classmates would catch him and have him sit with them, but that was few and far in between. While he does like these new friends of his, constantly having to sit down and actually consume lunch, without the ability to really purge or starve in a non-obvious way, is taking a toll.

He manages to grit his teeth and deal with it for a couple of weeks, but then it becomes unbearable. The second the bell rings for lunch, Shouto shoots out of his seat, one of the first students out of the door.

He’s not fast enough, evidently, as Uraraka somehow appears in front of him as he gets closer to the exit, the opposite direction of the school cafeteria. He barely reacts in time to not barrel her petite body over.

“Todoroki!” She nearly yells, breathing heavily. “I had to run really fast to catch up to you! Where are you going?”

“Why did you follow me?” Shouto asks dumbly, and now that he’s aware, she definitely looks a little worse for wear, cheeks flushed with a bead of sweat running down her forehead.

“Because you left really quickly and had a weird look on your face! I was a little concerned.”

“Oh.” Shouto doesn’t know how much he wants to divulge to Uraraka, but she’s blocking the way to his freedom, and it doesn’t look like she’ll move out of the way without a good reason to.

“I’m fine,” he says. “I just…” He pauses, awkwardly twisting the handle of his bento as he glances to the side, now a little embarrassed. “Sometimes being in the cafeteria can be a bit… much, for me, so I would go and eat alone sometimes before all of this…” He trails off, wondering why it sounds like such a shameful and pathetic thing to admit.

Uraraka’s eyes widen. “Oh… Oh. You should’ve told us! You know we wouldn’t mind if you need some alone time, right?” She grins brightly up at him. “I know you’re a little shy anyways, but that’s okay! That’s not an issue.” Mortifiyingly, Uraraka’s proclamation makes Shouto’s eyes well up. The sting in the corners and the lump in his throat are all too familiar as he rapidly blinks them away, because he’s not going to cry in front of his new friend over fucking lunch . He’s not that weak. Hopefully.

“Ah. Thank you for being understanding. Can you tell the others for me?” He asks, mind conjuring images of a betrayed Midoriya or upset Tsuyu, and the thought makes him sad.

Uraraka leans up to give Shouto a peck on the cheek and it’s nothing short of a miracle that he doesn’t spontaneously burst into flames right then and there.

“Of course I will.” She pats his shoulder, not at all perturbed that he’s deathly still. “See you after lunch, Todoroki!” She shouts before running off back to the cafeteria.

(It takes Shouto a few moments to collect himself and make sure he doesn’t accidentally set off the fire alarm, cold cheek unusually warm.)

**

It’s a beautifully sunny day out today, though not too warm, so Shouto has decided to sit outside rather than on the stairs. On an unrelated note, he caught two kids making out against the railing of the stairs and blocking the way up, and that definitely had no effect as to why he high-tailed it outside to the grass. 

Shouto sighs as he unboxes his bento, staring mournfully down at the food in his lap. His lunches have always been made by a private cook Endeavor hired, and while it’s not particularly bad, it gets quite tiring having to eat the same meals for years on end.

Today’s menu is rice, salmon so overcooked and salty it would make Bakugou cry, and pickled cabbage, all served on a bed of uncooked spinach. Perhaps this has also contributed to why he barely ever wants to eat, taste buds thoroughly burnt out. He’d be happy to never have to see pickled vegetables for as long as he lives.

Shouto would like to just toss this entire bento in the trash and move on with his life, but he knows there’s going to be a particularly grueling training session later today, and he’ll need the energy, especially since he had puked his breakfast. So he sighs, mostly just playing with the food with his chopsticks, though he manages to choke down a few bites of the rice and fish. HIs mind wanders off to nowhere in particular, soaking up the sun and alone time.

“YOUNG TODOROKI!” A familiar voice booms behind him. The familiarity doesn’t stop him from startling, body jerking away as his heart races a million miles a minute. 

“Calm down, young one, I didn't mean to startle you! My apologies.” The person the voice belongs to steps into his line of sight, and Shouto’s wide eyes meet All Might’s.

“All Might?” He asks, apprehensive. Things with All Might and Shouto always tend to be a little estranged, with his father’s searing hatred bearing down on his back whenever they interact in any capacity. He’d also been unable to look All Might in the eyes for a few days after Midoriya confirmed that he was not, in fact, his secret love child, but that’s besides the point.

“You know,” All Might says, hands on his hips, permanent grin as blinding as ever, “It’s technically against the rules to eat anywhere outside of the cafeteria.”

“My apologies, I didn’t know,” Shouto replies immediately, though he supposes he could have guessed that. He can’t help but feel disappointed. While nobody’s ever stopped him before, this is the first time he’s been caught and confronted, so it looks like his days of peace are over.

“No need to look so dejected, Young Todoroki! I said it was a technical thing.” All Might says. He cringes slightly, wondering what All Might saw in him that gave him away like that. 

Shouto frowns. “What does it being a technical thing have to do with it?” 

All Might chortles. “It means that for as long as you don’t abuse this power, nobody will stop you from sitting outside to eat. Presuming you are eating, that is?” His brows raise and Shouto feels himself break out into a sweat.

“What?” He asks meekly.

“It doesn’t look like you’ve eaten much of your lunch, my boy. Are you feeling ill?”

Shouto shakes his head slightly. “No, I’m just...not that hungry today.” Not a complete lie, but if he says that he’s sick, he’ll probably be sent to Recovery Girl which he’d rather not have. Being sent to her for always having food issues is bound to raise some concern.

His teacher makes an inquisitive sound. “I see. Is that why you’re out here today?”

Shouto honestly doesn’t know why he’s trying so hard to keep a conversation going. to be polite, maybe, but then All Might had the chance to not talk to him in the first place. Maybe he wants to get to know him better? The prospect is strange, but not entirely unbelievable. He shrugs, playing with a piece of spinach.

“I guess.” And then, because sometimes his mouth works faster than his brain, as evidenced by what had happened during the sports festival, he adds, “sometimes it just gets too overwhelming to be around so many people.” He bites his cheek hard right after saying that, tensing. He’s sure that of all the people in the world, All Might is literally the worst to talk about with that, since his entire personality is based around being outgoing and friendly.

To his shock, he can see All Might sit down next to him in his peripheral vision. “I can understand that,” he says, which is even more surprising.

“You can?” Shouto asks, unable to hide the disbelief. All Might laughs. 

“Don’t look so shocked!” He chuckles. “I know I am always seen as the light of the room, which I of course am happy to be, but I don’t think there’s anybody out there that can always be around people, myself included. While my tolerance is significantly better than, say, Aizawa’s, there are still days where I would rather be alone.”

Shouto blinks rapidly. “I never would’ve realized,” he murmurs.

“It can be easy to hide the traits you don’t like about yourself underneath a mask,” All Might says. “But part of our job here at UA is to help you all realize that nobody is perfect and that it’s okay to have weak spots or ask for help.”

He doesn’t know how to feel about that. If Shouto didn’t know any better, he’d say that All Might is saying that for him specifically, but there’s no way that’s the case. But he nods, since it seems like he’s expected to agree. They fall into a lapse of silence, Shouto unable to bring himself to eat more, even with his teacher right there next to him.

“Say, Young Todoroki, do you like ice cream?”

Ice cream? Shouto thinks, incredulously. “Sure,” he shrugs. Though not his favorite food in the world, it’s sweet and a dessert, something he likes for two reasons. One, because he actually likes the taste of sweet things more than anything else. Two, because his father abhors the idea of his precious creation consuming anything for pleasure rather than calories and bulk. His personal favorite that he’s been able to try so far is cake, but from the couple of times he’s had it, ice cream is pretty good, too.

“Would you like to get some?” All Might asks, and Shouto’s quite sure he must have heard wrong.

“Pardon?” He’s pretty sure there’s no ice cream shop on the school grounds, or else his classmates definitely would’ve taken advantage of that, but that can only mean that All Might means so off of school grounds. If that’s the case, there’s probably only less than half an hour before lunch is over. “There’s not enough time to do anything like that, not to mention how we’re not allowed to leave during school hours…”

All Might jumps upright. “You would be correct, Young Todoroki, but you seem to have forgotten that I can be very fast when I want to, and I am also a teacher, and therefore I have grounds to grant permission to go off campus!”

In the next split second, there’s an arm reaching under his legs and across his back, and then Shouto is being bridal carried by his teacher, bento spilling onto the ground.

“Wh--” He doesn’t get to finish his question as All Might quite literally blasts off from the ground, sending them flying high into the sky. Shouto wheezes as his lungs try to adjust to the lack of oxygen, ice cold air whipping across his face. Shouto’s free hand, the one that isn’t squished across the rock hard chest, clings desperately to All Might’s shoulder.

What the hell is going on, he wants to say, but all he can do is stare up at All Might’s grinning face helplessly as the world passes them by.

Probably only a minute or so later, they’re touching down, Shouto’s knees nearly buckling when his teacher deposits him. He blinks, disoriented. It’s not everyday you fly in the sky at the speed of an airplane without any kind of protection, after all. The dizziness subsides after a few seconds, which gives Shouto a chance to see where they are.

“You actually brought us to an ice cream shop?” He asks, incredulous. It’s a tiny little thing, crammed in between two larger buildings, and he can faintly hear cheerful music playing even with the door closed. Probably a small-owned business then. 

“Of course! I wasn’t lying when I offered.”

“Ok then,” Shouto shrugs, acting like this is a totally normal occurrence, since All Might doesn’t seem the least bit bothered. The man leads them inside, opening the door for him, bell chiming of their arrival.

The poor employee at the counter, who doesn’t look like she can be older than 20, actually drops a scooper she’s holding, grip slack. She squeaks as her face turns bright red, scrambling to pick it up. 

“Sorry, I’ll be with you in just a second!” She stammers out. To be fair, it’s not every day you encounter the Number One Pro Hero while working your day job at an ice cream parlor.

“It’s not a problem,” the hero reassures, sidling up to the counter. Shouto trails behind, out of his element.

“R-right, then, what can I get you?” To her credit, although her eyes are wide as saucers and it looks like she’s actually trembling, her voice is surprisingly steady and she holds All Might’s gaze.

His teacher turns back to him. “What flavor would you like, Young Todoroki?”

Shouto stares at him, helpless. He’s never actually been to a place like this before, so he has no idea what to do. He scans the menu board above the girl’s head, but is overwhelmed by the options. He thinks he can hear people behind him lining up. He wipes his palms over his pants.

“Strawberry,” he answers automatically. He’s never actually had strawberry ice cream before, but it’s been his favorite flavor so far cake-wise, so it’s not too far off to assume the same with this. All Might nods, turning back to the girl.

“Two strawberry ice creams, please.”

“O-of course. Your total will be…” Shouto zones out a little. The fluorescent lights are nearly blinding across the linoleum floors. Something about it makes it easy for his mind to disconnect, brain turning to static. 

The static is interrupted by a light nudge of his shoulder. Shouto jerks minisculely, noticing that at some point, he stepped out of the shop.

“Here,” All Might says, and Shouto realizes he was the one who nudged him. In his hands are two cones with pink ice cream dripping down the sides, comically dwarfed by the size of his hands. He takes the cone offered to him, giving it a small lick. It’s tasty, unsurprisingly, though it’s considerably better than all of the other ice cream he’s had in his life, which has always been store bought.

“Eat fast, Young Todoroki!” All Might says, taking a lick of his own ice cream so huge nearly half of the entire thing disappears. “We’ve only got about fifteen minutes to get back to the school!”

Shouto nods, going back to his ice cream, and the two of them start strolling down the street. All Might babbles about random nonsense next to him, occasionally interjecting to eat or wave at a passerby, but is otherwise focused on him.

Shouto’s nearly done with his ice cream when overwhelming guilt crashes over him. His hands wobble as his appetite disappears. He ate not only some of his lunch, but an entire ice cream cone, too. How disgusting.

But-

But All Might is there next to him. All Might had basically kidnapped Shouto to give him this treat. Belatedly, Shouto realizes just how comical this all is. Todoroki Shouto, son of Endeavor, skipping school (albeit it only being lunch) to eat ice cream with All Might, Number One Pro Hero across Japan, the one man Endeavor hates like no other.

He doesn’t quite smile, but it’s a near thing. It’s everything his father hates rolled into one-- disobedience, consuming what he isn’t supposed to, All Might, and suddenly Shouto wishes he had more ice cream, but then All Might exclaims that they have to head back and they take off once again, Shouto marginally less terrified the second time around.

It’s honestly kind of funny to watch All Might, a hulking man that could easily crush just about anyone, wilt slightly under Aizawa-sensei’s chastisement of their foolishness once they land back onto school grounds. The only reason Shouto doesn’t is because he's included in this, despite the fact that he didn’t have any actual say in their endeavor (hah).

