Chapter Text
Shoto opened his eyes, refocusing after the lull of silent police lights against his closed eyelids. Likewise, the rubber seal cushioning the frame of the opened ambulance door made for a great pillow, though he was sure it’d come with a thick red mark down his face whenever he decided to sit up.
He’d never thought the sounds of a villain disaster could be calming like those lo-fi channels he liked to listen to. Usually, the smoking rubble, beeping machinery, and shouting would be a stark reminder that there was work to do–and he better get moving.
“What was the trapped survival rating for two hours again? 90%?”
Bakugo's disbelieving scoff came right next to him. Bakugo dropped his head against the cot behind them. Despite the IV, he was still as pale as when they'd brought him here, and Shoto suspected Bakugo wasn't just slumping like that because he'd asked another stupid question.
“That’s fucking dark. It was 92%. Two hours, and 92% of the trapped civilians will still be alive,” Bakugo said after a moment. Then he brought a bottle of water to his lips and took a long sip. "94% for quirked people, 86% for non-quirked."
Shoto closed his eyes again, because the police colors were nice, but they were starting to burrow into his brainstem, elevating his migraine further. “Right. We can definitely find everyone within two hours.”
“Not us. Maybe, if they let me go out there again–”
“To pass out from blood loss again?” Shoto wondered out loud, though he hadn't really meant to. He got an imprint of Bakugo’s boot-tread on his thigh for good measure, sending the blond boy into curses as something popped in the blond’s ribcage. Both of them had refused to take the cot, which Shoto might have attributed to stubbornness, except an unconscious rescue hero had been set down there soon after. Shoto was starting to think any of them would have been equally good candidates for it, though.
With Shoto’s other leg immobilized, even if he didn’t feel nearly impossible to lift his head, he didn't know if he'd be any help. Frankly, Shoto felt very calm about the whole situation. They'd caught Mercury. Sero was after Ana, and he was an excellent long-range capturer. Sure, there were fires, and lights, and rubble and yelling, and no guarantee everyone he knew was still alive, but that was tucked away somewhere in the recesses of his mind. And when he tried to recall all that, his vision went dark and his head hurt, so this spot seemed like the place to be. He hadn’t even protested when he’d been manhandled off to triage.
For just a couple minutes, once they’d been swarmed up first responders, they’d all been separated. He hadn’t even been able to answer his questions, follow a penlight, or interact with them at all, like he was stuck in a cutscene of one of Kaminari's video games. Thermal shock, they’d said. No shock blanket, since his body was 118 degrees and cooling. They’d proceeded to catalog a whole host of injuries and stick a yellow tag around his wrist.
There were no ambulances going out for yellow-tags, the roads in the shape they were. Shoto hadn’t seen any black tags. Yet.
Aizawa had touched base with him, spoken with the paramedics as they cleaned his hands up (he’d gotten first degree burns just from holding Shoto), and disappeared. Shoto’s eyes had opened and closed. Bakugo had been carted over and put on a blood transfusion.
“Do you need more blood?” Shoto had asked the paramedic setting the line.
“Always.”
“I’m not using all mine,” Shoto had offered helpfully, lifting the arm not receiving cooled fluids.
The medic’s nose scrunched up, but had settled on a polite refusal. Shoto forgot about it moments later, anyway.
Another blink, open and closed. Then, like magic, Bakugo was awake and talking again.
“Neither of your O2 sats are where they should be,” the medic grumbled as he hopped out of the rig and approached the back again. Shoto refocused with some effort. This time, the medic had a portable oxygen tank. When he moved to press the mask to Shoto’s face, his vision whited and he found the energy to grab the medic’s wrist and shove him away hard.
Nothing over my face. Especially not that –
Before the medic could properly react, a green figure came running over, static clinging to him like a second skin.
“Whoa, hang on!” Izuku said, and the medic stepped back fast. People tended to comply first, ask questions later, when Deku asked.
Izuku crossed between Bakugo and Shoto and the medic, holding up his hands. Behind him, Bakugo burst out in a fit of laughter. “Holy shit.”
