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Shouto doesn’t know how he ended up like this, his hero suit full of soot, ripped open in several places, he can feel the cut in his eyebrows and the slow trickle of blood go down the side of his face, caking up in a disgusting mixture of blood, sweat and dirt. Objectively speaking, it was an easy fight, he did trip on some debris and got himself cut up good, but overall everything is superficial.
What has him in such a state of disarray is the little warm weight he is currently carrying in his arms, an all too familiar kid sleeping soundly against his chest, perfectly split red and white hair he has only seen on himself tucked under his chin. He is sure if he were to come across anyone, they would notice his frantic eyes and the subtle trembling of his legs. Hero school didn’t exactly have a “What to do if your child self materialises out of nowhere in the middle of a villain fight 101.”
He genuinely didn’t expect this when fighting a run-off-the-mill villain; one second, his fire envelops him as he tries to take the villain down, and the other one, he almost trips over a sleeping child, yes, a sleeping child in the middle of the chaos, a child he takes 3 seconds to recognise before freezing the villain to the wall. His vision is not as good as he wishes; he should probably get some contacts at some point in his life, but looking at the little sleeping creature, there’s no mistaking who this is.
Right there, encircled by ash, is himself, albeit the five-year-old version of him, with a bandage that looks way too big to be over his left eye, crusted with lymphatic fluid, and way too thin and boney arms and legs, littered with bitterly familiar bruises, he stares at it– him, he stares at him for a good minute before approaching carefully, the kid doesn’t stir as he picks him up and settles him against his chest.
He doesn’t even remember what the villain said as the police detained him; he is only aware of how delicate the child feels in his arms. Was he always this light?
“Hero Shouto!” he turns around to the paramedic on the scene and lifts a finger on his free hand to make a shushing motion while pointedly looking at the child he carries. He watches the paramedic fall silent in surprise. Logically, he knows he should get that eyebrow cut cleaned up and covered, but he has no focus and no desire to sit in the back of an ambulance he doesn’t need because of some bullshit protocol while everyone’s eyes bug out at the kid in his arms.
He goes through the motions of signing all the documents he has to sign after a villain's arrest before fleeing the scene, propelling himself with his ice as it is a lot more stable than flying with his fire, and Shouto would rather not wake the kid up until after he knows what to do with him. His husband will know what to do; they will solve this or at least spiral together. Should he call his siblings? No, they’ll panic. He just has to make it home, and Tenya will help him figure this out. It’s okay. No need to panic; he is just carrying a child version of himself. Standard stuff for heroes in a quirked society. Right?
Please don’t wake up.
Please.
He sneaks inside his house through the balcony. He is aware that they need better security; it shouldn’t be as easy as it is to get into their apartment, but he doesn’t want to bump into anyone in the elevator with a toddler who looks unmistakably like him.
After kicking his boots off his feet, he slides open the window, and scans his apartment for a sign of his husband, he knows it’s his day off, and while his shoes are by the door, there is no sign of Tenya; he must be taking a nap or showering, he carefully settles the child on the sofa; his little body curls up on his side. Is the sleeping a side effect of whatever brought him here?
He sits opposite to the couch, watching the kid breathe, unable to pull his eyes away from him. Did he look like this back then? He knows he did; that’s him after all. His hair is overgrown, bangs covering his eyes, and he remembers how painful it was when a few stray hairs would stick to his burn while changing his own bandages. He is concerningly skinny. He could feel his spine protruding while holding onto him, and that bandage… it looks so big on his little face.
Should he stand up and clean up his own wounds? Absolutely. Will he do it right now? No chance in hell.
He hears the bedroom door close, and he immediately relaxes as he listens to Tenya’s footsteps approaching the living room; they will talk and figure this out, they will know what to do with the child.
“Good afternoon, Shouto! I didn’t hear you come through the door. Did you get in through the window aga– what is that?” He turns his head to his husband and says in the most miserably flat tone, trying to convey how out of his depth he feels, “A child”.
“I can see that; why does he look exactly like you?”
“I am pretty sure he is me.” Tenya’s eyes widen, and he looks at the child on their couch with new eyes. He approaches the sleeping kid and sits on the floor before him; the emotion in Tenya’s eyes makes his heart squeeze in his chest. He is staring at mini-him with so much wonder, like he is seeing a child for the first time, but he knows his expressions like the back of his hand; there is an underlying sadness when looking at kid Shouto; it makes his throat close up with emotion.
“How did this happen?” He has one hand extended towards the kid that never connects.
“I assume the villain’s quirk somehow brought him here?”
“So, he is you from the past and not somehow created by the villain?”
“I think if we had someone capable of materialising people, we would know; also, I remember that shirt”; it is a green long-sleeved pyjama top that he got once Natsuo outgrew it; it has a fading dinosaur ironed stamp on the front he used to pick at.
“Is it permanent?”
“I disappeared for five days when I was a kid; I think it’s highly likely I was here.” If Tenya has thoughts about how casually he mentioned disappearing as a kid, he doesn’t say them.
“Do you remember anything?”
“No, I don’t.”
“How old are you? I mean, him.”
“I should be five; the scar is still fresh.” Tenya flinches.
“We should change his bandages when he wakes up; they are dirty,” he says as he is suddenly overwhelmed by the deplorable state he is in, “Ah, I should probably clean myself up, too.”
