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Family

Summary:

A late-night movie on a sleepless night leads to a late-night talk...and despite their past differences, Kaminari, Shinsou, and Todoroki are ready to come out of this stronger than they were before.

(Direct sequel to chapter 31 of "31 Days of Dadzawa")

Notes:

I'm stressed, have some angst!

Posting this without much proofreading because I need to go to bed and you might need some comfort angst tonight.

Rated T for themes of child abuse and neglect...and Shinsou saying bad words, oh my!

(See the end of the work for more notes.)

Work Text:

Denki slipped out of his room; his blanket wrapped around his shoulders. The sky was clear, unlike last weekend, but he still felt on edge. Like the air was primed for a lightning strike. Maybe it was just the tension in the house, after everything that had happened, but he wasn’t taking any chances.

He picked his way slowly through the apartment, not wanting to wake up anyone else in his family this late at night.

Or…were they a family?

He hoped they were. He wanted them to be. Toshi and Todoroki had been getting along better, until last weekend. Then, after everything had happened, the whole house just been so tense and quiet. They didn’t see Shinsou in class, of course, but Todoroki had seemed more reserved the whole week.

Then Aizawa had brought them all home for the next weekend, to tell them that Mr. Yamada was moving in to help out with everything. And that was just…weird. Living with one teacher was weird enough—and at least it was his homeroom teacher, who was practically the class dad anyway—but two of them?

He tried to shake those thoughts out of his head as he reached the living room, but he pulled himself short when he realized it was occupied. Denki could see dark hair at one end of the couch, and red and white hair in the armchair at the opposite end.

Great. He took a slow step back, moving as silently as possible, so he wouldn’t disturb them. It seemed like all three of them couldn’t sleep tonight, but that didn’t mean he could just barge in on whatever weird late-night movie thing Shinsou and Todoroki had going for them.

It was too late. They’d heard him. Shinsou leaned up to see over the back of the couch, eyes widening when he caught sight of Denki. “Kami? What’s wrong?”

He shook his head, trying to smile. “Nothing, I just…I’m gonna go back to bed.”

Todoroki was staring now, too. Shinsou rolled up onto his knees on the couch, arms resting on the back of it. “Can’t sleep, huh?”

Denki shrugged. He took a slow step forward, encouraged when the other boys didn’t immediately shoo him away. “I didn’t mean to interrupt,” he whispered.

“Interrupt what?” Shinsou asked. “I’ve seen this movie a hundred times; there’s nothing to interrupt.”

“No, your…your little movie-and-pajama thing,” he explained lamely, gesturing at the two of them. He’d noticed it a few times, though he hadn’t tried to join them or anything. If they couldn’t sleep, they sat up watching some old monster movie on TV and traded parts of their pajamas for some unknown reason.

They hadn’t traded pajamas tonight, he noticed. That made him feel uneasy.

“Sit down, Kami. Come on.” Shinsou gestured to the couch, and Denki reluctantly shuffled around the end to climb onto the cushions. “You’re not interrupting. This isn’t exclusive, right, Todo?”

Todoroki nodded solemnly. Denki noticed, for the first time, that Mochi, Aizawa’s big orange cat, was sprawled across Todoroki’s lap. That made him feel better and worse at the same time…Mochi usually stuck to Todoroki when he was upset. He’d seen the orange cat pull his classmate out of an anxiety spiral more than once.

“This just felt like your special thing,” Denki whispered. He stared at the TV, feeling his ears burn as he spoke. “Watching monster movies and trading clothes or whatever. I didn’t think I should interrupt.”

Something hit him in the face. He tugged the soft fabric down, realizing it was the flannel button-up Shinsou had been wearing over his T-shirt.

“If trading clothes is that important to you, put that on,” Shinsou drawled. “It’s probably way too big for you, since you’re just a shrimp, but if it makes you feel better….”

Denki chuckled, tugging the flannel on. It practically swallowed him, and he had to roll the cuffs up to free his hands. “I’m older than both of you, you know,” he commented.

Shinsou snorted. He reached across the couch to pat the top of Denki’s head. “Whatever, old man.”