“Sir?” The medic ventured.
“Kacchan and Shoto are pyrophoric class hazards–they legally can’t handle condensed oxygen over a certain volume unless they’re on quirk suppressants. We don’t need things getting…explody.”
When the medic quickly revised his mistake, Izuku approached Shoto, clasping Shoto’s hand to check the temperature, then his forehead, then visually glanced over Bakugo.
“You’re down to normal, that’s a relief,” he sighed.
Shoto wasn’t-–he was still hot enough Bakugo claimed he didn’t want to come near him–and that put a lot of worries about the state of Izuku’s nerves into his mind. “At any rate, I’m here to take us to the hospital. So let’s go!”
Their admission to the hospital wasn’t an extended affair. Izuku mustered the energy to jump them the few blocks there, where they were received quickly, checked in, and cleaned up, and they were all put in a hospital room together to rest.
Shoto might have felt like an incoherent mess, but unlike last time, Shoto still had the stamina to be properly healed. He went from feeling like a pick ax was wedged into his skull when they shone a light into his eyes, to only feeling like he’d taken a collision with a compact car leg-first.
It helped that they were giving him the good stuff for his broken femur. Izuku wasn’t as lucky. His injuries weren’t terrible, but the repeated destruction of his right arm made healing more complicated.
As soon as Izuku had his good hand back from the nurse, he grabbed the remote to flip to the local news. Forty-seven villains captured. Nine citizens rescued from the danger zone, two non-fatal casualties. The evacuation team had done an incredible job.
Each of their faces showed up on screen, as someone reported on the scene, followed by brief histories of a few other heroes.
After a minute, they switched over to a quirk analyst, who broke down footage that had been taken from a news chopper. Shoto’s hundred foot wall coming up, a rain of a hundred AP shots Shoto hadn’t seen, and the green and silver clashes through town. And finally, the dome. It seemed like the news had slowed down for the day, because they were diving into more detail.
“An incredibly strong showing for Kodeki this morning–with the final takedown from Shoto’s newest move. What happened here today was just another on the list of hypernatural feats we’ve seen from that quirk. We’ve yet to get a reliable estimate on just how cold that sphere had to be to contain that attack, but it was cold. For someone like Shoto though, it must have felt like an early spring breeze .”
“Is there anything in particular that caught your attention during that finish?”
Shoto noticed Izuku’s finger slowly reaching for the remote again.
“Leave it.”
“Hm, well. This is nothing that hasn’t been speculated before, but this show really drives it home what we’re looking at here,” and the screen replayed the dome coming up, the blasting inferno within, along with the ice wall, even footage from the UA sports festival– ”may be the most potent area of effect quirk we’ve seen since the advent of quirks.”
The host nodded along, processing, but not overly surprised. “That’s the scary thing when it comes to deliberate quirk arrangements. Two of the four siblings became some of the strongest powerhouses of the generation. It’s hard to be kept in check when you’re at the top. Well, we know that clearly particularly from this family.”
“It stands to wonder what we’d be looking at if he’d followed in Todoroki Touya–the villain Dabi’s–footsteps?”
“Fucking shit. This tired garbage again–?”
Shoto told Bakugo to shut up by throwing a pillow at his face, eyes never leaving the screen.
“We shouldn’t delve too deeply into that.” The host laughed awkwardly, then sobered, looking at the camera. “Watchers at home, this might seem like ancient history, but it’s important to be aware of the past so we don’t repeat our mistakes as a society. Nothing’s certain, but I’m sure everyone out there was glad to have his strength there today.”
The topic moved onto predictions on if the event would affect the upcoming hero charts, and an interview with someone who had been rescued by Ingenium.
Shoto smells smoke, but he knows it’s not his quirk, because he hears a low tone in his ears, too. He’s not sure if the volume has been turned down, or if his brain’s focus is just wrecked right now.
“Well,” Midoriya said, his unbandaged hand plucking at his blanket. “It’s gotten better, Shoto.”
