Hogo-en

by Zethsaire

Summary:

“I’ll miss you too, Shouto,” Touya said. And then he got up, and walked out of Shouto’s life.

That could have been the end of it. In another life, it had been. In that life, Touya had lost his phone somewhere, or maybe he’d never had it to begin with; an easy lie to soothe Shouto until he was long gone. But in this life, things went ever so slightly differently. In this life, Touya held onto his phone when he lost literally everything else. Any time of the day or night, if Shouto called or texted, Touya answered.

Or: what if Touya kept in contact with Shouto after he ran away?

Chapter 1: Five - Twelve (20XX)

Notes:

Posting two different WIP at the same time...insanity!!! I’m hoping for bi-weekly updates, we’ll see how it goes ;3

Note on pairings: Undecided yet if there will be any Shouto pairings yet or not. Dabi & Hawks is coming, but not for at LEAST a few more chapters. But since I knew the story was going to veer that way, I wanted to tag it from the beginning.

Warnings for this chapter: canon typical violence, cannonical & non-cannonical child abuse (because Endeavor.) Pretty much the whole fic is going to deal with trauma and abuse, so if that’s not for you, I recommend not reading. Protect yourself, you deserve it!

Enjoy~

EDIT: Heads up for anyone who found this fic with the new Aizawa/Present Mic tag - it's a background ship. This fic is mostly centered around Shouto. Same goes for Dabi/Hawks, and even Shouto/Izuku. There is some romance towards the later half of the fic but mostly this is a slice of life fic. Just don't want anyone to get disappointed! :D

Shouto’s brother Touya ran away when Shouto was five years old, two weeks before the Incident. At the time, Shouto hadn’t really understood what was going on. He’d had a brutal joint training session with Touya and his father, he still remembered the bruises. And he remembered Touya covering for him as much as he could, because while Shouto was a hard worker and keen learner, he was still only five. His quirk was strong, but he’d only had it for about six months, and he wasn’t anywhere near his father’s level. Eventually, Endeavor had lost his patience, and sent Shouto out of the training room. Shouto couldn’t remember the exact words, but he remembered shouting, and the crackle of fire, and the nauseating smell of burnt flesh. He remembered his father coming out of the training room, fear in his eyes, shouting for an ambulance. He remembered how Touya had looked on the scorched mats, deathly still and still smoking. He remembered the screams of the ambulance sirens, how they had taken Touya away. And he remembered the night Touya came home, wrapped in bandages, limping, a grim smile on his face. 

“I’m leaving Shouto,” Touya said. “I can’t protect you anymore.”

“...when are you coming back?” Shouto asked, because he hadn’t understood. Touya had just gotten back.

“I’m not. Not ever. But that doesn’t mean you can’t come see me. Look, I got you a phone, I put my number in it. It’s a secret phone, just for us, okay? Don’t let anyone see it, not even Fuyumi. If you want, you can call me. Or text, or whatever.”

“...okay.” Shouto said. He hadn’t gotten a phone of his own yet, but he’d played with Touya, Natsuo and Fuyumi’s phones, and he knew how to make calls, and text, and take photos, and play games. Not that he was allowed to spend time with his siblings, but they each took turns sneaking into his room at night, and playing quietly on the phone together was one of the least risky things they could do.

“And I got you this photo, so you can remember me, okay? It...I kinda hate it, honestly, but it’s the most recent one I have.” 

Touya handed him a photo that had been taken at his birthday dinner. It had been artfully cut so that Endeavor wasn't in the photo except for his legs and the massive hand he had on Dabi's shoulder. (One advantage of the way he loomed over everyone and everything, at least.) His mother was there, to Dabi’s left. Shouto hadn’t noticed as a child, but her eyes were sad and empty. She was posed perfectly, one hand on Dabi's shoulder, a half-smile on her face, the model demure Japanese housewife. It made Shouto sick.

    To his mother's left was Fuyumi. She was eleven here. Her smile was a bit more real than his mother's, but life was already beginning to wear on her. Endeavor hadn't had any interest in training her, since she'd manifested an ice quirk, but that didn't mean she grew up unscathed. She still regularly watched her father beat her mother, and she saw the aftermath of Touya and Shouto’s training sessions. And if she wasn't quiet enough, smart enough, fast enough; hell, if he was in a bad mood, Fuyumi wasn't immune from their father’s hands either.

    Natsuo was in front of Rei, having just turned eight. His smile was blinding and almost out of place. Natsuo had always been a happy child, seemingly oblivious to what was going on around him. He was quirkless, but that had never stopped him. In irritated Endeavor to no end that his quirkless son consistently managed to succeed both academically and emotionally.

    Shouto was on Touya’s right, between his father and Touya. Even at four he was a grim child, and he wasn’t smiling in the photo, looking straight ahead at the camera. It was the last photo taken of him before he’d gotten his scar.

“Can’t you send me a new one?” Shouto hadn’t liked the photo then. He could tell how unhappy they all were, and if he wasn’t ever going to see Touya again, he wanted a photo where they were happy to remember him by. Over time, the photo had grown more precious. Their expressions hadn’t ever changed, but Shouto had. He remembered the time almost fondly - the last time they were a family. It had been a broken family, but still, it held a special place in his heart.

“I’m going to be hiding from dad. From everyone really, so I’m going to change how I look. It wouldn’t be safe if I sent you a photo. But you can send me as many as you want, okay?”

“Okay. Am I. Will I ever see you again?”

Touya’s smile was more of a grimace, at that point. “We’ll figure something out, once you’re a little older, and I have my own place.”

“I’ll miss you,” Shouto whispered, and Touya got down on his knees and gave Shouto a gentle hug.

“I’ll miss you too, Shouto,” Touya said. And then he got up, and walked out of Shouto’s life.

That could have been the end of it. In another life, it had been. In that life, Touya had lost his phone somewhere, or maybe he’d never had it to begin with; an easy lie to soothe Shouto until he was long gone. But in this life, things went ever so slightly differently. In this life, Touya held onto his phone when he lost literally everything else. Any time of the day or night, if Shouto called or texted, Touya answered. Even when he probably shouldn’t have answered, like when he was working (and sometimes, when he said he was working, Shouto could hear the crackle of fire in the background, and he wondered exactly what kind of work Touya was doing.)

Shouto didn’t get to text or call as often as he’d like. He never used the phone when his father was in the house, for fear of having it taken away from him. During the day he was with his private tutors, and then there was family dinner, as awkward as it was with just himself, Fuyumi, Natsuo, and their father looming at the head of the table. Then after dinner was training, and after that, Shouto would usually be too exhausted to perform the complicated maneuvers required to get the phone out of its hiding place in the ceiling. (One of the reasons he’d chosen to hide it there was that no one would suspect a child his size of being able to reach the ceiling.)

    Touya had said he wouldn’t send photos, but apparently that only meant he wouldn’t send photos of himself. He sent Shouto photos almost every day. Sometimes they were stupid jokes he found on the internet, sometimes they were abstract photos of his surroundings, where the thing he wanted to send Shouto - like a fat cat lounging in a shop window - were in focus, while the rest of the photo was blurred beyond recognition. (To keep anyone from being able to run an algorithm and find out where he was, Touya said.) Sometimes Touya would send photos of himself too; pictures where he was wearing a face mask, or a hood, where his face was so deep in shadow the only thing Shouto could see was his eyes. 

Shouto didn’t get to send many photos back; his phone never came down from the ceiling, unless he was texting Touya. Sometimes he’d take a photo of a calligraphy assignment he was particularly proud of, or a photo of his bonsai tree. (Once, he sent Touya a photo of his face once his scar had healed, so that Touya would recognize him if they saw each other. That made Touya angry. Not at Shouto, he’d explained very carefully, but Shouto had never heard Touya’s voice shake with anger so much as the phone call directly after he’d sent that photo.)

xxx 

    The years passed, and Shouto grew. His connection with Touya was secret, private - the only thing he could really call his own. At first it seemed like they were doomed to be apart until Shouto reached his majority (and Shouto worried about whether Touya would still be alive by then, because Touya was terrible at taking care of himself.)  But when Shouto turned twelve, his father told him that instead of continuing with private tutoring, Shouto would be enrolled in Kaisei Junior High School. He was expected to be top of his class, president of at least one club by graduation, with the goal being that he would enter U.A. after graduation, where he would, of course, place in the top one percent of entrance exam scores.

    Shouto didn’t much care for these goals. He didn’t care about being a hero; that was his father’s dream, that Shouto would surpass All Might. In another life he might have felt more passively about it, accepting his fate as his father’s tool. In this one, he’d long been exposed to Touya’s burning anger. At this point, his goals consisted of reuniting with his brother, and living to spite his father. 

    To that end - Shouto now had access to public transit. 

    Which meant he could see Touya. Or - Dabi, as he insisted on being called now. Shouto thought it was a stupid name, but he also understood his brother’s need to be completely separated from his old life - not just for security, but for himself. To free himself from ‘that bastard,’ which was the only thing Dabi would call Endeavor. Shouto didn’t even think he deserved that much consideration. Since the world was insistent on labeling his father a hero, even though he wasn’t, that was how Shouto would refer to him. Until one day, when he could drag his father’s name through the mud.

    The first day of school was a performance. Endeavor had swept in, Shouto at his side, and made a public spectacle. The staff of the school were practically falling all over themselves, what an honor to have the number two hero choose this school, etc, etc. No one noticed how Endeavor’s brilliant smile turned brittle every time someone mentioned the word “two.” Endeavor spoke at the opening ceremony, of course. Some bullshit about heroism and working hard and destiny or something, Shouto wasn’t paying attention. He was thinking about the phone he’d smuggled to school in his sports bag, which was now locked securly in his locker. Technically a teacher could open and search it, but they’d have to have a reason for that. It would be safer here than at home.

    The second day was just as exhausting, but Shouto was left to his own devices. It was just him and a classroom full of fans who all wanted to get close to him to further their own careers. Shouto hadn’t had much socialization outside his father’s staff, but they’d gone out to enough dinners with various important people Endeavor had wanted to impress, and Shouto had been to his agency enough to at least know the basics of how to treat someone politely while also indicating that you had absolutely no interest in interacting with them whatsoever. It was a little more awkward when it turned out his homeroom teacher was a fan as well, but he muddled through.

    After school, he was free. His father was at work, and had indicated he wouldn’t be home late, if at all, since he’d ‘wasted enough time on you yesterday,’ and Fuyumi thought Shouto was staying late to look into clubs he might want to join. In truth, he’d looked into all of them already, reaching out to the presidents of the clubs he’d been interested in as soon as he’d found out his father was enrolling him. He was going to join the go club - a traditional past time, and it taught strategy, so there wasn’t a lot for Endeavor to complain about. Plus, Shouto liked go; Natsuo had actually taught him to play. He was hoping now that he could see Dabi in person, he could teach his brother to play. 

    He also joined the judo club, because his father would expect some kind of competitive club, and Shouto had little to no interest in participating in a team sport. He’d trained in a variety of martial arts under his father’s harsh training program, but he was interested in learning from a (hopefully) impartial instructor. Plus, he’d need to know some kind of fighting skills that his father hadn’t taught him if he ever hoped to best the man someday. And he’d need to have strong combat skills to survive UA, whether he wanted to attend there or not.

    Because he was supposed to be touring clubs, Shouto had about a three hour lee-way in his schedule before anyone would start to inquire about his whereabouts. (Endeavor had dropped a brand new cellphone and laptop for school off in front of his room that morning, with strict instructions that Shouto was to be available any time he was not in class, presumably so that Endeavor could enforce his will from afar under the guise of checking up on him, and remind him that just because he wasn’t under his roof that Endeavor still had complete control over his life.) It made catching a local bus after class and going to an adjacent neighborhood to meet Dabi that much sweeter.

    They were meeting up just outside a cafe in a middle class neighborhood, somewhere that Shouto’s school uniform wouldn’t stand out too much, but neither would Dabi, who Shouto had gathered looked somewhat...well Dabi hadn’t been very forthcoming, but he’d insisted that even a middle class cafe was pushing it. Apparently the cafe they were meeting at had some of the best boba in Tokyo, but its best selling point was that the security cameras had been broken in a villain attack two years ago, and the owner hadn’t bothered to replace them.

    As soon as he got on the bus, he went to the very back, and pulled out a beanie he’d stolen from Natsuo’s room, covering his signature hair. He then took out makeup that Fuyumi had given him, and set about covering up his scar. (He felt a bit bad about tricking Fuyumi into showing him how, he’d said he was nervous about going to middle school and having the other kids make fun of him, instead of saying that it was to help mask his identity so he could meet up with their fugitive sibling.) He hadn’t quite mastered the technique yet, but it was good enough to keep a casual glance from noticing the scar, and hopefully that would be enough. 

    The bus driver didn’t seem to notice or care that the boy who left her bus was different than the one who entered, which Shouto cautiously took as a positive sign. He stopped just outside the bus stop and pulled out his phone to text Dabi, when a gravelly voice came from his left.

    “Right here Shouto.”

    Shouto startled, and looked up. There was a tall, rail thin man leaning against the bus stop overhang, standing in its shadow. He had messy black hair, a medical mask across his face that didn’t quite cover the deep purple burns under his eyes, and just behind his ears where the loops of the mask sat. He was wearing a battered pair of sneakers, ripped black skinny jeans that were just a bit too ragged to be for fashion, and a large black hoodie that covered his hands where he was gripping a cigarette. He wore a loose grey and white knit scarf even though the weather wasn’t really cold enough to justify it, and Shouto could see more dark purple scarring going from under Dabi’s chin, down his neck and behind the scarf. 

    “Smoking is bad for you,” he said before he could stop himself. He was such an idiot. At least he hadn’t mentioned the scars.

    Dabi chuckled and tossed it on the ground, stomping it out with one foot. “That’s half the fun. C’mere you idiot, I want a hug.”

    Shouto grinned and practically rushed into his open arms. Dabi was so thin Shouto could put his arms around his waist completely, and while part of him was terrified that his brother was so thin - was he eating? - the rest of his was just happy to be able to actually touch him. Dabi was there , right in front of him. It was just as wonderful as he’d imagined.

    “Alright, alright, that’s enough.” Dabi said, but he didn’t let go. “Missed you, Shouto.”

    “Missed you too.”

“Been taking care of yourself?” Dabi asked.

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m fine Dabi. The new school seems - okay. Better than being home, anyways.”

Dabi finally let go and straightened up, clearing his throat awkwardly. “Yeah, I’ll bet. I looked into it, seems safe, good programs and all that. No complaints for any of the staff in the last twenty years. No violations - and I looked really closely; nothing covered up that I could find either. You’ll still have all the rich dicks going to school with you, but if you had to go to a private school, it’s probably the best one you could have been sent to.”

Of course Dabi had done a deep background check on his school. Still, it made him feel a bit better, knowing there weren’t any predators lurking in the school. He could maybe relax a bit, compared to home. It was still going to be school; a high pressure, social environment where he was expected to excel, but at least he knew it was safe. That meant a lot.

“You said the boba here was good?” he said, changing the subject a bit abruptly. Being here in person was good - so good - but it was also...strange. Stilted, awkward, even. It had been seven years since they’d last seen each other.

“Right. Yeah, c’mon. My treat.”

Shouto shifted his bag up higher onto his shoulder, and followed Dabi from the bus stop into the shop itself. It was a busy shop, filled with people - mostly students, who’d obviously come straight from school. Dabi stuck out a bit, a towering pillar of black in a crowd of children, but Shouto faded into near nothingness, which had obviously been the intention. Just like him, thinking of Shouto’s safety and not his own.

“It’s fine,” Dabi said with a smile, when he saw Shouto glancing around. “I come here all the time, no one’s going to look sideways at me being here. Like I said, it’s good boba.”

“What do you usually get? I...have never had boba before.”

“Of course not,” Dabi snarled, his face twisting with hate, “you might discover some pleasure in life, and the bastard couldn’t have that.”

Shouto flinched away from his expression before he could help himself, and that made Dabi close his eyes and take a deep breath. “Sorry. Um. They usually recommend the ‘Royal No. 9’ - it’s their basic milk tea. It’s good.”

“...yeah, okay. What are you getting?”

“Large strawberry matcha latte with non-dairy milk and extra boba,” the cashier said, “right Sohen-san?” They’d apparently reached the front of the line without Shouto even noticing.

Dabi smiled a giant, fake grin. “That’s me.”

“And for you sweetie?”

“Um, the...royal number nine?”

“Small or large?”

“...small.”

“Only 25% sweetness, please,” Dabi added.

“Coming right up!” She said, taking Dabi’s money and handing him back change.

“We wait over here,” Dabi said, pointing to the waiting area with a tilt of his head. 

Shouto followed him, getting as close to the counter as he could, so he could see the worker making their drinks. It seemed interesting, especially the part at the end where they put the drink into some kind of machine and it sealed off the top with plastic that had a nice pattern on the top, with English words printed on it. 

“The...street?” Shouto asked, puzzling over the foreign words.

“The Alley,” Dabi said, and grabbed their drinks and the straws as one harried worker set them down on the pick up counter and shouted out, “for Dabi? Oh hey man, see you next time.”

“See you,” Dabi said, already turning away. He handed Shouto his drink and showed him how to punch through the sealed lid with the pointed tip of the straw. 

“Oh, this is good,” Shouto said, taking a cautious sip.

“Right? It’s not too sweet, is it? I know you don’t like things very sweet.”

“No, I like it.”

“Good. C’mon, there’s a park we can hang out in a few blocks away. You want me to take your bag?”

“I’m fine.”

A somewhat awkward silence descended as Shouto followed his brother to the park. It was small, but seemed decently popular, with kids playing on the worn down equipment. Most of the benches were occupied by parents watching their children, and in one case, a rather shameless couple of teenagers making out. Dabi cleared his throat at them and they jumped practically a foot off the bench. He snickered at the way they stared at him in fear and ran off, and muttered,

“Too easy.”

“That wasn’t very nice,” Shouto said.

Dabi shrugged. “Better me than the police. Or their parents. Besides, the bench is free now.”

Shouto grimaced at the bench, while Dabi threw himself down on it without hesitation.

“It’s not going to bite you.”

Shouto looked at it dubiously, and pretended to be extremely invested in drinking his boba.

“Oh come on, I’ve slept on worse. Look, just, here.” Dabi pulled off his sweatshirt and set it down on the bench beside him.  He was wearing a ragged t-shirt underneath advertising a band Shouto had never heard of. His arms were almost entirely burn scars, running from the back of his hands all the way up under his sleeves. Shouto immediately felt guilty for not sitting down in the first place.

Dabi rolled his eyes. “It’s fine, okay? Just sit down.”

Shouto did, tucking his school bag between his feet. He watched as his brother stuck his boba straw up under the medical mask, thus drinking without actually revealing his face. Then he felt bad for staring, so he turned back to his own drink. It was good. He liked how chewy the tapioca was.

“You decided what clubs you’re going to join yet?” Dabi asked, once they’d both finished their drinks.

“Go and judo,” Shouto said. “Go meets on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and judo practice is Monday, Wednesday, and Fridays. Cram school is every day after club, and all day on Saturdays. So I’ll only have to be home on Sundays.”

“That’s good. I hated my middle school, but it was nice to get out of the house.”