He stands up silently and tries to walk slowly towards the guest bathroom; he’s always been a light sleeper; any noise would wake him up, and he would rather let the kid sleep till his wake is inevitable. He opens the drawer below the bathroom sink and takes out the first aid kit; he takes it to the living room, where his husband is still looking at the child. He could patch himself up in the bathroom; he knows he can, but he is unsettled, and he prefers to feel Tenya nearby to calm his nerves, or at least not be alone right now.
Tenya turns to look at him as he attempts to close the bathroom door with one foot; he is aware his hands are still shaking, yet he doesn’t know why. He just needs to clean his eyebrow cut, and everything will be fine; he will be able to think more clearly, and he will be fine.
The kit is taken from his hands, and he looks up to his husband, who looks reassuringly back at him, “Let me do that for you; go back to the bathroom, love.” He allows it to be taken; there’s no use fighting this. Tenya would start lecturing him about the importance of accepting help. He hasn’t done that in years, and he doesn’t want to refuse him.
“How did this happen?” Tenya gestures for Shouto to sit on the sink counter; Shouto grimaces as he sits and effectively ruins the bathroom they cleaned the day before. Tenya soaks the gauze pad in saline before carefully cleaning around Shouto’s wounds.
“I don’t know, I was fighting a villain, and suddenly there was a fucking child. I promise I don’t know where he came- ah!”
“Sorry, I forgot to warn you it was going to sting”, Tenya says as he cleans the cut on his eyebrow, his touch remains soft and constant, providing comfort as he cleans the blood off Shouto’s face.
“It’s okay; it wasn’t that painful.”
“You don’t remember anything of this time, and we know it’s you. What do you want to do? Do you think it’s a good idea for him to see you?”
“I don’t know; I can’t imagine I would have a normal reaction to seeing myself from the future, but I was a fucked up child; who knows?”
“I would hope you would know yourself.” There’s a teasing tone in his voice as he momentarily intertwines his fingers with Shouto’s.
“Do you remember who you were at five years old?”
“Tensei says I was a lovely little boy, like all little boys out there, Shouto.”
“Even me?”
“Even you.” Tenya tightens his grip on Shouto’s hand before letting it go, returning to covering the wound with clean gauze.
“What if he has a freakout? I was awfully fond of those till like… twelve?”
“Then we deal with it…. All done! I still think you should take a shower; I know you hate the sensation of dirt.”
“You hate it mo–” Shouto is effectively shut up by a soft kiss on his forehead. He closes his eyes and savours the moment; a few seconds later, he lets his forehead fall on Tenya’s chest.
“I’m scared I won’t know how to handle him when he awakens,” he confesses into his husband’s chest, and he feels his arms come up to embrace Shouto, his hands running up and down his arms as if to calm him down. He is getting so dirty.
“You hate changes to your routine, and I was such a–”
”A child? Listen to me, Shouto, am I not a hero? Is it not my duty to protect children and make them feel safe? More than that, I’m your husband, and my commitment to you, the one I have freely chosen, is to take care of and support you. It doesn’t change when there are two of you.”
Shouto breathes deep against his husband’s neck and holds onto his shoulders, “How am I supposed to deal with this?”
“With me”, he shudders his next breath; right here, in Tenya’s arms, he can shower in the gentleness he shows him. Right now, he can afford to close his eyes and sag against his husband, pretending everything is fine because when he is here, everything is.
He breathes his husband in; there is no sound in the world, but their heartbeats and the tap water leak that refuses to be fixed. For a few precious minutes, there is peace, quiet and warmth, that is, until he starts hearing curious little steps in the living room, his hand tightening on his husband’s shoulders.
Tenya moves apart, and for a moment, Shouto is left adrift, not for long as Tenya takes his lost hands into his.
“Take a shower, freshen up; I’ll take care of you– er, little you. It’s better if he sees me first; let me prepare him for you.”, he gives Shouto no time to protest before he presses a kiss to his cheek and marches out of the guest bathroom. Shouto touches the cheek Tenya just kissed, and it comes back grimy.
He is so dirty.
He hops into the shower and tries to hurry as much as possible; he cannot leave his husband alone with an easily spooked 5-year-old version of himself just because he wants to escape the inevitable confrontation. While shampooing his hair and thinking about how useless the first aid is going to be now that he showers the band-aid away, he touches a little patch of raised and bumpy skin beginning on the intersection of his forehead and his hairline, hardly noticeable when uncovered by his bangs, an old scar.
It is an old memory from shortly after his mom left– no, was sent away, a few weeks or months after his scar, he doesn’t remember well, long before he outgrew his own childlike clumsiness.
He had been exhausted after training with his father; he’d wanted to see the koi pond, he recalls. He hadn’t taken notice of his siblings playing in the garden; had he seen them, Shouto wouldn’t have gone outside. He only noticed them when Natsuo shouted something at Fuyumi, the sound startling him so badly that he slipped on the little step that separated his home from the garden, falling from a relatively short height. However, distance didn't matter; as he hit his head on a small rock on the ground, hot blood started dripping on his face before the pain even registered. Natsuo and Fuyumi yelling unintelligible things as he cried his little lungs out, is a thing that stayed with him; for all they shrieked, none of them came near him, and for five minutes, or an hour, Shouto didn’t know, he was a small child crying before the steps of his house, bleeding slowly, hearing the sounds of alarm and yet staying there, sprawled across the ground, in the dirt, alone.
