Archive of Our Own ^beta

It starts as a joke, halfway through middle school.

Shouto’s spent the day training. Touya’s spent the day trying to force his way into said training. It’s a usual routine, ending, as always, with the two in the bathroom, treating each other’s injuries.

“If this was a competition to disappoint Dad more, I think I’d be winning,” Touya says, immediately before Shouto sticks his hand under the sink again, the cool water sending pain shooting through the fresh burns again.

Shouto hums, holding Touya’s hand still under the water. “I don’t know,” Shouto says, counting the seconds in his head – twenty should be good for this one. “I think I could beat you.”

Touya scoffs, flexing his fingers a few times as the pain secedes to slight relief. “Sure, golden boy. Sure you could.”

“I don’t think I want to use my left side anymore.”

Touya waits for the punchline. Nothing comes. “Really?”

Shouto finally drops his hand, letting him pull it back onto the towel waiting on the edge of the sink. “It’s… more his than mine.”

“I don’t get what’s so bad about it being his. ”

Shouto doesn’t say anything, reaching for the burn cream. 

“What does that make my Quirk?”

“Yours is– it’s different,” Shouto says. “It’s not the same.”

“Yeah, it’s different. If anything, it’s Mom’s that screwed me over–”

Shouto slaps his arm – nothing on the fresh burns, and nothing too rough, but enough to get his point across. “Don’t talk about her like that.”

Touya rolls his eyes, but keeps his mouth shut as Shouto rubs some of the burn cream onto his hand. 

“ He’s the one who ruined everything,” Shouto says, eyebrows furrowed. “I don’t want to use anything he gave me.”

Touya narrows his eyes, watching as Shouto puts the burn cream away, taking the bandaging and lifting Touya’s arm. He always pulls it too tight, and this is no different. 

“You’re an idiot,” Touya says. He never understood how lucky he was.

“It’d disappoint him, though,” Shouto says. “So I could still beat you.”

Touya scoffs, grinning. “Alright. Sure. You’re on, then.”

—

“So, entrance exams are soon!” Fuyumi says, voice too bright for a car ride at seven o’clock in the morning. “That’s exciting, right?”

Touya grumbles. Shouto stays silent. At least this is one thing they can both agree they hate.

“Where are you two planning on applying?” she continues, missing the hint entirely. 

“UA,” both say in unison – Shouto’s reluctant, Touya’s determined. They meet eyes, both narrowing them at each other.

“Oh, really?” Fuyumi says, eyes more focused on Touya than Shouto, of course. Both of them knew what Shouto was going to say. Dad would kill him if he went anywhere else.

“And Shiketsu,” Shouto adds, despite that. 

“What?” Touya says, looking for any hint of humor on his face, the tiny clues no one else can read. There aren’t any.

“It’d disappoint Dad,” he says, shrugging. 

Touya had almost forgotten about the competition, honestly. It wasn’t a challenge for him. He’s pretty sure he’s been disappointing Dad since the moment he was born without perfectly-split hair like Shouto. He doesn’t have to plan out ways to disappoint him separately.

“Oh,” Fuyumi says, her smile clearly uncertain. She turns back to Touya with that same smile. “Are you applying anywhere else, Touya?”

“Some other private schools, I don’t know.” He’s not an idiot, he doesn’t have the training Shouto does. Worst case, applying to UA will embarrass Dad. Best case, he gets in, and Dad not only is embarrassed, but also disappointed that his failure son is trying to sabotage the golden boy.

Fuyumi nods. “Your counselor probably has lists of schools you can apply to. You should talk to them.”

“Yeah. Sure.”

Shiketsu sits at the back of his mind. Dad wouldn’t be disappointed in him for going there – probably more relieved that he went to a school that doesn’t have an annually-broadcasted Sports Festival so he can’t embarrass the family further – but maybe…

He shakes his head. Screw Shiketsu. UA or bust. He’s not sure he even wants to bother with the non-Hero schools. 

He’ll apply anyways. Maybe he’ll get denied from all of them and really disappoint Dad.

—

Touya knows he got rejected the second the mail is brought in. 

There’s two letters with the UA insignia on it. The envelopes are the same size, but one is thicker. 

Touya isn’t surprised to see that it’s Shouto’s. 

They’re both at the table, both taking their respective letter in hand. Touya opens his first, and barely reads past the first paragraph before tossing it back onto the table. 

He’s already leaving the room when Shouto’s hologram acceptance starts up. 

He hates him. He hates him. He hates him and his stupid hair and his stupid Quirk and the way Dad looks at him like he’s the world’s next fucking Symbol of Peace. 

He tugs his hands through his hair, catching on knots, pulling out a notable few strands. His feet lead him out the door, down the same path as always. He doesn’t even care about the fact that he’s not wearing his usual training clothes. 

It’s not like he can train to be anything anymore, anyways. He’s won the stupid competition. Shouto can’t disappoint Dad any more than Touya has, now that he’s officially into UA and Touya’s officially never going to be a hero. 

His flames burn through his shirt quick, flickering over his torso and arms as he makes it to Sekoto Peak. He doesn’t bother trying to cool it down, just tossing bursts into each dummy facing him until they’re all burning. 