“...I could probably come see you after go club,” Shouto said. “Judo meets for two hours after school, but go is only an hour. Cram school is optional, and I’m pretty far ahead of my classmates thanks to all my private tutors. But End - he doesn’t need to know that.”

“I’m such a terrible influence on you,” Dabi said fondly. “But I’d like that. I got you something.”

He pulled a key out of his pocket, hung on a bit of string. “My apartment is shit, but you’re welcome any time. If you want to hang out after school, or any time you need it. Even if I’m not home, and you just want to get away for a bit, it’s there for you.”

Shouto took the key carefully, and put it on his keychain, along with his house and locker keys. If his father asked, it was obviously the key to the gym they used for judo practice. Not that Endeavor would probably even notice. At this point, he was so confident that he ruled every aspect of Shouto’s life that he’d stopped interfering, to a point. As long as Shouto never gave him a reason to believe that he was being lied to, he could basically do whatever he wanted.

“He gave me a phone,” Shouto said. “So now I have two. I don’t know if that’s going to make things easier or not.” He was a little worried that he’d somehow end up grabbing the wrong one, now that he was bringing his phone with him to school every day.

“I know someone who can help with that,” Dabi said. “They can make it look like you’re where you’re supposed to be, in case the bastard pulls your GPS. And make it so if anyone tries to access the phone other than you, it’ll wipe itself.”

“I’d like that.”

“I’ll arrange something then.”

“...he can really track me with GPS?”

“Probably yeah,” Dabi said. “...you should probably head home.”

“But I just got here,” Shouto said.

“Hey, it’s okay. You can see me all the time now.”

Dabi was right. Shouto didn’t want to risk ruining everything by being caught the very first time. At least boba and a park was a relatively normal middle school activity. He could always claim the club had taken the members out so they could get to know each other. That sounded like a normal activity that normal people did.

    He reluctantly got off the bench and handed Dabi back his sweatshirt. Dabi pulled it back on, and then stood up himself. “C’mon, I’ll walk you back to the bus stop.”

    They spent the walk back talking about what Fuyumi and Natsuo were up to. Fuyumi had begun her first year in college with the goal of going into teaching, although she still insisted on living at home even though he and Natsuo had tried to encourage her to move out. “I guess she feels like if she stays, she can help,” Shouto said, to which Dabi snorted but did not reply. 

Natsuo wanted to go to Nada High School, the country’s top medical prep school but their father had insisted he apply for UA’s general education program. Natsuo had gotten him to agree to his ‘second choice school,’ should Natsuo fail UA’s entrance test. Shouto honestly didn’t know whether Endeavor was expecting Natsuo to succeed or fail, but what he definitely had not been expecting was for Natsuo to apply to the heroics program and break every record for his score on the written exam. He’d then told their father he hadn’t been accepted into the general education program (technically true,) backed up by a failure to receive an acceptance letter. Of course he’d also excelled at the entrance exam to his school of choice, and their father had signed off on his admittance. Then they’d gotten a phone call from a worried president of UA, who’d wanted to make sure that everything was okay with Natsuo, since he’d failed to appear at the quirk exam, and the school had been looking forward to such a ‘promising young hero.’

    Dabi chuckled. “I wish I could have seen the bastard’s face.”

    “He was so mad. He had to explain over the phone that Natsuo was quirkless.  He was so angry I thought he was going to have a stroke.”

“Ch. Too bad he didn’t actually have one. Still, good for Natsuo, saying fuck you to the bastard and the bullshit hero system all in one go. He’s going to be a fucking fantastic doctor.” Dabi sighed. “That kid is doing a better job of spiting the bastard than I ever managed to. I’m gonna have to step up my game.”

Shouto didn’t tell Dabi that Natsuo would be attending his first semester at high school with a broken arm and leg, or that Fuyumi had some seriously nasty burns from where she’d tried to intervene. It would only make Dabi upset. Plus, for one brief moment, the look on Endeavor’s face had been fantastic.

    “Wish I could tell Natsuo you’re okay,” Shouto said, mostly to himself. 

    “Some day,” Dabi replied.

    They’d reached the bus stop, and the bus would be arriving any minute, and Shouto didn’t want to leave.

    “Hey,” Dabi said, crouching down to his eye level. “It’s not goodbye. I’ll see you again.”

    “Yeah. I know.”

    The bus pulled up to the stop, and Dabi pulled him in for a quick hug. “Be safe. I love you Shouto.”

    “You too. Be safe.” Shouto couldn’t quite say the right words, getting everything twisted up in his mouth before he could speak. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d said ‘I love you’ out loud. 

    But Dabi didn’t seem upset, he just gently pushed Shouto towards the bus. Shouto looked back over his shoulder at his brother, earning a loud sigh from the bus driver when he missed inserting his ticket because he wasn’t looking. He stumbled into a seat as the bus pulled out into the road, and looked back at Dabi until his brother faded from sight.

Notes:

So I realize that a lot of people write sibling relationships...not like this. Dabi is 10 years older than Shouto, so it’s sort of a parental like sibling relationship. Also, they grew up in a very abusive household and both have different reactions to trauma. I wrote Dabi’s relationship with his siblings based on my own interaction with a sibling in an abusive household. So with Shouto, Dabi is protective, almost parent like, with Fuyumi, he ignores her, with Natsuo, he’s vicious and picks fights. Anyways...hopefully he doesn’t come across too OOC. I’m trying to make him more of a person instead of a collection of grudges xD

Let me know if you enjoyed it! Constructive criticism is welcome too. :3

Chapter 2: Twelve (September, 20XX)

Notes:

No warnings except that Dabi says fuck a lot. (And there's reference to Endeavor being a shit bag but that's this whole fic.)

Also there's an OC, which I guess is a big deal to some people?? So yeah, there's that.

Anyways, enjoy.

Shouto didn’t get to see Dabi again for two weeks. He’d gotten a message from his brother the next evening, instructing him to take his new phone with him on a regular routine for two weeks, and then his contact would use that GPS data to fake his positioning when he was with Dabi. It wasn’t ideal - now that he’d seen his brother again, that he’d gotten a taste of what life was like out from under his father’s controlling gaze - all he wanted to do was skip class and go to Dabi’s apartment.

    School was boring, which didn’t help. Shouto probably could have slept through all his classes and still ended up in the first spot. He was miles ahead of his classmates, having been privately tutored for his formative years. The only subject that gave him any trouble at all was English. In theory, all of Endeavor’s children were fluent in Japanese, English and Mandarin. Natsuo and Dabi had both studied Latin as well, Natsuo as a precursor to pursuing his medical degree, and Dabi because he liked languages. Shouto did not like languages. No matter how hard he tried, the words always got muddled somewhere between his brain and the page. Math made sense to him. English? Not so much.

Cram school was a little better, because he could pursue his studies at the level he was actually at, instead of the level his classmates were at. He was currently working on chemistry at a high school level and math at a college level, and his cram school teacher was estatic. At least the man wasn't an actual fan, he was just excited to have the privilege of teaching someone at Shouto's academic level. He'd mentioned bringing in a friend from a nearby University to take over Shouto's math tutoring next year, if he kept up with his current pace. If Shouto's English grade wasn't so abysmal, they might even be convinced to move him up a grade or two. Not that his father would likely agree - UA had very strict entrance rules, including requiring students to be at least fifteen when they entered, and coming directly from middle school. While these rules would probably be bent for Endeavor's son,  Shouto didn't want to be in a heroics class with students two or three years older than him. He had enough trouble relating to his peers as it was. Not to mention that no matter how much he trained, a thirteen year old body was unlikely to compete well against a fifteen or sixteen year old one. No, no matter how he considered it, skipping grades would cause him nothing but trouble. Luckily, between his English grade and his poor socialization skills (Shouto tried, but he wasn't stupid. He knew said skills were practically nonexistent,) he didn't have to worry too much about pressure to move up a grade.

He went to his clubs, and enjoyed himself for the most part. He did very well in go club, and his instructor was already talking about regional matches, with clear hope for nationals. His judo instructor was less pleased. Apparently his training with Endeavor meant he'd picked up a lot of habits which could be useful for a hero but significantly impacted his judo performance. He was stuck in the most beginner of exercises - stretching, breath control, and meditation. Shouto didn't mind; he'd come to realize he had a lot of suppressed rage that he previously had no safe outlet to express, but when he'd quietly spoken to his teacher after his first class, had been told was safe to express here. Not that his teacher wanted him to rage violently, but the man was patient and gently corrected him, helping him learn to channel his anger and frustration into serenity and the desire to protect. It was enormously helpful. 

Sundays were the worst days, because Endeavor made sure to be home so that they could 'make up for lost time.' Sundays were training days. It wasn't as bad as it could have been, because Shouto had to go to school on Monday which meant there could be no bruises or burns where his teacher or fellow students might remark on them. On the one hand Shouto wasn't sure why Endeavor bothered, because it had never mattered to anyone when Dabi had gone to school with burns or broken bones. On the other, he was grateful for the reprieve. He also felt vaguely guilty about it, like he could somehow undo his brother's trauma if he endured it himself. Logically he knew if he showed up at Dabi's door with a broken arm, either his father or his brother would be dead by the end of the day, but that didn't make the simmering guilt go away.

Finally, two weeks had passed. It was a Friday, so he had no club meetings. For the past two Fridays he'd stayed late for the supplemental cram school that was offered, working on his English. Today, he hopped on a bus instead, and headed down to the local arts district where Dabi had indicated they should meet.

He'd never been to this particular part of the city before, where people were as unique as the stars in the sky. Shouto stepped off the bus and immediately felt out of place, surrounded by a riot of color. At least Dabi was there, leaning against the bus stop, though this time he wasn't smoking. 

"Shouto! You made it! Put this on," he said, shoving a jacket into Shouto's hands. It's a soft black denim jacket, covered in patches and rips and little studs of metal, and Shouto raises an eye but strips off his school jacket and puts the new one on, his school jacket going into his bag and out of sight. 

"Great, these next," Dabi said, handing him a knitted rainbow colored cuff he put on his left arm and half a dozen jelly-like bracelets in neon colors on his right. A shoestring with a bell on it goes around his neck, and Dabi took the beanie away from him and put gel into his hair, pulling the red side up into spikes and slicking the white side down, and pulling another product through the white half that is a brilliant orange yellow. 

"What-"

Dabi shook his head, and added two sets of fake earrings to his ears, and one that clipped onto his nose and made him want to sneeze. 

"There. That's better. I'll have to do your makeup and nails when we get there, but that's ok, everyone does their makeup before a show."

"What-"

"The HunterX show, did you forget? Honestly, you should have gotten ready on the way," Dabi said, with the most subtle nod in the direction of a security camera. 

Right. Don't attract attention. "Sorry, I was trying to finish my English homework."

"It's Friday! Don't be such a nerd," Dabi said, and then took off down the street. 

A few blocks away, Dabi murmured, "they delete that security footage every twenty four hours, so it should be safe enough. And now you blend in."

Shouto almost said something about how Dabi didn't blend in, but then he really looked at what his brother was wearing. He wasn't wearing a face mask today, so his scars were fully visible, burns stretching into a Glasgow smile, held together with staples and sutures. He wore a loose black tank top with a band logo on it, featuring a bunch of heavily made up people and a pentagram with a heavily stylized logo slashed through it all. His coat was long and ragged, and he'd pulled up the collar. Both his coat and pants were pieces of patchwork material stitched together with thick threads that imitated the staples on his face. The coat was short sleeved, showing off the burns all down his arms, and the staples in the back of his hands, and his nails were painted a deep purple to match his burn scars. Both his ears had metal cuffs on them, and he had a staple indeed his bottom lip, imitating a piercing. He had a heavy black eyeliner on, which drew attention to the heavy scars under his eyes. He looked tired. But he also - fit here. Everyone around them was so extreme, he blended in seamlessly.

"Where are we going?"

"To the HunterX show. Glitch is going to be there; they'll fix your phone, and I'll get to expose you to a whole new genre of music. Maybe you'll even like it. Better than that stuffy traditional music anyways."

"I like enka. Plus Fuyumi gives me her European classical musical and Natsuo is very into K-pop right now."

"Boring. HunterX is a visual kei band. Half the lyrics are in English, so you can even call it practice if you want."

Shouto stuck his tongue out in distaste, and Dabi laughed.

"Still having trouble with English huh?"

"English sucks. It makes no sense. It's sounds like it was composed by a drunken duck."

Dabi snickered. "More like a German cat fighting with a Roman dog, but yeah. I'll help you practice later."

"If we have to," Shouto said sullenly. "But I'm going to kick your ass at go after."

"Looking forward to it."

They'd arrived at a bridge over an overpass, which was absolutely swamped with people, all dressed in wild outfits. They were talking to each other, taking photos, doing each other's makeup, signing t-shirts and other items, and the air was filled with a hum of excitement. 

"I fucking love your makeup!!" Someone called out as they passed, and instead of getting upset, Dabi grinned and said, thanks."

The person's friend elbowed them in the side and Shouto heard them whisper, "that's Dabi, you idiot, he's Hunter's Muse!!"

"Oh shit!!" The other person said back, and Shouto raised an eyebrow at his brother.

"Yeah Hunter and I go way back," he told Shouto. "Wait till you hear their music. You'll know why I like them."

Dabi took Shouto's hand, then, and pulled him through the crowd, shoving people out of the way, until they reached the far end of the bridge where a stage had been set up. He stopped next to a set of massive speakers, where someone was waiting for them. 

"Glitch! You made it!!"

Dabi reached out a hand to the person waiting for them and proceeded to run through a complicated series of hand gestures that Shouto could only guess the meaning of. 

The person was bright. Eye searingly, painfully bright. Their hair was bright yellow striped with black, and they wore a brilliantly yellow shiny jacket over a rainbow plaid crop top. Their pants were made of the same shiny material but in black, covered with an impossible amount of zippers, and tucked into the most insane looking boots Shouto had ever seen - platforms at least six inches high, boys running up to the person's knees, and so many buttonholes. It must take forever to lace them up.

"Shouto, this is Glitch. Glitch, my brother, Shouto. Glitch is deaf, so look directly at them when you talk, and I'll translate if I need to."

"Oh," Shouto said. "Hello," he said, making sure to look right at them as instructed.

Glitch's eyes sparkled, and they waved. Glitch said something to Dabi with their hands, and Dabi laughed. 

"Yeah, he's pretty great," Dabi agreed. "I need to do his makeup. Look at his phone for me?"

Glitch nodded, and made grabby hands in Shouto's direction. Shouto dug his phone out of his pocket and handed it over. Glitch grinned and ran their hand over it, and the entire device started to spark with orange lightning. They gave Shouto a thumbs up, and then turned their attention entirely too the device.

"Glitch said you're adorable," Dabi translated, and Shouto blushed.

"Sit up on the barrier and I'll do your makeup. You need help up?"

"I can do it."

He dropped his bag to the ground and pulled himself up onto the barrier. Dabi had pulled out an entire makeup kit from somewhere, and weilded a small container and a sponge in one hand, holding out a pair of ear plugs in the other.

"They're going to start warming up soon, gotta protect your ears."

Shouto took them and put them in, then scowled at Dabi. "Where's yours?"

Dabi waved his hand dismissively. "I'm half deaf already, it doesn't matter."

Glitch tugged on Dabi's sleeve and pointed to their own ears where they had in brilliant yellow earplugs.

"Ugh, fine."

Glitch smiled again and gave Dabi a thumbs up, and then said something else with their hands that made Dabi roll his eyes.

"Yes parental unit, whatever you say."

Glitch snickered and went back to ignoring them.

"They're worse than Fuyumi," Dabi grumbled, but took out another pair of earplugs and put them in his own ears. "Makeup time now, hold still."

Dabi took the sponge and the container of makeup, which was - white? And gently dabbed it all over Shouto's face, careful of his scar. Once that was done, he applied something that looked like a lipstick tube, but was grey, and used that to draw lines all over Shouto's face. He blended that in, and then used a brush and some sparkly powder to do - something. Then more powder, white this time, all over Shouto's face, which made him sneeze.

He had just pulled out a tube of actual lipstick - black - when suddenly the crowd started screaming excitedly. There was a woman on the stage - white painted face, black lipstick, black nails, all black clothing, with a band shirt that matched Dabi's. She wore a black wig with one shock of white hair just above her eye. She took a little bow, and then ignored the crowd and began setting up instruments. 

"Just wait till Hunter shows up, then they'll really lose their minds."

The speakers came to life with a blat ! as the stage tech plugged a cord into one of the waiting guitars. There was static, then the stage tech played a few notes, which pounded out of the speakers. It was brilliantly loud. Shouto could feel it in his chest. Without the ear plugs, it would have been unbearable.

"Almost done. Try not to move," Dabi said, and then applied the lipstick to Shouto's face. 

"Ok rub your lips together like this," he demonstrated, and Shouto did so.

"Fantastic. Last thing." 

He had an eyeliner pencil now, and Shouto closed his eyes and let Dabi draw on him. It felt weird. And like way more than just lines on his eyelids.

"Perfect! Ok ok, picture time!" He whipped out his phone and turned around so he was next to Shouto, one arm around his shoulder. "Say, 'fuck Endeavor!" He took the picture while Shouto was still processing what was happening.

Dabi showed him the picture after. Shouto stared at the child in photo, because they didn't look like him at all. Dabi had painted his face white, applied thick eyeliner to his eyes, and drawn an upside down star across his right eye, brow and cheek. Along with the fake jewellery and outfit, he didn't recognize himself. 

"That's...me?" 

"Wild, right?"

The crowd surged around them, screaming as the stage filled with people - the band, presumably. Every single one of them had makeup done up to look like Dabi's scars, including the staples. The lead singer had an overabundance of hair, a thick black mane that fell to their middle back. All of them were liberally coated in a sheen of glitter. The combined effect with Dabi's scars was eerie.

"Badass, right?" Dabi said right next to Shouto's ear.

Shouto made a head motion that was somewhere between a nod and a shrug. 

"Get ready to experience some *real* music."

"Thanks for coming everybody!" The singer growled into the microphone. "Let's get this concert started with our new single, 'Fuck Endeavor, Volume 4!'"

"Fuck Endeavor!!!" The crowd screamed.

His brother was completely insane.

xxx

By the end of the concert, Shouto had to admit that he had actually enjoyed himself. The music was harsher than he was used to, the lyrics angry and violent, and from where he was crammed between Glitch and Dabi, with a throng of screaming people around him, he felt a bit like he'd been swept up in a flash mob, but it wasn't all bad. He'd never seen his brother look as happy as he did screaming along with the lyrics, so it wasn't all bad.

Maybe he was a little insane too, because when the police showed up half way through, instead of panicking that they were going to get caught, Shouto let Dabi pick him up and put him on his shoulders (he hadn't been carried like that ever, but it was a welcome alternative to being trampled). Glitch covered everyone's escape. With a wink and a bow, sparks shot out from them and washed across the entire crowd. All the police electronics immediately went dead, while every member of the crowd suddenly had a map on their phone of the best possible escape routes and a cute cartoon version of HunterX reminding everyone to be safe, and a time and location for the next show.

"Hang on," Dabi said, and then he jumped over the railing and down onto the freeway below. 