Shouto thinks that was the moment he realised that no matter how many people lived in that empty shell they called a house, he was utterly alone, and no one was coming to pick him up; At the tender age of 5, Shouto had had to pick himself up from the ground and cry as he cleaned his wounds, little hands full of dirt with no one to tell him he should wash his hands before touching his face.
The scar is barely visible now, a little thing that opened the door to a miserable realisation, one he carried up until the moment he met his friends, heavy on his back for the subsequent 11 years of his life, Shouto wears it like a familiar school backpack full of jagged, heavy rocks, up to this day, but now has a place to take it off at, Shouto hasn’t put it back on his shoulders for a while now.
He hurries with the rest of his body, ignoring the typical aches of being a hero on duty five days a week; he quickly gets dressed and tries to stick the soaked, useless band-aid back on his forehead so Tenya can at least think it is helpful. He more-or-less succeeds in trying to stick it back on his face, ignoring the horrible wet texture of it.
Okay, it is time, don’t think, don’t think, don’t think. He is but another child; treat him like you would any distressed child.
His hand turns the doorknob, and he comes out of the bathroom; he walks the halls with a steady gait, hearing the soothing, soft voice of his husband talking to a child, talking to him.
Shouto thinks seeing a child version of yourself should be easier the second time around; Shouto, like usual, is wrong.
There is not a single cell in his body that doesn’t scream when he looks at a hurt child, something ugly and brutal inside him twisting and crying and begging to be let out in whatever way it can, coming to terms with the fact that everywhere in every city, every town, they hurt little kids, that there are kids he will never get to, that there’s no humanly possible way to make sure none of them ever go through horrible things. It is a violent urge that he gets when he realises there are more children out there with hopelessness in their hearts, children who will never get what he got, a chance to heal, an extended hand, kids who will never be looked at and truly be seen.
It usually keeps him up at night, but he can mostly live with it… mostly. It is incomparable to the feeling he gets when he sees that child sitting on their sofa, a frail kid with bony knees, bruised arms, and bandages covering half of his face. Looking at him feels like an all too familiar punch to the gut, a gaping hole in his stomach someone stuck their arm in and broke every single one of his ribs to take his heart out, violent and bloody, horribly hollow feeling that he gets when he drops from the tallest buildings before his ice catches him. Revolting, too strong and consuming, looking at him– the child, makes him want to throw up what little he ate this morning, and so he decides simply not to feel.
That’s not him; that’s just another hurt child. Shouto’s 23 years older than the kid; could they even be considered the same person? He is a child in distress, a child he doesn’t know, a child he has not been in decades.
He’s done this before. It’s child’s play for him at this point, to separate himself from unwanted feelings; he is exceptionally proficient in not feeling like a child. If he didn’t feel like a child at 8, why would he feel like a child at 27?
Armed with that, he comes closer to the kid; he can tell the exact moment he becomes visible to him; his eyes widen in disbelief, frantic trying to take an older version of himself in. Shouto has never felt this nervous about being scrutinised by someone before; he wonders if the kid is content with what he sees, if this is how he imagined he’d grow up to look.
The kid promptly looks at his scar and starts crying.
His eyes well up with tears,
… shit,
“Oh no! Okay, come here, come here, what happened?” Tenya tries to simulate a calm exterior, but Shouto knows he is freaking out. He is on his knees to be almost at face-to-face level with kid Shouto. “Hey Shouto, what’s wrong.”
“It’s not going to heal!” Tenya reacts quickly to little Shouto attempting to wipe his tears with his tiny fists, gently stopping his hand from reaching for his covered wound. “Hey Shouto, don’t do that, you are going to hurt yourself”. His grip is feeble, soft enough for a 5-year-old child to pull free at any time.
“I’m already hurt!” the kid, now aware of his hands, only rubs at his unbandaged eye. Tenya shoots a look at him; he can feel the panic his fiance so rarely expresses. Shouto really is just standing there, staring, letting his husband handle everything, and while he knows Tenya would gladly take this off his hands, this is not his responsibility, and so he acts.
Shouto sits next to the crying child and sees his little face turn to look at him. He is still crying, but he cannot hide the natural curiosity of being a kid and having a grown version of himself right next to him. He touches his scar, traces its edge with the pads of his fingers, and watches as kid Shouto’s eyes follow them.
“It doesn’t hurt anymore, you know? It hasn’t hurt for years now.” What the fuck is he doing? Will this really help at all?
“It doesn’t?”
“Not at all. Do you want to touch it?” His little cold hands immediately come up to Shouto’s face, and for a second, they stay there, a 5-year-old version of himself with half his face bandaged and a 28-year-old adult, scar long healed, just as noticeable as it’s ever been, rarely itchy now, looking at each other for answers.
“You know, I haven’t hated this scar for a long time now…. My friend said once that it makes me look like a comic book superhero.” Little Shouto makes a face at that, almost like he wants to call him out for lying, but he is not, not that the kid would know; he’s never had anyone other than his mother. The concept of friendship is alien to him. The concept of self-acceptance even stranger.