It doesn’t matter anymore. It’s all over, and Shouto’s going to keep acting like his life is so miserable while Touya keeps burning his skin with every weak flame he tosses out. 

A tear falls down Touya’s cheek, followed quickly by another, and another. He sucks in a breath, flames rising. It doesn’t matter anymore. It doesn’t matter–

Cold covers his body in an instant, his flames put out by a shock of ice. 

“Touya,” Shouto says from behind him. Because of course. Of course he came.

“Go the hell away,” Touya says. He can’t even wipe away his tears. Shouto always uses too much ice for this.

“It’s just a stupid school.”

Touya laughs bitterly. “Easy for you to say! You have a hologram telling you you’re good enough for it!”

“It’s only because–”

“Of him , I get it, I know, shut up !”

There’s silence for a long moment, and Touya waits to hear Shouto walking away so he can burn through the block of ice and finish calming himself down. Instead, Shouto walks towards him, into his field of vision. 

Touya has never wanted to wipe that stupid, almost-unreadable expression off of his face than right now.

“Why do you want to be a hero?” he asks, and his voice is so ridiculously genuine. “After everything Father’s done–”

“You mean everything he’s given you?! Do you know what I would give for him to just look at me as something more than some– some failed experiment or something?! You don’t get it, Shouto, you don’t understand how stupidly lucky you are! He looks at you! He sees something in you! You’re the golden boy, Shouto, how do you not understand that?!”

Shouto is silent, gaze staring straight through Touya. His skin is warming back up again, though the parts of his shirt that hadn’t burnt away are cold and wet now, sticking to his skin as the ice melts. 

His twin shakes his head, stepping up to Touya and placing his left hand against the ice, using his left side for the first time Touya’s seen in months.

As soon as Touya’s mostly freed, left only with some chunks hanging onto his shoes and pants, Shouto heads back to the path downhill, but not without one last statement.

“You don’t understand, either.”

Like that, Touya is alone again. He’s burnt himself out, he can feel it – even if there was a point to training still, he doesn’t have it left in him.

He lets himself fall back onto the ground, leaning his head forward into his knee.

It doesn’t matter anymore. 

—

Shouto doesn’t learn anything.

Touya catches a glimpse of his hero costume request. His entire left side is covered in– something. Whatever it is, it’s ugly as hell. 

He doesn’t care enough to give him fashion design advice. If he can get into the fancy hero school, he can figure it out on his own.

Shouto always gets home after Touya, now. If Dad’s home, he’s dragged into training first-thing. Touya doesn’t know what he does if not. He’s usually in his room by then.

He’s on his bed, in the middle of an auto-played video he spaced out from on another dragged-on day when Shouto knocks on his door, barely waiting for Touya to let him in before he’s opening it.

“What do you want?” Touya says, putting his phone down. 

“There’s a boy in my class whose Quirk hurts him.”

He narrows his eyes, trying to get some meaning out of that.

“You could’ve gotten in anyways. Father was wrong.”

“Oh.” 

They keep eye contact for a moment. He hates that look in Shouto’s eyes.

“So– what, you just want to rub in my face that it isn’t just my Quirk? It’s me?”

Shouto shakes his head. “No. I thought–”

“I don’t care. It doesn’t matter.”

“I thought you would’ve wanted to know that Father was wrong.”

“I don’t care. Get out.”

“Touya–”

“Get out! ”

Shouto doesn’t make him say it again. 

If he’s trying to recruit Touya to his “hating-dad” thing, it isn’t working. Dad’s already had it handled. 

He hasn’t looked at Touya since the UA letters came in.

—

The night of the USJ attack, no one looks at Touya. No one even thinks about him, probably.

Dad’s affection for Shouto started and ended at the fact that he was able to defend himself. Natsuo came home. He’s off to the side as Fuyumi checks Shouto over for injuries, even though he was given the clear before he was allowed off school grounds.

Touya stands in the doorway, not even a toe into the room everyone else is occupying.

He tries to imagine it, putting together the pieces from what Shouto’s said since he got home and the news reports he’s been following all day. The biggest hero school in the country infiltrated by hundreds of villains. Communications cut off. Students scattered.

All of them survived, some were injured – including two of the teachers. Part of Touya wonders. Would he have made it out unscathed, like Shouto did? 

Not that it matters.

The only thing that matters from this is that Shouto is alive, and UA isn’t as safe and secure as they thought it was. 

With both confirmed, he slips back to his room. No one looks at him.

—

“I still think I can beat you,” Shouto says on their walk to the train station. 

The Sports Festival is today. Touya’s not entirely sure why he’s even going to school – most of his classmates won’t be there, and the teachers will probably just put on the broadcast. He could’ve just stayed home.

“Yeah, sure,” Touya says, readjusting his backpack strap where it sits on his shoulder. “The UA student’s gonna be more of a disappointment than the UA rejectee.”

“I’m not using his power today.”

“And that’s different from any other day, how?”

“He wants the world to see me as his successor. I’m not giving that to him.”

“Cool.”

So Touya watches, in every class he has, Shouto’s continuous usage of his ice and non-existent usage of his flames, up until the finals.

He almost wants to laugh, watching him light up against his own words. 