He’s sure his classmates find it absolutely hilarious when they walk in on both Shouto and All Might sitting in detention at lunch the next day, the blond haphazardly stuffed into one of the tiny desk seats, forced to write an essay about why skipping school is bad, especially if you’re a teacher, too. 

As the days pass by, friendly actions becoming nothing more than a distant memory, Shouto begins to drift off again. The world once again is a numbing kaleidoscope of confusing imagery and muffled words, thoughts not quite linking together, tongue heavy in his mouth.

The days, all too similar, blur together and time eventually stops mattering altogether. 

Sometimes it’s six in the morning and Shouto’s sleepily brushing his teeth in the bathroom, and other times, he’s shoveling dinner down as fast as he can while his father prattles on about something pointless beside him. One day it’s Tuesday and Midoriya is talking to him about something before class starts, and the next time he checks, it’s a Saturday and his throat aches from dehydration, eyes bleary.

This is not a new occurrence, though the extent of it is. Shouto’s always started feeling a little distant from the world, barely tethered to reality, but it becomes much more apparent as the weeks progress. Perhaps it’s him adjusting to the lack of seeing his father 24/7 now that he’s in school, or maybe the routine is just that boring, but whatever this is becomes a genuine problem. It wasn’t that big of an issue when he was stuck at home, since he only ever saw his father and occasionally Fuyumi, and honestly, feeling like nothing more than an empty shell of a person felt better than being there in the moment when training. It’s not the same at UA, though.

His vision will blur and no matter how hard he tries, he can’t focus them again, forced to see the world through a mosaic of glass. Sometimes the world will drown out and his ears will ring, but he bites down the panic and stays silent, hoping that during these times, nobody mentions anything important or asks him a question directly.

He doesn’t like not having control over himself. He thought it’d be easier, away from Endeavor, but no matter what he does or where he goes, any semblance of independence slips right through his fingers.

( His skin itches in a way he can’t describe, the world is a greyed out blur, he hears somebody sobbing but he’s the only one in the room, is this even reality?--)

One day, he finds himself standing in front of Aizawa-sensei. He blinks, somewhat disoriented, last memory being of his father telling him to stop slacking as he leaves him a bloody heap on the dojo floor.

“Todoroki,” Aizawa drones, and Shouto’s attention immediately snaps back to his teacher. In his peripheral vision, he can see his classmates in their gym uniforms and using their quirks. They must be training, then. He still feels a little loopy, and he’s somewhat concerned that he seems to have lost at least a night and part of the day, but he’s good at maintaining a poker face.

“You can sit out of this if you feel sick,” Aizawa continues, and Shouto blinks in surprise. He isn’t sure what he had expected him to say, but it certainly wasn’t that.

“Ah....” He racks his brain for any kind of memory, wonders what brought this conversation up, did something slip through?, but he turns up blank. “I’m okay. Why do you think I’m sick?”

From the way Aizawa’s eyes narrow, the subtle way his relaxed posture turns taut, Shouto thinks he said the wrong thing. Shit. 

“Because you told me,” Aizawa continues, brows raised, and Shouto balks.

Well, that’s… definitely a problem. Telling his teacher that he feels sick (why? when would he ever say something like that? Is he stupid, bringing attention to himself like that?) and then immediately saying he’s okay and questioning something he supposedly brought up himself is a sure fire way to bring some attention to Shouto. That’s the last thing he wants. It’s hard enough trying to hide the training burns when changing, or the lack of eating around his friends, without having a pro hero watching his every move.

“Well,” Shouto says, carefully, making sure that he doesn’t say anything unnecessary lest he makes this worse, “I don’t feel sick now. I-I’m okay.”

Aizawa regards him for a few seconds, and it takes everything in Shouto’s power to not fidget uncomfortably. 

Eventually, he sighs. “Alright, then go join the others.” He motions him off, and Shouto takes off, relieved.

“But, Todoroki,” Aizawa calls after him, making him stop in his tracks and look back at him quizzically.

“If there’s something going on, you can tell me, you know? I’m your teacher. I’m here to help.” There’s a sense of honesty in his voice, and if Shouto didn’t know any better, he’d say he sounds concerned.

Mouth dry, Shouto nods, and tries not to think about that interaction for the rest of the day.

When he goes to the showers after class, Shouto realizes that he has a massive burn along his ribcage, peeling and painful to touch. Maybe that’s why he said he was sick. Maybe that’s why he didn’t remember what happened. Still, he ignores it, hoping that he can try to bandage it up later. Not like he can do much about the injuries without going to Recovery Girl, which is not happening. Ever.

After that, Shouto realizes he needs to nip this in the bud. He’s not the most observant person around, but after growing up in the Todoroki household, he’s become quite the master at knowing when he’s being watched. And thus, it’s quite easy for him to tell that, for the rest of the school week, Aizawa-sensei keeps watching him. He doesn’t blatantly stare, and if not for having to look for the tiniest things growing up, he probably wouldn’t have noticed.

But the way Aizawa’s gaze catches Shouto’s as Midoriya babbles happily about something beside him, how Aizawa narrows his eyes in thought whenever Shouto zones out in class, how Shouto catches Aizawa in the act of staring at the trash he had thrown out his lunch in, it’s clear to him: he’s being too obvious about his issues. 

If Aizawa decides to keep this up, there’s a chance he’ll discover something he isn’t supposed to, and Shouto cannot have that. If news gets out about his father, Shouto doesn’t have only himself to consider. His mother is still under Endeavor’s direct care, and Fuyumi still lives in their household. He’s not stupid. Even if Aizawa finds out (and god, he really hopes he doesn’t) and opens a case against him, that’s going to do nothing but make his father incredibly angry. He’s the second most popular hero, for crying out loud! If word never got out about his mother being institutionalized, if word never got out about Tou--

--Well. The gist is that any figure of authority finding out and trying to do something about it would only make things worse. 

With that established, Shouto doesn’t know exactly how to stop drifting. It’s second nature at this point, and he has no idea how to stop it when the world starts blurring together and words become foreign to him. It only stops when he’s fighting with someone or training with his father. The only time it seems to stop is when he’s in pain.

Abruptly, he's brought back to a memory he didn't like to think about, and tried his best to ignore.

Shouto had tried to kill himself, once. He was twelve years old and it was a couple of weeks after his father learned about his self harm. He doesn’t remember having a single specific reason in mind, and it wasn’t premeditated, either, though he had wondered about dying before. 

It had been a... sobering experience, to say the least. Despite his many problems, Shouto is very much human in the sense that he doesn't want to die. He just wants to stop suffering.

It had been night time, his father finally having left him alone to go to bed, but Shouto couldn’t sleep. He laid in bed, eyes staring at the ceiling, and was hit with a sudden desperation to not exist anymore. The thought had seemed to come out of the blue, but thinking back, it had pretty clearly been building up.

In that moment, he felt completely and utterly defeated. The thought of having to spend another second with his father made him want to vomit. Every time he tried to carve a name for himself, his father would come out of the shadows and wrap him in a chokehold, ensuring that Shouto would always be under his fingers. The idea that this would be Shouto’s life forever, not a single part of him sacred to himself, terrified him to his core.

So he had rolled out of bed, going over to his bedroom window. He unlatched the lock and pushed it open, a cold breeze drifting through. His father had never put any kind of special safety mechanism on the window, which was perhaps a foolish oversight, but then again, Shouto’s bedroom was so high up that falling would lead to certain death. 

His hands shook a little as he pushed the window out as far as he could, lifting a leg over the railing. Then the other. He nearly tripped as he slowly began to rise up, the ledge outside of the window barely large enough to keep his weight. Shouto swallowed back fear as he stared down at the ground, eyes wide. The air whipped across his face. The night was silent, only the breeze and his own unsteady breaths to fill the void.

Apprehension started to tug at the back of his mind as he saw how far down the ground was. His knees shook. 

Did he really want this?

His scar, Touya, Fuyumi sobbing silently into the night, being beaten black and blue and until he couldn’t move, the fact that this would be his life forever--

He exhaled a stuttering breath, hand slipping from the wall supporting behind him, beginning to tip forward--

And then a strong gust of wind shoved him backwards, causing him to trip over the window railing.

He choked as his back flared up with pain, breath knocked out of him. He was momentarily stunned. Did the wind seriously just keep him from killing himself?

His face crumpled as he turned to his side, bringing his knees to his chest. Maybe this was a sign. He didn’t know if it was a good or bad one, but it seemed like life had different plans in store for him. So he cried, sobbing and shaking and rocking back and forth, until the early sun began to peek up.

This… spaciness, Shouto feels, the way his eyelids drag and everything in the world feels so heavy, is different. He doesn’t think he feels the same way as he did back then, when it really did seem like he had no escape. 

When he turns to self-harm again, he doesn't do it in hope that it'll kill him. He just-- he needs something, anything, to keep him in check, and this is his last resort. He needs to stop feeling like this.

Shouto feels stupid and weak, but he’s desperate. He needs to stop floating off into outer space, because lately he’s noticed that even Midoriya frowns at him, deep in thought, when he thinks he isn’t looking, and that means he’s slipping up. 

He double checks that the stall door of the bathroom he’s in is locked. “Pathetic,” He hears his father’s voice in his head, disgusted. He pointedly ignores it as he slides a razor blade he wrestled out from a cheap shaving razor across his skin. Lightly, because the last thing he needs is to go deep enough that he needs medical attention, but enough to feel the pain.

And… it works. Just after a few swipes, Shouto can feel himself becoming grounded to the world yet again, color more vibrant than he remembered. He breathes a sigh of relief, pockets the razor, and quickly bandages his cuts before speeding back to class.

After that, it becomes a second habit. Memories of what happened when his father first found out about this is ingrained in his mind, but nothing else works. He makes sure to be extra cautious about where he cuts. 

It’s just so easy. When his mind is foggy and cloudy from not eating, when one of his classmates makes an offhand statement about his father and he has to keep from visibly freaking out, when he lays in his bed at night and can’t sleep no matter how exhausted he is, he can just cut, and all of those issues go away.

(Midoriya keeps glancing at him with those big, expressive eyes, brows knit in worry, and Shouto really wishes he would stop.)

Aizawa doesn’t pull him aside again, though, and as time passes, he’s subjected to less scrutiny. Shouto feels like he can breathe again.

Despite having his new grounding habit, time still passes by in the blink of an eye. One minute, he’s just barely survived being murdered by a serial killer with Midoriya and Iida, and in another, he tentatively becomes friends with Yaoyorozu after teaming up against Aizawa-sensei. She’s smart and kind, but her eyes seem to hold an understanding that makes him antsy around her. 

When Aizawa announces that they’ll be going on a school trip to a forest camp for training, Shouto actually feels excited. It’s a surreal emotion, one he’s rarely been able to feel, but when he looks around and sees the rest of his classmates cheering and excitedly chattering about what it’ll be like, he allows himself to smile.

(Even if it takes a few extremely intense training sessions with Endeavor to convince him to sign the permission slip, it doesn’t dampen his good mood, which is a first. It makes him feel… hopeful, almost.)

And then, because Shouto clearly isn’t allowed to be happy, it all goes to shit.

Bakugou gets kidnapped.

And Shouto was the one that let it happen.

He can’t believe it. He clearly remembers lunging forward, complete panic surging through his veins as he reached out to grab his classmate, but he was too late. Blue eyes and stapled skin stared almost mockingly at him as his fingers wrapped around Bakugou’s neck and pulled him in. All he could do was watch, completely helpless, as Bakugou faded into the shadows and disappeared.

For once, Shouto thinks his father might be right.

He’s weak. Weak and useless. He had always thought that maybe he was strong enough on his own, without his father’s help, but he was proven wrong. Because of the fact that he wasn’t strong enough, his classmate got fucking kidnapped by the league of villains--

Shouto stumbles away from where everyone has regrouped, just barely managing to make it behind a tree before he vomits stomach acid all over the dirt. He heaves and chokes and, distantly, he’s aware that there are tears streaming down his face.

He collapses to his knees, shaking so badly he doesn’t think he’d be able to get up if he tried. 

This is his fault.

All of this is his fault.

Shame rips through his heart like a blade, thorns of horrorshockguilt- crushing him from the inside out. He heaves again, but nothing comes up. His throat constricts, and no matter how hard he breathes, he can’t inhale properly. It feels like he’s sucking through a straw, unable to get the oxygen he needs.

He rolls over until he’s sitting, crawling backwards until he hits the base of the tree, and curls his legs up. He’s shaking violently, he can’t breathe, his hands desperately scratch at whatever they can, scrabbling at his arms, his face, tugging at his hair. He let his classmate get kidnapped and he might die and oh god he can’t fucking breathe--

“-Oki. Todoroki.” Faintly, barely audible through the pounding of his heart and the ragged breaths, he thinks he can hear a disembodied voice speaking to him. 