“It’s better,” he agreed. He fought to swallow, staring down at his hands. He really shouldn’t care. The government had all but encouraged the vitriol against quirk marriages. They had wanted an example made of them, worry of homeland security threats feeding the paranoia. Of extremists and cults trying to procreate their own super-kids. Within four months, new regulations rolled out, and campaigns in schools like “Love is Quirkless!” and “MAE (Moms Against Eugenics)” came into fruition.
Ironically, those initiatives made it a lot easier for quirkless kids, but it made it a lot harder for Shoto. It was a worthwhile trade, but there was no denying it sucked. For a long while, it felt like any good Shoto could do had to be stipulated with ‘I would never support him existing, buuuut–’
The campaigns didn’t last long–no one could deny quirkism and quirk marriages had existed well before Endeavor, but the base sentiment remained. The press spent years raking his family name through coals–examples being made–and frankly, Shoto understood it. Someone like him, that was scary. It was okay for them to be scared. Shoto certainly had been.
Shoto simply existed in the quiet of his mind for a long while, content with the painkillers. Forgetting his friends, talking quietly across the room from him, he laid back, his eyes dipping shut. The roaring in his mind had dimmed–the intrusive thoughts, the panic, the discomfort and anxiety that took its tax on his mental state in everyday ways.
He woke up long enough to be pressured by a nurse to choke down a bowl of rice. He was too tired to argue. His friends are eating as well. His eyes drift shut again.
What had they told him in therapy? Three things you’re grateful for.
Izuku.
Aizawa.
Bakugo.
Those weren’t things, but he didn’t care much for things anyway.
He came around again when a duffel bag landed on his bed, followed by the sounds of packing. Bakugo was aggressively shoving things into a bag. It looked like Shoto’s ripped up costume he was shoving in a bag, actually.
“Hn?” Shoto got a shirt and basketball shorts to the face for his trouble. He pulled them off his head, disgruntled, and noted it’s gotten dark out.
“Get dressed. They’re not keeping us here. You can sit around at the police station,” Bakugo said, producing two Against Medical Advice forms. They were signed already, for Bakugo Katsuki and Todoroki Shoto.
Shoto decided to pick his battles.
Shoto looked at his bandaged leg dubiously. “I don’t know if I can.”
“They’re stretchy. They’ll fit over the bandages.”
It hadn’t been exactly what Shoto meant, but seeing no point in arguing, Shoto got dressed as well as he could, no small thanks to the painkillers. He accepted the pair of crutches that were shoved at him, and politely ignored the hand on his shoulder while he found his balance under them.
“Izuku?”
“Not coming. He’s with a specialist right now for his arm. Getting chewed out again, probably.”
Shoto didn’t bother asking what had Bakugo so antsy. Now that he’d shook off some drowsiness, he felt it too. He packed away that itchy dread, knowing Izuku was dealing with damage from the cold. The weakness that had given him up. That invisible string that compelled them to move forward that made him get up and get up again, every time they hit their limit was pulling him forward yet again.
It was almost over. They couldn’t just rest, when they were at the brink of their bloody victory.
Only then could he meaningfully apologize to Izuku and the others for all the trouble.
Bakugo left him in the wheelchair near the front desk to pull the car around. The crutches helped, but he still managed to bump his leg against the seat as he was trying to scoot in.
Considering his femur was still broken–though probably saved him two month’s recovery time–his vision filled with spots, beating even the pain receptors in berating him. Shoto grunted and adjusted as Bakugo put the wheelchair away and got into the car.
Even the pressure of sitting ached, Shoto was really starting to be concerned how he’d run and fought with this break. He was starting to understand why he had a reputation for being reckless.
Bakugo must have noticed his discomfort, or maybe just knew he’d need it, because he took a stop at the pharmacy. A couple minutes later, he was tossing a bottle of pills and a water at him. Shoto turned it in his hand, relieved to see it was max strength. It was the least Bakugo could do, kidnapping him from his warm hospital bed.
Shoto wanted to hold a grudge, but one thing stopped him–-Bakugo was right. He was right more often than Shoto would ever admit. He needed this, instead of rotting in a hospital bed for the next couple days, waiting for a call from Shinso. He might not be able to turn a page in his life if he couldn’t see this case to its conclusion.