Touya’s still winning, and the second-place medal Shouto comes home with doesn’t take that much away from his lead.

—

Dad throws the stack of papers against the table, each marked on top with a failing grade. Half of them don’t even pass 20%.

“Touya,” Dad starts, the tone he always saves for him almost overtaken by anger. It’s a rush, honestly, having that targeted towards him for once. “What is this?”

Touya shrugs, pulling one of his feet up onto his chair so he can rest his chin against his knee. “Tests. Homework.”

“You failed all of them.”

“Yeah.”

He looks up, meeting Dad’s eyes, the flames burning there. It’s the first time Dad’s actually looked at him in months.

“You’re better than this.”

“Am I?” Touya grabs the top assignment – chemistry. He doesn’t care about this. 

“Your grades last year were–”

“I was trying to get into a good school last year. It doesn’t matter anymore.” He grips the paper tighter, flames coming to life on his fingertips and burning it to ash. “None of it matters anymore.”

He looks back up at Dad. Come on. React. 

Dad looks down on him, the same fire sparking on his chin. 

“I expect to hear from your teachers that you’ve improved by the end of next week,” he says. “Until then, no phone. No computer. No going out.”

He doesn’t scream. His flames don’t rise any higher. He doesn’t even move to grab Touya’s wrist when he slams his phone onto the table and storms out of the room past him.

Touya waits until he slams the door to his room before letting the tears fall. He doesn’t care about the grounding, not really. He knew it would disappoint Dad. He knew he’d be angry, that was the point. 

He just hates him. He hates him so much it burns.

—

The news anchor has been going on about how great Endeavor is for over two minutes now. Touya just wants him to get back to the Hero Killer.

It’s not that he had never heard of Stain before – just that he’d never paid much attention to him. He was notorious, but not important enough to be on Touya’s radar until Dad took him down.

As soon as they do get back to him, though, the front door opens, then slams shut. Dad’s footsteps sound through the house until they stop at the doorway to the living room.

Touya ignores him at first, keeping his attention on what they’re saying about Stain. About how he wanted to be a hero, and about how corrupt he thought the system was. 

“Turn that off,” Dad says, as soon as they start on his original peaceful protests. 

“Why?” Touya asks, taking the remote in hand but keeping his finger firmly away from the power button. “It’s just the news. They were just talking about you for three minutes straight, you know.”

“This isn’t up for discussion, Touya. Turn it off.”

“What’s so bad about knowing a villain’s past, huh?”

“ Now, Touya.”

Touya huffs, but finally does. He can get Shouto to lend him his phone later tonight. His grades still aren’t up, so his own phone isn’t back yet.

“Stain shouldn’t be getting any of the attention he is right now. You’re not going to be part of his audience.”

Touya rolls his eyes. “Is he really that wrong about it all, though?”

“He’s a murderer, Touya.”

“Yeah, yeah, but his ideas. If he was a hero student, then he’s got some first-hand experience, so–”

“Touya, enough! I’ve been lenient enough to let you use the TV even with your grades, but if you can’t see why Stain was wrong, then you shouldn’t be on it at all. Your room. Now.”

Touya glares over his shoulder, but does as he’s told.

Shouto has his arm and cheek bandaged when he gets home. 

He doesn’t say it, but Touya isn’t stupid enough to keep believing Dad took down Stain after seeing those injuries.

—

His classmates spend most of the next day whispering about Stain and the League of Villains.

Apparently, there’s a connection there. Some of them whisper jokes about joining the League. 

“I mean, they’ve gotta be getting new recruits after that, right?”

Touya rolls his eyes, staying firmly away from the conversation. None of his classmates have Quirks strong enough for battle. Touya’s might hurt him, but it’s at least effective against others.

He’s fairly certain he passed the few tests he had today, and he spent his lunch re-doing some assignments for English, stumbling over the characters but still managing it.

His teachers don’t contact Dad until two days later, but he finally gets his phone back, and promptly does his own deep-dive into Stain where Dad can’t walk in and see it on a big screen. (He downloads a free VPN app and goes onto incognito just in case.)

Like the news had been saying, he was a hero student who dropped out after his first year. Preached that the hero system was corrupt. The more Touya reads, the more he starts to agree: power, money, personal gain. 

Dad had him and Shouto because Fuyumi and Natsuo didn’t have the right Quirks to be heroes. His only aim was an heir. And none of the other heroes, nor the Commission, thought that was wrong. How screwed is that?

The pictures of him with the League are blurry at best, but it’s definitely him and them. So the kids at school weren’t lying. The League is more than just the USJ. 

He zooms in on the image, the vague pixels making up the two known League members he was seen with. Shigaraki and Kurogiri, the caption names them. 

The further he goes, the sketchier the websites get, going from popular video and forum sites to poorly-put-together sites that very well might be giving his phone viruses. 

One of the ones he hops onto looks like another true-crime site at first, though it is one of the ones where people ignore the bad things the people did completely and call themselves fans of them. He scrolls past the first Stain thread into another more focused on his connection to the League.

The broker I work with’s got connections. I’m trying to get him to give me their contact info, seem like they could do some real damage.

Oh. Touya might have stumbled onto an actual villain forum. 