He stuck his tongue out at Shinsou and settled deeper in the couch, staring at the movie on TV. So many of these old black-and-white monster movies were the same. The giant knife-faced bird from outer space, or volcano turtle, or sharkenstein (which was clearly a guy in a monster suit) would threaten mankind until the power of love and science saved the day.

This one was remarkably boring. The monsters were just giant grasshoppers, and Denki was pretty sure they were just showing regular grasshoppers crawling on a picture of the city and pretending it was a shot of the giant ones. His mind kept drifting, back to last weekend. Back to the last time the three of them were together in this room.

He cleared his throat, catching the other boys’ attention. “Are we…are we okay?”

The others didn’t answer. Todoroki suddenly looked exhausted, like everything he’d been through was hitting at once. Shinsou had his arms folded, his brow furrowed as he stared at the TV.

“Because I want to be,” Denki hurriedly added. “I want…it felt like we were becoming a real family, you know? And…and I don’t want to lose that.”

He felt stupid just saying it. Why would they want to be a family? Todoroki was just here until he came of age and could move out on his own, and Shinsou had made it clear from the beginning that he wasn’t looking for friends. Denki was pretty sure he was the only one who wanted this.

“I messed up.” Shinsou’s voice broke the silence, startling Denki. He looked first at Denki, then at Todoroki. “I really am sorry, Todo. I messed up. I was so worried about Kami that I forgot about the kettle. If I’d taken one second to think, it wouldn’t have happened.

“And I shouldn’t have said that stuff to you,” he added, turning to Denki. “About the rubber sheets. I just…I was an idiot. I guess….”

“It’s okay,” Denki said quietly, when Shinsou’s voice trailed off. “Really, man, I’m over it. You didn’t mean it, so we’re good.”

“No, just…give me a second.” Shinsou leaned forward, elbows on his knees, resting his head in his hands. He gave a heavy sigh, and Denki watched his fingers flex in his hair for a few seconds. “You guys know I…I grew up in the system?”

Denki nodded. He shared a glance with Todoroki, who answered verbally. “Aizawa told me,” Todoroki explained.

“Yeah. It’s just…here, Kami, look at this.” He pushed some of his hair back and beckoned Denki closer. “You see this? By my ear?”

“Is it a scar?” Denki asked, scrutinizing the faint line.

“Got ‘em on both sides. From a muzzle. There’s some near my mouth, too, but those are even fainter.”

Denki sucked in a breath, his stomach turning. “Toshi…”

“My caseworker—not Ms. Tsurino, the one before her. Nezumi. Every time he placed me in a new home, he gave them the muzzle. Some of them didn’t use it, and just gave it back to him when they got sick of me. But some of them….” He shook his head and leaned back against the couch. Denki moved back to his seat, giving his friend some space.

“In a lot of those places,” Shinsou added, “it was dog-eat-dog. You had to strike first, so the other kids knew not to mess with you. I’ve tried to get over it, but sometimes it all comes back. I know it’s not like that here, but it’s such a habit sometimes. So, I open my mouth and say the first stupid thing I think of.”

Silence stretched between them for a few minutes. Denki watched Shinsou, seeing the tension in his friend’s profile. He knew there was more in there, but he wanted to give him the time to speak for himself. Not push it. Shinsou would say more when he was ready.

“I just wanted to be normal.” When Shinsou finally spoke again, his voice was soft, his eyes focused on the TV. “I wanted to have a normal family, go home to parents who cared about me.” His gaze flickered to Todoroki for a second before he focused on the TV again. “Not be the new kid every semester. Not be the one locked into a fucking muzzle just in case he used his Quirk to protect himself.

Denki’s heart ached. He rubbed his hand across his eyes, trying to force the tears back. Shinsou was still staring at the TV, like he was still trying to line things up in his head.

“Everyone else was always so happy to go home.” Todoroki’s voice broke the silence this time. Denki glanced at him, to find Todoroki staring down the hall with an unreadable expression. He met Denki’s gaze for a moment and gave a halfhearted shrug. “Almost everyone,” he amended.