Just his luck. He’s going crazy, too.

“Todoroki. Listen to me.” Something grabs at his arms, and through blurry eyes, he recognizes them as hands.

His blood turns ice cold. Endeavor is here, Endeavor saw him being weak, he’s going to kill him--

But no, that’s impossible. He’s not… He’s not at home, he realizes belatedly. One of the hands leaves his arms and carefully grabs his chin, gently pushing him upwards, and he becomes face to face with Aizawa.

“Todoroki,” Aizawa repeats, and he realizes that the voice he was hearing was him. “Are you with me?”

Shouto is suddenly all too aware of the position they’re in. To his left is the puke, and in front of him, his teacher is crouched, looking uncharacteristically frazzled and concerned, brows knit tight and a contemplative frown on his face. 

Shouto nods numbly. He doesn’t think he can speak, even if it no longer feels like he’s choking on nothing. Aizawa’s shoulders drop and he realizes he must have been worried. Guilt claws at his stomach. Aizawa has better things to do than worry about him, he’s just being a nuisance. Fragile. Weak.

(“If you keep up like this, Shouto, the villains will win when you need to succeed most!” His father shouts at him. Shouto doesn’t move, face pressed against the floor, blood trickling down his hairline, and he just wishes he could disappear.)

“You were having a panic attack,” Aizawa says, eyes searching his face. “How do you feel now?”

This is completely mortifying. Shouto can feel himself blush with embarrassment. He’s still shaking, but it’s not as bad as before, and the hand on his arm is soothingly stroking him. He can’t believe he just had a panic attack and his teacher caught him. He cannot let this happen again. What an embarrassing slip-up. He feels absolutely disgusted with himself. What is wrong with him?

“Fine,” he manages to choke out, voice garbled and croaky even to his own ears. He’s absolutely useless like this, and it’s a wonder Aizawa doesn’t just leave him here to fend for himself. That’s what he should do.

“I don’t believe you,” Aizawa says, bluntly. Shouto bites down on his cheek. He doesn’t like that his teacher seems to be able to see right through him, but he’s so exhausted and his emotions are no longer buried deep underneath layer upon layer of repression that he doesn’t have it in himself to worry too much.

Aizawa briefly glances at the puddle next to them before sighing, a thumb going up to wipe Shouto’s tears away. He feels like a child, something he very much does not like. It makes him feel incapable and stupid, but then again, he clearly already is.

“Come on, let’s get back to the others. I’ll help you up,” Aizawa says, though not unkindly. He stands up, groaning as he stretches, and then extends a hand out.

This feels more serious than it probably is, as he stares at the hand outstretched to him. Like if he were to reject the hand, it’d mean more than just this. 

Something inside of him shatters. Shouto sighs, and reaches his own hand out to meet Aizawa’s.

They walk back to the group still hand in hand like Shouto’s some kind of toddler, and although everyone looks shell shocked while others are crying, Shouto rips away his hand from Aizawa’s grasp like he’s been burnt, crossing his arms over his chest. Aizawa nods at him, looking like he wants to say something, but Midoriya stumbles over and Aizawa just sighs before making his way to the other students.

“Todoroki-kun!” Midoriya appears in his vision, limping over despite looking like death warmed over. He trips when he’s a few feet away and Shouto instinctively steadies him. 

“Are you okay?” Midoriya breathes, looking genuinely worried. “You disappeared and nobody knew where you went!”

“I should be asking you that question,” Shouto says, wincing when he notices how gravelly his voice still sounds. Either not noticing or not commenting, Midoriya wraps his slightly less damaged arm around Shouto’s neck, pillowing his face on his shoulder.

“Well, I’m glad you’re okay,” he whispers. “I… Kacchan… I can’t believe I let him slip away like that.” There’s an edge of frustration in his voice. Desperation, too, and Shouto’s soul aches. Midoriya deserves to feel happy, not as destroyed as he does right now.

“There wasn’t anything you could have done,” he says, well aware of how hypocritical it sounds when he was just beating himself up for the same thing. It just feels different, when it comes to him. He knows Midoriya tried his best, nearly destroying himself to keep everyone safe, but did Shouto? Could he have done more? 

Midoriya sniffles against him. “I know,” he says. “I know. But I still feel like it’s my fault.”

Shouto sighs, letting his arm wrap around Midoriya, letting himself feel the ripple and ridges of his muscles and taut shoulders. “I know. Me too.” They stay together like that for who knows how long, Shouto unwilling to say how nice it feels to be hugged, but he thinks Midoriya knows anyway.

**  

The next day, Kirishima goes up to Shouto and declares that he’s going to save Bakugou with or without the help of anyone else. Shouto remembers the haunted look in the eyes of his classmates, his own panic, the sheer defeat in Midoriya’s voice, and it’s an easy choice to agree to help. 

The train ride over to their destination is tense. Midoriya’s gaze is hardened, fingers playing with the straps of his backpack. Yaoyorozu keeps glancing around like they’ll be caught at any moment, which honestly isn’t too far off of a fear. If they get caught before they can save Bakugou, the consequences will be dire. They will be even if they succeed as well, most likely, but at least they’d then have Bakugou. Iida looks far more reserved than Shouto’s ever seen before, expression dark and grim, and Kirishima looks like he’ll burst into tears at any given moment.

So, in short, they all look like they’re two seconds away from a complete mental breakdown. Granted, Shouto probably doesn’t look much better, but it’s surreal to see it on the faces of people usually happy and eager.

He exhales thinly. As Kirishima looks the most torn up, aside from Midoriya, and is sitting directly across from him, Shouto kicks at Kirishima’s feet. It takes a couple of times for Kirishima to notice, frowning, glancing down, and then back at Shouto, one brow raised and head tilted to the side.

Like a puppy, his mind helpfully supplies, though it’s not wrong. Kirishima reminds Shouto much of a dog. Not in a derogatory way, but in a nice way, if that’s possible. He loves to exercise, he’s a huge people person, he’s loyal to a fault, and he has a quality about him that just draws anyone around to him. He’s impossible to hate, honestly.

“You feeling okay?” He asks. He’s not good at being personal with people, never has been, but Kirishima gives him a weak smile in return.

“As good as I can be, I guess.” He worries his bottom lip. “I… I am a bit scared, honestly.”

“I think everyone is,” Shouto says. 

“True,” the redhead agrees, glancing over at the others, who are still lost in their own little worlds. “But Midoriya’s plan relies on me, and I just…” He pauses, hands twisting in his shirt. “What if Bakugou rejects me? What if I fail to save him?” His voice wavers.

Shouto kicks their feet together again, though it’s not as an unkind gesture. “I’ve seen the way you two interact. At the very least, he respects you, if not cares about you as a friend. If there’s anyone’s hand he’d accept, it’d be yours.”

Kirishima’s eyes well up with tears, and for a moment, Shouto panics, because he just completely flopped with the whole comfort thing, but the other smiles wider. 

“To hear that from you,” he sniffs, wiping his eyes, “makes me think that it must be true. Thanks. And, you know, I’m no Midoriya, but if you ever need a bro to hang with, I’m here, too.”

“Oh, thank you,” Shouto says, awkwardly. He’s not quite sure what that proposition means, but he presumes that it’s Kirishima talk for saying that they’re officially Friends (with a capital F, that’s how important it is), and he’s not going to take that notion lightly. They fall into a brief lapse of silence, Kirishima still occasionally sniffling, though no tears fall.

“We’ll get him,” Shouto says softly. He’s not sure if he’s even loud enough to be heard, but Kirishima blinks rapidly, before smiling as his stress lines smooth out. He nods.

“We will,” he agrees, gaining confidence. “Thanks, Todobro.” Shouto nearly chokes at the nickname, but doesn’t, and instead cooly nods back, before occupying himself until they arrive at their destination.

The costumes make Shouto feel foolish, but when he looks at what the others are wearing, he’s relieved to see that he got off easy. Sure, he looks like some boy band pop star, but that’s a better look than watching Midoriya stalk around like some kind of sleazy douchebag or Iida twirling his pencil thin moustache like a cartoon villain. 

“Alright,” Momo says, face turned deathly serious. “I think I know where the hideout is. Follow me.”

**

Bakugou damn well better appreciate what they’re doing for him, because right now, Shouto’s reconsidering this entire thing. He inhales a shaky breath, shutting his eyes. No, that’s not true. Or, even if it is, it’s most definitely not heroic. Endeavor’s instilled a lot of terrible habits into Shouto, but one of the only good ones is that “Heroes don’t flee and never take the coward’s route” .

Still, it’s hard to want to continue this when the group is pressed up against half a wall, frozen in complete and utter fear. Behind them, All For One stands, something inhuman and twisted, clearly beyond dangerous. Fuck, Shouto hasn’t even felt this scared of his father since he was a young child, but this has his knees buckling and eyes tearing up.

He grits his teeth, willing himself to break out of the chokehold the fear has on him. He does start to feel less scared, but he’s not sure if it’s because of his mental fortitude, or the fact that All Might appears to save the day.

After who knows how long, waiting for the perfect moment to strike, Izuku whispers, “Now!”, and their plan is set into motion. Shouto refuses to be the reason this plan fails, and after Kirishima, Midoriya, and Iida break out of the wall, he sets up the largest ramp he can.

You better win, is all he thinks as he watches them launch themselves towards Bakugou and the villains. Next to him, Momo collapses to her knees, letting out a sound that’s a mix between a whine and a sob. 

“Yaoyorozu? Are you okay?” He asks her, crouching down to her level. They should really get out of here. While Shouto would love to back them up, his job is done, and sticking around will only bring more danger to everyone. 

Yaoyorozu nods, sniffling. “Yes, sorry, I just cannot believe we did that,” she half-chuckles, sounding shocked. “I think that’s the most I can handle for the next few years.”

“That’s understandable,” he agrees, and without waiting for permission, he loops an arm under her shoulders. “We need to get out of here,” he says.

“Yes, let’s.” She rises up and, with that, the two of them get out as fast as they can.

Somehow, that’s not the most adrenaline inducing part of this. It’s when All Might changes form in the battle and transforms into a frail shell of himself, when the entire country watches, breathless, as All Might fights and nearly dies, as he somehow wins, and Shouto and Momo collapse against each other, knees weak with relief. He thinks that he agrees with what Yaoyorozu said earlier.

The two of them meet up again with the rest of the group after they see All For One get taken into custody, this time having Bakugou in tow. 

“Are you guys okay?” Momo asks once they’re within earshot, worried.

Midoriya smiles tightly and nods. “We’re all okay. Physically, anyways.” He’s not too subtle when he glances back at Bakugou, who looks pretty well put together considering he had just been kidnapped and held hostage by some of the most dangerous villains out there. However, Shouto especially knows how easy it can be to hide behind a mask. For him it’s indifference, but for Bakugou, it’s anger. He doesn’t know Bakugou enough to discern if he’s actually okay and just pissed or if he’s got some intense emotions bottled underneath his scowl, but at least Kirishima, who slings an arm around his shoulder casually, might.

“What the fuck ever, Deku,” Bakugou grumbles. “Are we ever gonna head to the police station or what?”

 Iida nods. “This way!” He directs, and the group dutifully follows after.

(It feels strange that even someone like Bakugou has people willing to look out for him. It almost makes him feel jealous, but he squashes down that emotion, because that’s useless and stupid. Still, as Bakugou swiftly walks past Shouto and their hands just barely brush, he wonders if Bakugou also feels weak, also feels useless, also wishes he wasn’t there sometimes--)

Shouto is dead on his feet by the time he’s allowed to go home after an intense amount of questioning, followed by a thorough chewing out by Aizawa. The man has quite a way with words when he wants to, including making Shouto feel like a helpless child, shameful and indignant. 

That’s nothing compared to how he feels when he finally arrives home. It’s kind of funny, how this is the first time in forever he actually anticipates going back, but when he unlocks the door and opens it, he’s met with the sight of his sister sobbing over the kitchen counter.

“Fuyumi?” He asks, closing and locking the door behind him. Fuyumi is more emotional than Shouto, for sure, but she doesn’t cry often, which means something is very wrong. Fuyumi jumps at the intrusion, hand covering her mouth, before relaxing slightly.

“Shouto…” She trails off, hiccuping again. Shouto hovers awkwardly in the doorway. He and his family have never been very physical aside from Endeavor’s beatings, and it was hard to initiate a hug when one hasn’t been held in any form for years while the other only equates touch with pain. Still, he doesn’t like seeing his sister look so wrecked.

“What’s wrong?” He asks, and then realizing there’s a suspicious lack of Endeavor here to scream at him for doing something so rash and foolish, “where’s father?”