He kind of thought those would be buried further down in the search, if they were there at all. The further he scrolls, the more confident he is that that’s what he’s looking at, though. Some of the continued comments on this thread include repeated requests for connections with the broker – Giran, one of them says, followed by a list of phone numbers. The next thread he looks at has detailed patrol routes for various cities. 

I should show this to Dad, Touya thinks first. Then, I should call those phone numbers.

They follow Stain’s ideologies. Touya’s pretty sure that he agrees with those ideologies. He’s got a good enough Quirk for it. 

He doesn’t have to do anything horrible, really. Probably. And Dad – well, he can’t ignore Touya if he joins a major villain group, right?

It’s one way to make himself the biggest disappointment.

—

One of the convenience stores between Touya’s school and the train station sells prepaid flip phones. All Touya has to do is take some cash out of Dad’s account for it, and he’s got it in-hand, trying to find a private place to call those numbers. 

He wrote them all down on a scrap piece of paper last night. More than likely, it’s some convoluted series of burner numbers, and only one of them will connect him to the right person. 

He finally finds a private-enough alleyway and gets through on the fourth call. 

“Who’s calling?” the voice says, scratching in a way Touya recognizes as smoke inhalation – probably cigarettes. 

“How would I join the League?” Touya asks, trying to keep his voice quiet.

The line is so quiet that Touya thinks he got hung up on for a second, which would leave him at a dead end and with sixty-five-thousand yen down the drain. 

“How young are you, kid?”

“Old enough.” He’s not stupid enough to give this guy his age. He’s not here to be treated like a child. 

The broker huffs, based on the static that comes across for a second. “Look, I can get you in contact, but you’ve gotta understand how many people have been trying lately. Kids aren’t exactly top priority. Do you even know what you’re getting yourself into?”

“Yes.”

“Sure. Need a name and a Quirk description. Can be an alias, I don’t care.”

Touya thinks for a long moment. “Call me Dabi. Fire Quirk.”

“Got it. I’ll be in touch.”

The line drops. He clicks the phone shut and takes a long, deep breath, leaning back against the alley wall.

He’s got an alias now, apparently. 

Maybe he should invest in some hair dye.

—

Shouto keeps looking at him weird.

Touya ignores it, for the most part. It’s not like he knows anything. Touya used money that was already withdrawn, and Dad doesn’t really question it when either of them withdraw money. The flip phone he bought is silenced in his pocket, and he hasn’t touched it since the phone call.

It’s definitely something else. What, Touya has no idea.

Before dinner, Shouto knocks on his door, again poking his head in before Touya gives him the okay. He doesn’t even wait for him to ask what before he speaks.

“Are you mad at me, or something?”

Touya blinks. “What?”

“Are you mad at me?” Shouto repeats. 

A few different answers run through Touya’s head, most of which are a yes of some form or another, but he’s not going to say that. 

“No?”

“You’ve barely talked to me since the Sports Festival.” Shouto’s gaze isn’t focused towards Touya anymore, falling to the ground. Without the eye contact, Touya can barely read his facial expressions. “I didn’t think it mattered to you what I did.”

“It didn’t. It doesn’t. Do whatever you want.”

“What’s wrong with you?” He lifts his eyes then, and Touya realizes immediately that he’s angry. Some kind of angry, at least. “It just doesn’t matter now?”

“Why should it?” Touya says, raising his own voice just barely. “I’m not the one going to UA. I’m not the one who actually took down the Hero Killer.”

Shouto goes silent at that, staring Touya down, eyes wide. “How do you–”

“I’m not stupid. I saw the injuries. You want me to believe Dad let his golden boy close enough to get those when he was right there?”

Touya narrows his eyes as Shouto continues staring, counting his own breaths. 

“That’s it,” Shouto says, voice lowered again. “Because I didn’t tell you about that?”

“Try because you got the chance in the first place.”

“Do you think I wanted to? If my friends hadn’t gotten involved first, I would’ve waited for backup.”

“You only did it because of your friends? I guess you’re really not as heroic as you think you are, then! That’s the most selfish thing I’ve ever heard! What about the hero he’d attacked, huh?”

“That’s not what I meant, Touya!”

“Of course it wasn’t! It’s never what you mean, right?”

“You’re the one who just said you weren’t mad at me! You stuck by your words so well!”

“You self-centered–”

Someone else knocks on the door, cutting Touya’s sentence short.

“Dinner’s ready,” Fuyumi says, glancing between the two. “Is everything alright?”

“Everything’s fine, ” Shouto and Touya say simultaneously, both still glaring at each other.

Touya slides off of his bed, ignoring the heat wafting off his body until Shouto touches his right hand to his shoulder.

He pushes his twin’s hand off of his shoulder and keeps walking.

—

There’s a text on the flip phone when he gets back to his room.

It’s from the same number he’d called earlier, containing nothing but an address, followed by 1 AM, tonight.

He really needs to invest in some hair dye.

Everyone else in the house goes to bed earlier than Touya anyways, so it’s not an issue to put on the most inconspicuous clothes he has and sneak out of the house a few hours before he was told to be at the address. It’s nearby, if he takes the train, and not too far, if he walks. He’s just glad the weather’s still cool enough for his hoodie and jeans to be comfortable.