“Eventually, I started to wonder what it was like. My home was…complicated. It wasn’t a place to be happy. When I was home, I was expected to be working to improve myself, whether through my studies or training. My father controlled every second of my life, when I wasn’t in school.”

“I used to think you had everything I wanted,” Shinsou admitted.

A smile flickered across Todoroki’s face, so brief that Denki wasn’t sure he’d even seen it.

“You were supposed to,” Todoroki said quietly. He looked down at Mochi and gently scratched the top of the cat’s head. “We were supposed to look perfect from the outside. Endeavor valued his public image too much to let the truth show.”

Denki swallowed hard, pulling his knees up to hug them against his chest. He really didn’t belong here. He hadn’t come from a broken family like Todoroki, or an abusive and neglectful system like Shinsou. His parents weren’t great, sure, but it wasn’t like they hurt him.

It wasn’t like they made him go hungry.

“You’re thinking awfully hard over there, Kami,” Shinsou commented.

He shook his head. “I’m okay.”

Shinsou twisted on the couch, stretching his legs out so he could jab Denki’s hips with his toes. “Spit it out, Sparky. What’s on your mind?”

“It’s nothing.”

“We’re all sharing secrets tonight, bro. Let it out.”

Bro. He didn’t know if Shinsou was just using it as a term of endearment, the way Kirishima did, or if it meant something more.

Denki just wanted them to be a family.

“I just feel bad,” he finally whispered. “I didn’t…I didn’t have any of that stuff growing up. My parents never hit me or anything like that, I just had normal punishments, you know?”

“What’s normal?” Shinsou asked dryly.

Denki shot a nervous glance at Todoroki. He was pretty sure normal for Todoroki was something awful…he’d seen the scars on his back once, by accident. And Shinsou…Shinsou’s normal was being locked up for the night in a room he shared with five other kids, or being strapped into a muzzle so he couldn’t use his Quirk.

“They yelled at me,” he finally admitted. “Locked me in my room. Didn’t let me eat with them. That kind of stuff.”

“They didn’t let you eat?” Todoroki asked, his brow furrowed in concern.

“No, nothing like that,” Denki shrugged. “I just…I couldn’t eat with them, y’know? If I misbehaved or something, I had to wait until they were done. It’s nothing…they weren’t that bad.”

Shinsou snorted. “Pretty sure Aizawa would say they shouldn’t have been any bad.”

Denki shrugged again. “I couldn’t sit still.” He closed his eyes, blocking out the other boys’ gazes. If he didn’t say it now, he might never say it. “They tried to fix that. They tied me in my chair while they ate dinner—they just used scarves, never left bruises. But they always said it was for my own good. If I could just learn to sit still, they wouldn’t have to do it.”

Aizawa didn’t even know about that. It all seemed so stupid…they’d never left him in the chair for too long, never made him go without dinner.

They didn’t make him go hungry. They didn’t hurt him.

(“If you were really a boy, Keiko, I’d beat you black and blue for that.”)

A hand on his back startled him out of his thoughts. He realized Shinsou had scooted next to him, and at the larger boy’s beckoning he let himself be pulled into a side hug.

“They sound like they fucking suck,” Shinsou commented.

Denki shrugged. “They didn’t hurt me.”

His friend sighed. “I don’t think that’s true, Denki.”

He shut his eyes, turning slightly to rest his head against Shinsou’s shoulder.

“Endeavor never laid a hand on Fuyumi,” Todoroki spoke up in the silence that followed. “But he still hurt her.”

“That’s different,” Denki whispered. He heard someone moving around and opened his eyes to see Todoroki gently setting Mochi down in his chair before coming over to sit on the coffee table in front of Denki.

“I think it’s always different,” Todoroki said simply. “But that doesn’t make it better or worse.”

He felt Shinsou nod. “This one place…before Diet Tartarus, my last group home…the lady running it wasn’t obviously evil or anything, but she had this way of saying things. She talked down to me all the time, and she always had this really cheerful, positive tone of voice while saying these terrible things. Her biggest thing was telling us we should be grateful, because we were the bad children and she’d given us a home.