“It makes me look cool, don’t you think?” Little Shouto looks him in the eye like he is searching for any indication that he is lying and pretending for him. There is none.
“My husband likes to kiss it.” That makes little Shouto pause his exploration and look at him like he’s scared of something. “You got married?” Shouto knows he fucked up.
“I did.” He looks at Tenya and sees his regret reflected in his husband’s eyes; he didn’t tell little Shouto who he was then.
“Why?” All child-like speech, what little warmth little Shouto had shown, is completely gone now. The clinical tone of his voice lets the people sitting by him know what he is doing. He is hiding. An all-too-young face with an all-too-grown tone of voice stares at him questioningly.
“Because we love each other.” He answers like it’s easy, because it is. It is a question he asks himself quite often. When he overthinks what he brings to the table and gets it in his head that Tenya settled by marrying him, he remembers they love each other, and that’s enough.
“Mom didn’t love father.” A fact stone cold and evident to the eye, a heavy burden for a child.
“I know”, his voice remains steady despite the quickness of the answer.
“Does he hurt us?” Shouto is taken aback, surprise evident on his face. He tries to school back his expression, but the notion of his husband being anything other than gentle with him is now unfathomable. “No, he doesn’t.”
Little Shouto looks at him with questions all over his face. He knows he wants to ask many more things; he knows he is trying to decide whether or not to believe the grown version of himself he’s only known for approximately 4 minutes. “Where is he?”
“He is here.” He points at Tenya, his husband looking back at him like a deer in headlights. “He didn’t tell me.” Little Shouto seems bothered by being lied to through omission, and he scoots closer to Shouto, leaving Tenya feeling guilty. “Maybe he didn’t want you to be spooked.”
“I’m not afraid of him; father is much scarier.” Shouto’s face falls, and he can tell Tenya’s does too; little Shouto is entirely too young to be scared of his own father; then again, it is during childhood when parents have the most potential to be scary.
“Why am I here?” His question snaps Shouto out of his depressing line of thought; he once again looks at his husband questioningly, “I thought he told you,” Shouto knows he is a coward, throwing his husband under the bus like this.
“I don’t wanna hear it from him. I want to hear it from you.” Ah, so Tenya did tell him, but little Shouto doesn't trust him. Shouto used to do this all the time when he was a kid; he would make his mother repeat what everyone said, and he would come home from school and ask his mother every single thing the teacher told him; if his mom said it was true, then it simply was.
“Er…., I was in the middle of my job. I’m a hero,” Shouto can see the child looking pointedly at him, putting him on the spot, “and the villain’s quirk brought you here from the past.” Shouto thinks this will cause myriad more questions, but unsurprisingly, the first thing to come out of little Shouto’s mouth is:
“Do you use your fire?”
“No.” He looks at Tenya and begs him with his eyes to go along with him on this. His husband imperceptibly nods.
“Will I go back?” There’s a unique tilt to his voice; he doesn’t want to, but he is afraid to hope. Shouto proceeds to shatter every hope.
“Yes, you will.” He sees no reason to lie; telling him he gets to stay might be crueller than telling him the truth; unlike telling him he uses his fire now, he doesn’t want to pin the emotional responsibility to parse through that mess at only 5 years old.
“When?”
“Four to five days from now, when I disappeared at your age, I was found at home shortly after. Gave father quite the scare.” Shouto smiles at that, and he sees little him do the same. Good.
“Will I remember?” He is asking all the hard questions, questions Shouto would rather not answer, “No, you won’t”.
“Okay. Will I be allowed to stay here?” The obvious scripting of these questions makes Shouto’s heartache; he is very aware of what kind of life instilled these behaviours in a younger version of himself.
“Of course, we will take care of you,” Tenya quickly answers.
“I know how to take care of myself.”
“Doesn’t mean you have to do it.” Young and old, they look at each other, knowing they are both willing to keep going back and forth on the issue, but neither decides to continue.
Sigh
This is going to be challenging.
That same night, after Shouto and Tenya had made a makeshift bed in their living room, joining their two couches, leaving the tatami mats in their room to little Shouto, they finally talk to each other as they lay side by side, making themselves comfortable, or trying to, on the crowded couches.
“Why did you lie about your fire?”
“I don’t want to give the kid a principles crisis.” He answers easily, like he wasn’t dreading the question from the moment the lie slipped out of his lips.
“Don’t you think you should’ve told him the truth? He is meant to find out eventually.” Shouto knows his husband is right. He is a famous pro-hero; his face is plastered on billboards and magazines, his fights are replayed on television, and his name makes the news on a weekly basis; if not now, the kid will find out, and once he realises they’ve lied to him, taking care of him will be much more complicated. “I know I should tell him; I promise I will, but let me have a little more time. You know, the incident is pretty recent for him, plus he isn’t going to remember.”
“So, would you lie to a person because they aren’t going to remember? You know I support you, always, but I don’t think this is the right choice.” His husband’s hands move between them, searching for his.
“I know.” Shouto knows what it feels like to be lied to, to trust someone so blindly and completely, and he can recall the exact feeling of his heart breaking when the floor shattered underneath his feet. “I’ll tell him tomorrow, I promise.”