Shouto shrieked as Dabi landed on the back of a truck, then jumped off that and weaved madly through the traffic until he reached the shoulder. He helped Shouto over the chain link fence, and then climbed over himself.

On the other side Dabi collapsed against the chain link fence, breathing hard and grinning like mad. "That was fun. Boba?"

Completely insane. But Shouto wouldn’t have it any other way.

“My bag!” Shouto said, when they were half-way to the boba shop. “I left my bag behind, and my phone! He’s going to kill me .”

“Don’t worry, Glitch is meeting us there. They’ve got your stuff.”

Shouto let out a sigh of relief. “I can’t believe I forgot about them.”

Dabi shrugged. “There was a lot going on.”

“It was...a new experience,” Shouto admitted.

“But they’re awesome, right?”

“...I could probably be convinced to listen to their other albums.”

“I knew it. I’ll put some on your phone next time you come visit.”

Glitch was waiting at the boba shop, just like Dabi had said. They returned Shouto’s bag and phone, which now contained their contact info, ‘just in case~’. Dabi treated them all to boba, and Shouto tried a new flavor - green tea, instead of black. He also tried a sip of Dabi’s strawberry-matcha latte, but it was horrifically sweet.

Sooner than he wanted, it was time to go home. Dabi walked him to the bus stop once more, but this time, he stopped Shouto before he got on the bus.

“This is for your nails,” Dabi handed him a packaged wipe. “And this is for your face. Don’t get them mixed up, kay? Get home safe.”

Right. His makeup. He’d almost forgotten.

“You be safe too, okay? Don’t get arrested.”

“I’ll do my best,” Dabi said dryly.

“See you later,” Shouto said, and waved goodbye to Glitch before boarding the bus. The driver didn’t even blink an eye at his appearance. 

It was more difficult than he thought, wiping off the makeup and returning to his normal existence. Not because of the makeup - the wipes Dabi had given him worked fantastic, but he felt...almost suffocated, when he was all done and back in his normal school uniform. He’d never felt happy at home, but he’d never really felt how oppressive the atmosphere was, until he’d had something to compare it to. Still, he was grateful he’d experienced everything he had that day. It had been eye-opening, in more ways than one. And best of all, Dabi had sent him the photo he’d taken earlier. This wasn’t the end, they’d make more happy memories together. Shouto would make sure of it.

Notes:

Hey kids, protect your hearing, it's important.

Dabi learned sign language because he likes languages, but he's losing his hearing too. I saw this post on Tumblr about how Dabi's probably deaf and it really resonated with me. He's not completely deaf yet because he's not as crispy as he'll be later. Going to concerts without earplug isn't helping him.

Not sure if the next chapter will be up on time. I've got a ton of ideas but I'm having a hard time putting them on paper. :/ I'll do my best!

Chapter 3: Twelve (November, 20XX)

Notes:

I LIVE!! Between video games coming out, and writer's block, and my entire country losing their god damn minds over coronavirus, uh, it's been a long couple months fam. I did realize that I was trying to write two fics in one, which was causing me a lot of stress over where this fic was going, so now that has been resolved, hopefully I'll be able to get out chapters quicker! Still, probably don't plan on more than once a month, but I *will* try to get at least one out a month.

Shouto wasn't expecting to be able to visit Dabi's apartment so quickly, but an opportunity presented itself only a few months after the concert incident. Endeavor was on a high priority operation which meant he was going to be out of the house for nearly a week, and Fuyumi had been invited to spend the weekend with a friend from college. She'd initially resisted, but Shouto had insisted he'd be fine. It would be nice to have alone time, he'd said. If he really needed anything, Natsuo would be there. (He'd overheard Natsuo talking on the phone to the girlfriend he thought no one knew he had, planning a weekend trip of his own.) Five minutes after Fuyumi left, Natsuo was gone as well. Shouto gave them a whole hour to change their minds before he decided it was safe to leave himself.

Public transit in Dabi's neighborhood was quite a bit different than his own. It was entirely made up of railways, instead of the robust bus service that made up inner Mustafastu. Shouto had taken the subway before, of course, but he'd never ventured out quite so far before. He ended up walking a mile to the nearest bus stop (normally Endeavor employed a private shuttle service to carry him and his spawn around, but the whole point was that no one would know Shouto had left, so walking it was.) Then he'd taken the bus to the subway, and half an hour later changed from the main Mustafastu line to the local rail. Twenty minutes and four different connections later, he'd arrived in Dabi's run down neighborhood.  

He'd worn his beanie, done his makeup, and was wearing one of Dabi's oversized hoodies, so at least he didn't stand out immediately as a school kid from a wealthy neighborhood (because the Kaisei uniform was recognizable across Japan) but he still felt out of place. There weren't a lot of other children here - mostly young adult men, a few older ones, handfuls of delinquent teenagers hanging out on the street corners. The park he passed was full of homeless people. There was a Yakuza presence as well; he saw at least two shop owners and several people on the street with tattoos. He tried not to stare. He knew he could protect himself if it came to that, but he was thinking maybe it had been a stupid idea to come here alone. 

His bad feelings proved to be unfounded, or maybe he just got lucky, because he got to Dabi's building just fine. It looked old and run down, but it was made of high quality materials, likely an expensive apartment complex fifty years ago. Shouto wondered why it hadn't been torn down and rebuilt, since it was so obviously past code. Perhaps this prefecture didn't care about building codes. Maybe they were hoping a villain would destroy the building so they could collect on insurance. 

Regardless, his biggest obstacle ended up being how the key stuck in the gate lock, meaning he had to try to open it three or four times before he got into the building. After that, a quick jog up three flights of stairs took him to Dabi's door. Shouto knocked firmly, and was greeted by exuberant meowing. He was not expecting that.

“What the fuck is it Mouse?”

The cries only got louder.

Shouto said, “it’s me.”

"Shouto? … You can let yourself in." Dabi sounded awful. His voice was always hoarse, but today the rasp was so heavy Shouto could barely understand him. 

Shouto pulled out the key that he kept safe around his neck, and unlocked the door, stepping inside quickly. He was greeted enthusiastically by the ugliest cat he’d ever seen. It was tiny, hairless, wrinkled, and wearing a knitted pink sweater. It was also loud. The cat yowled at him, as if to say, ‘why are you here?!’ Shouto wasn’t sure what to do.

“Oh, Shouto,” Dabi’s said, and Shouto looked up from the still unhappy cat. “Shut the door before she gets out.”

“Okay,” he said, and shut the door behind him, and toed out of his shoes. 

The apartment was dark. Shouto could make out lumps above the shoes and he felt along the wall carefully. There were hooks for his coat and bag, so he hung those up as well. The cat - mouse? - was now sniffing skeptically at his feet.

Another meow sounded, and Dabi grunted as yet another cat ran up to him. It made several 'mmrp' sounds and then hissed at Mouse, before rubbing itself against Shouto's legs.

"Lil'Shit," Dabi grumbled.

"What?"

"That's his name. He's contrary as fuck. If Mouse had warmed up to you right away, he would have hated you. But since she didn't, you're best friends for life now."

Shouto knelt down to pet...Lil'Shit. This cat was also wearing clothes, and petting it felt like running his hands over velvet. The cat purred enthusiastically and butted his head against Shouto's hand repeatedly.

"Your cats are hairless."

"Yeah. All three of them. They're rescues from people who thought they wanted a hairless cat until they realized how much work they are."

"Three?"

"Mister Meowvelous is over here with me. She's a cuddler but she's lazy and old. She probably won't get up to greet you unless I get up.”

Shouto's eyes had adjusted to the dim room by that point, and he looked around at the apartment from where he was crouched, still petting the cat. It was a tiny 1R, but Dabi was taking advantage of all the available space. The "kitchen" was directly in front of the entrance, and consisted of a sink and set of cabinets which created a small amount of counter space. There was a convection microwave and a hot plate on the counter, and a rack for dishes mounted above the sink.  Further along was a mini fridge which was doing double duty as a TV stand, with a tiny box TV facing the rest of the room. 

To Shouto's right was a door presumably leading to the bath, but the door was closed. There was another door further along the wall which led to the toilet; this one was ajar, and Shouto could see a litter box inside as well. 

The main room contained a kotatsu in front of the television with a laptop on it, and further back was the futon, which Dabi was laying on, covered in blankets. Next to the futon was a beaten up old bookcase filled to the brim with books, with a reading lamp clipped to the side. Against the wall on the other side was a lap desk and pillow. Most of the far wall was a sliding glass door to the balcony, though it was nearly covered with black out curtains, just a rim of light at the bottom giving it away. 

"Sorry, I know it's not much," Dabi said. "But it's mine."

The apartment was small and run down, and a far cry from how they'd grown up, but there were cats, and a distinct lack of training rooms or harsh parental figures. It seemed cozy. Lived in. Comfortable.

"I like it."

"It was a really nice apartment probably… Fifty years ago.  Should be torn down by now, but the owner is too cheap to rebuild. Works out though, the rent isn't very high."

Dabi coughed several times and then bit off a groan.

"Can you get me a protein drink out of the fridge?"

“Ok.” Shouto went over to the fridge and opened it. Inside were two boxes of takeout containers, a cup of instant miso paste, and the entire rest of the fridge was filled with liquid yogurt and protein drinks.

"Any particular kind?" There were a lot of different kinds.

"Whatever is closest. There's also packets of veggies up in the cupboard if you could bring me one of those."

Shouto grabbed a random protein drink, shut the fridge and then opened the cupboard. It was filled with seaweed snacks, the kind that he liked best, and instant ramen. And then three or four boxes of packets of vegetable and fruit sauces. Apparently his brother didn't believe in eating real food. Shouto wondered if it had something to do with the burns - it would probably be hard to eat with the way Dabi’s face was basically held together by staples. He wasn't going to ask though, because it was really none of his business.

Shouto grabbed a packet at random and brought both items over to his brother. Dabi was barely peeking out from under a stack of blankets, his face flushed and his eyes glazed with fever. There was a very large, grumpy looking hairless cat in a bright blue sweater laying on top of him. It glared at Shouto but otherwise did nothing. 

“Are you okay?”

“It's just a bad pain day. I'll be fine,” Dabi grunted.

“You look like you have a fever.”

“I probably do.”

Dabi reached a hand out of the blankets and took both drink and packet from him. He shook the drink, opened it, chugged half, and then reached beside him to the bookshelf where there were multiple bottles of medication. He opened three of them and took pills out of each before closing them back up and putting them back on the shelf. The rest of the protein drink was used to take the medication.

“Sorry about the lights, I have a migraine.”

“Can I help?" asked Shouto.

“You can put that ice cold hand on my forehead if you want. Other than that not really. Just try to be quiet and don't use anything very bright.”

“Oh,” said Shouto. “I can do that. Do you want me to leave?”

“No. I mean there's not much for you to do and I probably won't be up for getting out of bed for another couple hours but you're welcome to stay.”

“I have homework I could work on,” Shouto said. “I can use my phone and turn it down all the way.”

“Take the reading light, it's a softer light. Cellphone lights make me nauseous when I'm having a migraine.”

Instead of that, Shouto sat beside him and reached out his icy right hand to place it gently on his brother's forehead. As he suspected Dabi was running very hot. He let just a touch of ice out, enough to coat his hand, and Dabi groaned.

“That's fantastic. I'm going to try to sleep for a while if that's okay.”

“Of course.”

“Help yourself to anything, if you're hungry or thirsty or whatever,” Dabi mumbled into the blankets.

“Go to sleep,” said Shouto.

The other two cats came over to investigate, but they didn't seem impressed by how cold Shouti was. Instead they all climbed up on Dabi and laid down after kneading into the blankets for about five minutes. Shouto sat there for probably an hour, keeping Dabi's head cool and going over English verb conjugations in his head, switching to math equations when he got frustrated. 

When he was sure his brother was asleep and as comfortable as he was likely to be, Shouto carefully unclipped the desk lamp and took it over to the kotatsu. He went over to the closed door which did indeed lead to the washroom and picked up a washcloth from the linen shelf. He couldn't help but notice that the counter next to the sink was covered in first aid burn supplies, and a lot of prescription drug bottles. It wasn't any of his business, he knew that, but he still found himself - worried. He'd have to figure out a way to ask Dabi if he was okay later.

A carefully controlled touch of his quirk made the water very cold, and he soaked the washcloth, wrung it out and then brought it back out to place carefully on his brother's forehead. He made sure to close the washroom door behind him - Dabi was probably trying to keep the cats out.

Dabi didn't stir, even when Shouto put the very cold cloth on his forehead. Shouto let himself stand there and worry for a moment, before going over to the kotatsu to do his homework. He clipped the light to the side and pulled out the stack of work he hadn't managed to get done at school. The light had several settings, but the first was a very dim, warm yellow light. Dabi made a noise when he turned it on, shifting a little, and then grew quiet again, so Shouto figured it was safe to continue.

The next several hours passed like that, quietly. It wasn't really what he'd planned on doing, but it was productive. And Dabi's protein drinks were surprisingly good. Smooth, and not overly sweet. He really wanted some seaweed snacks, but the crunch would be very loud in the small apartment, so he refrained.

Finally, as the day crept into afternoon, Dabi woke up. The first thing he said was, "ugh," and then staggered out of bed to the toilet. This caused an uproar among the cats, who all insisted on escorting him, howling their displeasure the whole way.

"Ok, ok, be *quiet* you monsters," Dabi said, and then turned the fan on, which drowned out the sound into a quiet murmur. 

He came out a few minutes later and headed for the washroom. "You wanna order some food Shouto? There's money in a jar in the microwave."

"..."

"What? No one's going to look in there, are they? Ugh, I'm not awake enough for this."

"What do you want?"

"I don't care. There's some takeout menus on the bookshelf. Anything that's mostly rice. Light oil if it's fried."

"Ok."

Dabi staggered into the wash room and closed the door, to the anger and frustration of all three cats. If possible, they howled louder than before.

"Cut it out, you assholes!" Dabi yelled through the door, but that didn't stop them.

Shouto decided to pretend the apartment wasn't full of yowling animals, and pulled out his phone to place an order. One of the takeout places offered cold soba, and he intended to take advantage. Ever since Endeavor found out it was his favorite, they'd stopped having it at home. (There was always a reason Shouto didn't deserve to be 'pampered.' He wasn't strong enough, or fast enough, or he didn't pick up a new technique quickly enough, or his grades weren't quite good enough.) 

But that didn’t matter, because they weren’t at home, they were at Dabi’s apartment, so he could get whatever he wanted. The restaurant also carried gomoku gohan, which he ordered with fried tofu, because Dabi hated fish. He also got two orders of dumplings, because they were good, and because Dabi was too skinny.

After that, he picked up his things and hung his bag back on a coat hook, and then started picking up the bedding. He folded the blankets up, but the sheets were dirty, so he set those aside. The futon he folded up and carried out to the balcony, where he hung it over the railing to air out. Mouse came with him, and Shouto was relieved to see the entire balcony was netted off, so he didn't have to worry about losing his brother's cat over the side. The washer/dryer unit was out here, and Mouse lectured him the whole way back into the apartment to get the sheets, jumping up onto the washer so she could inspect and criticize his technique. 

"Thanks for the help," he said, half-seriously. She meowed again and butted her head against his hand, so he called it a win. 

The other two cats had come out to investigate, apparently fed up with Dabi's refusal to allow them access to the bathroom. Shouto knelt and offered his hand to both of them. Lil'Shit sniffed with disdain before circling around him and jumping up on his back. He lectured Shouto from his position on Shouto's shoulder. Mister Meowvelous gave Shouto a grumpy stink eye before stalking over to look out through the netting at the city below. 

Shouto stayed like that until Dabi got out of the bath, offering pets when the cats tolerated them, but otherwise just enjoying being in a low pressure environment. He knew the moment Dabi got out, because all three cats dashed away from him and back into the apartment, and his brother started swearing.

“Let me put on pants first, jesus christ,” Dabi said. “Shouto, can you feed these horrible creatures?”

“Sure,” he said, coming back in and sliding the balcony door shut behind him.

Dabi was standing next to his closet in a towel, surrounded by all three cats who were in turn yowling and rubbing against his ankles. It was a ridiculous picture. He was very careful not to stare at Dabi’s burns, which were worse than he’d originally thought. There were. A lot. How had Dabi survived that? How had it happened? He knew Dabi’s quirk was destructive, but the way they were all over him, in patches, it was - had Endeavor actually - Shouto thought he might be sick. He knew the man wasn’t - good - in any sense of the word, and Shouto had gotten burns in training, but it was never like that.

“Their food is in the cupboard, the dishes are underneath. They each get half a can of wet food, it goes in the microwave for eight seconds to warm up. Also refill the dish of dry food, and rinse their water out and replace it, if you don’t mind.”

“I don’t mind,” he said, and went to get the items out as Dabi had directed. 

The moment the cat food went into the microwave, the cats realized the change in plans, and Shouto was almost bowled over as Lil’Shit headbutted him in the leg. They were all purring and meowing excitedly, it was ridiculous.

“Are they always like this?” Shouto said, amused, as he put their dishes down. The cats dove for the food and started eating greedily, completely ignoring him so they could stuff their faces.

“Yeah, pretty much. You’d think I starve them half to death the way they carry on,” Dabi said, his voice muffled. Shouto could hear the rustle of cloth and didn’t turn around until Dabi said, “I’m decent now, you can stop being polite.”

“Sorry?” He said, and picked up the bowl of water, dumping it out in the sink, rinsing it, and filling it back up.

“I’m not mad. I know I’m a lot,” Dabi said ruefully.

“I just. Don’t like that you got hurt,” Shouto said, finally meeting his brother’s eye.

Dabi scowled. “Well. It’s done now, in any case. So, what’d you order us?”

“Cold soba for me, and a tofu rice bowl for you. And dumplings.”

“Good choice. Gonna be here soon?”

Shouto checked his phone. “Yeah. Looks like they’re a few streets over.”

“Great, gives us time to get the kotatsu set up,” Dabi said, and flashed a pack of cards.

“What?”

“C’mon, little brother. I’m sick of losing to you at go, so tonight you’re going to learn how to cheat at poker.”

“Poker? Isn’t that - American?”

Dabi snorted, “what else would we play while I drill you on your English vocabulary?”

Shouto groaned, and Dabi laughed at him. “Cheer up. After dinner we can give all the pigs a bath, and you can hold them while I trim their nails. It’ll be educational .”

“Anything has to be better than English.”

“Spoken like a man who has never wrangled a cat into a towel before,” Dabi said. “You’ll learn.”

It ended up being one of the best nights of his life, even with the English drills.

Notes:

So much research went into this chapter, you have no idea.

Let me know if you liked it! Not to fish for praise, but comments really help keep me motivated ;3

Chapter 4: Twelve (December, 20XX)

Notes:

This chapter fought me so hard, idek. I eventually just ended up summarizing a whole bunch of it instead of creating a ton of one-off oc's and three pages of relatively meaningless dialogue. Honestly, I feel like "Shouto attends LGBT club" could be its own fic. In any case, enjoy!

Warning for coitus interruptus - ie; Shouto walks in on Dabi and his paramour. I feel like it's handled fine but if that's something that would bother you - tread lightly. :D

A note about Shouto here - school in Japan is INTENSE y'all. It starts in middle school - getting into a good high school is serious business. Combine that culture with the way he was raised and Shouto grew up REALLY fast. It does feel a bit weird to write him this way, but I feel it's in character from what we know of him.