That’s the nail in the coffin as Fuyumi squeezes her eyes shut, choking down a sob. “He’s in the training room, but Shouto, you really shouldn’t go and see him right now. He’s…” She doesn’t complete the sentence, but Shouto doesn’t need her to. 

“I’ll be okay,” he hopes promises, before taking off towards the dojo.

He isn’t sure why he’s going there, to be honest. If his father’s decided to throw a tantrum like the overgrown toddler he is, he should take this as an opportunity to slip into bed and rest while he can.

But Fuyumi was crying, Fuyumi was scared, and Shouto can’t bear to think about what might happen if she’s the only one around and his father’s still enraged. As painful as they are, Shouto can deal with getting beaten down, but he’s sure Fuyumi can’t.

He can feel the heat before he sees the room. He quickens his pace. Through the door, he can see a warm glow of red and orange, and he swallows down bile as he opens it slightly and peeks through.

While expecting the sight, he hisses through his teeth. His father is sitting on the floor, everywhere around him decimated. Training equipment has been turned into charcoal, and the floors are mostly fire. Endeavor hasn’t been this angry in a long time-- years, even, but it doesn’t take a genius to figure out why.

Steeling his resolve, he opens the door all the way, stepping in. “Father,” he calls. Endeavor lifts his head, teal eyes half-lidded and burnt out. 

(Blue eyes and stapled skin stare almost mockingly at him--)

Shouto is proud of himself for not turning tail and running as fast as he can, considering these are all signs he’s going to be in for a hell of a fight.

“Number One Hero,” Endeavor states, voice ragged and rough. “What a fucking joke.”

“You and me both,” Shouto agrees, mentally kicking himself for deciding to be snarky now of all times.

Endeavor stirs, rising up from his position. He turns towards Shouto fully. “If you’re so insistent on getting under my skin, boy,” he growls, and Shouto swallows down panic when he sees the familiar blue tint of Hellfire on the rough pads of his fingertips, “come and fight the Number One Hero.”

**

Somehow, against all odds, Aizawa manages to convince Endeavor to let Shouto stay at the dorms, the school’s new security plan after all that happened. The thought of permanently being away from his father -- sans holidays and trips home-- is dizzying, both exciting and scary at once.

Something changes between them, after Aizawa visits their household to convince Endeavor in person. It’s not too noticeable, but it is there, nonetheless. Of course, it could be chalked up to Aizawa being fed up with his problem students’ shit after they haphazardly rescued Bakugou and All Might being forced into retirement, but Shouto thinks there’s something more, too. It’s like he watches over him with a keen sense of awareness, and it’s both comforting and terrifying. 

Comforting, because he knows Aizawa-sensei cares, and although Shouto doesn’t deserve it, he will greedily take all the kindness that he can, starved of years of praise and positive attention.

Terrifying, because it’s becoming that much harder to skip meals or harm himself without being caught, and he starts feeling so much worse being around his father. That could, again, be chalked up to the fact that their latest training session that fateful night actually nearly killed Shouto. 

He knows he riled his father up with his offhanded snark, but still, the fact that he was so far gone he nearly murdered the one child he considers worthy and it was only Fuyumi’s intervention that saved his life is absolutely bone-chilling. When Aizawa visits and he’s forced to sit with him and his father, it’s almost a miracle he doesn’t pass out, his entire body in excruciating pain and half-delirious. Somehow he manages to get through it until Aizawa leaves, where he collapses to the floor in relief, much to Endeavor’s chagrin. He spends the following days on bedrest, a feeble recovery attempt before he has to go back to school.

The day they’re supposed to move in, Shouto in the process of hauling his bags to the car, Endeavor stops him, grabbing roughly at his arm. Shouto winces as his fingers dig into his new cuts and the various burns all over his body.

“I expect you to keep up with your training,” his father says. When Shouto doesn’t answer, he tightens his grip.

“Yes, father,” he says robotically. Fuck, that hurts. He didn’t think he was cutting that much deeper, but maybe he just didn’t notice. He rarely cut at home, but he had done so the night before, unable to sleep and body still bruised and beaten. At least the cuts were of his own volition, from his own hands, rather than the evidence of burnt skin and bruises in the shape of large hands elsewhere.

His father’s blue eyes narrow at him, brows turned taut. “Don’t think that this is some sort of-- vacation ,” he spits, like that’s the worst possible thing in the world. It might be, to him. “Since you’ll be out of my care, I expect you to work twice as hard. I’ll know if you don’t. Understood?”

He sounds so sure of it that it makes him feel a flash of fear. “Understood,” he repeats, grateful that his voice doesn’t wobble.

“Good.” Endeavor nods, letting go and pushing him forward. “Now get out of my sight.”

Shouto happily obliges. 

**

Living in the dorms is… nice, all things considered. He’s not sure how long it will take for him to adjust to the constant hustle and bustle, used to living in the deathly quiet, but it’s a welcome change.

Midoriya (“Call me Izuku, now,” he reminds Shouto with a shy smile,) will smile brightly at him, eyes lighting up as he waves him over at breakfast, shouting “Shouto-kun, sit here!”. Kirishima starts asking him if he can help spot him when he’s weight training, and Shouto reluctantly agrees, much to Kirishima’s shock but then complete and utter joy. Aizawa-sensei will join them at dinner sometimes, eyes leveled in a flat stare as Shouto picks at his food, which then forces him to eat significantly more than usual, lest he once again gets on his radar. 

And Bakugou… He thinks he must hate him, because he avoids being around Shouto whenever possible, spitting and scowling and yelling at him whenever they’re together. Shouto can’t blame him. It’s his fault this happened, after all, but it still hurts a little bit. That said, he also seems to have a newfound hatred for Midoriya, but they’ve always had issues. Why Bakugou hates such a loving individual, Shouto doesn’t know, but to be honest, he doesn’t care too much to find out why.

A new problem arises only a week in. Shouto’s still not used to having to always bathe and share a bathroom with everyone outside of gym class, so when he stumbles to the bathroom mirror still sleep deprived, he doesn’t think anything of it as he takes off his shirt and goes to change the bandages, eager to make use of the time while everyone else is at breakfast.

He hears a gasp from behind him. “TODOROKI-KUN! WHAT ON EARTH IS THAT?!” Iida’s ever so loud voice rings in his ears. Shouto freezes, eyes wide.

Through the mirror, he can see Iida hovering by the bathroom door, looking equally as shocked. His hands are up in the robot motion he’s so fond of, but the action is frozen in place, half-aborted.

“Uh,” Shouto says smartly. He knows that the burns look nasty even to him, so it must be quite the eye-opener for someone who’s never seen such a sight before. His skin is mottled in various colors of the rainbow, from angry red blisters to bruises turning yellow and purple to the leathery white parts of the worst burns. That’s excluding the considerably obvious cuts along his upper arms. Fuck him.  

“It’s nothing,” he says automatically, deciding to take out a new roll of gauze. It’ll probably be better if he acts like this is normal and that he’s taking care of it, which he is, rather than haphazardly trying to hide something Iida very much already saw.

“That is not nothing!” Iida shouts, voice nearly strangled. Shouto frowns as he flicks his gaze up to the mirror again, an unreadable expression on the other’s face. Somewhere between resigned and scared, maybe? 

“Well, I have it under control,” Shouto replies curtly, praying to whatever deity is above that Iida will drop this.

God smiles smugly down at him as Iida sidles up to Shouto’s side, frowning at him in worry. “You really should go to Recovery Girl! Those look like rather serious injuries!” He says. 

“I’ll be okay,” Shouto says, rolling the gauze around his stomach. He’s not lying about that part. If all of his injuries have survived up to this point, he’ll be fine. This is nothing compared to how they had looked when they were fresh.

It’s honestly a miracle he didn’t succumb to the injuries that day. It’s likely thanks to Fuyumi, who had sobbed over his battered body as their father silently left. She had iced him over and looked after him as he lay delirious with pain in bed, and helped him look presentable when Aizawa came. Without her, who knows what would have happened? 

Life would be a lot easier if his father’s training didn’t put him in precarious situations like this.

“I thought nobody was injured when we rescued Bakugou-kun,” Iida says weakly, shoulders drooping in… defeat? Why that?

Shouto nearly corrects him and says that that’s right, but he then realizes that it’s the only probable excuse he has. Otherwise Iida would probably put the pieces together. While oblivious to a fault, he’s a smart guy, and there’s only so many ways Shouto could’ve ended up like this. As long as Iida doesn’t talk to Yaoyorozu about this, he has probable deniability about what happened when they were separated. 

“Sorry for not saying anything,” Shouto mutters, ripping the gauze with his teeth and patting the last part down. Satisfied that it won’t cause him any problems, he goes and puts his shirt back on. Iida is standing in the same spot looking to be in thought, so Shouto walks by him, hoping he can slip away.

Iida grabs at his arm before he can make it too far. Shouto blinks, confused, back at Iida.

“Why are you holding my arm?” He asks. His grip is right below where his new cuts are, so the pain is dull and not nearly as bad as when his father did the week before.

“Todoroki-kun, I hope you know that there are people that care about you,” Iida says, not quite making eye contact, uncharacteristically shy. The hand squeezes tighter, though not in a painful way.

“I do,” he lies, feeling a little bad about it. Maybe Iida’s trying to be nice, but the idea that any of his classmates would be so concerned for Shouto is laughable. He’s capable of taking care of himself and although he’s better than he was when he first went to UA, he’s nowhere near as close with them as they are to each other. 

“Okay,” Iida says. “But you should really get that looked at. It could easily get infected.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.” Iida squeezes again before letting go, shoulders sagging. Shouto uses the opportunity to escape as quickly as he can, strangely unsettled by their interaction.

(Even more unsettling is the way Iida stares at him now with a frown on his face, like he can unravel all of his secrets just by looking hard enough. Shouto pretends that he isn’t bothered by the blatant way Iida seems to have some sort of concern about him now.)

**

Time blurs together again and eventually, Shouto’s injuries are healed enough that he doesn’t have to go through an entire roll of gauze every day. With his newfound freedom, he continues his training, eager to catch up while he had to take it easy.

Although Shouto despises his father with every fiber of his being, every time he has the thought to take a break from the detailed training regime he had drafted up for him, he’s reminded of what happened to Bakugou because he was too weak.

And so, without fail, every day, he trains and trains and trains, before school and after school and even during lunch when he can, until he drags his aching body to bed for the few precious hours he has until school starts again. It’s both surprisingly easy and hard to keep up with the routine. Without his father around, he doesn’t have to fight for his life, but it’s also harder to stay motivated. Even so, he pushes forwards. Even when his body screams at him to stop, even when he collapses to the ground and is unable to stand up for a few minutes because he’s lost all feeling in his legs, even when he nearly faints because he’s so tired and dizzy, he doesn’t stop.

Because in order to be a hero, he has to be strong enough to save anyone, on his own.

Because that’s what his entire life has been made for.

Because he wants to be a hero.

(And if he can’t save people, what’s the purpose of him existing?)

A few days later, Shouto’s working on some late night quirk training, as per usual. He can’t do as much as he’d like without leaving some blatant evidence that he’s been staying long past he’s probably allowed to be, so he mostly focuses on small but concentrated bursts of attacks.

He rubs his eyes, strangely blurry, after sending out yet another ice attack. Trying to shake it off, he does the same thing again, watching with a mild disinterest as tiny shards of ice shoot across the gym. His hand burns from the cold. 

Dizzy, he uses his fire to melt down the ice, frowning as his body subconsciously stumbles forward. He catches himself just in time, righting himself again, but he notices that he’s shaking badly. 

Looks like it’s time to stop, even though he doesn’t particularly want to. Training is horrible, but it at least makes his thoughts shut up for once. He takes a step forward, but pauses as the entire room spins.

“Shit,” he slurs, and then the world is darkening as he tips backwards.

When Shouto opens his eyes again, it takes him a moment to realize he isn’t dead, and another to figure that he might as well be, from how unbelievably crappy he feels.

He groans as he raises his head, body sore and aching. The room is still spinning, though less so than it was earlier. This isn’t the first time he’s ever passed out, though he hasn’t in quite a while. He probably wasn’t out for long, maybe a minute or so at most, but it still makes everything disorienting and confusing for a while. 

As much as he’d just like to lay here and sleep the pain away, he can’t very well have one of his teachers walking in on him like this and thinking he’s dead or something, so even as every inch of his fiber protests and screams at him, he manages to get himself into an upright sitting position. Doing so makes the blood rush to his head and gives him an instant headache, but it could be worse.

He had done so just in the nick of time, as once he looks up from the floor, he spots a person standing in the entryway. Not just any person, too, as he can only see some pajamas. From her body posture, she seems perhaps a little confused. Her body turns towards him and that must be when she notices him as she jumps.