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________
The day after, they decide to go clothes shopping; the kid will be staying here for a few days and there’s absolutely no way Tenya will stand dressing mini-shouto in Shouto’s pyjamas the entirety of his stay, Shouto knows that.
And so with one child in hand, they drive all the way to the furthest, most isolated store, one where they won’t have to see huge advertisements and posters of heroes showing off trendy new clothes, a store where they won’t see Shouto using his fire in the store TV or a magazine. Also, it is a place where the media is not likely to find them.
They still make little Shouto wear an All Might beanie to cover his distinctive mop of hair. Shouto wonders if the kid is thinking of taking it home. He knows he would’ve, maybe he had. He really doesn’t remember.
“Love, do you think he would prefer the blue or green socks? I know those are your favourite colours”, Tenya snaps him out of his thoughts with a harmless question. “You should ask him?”, his husband turns to the child holding Shouto’s hand and he can tell how this interaction will go.
Surprising absolutely no one, little Shouto shies away from Tenya, hiding behind Shouto’s legs, looking up at him like he will save him from the daunting “evil” that is his husband.
“Hey little man, I know you don't trust my husband, but I promise you, I trust him, he takes care of us and I love him very much. You don’t have to be afraid to answer his questions; they are not a test, and there’s no wrong answer.” He gives his tiny —so very tiny— hand what he hopes is a reassuring squeeze.
Little Shouto moves away from his legs and with his other hand pointing at the blue socks, Tenya is holding up. “Perfect! These socks will make you look dashing, little hero!” his husband says enthusiastically, hoping to get a little smile out of him. And again, surprising absolutely no one, he gets a shy smile from both of them. His husband beams back at him as if he is trying to show him what he managed, like making little Shouto smile is something to be proud of, and it is.
Shouto remembers Eri then, the little girl who was so similar to what he now remembers of Little Shouto. Shy and scared, yet not completely disillusioned with the world even after everything that’s happened to them, in a way only children can be. Her smiles felt like a small blessing. Little Shouto’s smiles don’t feel any different.
To have someone so hurt and mistreated smile at you with so much joy and trust, putting their vulnerable selves in your hands, it’s unlike anything else in the world, and he wonders perhaps that’s how his husband feels when he smiles at him. He smiles extra wide at him at the thought.
His husband smiles back with even more fervour, leaning down to kiss him.
“Working on an off-day?” Shouto stares at him curiously.
“What do you mean? I’m not working–”
“Because that smile just disarmed me”, Shouto can’t help it, he snorts loudly and boards his husband for another kiss. Here with his amazing husband and a smiling little Shouto with the cutest pair of new socks, he thinks maybe it won’t be that hard.
Shouto is obviously, very wrong. He comes to realise this the moment he answers his phone 4 hours after they left the store. Turns out media had indeed caught up to them and now pictures of them holding a tiny child were everywhere. This call wasn’t about that.
Somehow Shouto manages to forget one essential group of people in this equation; his family, so now, as he answers Natsuo’s call, he can feel himself dreading whatever he is going to tell him. His relationship with Natsuo had improved greatly, he cried at his wedding and everything, they are as close as Shouto had always hoped they would be, but still, he finds himself nervous as he puts the phone to his ear.
“Hello?”
“Don’t Hello me Todoroki Shouto”, ah he saw the pictures already,
“I assume you saw the pictures?”, he listens to Natsuo make a disbelieving noise on the other side of the phone.
“You mean the pictures of Tenya, you and a child that looks exactly like you at 5?”
“Yeah…”, he really doesn’t know what to say, he has been used to relying on himself for so long that letting his husband in was a challenge by itself, and while he has been getting better at accepting help, he still hesitates before going to his siblings with his problems.
“Ah… look Shouto, I just want to know what happened and why you didn’t tell us”, Natsuo drops the accusing tone.
He explains the situation as emotionlessly as possible, trying to avoid the very obvious result of this call. However, as soon as Natsuo utters his next question, he knows he has failed.
“Do you want us to come see you? Fuyumi, mom and I, no father” Shouto aches for his older siblings and his mother to come help him with this very daunting situation, yet he doesn’t know how much good or bad that will do to the kid.
“I don’t know, I don’t know if this will send the child spiralling. Mom just burnt him.” The surprised sound Natsuo makes leads him to believe he thought the scar was older, the bandages covering it for the sake of aesthetics like he did later after it had somewhat healed.
“Yeah, okay, what about Fuyumi and I?”
“Yes”, he says quickly and without hesitation, they are old enough to not be recognised by little Shouto as what his older siblings will look like in twenty-something years. “But, I really want to see Mom too. I know it’s selfish but no one knows little Shouto like her, and I could really use her help.”
“Maybe we can disguise her? Hopefully that way you— I mean, him, will be disoriented enough not to recognise a considerably older version of his mother”.
“That might work!°, Hope nestles around Shouto’s heart, as the possibility of getting help and seeing his mother becomes more and more plausible.
“Do you think we can come by later in the evening? I don’t get off work till 7”
“Yeah, of course, let me just tell Tenya to make sure we have enough food for everybody, and well, I’ll try to tell the little guy that some friends are coming.” Natsuo laughs and that calms Shouto’s wildly beating heart a little.
“Alright, alright! See you at 7 kid”, Shouto baulks audibly and Natsuo laughs again.