Was he a victim or a hero? That was a question he didn’t want to be asking. He could be both, but neither alone were possibilities anymore. It was time for this to come to an end. Then they could limp back to the hospital and pick up Izuku and Shoto would sleep for at least a day straight. Sleep, it would be nice. The urge to rest pulled insistently at him, but it was quiet enough to ignore for now. The sharp pressure in his thigh as he sat, however, was not. Whatever he’d been given at the hospital was starting to fade, or at least wasn’t strong enough to keep up with him moving around.
He twisted open the cap.
“Just take the max dose as often as it lets you, that’s what I’d do,” Bakugo suggested.
Shoto downed two pills, then finished off the water too, since he was still staving off dehydration, Bakugo’s eyes shifted back to him, just slightly. Tension sharpened the lines of his shoulders. “You ready for this?”
“Yeah, ready for this to be over.”
Bakugo looked satisfied with that. “Yeah, me too. You know what you’re gonna do?”
Shoto considered it for a moment. “Yeah, I do.”
“Let’s finish it, then.”
Shoto felt more like himself the moment he walked back into the precinct. They weren’t built for inactivity–-not when they were this close.
Apparently, neither were Iida and Shinso. Even though they’d also been in the battle yesterday morning, they were already waiting for them at the entrance, and they began walking with them, all at Shoto’s faltering pace.
“Anamnesis?” Bakugo asked.
“She’s in Interrogation room B. A handful of villains have managed to evade capture still. We have Iris in a holding cell and Seventy in Room A. The rest of captured villains are being held at the municipal jail,” Iida said. “Are you two heading to Anamnesis now? Is that wise?”
Something twinged in Shoto’s chest. He knew Bakugo was preparing to answer yes, but he spoke first. “I’m going to stop by the other room first, Bakugo. I’ll meet you.”
Bakugo caught his gaze for a second, then scoffed, then looked away, shrugging as he headed toward Interrogation B. “Do what you want.”
Shinso and Iida stayed with Shoto.
“What will happen to Seventy?”
Shinso considered for a moment, opening the door to the observation room. He started ticking off his fingers. “First-degree kidnapping, unlawful restraint, multiple counts of felony assault and felony villain terror, I’d say twenty-five to life.”
“What if I testify on his behalf?” Shoto asked as he crutched in. He could probably argue felony assaults down to misdemeanors. Seventy had used his quirk on him, but it’s not as if it had been the cause of the damage.
“W-why would you do something like that?” Iida reeled back as if he’d been struck. Shinso pinched the bridge of his nose and didn’t speak for a while.
Shoto had trouble with the right words. He sincerely doubted that there were any. He remembered that flat, unhappy stare Seventy had given him, when Shoto had seemed to have joined the villains. During his capture, Seventy the way Seventy had supported him getting to the bathroom, without ridiculing him. Finally, he gave up and shrugged half-heartedly. “He could have been worse.”
“Oh, Todoroki-kun, that–” Shoto can hear the heartbreak in his voice. It’s nearly that same heartbreak he’d had for him when he’d joined the Dead Brother’s Club, and it hurts to hear it. “Hitoshi-kun, this isn’t the quirk effect–?”
“No. All him.” Shinso’s hand hadn’t dropped from his own face yet.
“No, Iida. It’s okay. I mean it. He doesn’t seem like a bad person. I think, if he had one person get through to him, he could change.” If he had a Midoriya, he could change.
(Endeavor had changed, after all. And Touya had changed twice.)
Iida’s brows furrowed. His arm was valiantly chopping through the tense air. “Todoroki-kun, I caution you! His quirk is a perfect counter to your own–should you pull strings for him, and he turns on you, you are at great personal risk! He had no issue doing it once before. In the future, if another supervillain wants to exploit your weakness, they need only recruit this man again!”
Shoto smiled, feeling surer of his choice. “Then I’ll just have to get stronger.”
Shinso was staring at him again once they were walking to Interrogation Room B.