“Oh, Todoroki! I didn’t realize anybody was still in here!” She says.

Shotuo blinks slowly, brain still operating at a snail’s pace. Maybe he hasn’t eaten enough today. Thinking back, he might’ve purged everything today, which is a yikes. Usually he keeps at least one meal down, in order to ensure that he’s still strong and capable enough to continue his studies. 

“What are you doing here?” He asks, remembering he’s supposed to speak. Hagakure raises a set of keys, dangling around.

“Aizawa-sensei asked me to lock up the gym for him,” she says.

Shouto sighs, sitting up straighter. Guess he went longer than he meant to, since he’s always left before Aizawa or anyone else ran into him. He’s a little surprised it took this long, actually.

“Do you always train this much?” Hagakure questions offhandedly.

“What’s it to you?” He gruffs, wincing a little both because his ribs are screaming at him as he tries to stand, and because he came off much ruder than he meant to. 

He thinks Hagakure puts an arm behind her head, though it’s hard to tell. “Ah, nothing, I didn’t mean to come off as rude.”

Shouto sighs. “It’s alright, I know you didn’t.” With aching knees and numb fingers, he forces himself into an upright position, blinking away the black spots that appear in his vision. 

“You should probably take tomorrow off, though!” She continues, sounding resolute. Her hands come up as fists in front of her. “Training yourself to exhaustion will only lead to problems! You have to take care of yourself, too! Even Bakugou does!”

He blinks, staring at her with a brow raised. “...Sure,” he agrees, after a beat. He probably looks like shit right now, so it’d make sense she’d say that. He doesn’t like the idea of not training even for just a day, but to be fair, she has a point. He had just fainted a minute ago, which could have easily turned out much worse than it did. The thought that Shouto is worse at looking after himself than Bakugou is an upsetting one. He’s never seen a person so dedicated to a singular goal in his life, aside from maybe Endeavor.

He focuses as hard as he can on walking, which he normally doesn’t have to put much effort into, but he can’t very well stumble around with weak knees like he wants to with somebody right here and watching him. 

“Uh, Todoroki, you know…” Hagakure trails off, sounding a little nervous.

“Yes?” He asks. He’s closer to where Hagakure is now, only maybe half a meter from the gym doors. 

“Some of us were going to watch a movie tomorrow night, up in Ojiro’s room. Do you… maybe… want to join us?” She asks, blush clear on her nonexistent face.

Shouto considers the offer for a second. Normally, he’d say no without a second thought, but he’s already caught up on his homework, and he probably won’t be able to train that much tomorrow if he doesn’t want to risk being caught or passing out again. Plus, his father rarely allowed him pleasures in life like watching movies or playing the video games people like Midoriya are so into.

“Okay,” he agrees with a somewhat hesitant nod, and he’s met with an excited squeal as Hagakure claps. 

“Yay!” She cheers. “It’ll be so much fun! Now let’s get going, I want to sleep!” 

He feels guilty for not doing more than the bare minimum of work required the next day, but his sore muscles are grateful for it, and he must admit, sitting in the dark, huddled up with Hagakure, Ojiro, Sero, Kaminari, and Mina, it’s kind of fun to just let go and enjoy himself with some popcorn and listening to everyone tease and laugh with each other.

**

“Todoroki-kun, are you feeling alright?” Yaoyorozu asks him, one day over dinner. Her voice is hushed as to probably not alert the others, but it doesn’t matter much, since the Bakusquad is so loud anyways it’d take a foghorn to drown them out.

Shouto pauses in the middle of cutting up his vegetables into the tiniest pieces he can. He glances at her to find her staring worriedly at him and it makes his stomach lurch.

“I’m fine. Why?” He asks, a little afraid of her answer. This is not the first time somebody has asked if he’s alright this past couple of months, and it makes him a little nervous, not sure of what makes them think otherwise. First the confrontation with Iida, then Kirishima nearly discovered his self harm scars one day when he was spotting him, which definitely would not have been a fun time, and Hagakure had pulled him aside and asked him if he was feeling sick the day after she walked in on him struggling to stand up after fainting. Clearly, he was doing something wrong.

Yaoyorozu’s eyes sweep up and down his body, nibbling her lower lip. “You’re shaking,” she whispers.

Alarmed, Shouto stares down at himself. Is he? He doesn’t see it immediately, but after a few seconds, he notices small but steady trembles that wracks his entire body. Shit.

“I’m okay,” he says, his own voice muffled in his ears. He’s okay, isn’t he? Why wouldn’t he be?

Yaoyorozu sighs, playing with a strand of her hair. “I didn’t want to say anything, but you’re starting to worry me, Todoroki-kun. I know you’re not much of an open person, but you know you can talk to me if something is bothering you, right? Or Midoriya-kun, or anyone else, really.”

He swallows thickly. He must be doing a worse job than he thought, if this isn’t a spur of the moment question from Yaoyorozu. She’s smart and observant, something he clearly forgot to take into consideration as time passed by.

“I know,” he lies. Well, it isn’t a lie per say… He knows he can trust Momo and Izuku, and even his fellow classmates who he doesn’t talk to often, or his teachers, but this isn’t about trust. This is about survival, and right now, he has to keep what happens in their household under wraps. Especially considering the last session with his father nearly actually killed him, he can’t imagine what would happen if he attacked him with the intent of hurting him. For as long as the man has Fuyumi and his mother under his care, he can’t risk doing anything that could put them in harm’s way.

He feels startlingly guilty when Yaoyorozu makes a face like she knows that it was a lie. He loves Momo, she’s a good friend and he doesn’t want to hurt her, but… He has to. If it comes down to it, he must, because as much as he likes her, he cares about his innocent family members more.

“Okay,” she says, with a sigh. “Then you should eat some more, at least,” she says, her chopsticks grabbing a piece of tofu from her bowl and placing it in Shouto’s. “You’ve been looking thinner lately.”

Eating is the last thing Shouto wants to do, but declining to do so would set off alarm bells. His stomach churns with nausea as he chokes the food town. He knows it should be delicious, as Bakugou made it and he’s a surprisingly good cook, but it’s like trying to eat glue. Despite feeling like he’s going to projectile vomit over everyone, he somehow manages to eat most of it. He decides it’s worth the horrible feeling when Yaoyorozu smiles in his direction, looking pleased, eyes softening.

(If he pukes it all back up later that night in his bathroom, well, that’s nobody’s business but his own.)

More time comes and goes. Alarmingly, even with the razor, Shouto finds himself starting to drift off anyways, and so far the only solution has been to go deeper and cause more pain. It’s a slippery slope, he knows, but he can’t afford to be mentally checked out, as the provisional hero license exam is coming up. Hopefully once he gets through it and gets the license, he’ll be able to do something about all of the scars he now has littering his body of varying deepness, but for now, he just has to power through.

Two days before the exam, his father texts him. ‘Put your training to good use,’ is all it says, and by Endeavor’s standards, it’s kind. Even so, Shouto finds himself feeling the same way he did back at the forest, violently shaking and sobbing pathetically as he hides under his covers. Only this time, there’s nobody there to help snap him out of it, and it only stops after he depletes his body’s energy to cry. Shouto feels an exhaustion that runs deep into his bones and decides to skip the day’s training again. Surely one day missed wouldn’t matter, he rationalizes to himself, and drifts off to sleep at the tender hour of four pm.

(Realizing that his panic attacks weren’t just a one time thing is troubling. He can’t believe he has so little control over his emotions that he freaks out over a goddamn text. How pathetic.)

**

Maybe he shouldn’t have skipped that training session, he realizes belatedly, sitting next to Bakugou as Aizawa talks about what they have to do to make up for the fact that they, two of the top students in the school, embarrassingly failed.

To be fair, it’s not like it was his lack of training that was the issue. His fingers clench, mouth twitching as he remembers the kids from Shiketsu. Yoarashi, specifically. They got along alright at the end, but the lack of civility beforehand cost them their win. 

Well, at least he wasn’t the only one that failed. Bakugou is slumped in the seat next to him, lip jutting out in a way that’s strikingly familiar to a pout.

“--And that’s why you’ll have to be helping out with some troubled students at a nearby primary school,” Aizawa finishes, though that’s when Shouto decides to zone back in.

“Ah?!” Bakugou snarls, sitting up. “You’re telling me I have to babysit a bunch of brats to earn my license?!” 

Aizawa looks absolutely exhausted, eyes bloodshot. “Yes, Bakugou,” he sighs. “You wouldn’t have to if you didn’t let your emotions get the better of you in the test.” His eyes narrow. “And I mean that for both of you.”

Bakugou clicks his tongue, crossing his arms. “Whatever.” Shouto dips his head as a silent apology. He regrets that he let his emotions overtake him during the test, especially since it’s so important. He’ll have to be better about future cases like that.

Aizawa’s mouth twitches, his patience clearly being run thin. “I hope you’ll act more professional when around the other heroes,” he says, then stretches before picking up a stack of papers and a pen. 

“Alright, you two are free to go, now,” Aizawa says, flapping a hand as he doesn’t look up from the papers.

 “Remember, you two start remedial classes next weekend. No more mischief, got it?”

“Yes, sensei,” they both answer, before making their leave. Bakugou nearly trips Shouto on the way out, to which he glares, but all Bakugou does is smirk before sauntering away. What a dick.

Shouto knows he should be glad that they get a second chance, even if it is apparently going to involve a bunch of kids, but all he can think about is his father. He’s going to be unbelievably mad. Probably already is, since it’s not like the results were exactly kept a secret. Shouto, like a coward, has kept his phone on silent the past few days because he doesn’t think he has it in him to answer to whatever wrath he has.

He knows he’ll have to answer someday, but that day is not today.

**

According to Aizawa, the lessons will go on for a month, and it starts about as well as Shouto expects. Bakugou screams at him anytime he tries to stay in line with him, forcing him to walk behind him if he doesn’t want to gain a headache from all the bitching, but is luckily mostly silent otherwise. At the actual school, they run into Camie and Inasa, along with some other students and the pro heroes in charge.

Shouto quickly learns that the students at this school are little hellions, and their first day of trying to work with them ends with Shouto having a bruise blooming across his jaw and Bakugou with a bloody nose. The latter nearly kicks Shouto in the teeth when he offers him a tissue, which only mildly annoys him, so he thinks he’s getting better about being around the explosive blond.

“That was pretty fun!” Yoarashi laughs with his hands on his hips as they make their way out of the building. Shouto gives him an incredulous stare. “Fun?” He asks, wondering if Yoarashi actually has a few screws loose. 

“Yes! It’s a great way to go out of our comfort zone, but also be with friends!” That’s all the warning Shouto has before he’s being scooped up into a hug with the others.

“I’ll fucking kill you, let go of me!” Bakugou screeches, voice muffled by Yoarashi’s expansive chest. Shouto shifts, stuck between Bakugou’s side and Camie’s front, feet dangling in the air.

“Like, I think I might suffocate if you don’t let me go,” Camie comments, though she barely looks bothered. This must be a common occurrence at Shiketsu. Shouto silently thanks the lord that he didn’t end up there. Thankfully Yoarashi puts them down, the two-toned boy taking a deep breath as a very red faced Bakugou screams obscenities at Yoarashi.

Camie hums as she looks at her phone. “Say, it’s getting kinda late. You guys wanna get some, like, ramen, or something?” She asks.

“Fuck no!” Bakugou yells at the same time Shouto agrees. The two of them stare at each other for a second before the blond growls, rolling his eyes.

“Ugh, fine, whatever, but just this once, you hear?! And I’m picking the restaurant.” He puffs his chest out like it’s some sort of alpha move and he’ll have to fight to claim his rights, but Yoarashi just nods and Camie hums in agreement. Shouto doesn’t know why he agrees, exactly, since he clearly has issues around food, but he finds it kind of… Nice, to spend time with them. Even with Bakugou, too. With that, they head in the opposite direction of the bus that’ll take them back home, instead to a ramen place that Bakugou swears has the "best motherfucking food in the world".

It is not just that once, and soon enough, Bakugou and Shouto are heading home with the others’ phone numbers and a group chat in tow. For some reason, the chat is most active in the night, waking Shouto up with a notification at two or three in the morning. Camie likes to send memes, whatever those are, constantly, though Shouto rarely understands the references behind them. Yoarashi types in all caps and exclamation marks, mostly talking about how his day has been or that he saw a loud bird. Bakugou types with words so shortened he’s unable to understand half of the stuff he says. He stays out of it for the most part, though sometimes he’ll chime in or send them cat pictures, because everybody loves cat pictures. It’s through those that he discovers what memes are, even though Camie complains that they’re “boomer memes”, whatever that is.