“See you at 7”.
“If I may know, what was that about, love?”, his husband is standing in the doorway, coming inside after taking little Shouto out to see the neighbourhood cats, and gain his trust on the way.
“Ah, some friends are coming over to help for a little while….”, he signals Tenya with his eyes, you know, the man that cried at my wedding and his family. Tenya’s eyes widen as he realises he means his own family.
“Mother and father too?”
“Only the mother.”
“Who’s coming?” The tiny voice startles them both. They turn to little Shouto at the same time, excuses and prepared lies ready to spill from their lips. However, Shouto can’t stand the thought of lying to him again.
“Natsuo, Fuyumi and Mom” He might as well just have said “Mom”, with the way little Shouto reacted.
His eyes fill with joy, wonder so unexpected it throws Shouto for a loop. “Mom is going to be here? We get to see Mom when we are older?”
Ah.
A dull pain he had forgotten over the years takes hold of him, squeezing his chest painfully. He remembers it so clearly now, being five and scared, his mom had just hurt him, yet no one could make it better but her. He asked his father daily when Mom would be coming back, to the same terrible answer…
Never.
It was the worst possible answer, he had made his mother go away, it had all been his fault, for being like him, for looking like him, for reminding her of him. The only one who shared his blame was his father.
“Yes, yes you get to see her whenever you want now.” The words come tumbling out before he can stop them. “She is coming by later”. He will not be responsible for causing this child any more suffering.
He knows Tenya is looking at him like he just grew three heads, but he can't keep lying to the kid, not another lie. Just the one.
The dreaded anticipated hour arrives sooner than later. At 7 pm on the dot, Tenya and Shouto’s doorbell rings. Little Shouto runs to the door, jumping on his little feet– so little– feet, waiting for Shouto to open the door.
As he opens the door, little Shouto fights his way to the very front of Shouto and Tenya’s legs, excited to be the first to greet his mother. The moment he sees Rei, older, rounder, gentler and for some reason with a terrible brown wig, he runs at her and collides with her legs.
“MOM!” Ah, Shouto hoped to get a little bit more time before showing Rei her 5-year-old son.
Little Shouto sobs into her legs, the heart-breaking quiet sobs of a mistreated child, making little sound but wracking his whole body. Fuyumi and Natsuo, who are standing by Rei’s side, look at little Shouto with wonder, like it’s their first time ever looking at him. He can relate, he can’t believe he was ever that small. The thought of hurting a child that small, of training him until he puked, is horrendous, bitter and rage-inducing. The thought of comparing him to a fully grown adult– No, he knows the special situation his mother was in, he knows it in his bones.
He looks at Natsuo to distract himself from the unwanted thoughts; he finds him staring at little Shouto still, eyes clouded. In the past Shouto would’ve thought that his brother was once again reminded of how neglected he was in favour of Shouto, however now, he can identify the guilt in his brother’s eyes, guilt for feeling, guilt for ever putting any blame on him.
“Natsuo, you really couldn’t find a better wig? You are lucky I told him about Mom before you arrived.” The words work and his brother is snapped back to the current scene unfolding on his doorstep.
“We had 2 hours to find one, get off my back.”, he says with a smile, finally looking Shouto in the eye.
His mom picks up the crying child, cradling him in her arms like she did this last a day ago and not over 20 years ago. The dull ache of not remembering how it feels hits him in full force.
“Shouto, Iida-kun, can we come in?” Fuyumi asks awkwardly, it jostles him back to the present.
“Of course you can Fuyumi-san”, Tenya answers before Shouto can connect words in his brain. He steps aside as they enter, his mother staying behind with little Shouto.
“Shouto”, he turns his head, ready to answer her, but she isn’t talking to him. Her eyes are fixed on the small child in her arms, like he is the only thing in the world, like he is the only version of her son standing there.
He silently turns around and goes inside.
The living room has never been livelier, his mom, who he thought would’ve panicked at the sight of the five-year-old she hurt on a psychotic break, is the happiest he’s ever seen her. It stings a bit, to not remember smiles that bright being directed at him. He immediately feels guilt crawling up his back. It’s not her fault their relationship now is too riddled with guilt and regret to ever be this light.
Little Shouto has gone from a crying tiny mess to a content little thing on the couch, surrounded by a family that loves him so much, a family that has grown into what today he can call happy— except for his father, that is. It makes him ponder on how easily little Shouto switched up, on how easily he could’ve done so if he had received the tiniest gentleness from his family back then.
How quickly he forgot about his still-fresh burn is something that amazes him, but he guesses children are like that. Even the most jaded kids will flower under gentleness and affection. He doesn’t think he can do that quite so easily now. It took years for him to accept that he didn’t have to earn Tenya’s love, that it was something freely given. He cannot help but think his mother should have never let him forget that— no, it wasn’t her fault. It wasn’t on her. He’s never blamed her and he sure as hell isn’t going to start now. No. If he has to be angry at someone, let it be his father. Let it be the coward who couldn’t face his own five-year-old son.
He admits the thought bothers him more than it should, it stays in his mind longer than allowed. All he can think of is why.