“What?” Shoto finally snapped, because that stare of his was weirdly reminding him of Natsuo’s.
“I’m trying to predict your chances of passing that psych eval next week.”
Shoto considered that. “I’d say 50/50.”
“I admire your optimism.”
Iida put a coffee in Shoto’s hand as soon as he’d crutched into the other observation room and into the chair that was already waiting for him. Shoto was already focused on who was on the other side of that glass.
Ana.
He felt a squeeze on his shoulder from Izuku. He tried to wrangle his suddenly numb tongue. She was in there with Aizawa.
He took a long drink of coffee to help settle his nerves. “What’s she said?”
“Nothing of substance. With Mercury badly injured, she’s our best hope at finally cleaning up this Gray Occult business before they go to ground again. She was only willing to talk to you or Eraserhead.”
“Let me talk to her again.”
“No.”
“Then why am I here?” Shoto snapped, irritation beginning to get the best of him.
“Let him talk to her.” Bakugo insisted, holding Tsukachi’s gaze. “This is it--we’re wrapping up loose ends. And if anyone deserves a chance to get answers, it’s Icyhot.”
Tsukachi blinked, then ran his hands over his face. “This is a criminal investigation. Is therapeutic benefit…really your argument for letting Todoroki go back in there again?”
Shoto’s eyes narrowed. He brought his palm up to his chin, cracking his neck both ways in a movement. Some of the residual tension in his body bled away. “I’ll do both.”
Shoto shuffled to the table Ana was chained to, taking a moment to stabilize his crutches against the wall.
“Shoto!” Ana greeted. Her hair had come mostly undone, knots and pieces falling around her face, just a little too beautiful to be unkempt. She’d wiped away the smudges of magenta lipstick she’d had during the fight off her chin, probably by looking at the one-way mirror.
Shoto wasn’t good with people. Maybe that’s why it had taken him so long to see what he was sure everyone else saw. And that shame prickled in the pit of his stomach, but he couldn’t afford it let it corrode him any longer.
“Hi, Ana.”
“Shoto, I’m glad you’re back. You’re much nicer to look at than that grumpy old teacher of yours.” She reached out her hands as far as the cuffs would let her, wiggling her red nails at him like she wanted to join hands.
“I wanted to see you again,” Shoto admitted, restraining himself from plucking at the bandages at his throat aimlessly.
“Of course,” she murmured, as if it were only natural. “You’ve realized that you haven’t won.”
Shoto blinked. “You’re out of cards, Ana. I’m not here to break you out again.”
“Shoto, you’ll never have won, because you’ll always remember me. And as long as you do, you’ll never know for sure what you really want.”
Her eyes moved pointedly to the one-way mirror. Shoto exhaled, bangs shading his eyes. It’s hard, over the low drone of anxiety in his ears, the telltale signs of a post-concussion headache taking root. He can’t say for sure that she’s wrong.
His mind had been fucked with and that wasn’t something he could wish away more than any other scar on his body. He knew who he trusted. But above all the other worries, anxieties, fears, he had–Shoto did know what he wanted. Never in his life had he not known what those wants were, and not had a plan to get them.
(He was like his father, in that respect.)
Ana was still talking to him, trying to soothe him, and he cut through it coldly.
“--I want to ask you to cooperate with the police and give up the other villains.”
“Why would I do that?” She folded her hands together and brought her chin down to rest on them, innocent.
Shoto leaned forward in his seat. “Because you’re going to prison, and you’re never getting out, and there’s people who have done just as much wrong as you, and they might walk away from this. Because you’re selfish, Ana. And you like to see people suffer.”
Ana looked at him, her wide eyes glazed with surprise.
“I don’t like to see people suffer, I can’t help my quirk.”
(His brain tugged at him, gently reminding him that it was easier to be no one at all than Todoroki Shoto–)
“I knew a girl like you, a while ago. Her blood quirk scared everyone around her. And a boy, who crumbled everything to dust. It’s hard. I think I might even understand a piece of that,” Shoto admitted, his fists clenching on his lap.