Yes, even Bakugou does, he’s sure, even when he stomps into his bedroom at 5 in the morning and yells at him to “Stop fucking sending me outdated cat memes, you freak! What are you, seventy?!” . Unfortunately, Bakugou is quite loud, and the two of them are forced to sit in detention for a day because they “disturbed the peace”. Shouto doesn’t know why he has to be involved, but he doesn’t have the energy to argue with Aizawa about it, especially with how thin his patience has been running lately.

Besides, it gives him the chance to sneakily send more of those cat memes with a backup phone he always has on him in case his father happened to destroy his main one (something that did in fact happen before with Natsuo, before he had moved out), and nothing beats the growing rage in Bakugou’s face when he knows he can’t fight him about it. He legitimately looks like he’s going to have an aneurysm by the end of detention, which is very amusing. He only feels marginally bad about it.

The next day, Shouto waves Izuku off to go to his first day of internships. Izuku smiles widely at him, the human embodiment of the sun and all that is pure in this world, before hopping on the train with the others who also managed to snag internships. The group isn’t very large, just consisting of Midoriya, Kirishima, Uraraka, and Tsuyu, but it’s decently sized enough, considering everything. Strangely, Kirishima hesitates just as he’s about to step on the train. He whips around and rushes to Shouto and gives him a suffocating hug, grip tight and firm. Shouto doesn’t have time to even register it or hug back before Kirishima releases the hold, grinning at him, and running back to the train that’s just about to take off.

Surprisingly, Shouto doesn’t feel jealous that they get to do this or upset that he failed. When he watches the group wave excitedly to him as their train takes off, all he feels is a glowing sense of pride, and he walks back to UA with a stupidly dopey smile on his face.

The next few weeks are pretty similar, though he stops seeing Izuku and the others off, not willing to constantly wake up early enough for it. Bakugou and Shouto ignore each other aside from the late night texts, remedial courses more often than not end with the group going out and doing something, and Shouto’s self harm habit grows by the day. 

He’s not sure why the last part happens, honestly. Things are going fairly well, and yet, he finds himself turning to his razor more often than not. It provides a strange sense of comfort and relief, and with the lack of constant pain from his father’s training, he weirdly finds that he misses it. Perhaps he doesn’t miss it exactly, because he’s sure he doesn’t, but pain is familiar and Shouto clings to that as hard as he can. Even when it’s negative, familiarity is like a comforting blanket to shield him from the rest of the world when he’s overwhelmed. The only change Shouto notices distinctly is how Izuku seems to slowly be withdrawing, looking more serious than not, exchanging hushed words with Kirishima, Uraraka, and Tsuyu. 

“Mi--Izuku, are you feeling alright?” Shouto asks at one point, while Izuku is tasked with cleaning the living area after whatever happened between him and Bakugou that left them on cleaning duty for the month. They’ve both been very tight-lipped about it, so he figures it’s best to respect their privacy.

Izuku jumps a little, but smiles genuinely at Shouto. “Ah, yes, I am. Why do you ask?”

“You just…” He pauses, thinking of the right words. “Seem a little more serious than usual.”

Izuku smiles again, but the light doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “Well, I guess so… Some stuff is going on with the internships, but it’ll be okay in the end, I’m sure. How are you doing?” It’s a deflection. Shouto knows it when he sees it. It makes Shouto nervous to see his normally joyous friend look so distressed, but he also knows it’d be considerably hypocritical to press the issue about it. Even so, he’s still just as bad of a liar as he was at the sports festival, so if he says it’ll be fine, it most likely will be.

“I’m okay,” he answers, and Izuku nods as he jumps into a one-sided conversation about the latest tv show he watched. Silently, Shouto picks up a second broom, and starts helping out. Not like he has much else to do.

**

“Ah, good, you’re still here.” Shouto looks up in surprise, as does Bakugou next to him, to find Aizawa-sensei standing before them. They have just hopped off the bus to head back to the dorms. Shouto’s eager to take a warm bath, muscles surprisingly achy from running after children for hours. The only saving grace is that they seem to be warming up to him, and the other students, which is good, since they only have one more week left after this. Apparently they have to make the kids like them to pass, as it’s an important life lesson, or something. Whatever the reason, he refuses to fail this time around.

“Is something wrong?” Shouto asks, frowning. He knows Aizawa wouldn’t come to them if it wasn’t important.

Aizawa runs a hand through his hair. “Not exactly, but there were some last minute decisions made about your last lesson next week,” he says.

“Oh.” Shouto blinks, trying to imagine what it could be that’s so important, but comes up blank. Maybe they’ll go to the park or something? No, that would warrant a phone call or casual mention at most. They’re postponing it or changing the date, then?

“Endeavor will be attending,” Aizawa says, and it feels like the rug has been pulled out from under him. Shouto’s heartbeat rings in his ears.

“Hah?! Endeavor?! The hell does that mean?!” Bakugou shouts, aggressively bumping arms with Shouto as he steps forward. Likely an accident, but he can’t help but breathe out a sigh of relief as the contact quickly keeps him from spacing out or starting sobbing right then and there. That would be humiliating, to say the least. Shouto frowns as he looks at Bakugou, wondering why he sounds so angry about that.

“Language,” Aizawa snaps. “It’s exactly what it sounds like. He wants to see the progress first-hand, so he’ll be attending to judge your performance.” 

“That’s stupid,” Bakugou sniffs. Aizawa raises an eyebrow at the outburst, and on the inside, Shouto is mirroring the expression. He figured that of all the people, Bakugou would like Endeavor, but from his expression, you’d think he kicked a puppy in front of him or something.

“Stupid or not, that’s the plan,” Aizawa sighs tiredly. He turns his gaze to Shouto. “Unless there is a problem, Todoroki?” He sounds like he knows something, sounds like he’s just waiting for Shouto to confirm it, and he immediately breaks out into a sweat. 

“No, that’s fine,” he manages to grit out, but the world is starting to swim and his hands are clammy and he thinks he might be on the verge of one of those stupid panic attacks again. Everything is off-kilter and he’s simultaneously too hot and too cold.

“Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go,” he mutters, bowing quickly before speeding off towards the dorms. Well, he walks as normally as he can try while still within sight, but then breaks out into a sprint the second he turns the corner. 

Fuck, fuck, fuck . What do they know? Why did Bakugou sound like he hated Endeavor? Why did it look like Aizawa already knew something was up? Shouto tries so hard to keep this to himself and yet, somehow, it always comes back up again. No matter how hard he tries, he always fails. He’s so tired of it. 

He’s breathing heavily as he slams the first door he spots open. It creaks as it swings.

The inside looks like a bathroom, but one that hasn’t been used in at least a few years. It’s decrepit, there’s only a single stall with the door barely hanging on, and it’s very dark. The only light is from the evening sun peeking through the window.

He shakes heavily, hands reaching to grab his phone, clumsy fingers removing the case to find the emergency blade he has tucked away. He needs to keep himself from completely spiraling and this is the only way he knows how. He stumbles forward, sagging against the stall. No point in hiding in it since the door is broken anyways. He rips off his jacket as quickly as he can, sliding down the stall until he’s sitting, and bites his lip hard enough to draw blood as he cuts as deep as he dares to.

Endeavor will be there.

Endeavor will be there to watch Shouto.

Endeavor is going to kill him if he fails.

Endeavor will hurt his family agai--

“ICYHOT!” A voice shouts. Shouto’s breath catches in his throat.

You have to be fucking kidding. Bakugou is here? (Why the fuck is Bakugou here? Did he tip him off? How?)

“I know you’re in here,” Bakugou continues. Shouto finds himself unable to breathe, deathly still. Bakugou will only see him if he walks into view of the other side of the stall, and he sincerely hopes he won’t.

 “If you’re worried about Aizawa following you here, I told him you had an urgent thing to attend and he didn’t seem to care that much.”

That makes him feel a little bit better, but it’s overridden by a confused fear. Why would Bakugou back him up like that, and why would he think he’s nervous? He doesn’t reply, hoping he’ll take the silence as an answer and go.

“Yo, Half-n-Half,” Bakugou grumbles, voice much closer than it was a second ago. Shouto glances up and really, god must think this is some sort of sick joke, because Bakugou stands before him, arms crossed and looking unimpressed.

“Um,” Shouto says, at a genuine loss for words. He doesn’t know how he’s going to excuse this.

“I know having Endeavor come around is gonna suck, but you didn’t need to run off like that,” he scowls.

“Ah…” He hopes Bakugou will choose to leave because it doesn’t seem like he’s noticed the cuts yet. He doesn’t know how, as his hand is still hovering over an arm he sliced to hell and back, but he won’t question it if he can get away.

Of course, that’s when Bakugou chooses to let his gaze slide over to where the cuts are. While it’s dark in here, it’s not that dark, so he notices the way Bakugou’s eyes widen, breath hitching. 

“What the fuck, Todoroki?!” That’s the first time he’s used his actual name and not some mean-spirited nickname. It makes something warm spark up in his heart, but it’s immediately sniffed out by the growing dread.

“It’s nothing…?” He tries, trying to cover the cuts as best as he can.

“Those cuts. On your arm. That are bleeding profusely. With your other hand holding a razor. Is nothing,” Bakugou says, sentences choppy and short.

“Yes,” Shouto deadpans.

Bakugou drops to his knees in a split second, now at eye level. “Those are not fucking nothing,” he points out, glaring at him. “That’s a sign of something being really fucking wrong. You need help.”

Shouto jolts. “You can’t tell Aizawa-sensei about this,” he hisses. There’s no way Bakugou would, right? He himself said he sent him off, but he didn’t know about his self-harm habit then. His heart is heavy with ice-cold fear.

“I catch you bleeding out in an abandoned bathroom after just hearing that you’ll have to see your dad, and you expect me to say nothing?! ” Bakugou seethes, sounding genuinely angry. “Are you crazy!?”

“I’m not bleeding out,” Shouto mumbles.

Bakugou snarls, a primal and guttural sound, as he grabs his wrist and lifts his arm up with a surprising gentleness. “That doesn’t look like bleeding out to you?” He demands.

Shouto stares at the cuts. It’s hard to tell how deep they actually are with all the blood, but with that said, there is quite a lot of it. The cuts themselves are wide in the middle, skin flayed apart, and in one of the cuts, he thinks he can see the bubbling yellow of fat. His stomach rolls with nausea at the sight.

He.. he didn't realize he had gone this deep. That terrifies him. What would have happened, if Bakugou didn’t follow him here? Would Shouto have realized he needed to get help? Would he have bled out to death in a goddamned abandoned bathroom? After everything that he’s been through, he might have died in a shitty bathroom , of all places?

“I didn't realize,” he says, voice weak and almost childlike. He sniffs and, oh god, he better not be crying.

“Wh-woah, hey, Icyhot, you don’t need to cry, goddamn.” That’s all the confirmation he needs that he is indeed crying, which just makes his face scrunch up as he lets out a hiccup. He curls in on himself, starting to cry harder with every passing second. His arm stings and his eyes burn as he sheds tears.

“Shit,” he hears Bakugou say, along with a shuffle of footsteps. A few seconds later, he hears what sounds suspiciously like typing on a phone, but he’s too overwhelmed and busy crying to care too much.

Maybe a minute or so later, Bakugou speaks again. “Oi, Icyhot, it’s not like you need to be scared anymore, you know?” 

That actually stops his crying for a second, replaced with confusion. “What?” He sniffles, unsure of what he’s talking about. 

Bakugou sighs. “Back during the sports festival, I overheard your conversation with Deku.”

His conversation with Izuku--

Oh god, Bakugou knows about his family? About his mother, his scar, his quirk? He’s known all this time?

“F-Fuck,” he hiccups. 

“Relax, I’m not so shitty of a person I’m gonna do anything harmful with that information,” Bakugou snorts. “Full offense, but your dad is a grade A shitbag.” That earns a startled laugh from Shouto, less hysterically sobbing now and more just crying. He sniffs again as he wipes his eyes, seeing that Bakugou has sat down, leaning against the wall next to him. 

“Yeah,” he agrees, breaths uneven and short.

Bakugou plays with his fingers and, despite being hysterical just minutes before, Shouto realizes that he looks nervous, a look he never would’ve equated with him before.

 “Look, what I’m trying to say is… Your dad sucks. And you didn’t deserve the life you got. But you’re not some helpless kid anymore. You…” He sucks in a breath, scrubbing at his face. “You have yourself, and friends, and teachers, hell, an entire school that’s willing to help you. You don’t have to be afraid of your old man anymore.”

Shouto’s jaw nearly drops to the floor. He wonders for a split second if he actually bled out and died and this is the afterlife or something, because there’s absolutely no way somebody like Bakugou Katsuki would ever say something so reassuring and kind.

“Stop looking at me like that!” Bakugou barks, glaring at him. His cheeks are tinted pink and, oh my god, Shouto realizes, Bakugou actually did say that. He can’t help the wobbly smile that makes its way to his face. There’s still a lump in his throat, but for the most part, his tears seem to have been shed.