Life went on, days blending into each other in scheduled monotony. He had school each day, then club, then cram school, and occasionally extra quirk training lessons. (And if he asked questions in those lessons that might apply to Dabi like, 'if I need support equipment before I go to UA how would I get it? Like a temperature stabilizer. If, for instance, something happened and I couldn't use my ice.' or, 'what if my fire was hotter and it injured me when I used it, how might I cope with that.' 

Obviously these were pointed questions that might raise a red flag with Endeavor, but since his quirk trainers thought Touya was dead, they didn't seem to catch on. Well. They did get uncomfortable and assured Shouto that his quirk wasn't destructive and he didn't have to worry, so they probably thought he had some kind of trauma over his brother's death, but Dabi wasn't dead. Anything Shouto could learn to help him was good. Though Dabi was being particularly resistant about support items, which Shouto suspected was money related, but Dabi refused to talk about his money problems with him.

The point was, he was busy. Some days he didn't get home until nine at night, and then he'd do any remaining homework while drinking tea, and then go to bed. Days he saw his brother were even more busy, because he couldn't let anything else in his life slip and give away his visits. It was stressful, but he was managing. Seeing Dabi was worth it.

So he really didn't have room in his schedule for say, another club. And he definitely didn't have room in his life for a pre-puberty sexuality crisis. That didn't stop either of those things from happening.

It started as many gay awakenings tended to do - with an overabundance of glitter. He checked the announcement board on his way to homeroom as he did every day. Sometimes there were notices about school wide events, or term grades, or school holidays - all important things to know that Shouto didn't have the mental energy to remember. Today there was an invader in the normally austere black and white printed notices. It was a poster - large, brightly colored and liberally coated in glitter. It was offensive. It was hypnotic. 

FIRST MEETING OF THE KAMUI JR HIGH LGBT CLUB

This Friday - 5pm

Nothing should conflict! (We checked)

EVERYONE IS WELCOME. THIS IS A SAFE PLACE.

A special thank you to Tanaka-sensei for agreeing to be our club supervisor, and Vice Principal Hirose for fighting for us, and allowing this club's formation. 

It's been a long fight but WE'RE HERE TO STAY~

 Shouto was enthralled, despite himself. The font was so loud, so bold, and everything was surrounded by brackets. Shouto felt like the poster was shouting 'I AM HERE!!' (Shouto was an unrepentant All Might fan, despite all of Endeavor's efforts to the contrary.) 

Normally, that would have been the end of it. He was curious, but he couldn't afford the time commitment for another club, not if he wanted to still have days to see his brother. And Endeavor's reaction if he were to learn Shouto had joined an LGBT club…

It wasn't a homophobic thing. The thought that any of his children might prefer their own gender had likely never even occurred to him. His children were tools to help his own advancement, and this applied to relationships in much the same way that career path had. Shouto would become a hero, there was no room for questioning. Likewise, Shouto was going to be married off to the daughter of a wealthy family, probably someone in politics. The only reason he wasn't engaged already was that the political landscape of the Hero world changed rapidly, and Endeavor would want Shouto to marry someone that would help his interests when Shouto reached his majority.

Perhaps in another world, he would have been resigned to his fate. But Shouto had begun to question that which had always seemed inescapable, before. Dabi - no one could deny his brother had suffered horribly but - he'd escaped. So perhaps Shouto could as well.

Whether through fate or sheer coincidence, Shouto had Friday free. Dabi had called him for a last minute cancel, saying he'd had a job call he couldn't refuse, and he'd make it up later. Shouto worried, because Dabi was a good liar, but the way he phrased things, combined with the drugs in his apartment made Shouto suspect he'd fallen in with the Yakuza. There wasn't anything he could do about it either way, but he worried.

He could have spent his Friday studying, but in the end, curiosity got the better of him. He wanted to know, to learn, to meet these people who had the guts to start an LGBT club at one of the most prestigious and traditional middle schools in Japan. And maybe…he wanted to learn about himself. Or even to experience what a 'safe space' would look like outside of his brother's apartment.

It ended up being nothing like he expected, and everything he'd hoped. Shouto was awkward and unsocialized, he knew that. But there was something about the other members - something that spoke to him. And it was so informative, there were so many possibilities about what one could be, and they didn't even get to cover everything. And - Shouto had honestly expected some kind of trouble, someone trying to interrupt the meeting, or say nasty things, but nothing happened. It was, it seemed, actually a safe space. (Having the blessing of the vice principal at a school where one misstep could cost you your entire academic career surely helped.)

At the end of the meeting, he hadn't said much, but he left feeling - welcomed. No one had brought up his father or his family's status or questioned his right to be there. Instead of sating his curiosity and allowing him to go back to his normal day to day - Shouto found that he was looking forward to the next meeting. They were going to start meeting during lunch, with special permission. Shouto - wouldn't have to eat alone. He found he was really looking forward to that.

xxx

The bliss of the club and the safe space it created lasted until the day he realized that he had a crush on the club president. It wasn't anything in particular, the just way the other boy smiled when Shouto attempted to tell a joke. The way he held chopsticks. The genuine happiness he seemed to have to see Shouto every day. Once he realized that - Shouto panicked. He had to talk to Dabi. Surely - older brothers knew about these sorts of things, right? Dabi. He had to go see his brother right away.

Shouto probably should have texted ahead, but his head was a whirl of confusing thoughts, so he’d headed to Dabi’s apartment as soon as school had let out. His brother’s schedule was tumultuous at best, so he might not even be there, but Shouto needed to talk to someone. Dabi would know what to do.

Except when he opened the door, Dabi wasn’t alone. The lights were all off, so he couldn’t see exactly what was going on (which he was imminently thankful for,) but his brother was doing something on his bed with someone; Shouto could make out the silhouette of wings arcing up above the bed and -

“What the - shit is it that late already?” His brother’s voice came out of the writhing shadows on the bed, and Shouto turned red, then white from embarrassment and stepped back out into the hall as fast as possible, slamming the door behind him.

Unfortunately he could still hear everything. 

“What the fuck -” a man’s voice that Shouto didn’t recognize. “Hey, wait, where are you going!”

“My brother’s here, get out.”

“You can’t be serious.”

“As a heart attack. Get the fuck out.”

“You are such an asshole,” the other man snarled.

“Deal with it.”

There was grumbling and Shouto heard the words, can't believe your balcony is netted off, and then the door was opening and Shouto looked away quickly but he still saw blonde hair and blood red wings and - that couldn't possibly be who he thought it was?

The - hero? - didn't acknowledge him, still swearing the whole way out of the apartment. The second he'd cleared the hallway, there was a gust of wind and the beating of wings, and then silence. After a moment, his brother’s rough voice said, “it’s safe to come in now, Shouto.”

Shouto opened the door cautiously, but he'd feared for nothing. His brother was dressed now, in a tank top and loose pants, two of the cats twining around his ankles while another judged them both from a perch on the shelves that ran along the walls. Other than slightly tousled hair, you'd never know by looking at Dabi what he'd just been doing. 

Dabi had all his bedding in his arms and stepped out onto the balcony to throw everything in the washer. “Sorry about that,” he said, when he came back in. “I can’t have people over at night or I get noise complaints. " His fingers twitched like he wanted a cigarette, and Shouto said,

“You can smoke if you want, it’s your apartment.”

Dabi shook his head. “I only smoke outside. It sticks to everything otherwise.”

“...we can go outside?”

Dabi smirked at that. “Balcony work for you? I need to take a shower after, and then we can go get dinner or something.”

“Yeah. Sure.”

Shouto toed his shoes off and hung his school bag on a hook by the door, and followed his brother out to the balcony where Dabi lit up his cigarette with a flick of his finger. The washer hummed gently in the background, and the sounds of traffic on the expressway filled the silence between them. Shouto stood there awkwardly, watching Dabi smoke, wondering how to ask exactly what he wanted to ask. At least he didn’t have to worry that Dabi would be angry at him, since he’d literally just caught his brother in bed with another man. Small victories.

"Was that…who I think that was?" Shouto asked, because he couldn't hold in his curiosity any longer.

Dabi smiled, a slow grin that overtook his whole face. "Yeah. Yeah it was. We met at one of my jobs," he explained.

"And he didn't arrest you?" Shouto didn't know exactly what Dabi did for a living, but he got the impression none of it was that legal.

"Rude. This particular job is completely legal. Well. Mostly legal. It's legal except I'm using a fake ID so. Whatever. It's legal-ish," Dabi said, waving his hand dismissively. 

"Enough about that," Dabi said, abruptly changing the subject. “Don’t you usually have go club on Tuesdays? Don’t get me wrong, you’re welcome here any time, even - hell, especially if you’re skipping. Though maybe text ahead next time?  But it’s not like you. Everything okay?”

“Um. I um. I skipped go club today. Something came up… Well. I. Sort of...joined a new club?”

Dabi’s eyebrows shot up. “Yeah? When do you have time for that?”

“...some of the clubs have permission to meet during lunch. There’s a supplementary go club that meets, for practice games. I told the homeroom teacher that’s where I needed to go during lunch. I have to perform well at tournaments, because of...him. She seemed to understand.”

“But you’re not going to supplementary go lessons, are you,” Dabi deduced. “Or you wouldn’t look so guilty about it.”

“...I told the go supervisor that I’m unavailable during the supplemental lessons, because my father believes that socializing and making connections among my age group is important.”

Dabi snorted and a plume of smoke came out of his mouth. He coughed a bit and said, “that’s the biggest load of bullshit I’ve ever heard. But okay.”

“The go instructor doesn’t mind, because I’ve won the last two tournaments we’ve had. He said if my abilities start to slip, he’ll require me for the supplemental lessons but otherwise doesn’t care. And all the instructors seem invested in my...learning to better socialize.”

“It would probably be good for you to make some friends,” Dabi said. “I’ve been told that’s important. But c’mon, where do you go during lunch? The suspense is killing me.”

“...it’s an LGBT club.”

“Oh shit.”

“...you’re not mad at me, are you?”

“Are you kidding? I’m proud as fuck. Do you want a hug? You look like you need a hug.” Dabi stubbed out his cigarette, and held his arms out for Shouto.

Shouto crossed the space in a fast leap, whispering an apology when Dabi grunted from the force of his hug. “All the other kids are...they’re really nice. I told them I can’t. I can’t be out. That he can’t find out, and if they couldn’t handle that then I was going to leave.”

“What happened?”

“They hugged me and said they hoped I was safe.”

“I like these kids already. Do you think we could convince them to throw bricks through the bastard’s windows?”

“Don’t try to use my classmates for your criminal agenda.”

“You take all the fun out of my life,” Dabi said dryly. “You want help with your homework?”

“...can you help me with English?”

“Sure. I can order some food if you want.”

“Soba?”

“Obviously.”

Shouto smiled. “That sounds good.” Of course his brother would accept him. He didn’t know why he’d even been worried about it.

Notes:

I hope I got the right portrayal of Endeavor's attitude here. Homophobia is Bad, don't get me wrong, but it's like...Endeavor's attitude here is almost worse, because he doesn't consider his children as beings who are even capable of making such a choice. They're just property to him.

Anyways, depressing assholes aside, I've got an outline! A whole outline with an actual fucking ending, woohoo! I don't know how fast the updates will be, still, but I'm very pleased to have finally figured out wtf I'm doing (ha!)

As always, comments are my life blood, please, let me know what you think. ;3

Chapter 5: Thirteen (August, 20XX)

Notes:

Guys, gals, enbies, - y'all; it's been a hell of a year. Thank you for all the lovely comments on the last chapter, they're the only reason this one even got finished. I've not given up on this fic! I just have really bad ADHD and I've been hyperfocus hopping from one thing to another every freaking week, it's terrible. I've started so many fics since February and finished none of them. Anyways, I hope you like the chapter, I tried my best!

Warnings: Bunch of medical stuff in this one. If medical stuff in general bothers you maybe this chapter isn’t for you. Nothing specific or gory but it does go into details about Dabi’s medical issues and treatments and stuff. Also there's a lot of abelist language thrown around by Dabi, which stems from being told he was a worthless tool by Endeavor. Also child abuse mentioned (again, Endeavor.)

Social Warning: Originally I was going to have Hawks tell a cute story about an entitled rich woman who went back to jail every few years because her girlfriend was in jail. I had wanted it to be about love and shitty families and a dig at the wealthy and how they can avoid the justice system...but in this current climate it just felt off-key. So instead I pretty much ripped off what's been happening in America with the protests and shoved it in this story, as a way to deal with – everything. So just tread lightly if that's a hot topic for you right now.

Protect yo'self, everyone.

When Shouto was thirteen, he found out just how sick Dabi was. He knew his brother was ill; Dabi had a lot of migraines and bad pain days, and was on enough opiates to stock a pharmacy, but he didn’t really understand. Not until everything fell apart. He was supposed to be meeting his brother after school, but Dabi was over an hour late, so Shouto called him.

“Shouto?”

“H-Feathers?” Shouto said, honestly surprised. Hawks never answered Dabi’s phone.

“I can’t believe you call me that,” Hawks grumbled.

“It’s for security,” Shouto said, because that was what Dabi had told him. It wouldn’t be good for Hawk’s reputation if the media found out he was dating Dabi, and the paparazzi were everywhere, and never seemed to be charged for illegal quirk use as long as it got them the top scoop.

Hawks just sighed.

"Where's Dabi?" Shouto asked.

"Uh…"

Now Shouto wanted to sigh. For a hero, Hawks was a terrible liar. "You know you'll tell me eventually."

"Well, it's just that-"

"That Shouto?" Came Dabi's voice. He sounded quiet, his voice more hoarse than usual, like it got when he was in a lot of pain. "Let me talk to him."

"You're supposed to be resting," Hawks hissed.

"Phone."

"No fucking way," Hawks snapped.

"Then have him come here," Dabi said. "You said it's safe."

"Safe for you to get medical treatment not to bring a minor -"

"Where is my brother?" Shoto asked, impatient and worried.

"God, the two of you. Fine. Fine! Memorize this address."

Shouto did, and then took a cab at Hawks' expense. Apparently the place could be reached by public transit, but Hawks worried it wasn't safe. Too many villains, he said. Which. Why did Hawks know about it then?

He'd taken the time to put on his visual-kei fan disguise, since if it was serious enough that Hawks didn't even think it was safe for him there, well, better to be some random punk kid than Todoroki Shouto.

Hawks was standing outside waiting for him, in a relatively decent disguise. He was wearing one of Dabi's shitty black hoodies and a ragged pair of jeans, slouching up against the wall with his wings nowhere in sight. He had a pair of sunglasses on and was smoking. Interesting. The smoking was actually probably the most effective part of the disguise, because everyone knew heroes didn't smoke. Bad for lung capacity and everything. Well, Shouto already knew his brother was a bad influence, so it really shouldn't have surprised him.

"Feathers," he greeted calmly.

"Annoying child," Hawks said back. "That is a hell of a disguise," he said, indicating Shoto's face.

"Yours isn't terrible either. Where's my brother?"

"Gods, you're like a broken record. Inside, let's go," he said, stubbing out his cigarette on the cement.

The building didn't look like much, and there certainly weren't any big signs advertising it as a clinic. It looked like any of the other abandoned buildings on the block, except for a tiny name plate above a mail slot which read 'Maruki Health Clinic,' and then a little cross next to it in  blue enamel.

"It means that anyone can come here for treatment and no questions will be asked. Yakuza, villains, people who can't pay - doesn't matter."

Interesting.

Inside it looked like - well, a clinic. Everything was a little bit worn, but sparkling clean. There was even a refreshment area with snacks, water and juices, and one of those instant coffee and tea makers along with an assortment of cups to go with it.

There was a secretary behind the counter with warm brown eyes and a kind smile, who called out a generic greeting as the door opened and then once she saw who it was, smiled even wider.

"Welcome back Takami-san. And you must be Shouto-kun; Samui-san's been asking for you since he woke up."

Well that answered the question of which alias Dabi was using.

"How is he? No one has told me what happened," he said.

The secretary looked at Hawks, who said, "he's next of kin. He'll, he's the only kin. He definitely has more of a right to know than me."

"You can talk to the doctor, Todoroki-kun. Samui-san is resting in room three, Takami-san can take you back."

"Thank you," Shouto said numbly. It was bad, then.

"Thanks Miyahara-san. This way," Hawks said, exiting through a door in the back of the room.

Shouto followed him through the door and into an empty hallway, passing two doors before they arrived at the third one which was cracked open. Hawks knocked on the door in a pattern, before stepping inside, Shouto right on his heels.

“Shouto,” Dabi croaked, from where he lay on the bed. “You made it.”

“Brother, you look terrible.” Shouto said.

Dabi did look terrible. He was flushed all over his face, neck and chest everywhere he wasn’t covered in burns, and his skin looked clammy. His eyes were full of exhaustion and pain, and his fingers were twitching against the sheets. He’d been stripped down, covered by only a light sheet, with an IV of some kind snaking under the cover somewhere unseen. It wasn’t the worst he’d been - nothing would likely ever compare to the incident that gave him the burns in the first place - but this seemed serious.

“Thanks Shouto.”

“What happened.”

“It’s nothing. I’m fine. I just need some fluids, and I can go,” Dabi said, and Shouto would have rolled his eyes if he wasn’t so obviously pissed off.

And he wasn’t the only one. “Are you fucking kidding me? You passed out from heat stroke. You had a seizure. They had to put you in an ice bath for hours.”

“Shut up you fuck, Shouto doesn’t need to know that -”

“You had a seizure?” Shouto asked carefully.

“I’m fine,” Dabi said. “Look, just go get the doctor to get this shit out of me, we can go, I’m fine,”

“Can you give us. A moment alone.” Shouto said.

“...yep, I’ll be in the hall.”

Dabi heaved a great sigh once Hawks had stepped out and shut the door behind him, like Shouto was being the unreasonable one. Ridiculous.

Shouto pulled up a chair and sat, rigid, on the edge. He reached out towards his brother, paused, in case Dabi didn’t want anyone to touch him, and then when his brother didn’t move his hand, gripped it loosely. (He wanted to grip it tightly, but that pulled Dabi’s staples, so he curled his other hand into a fist so tight his nails dug into his skin, instead.)

“Don’t do this,” Shouto said. “You don’t have to be okay.”

Dabi blew out a hot breath in a deep sigh. “I just. It’s just my useless fucking quirk. It’s been over 35° all week, and I just can’t deal with that, apparently.”

“Were you. At work?” It was the easiest way that Shouto could say Were you burning bodies for someone without actually saying that. He was probably not supposed to know about that source of Dabi's income, but really. It wasn't that hard to put together the kind of work someone with Dabi's quirk and no other marketable skills would do.

“So what? I’m supposed to be fire-proof. I would be fire-proof if I wasn’t fucking broken. It’s stupid. It makes me angry, okay? And you shouldn’t. You shouldn’t have to deal with this. So what if I had a seizure? It shouldn’t. You shouldn’t have to deal with it.”

“I want to deal with it! I don’t - I’m your family. Aren’t I?”