He got caught on that thought for a moment, looking down at his bandaged fists, but he caught Ana nodding enthusiastically in his peripherals. “Of course you understand. Misunderstood, even hated, because of the quirk you were born with. Only you could understand what it’s like. We could have been friends, if the situation had been a little different, don’t you think?”
(Easier isn’t always better.)
Shoto didn’t look up. For once, Shoto was certain she’d misunderstood him. She’d never known him, just been a good guesser.
“I never would have become friends with someone like you,” he told her. “But I’m sure someone would have.”
.
.
.
In the end, Ana talked.
.
.
.
Shoto used his new-found freedom from his crutches to move in and out of the room, grabbing refills of drinks, and filling the platter of chips. He snagged a chip for himself, savoring the salty crunch. Snacks were a new thing for him again, but Aizawa, Natsuo, and his therapist had helped him expand the foods he could eat again. Staying away from wet foods helped. It would probably be a while before he could eat scrambled eggs or a glass of milk, but they were too relieved his safe foods had expanded from a bowl of rice to whole food groups again.
However good Bakugo and Izuku thought his progress was–eating whole apple slices or dry cereal without getting nauseous–the psych evaluator had been less impressed. Shoto had failed his first psych evaluation. By how much was not important. That’s what Tsukachi had said. Shoto figured that meant that even a perfect diet wouldn’t have salvaged that interview.
What was important was that due to the circumstances–the psych evaluation being scheduled after his capture, and the case certainly having continued from there–they’d offered him another chance in two weeks.
The interview had been two days ago, and today he’d gotten the greenlight to begin hero work again.
Shoto wasn’t sure if it was simply a case wrap-up party, a celebration that Shoto had survived his own bad decision-making, or maybe they were all pleasantly surprised Shoto had passed his second psych eval. Maybe a combination of all three.
Aizawa had offered to host, since Shoto had spent the last couple weeks convalescing with him at his apartment, mostly to stay out of Kodeki’s way-–it was only natural. Come tomorrow, Shoto would pack his bag and head back to his own apartment, and the next day, he’d officially be back to work as Shoto, Pro Hero. He got the feeling his friends would still force him to desk jockey for a little while longer, though.
In the sitting room, Bakugo’s laughter was explosive, as Aizawa complained–’loud as hell’ as he ridiculed Izuku for losing the Jenga game they were playing with Eri for the fourth time in a row. Eri giggled, and set it all back up.
“Midoriya will get it this time for sure!”
"Fuck no! I've seen more dexterity out of a dog--oi, Icyhot, you get lost in there?"
Shoto mentally hit reset. These were the moments he’d treasure for the rest of his life, he’d be silly to spend them in the kitchen dissociating at a wall, holding a bowl of fritos.
He came back out, cracking open one of the craft beers Bakugo had bought during their pitstop at Fuji. He waited until it was Bakugo was halfway through easing a block from the ever more precarious tower, then set the can on top of Bakugo's head. Bakugo let out a diabolical string of curses but didn't have a free hand to start a fight as Shoto walked away to pass the rest out to Aizawa and Present Mic.
They took the beers gratefully, watching in amusement Shinso skipped songs on the stereo, complaining about their archaic playlists.
“It’s good music, kid. I made that playlist when I was your age.”
“Jeez. I should have known you were a Fall Out Boy fan…”
"Oh yeah! We were in a tribute band!" Present Mic added helpfully, only for him to squawk from an elbow in his side.
The doorbell rang, and Shoto hurried over to open the door.
A hand immediately started chopping the air. “I apologize, Todoroki-kun, it’s quite unseemly for someone as fast as I to be 35 minutes late to the party you and Sensei so kindly invited me to! I’m afraid I had to stop a gas station robbery on the way, though that in no way excuses being so tardy!”
“Iida!” Shoto said, pushing the last bottle of stout into his friend’s chest. He smiled widely at him. “Have you met Fuyumi and Natsuo yet?”