“I… Thank you. That means a lot to me. I didn’t realize we were friends.”

“When the fuck did I say that we were-- ugh, whatever, fucking. I guess we are friends. Or whatever.” In his natural Bakugou fashion, he pouts, crossing his arms as he glares in another direction. 

“I’m glad,” Shouto mumbles, suddenly feeling very tired. He’d like to sleep right here and now, but that seems like a bad idea for a multitude of reasons.

As though he has a sixth sense for noticing this, Bakugou stands up, turning towards Shouto. “Come on, let’s get outta here.” Embarrassingly, Shouto needs Bakugou’s help to stand up and steady himself, but luckily he’s able to walk out of the bathroom on his own. He quickly puts his school jacket back on, wincing only slightly as his sleeve rubs against his cuts. He squints as his eyes try to adjust to the orange hues of the sunset, Bakugou stretching as he exits behind him.

“Hold on,” Bakugou says, grabbing his sleeve. Shouto turns to him. 

“What?”

“Give me your razor.” Shouto has half the mind to argue with him about it, but quickly comes to the conclusion that doing so would be stupid. Besides, it’s probably for the best that he gives it up. Sighing, he goes back into the bathroom to grab a few squares of toilet paper that’s been left to fester for god knows how long, depositing the now safely wrapped razor into Bakugou’s open palm.

“There. Happy?” He asks, half-teasing.

Bakugou rolls his eyes at him, unimpressed, as he pockets the tissue. “It’s a start.”

“Now what?” He asks. He doubts the blond will let him go free just like that, especially since he’s just been forced to hand over his razor. Bakugou’s eyes catch something behind his shoulder, and he just smirks mysteriously, taking a few steps back. Shouto instantly feels nervous. Whatever he’s smiling about, it can’t be good, so he whips around to see what it is.

“SHOUTO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” A voice screeches in the distance and a split second later, he sees a flash of green and is being barrelled over.

Bakugou snorts mockingly in the background as Shouto has the breath knocked out of him for a second. The heavy weight on his chest lifts up, revealing green hair and bright eyes and, oh, it’s Izuku.

“Izuku?” He asks, wheezing. “What are you doing here?”

Izuku, still sitting on him with his thighs pinning Shouto to the ground, points his thumb back to Bakugou. “Kacchan texted me.”

“What?” He can’t believe his ears. Bakugou willingly talked to Izuku and sent him here? Even now, standing behind Midoriya’s shoulder, he looks quite calm, all things considered, with his arms crossed and an eyebrow raised at them. What the fuck.

Izuku’s eyes narrow. “He told me what happened.” His lower lip starts wobbling. Oh, god, Shouto isn’t sure if he can handle a crying Izuku right now.

“You don’t have to cry,” he says, trying to be comforting. If even Bakugou could be nice, surely he could, too? “It’s not that bad.”

That has the opposite effect of what he was going for as Midroiya actually scowls, eyes teary. “Not that bad?! Shouto, I love you, but-” His breath hitches, “--You’re so fucking stupid.” Shouto isn’t sure if he’s more shocked by the fact that Izuku is angry, or that he swore. 

“Uh..?”

The tears start spilling at this point as he looms over Shouto, fat droplets splashing on the collar of his shirt.

“You told me you were feeling okay,” he says. Shouto opens his mouth to reply, but Izuku interrupts him, “And don’t you dare say you were fine then! I know you weren’t! We’re not blind, you know,” he sobs.

“What?” Shouto asks, hopelessly confused. Who the hell is “we”? Him and Bakugou, possibly, but this seems like more of a spur of the moment companionship thing.

“Everyone noticed how you always seemed to space out, or not really be there in an emotional sense, and how you always had bandages on even when we weren’t training, and how you ate so little and-- and we hoped you would come to us when things got really bad, but you didn’t,” he chokes. “We all love you so much, Shouto, so why won’t you let us help you?!” He yells, voice cracking, in genuine despair. He has the brief thought that it’s incredibly lucky there’s nobody else around.

“I…” Shouto trails off, mind completely blank. He hadn’t noticed any of that at all. He saw the sparing glances from Aizawa-sensei, Midoriya, or Yaoyorozu, but not from any of the others, or he didn’t think so…

Mina, inviting Shouto to the movie night at the dorms, smiling a little sadly when he declines.

Kaminari, throwing an arm over Shouto’s shoulder as he rambles excitedly about something, only to have a genuine look of heartbreak on his face when Shouto flinches minisculely.

Tokoyami, silently sitting next to Shouto as he eats lunch, not commenting on his small portions, but giving extra bits of his own bento when Shouto isn’t looking.

Kirishima, a guy who’s always happy and smiling, actually glaring daggers into Mineta’s head when the short boy bemoans about how annoying and boring Shouto is and how his dad is so much cooler, leaning over and whispering something into his ear that makes Mineta scream the second he spots Kirishima for a week straight.

Oh, Shouto thinks with a startling realization. They knew. They always knew, even if they weren’t exactly sure what was going on. His class, even the students that he didn’t often interact with, cared about him. Still care about him.

They… they love him. He’s not too sure what love is, but even so, if he’s to ever experience it, he thinks love must be that: pure, unconditional, always willing to be a pillar of strength and support, and only ask for the same in return. 

“Oh,” he breathes, almost too silently to be heard. The puzzle pieces are slotting in together, like that was the one glaring oversight he hadn’t seen before. They noticed, and all of those little moments were because they cared, not because they were trying to threaten him or make him nervous. 

Midoriya in the bathroom, Uraraka and lunchtime, All Might and ice cream, Kirishima on the train, Iida with the burns, Hagakure and the training, Momo with dinner, even Aizawa that one time…

Shouto, foolishly, had pushed them away, even when he didn’t realize it. Those little speeches they all gave, reading between the lines, giving him sad smiles, they weren’t lying or pitying him. It’s because they actually, genuinely, wanted to help him.

“I didn’t realize…” He trails off, more out of his element than he ever has been before. Above him, Izuku’s still crying, but his frown turns into a somewhat relieved smile when he sees that he’s no longer screaming at a brick wall.

“You know now,” he says, voice soft. “Shouto-kun. Will you let us help you, now?”

(Shouto, crying as his father beats him black and blue, even when Touya or Mommy try to intervene-)

(A boiling kettle, chubby arms reaching for his mother’s skirt, her shriek of horror-)

(Uraraka gently grasping Shouto’s hand in her own, smiling brightly at him, “You know, Todoroki-kun, I think you’re pretty cool!”-)

(Iida’s look of concern as Shouto skips lunch and heads to the bathroom, pointedly dodging out of the way when he reaches out-)

“Yes,” he agrees, and even though that’s the hardest thing he’s ever had to say in his life, the way Izuku’s face lights up makes it worth it. He jumps off of Shouto, extending a hand out to help him up. Shouto doesn’t think twice before grabbing on and being pulled up.

“So.. Why did you text Izuku? ” Shouto asks, turning to Bakugou. He’s not sure if it’s from the blood loss or from moving so quickly, but he’s quite dizzy at the moment. Izuku rests a hand on his shoulder, squeezing it in a reaffirming manner. 

Bakugou works his lower jaw for a second like he’s not sure if he wants to answer. “I figured you’d feel better going to Aizawa about this with someone like Deku than me,” he shrugs.

“Ah…” Shouto trails off. Aizawa-sensei… The thought of him finding out what Shouto’s been trying so hard to hide for years sounds like literally the worst thing in the world, but Izuku’s hand is on his shoulder and he’s smiling at him and Shouto trusts him. He knows about his family, knows about his life, as does Bakugou. If the two of them trust that whatever happens won’t make things worse for his family, he has to take a leap of faith and believe in them.

“It’ll be okay, Shouto-kun,” Izuku says, giving a reassuring smile, even though his cheeks are still stained with salty tears.

Shouto nods, willing himself to believe that it’s the truth. “Are you coming?” He asks Bakugou.

“Hah? Why would I?” Bakugou snarls, though he looks more startled that Shouto asked rather than angry.

“I think you have to come with us,” Izuku interjects, voice small. “I’ll probably cry too much for Aizawa-sensei to understand me.”

“Ugh, how fucking typical. You’re such a crybaby,” Bakugou complains with an eye roll, but follows them anyway as they make their way to Aizawa-sensei’s office. Izuku squeezes his shoulder again as Bakugou, in a typical Bakugou fashion, nearly blows the door off of its hinges instead of opening it like a normal and polite human being.

What commences with Aizawa is.. interesting, to say the least. It involves a lot of Izuku crying, Bakugou yelling, and Shouto wishing he could melt into the floor and disappear. For better or for worse, they don’t get into the specifics of any of his issues, but they let Aizawa know about what Shouto had told Izuku, what they saw with the food, and then the self harm. Upon seeing the razor Bakugou hands him and Shouto rolling up his sleeve to reveal his still very bloody arm, Aizawa immediately sends them to Recovery Girl, who just looks incredibly sad as she kisses the pain away. Unfortunately he still has to get stitches, and he decides that stitches suck as much as he remembered them, arm aching with dull pain by the end of it.

“I hope this will be the first and last time I have to do something like this,” she says, short arm patting his hand briefly. Shouto nods. 

“It will be, hopefully.” She smiles kindly at him before sending the group, once again, back to Aizawa.

Aizawa-sensei opens the door to his office before they make it there, and he looks unusually frazzled, eyes dry and hair messy. Shouto tries to push away the guilt, because he knows that they care, knows that, for the most part, this stuff isn’t his fault.

“Todoroki,” he says, moving to the side and motioning him in. Shouto walks in, but becomes apprehensive when Aizawa holds an arm out, blocking Izuku and Bakugou.

“You two should go and rest up now,” Aizawa drones.

“What?” Izuku asks. “But--”

“No buts,” Aizawa says. His expression softens a little. “Look, I know you two are trying to help, and it’s honestly a very heroic and brave thing to see. But this stuff needs to come from Todoroki himself, if I’m to do anything about it. You all have had a very emotional day. So head back to the dorms, let Todoroki and I talk, and then I’ll send him back to you, alright?”

Bakugou clicks his tongue before shrugging. “Fine.” He spins around. “C’mon, Deku.” 

“Ah, sorry, Shouto-kun…” Izuku trails off as they lock eyes, looking nervous. Though Shouto feels equally as scared, he makes himself smile the tiniest bit, waving him off. “I’ll be okay. You’ve done more than enough, Izuku.” That’s completely true, anyways. He doesn’t want to make Izuku have to bend over backwards and destroy himself to look after him. He deserves to be happy, too.

Izuku blushes before smiling, waving a goodbye before he runs to catch up with Bakugou, yelling, “Kacchan, wait for me!”.

When their voices and silhouettes disappear, Aizawa sighs heavily before shutting the door, going to sit at his desk. “Take a seat, Todoroki.”

Shouto does as told, leg automatically bouncing up and down. Now that he’s here without his emotional buffers, he feels considerably more nervous about all of this.

Aizawa glances at him, hands clasped together. “Christ, kid, I’m not going to torture you or anything. I’m just going to ask some questions so we can get to the bottom of this, alright? You and I have needed to have this conversation for a while, I think.”

A little embarrassed that he's so see-through, Shouto nods, but the words put him a little more at ease and his leg stops moving.

“Now,” he says, chewing on his cheek as he looks down at what looks to be a file on his desk. “There seems to be quite a bit to cover… Shall we start with your father, first?” He asks. He definitely notices the way Shouto tenses up, but doesn’t comment on it.

“Okay,” Shouto meekly agrees.

“What Midoriya and Bakugou said about your past, can you confirm that to be true?”

“Yes.” Shouto can’t quite meet Aizawa's eyes, body feeling much too warm, and he knows it isn’t just from his quirk.

“And you said that your father... trained you?”

“Yes.”

“From what age?”

“Four,” he answers, because he knows the training started the instant his quirk manifested. It hadn’t been too bad until his mother left, though.

“Four,” he thinks he hears Aizawa mutter under his breath, sounding exasperated. “And what went on during these training sessions?”

His fingers clench into his thigh. “Ah.. Well, it was a little different every time, but it was mostly just quirk training and hand to hand combat.”

“What did that entail, exactly?” When Shouto doesn’t answer for a moment, trying to think of an answer, Aizawa sighs.

“Alright, let me ask you this. What state were you in when these sessions ended, physically?”

Shouto really doesn’t want to answer, but he inhales deeply. He thinks of his friends. He thinks of his family. He can do this. 