“Of course you are,” Dabi said hoarsely. “Of course you are. You and that big idiot out there - I.. He’s the one who came and got me, you know. I was on the phone with him when I collapsed. Idiot. He could have compromised - everything. But he did it anyway.”

“We care about you. I’m sorry I’m not old enough yet, or whatever it is you think you want. I care. Okay? I do.”

Dabi squeezed his hand back, and laid back against the pillow and closed his eyes. “It’s I’m not used...to having people care. This happens a lot, okay? It’s not - a new thing. Even if I’m not ‘overexerting’ myself, or whatever. Sometimes I’ll be in the hospital for heat exhaustion five or six times a month. Couple years ago when we had that heat wave I pretty much spent the entire month of August in the hospital.”

“What can I do?”

“Nothing. There’s - it’s just like this, Shouto. I burn too hot. It’s not your fault. I don’t want you to think that it’s - there’s nothing you can do. So I just wanted...to keep it from you. Because you worry too god-damn much. You’re going to get wrinkles.”

“Like I’d even care. Can I let Feathers back in now?”

Dabi actually chuckled at that. “He hates it when you call him that, you know. It’s hilarious.”

“That’s why I do it.”

“Guess I’m doing somethin’ right with you,” he said.

Shouto had to let go of Dabi’s hand to crack open the door, but he went right back to his seat and resumed his grip on Dabi the moment it was open. He did allow himself the comfort of settling back in the chair a bit. Who knew how long they’d be here. Dabi wasn’t burning up, but he was still warmer than he should be. Shouto wished he could stabilize Dabi’s temperature the way he could his own. That would be a hell of a lot more useful than anything his trainers had been teaching him lately.

Hawks came back in carefully, poking his head in first, like he thought they might be actually fighting. When he saw they weren’t, he slouched over to a wall and leaned against it, like he was too cool to be there with them. Or like he was completely out of his depth and didn’t know how to handle the situation. Apparently even pro heroes could be overwhelmed by social situations. Made sense to Shouto - you couldn’t punch a social situation in the face.

"How do you even know about this place?" Shouto asked, because the tension was unbearable. Also, he was genuinely curious.

Hawks sighed.

“It’s not...a happy story. I had just turned eighteen, my hero agency had only been open two weeks. There was this giant protest against hero brutality, and my agency had been asked to liaison with the local police. And most of the heroes were finding excuses not to attend as ‘security,’ or in All Might’s case, joining the protesters. And I - I didn’t really have a choice. Or, I felt like I didn’t, anyway. So there I am, standing with a bunch of cops against All Might, which was just. It was awful. Then someone threw a bottle at the cops. It didn’t even hit him, it bounced off his riot shield. But that was the Signal. The cops unleashed vengeance against them; teargas, and rubber bullets and flash bang grenades, like the civilians had become villains in that moment. All Might was yelling and fighting the police, pulling civilians out of harm - but there were so many of them. I was expected to help the police. I didhelp. I didn’t throw teargas at anyone but I helped pen the protesters in, I helped arrest people who, for all intents and purposes, were protesting peacefully.

“This one woman, I didn’t even get her name. I was arresting her; not...as brutally as some of the other people involved, but still, arresting her just for being there, for daring to protest. And instead of being angry, when she just - looked at me. I'd just come from an Appearance Management appointment - normally I wouldn’t go out in public for a few days until everywhere they pulled out feathers and scutes heals up. So I hadn't had any time to heal, which meant I had blood spots and scabs all over my face at the hairline, and up my arms to the elbow. I wasn’t wearing gloves at this point; it’s probably why the Commission started insisting I wear gloves, actually. So I’m kind of a disheveled mess, and this lady can totally tell. She says 'young man do you need to see a doctor?' and I start panicking, even though I’m arresting her. In that moment, she had the power over me, because she saw through the lies. I shouldn’t have been surprised, really, since she was specifically protesting corruption in the hero community. When I stand there, and don’t say anything, she gets this look in her eye, like she knows. She gets really close to me and whispers the info for Dr. Maruki's clinic.

“She was hauled away by police officers before I could even process what she’d said. I never got to thank her. But the next time I had a really bad pain day because of Management, I went to Dr. Maruki’s.”

"And that's how Hawks became a criminal," Dabi grinned.

“Going to see a non-commission health professional is against my contract,” Hawks explained.

"What happened to the lady?"

“Most of the protesters were released the next day without being charged. It was that, or acknowledge the law suit that All Might's firm had put together. There was a huge backlash from the villain community in response to the protest. It got pretty violent, a lot of buildings were set of fire, a lot of property destroyed. People died. It got bad enough that the commission was able to shift the blame, ‘proving’ that the violent and brutal tactics of heroes were what was best, in the end.”

“I hadn’t even heard about that,” Shouto said.

“The commission did a really good job of controlling the narrative, and then scrubbed the internet for footage of the incident. Combine that with a lot of feel good narratives about heroes saving people in the aftermath, and things went right back to the way they were before.”

“No, they didn’t,” Dabi said. “Maybe the average citizen has forgotten, but the villain and vigilante community hasn’t forgotten. And I bet the protesters haven’t either. The Commission is going to get what’s coming to them, if I have to burn every one of those fuckers alive myself.”

“You’re going to get us in trouble, saying shit like that.” Hawks said, flinching at Dabi’s words. In that moment, Shouto saw the similarity between Hawks and the way he felt when his father raised his fist, and found he didn't like the comparison.

"Aww, what, are you afraid of going to prison?" Dabi asks.

"More worried I’m going to have to break you out of prison."

"So romantic."

There was a knock on the door, and then the doctor entered. "Samui-san. You look a bit better. The fluids are helping then."

He looked better?

"Let me take your temperature and pulse, if you would."

"All yours doc," Dabi drawled, and held out his right arm.

The doctor slipped a device over Dabi's finger, and then held out a thermometer. Dabi opened his mouth carefully, and mere seconds later it beeped.

"Hmm, 103. If it doesn't come down more soon, we'll have to get you back into an ice bath."

Dabi groaned. “Can’t I just do that at home?”

“If you hadn’t had a seizure maybe,” the doctor said. “As it is, plan to be here overnight. Once your temperature comes down, I’d like to order tests to check your liver, kidneys and heart.”

“...it’s that bad?” Shouto asked.

Dr. Maruki looked at Dabi questioningly.

“My liver’s bad, because this is what, the twentieth time I’ve passed out from heat exhaustion? Something like that,” Dabi said, trying and failing to keep his voice light. “And my heart’s bad too. And my kidneys.”

“Oh.” Shouto said.

“Have you given any more thought to a transplant, Samui-san?”

Dabi put a hand over his face. “Do we have to do this right now?”

“Perhaps a little public humiliation will help you see sense,” the doctor said dryly.

“You’re a terrible doctor.”

“I did lose my medical license, yes.”

“What?” Shouto said, alarmed.

“Don’t listen to him, Shouto. He lost his license because he gave a villain a transplant against Commission orders. Because apparently villains don’t deserve medical care,” Hawks said bitterly.

“Tokami-san, you can have your wings out here, you know. That looks uncomfortable,” the doctor said.

“I’ll just have to take all my feathers off again to leave. It’s fine. Besides, aren’t we shaming Sōen into getting a transplant?”

“No, we’re not,” Dabi insisted.

“You should get them,” Shouto said. “Liver failure is...bad, right?”

“It’s not like getting a transplant will magically fix everything! Especially with my shit immune system.”

“While that would be true in a normal setting, between Nakoudo-san’s quirk and myself, we have a 95% acceptance rate. Most people don’t even need to keep taking immunosuppressants after the first month.”

Dabi grimaced. “Sure. And she charges a million yen per organ. I can’t afford that. ...well. Boss would probably cover it.”

“I could -” Hawks started, but Dabi cut him off.

“You can’t buy a fucking coffee without a dietician from the Commission emailing you about your diet. How the fuck are you going to cover millions of yen in hospital fees?”

Hawks snarled.

“Don’t be a jealous asshole,” Dabi scoffed.

“I’m not jealous, I just don’t want your Yakuza sugar daddy to cover - uh.” Hawks looked over at Shouto. “I mean um.”

Dabi’s eyes narrowed. “Get out.”

“I just -”

“Out! You too, Shouto. I need to make a call.”

Shouto followed a dejected Hawks out into the hall, as Dabi drawled, “yo doc, how do you feel about billing the Yakuza?”

The door clicked shut and Hawks slumped against the wall.

“...does he really have a Yakuza sugar daddy?”

Hawks groaned. “I wasn’t supposed to say that out loud. Do you even know what a sugar daddy is?”

“I go to an elite private school. Of course I do.” Children noticed everything, and there was more than one father of his peers who had ‘special friends’ on the side. He probably knew more about who was fucking who among Japan’s elite than the paparazzi.

“Fuck me. Well. Uh. You see - your brother uh. He. Um.”

“He’s a prostitute.” Shouto knew Dabi had been doing something, so it didn’t take a large mental leap to come to that conclusion. It also made sense that he hadn’t told Shouto about it, since he was still only thirteen. Not that Shouto would have cared, but he could see why his brother wouldn’t really want to talk to him about it.

“Wow, I hate this conversation so much. Yes. Yes, fine, yes.”

“Do you have a problem with that?”

“Do I have a - I don’t care what he does, as long as he’s safe about it. Being involved with the Yakuza isn’t safe.”

Shouto took a moment to process that, then said, “You’re worried you’ll have to arrest him.”

Hawks groaned and crouched down to the floor, putting his head in his hands. “You are way too perceptive for your own good, has anyone ever told you that?”

“I’m going to become the number one hero,” Shouto said flatly. “I have to notice things.”

“Gods above, is your old man still on that? What am I saying, of course he is.”

Of course he was. It hadn’t helped that All Might had all but disappeared from the public eye, and he was still consistently ranked above Endeavor. Shouto’s father became more unbearable with each month’s ranking release.

“Has he been...this sick for a while?” Shouto had seen the pain pills, of course, but passing out from heat exhaustion more than twenty times? Seizures? He had to figure out how to get Dabi to accept some support equipment. Would he take it if a villain made it? Was it only his refusal to accept help from Commission approved companies that was the problem? Could he apply for civilian assistance?

“Yeah,” Hawks said, looking up at him. “Pretty much since I’ve known him. His quirk - it’s not very...kind to him. Everyone’s got a draw back but - he’s got a hell of a draw back.”

The door opened before Shouto had to figure out if he was supposed to try to continue the conversation.

“I think it might be safe to go back in, Tokami-san,” Dr. Maruki said.

Hawks swore and pushed up off the ground, sliding by the doctor and already apologizing profusely before the door even shut behind him.

“Samui-san tells me you’re his next of kin,” the doctor said kindly. “And also that you might occasionally be in need of medical treatment. Normally, we would insist on a parent or guardian filling out your paperwork but, well. If you’d like to come out to the front the secretary will walk you through all the forms, and Samui-san can look them over before you sign. Would that work for you?”

Shouto bit his lip. It would be good to have somewhere to go if he needed medical treatment. “If I come alone...would you tell...Sōen about it?”

“He’s not actually your guardian, so no, I wouldn’t, if you didn’t want me to.” Dr. Maruki said. “You deserve a place where you can get treatment and feel safe.”

Normally he wouldn’t mind letting Dabi know, it was just - father was getting more difficult lately. And Dabi had been more angry, more volatile in his rants against the system, against heroes, and against Endeavor especially. Shouto worked very hard to keep his home life separate from his brother. An attempted assassination wouldn’t solve anything, and now that Shouto knew how ill his brother really was - well. He wasn’t going to let their father take anything else from him. If that meant he had to go get treatment for burns and bruises and broken bones and not let Dabi know about it, then that’s what he’d do.

He was going to be the number one hero, and protect everyone who couldn’t protect themselves.

“Lead the way.”

Notes:

So I’m very sex-work positive. I struggled with the part of the scene that deals with sex work...a lot before finally washing my ahnnds of it. I’m not sure how to write about how everyone is very supportive of Dabi as a sex worker. Sex work is legal in japan, depending on how you go about it. Dabi’s legitimate (and even if he wasn’t, Hawks would support him). The reason hes’ upset is that the client in question is Yakuza. Othereise he’s be ok with it. Also Dabi isn’t ashamed of being a sex worker, but he hasn’t talked to Shouto about it because 1) Shouto is his brother and 2) Shouto is 13. It’s not shame but it’s not really a conversation he’s ready to have with his brother. I hope that came across ok.

Regarding the protest, I did some math and it's MOSTLY correct to canon to say that just after this protest was the big fight with All-For-One. Which meant then months and months out of commission for All Might. If he hadn't been pulled away by All-For-One, I imagine he would have led the movement against corruption and taken the Commission out once and for all. (I made this entire thing up because I can NOT believe that All Might would be ok with what the Commission condoned with Best Jeanist, and with Hawks, and presumably Touya. So there had to be some reason he wasn't addressing it – All-For-One is a pretty good distraction, I think.)

A note about headcanon: I'm pretty sure all the ideas here are original buuuut I read a lot of Dabi/Hawks fix and follow Sif (intothedarknessigo) on Tumblr and have read a lot of her headcanon so “appearance management” might have come from there. (Regardless, if you haven't checked out her stuff, doooo it.) If there's anything else you see and you're like THAT'S MY HEADCANON just hmu on Tumblr in my DM's and we can chat about it. It's not my intention to rip off anyone's ideas, but there are only so many hawk traits to give to Hawks.

The idiots are using cover names at the clinic. Hawks is using his given name, because it's actually really effective since the Commission scrubbed it out of existance. Still, Hawks. Don't use your own name. Just. Please.

Dabi's name is Samui Sōen. Samui means 'colder' and I figured it was his mother's maiden surname. Sōen means 'blueflame'; and is Dabi's canon alias.

Bonus points to anyone who catches the Persona reference in this chapter.

That's it, the notes that are almost as long as the chapter are complete! Like, comment, subscribe! ;3 No seriously, your comments make my day. I'm really excited about the next chapter. No idea how long it will take to write, but I think y'all are really gonna like it.

Chapter 6: Fourteen (January, 20XX)

Notes:

It’s been a crazy time since the last chapter. Here in America we’ve apparently decided the pandemic is just life now, and I haven’t left the house since February except to go to the doctor and the vet. Also my ADHD is full swing, and I’ve written probably 10k in unfinished new BNHA fics. So...there’s that. But at last! A chapter! I’m going to finish this fic if it kills me - I have a whole outline, and everything.

Warnings in this chapter for Body Horror and Medical Procedures - ie, Dabi’s fucked up body. It’s all consensual, nothing bad happens, but if medical stuff freaks you out, you probably want to skip from “Careful with the staples” to “Where’s your compression top?”

Edit: I have two betas now! They have gleefully murdered many, many commas. Thank you so much to whatnameshallitake and NoPads_NoHelmets_JustBalls for the help! We’ll be going back and updating older chapters; I’ll add edit notes when we do!

When Shouto was fourteen when Hawks shook the hero world with one giant arrest. The incident was his big break, rocketing him from the number ten slot up to number three overnight. Headlines screamed about how he single-handedly brought down the Shie Hassaikai, one of the last true Yakuza clans in the country. It was a huge blow to the underworld with hundreds of arrests. Heroes uncovered a horde of drugs at the Shie Hassaikai headquarters, including a new drug that that would have been able to nullify quirks entirely. Reports noted that the research on the creation of the drug seemed to have been lost in the explosion of the Yakuza headquarters, a result of the battle between Hawks and the current head of the Yakuza branch, Chisaki Kai, who died as a result of the confrontation. 

Most articles mentioned that previously the Shie Hassaikai had been under the control of a different, older Yakuza boss. Police had not found the man during the raid, and no corpse had been recovered. Several other high ranking members were also missing, but with thorough interrogation it was revealed that they left before Chisaki took over. Some articles speculated that to have succeeded in bringing down a criminal organization as large as the Shie Hassaikai, Hawks must have had at least one confidential informant, yet no such person was ever revealed. When asked during a press conference, Hawks admitted that he had received ‘inside help,’ and that for the individual’s safety they had to remain anonymous. He then brought up the Confidential Hero Informant Act of 20XX, which protects a Hero from being forced to reveal their source if they believe  it would place that source in imminent danger. Reporters reached out to the Hero Commission for information on said informant being registered with the Commission for immunity; the Commission declined to comment.

Shouto finished reading the article over breakfast — a civil one, as their father wasn’t present. (Most likely helping cleaning up the mess that had resulted from such a large number of arrests. Villain activity had risen as infighting began and criminals tried to fill the void the Shie Hassaikai left behind.) He was serving himself a second helping of fish, because he was hungry and his father wasn’t here to berate him from straying from his diet plan, when his phone rang. It was from an UNKNOWN CALLER...weird. The only people who had access to his normal number were his family members, a few of his teachers, and his school club leaders.

“...hello?”

“Hey Shouto,” Dabi sounded winded, like he’d been running.

“...what’s up?” Shouto said blandly, ignoring Natsuo and Fuyumi’s curious glances.

“You weren’t answering your other phone so... Look, just don’t go to my apartment okay? It’s not safe there anymore. Apparently, some drug dealers in the area don’t appreciate me anymore, no idea why. I’ve ditched my phone, so you won’t be able to get ahold of me for a few days. If anything urgent comes up, I texted you Feathers’ number. Glitch will patch me back into your phone as soon as things are safe again.”

“I understand.”

Dabi cursed, and then there was the sound of gunshot, muffled screams, fabric rustling, and other sounds of combat. There was the crackling roar of fire and then silence.

“I have to go. I love you. Stay safe.”

“You too. Goodbye,” Shouto said calmly and hung up. His heart was racing, but he kept his expression calm with years of practice. 

“I have to go in early. There’s a tournament next week that sensei is worried about. He wants to go over strategy with me,” Shouto said blandly. 

“Oh!” Fuyumi said, “should I call you a car?”

“...yeah, thanks.”

She got up to call the private car company that Endeavor used, while Natsuo quirked an eyebrow at him.

“Early strategy meeting, huh?”

“No,” Shouto said, shoveling his breakfast into his mouth as quickly as possible. “I’m going in early to make out with my secret boyfriend.”

Natsuo snickered. “Uh huh. Well, whatever you’re doing, stay out of trouble okay?”

Shouto set his bowl down and stood up. “I’ll be fine, I always win.”

Natsuo rolled his eyes. At least it didn’t look like he was going to try to interfere, although now his brother probably thought he had a secret boyfriend. Whatever, it was an acceptable excuse since he was running off at odd hours to see a man. Natsuo just didn’t need to know that the man in question was Touya. As far as his family was concerned, Touya was dead, and Dabi and Shouto were heavily invested in keeping it that way.

By the time Shouto got dressed and got one of his disguises out from the secret compartment he’d created under his tatami mats and stuffed it into his bag, the car was waiting out front. He hopped in and directed the driver to drop him off a block from the school which the driver didn’t question. Shouto probably could have asked the man to drop him off in front of Dabi’s apartment and the man wouldn’t ask questions — that wasn’t what Endeavor paid them for. 

His other phone was safely in his locker at school, so he replied to the UNKNOWN NUMBER 

Glitch I need help.

Approximately thirty seconds later, his phone’s screen flickered and a cheerful bunny mascot informed him he’d downloaded a third party message app.