His first stop, though, is a small 24-hour pharmacy that he knows carries hair dye. He’d walked past the section once while restocking on burn cream. 

There aren’t a lot of colors. Even still, he manages to get stuck between two colors, before finally settling on one and making his way to the checkout. It’s covered by the leftover yen from earlier, and so all he has left to do is find somewhere to apply it. 

In the future, he definitely doesn’t recommend public bathrooms. The dye is probably going to stain the floor tiles, and also probably the sink, but at the end, it’s functional, and it works.

He checks himself over in the mirror a few times, contorting his body as he tries to check the back, before he’s satisfied that he covered it all.

He takes a deep breath, staring at his own reflection. 

The red is effective. Dad’ll have no way to deny their relation, and people will see the resemblance the second they see him. As long as they associate Touya with both the League and Dad, then he’s set.

Even though it’s not the point, Touya’s thoughts slip back to the years-old competition. 

He’s got it in the bag, now.

The train to the address he was sent is nearly empty, so Touya gets himself a spot right next to the door, water from his hair still dripping onto his neck. His actual phone is at home, so Dad can’t track it, which also means he has no way of entertaining himself. Instead, he reminds himself, over and over, of the alibi he gave the broker he spoke to: Dabi. Dabi. As of tonight, he’s called Dabi.

As soon as the train gets to his stop, he’s off, avoiding the eyes of the other passengers still staying on. His feet lead him down the path he’d all but memorized from his GPS, eyes flicking from side to side – he definitely doesn’t trust this part of town. 

The address he was given leads him to some hole-in-the-wall bar. With a slight groan, he reaches for his phone, planning to send the broker a text about how he recognized Touya was young and still has him going to a bar he won’t be able to get into.

“You Dabi, kid?” a voice speaks, before he can. 

Touya jolts, turning to face the voice behind him. He’s an older man, average height, grey hair, and a cigarette hanging from his mouth – like Touya thought, he smokes. He hadn’t noticed him walking up.

He swallows, recentering himself. “Yeah.”

Giran hums, looking him up and down. “You sure you want to get into this, kid? I won’t let ‘em kill you if you want to dip out now.”

Touya shakes his head, then rethinks the phrasing of the question, and nods. “I’m sure. I’m good.”

“Alright then. If you’re sure. Right in here.”

Giran steps in front of him, opening the door to the bar and gesturing Touya inside. He doesn’t have to be asked twice.

The first sign that this was not, in fact, the kind of hole-in-the-wall bar Touya was expecting is the quiet that greets him inside. The next is that there’s only four people inside, two of which he recognizes from that picture of Stain and the League.

“Is this some kind of joke, Giran?” the blue-haired one – Shigaraki – says first. Touya’s not entirely sure how he sees past the hand on his face, but he’s not gonna ask. “He’s younger than the girl.”

“My name’s Himiko Toga!” one of the others chimes in, a blonde in a schoolgirl outfit. Toga, Touya notes. 

“Nope,” Giran says, walking up behind Touya and putting a hand on his shoulder in a far-too-familiar gesture that has Touya shoving him back without a second thought. He doesn’t mention it, just continuing with, “This kid’s Dabi. Fire Quirk. Wouldn’t give an age.”

“Fire Quirk,” Shigaraki repeats, raising a hand to his neck and scratching at it. “You look like Endeavor.”

“Do I really,” Touya asks, deadpan. 

All of the eyes in the bar are on him now, as he keeps close-to-eye-contact with Shigaraki.

“I’d heard rumors about his family having issues,” Shigaraki says, shrugging as he turns back to the bar. “You can stay. We need a long-range fighter, anyways.”

Touya smiles, his shoulders relaxing a little – he’d barely even noticed he’d raised them to begin with. Giran slips out of the bar behind him with little extra fanfare.

“Ooh, you’re here ‘cause of Stainy too, right?” Toga speaks up, hopping off of her bar stool and over to Touya. She’s shorter than him, but not by much. The more she gets into his personal zone, the more details he can notice about her: the cat-eyed pupils of her eyes, the fangs in her mouth, and the incredibly light freckles on the bridge of her nose. 

“Your dad’s real mean for getting him arrested,” she says, forcing Touya to back up as she keeps getting closer. “I think he was really pretty. And his Quirk used blood, like me!”

“Oh, really?” Touya says, trying not to let his discomfort into his voice. He just got here, he kind of has to make a decent impression.

“Yep! I bet people thought he was creepy for that when he was a kid, too. I bet his vision’s got plenty of room for me to live my normal life!”

“Wow, that’s great,” Touya says, finally reaching out to grab Toga, a hand on each of her shoulders to hold her solidly an arm’s length away. “Really great.”

“Don’t you have a brother at UA?” the last unnamed figure in the bar speaks up – red hair, sunglasses. “In 1-A, actually?”

Touya looks over, considers if he wants to volunteer that information for a second, and then finally nods. “Dad’s golden boy,” he says, not offering any more explanation than that.

The woman hums, nodding. “And yet–”

“I don’t care about the USJ. He wasn’t even hurt there. Why would it matter?”

“Alright then.”

“That’s Big Sis Magne,” Toga says, grinning. “She worried about me when we joined together, too! She’s like that.”