“I heard that every day I lived there. I needed to be grateful. I was ungrateful. Grateful kids don’t do this, grateful kids don’t do that. It wore me down until I started to believe her. Maybe I wasn’t grateful. I had a tiny bed in an attic with a window we had to tape shut because the latch was broken, but I was supposed to be grateful for that. She and her husband had big, full dinners while we had to fight over the scraps, but we were supposed to be grateful we had food at all.

“Anyway, what I’m trying to say is, maybe they did hurt you and you just don’t know it. She never laid a hand on me, but I still hear her voice sometimes. If I can’t sleep, or if I didn’t eat enough at dinner, or if something didn’t work out…sometimes I think I’d be happier if I was just grateful.”

Denki stared at him and Shinsou shrugged. “I know it’s bullshit, but she’s still there sometimes, saying those nasty things when my mind gets too quiet.”

“All I have is anger.” Todoroki’s voice was quiet, and when Denki looked over he was holding his hands out, palm-up, and staring at them. “My father raised me on his anger, and sometimes I think that’s all I have inside me. He beat and burned everything else out, and all that’s left is this anger. I never knew that was wrong. I thought that was just what it took to be the best—I had to become stronger than him so that I could throw everything back in his face.

“Then I came to UA and saw what life was like outside my house. I found friends who could break through my anger and show me what true strength was.”

Denki smiled. He remembered the fight at the sports festival…Midoriya challenging Todoroki over and over, until Todoroki finally used the fire side of his Quirk. And after that, Todoroki, awkward and quiet, slowly accepting more and more friendship from their classmates.

“But he’s still there. I hear him sometimes, and I wonder if this is all I’ll ever be. This anger. If I’m destined to be just like him.”

On the TV, the scientist and his lady friend had figured out how to create a chemical smoke to drive the giant grasshoppers away. One of the grasshoppers jumped straight off the picture of the building it was supposed to be climbing and landed on the sky in the picture before the camera cut away.

“I guess…I just want to be good enough,” Denki whispered. “Nothing was ever good enough for them, and I feel like there’s some invisible goal I’m gonna miss here. My grades suck, but I’m working on them, but I keep wondering if I’ll just be too much today. That’s what they always said, you know? I was too hyper or too emotional, I couldn’t stand still, I needed too much. Too clingy. Too stupid…hey, you know what my mom said when I passed the midterm? She said I was finally smart enough to be called an idiot.”

Shinsou’s arm around him tightened. His heart ached, but he almost felt a little lighter. He’d never shared any of this before, not even with his closest friends.

“I never really knew my brothers,” Todoroki said quietly. “One died while I was too young to remember, and I was never allowed to spend time with Natsuo. I don’t even know his favorite food.”

He looked up, and there was a slight smile on his face. “I think I want us to be okay, too. If we could be a family…I think I’d like that.”

“Trauma bonding is still bonding,” Shinsou commented dryly.

Denki glanced at him. “So…?”

“We’re okay.” Shinsou reached over to pat Todoroki’s knee, keeping his arm around Denki. “If we want to be okay, then we’re okay.”

He let out a relieved sigh and relaxed against Shinsou. The other boy wasn’t usually much of a cuddler, but Denki would take what he could get. He stared at the TV, his eyes getting heavier, while a commercial announced that the next movie was Volcano Turtle VS the Moon Spider.

They were okay.

But more than that…they were a family.

 

Notes:

Never forget, I love you all! Now drink some water and get some sleep!

 

This fic has Mr. Phil's seal of approval

 

I'm planning on doing another big fic in this series for Whumpcember! It won't be like 31 Days, it's a connected story with multiple, interconnected plotlines. Part of it is the story of the sea urchin villain, including some of Fat Gum and Aizawa's custody battle, and part of it is a super secret plotline I've had planned for about two months now. So if I don't post anything else between then and now, I'll see you on December 1st!

(BTW the grasshopper movie is real, I can't remember the name, but they were absolutely regular grasshoppers crawling around on a picture. Volcano Turtle VS the Moon Spider was fully made-up, though)

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