G: how can I help? ／(^ x ^=)＼

S: I need to know where Dabi is

G: ur gonna get me in trouble / (⁎˃ᆺ˂)＼

S: I’m worried

G: / (,,Ő ｘ Ő,,)＼

G: Super effective! KO~

G: …

Shouto’s phone pulled up the map app on its own, and there was a pinned location blinking at him. It was about ten blocks from Dabi’s apartment, and moving towards the city.

S: Thanks

G: don’t thank me! i wasn’t involved

S: I’m calling out sick from school. I won’t have my other phone

G: i gotcha ／(◕ x ≦ )＼

G: stay safe ok? some bad shit goin down

S: I’ll be fine. Thanks.

He called in sick, trusting that Glitch would re-route any phone calls the school would make to his father or Fuyumi. (Likely they wouldn’t bother. Since Shouto’s grades were so good, no one would want to bother the Number Two Hero.) He flagged down a taxi and changed clothes in the backseat. The cabby was happy to fill his silence with meaningless chatter and loud radio music, and even winked and wished him a ‘good luck’ when he got out. Shouto had no idea what the cabby thought he was skipping school for, but hopefully it wouldn’t get leaked to any paparazzi. Perhaps he should have taken the bus, but that would have taken too long; Dabi needed his help now .

When he finally found Dabi, he was surrounded by people with guns. Dabi said drug dealers were after him — drug dealers specifically, not yakuza. Were these people affiliated with Chisaki Kai? He didn’t have enough information, and Dabi probably wouldn’t tell him. He highly doubted that the ‘sugar daddy’ Dabi had had in the yakuza was Kai, which meant...it was possible that Dabi had been seeing the previous boss, who was still missing. Or maybe Dabi’s sugar daddy wasn't affiliated with Shie Hassaikai at all. It wasn’t like Dabi was very forthcoming with information about who he was sleeping with.

“Hey!” he shouted. The way the thug jerked up to look at him was enough to throw off his aim, so Dabi was only grazed with a bullet instead of being shot straight on.

“ Fuck ,” the thug said a moment later as Shouto threw a wall of fire at him. “Not another one!”

“Are you okay?” Shouto asked as he jogged over to Dabi. His brother was holding a hand to his left side, blood seeping out between his fingers. His healthy skin was flushed bright red, and he stank like burning flesh and hot metal. Shouto was worried he was going to start seizing.

“I told you,” he coughed harshly, “to stay away.”

“Yeah, you know that wasn’t going to happen. Hurry up, we need to go.”

One of the drug dealers had a strength quirk. The man’s whole upper torso was that of a rhino, and it was more than a little alarming when he lowered his horn and charged through the flames directly towards them. Shouto risked sending out just enough ice to catch their feet, tripping them so they crashed to the ground. He quickly melted the ice with a flash of fire (because fire and ice in combination was too incriminating), and the two brothers took off down an alley.

Shots and shouts followed them, but nothing hit its mark. Shouto followed his brother, who seemed to know where he was going as they weaved through alleyways, hopped fences, climbed over dumpsters and cut through shops. Dabi was in rough shape and wheezing, but he didn’t stop until they’d not heard a shot for five minutes. Then he collapsed against a wall and just panted, smoke billowing out of his mouth with each breath.

“Do I need to call Dr. Maruki?”

“And get yelled at for mistreating the organs he gave me? No way.” Dabi said, practically doubled over holding his side now.

“Dabi…”

“I’m fine, I’m fine. And I would have been fine even if you hadn’t shown up at all, brat.”

Shouto looked at where blood was oozing out around the staples on his brother’s face and hands. He didn’t even comment on the smell of Dabi’s body cooking itself from the inside out.

Dabi saw him looking. “Shut up,” he scowled, “I would have managed.”

“You don’t have to though.”

“Shouto, I appreciate the support but you are fourteen .”

“And I’ve had more combat training than most rookie heroes,” Shouto said matter-of-factly.

“Getting beaten by that asshole three times a week is not the same as field experience — oh, whatever. Obviously you’re just going to do whatever you want.”

Shouto nodded seriously. He didn’t have a lot of choices in his life, but if he could help his brother he would. What was the point otherwise?

“I’ve got a safe house near here. We still clear?”

Shouto looked at his phone, which was now displaying the footage from all the security cameras in a two-block radius. He watched one of the lingering thugs kick a can angrily into a wall and sulk away out of range.

“We’re good.”

Dabi looked over at his phone and scowled. “Don’t know how you get Glitch to help you out so easy. Mostly they just lecture me about my poor life choices.”

“I’m nicer than you,” Shouto said in a deadpan.

“I’m a fucking delight ,” Dabi grumbled. He led Shouto up the fire escape and across a couple of makeshift bridges that let them travel along the rooftops for half a block, back down a fire escape to an alley, and onto the sidewalk next to a konbini.

They walked as nonchalantly as a man with Dabi’s burn scars and a kid dressed in punk clothes could for three blocks. There were progressively less and less people around as the area shifted from “worn-down struggling financial district” to “definitely-abandoned-warehouse” territory. The street was filled with trash and the few other people Shouto saw were very determinedly minding their own business.

Finally they stopped at a warehouse that, frankly, looked just like all the other warehouses they’d passed. Dabi opened the door with his bootheel and the metal shrieked as the door scraped open.

“Gotta disable some shit. Wait here.”

Shouto slumped against the bricks like he’d seen Hawks do when he pretended he was undercover. He looked at his phone like he was browsing social media when really he was watching the feed of every camera within three blocks. It seemed like they’d successfully lost their pursuers. And it didn’t look like anyone had called the heroes either, which Shouto supposed was an advantage to the neighborhood. No one here wanted the heroes’ attention.

“You can come in now,” Dabi said, and waited for Shouto to duck through the open door before he hauled it shut, cursing as he did so. Shouto helped him lock the frankly excessive amount of locks and put the draw bar in place.

The warehouse was trashed; empty cans and bottles filled the space, with broken crates and garbage everywhere.

“We’re upstairs,” Dabi said and headed to a staircase hidden behind a huge set of shelves covered in dusty crates. 

Shouto followed him, careful not to touch anything. The entire place was filthy; he had no idea how his brother could live in such a place without getting an infection.

At the top of the stairs was another door, outwardly appearing as battered and broken as the rest of the place. Dabi pressed his hand up near the top and heated his hand, and then Shouto heard a soft ‘click.’ He did the same with what Shouto assumed was a heat sensitive lock at the bottom, and then finally in the center. The door swung open to reveal a tidy loft space, which Dabi walked up into, wiping his boots off on a mat before entering. Shouto did the same asDabi reached behind him to shove the door closed. From this angle, Shouto could see it was actually over two inches thick and made of some kind of metal. Interesting.

The locks re-engaged automatically as they both stopped to remove their shoes. Dabi didn’t have a shoe rack, but he did have an overturned plastic crate that served the same purpose. There were a few hooks above it for their coats. Dabi hung his up, and then stripped off his shirt as well, tossing it across the room and into a hamper.

There was a small, western style circular table with two battered chairs, and Dabi sat on one heavily. “Can you get the first aid kit? It’s in the bathroom.”

“Bathroom” in this case meant a freestanding tub in one corner with a mounted showerhead, located next to a drain in the floor. There was a beat up dresser next to it (old, worn, obviously third or fourth hand, but clean just like everything else in the apartment.) One shelf held washcloths and towels, while the rest were filled with pill bottles and a fully-stocked first aid kit.

Shouto pulled it out and brought the kit over to the table. Dabi moved to open it but Shouto held it away from him. 

“Your hands are bloody. I can do it,” he said.

“I’m not going to make you clean my scars Shouto,” Dabi protested.

“Just shut up and let me help you. Do you want the painkillers first?”

Dabi sighed and nodded, “There are temperature stabilizers and antibiotics too. And the water is under the bed.”

Shouto gathered the pills and pulled out a case of canned emergency water from under the bed which stood in the opposite corner of the room from the shower. He brought back the pills for Dabi, who checked the expiration date then shrugged before taking what Shouto suspected was more than the recommended amount with a swig of lukewarm water.

“Have at it,” Dabi said, holding out his hands so Shouto could clean and disinfect them. “Careful with the staples.”

Shouto did so, and spent some time cleaning blood out from the seam between the healthy skin of his hands and the massive burns that were his arms. He wrapped them carefully afterwards, and then repeated this process on Dabi’s face and neck. By that point, the pain killers had clearly kicked in because his brother was sagging back into the chair with his pupils reduced to pinpricks. He was releasing steam through all of the seams of his burns which was alarming, but seemed to be significantly helping his body temperature as his healthy skin slowly lost the angry flushed look. When Shouto checked his pulse, he found that it had slowed down significantly from before, but was still beating faster than normal.

“I’m going to look at your side now, okay?”

Dabi nodded slowly but otherwise didn’t react — not even when Shouto pulled at the skin to assess the damage.

The wound in Dabi’s side wasn’t terribly deep, though it did slice concerningly across his ribs and straight through a section of deep burn under his left arm. Shouto carefully disinfected the area like he’d done everything else. He cleaned the entire burned section there; it was plausible that Dabi would develop an infection. He was less comfortable with a suturing kit than he was cleaning burns, but he’d sewn up gashes on himself in the past and the same basic principle applied. Once the wound was stitched together he inspected the burned area and realized his brother was missing several staples. 

“You need this fixed,” he said. “How — I’ve never used a medical stapler before.”

Dabi swallowed, focusing on Shouto with effort. “There should be...holes, where the staples used to be.”

“Yeah, I can see them.”

“You just...press the stapler on the same area and pull the trigger. I probably won’t even feel it. I’m...pretty fucked up.”

Shouto grimaced but did as Dabi said. His stomach twisted when Dabi still flinched as he replaced the three missing staples. How the hell did Dabi do this by himself? How had he not died of infection by now? After the staples were in place, he disinfected everything again and wrapped him up. 

“Where’s your compression top?” Shouto asked, assuming Dabi wouldn’t stock a safehouse without one.

“Chest at the end of the bed,” Dabi mumbled. Shouto needed to hurry — he was falling asleep.

There were several sets of clothes inside the chest, and he pulled out some soft, loose sleep pants and a long-sleeve compression top. While he was there, he yanked the protective plastic off the bed because he didn’t want to have to deal with Dabi and the bedding at the same time. Once that was done he darted back over to the table. He sprayed his brother down with a topical burn cleaner, disinfected again , and then helped Dabi pull on the compression top. It probably would have gone smoother if Dabi hadn’t tried to help.

The pants and Dabi’s socks followed in a similar manner. All Dabi did was make things more difficult. He protested when Shouto lifted him up into his arms — but while Dabi was a lot taller than him he was significantly lighter than a man of his height should reasonably be, and Shouto worked out. He made a mental note to remind Hawks that Dabi needed to eat more before he gently deposited his brother into bed.

“You’re...a good kid, Shouto.”

“Go to sleep,” Shouto said.

“Mmm,” Dabi replied and did as requested.

Task accomplished, Shouto found the trash bags (under the large basin sink) and cleaned up the used medical supplies, disinfected the stapler, cleaned the table and chair, and put everything back in its place. Only once these were accomplished did he allow himself to sink down next to Dabi’s bed and put his head on his knees. He was trembling, but he’d done it. Dabi was safe and cared for, and no one had died.

That would have to be good enough for now.

Notes:

Hope you enjoyed the chapter! I was originally going to have it be longer so I could keep my one chapter per year theme, but there’s a pretty solid break between this scene and the next, and it’s been so long, I just wanted to post something.

Let me know if anyone has any interest in the other stuff I’ve been working on. So far I’ve tried to write:

* 2 takes on a “Dabi Adopts Shinsou”
*a Shinsou whump piece about his thoughts on seeing Bakugou in a muzzle (90% done)
* a Dabi/Hawks angst fic where Dabi is honestly a lot more mean than he is in this fic, (needs 2 scenes and an epilogue)
* A Shigirigaki/Dabi fic where they adopt Shouto. (Could be done??? Or it's the first chapter of a multichapter work....fml)

I wasn’t kidding when I said I’d started a lot of fics, it’s been wild in my brain -_-

I think that’s about it for this chapter. Comments give me life~ Hope y’all are hanging in there!

Chapter 7: Fourteen (February, 20XX)

Notes:

We’re at the point in the story where it’s now no longer one year per chapter, so I added in some dates to maybe make things easier.

Happy manga-spoilers!! Won’t spill anything here in case people are avoiding them, but I’m so excited.

No real new warnings here, though there is a mention of some medical things related to Dabi’s health. Other than that, Dabi is a potty mouth, Endeavor is a shit dad, it’s a normal Tuesday.

As always, thanks to my betas, whatnameshallitake and NoPads_NoHelmets_JustBalls! They’re the best ;3

Every Valentine’s day was a marathon for Shouto, who would receive chocolates from hopeful girls whose affections would never be returned. Most of them didn’t even speak to him the rest of the year, so he was consistently baffled as to why they would insist on getting him chocolate on Valentine’s day. Some of the boys in his class treated the day as a competition, even involving a small betting pool on who would get the most treats. He always found such things in poor taste, but with his miserable social skills, perhaps he wasn’t the best judge of what was and wasn’t appropriate.

Probably the most surprising thing this year was that he received chocolates from boys as well.. Almost every member from his lgbt club gave him chocolates and to Shouto’s surprise, he found that he actually wanted to reciprocate. Luckily, Fyumi had been extremely invested in Shouto making friends at school, and had sent him along with a whole bag of chocolates to distribute, ‘just in case.’ There was just enough to go around his club members to avoid hurting anyone’s feelings. Social bullet dodged.

Besides Valentine’s Day chocolates, Shouto found himself considering romance in other ways as well. He still met with his lgbt club every Friday at lunch. It was a bright spot in his day, being able to sit with people who knew something about him that his other classmates didn’t. It felt like he could be a little bit more real around them, not have to hide his true self quite so much. He was still the son of Endeavor, he couldn’t relax the way he could with Dabi or Hawks, but he didn’t have to pretend to be straight. He still hadn’t figured out exactly how he identified, but he felt like those lunches were a place he could breathe, and to actually think about  his identity. 

Shouto knew he wasn’t straight, because boys were very pretty, but sometimes girls were handsome. His crushes weren’t as strong as everyone else’s, and the things that he seemed to find alluring had much more to do with someone’s smile or acts of kindness rather than their physical appearances. He’d gone on a few ...dates? He didn’t really know how else to describe them. Some of his club members had asked him to sit with them to eat lunch, and had offered their hand under the table. A few of the bolder members had offered him a kiss behind the gym after school.

Shouto thought that holding hands was nice, but it didn’t really make him feel much of anything. Any physical touch that wasn’t painful was something he treasured, but he didn’t really seem to be affected in the same way the other kids were. Kissing was - wet. He didn’t really see why anyone liked that at all, although he’d been told by some of the third years that there were other types of kissing that could be nicer. (That conversation had been put to a stop fairly quickly by the club supervisor, but Shouto had looked up some things on the internet that night on his private phone.) In the end, he didn’t really see what was exciting about that kind of kissing either.

So Shouto thought he might be asexual. Or maybe he just hadn’t found the right person yet. Or maybe he wasn’t really old enough; apparently boys usually experienced arousal earlier than girls, but he was still only fourteen. Maybe it would change when he got older. For now he’d tentatively decided he was panromantic, but he also acknowledged a very real lack of both experience and healthy relationship role models. Either way, he didn’t have time for dating, and the school didn’t allow relationships in any case (supervised lunch dates notwithstanding.) So he had plenty of time to figure it out later, when he actually had time to look for someone he was interested in. 

He would have things figured out before his father tried to arrange a marriage, he decided. That way he could rub his sexuality in his father’s face. In any case, he was not going to have an arranged marriage, regardless of whether he decided he did actually like girls or not. He had no desire to have the kind of relationship his parents had, and if he had children of his own (which he currently did not want to have ever ,) he was adopting so that Endeavor couldn’t use them in his power play. Shouto was under no delusions that Endeavor would try to stop controlling their bloodline with him, he wouldn’t stop until he was dead.

Several months passed. Shouto brought his go team to national victory and had been dragged to a giant celebration afterwards. His middle school was prestigious, yet they’d often lost the national championships to their rival Abazu Junior High School. He was less excited about the upcoming judo tournament. There wasn’t as much pressure on him to perform, because he would be competing for an individual score.He wasn’t expected to carry the team to victory the way they relied on him for go. 

Endeavor couldn’t care less about Shouto’s go performance (except to require that he win, of course, because Endeavor’s son must win in all things.) Judo was a different story, and Endeavor had already threatened to attend the match. Shouto hadn’t told Endeavor that he was the worst performer in their club, because of everything he’d had to re-learn. He was dreading what Endeavor would say when he saw Shouto performing the moves he’d been taught in his club, instead of Endeavor’s own combat style. The fact that using illegal moves could get him kicked out of the tournament wouldn’t matter to Endeavor, he’d still find some way to take it as a personal slight.

Thinking about Dabi was less stressful than thinking about his father, so mostly he tried to focus on that. For example; Shouto honestly didn’t know what Dabi was going to do now that he’d cut ties with the underworld. His sugar daddy probably wasn’t in the picture any more, likely arrested or dead in the raid. Shouto doubted any of the other yakuza clans would work with him, since they all knew who’d betrayed the Shie Hassaikai. At least the hit out for him seemed to have been pulled, since he hadn’t had to text Shouto with a new safehouse location in over a month. For a while he’d been switching things up every couple of days.

Hawks was looking after Dabi’s cats; he’d sent Shouto pictures when he’d mentioned he was worried about them. Not that he’d thought that Dabi would leave them behind, but it hadn’t exactly been safe for him to go back to his old apartment. Hawks complained about them constantly, but the picture he sent Shouto of himself on his bed with all three cats curled up on him looked pretty cozy. And Hawks was smiling his real smile, not his hero one, so Shouto thought that maybe he didn’t hate it as much as he said he did.

Without his brother’s company, Shouto found that he was actually quite lonely. There had been very little in the way of hanging out between them since Dabi had lost his apartment. Shouto had gone to a doctor’s appointment with him where he’d been yelled at by Dr. Maruki for over-exerting himself, and had gone out for soba with Glitch twice, but other than that, he’d been on his own. Hanging out with Glitch was fun, because they taught Shouto JSL and hacking tips. Nothing complex so far, since Shouto really needed to learn some programming languages to get serious about hacking. Currently, his schedule wouldn’t allow for any new hobbies without requiring him to sacrifice sleep altogether, but he learned a bit about protecting himself from monitoring by using a VPN, and how the program that re-routed his GPS location worked. He missed Dabi’s apartment, and doing his homework there while the cats sat in his lap. He missed having a break from everything that was going on in his life.

He’d just have to get used to it. Once he started his highschool career at UA his schedule would get even more intense. After that would be internships at his father’s agency, and by the time he became a hero in his own right, all personal time would have essentially disappeared from his life. That didn’t stop him from longing for more peaceful times.  