“I’d usually be burnt and have a few bruises,” he answers. “But it really depends. Sometimes I wouldn’t leave with much, other times I’d have to sleep on the dojo floor because I couldn’t physically move anymore.” He swallows thickly. “Sometimes I’d have to go to the family doctor to be healed when my f-father went too far, like needing to reset a broken bone or cauterize a wound or treat a third degree burn. Oh, and one time I had to get my stomach pumped because I ingested poison…”

“Your father poisoned you?” Aizawa asks, voice tight, and it surprises Shouto so much that he looks at him to find him glaring a hole into the desk, expression murderous. 

“Well, he said it was because a villain could attack at any moment, and so that way I’d learn to always be on my guard…” He trails off, unsure of why he even went to his father’s defense.

“Unbelievable,” Aizawa seethes, pen moving frantically across a piece of paper. He must be documenting all of this. 

“You have siblings, correct? And your mother? Did he do the same to them?”

“Not in the way of training, no,” Shouto says. “He used to beat my mother, and he’d get into fights with Natsuou, but I never saw him physically hurt Natsuo or Fuyumi.” He considers bringing up Touya, but the memory is still too painful, and it takes his breath away just thinking about it. He might bring it up at some point, but not right now.

“Okay,” Aizawa sighs. “Let’s take a break from that. Bakugou caught you harming yourself. How long has this been going on?”

Shouto thinks back. “I first started when I was around…ten, I think,” he starts.

“ Ten?” Aizawa mouths to himself, looking horrified. It’s very strange to see such an obvious expression on his normally stoic teacher’s face, but perhaps this means that his life is considerably more fucked up than he previously thought. He tries not to feel guilty about it.

“My father caught on after a couple of years, so I had to stop. Then I started again at some point during UA.”

“”Why?” Aizawa asks. 

“I started to feel.. I don’t know how to describe this. Floaty and distant from the world, a lot more often, and it made it hard to do anything. I found that I could bring myself back to the present with pain, so I turned to harming myself again to deal with it.”

“I see,” Aizawa says. “The meals?”

Shouto keeps his eyes trained on the desk. “I started starving myself as a way to get back at my father, but that was too hard to hide, so I started eating but throwing it up. It was originally just a way to spite him, but then I realized that even in UA, I couldn’t stop. If anything, it got a little bit worse. I don’t want to be like this,” he says, realization coming to light. “I wish I had a normal relationship with food, but I always feel gross and sick when I eat and keep it down.”

There’s just the scratching of the pen for a few minutes as Aizawa quickly writes down whatever it is, and then he stops, putting the pen down. “I have one more question for now. Have you ever thought about harming yourself or others?”

Shouto tilts his head slightly. “We already covered the self-harm,” he says, confused.

Aizawa’s gaze meets his. “I mean in a more permanent sense.”

Ah. Shouto never attempted anything since that day a few years ago, but he supposes the thoughts have always kind of lingered, even if he can’t imagine acting upon it currently.

“I…” He licks his lips, mouth dry. “I tried to kill myself, once, when I was twelve.” Aizawa’s brows shoot up at this, clearly not expecting the answer. “I failed, obviously. I guess some of the thoughts that led me there are still around, sometimes, but I’m pretty confident that I wouldn’t do that again. It... it scared me," he admits. He doesn't want to have to do that again.

Does that make him weak or strong? He doesn't know.

"And I wouldn't hurt another person,” he adds on, quite confident of this. As long as he has any control of himself, he refuses to hurt someone innocent.

Aizawa nods slowly. “Okay, then. If that’s the case, then I won’t consider you at risk of suicide in my evaluation notes. You're being honest, correct?”

“Yes,” Shouto says, because even he knows better than to try to lie to Aizawa about something like this. 

Aizawa scribbles something down before closing the file, sighing. “I think we’ll stop there for today. I’m sure this isn’t easy for you, but thank you for being honest with me.”

Shouto nods slowly, disbelieving. He just told Aizawa-sensei all of that, oh god. He doesn’t know if he’s disgusted or relieved, stomach churning with anxiety.

“What about my father?” He makes himself ask. Aizawa pauses. “What about him?”

“The remedial courses…” Shouto trails off. He doesn’t think he’d be able to pass if he has to see him there.

Aizawa’s eyes darken. “Rest assured, Endeavor will be going nowhere near you now that I am aware of this. You don’t have to worry about that.” Shouto didn’t realize how much the worry had been weighing on him and he sags in relief. Aizawa stands up, going towards the door, and Shouto takes that as a signal to get up too, and he’s just reaching a hand out for the doorknob before he’s being pulled into--

into--

a hug? 

“Sensei?” He asks, voice muffled by his chest.

“Let me have this,” Aizawa’s voice rumbles, and then to Shouto’s shock, one of the hands pats his head. The weight is steady and firm and feels so much nicer than it has any right to be. He practically melts into the contact, turning boneless.

“You’re a good kid, Shouto,” Aizawa says. “I’m sorry I didn’t intervene before, but I’m proud of you for coming to me.” Shouto wants to say that being told he’s a good kid didn’t make him emotional, but then he’d be a liar, and that’s something he’s tired of being. He’s drained of all tears, but he still hiccups, hands reaching up and clutching to Aizawa like he’s a lifeline.

“I promise I’ll keep you and your family- minus Endeavor, obviously, safe, okay? I won’t betray the trust you gave me. I will do everything in my power to protect you from any more pain like that again,” he promises, and Shouto believes him.

The hug ends too soon in his opinion, but he's not selfish enough to ask for another one right after. “Thank you,” he murmurs.

Aizawa pats his head again, fingers ruffling his hair, before opening the door, ushering him out. “Go on, then. I’m sure your friends are eager to see you.” Shouto nods, not missing the way Aizawa smiles softly at him, taking his leave.

As Shouto makes his way down the hall, stitches fresh in his arm, a metaphorical weight lifted off of his shoulders, he thinks that maybe, despite all of this, despite his past (or maybe even because of it)...

He deserves to be loved.

Epilogue

Spilling everything that he remembers to Aizawa, all the cases of abuse, including the stuff about Touya, which takes much longer than either anticipated, is quite the ordeal. Every day, Shouto walks in with too many upsetting memories to handle, and every day, he leaves with a hug and a friend waiting outside to help him decompress, whether that’s through a sparring session with Bakugou, going out with Uraraka, Kirishima, and a few others for bubble tea, or studying with Yaoyorozu and Midoriya. Aizawa immediately makes him go to mandatory therapy twice a week.

Therapy isn’t as bad as he first feared, especially when Bakugou bumps shoulders with him when he’s on his way to his first session and mutters, “I had to go to one too, after the Kamino thing, and it wasn’t the shittiest thing ever.” From Bakugou, that’s praise so high and mighty he might as well be professing his dearest love for it, and it makes Shouto feel much more at ease.

His therapist is nice. She’s younger than he expected, but she’s smart and kind and professional. 

"You're not hopeless," he tells him in their second session, point-blank.

"How can you be so sure?" Shouto challenges, defensive. Their first session had mostly been to establish a connection, but now, they're starting to get into the things that brought him here in the first place.

His therapist just tilts her head, kind eyes staring deep into his soul, unravelling every carefully placed wall with just a glance. "You had a very traumatic childhood. People, much less children, are not expected to have to endure any of what you did. Your brain tried to cope and survive the best it could in spite of that."

"Then why would it make me self harm?" He grumbles, mostly to himself. It still feels weird to talk about something so deeply personal to another person, never mind a stranger.

"It adapted to your environment. The eating disorder, the self-harm, the dissociation... it was all to protect you, while you lived in your household. You needed something to keep you feeling like you were in control. It's my job to teach your brain that those coping mechanisms are no longer needed."

And that... That is a revelation to Shouto. He spends the rest of the session completely and utterly dumbfounded.

She reminds him that recovery isn’t linear and he won’t magically be fine after just a month or even a year of therapy. It’ll be a lifetime commitment, but it will get easier with time and effort. When he looks into her eyes, he believes her.

He reaches out to his classmates more often, now certain that they’ll meet him halfway there, absolutely willing to help out. Whether it’s to ask Iida for help on a question, give Kaminari tips about his quirk training, or ask Satou how he makes those delicious pastries, he’s no longer petrified of being the one to reach out for once. 

Aizawa tells him that it’ll be hard to prosecute Endeavor as he’s the number one hero, but Shouto doesn’t care that much, anymore. His biggest concern, the rest of his family, has been taken care of. After refusing to let Shouto return home, Aizawa threatening to open a very public child abuse case, Endeavor finally relented and gave up custody of him. For the record, Aizawa did open a child abuse case, it’s just not public, but it’s not like his father would know that. Fuyumi gladly took him under her wing and moved them into a small house near the school that she works at. She’s much poorer than Endeavor, but he’s perfectly happy living in a little home with his sister. Natsuo calls him and cries about how proud he is and even visits their new home, bringing a few gifts and many hugs. Their mother is also put under Fuyumi’s care and she seems much more lively than usual when they visit.

Despite all of this, Aizawa doesn’t give him special treatment, which Shouto is grateful for. That doesn’t mean he’s a hardass, it just means he still pushes Shouto, along with the rest of the class, to their limits, not allowing them to slack off or take the easy route.

(Though, if Aizawa is considerably more physical with Shouto than before, patting his shoulder or ruffling his hair or pulling him in for a quick hug, he’s not going to say anything about that.)

The days pass by quickly, though it’s less of a dissociated blur and more so because he’s so busy all the time, which he doesn’t mind. Before he knows it, he’s checking off a little calendar Izuku had gotten for him to deal with relapses and being clean and realizes that he’s now officially three months clean from self harm. Sadly he’s not nearly as good with his eating problems, but still, that’s quite the start. He lets himself feel proud of his accomplishments, marvelling at how the scars are starting to fade before his very own eyes, and heads over to his closet to change.

He goes downstairs to breakfast, where Izuku bounces up to him. “Shouto-kun, what took you so long?! Breakfast is nearly out,” he huffs, cheeks puffing out.

Shouto smiles at him. “Sorry, I was just doing my routine and realized I’m now three months clean from cutting.” Izuku’s eyes widen astronomically.

“WHAT?! OH MY GOD SHOUTO-KUN, I’M SO HAPPY FOR YOU!” He squeals loudly, jumping onto Shouto and giving him the biggest hug of his life. He returns the hug with ease, chest warm and fluttery. He’s become more used to physical contact now, and finds himself craving it, even from people he doesn’t know very well, which is most definitely a first.

“Hey man, that's great! Keep up the good work,” Kirishima says with a thumbs up, rice sticking to his cheek. Shouto hadn’t realized he was close enough to overhear, but it doesn’t matter. Since they had all kind of been aware of what was going on anyways, it was useless to hide the truth. Shouto hadn’t gone up and made a full nationwide announcement about his problems or anything, but as he grew closer to them and started hanging out with them in their little groups, he just kind of let it slip, and at this point he’s quite certain every single one of them are aware of his dirty laundry.

(“I used to burn myself,” Jirou had confided after Shouto mentioned his self harming habit offhandedly. “Luckily, my parents were really supportive when they found out, but it still sucked. So just… if you need someone to talk to, I’m here for you,” she said, cheeks pink as she turned away. 

“Oh,” Shouto said. “Thank you. I appreciate it. I’m glad you got help.” She smiled at him then, genuine and grateful.

Kaminari’s father was a deadbeat and his mother kicked him out when he was ten, Kouda turned mute after a car accident as a child, Satou used to constantly work out because his mother said being obese was disgusting despite knowing how his quirk functioned, so on and so forth. Even when he didn’t realize it, Shouto’s been collecting stories and secrets from his classmates, just like they have from him. He’s not as alone as he thought. The thought is both terrifying and relieving.) 

“Don’t talk with your mouth full,” Bakugou chides next to him at the kitchen table. “But, yeah, not bad, Icyhot.”

Kiriishima grins, poking Bakugou in the cheek. “Aww, who knew you were such a softie?”

“Do you want to die!?” Bakugou screeches, explosions going off, to which Iida of course hones in on.

“BAKUGOU! No more fighting at mealtimes, we already established this!” He yells, which just annoys Bakugou even more as he jumps up, any semblance of being calm like he was just seconds before gone.

It’s only now that Izuku releases from the hug, still so short and having to look up to meet his eyes. It’s kind of surprising how such a small and unassuming person can be the one that has the biggest impact on him, but then again, appearances say nothing about the true personality hiding underneath someone. He squeezes Shouto’s hand once before dragging him along, dodging Bakugou and Iida, to get breakfast.

Shouto thinks-- no, at this point, he knows, along with the rest of his classmates, that they are all deserving of love. That they’re worthy of reaching out to, that being a hero isn’t about how strong you can stand on your own, but how much you’re willing to pull others up when they fall down and let the same be done for you. To be helped, to be loved, is not a weakness, but rather, one of the most beautiful things you can experience as a human.

He couldn’t ask for a better future.

fin