They were chatting happily together within minutes, Natsuo with his medical degree, and Iida endlessly fascinated by science and rules. Shoto smiled, handing the chip bowl to Fuyumi, who took it and automatically started grazing from it. Natsuo and she had come out for this, apologizing that mom couldn’t make it out this time…
It was okay with Shoto. He’d never thought he’d be able to get this many loved ones in one room, in the first place. Or ever have this many people who cared about him.
Two halves of his family. The two most important groups of his life…those connections that made Shoto feel guilty either way…That Natsuo and Fuyumi didn’t have a second chance at having a father. That spending time with Shinso and Eri, and all the rest felt like abandoning his real family–the family that once he lost, he could never get back– and maybe that had only been a problem for his own head.
Maybe he could have both. Maybe he could share some with the Todorokis. Maybe no one had ever expected him to pick one and only one.
Sometimes, Ana still came to mind. He didn’t attend court hearings. He’d had enough court for a lifetime, and the evidence had already been collected, cut and dry. It wasn’t a question of how long she would serve so much as, how many life sentences. Shoto tried not to feel too bad. He’d put a lot of people away who’d hurt him and his family a lot less. But sometimes, he thought about those empty blanks in his mind, those spots that never were, and he wonders what feelings had driven her to do something like that. Greed? Lust? Or maybe loneliness?
His therapist told him those aren’t his emotions to worry about, and his responsibility is to come to terms with what happened, and to re-learn to eat and how to unwind. To count the victories and navigate the losses. And he was. He was ready to move on, even when the nightmares still gripped him; and he showed up to work late, carrying coffees, and Bakugo would yell at him for it, and Midoriya would laugh and play peacekeeper as Shoto drank Bakugo’s coffee out of spite.
He did, however, write a letter for Seventy’s hearing, asking for leniency. Seventy wrote a letter back. And that was that, the last communication he heard from the incident. He did his best to take the bookmark out from that story, put it on the shelf, content to let it collect dust.
Aizawa pulled him aside later in the night, his tight grip giving away that he’d been drinking a little too much.
“Shoto–I wanted to say–I wish I could’ve been there for you. Sooner. The systems I trusted so much failed and I’m sorry.” He stared hard into the ground, and still hadn’t let go of Shoto’s arm. “What Suzuki put in your mind, those memories of protecting you from Endeavor, comforting you–that should have been the adults in your life. Myself included and–”
Shoto raised his hand, stopping his sensei’s rambling. “You don’t have to apologize. You didn’t do anything wrong, nothing that you didn’t make right a thousand times over. And those memories you’re mentioning…I don’t have them. I don’t know what you’re talking about, and I don’t need to know. All I need to know is…that you and I…we’re okay.”
The fight they’d had before Aizawa’s kidnapping flit to his mind unbidden, the first domino to fall in the chain of events that had led them here. Nothing but Aizawa’s safety had mattered, Shoto searching as if losing Aizawa would end him, too.
Shoto thought Aizawa had probably felt the same.
Aizawa smiled at him, scruffy, haggard, and a little drunk. He wrapped an arm around Shoto’s neck and brought him close, his forehead pressing against the side of Shoto’s head, a strong brief, pressure. A proud exhale of breath. It might as well have been a bear hug.
Once he pulled away, Shoto cleared the thickness from his throat, and asked, “So about that dinner plan you offered before all this went down?”
A month later, he placed 7th on the hero charts. A meteoric rise-- from 47th to 7th, making him the lowest ranked hero to make it to the Top 10 in a subsequent year–a fact Midoriya excitedly chattered to him, as they poured sake for a toast to all of Kodeki making Top Ten.
Top Ten, a stepping stone to what the three of them had been fighting toward their whole lives.
For the society that didn’t want to admit created him. His birth was a by-product of the system of power. The system of wealth and clans and policy that they wanted to sweep under the rug. Quirklessness, quirk marriages, it all stemmed from the same roots. But he did exist, and that existence was just a symptom of the problem. How often did the symptom become the solution?
He wanted to find out.
Yes, Shoto had some issues with the hero charts. He didn’t want to care about them. How they placed greatness over goodness. But he did, and they still mattered.
It was something they could only fix from the top, at any rate.