Suffice it to say that when Dabi finally called and asked if he wanted to meet at Shouto’s favorite soba shop, Shouto replied with great enthusiasm. He met his brother just outside a hole in the wall shop, something he wouldn’t have known about if Dabi hadn’t given him the address. Despite the fact that the place didn’t even have an online listing, they were clearly not hurting for business. Even with Dabi’s reservation, they had to wait for a good twenty minutes before they were even allowed inside, during which Shouto told Dabi about his go tournament results and the upcoming judo tournament. Dabi offered few details about what he’d been up to, which Shouto found somewhat suspicious but at the same time, he was just happy to be able to see Dabi. 

Once they were inside and seated at a small table in the corner, Dabi relaxed slightly. He ordered for them both - zaru soba for Shouto, kake soba for Dabi. He also ordered a double order of dumplings, and tea for them both.

They didn’t have to wait very long for their food; as busy as the place was, they seemed to have excellent service. Dabi showed Shouto some more pictures of Hawks on his phone, a few selfies and some of the more interesting photos he took while on patrol. Some of them Shouto had seen before, on Hawk’s official Instagram, but while that account was carefully curated, he seemed to send Dabi whatever he felt like, including some rather unflattering selfies. It gave Shouto hope that if Hawks could be the number three and still keep some of his personality, even if that was locked away so severely from his public persona, perhaps he would be able to.

By the time he realized Dabi was distracting him, their food arrived.They were mostly quiet while they ate their noodles. Dabi kept glancing around to see if anyone was staring at him, but with the way he was hunched over his food, Shouto was mostly blocking anyone’s view. It had been a little weird watching the way Dabi ate at first. He couldn’t open his mouth very much without pulling at his staples, so he usually just shoveled food in. Chewing looked painful, and usually Dabi picked foods he could drink or slurp, like soup or noodles, or digest easily without chewing like rice. For protein, he mostly drank protein shakes and similarly, fruits and vegetables were eaten in the form of puree. 

Luckily, soba was one of the foods he could eat, so Shouto didn’t have to feel bad about suggesting it when they ate out. Fyuumi insisted that if Shouto kept eating cold soba he’d eventually get sick of it, but so far that hadn’t happened. If anything, Shouto liked it more now that he could try it at a variety of different noodle shops. Each shop had their own slight twist on the sauce, and they were all delicious in their own ways. If he was allowed, he’d probably eat soba every single day.

This particular place had some of the best zaru soba he’d ever eaten, though the sauce was a little sweeter than he usually liked. The flavor was complex, the texture of the noodles just right, and there was enough of it to satisfy even his large appetite. The dumplings weren’t quite as good as the noodles, but they were still good. Shouto put some of his on Dabi’s plate, because his brother needed the calories. Dabi rolled his eyes, but he ate them all the same.

Once they had finished their food, Dabi ordered more tea and mochi. It seemed like they were finally going to talk.

“What did you want to tell me?”  Shouto finally asked, because the suspense was killing him.

“Who said I brought you here to tell you something?” Dabi asked, smirking down at his matcha.

“We’re at a place we’ve never been before, during lunch rush, which you hate. We’ve barely talked for months. You’d better have something to tell me,” Shouto groused, before trying his own matcha. It was delightfully bitter, and paired very well with the sweetness of the mochi.

“Okay, smart guy, maybe I did have something I wanted to tell you.”

Shouto just raised a judgemental eyebrow at him and sipped his tea.

“Ugh, stop that, you look just like Fyuumi. I just. I got a job. With benefits, and everything.”

“You did?” Shouto tried not to sound shocked, because he didn’t want to hurt his brother’s feelings, but this was big. Obviously Dabi had had jobs before, but the pay had always been terrible. Any time his brother had gotten a good paying job, it always involved something illegal.

“I’m working as an archivist for one of the top-tier geologists in Japan - Iwaiwa Iwaiwa. One of the top geologists in the world, probably. I still don’t really know a lot about geologists. A...uh, client recommended me,” Dabi said lamely.

Shouto rolled his eyes. “You know it doesn’t bother me that you have - clients - right?”

“And you’re still a middle schooler. Whatever. I overheard someone bitching that they’d been contracted to find an archivist who spoke Japanese, English, Mandarin and Latin. And I speak those languages. And he was throwing around some ridiculous figures for compensation so I asked about it. And I got an interview. And got hired on the spot.”

“That’s amazing.”

“Yeah...I guess she really had a hard time finding someone she can work with? She keeps weird hours and has no filter, but honestly I thought she was really nice to talk to. I didn’t have to worry about her saying one thing and really meant another. It was refreshing. And I told her I haven’t finished high school, but she just pulled out a pile of books and had me do a translation on the spot. I’m a little rusty but apparently I did a good job, because she hired me anyway. She’s paying me to go to correspondence school to get my certificate as part of my salary. Maybe college after that.”

“Holy shit,” Shouto said. “That’s amazing.”

“Watch your mouth, brat,” Dabi said, but he was smiling. “I’ve worked for her for two weeks so far and honestly it’s been amazing. I keep showing up every morning and thinking she’s going to realize what a failure I am, it’s fucking terrifying.”

“Watch your mouth,” Shouto said, “I’m an impressionable youth, remember?”

Dabi stuck out his tongue and stole the last piece of Shouto’s mochi.

Shouto waited until he’d popped the stolen mochi into his mouth and said, “so when do I get to meet her?”

Dabi almost choked to death in shock, but the look on his face was totally worth it.

Notes:

Wow you all, it’s been a long time since I was a kid in high school. I hope this whole figuring out romance in school thing isn’t terribly unrealistic lol. I was a pretty awkward child. I’m autistic and panromantic, but at the time I didn’t know that so I just felt like a little awkward duckling that didn’t get what all the fuss is about. I channeled that into Shouto so I hope it feels like something he’d do.

I hope you all enjoyed the chapter! NaNo is...going, though I’m definitely not going to hit 50k words. Still, I seem to be getting a bit more written so hopefully it won’t be quite so long until the next chapter.

Until then, thanks for reading!

Chapter 8: Fourteen (May, 20XX)

Notes:

BEHOLD. An estimated chapter count! My poor outline...

Anyways, another chapter!! :D I definitely did not hit the NaNo goal of 50k but I was able to meet my personal goal of 10k, and for 2020 that is Enough.

The usual warning for child abuse, Endeavor’s shitty parenting, etc. Nothing is explicit, but since abuse is Shouto’s normal day to day, it does come up quite a lot. It affects every area of his life, at this point.
There is also a scene near the end where Dabi has a panic attack. It’s not graphic or very long but still; stay safe, protect yourself! If you need to skip it stop at “But he had other issues currently” and you can pick up again when Dabi says “Never do that again.”

As always, thanks to my wonderful betas whatnameshallitake and NoPads_NoHelmets_JustBalls who have murdered many commas. Now, on to the chapter!

By May, Dabi had found another apartment. It was a step up from his last one, and leagues better than his shitty safe house. He’d secured a cozy two bedroom corner apartment in a cement apartment complex. The apartment was on the fourth floor of six, in a cement building that looked exactly the same as all the others on the block, except Dabi’s building was labeled with a two.

Shouto got his own room, which made him feel happy and sad and angry all at once. Happy, because Dabi had thought of him. Sad, because he would hardly ever use it. Angry, because he wanted to. It wasn’t like he was going to live there, or anything. (Sometimes, at night, he would lay on his futon in his father’s house and stare at the ceiling and think about how different things would be if he did live with Dabi. It was a childish dream, and he needed to grow up, but -- sometimes, he wished.)

Now that his brother wasn’t hiding in safe rooms in shitty warehouses and refusing to see him, Shouto visited every chance he could get. He got to know the neighborhood. He visited the local parks where he worked on some self defense with Dabi when his brother was feeling up for it. He passed by the middle school and all the local children stared at his visual kei makeup. Shouto would prefer not to be stared at at all, but it was a fantastic disguise. He made acquaintances with the owner of the local grocer where he bought ingredients for his never-ending quest of learning to cook meals Dabi could actually eat. On one particular outing he discovered a Shiba Inu cafe, and while Shouto was definitely more of a cat person, he enjoyed visiting the old man who ran the cafe. It didn’t hurt that all the dogs were always happy to see him even if he wore too much makeup to let them lick his face.

Speaking of cats, all three of Dabi’s brats were back at his apartment and seemed no worse for wear for having spent several long months with Hawks. Dabi was apparently in negotiations with Hawks to try to convince him to get a kitten, while Hawks was still denying that he enjoyed having pets at all. Neither Shouto or Dabi believed him since he was over at Dabi’s apartment more than he ever had been. Sometimes Shouto would catch him on their couch, just hanging out with the cats. All three of the cats also continued to be a feature on Hawks’ civilian Instagram account, so really he was fooling no one.

Shouto eventually got to meet Iwaiwa on a school holiday that either Endeavor didn’t know about or was too busy to care about. All Shouto cared to know was that his father hadn’t instructed him to do something else with his time, so he went to work with Dabi instead. He’d worried that he was going to get his brother in trouble or something, but Dabi had just grinned. 

Iwaiwa lived in what appeared to be a castle from the Edo period. (Dabi informed him that it was an extremely faithful replica of a castle that had once been in Iwaiwa’s family in another part of Japan, which had been completely destroyed in one of the many wars fought in pre-quirk society.) It was a beautiful place, completely different from the oppressive atmosphere of his father’s mansion. All of the staff were welcoming and friendly, and the cook’s meals were some of the best food he’d ever eaten. (He appreciated the cook, because she also seemed to have joined Shouto’s quest to make his brother eat more as there were many rich, easy to eat foods in plentiful supply at both lunch and dinner.)

Iwaiwa was just as Dabi had described her. She was smart yet severe, and she saw through everything. Within minutes of meeting him, she had given Shouto the business card of their family lawyer and said in no uncertain terms that he was to call if he needed anything. Especially if he had any trouble with the Public Safety Hero Commission or any of their employees. She said this while giving him a knowing look, and Shouto felt like she could see right through his band t-shirt at the bruises left on his chest from the previous night’s training. The family lawyer enjoyed the challenge, she said. No one was too powerful for her to take on, and he needn’t worry about the costs either. 

Dabi had rescued him before he’d had to figure out how to thank her for giving him a possible avenue of escape against his own father, and had taken him to the library to decompress. Shouto loved the library. Most of the space was filled with research books, but there was a corner of the multi-storied room which was devoted to a more personal collection of books. This contained both Eastern and Western classics, a wide range of fiction, and even a collection of manga and comics that were probably included for the benefit of Iwaiwa’s nephew, Tetsutetsu. The entire personal collection, including the manga, was managed with the same kind of care that rare research manuals received which warmed something in Shouto’s heart. 

The library also had several extremely cozy spots to curl up, read, and drink tea. Shouto’s favorite was a window seat where he could look out onto the expertly curated grounds and see birds, flowers, the koi pond, and sometimes Tetsutetsu running around screaming about manliness. (Dabi had explained that Tetsutetsu lived here, which explained why Iwaiwa tolerated Dabi bringing Shouto to work.)

Tetsutetsu was a force of nature. Shouto didn’t really know what to make of him. They had clearly grown up in two entirely different worlds. He was loud and energetic and clumsy, usually managing to break at least one thing every time Shouto visited. But he was also kind, and perpetually had a smile on his face. That sort of behaviour would have been beaten out of him if he’d grown up with Shouto, but Iwaiwa went out of her way to actively encourage him. She seemed to enjoy his smiles and wanted him to be happy in the way that Dabi wanted Shouto to be happy. It was soothing.

Shouto spent many happy days there that summer, and it did him a world of good. He was far less stressed about his future, especially since Tetsutetsu was also planning on attending UA next year. He’d honestly had no idea what to expect from his future classmates at UA, but if even a fraction of them were as kind and honest as Tetsutetsu perhaps it wouldn’t be so bad. Tetsutetsu’s frank honesty and goodness even restored a bit of faith in heroes that had been destroyed by his father. Perhaps heroes could be good for the sake of goodness and not for power or legacy. He’d known All Might was kind, of course, but it had always seemed like perhaps All Might was the only exception to the rule. Perhaps there was hope, after all.

What was not good about his summer was that he seemed to have acquired a stalker. He didn’t know how, or why, but there was a green haired kid who was just everywhere . He was at the park when Shouto tried to train. He was at the middle school when Shouto walked by. He was in the grocer while Shouto haggled with the owner for the best prices on day-old goods. He was in the hall when Shouto went to Dabi’s apartment.

Now, Shouto wasn’t stupid. Obviously if the kid lived in the same building as Dabi, then he was obviously a local, and therefore would use the local facilities. He had to be stalking Shouto. There was no other way to explain how the kid was always there, just around a corner everywhere Shouto went. Then there was the way he’d blush and stammer and run off when Shouto held his gaze long enough to let the kid know that he’d been caught staring. Was it the makeup? Had the kid really never been to Shibuya before? Sure, there weren’t very many visual kei practitioners in the sleepy neighborhood Dabi lived in, but they existed. Surely three or four looks would suffice? It had been months and the kid was still following him.

Had this kid...figured out Shouto’s identity? Did he have some kind of obsession with Endeavor? The absolutely last thing that Shouto needed was for his father to find out where he went all the time. So far he’d skated by on his father’s assumption that Shouto would never dare to defy him, but all it would take was a single slip up and Shouto’s entire world could come crashing down. 

“Maybe he just has a crush on you,” Dabi offered when Shouto brought up his concerns.

“...What.”

“You’re a good-looking kid,” Dabi insisted. “All of us are. Well, were, in my case. It’s not like the bastard would have settled for anything less than physical perfection. And you’re getting really good with the make-up.”

Shouto still struggled with the concept that someone could ever find him attractive without once attempting to speak to him. “But what if he doesn’t? He could ruin everything.”

“Try not to stress out about it too much, unless he takes your picture or something. Glitch is looking into it.” 

“You seem...really relaxed about this,” Shouto said. 

Dabi was sitting in the patch of sun next to the balcony door, covered in cats and eating a packet of squeezable yogurt. Shouto honestly thought he would have been much more stressed about a potential leaked identity.

“I’ve followed him around a bit. He’s a weird kid, doesn’t seem to have any other friends. Gets bullied by a pack of idiots after school. Watches a lot of hero fights. Meets up with some weird skeleton guy to hang out at the beach. Obsessed with heroes, but doesn’t seem to mention the bastard in particular. Honestly, I think he’s harmless. But Glitch is checking, just in case.”

“You stalked him?”

Dabi shrugged, scratching Mister Meowvelous lightly under the chin. “I didn’t want you to worry. Most likely he’s just a lonely, awkward kid, and you’re new and fascinating. Stay safe, absolutely punch his lights out if he tries to touch you, but I don’t think he knows who you are.”

Dabi’s certainty did make him feel better. Maybe Shouto was just letting the stress of what was essentially a dual identity get to him. Paranoia could be useful to a hero, it could save the hero’s life. But paranoia could also be taken too far, and lead to decreased effectiveness in professional and private life. Dabi had survived a lot of attempts on his life, and if he wasn’t worried, Shouto wouldn’t be worried.

After all, it wasn’t like the kid was important.

xxx

All Might was in the hallway. All Might was in the hallway, yelling excitedly at Shouto’s green-haired stalker. The stalker kid was muttering a hundred miles a minute; Shouto couldn’t understand a word he was saying. And All Might was just as incomprehensible. Was he talking in English? Or had Shouto’s brain just stopped processing words due to shock?

He stood there, staring at the two of them and wishing he would suddenly develop an invisibility quirk. So much for the kid not being important.

And then All Might started coughing, blood spurting from his mouth, and he poofed. Shouto didn’t know how else to describe it. One minute he was All Might, and the next he was the giant scraggly skeleton man that trained on the beach with Shouto’s stalker. Holy shit, Shouto knew All Might’s secret identity.

He dropped his takeout, somewhere between terror and awe. Both stalker kid and skeleton guy - All Might - turned to stare at him in horror. He was so incredibly fucked.

“Uh. Uuuuum!” The stalker was panicking.

“Young man-”

“Nope,” said Dabi, cutting All Might off. His scarred arm reached out through the door (Shouto hadn’t even heard him open it,) and dragged Shouto inside the apartment.

“We’re so fucked,” Shouto said, and was not at all comforted to see his own terror mirrored in Dabi’s eyes.

“This was such a nice apartment,” Dabi whispered. “How the fuck did I manage to pick an apartment complex All Might frequents. What the fuck.”

“I think…I think that kid is his protégé. They train together on the beach, you said. You. We. You live across the hall from All Might’s protégé.”

“I need to call Hawks. No. No, I need to call Iwaiwa’s lawyer. Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck.”

“Are you going to have to move?” Shouto asked Dabi, who was frantically searching the apartment for his cellphone.

“Am I going to have to - I don’t care about the apartment, I don’t want that self-righteous bastard poking his nose in where it doesn’t belong. If he spills about me working for Hawks - if he find out who you are -”

Dabi had found his phone and typed in a frantic message just as there was a pounding knock on the door.

“I just texted Hawks, go out on the balcony.”

“What?”

“Hawks is going to come pick you up. No one can catch you here if you’re not here.”

“But - it’s not like he’s going to give up !” Shouto said, as the knocking increased in intensity.

“You’ll just have to stay away from me for a while, until he does.”

“Until he - it’s All Might,” Shouto hissed. Dabi had his arms crossed, defensive and angry. Shouto had already stayed away for months, he wasn’t going to start that cycle again. No one was going to make his brother start over again, especially when he hadn’t actually done anything wrong. Fuck that .

Shouto opened the door in the middle of the next round of furious knocking. He glared up at the giant skeleton man and said, “No.”

This seemed to confuse the giant skeleton man. (All Might. Fuck.) “Um, young man, might we have a moment...of your time?”

“No, you may not,” Shouto said firmly, “I’m not going to tell anyone your secret. Now go away.” And then he shut the door in Skeleton-Might’s face.

Dabi stared at him in horror, “Did you just -”

Another knock.

Shouto grit his teeth and went to his bag. He found what he needed quickly, and then threw the door open. It was Skeleton-Might, as he suspected.

“Am I under arrest?”

“Er...no, but young man -” Skeleton-Might didn’t seem to know how to handle a child who wasn’t immediately fawning over him. Personally, Shouto wasn’t impressed. Or perhaps that was just the terror. At least he knew he could be brave in the face of adversity.

“Then you can call my lawyer,” Shouto said, handing Skeleton-Might the business card Iwaiwa had given him.

Skeleton-Might seemed to recognize the name on the card because his eyes grew comically wide. He handed back the business card briskly and said, “No problem, no problem. Have a nice day.”

And then All-Might, number one hero, ran away.

Huh. Apparently Iwaiwa’s lawyer was awesome. Shouto was almost tempted to call her and see if he could find a way to put his father in prison where he belonged. Or at least revoke his hero license. But he had other issues currently, like the panic attack that Dabi was currently having. 

“Are you okay? Breathe with me.” Shouto said, sitting on the floor with his brother and taking one of his hands in both of his.

It took a while for Dabi to stop gasping. Shouto felt awful, especially since there wasn’t really anything else he could do except be a quiet, supportive presence. The cats helped, piling on Dabi’s lap and head butting him until he scratched them gently behind their ears. 

“Never do that again,” Dabi said seriously, once he’d finally calmed down, “You’re lucky All-Might doesn’t just haul people away whether they’re guilty or not. Heroes don’t care if you’re guilty, Shouto. They just do whatever they want.”