“Cool,” Touya says, still holding Toga back. He wonders how she hasn’t gotten the hint that he would like her to stay back, not keep trying to move closer, but knows better than to ask.

“Dabi, you understand that UA continues to be a group of interest, correct?” Kurogiri speaks, setting an empty, freshly-shined glass onto the bar in front of him. 

“Yeah.” It’s not like Shouto’ll get hurt. Any part he has in an attack on UA will leave more of a mark on Dad than on Shouto.

“And you’ll be able to be part of the League despite that?”

“Yes. That’s a really stupid question. I wouldn’t be here if I couldn’t.”

“You’ve got a big mouth, brat,” Shigaraki says, grin visible even under the hand. “Good to know you can actually stand up for yourself.”

Touya goes to say something back, but his words are cut off by a yawn. He forgot how late it was.

“Toga, show the kid his room. I’m not having him pass out out here.”

“Sure, boss!” Toga says, smiling even wider, if that’s possible.

Touya would question his safety alone with Toga, but she doesn’t give him the chance. And he ends up asleep in a surprisingly nice bed, for a group of villains that live in a bar, so he can’t complain.

—

Touya sees the first news report declaring him missing four days into his time as an official member of the League of Villains.

He’s just trying to sketch out some final ideas for what he’s hoping to get for combat wear, the news playing in the background, when, of course, Dad shows up on-screen: a press conference of some sort, where he’s saying some bullshit about how he never saw any warning signs and thinks it may have been the work of villains. 

By the time the press conference cuts first to a zoomed-out shot of the stage, his siblings sitting to the left of the screen, and then to the news anchors, a year-old picture of Touya shown in the corner, he’s already searching the ground trying to figure out where the remote went.

He finds it after the segment’s already ended, so now there’s no point turning it off or trying to switch channels. He’s just left with his face on national news and Dad playing up the guilt and ignoring the countless “warning signs” again.

“Parents are horrible,” Toga says.

Touya jumps. He hadn’t realized she was in the room – for the sixth time since he’d gotten here. 

“Mine called me all sorts of names when I left,” Toga said, arms crossed over her stomach as she watches the TV with blank eyes. “It hurt. And they didn’t even make national television. I can’t imagine.”

“I’m sorry,” Touya says, not sure what else to say. 

“It’s okay. They never understood anyways.” She smiles, looking over to him. “Everyone here does. Both of us are free from our families. This is a lot better, right, Dabi?”

He thinks about it. About Fuyumi’s ignorance of Dad’s behavior, and Shouto’s ignorance of his own luck, and Natsuo’s absence since he started college.

“Yeah. It is.”

—

Touya’s been waiting to actually do something for what feels like months by the time an actual plan is given to them.

The group’s grown by now, one other kid – even younger than Touya, going only by Mustard – and four more adults. Shigaraki’s also introduced a Nomu to the group, given to Magne for her to manage.

“Kurogiri’ll warp you in,” Shigaraki says, pointing to various marks on the literal RPG map he’s printed out as a battle guide. “There’ll be a few different locations. Dabi, you’re marking the limits with your flames. Mustard, keep numbers down and weakened with your gas. The rest of you will be split up more. You’ve all been briefed on those jobs earlier. Got it?”

Everyone around him nods, so Touya does too. He’s just gotta get a few trees burning. It won’t be too much of a strain on his body or its limits, and even if it is, he doesn’t care.

What matters tonight is that it’s obvious whose flames they are. Blue flames aren’t as hard for him to use as they were a few years ago, and if Dad doesn’t recognize them, Shouto will definitely recognize him. 

“Be ready to go,” Shigaraki says. “We’re not delaying the mission for anyone or anything.”

Again, everyone nods, before splitting up.

Each of their outfits, and any requested support gear, arrived within the past few weeks. Touya didn’t ask for anything special – which is good, because apparently, Giran struggles enough finding fireproof clothing without it having to be customized. 

He shrugs the red jacket over the black T-shirt he was already wearing, fighting to get the boots on first before moving onto the fingerless gloves, the same shade of bright red as his jacket and his hair. 

His sleeves are loose enough for him to roll them up past his elbows, but tight enough to stay once he gets them there. He tests out the flexibility of each piece of clothing for a bit – all more than flexible for him to move in. 

He’s set. And his outfit is, objectively, a million times better than whatever Shouto’s first hero costume was.

All he has to do is wait for it to be time. 

—

The camp is, somehow, more chaotic than Touya had planned for it to be.

As soon as Magne had given the signal, and there was enough room between him and the other Action Squad members, he sent a wave of blue fire to light up the nearest trees, ignoring the way his skin tingled at the heat.

The fires start at the furthest point from the rendezvous spot, closest to the zone dedicated to Mustard. A quick fake-out. If someone tries to follow the flames to the rendezvous, they’ll end up in the complete wrong direction – and, hopefully, taken down by Mustard’s Quirk.

Touya doesn’t waste any time focusing on one section. He’s working against his own body and its limits, on top of not knowing if there’s Pros around and, if they are, how long he has until they find him. 

He keeps going, lighting up entire sections at a time. The more flames he sends out at once, the more ground he can cover in less time.