Tenya, seeing his conflicted face, moves to sit next to him. He loves his family, he really does. He loves Fuyumi talking about her students, and Natsuo regaling them with stories about all his impressive surgeries, his mom talking about her garden and why acidic soil changes the colours of her favourite hydrangeas; but right now…right now he can’t bear it. All he can focus on is little Shouto’s shy smile, his awestruck eyes as Natsuo carries him on his shoulders and his mom ruffles his hair. Why wasn’t it him? Why did it take so long? They are going to take this all away from little Shouto when he inevitably has to go back. He won’t remember but it’s something none of them can ignore.
Like it goes with his family, everything eventually blows up.
It all starts with Fuyumi turning the TV on to put on some cartoons for little Shouto, as he is getting sleepy from all the excitement, he is dozing off on his mother’s arms when it happens.
The news comes up first and inevitably, there’s Shouto’s latest fight, a replay of everything that happened up till he arrested the villain. Everyone in the living room can see in detail how adept he’s become at using his fire. Everyone can see him using it.
His ears ring and his eyes blur, when he is able to focus on something, it’s little Shouto’s betrayed face, a face he is responsible for. There’s more hurt in that stare than anger, yet when he speaks, he seems like he is a few decades older than he is.
“YOU LIED TO ME.” He screams directly in Shouto’s space, his little fists coming to collide against his legs. “LIAR”
“Shouto, please, calm down–” his mother tries but to no avail, little Shouto’s eyes are full of hot tears that stream down his face, and Shouto is too defeated to defend himself from those tiny fists.
“YOU SAID WE DIDN’T USE OUR FIRE”, Tenya kneels on the floor, right to little Shouto’s level and he starts apologising to the kid.
“I’m sorry, I’m really sorry we kept this from you, we understand that you are angry, but please stop hitting him.”
“NO, IT’S HIS FAULT!, IT’S MY FAULT MOM HURT ME, I GREW UP JUST LIKE HIM”, he screams, and at that moment the room gets so quiet they would be able to hear a pin drop. It is what finally snaps him out.
“Leave”
“Shouto–”, Natsuo starts but he interrupts him immediately. “Leave, I’ll call you later, but everyone needs to leave.”
“DON’T TELL HER TO LEAVE, SHE’LL NEVER COME BACK AND IT WILL BE YOUR FAULT.” The tears don’t stop, and he is scared the poor kid will choke on his own tears.
“I promise we can call her later okay Shouto?” His husband immediately reassures him as his family starts heading out, all with nervous sad looks on their faces.
When they finally leave and only Tenya, little Shouto and he, are left, he kneels in front of the kid and lets his own tears fall, which stuns little Shouto into silence.
“I’m so sorry, I should have never lied to you. We are nothing like our father, we use our fire to save people, to rescue them and keep them warm during cold days, and to make sure kids don’t get sick in the rain, I promise you we use it for so much good.” Little Shouto is still crying when he utters a question that breaks his heart.
“If we aren’t like father, why would she hurt us?”
“I don’t know, kid. I truly don’t know.” He opens his arms for little Shouto to walk right into them, and so he does, he picks him up and for a good 10 minutes they both cry themselves out. They cry till they can’t cry anymore until little Shouto starts yawning anew.
“I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry I hurt you.” He feels dirty, terrible, and guilty, he takes all the blame for betraying his own trust, for becoming one more adult who lied to him, hurt him, and failed him.
He remembers the silver of a moment right as his mom poured boiling water on his face, Before he could rationalise it and blame his father, before he could try to explain it away. Betrayal. They were supposed to be a team, hurt by the same person, they were supposed to be allies in that house against his father, and yet there she was, hurting him, betraying him. Making him realise they were never a team. And here he is, making that same mistake again.
One emotion cements deep in his heart, one he has never allowed.
Anger.
The next day he can’t face him in fear of his shameful feelings coming back. He eats in his room in the morning, he locks himself in the bathroom for hours. When Tenya attempts to cheer little Shouto up by going to the park, he claims to be busy with work and if Tenya notices, which he knows he did, he doesn’t say anything.
He thinks he can keep this up till the kid vanishes into thin air, those hopes crack and break like fine glass the moment his husband approaches him a few hours before dinner and closes the door behind him. Little Shouto entertained with a little fidget cube in the living room.
“Why are you avoiding him, Shouto? He trusts you. I know you think he is still angry but he was asking for you today.” Tenya says as he looks at him with a disillusioned face. His expression burns in Shouto’s mind, unbearable to him.
He turns his face towards his husband, trying to once again lie to him about being busy with work, yet the moment he sees his knowing eyes, his faith in his acting skills crumbles, his face heats and his eyes start to sting.
“I know he trusts me when he shouldn’t, but Tenya, I can’t do this.” He’s pulling at his hair in frustration, keep it in Shouto, keep it in. The mild sting usually grounds him when he gets like this, but to no avail tonight; he needs a little more. “Why can’t you, Shouto? He trusts you; he feels safe with you.” His vision blurs as he feels tears burning behind them. It’s the worst thing Tenya could’ve said.
“BUT HE IS NOT SAFE.” Shouto wants to take it back as soon as he raises his voice; he wants to get on his knees and apologise for making him carry this burden just because they are married.
Forgive me. Forgive me. Please forgive me.
“What?”
“He shouldn’t feel safe, especially not with me, Tenya; I–”
“Shouto… you can keep him safe, take care of him. You’ve helped so many children; why would this be any different?” His fiance has confused this moment for one of self-deprecation; it’s not strange for him to fall back into it when he gets really stressed, but Tenya is wrong; that is not what it is about. “You are being too hard on yourself, Shouto. If you could look at him, if you could look at yourself the way I see you, as someone deserving of kindness and love–”
“I do, I think I do. I look at him, and I do, and I don't know what to feel about it. Ten–” a sob interrupts him as he tries and fails to continue speaking, his mouth gaping open, struggling for breath, his fists clenched. Keeping it in won’t work. He needs to get this out; he needs to tell someone, or it will eat him alive.
His husband attempts to come near him, and he puts his hands up in a desperate attempt to stop him. If he gives in and lets Tenya comfort him, he won't ever get more out than 24 years' worth of tears, and he needs to talk. He needs to get this out. Tenya seems to understand and halts his approach halfway through.
Hot tears stream down his face, and Shouto can’t bear to look at Tenya’s concerned expression, an expression full of love. He turns on his ice quirk and lets coolness overtake his body in an attempt to self-soothe and calm himself down enough for the rest of the words to come tumbling out of his mouth.
With his eyes downcast, he speaks. “How could he do that, Tenya? You look at him, you look at me like loving me is second nature, like it’s as easy as breathing, and I look at him and see the same; I feel the same. He is so small. All my life, I have felt like I’m so difficult to love, like there’s something so unequivocally wrong with me that I somehow deserved the isolation, like I came here to ruin my family’s life, like loving me was wrong, a disrespect to my mother’s plight, like it was hard!” His breathing is picking up again, and his hands are still up, preventing Tenya from coming nearer.
“But I look at him, and loving him, not hurting him, protecting him, is the easiest thing I have ever done. I wanted to throw up when he looked at me with those sad eyes yesterday”
He puts his hands down as he chokes up; he knows he won’t be able to keep talking if he keeps Tenya away, so he puts them down and looks up at him pleadingly. Tenya immediately comes near him and sits by his side. The comforting weight of his warm hand sitting on his knees. “But I can't bear to see him as he is, as hurt as he came to us, because it makes me angry. It makes me angry at my father and every single person who saw it and did nothing, but most importantly, it makes me angry at her, and that’s not fair! I am angry at her, and I don’t know what to do with that, I barely thought of my father these days! I’m angry at her! She doesn’t need that! I don’t need that!.” He is openly sobbing now, scorching tears streaming down his face and his grip tight on his husband’s hand.
“Tenya, he is so little; he doesn’t deserve this. I can’t keep him safe, we can’t keep him safe, he’s going to have to go back just like I did, and he will forget. He won’t know, I won’t know, that one day I’m going to be so loved, one day I’m going to feel safe. He is going to go back to that cursed house, not knowing what’s on the other side of life, wishing every day that things would be different, and it will be so long before it actually improves he will give up hoping things will change halfway through.” He presses his palm against his eyes in an attempt to stop crying. He fails.
When he was a child and then a teen, he’d grown so used to the constant heartbreak of living the way he did, to the point it stopped feeling like it. Still, knowing what happiness truly feels like, he would rather kill himself than step back into that house as he used to be: vulnerable, powerless, a child.
“I was miserable. I was miserable for so long that I stopped seeing how horrible it was to live like that, but he will go back and hate his life every single day. I know how that feels like, and I don’t know what I’m supposed to do with the knowledge that I cannot protect him from this…” He digs his palms deeper into his eyes to the point the pressure starts hurting.
“He doesn’t deserve that. I didn’t deserve that.” He lets the tears fall onto his lap, hands desperately grabbing at the hand his husband kept on his left knee. Shouto doesn’t remember the last time he cried this openly.
“You didn’t, Shouto, you don’t”, his husband’s voice wavers. “The thought of letting you go back to that house, to that life, it pains me greatly; if it was up to me, I would never let him go back. I would move heaven and Earth if it was in my power, to stop it” He squeezes Shouto's hand; Shouto looks at him and sees unshed tears. His heart has always been great, so big to share with everyone he loves.
“But it’s not up to us; we can do nothing to prevent that. One day, it will change; you know this, it’s happened to you, and I know it doesn’t make what you went through okay; nothing will ever make it alright, but it will get better. Believe me, I would move mountains to change what happened and ensure you wouldn’t ever have to carry this burden. But we can do nothing but make sure he is happy for the few days he has left here.”
“He won’t remember. He won’t remember mom loves him, Natsuo playing with him. Fuyumi doting on him. He will forget it all and go back to that wretched house”
“But he will be happy today, and tomorrow. Does him not remembering really matter when he will be feeling this now?” Shouto doesn’t know if Tenya is trying to convince him or himself. Either way, it doesn’t feel true. He knows his husband is right; he can tell he has a point, but knowing he must go back trumps all reason.
“I don’t know what to do Tenya.” He admits with a broken voice.
“We go out, we order some cold soba and we give that child the best days and nights he’s ever had. That’s what we do. And when he leaves, we take days off for work, as much as you need and we deal with it, together. You will be happy Shouto. One day, you know this, he will be happy.
He throws himself into his husband’s arms, with his heart broken and a screaming mind, and he cries.