It doesn’t take long for the heat on his skin to turn into burns, but he doesn’t care. He barely even notices it. Something about setting the trees ablaze, watching the smoke rise into the sky, sends a different warmth through his body, and he happily lets that overtake the pain.

He’s too far-off from the paths to see them, but even at that distance, he can make out voices over the crackling of the flames. Most of them are unfamiliar, but one – one he’s sure is Shouto, and it only gets his fire burning hotter.

Touya could burn this entire forest down, if he wanted. But that’s not his job, and he’d screw over the rest of the Squad by doing that, so he has to settle for just lighting another group of trees up before he keeps moving.

His arms are starting to go numb, which he absently recognizes as not being a good sign, but he doesn’t think too hard about it. It doesn’t matter right now. He’s almost finished with the perimeter, and he doesn’t know how close the heroes or the students are, so he just has to keep going until it’s done. 

The rendezvous couldn’t come into view sooner, Magne and Twice already gathering there. That’s a good sign, then: if they’re here, someone’s got Bakugou. They’re almost done. 

Touya finishes the perimeter with one last blast of flames, and then steps into the clearing, breathing heavy as he finally lets his fire stop. 

“Jesus, kid,” Magne says, looking him over, eyes stalling on his arms. “You alright?”

“Fine,” Touya says, grinning. He can’t even feel it. He turns, watching as the wind takes the flames from one tree to another, burning higher, more smoke rising into the sky. “Someone got Bakugou, right?”

“Compress,” Magne says. “He and everyone else should be here any second.”

Touya nods, keeping his eyes firmly on the flames. He did that. On his own.

The trees behind him rustle, and he turns around as Toga skips out of the woods into the clearing, grinning. Magne says something to her. Touya doesn’t pay much attention – it’s something about what Toga was supposed to do tonight, so it has nothing to do with him.

A bit into the conversation, Magne looks up. Touya follows her gaze just in time to watch Compress crash-land into the clearing with three of the hero students on top of him.

“Hey, I know these kids! Who are they? ”

Touya ignores Twice, more focused on the familiar red-and-white hair, the mismatched eyes that meet his.

He has to ruin this, too. Of course he does.

His flames start back up, burning even hotter now, catching across the entire length of his arms.

Touya’s just getting started. He’s not letting Shouto ruin it now, he’s not letting him take this, too.

“Compress, dodge,” he says, before pushing his flames forwards.

A wall of ice shoots up between him and Shouto’s group before the flames can hit, just thick enough to withstand the blast, crumbling moments after Touya has to stop to breathe. Shouto’s on his feet now.

“Touya–”

“Shut up!”

His arms are still burning from the last blast, but he doesn’t care, sending another blast from his palms. He hates him. He hates him. He’s not letting him take this, too, he’s going to be better for once in their lives.

The other two students aren’t behind Shouto anymore, he realizes, as he just barely dodges out of the way. Whatever. They can do what they want. 

Touya readjusts his stance, legs wobbling under him as he keeps his flames going, chest heaving with every breath. 

“You have to ruin this, too, huh? Can’t handle me being good at something for once? Gotta try and overshadow it again?”

“Touya, you’re–!”

“Why can’t you just get out of my fucking life! ”

Touya punctuates the sentence with another wave of flames. 

Shouto responds with a wave of ice, cutting straight through the flames, straight towards–

—

He jolts awake before he even realizes he’d been unconscious.

His eyes shoot between different details: curtain, ceiling, fluorescent lighting, machines set up beside him, cuffs restraining him to the bed, bandaging over his arms.

He pulls against the restraints, but there’s almost no give to them, just enough for him to move his arms. His heart pounds against his chest, the sped-up beeping finally bringing him to notice the heart monitor he’s attached to. 

It takes him a minute to recollect his thoughts, place his last memory, put together how he got here.

He lays back against the bed, breath still uneven, heart rate barely slowed.

The clearing. Shouto’s ice. Temperature shock, probably.

He wants to scream. He manages to hold himself back, instead just tightening his hands into fists until his nails are digging into his palms.

He’s been awake for a few minutes already by the time a doctor comes in. His voice already sounds impatient from the first second he starts talking, explaining first where he is (a hospital, Touya recognizes the name as one specifically for villains), what happened (heat stroke, which he didn’t expect, combined with cold shock, like he already thought), and what should be happening next (put on trial as soon as he heals).

“You could’ve killed people,” the doctor says, like Touya doesn’t know that. “Consider yourself lucky that no one was seriously hurt by your Quirk, and that your father is who he is.”

Touya doesn’t respond. The doctor walks out, and he’s alone again.

There’s nothing for him to do in here – even if he didn’t have his wrists restrained, he doesn’t see any reading material, and there’s no TV or anything. He’s left alone, with just himself for company.

You could’ve killed people. 

He hasn’t forgotten how good it felt to use his Quirk with no restrictions. 

The bandaging makes it obvious that there were consequences to that, on top of the fact that he apparently had a heat stroke, too. 

It’s not fair, how difficult it is for him to just exist. He couldn’t train. He couldn’t go to UA. He couldn’t even be a villain right. 

He isn’t sure how long he’s been alone when a shouting match starts up outside his door – or, more, Dad yelling at someone else, while they try to de-escalate, from what it sounds like.

In the middle of it, the door slides open, then shut again. 

Touya’s not surprised to see Shouto. 

The yelling continues outside, as Shouto pulls a nearby stool to Touya’s bedside, sitting on it and watching Touya’s face. He’s not sure what he’s looking for, but he doubts he’s giving it to him.

“Sorry,” Shouto says, hands crossed in his lap. “I wasn’t thinking. You were just– you were burning, and I didn’t have time to think about it.”

Touya looks at him, trying to see something in his face, but he doesn’t see anything. It’s blank, in a way he hasn’t seen it in a while. 

“...Okay,” Touya says. He’s not sure if he’s saying okay as in the apology’s okay or okay as in it’s okay. He’s not sure there’s a difference. 

“I still can’t understand it, though,” Shouto says. “Why? It doesn’t make any sense.”

He’s not sure what he’s referring to. Running away, joining the League, using his Quirk, fighting Shouto. He just shrugs.

“I didn’t know it was that bad. I knew something was wrong, but I didn’t know… I didn’t think you hated me.”

Touya’s not sure what to say to that. He can’t lie his way out of it – the last time he tried to, it came out anyways, and now he’s made an entire show of it. 

“I’m sorry.” The words feel wrong in his throat. There’s a million things to apologize for. Two words can’t even start on that.

Shouto doesn’t say anything, so neither does Touya. The heart monitor beeps, again and again. 

“Dad’s trying to get you out,” Shouto says – that explains the yelling match. “Of the hospital. And the trial. He’s trying to get a deal.”

“What kind?” Touya asks. His first thought is an insanity plea – and he’d rather go to jail than deal with that, after Mom was sent away. 

“He said he’d take full responsibility and handle the rest. I don’t know what the rest is.”

Touya thinks about that. Full responsibility for something Touya did. It’s… weird, that that makes him feel seen for once. It’s weird that it makes him feel guilty.

“I wanted people to associate me with him,” he says, after a moment. “I wanted them to just – see him, and think of a villain. I thought…”

Shouto nods, so Touya doesn’t finish the sentence. He isn’t sure what he would say, anyways.

“You could’ve told me,” Shouto says. Touya believes him.

“You know what’s kind of sad about this whole thing, though,” he says, “is that I’m disappointing even as a villain. I think I definitely win the competition.”

Shouto laughs. “Fine, you win.”

Despite the bandaging, the restraints, Dad still yelling outside – Touya smiles. He missed this.

—

His first time talking to Dad in weeks is over a plate of bad hospital food.

Awkward would be a generous descriptor, with the way Touya pokes at the Jell-O on his plate, not even looking up at Dad. He’s not sure what he’s going to say, and he doesn’t have any idea what to say for himself. 

“Touya…” Dad starts. Touya waits for him to finish, but he doesn’t, leaving his name hanging in the air.

“I shouldn’t have done it,” Touya says, before Dad can. “I know.”

“You shouldn’t have.”

“And now it’s on my record forever, and I have to live with that, because I didn’t think it through–” which is a lie, he did, but Dad doesn’t need to know that “–and it’s attached to your name now, too–”

“Touya,” Dad interrupts. Touya finally looks up at him, meeting his eyes for the first time since he’d walked in. “Stop.”

So Touya does. He shuts his mouth, stops playing with his food, and waits.

“I should have noticed something was wrong. I should have noticed a long time ago.” He bows his head. “I failed you, Touya. I’m sorry.”

Oh, Touya thinks. 

“You didn’t– I…” 

The words have nowhere to go. Touya has nothing to say. Dad’s head stays bowed, the room stays silent.

“I just wanted to be good enough for you,” Touya finally manages, voice cracking mid-sentence, the dam finally breaking as tears well up in his eyes. “And– I never was, I just, I couldn’t keep trying, I needed something else, and– I was just so angry– ”

Dad moves around, past Touya’s food, and before he can think about it, his arms are wrapping around him. 

Touya’s breath hitches. Part of him wonders if it’s a dream. Then he decides he doesn’t care.

He presses his face into Dad’s shoulder, wrapping his arms around him, and lets the dam collapse.

The hand that comes to rest on the back of his head as he cries is the most comforting thing he’s ever felt.

—

Touya half-thought Dad was joking when he explained the plan for the next year, minimum. 

But it wasn’t a joke. If it is, then it’s the most effort he’s ever seen put into one joke.

“You’ll be staying in the teacher’s dormitory for now,” Nedzu explains, gesturing at the largest of the matching buildings, “but once it’s deemed safe for yourself and your classmates, you’ll be moved into one of the General Studies dorms. Supervision will be stricter than with others, which I’m sure you’ll understand, but you’ll earn more trust and more freedom over time.”

Touya stares up at the buildings in front of him. Fuyumi and Natsuo are helping Shouto move into 1-A’s dorm, but Dad’s standing beside him, holding the two suitcases Touya brought in his hands. When Touya glances over, he’s looking straight at him.

“Does that all make sense, Todoroki?”

He takes one final glance down the street, watching Shouto’s classmates move their stuff into the 1-A dorms. There’s no more competition. No more fighting. 

He adjusts the straps of his backpack, turning back to Nedzu. “Yeah.”