“I know,” Shouto said, “I still live at home, remember? I just - I didn’t want to have to stay away from you again. I don’t care who they are - no one is going to keep me away from you. We’re family.”

“Well shit, kid. You’re gonna make me cry. Just be careful okay? Being associated with me - it’s not gonna do you any favors.”

“You’re not even a criminal any more.” Shouto protested.

“Sure, I’m not doing crime ‘any more’,” Dabi snorted. “Crime doesn’t just go away if you stop doing it, Shouto. I could still be arrested. I’ve done - well, you don’t need to know what I’ve done. But if it were to come out, it would ruin you, Shouto. It’d be better if you just forgot about me.”

“I’m not going to do that. Besides. If he can do everything he does and not face any consequences then I don’t think I really care what the law has to say about it.” Shouto put his head on his brother’s shoulder, adjusting his grip on Dabi’s arm so it wouldn’t hurt him.

Dabi sighed, and put his head on top of Shouto’s. “Just don’t let anyone catch you saying that. I’m not going to argue with you. You know how I feel about the law.”

“Fuck Endeavor.” Shouto grumbled.

Dabi laughed.

Notes:

(Oh Shouto, Izuku does indeed have a crush on you.) Hopefully I haven’t put Izuku terribly out of character here but uh...he is kind of a creepy stalker when it comes to heroes and quirks so the new fascinating kid who apparently moved in down the hall from him? Yeah.

Also a heads up that I love All Might, I do, but Shouto gets a bit of a scare in this chapter and is legitimately terrified that his secret is going to come out so even though All Might is his favorite hero he doesn’t react very well. And we’ll see this theme continue in the next few chapters. Shouto is seeing the man behind the costume and he’s not sure he likes what he sees. I think it’s in character for someone with as many trust issues as Shouto has but just sort of a heads up that it’s not going to be all sunshine and rainbows there for a bit. A Shouto raised by Dabi has Opinions.

As always, comments make my day ;3 I hope you all enjoyed this one.

Chapter 9: Fourteen (June, 20XX)

Notes:

Hey all, enjoy another chapter! I got a lot of writing done during November (though not 50k...) and I thought I’d share it with you all!

Warnings: Nothing we haven’t seen before. Child abuse, social commentary/discussion of heroes abuse of power, hurt/injury (Dabi’s quirk).

As always, thanks to my wonderful betas whatnameshallitake and NoPads_NoHelmets_JustBalls !

Honestly, Shouto thought that was going to be the end of it. He’d go on his way, the stalker kid and Skeleton-Might would go theirs, and they’d all just pretend that the scene in the hallway hadn’t happened. Shouto should have known better, considering the kid had stalked him all over the city. The kid was still following him, only now, he was talking to Shouto.

He’d introduced himself with a wavering smile, looking one step away from tears, “I’m Izuku M-M-M-Midoriya! Nice to meet you!”

“...Samui Shouto,” Shouto said, because he wasn’t an idiot. Using Endeavor’s name with a fanboy? He might as well confess to his father directly. Even using Shouto with a fire quirk was risking it, but that was the name on his fake ID so better to use it than risk getting caught and called out. He didn’t need to look more suspicious.

“Ah, Samui-kun. Um...can I walk with you?” Midoriya said nervously.

Shouto stared at him with dead eyes. His makeup was impeccable today - he’d gotten a new liquid eyeliner with an ultra-fine tip and had drawn intricate spider-webs across both eyelids, stretching from the bridge of his nose down behind his ears.

The stare clearly intimidated Midoriya, who turned bright red and started stammering about nothing. Shouto turned away and walked off. He had a few moments of blessed silence before Midoriya caught up to him, sweating and muttering to himself under his breath.

“S-so! You don’t live in the complex right? How come...you’re always around?”

“Interrogation?”

“N-no! I just thought. Well, you know a pretty big secret of mine so...if you told me one of yours, that’d be a pretty good foundation for a friendship right?”

“...You want to be friends with me?” Shouto thought it was more likely Midoriya just wanted to keep an eye on him to make sure he’d keep his mouth shut, “I’m not going to tell anyone, like I said - don’t want the media attention, anyways.”

“It’s not that! Well...maybe a little,” Midoriya admitted, “But! You’re so cool, Samui-kun. I’ve wanted to talk to you before...I just...couldn’t get up the nerve. But I figured the hallway thing broke the ice, right? So I might as well talk to you!”

“You’re kind of weird,” Shouto said, fully embracing hypocrisy.

Midoriya seemed to deflate, “Oh. You really think so?”

Shouto shrugged, “I wouldn’t really know. No one else talks to me though. It’s the makeup, I think.”

“...Yeah we don’t really have any goths out here in the suburbs.”

“It’s not goth, it’s visual-kei,” Shouto corrected. He wasn’t wearing nearly enough lace, for one, “Have you heard of HunterX? My brother inspired the band.”

“I haven’t...sorry.”

“They’re underground, so I’m not surprised. You can get their music on Soundcloud sometimes, but it keeps getting taken down. I can bring you a CD if you want.”

For some reason, that made Midoriya smile brilliantly, “I’d love that!”

They arrived at the apartment complex while they were talking, and Shouto found himself surprised that he’d actually enjoyed himself. Midoriya was still a stalker, there was no denying that, but there was something about his cheerful optimism that was hard to stay annoyed at. And that smile - Shouto hadn’t known people could smile like that. Well, obviously All Might could, but he was All Might , not a regular person. (Except he apparently was a regular person, but honestly Shouto was continuing to pretend he hadn’t seen anything.)

“...See you around, I guess,” Shouto said, moving to open his door.

“Bye Samui-kun!” Midoriya said, waving energetically. 

Huh. Did Shouto...just make a friend?

xxx

For all of Midoriya’s declarations that he wanted to get to know Shouto, he didn’t actually have a lot of free time. Whatever kind of training he was doing with All Might seemed to take up most of his day, and if Shouto did see him in the evenings on his way to the bus, Midoriya usually looked exhausted. He was also exuberantly happy, and no matter how many times Shouto checked him for bruises, he seemed okay. Which was good. Shouto didn’t want to think that All Might employed the same kind of training methods as his father, but that didn’t mean he was going to stop checking. 

They saw each other the most on Sundays. Shouto usually spent the entire day at Dabi’s on Sundays, because his father was out of the house prepping his agency for the next week, at business lunches, or on patrol. He’d spend the first part of the day in his bed at Dabi’s apartment, with ice or heat packs on his various bruises and aches from Saturday’s full training sessions. After lunch he’d work on his summer homework, or the thesis that UA Recommendation prospective students were required to submit. Originally, he’d do this alone, but since striking up a truce with Midoriya he’d been doing his homework at the other boy’s house. Dabi had originally been against it, but then Shouto had pointed out that he would be able to have alone time with Hawks. 

Shouto knew Midoriya liked heroes. It was practically all he talked about all the time - relaying villain fights he’d watched, who was trending in the rankings, what he’d written in his Hero Analysis for the Future book that week. He was All Might’s protege, so obviously he was a hero fan. Still, he hadn’t prepared himself for Midoriya’s questions when he realized Shouto was working on a thesis.

“You’re a recommendation candidate? Oh wow. How - Who...Who’s sponsoring you? Do I know them? Do I not know them? Is it Jetstream? No, wait, you have a fire quirk right? Firestar? No, he’s taking the year off to recover from that villain attack last month. Though that wouldn’t stop him from recommending someone. Oh! What if -”

“It’s my father,” Shouto said, and that stopped Midoriya in his tracks.

“Oh.”

Shouto hadn’t told Midoriya who he really was, but that hadn’t stopped him from making comments on his home life. He’d grown used to bad mouthing his father when he was around his brother, and hadn’t bothered to hold back around Midoriya either. He probably should have, since Midoriya was ridiculously observant. He hadn’t outright interrogated Shouto about any of his training injuries, but he’d given Shouto a look a time or two, and brought him ice or bandages for things Shouto was sure had been hidden by his clothing.

He still didn’t know what Midoriya’s quirk was, which was weird since quirks were practically all he talked about. Shouto figured it was an analytical quirk, something that wasn’t actually oriented to combat, and Midoriya was embarrassed about it. He wasn’t sure why, since it wasn’t like Shouto would look down on him for something like that. All Might had never taken on a sidekick since Nighteye left his agency, so if he’d chosen Midoriya obviously the boy was capable. And besides, violence wasn’t everything. Intelligence was critical to hero work, Shouto knew that. His father didn’t like working with others or relying on intel, but for someone like Hawks, a good information network was key. It was the reason he’d become the youngest hero to break into the top ten. 

“So, you have to write a thesis? What is yours about?”

“Domestic violence rates among heroes,” Shouto said, because Endeavor hadn’t bothered to read Shouto’s proposal forms. He had Fyuumi take care of them instead, and now that the proposal had been accepted, he couldn’t ask for its withdrawal without raising some serious questions about his personal life. And since UA made its recommendation student’s thesis public, there hadn’t been anything he could do. Well, he’d thrown Shouto into more walls than usual during their training session, but Shouto had just considered that a research opportunity.

Midoriya’s eyes went wide, “Is that a big problem?” He seemed troubled that there might be something about hero society that he didn’t know about.

“It’s not something the Hero Public Safety Commission wants spread around, but so far I’ve been able to link domestic abuse to about twenty percent of the population for people related to heroes, including extended family situations. The average in the general population is about ten percent, though in both cases the numbers are likely higher since domestic abuse in general is underreported.”

Midoriya looked horrified, which was too bad, because Shouto wasn’t done.

“Going by the amount of accusations that were dropped before an investigation could begin, and suspicious or altered data, it’s probably more like forty percent. I can’t prove that though, so for the purposes of the thesis I’m sticking to the documented twenty percent.”

“ Forty percent? But they’re heroes! ”

“They’re people who are actually licensed to commit violence.”

“To protect people!”

“To defeat villains. Sometimes they kill them. Our country’s kill rates are a lot lower than, say, America’s, but we have a lot more civilian and villain casualties than you’d think,” Shouto knew that his father had the highest casualty to capture ratio, but the numbers were depressing across the board. He’d checked.

“But! All Might would never…” Midoriya looked so defeated.

“His numbers are better than most,” Shouto admitted, “His civilian rescue rates are the highest for a non-rescue hero in the country. For someone with a strength quirk, his injury rates for villains are among the lowest.  And he donates to a lot of programs that are trying to reform villains, including a number of facilities targeted towards youth. But he’s not the norm.”

“He’s the best,” Midoriya muttered, “Samui-kun...when your thesis is done, can I read it?”

Shouto was startled. The last thing he’d expected after viciously tearing apart Midoriya’s worldview was acceptance, “Of course...If you want, you could proof-read it for me.”

Midoriya’s eyes sparkled with joy.

xxx

“...I think I became friends with Midoriya,” Shouto said, once the door had closed behind him.

Dabi stopped with his udon halfway to his mouth, “What?”

“...Midoriya, the creepy stalker kid? You know his name right? You ran a background check on him.”

“Yeah, I just - really? Last month I thought he was going to get us arrested, and you told All Might to fuck off, and now you’re friends?”

“I guess,” Shouto shrugged.

Dabi snickered and slurped his udon, “Good job, Shouto.”

“I didn’t mean to, it just sort of happened. Midoriya grows on you. Like mould,” Maybe that was a little mean, but Shouto didn’t know how else to explain it, “The only problem is that he is obsessed with heroes.”

Because of course he was.

Everyone loved heroes; Japan was obsessed with them. Almost all of Shouto's classmates wanted to be heroes when they graduated. They probably didn’t have the same experiences Shouto had. Midoriya had probably never woken up screaming from a nightmare caused by his weekly training session with his father, a “hero”.

Shouto didn't hate heroes in the way that Dabi did, because for all of his experiences with Endeavor, he managed to not be quite as jaded as his brother was. He still had the vague hope that not everyone was like his father. If people actually tried , surely they could be good heroes. At the same time, Shouto wasn’t as naive as many of his classmates. It was their society that allowed his father to become the way he was. Hero society praised him for it, treated him like the hero he absolutely wasn't. No one cared what went on behind closed doors, as long as they got the spectacle of flashy hero takedowns in public. No one cared about where Shouto or Dabi’s scars had come from or what they had endured. 

Endeavor wasn't even that great with civilians, and yet he’d maintained his number two position for decades. He never went to events, he loathed signing autographs, and his civilian rescue rate was garbage. All while his damage amount per capture ratio was through the roof. He was powerful, handsome, and flashy - and that seemed to be enough. Personally, Shouto found the public’s hero worship disgusting.

Still, he’d made a friend. He didn’t have very many friends his own age other than Tetsutetsu. Shouto wasn’t sure Tetsutetsu counted, since he was the ward of Dabi’s employer. They got along alright, but it was more out of courtesy for their respective relatives than an actual friendship. And he had his friends at school, but Shouto was such a different person at school and out of it that he hesitated to actually qualify any of them as friends. They never interacted outside of school, and other than acknowledging that he wasn’t straight, Shouto didn’t let them see beyond his carefully constructed public persona.

“...That's alright Shouto. I'm not upset,” Dabi said, but he looked furious. More than that, he looked hurt. 

Shouto felt a deep sense of shame. He shouldn’t have said anything. Hell, he probably should have just rejected Midoriya outright. The very least he could have done was not rub the whole affair in Dabi’s face.

“His favorite hero is All Might, but... He likes Endeavor too,” Shouto confessed, because apparently his mouth had a mind of its own. 

Dabi's teeth ground together so hard they creaked. His hand automatically caught fire as he clenched his fists. Shouto swallowed, and tried to hide his flinch. He knew Dabi wouldn’t hurt him - he knew it . But fire and fury together - the reflex it was too ingrained, he couldn’t help it.

Fuck that bastard. Fuck him for making Shouto afraid, even now. Fuck him for how angry he made Dabi. For a moment, Shouto felt the blinding rage that Dabi must feel every day. He wanted to burn the world down for believing that fucking bastard .

“...Are you mad?” Shouto whispered. 

“Not at you. Shouto. It's not your fault.”

For some reason, that made Shouto feel even worse. Especially when it took Dabi a minute for his flames to die down, and the room filled with the stench of hot metal and blood. His brother hissed and shook out his hand, and Shouto got up to go to the bathroom for the burn cream. 

He had a strange moment of deja-vu as he brought the cream and bandages back into the main room and helped patch his brother up. His quirk had come in just before Dabi reached his breaking point, and he had a vague half-memory of his brother doing this exact thing for him: cleaning a burn on his left hand. It might not have even been a real memory, but it felt surreal. 

“Why do you use staples if they heat up and burn you?” Shouto asked. He’d wondered about it for a long time, but hadn’t really had the opportunity to ask until now.

“Because melting sutures is much worse,” Dabi said. 

Shouto shuddered. That...that made a lot of sense, “Did that...actually happen?”

Dabi grimaced, “Only once. Besides, the staples are much more my style, don’t you think?”

“They certainly make an impression. There, that’s as good as I can do.”

Dabi inspected his work, “Looks good. Better than I could have done one handed, for sure.”

“You’re really not mad?”

“I’m - can we not talk about him, any more? I’m not mad at you , okay? I promise,” Dabi held out one arm in invitation, and Shouto took him up on it, burying his head in his brother’s shoulder and hugging him loosely so he wouldn’t pull any of his staples. Dabi’s hand in his hair was soothing. 

“I wish I could tell him. Midoriya - he’s good . He wouldn’t - if he knew - I just. Sorry, you said you don’t want to talk about it.”

“You know me, I’m always supportive of dragging the old bastard through the mud. He’s a fucking stalker nerd, right? Just tell him to look up Endeavor’s wife.”

Shouto didn’t know how he felt about dragging his mother into it, but that was actually a good idea Midoriya was obsessive, and he was really good at digging up everything there was to know about whatever he happened to be obsessed about at the moment. Once he looked into the circumstances surrounding Shouto’s mother’s incarceration, Shouto might not actually have to tell him anything. Endeavor had been careful and paid a lot of people off, but he hadn’t been that careful. His father counted on the Public Safety Commission to sweep everything under the rug for him. The Commission certainly kept things out of the press, but they probably hadn’t bothered to remove all of Shouto’s extensive hospital records. Or his mother’s. Or Touya’s.

And if Midoriya looked into it and didn’t find anything, Shouto could always text Glitch. They had a file, he was sure of it. Maybe not enough to go public with or they probably would have already, but enough to convince a teenager that maybe Endeavor wasn’t the hero he claimed to be.

And if after all that, Midoriya still idolized Endeavor then, well... At least Shouto would know what kind of person he really was. Losing a friend over his father wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world. He’d managed this far without one, after all.

Notes:

The summary for this chapter should be “in which Shouto crushes Midoriya’s hopes and dreams,” lol. Shouto means well, he’s finally made a friend, and he wants that friend to know the truth. But uh, he doesn’t really know how to be gentle, poor bean.

This year has been full of ups and downs, and I’m not going to meet my goal of finishing this fic this year, but things are coming along! Thank you everone for your kind words, your comments really do make a difference. :)

Chapter 10: Fifteen (January, 20XX)

Notes:

The main pairing of this chapter is All Might/Consequences, lol. I wouldn’t qualify it as character bashing, but Shouto does take a good hard look at All Might’s decisions and decides he doesn’t like them. I mean, c’mon, All Might didn’t even tell Izuku’s mom what was going on. I know Izuku wants to be a hero and stuff but an authority figure like All Might, who’s the very definition of someone in power, spending all that time unsupervised with a minor behind his parent’s back? Obviously we know All Might doesn’t have bad intentions, but looking at it objectively that’s kind of not a great situation right there. And the fact that he gave Izuku a quirk without any real thought to the consequences (though you could argue he did since the whole reason he was training Izuku was so his ‘vessel’ could be strong enough) and let me stress again, did not let his mother know - not great life choices there sir. Having some experience with inappropriate behavior in authority figures, Shouto has a lot to say about this.
Just wanted to give everyone a bit of a heads up to where this chapter is going because I mean, it’s All Might, right? I think people have pretty strong feelings where the guy’s concerned, and they definitely come out in this chapter.
RANT OVER. Other warnings: Shouto has inherited Dabi’s potty mouth. As always, reference to child abuse, Endeavor’s A+ parenting, the usual. Enjoy!

When Shouto was fifteen, he decided to go to UA. Well, decided was a strong word, since he would have to go whether he wanted to or not. But he decided to be happy about it. He decided that yes, that was in fact what he wanted. Because in spite of everything his father has done to him, he still wanted to be a hero. He wanted to be able to save people the way that his brother saved him. (And even more than that - he wanted the power to actually get people away from their bad situations, the way he knew Dabi wished he could have taken Shouto with him.)

The problem with this decision was that Dabi loathed heroes. Yes, he was dating Hawks. If anything, Dabi had become more angry at the Hero Institution since dating Hawks than he’d ever been before. Shouto wasn’t stupid. He knew something was happening with Dabi and Hawks and the Public Hero Safety Commission, but he didn’t know exactly what. For all that Hawks was a terrible liar, he was very good at steering the conversation when he wanted to. Shouto had walked in on more than a few heated discussions that just stopped as soon as he entered the room. One particularly memorable time was when he’d walked in and there were files all over Dabi’s table, so Hawks lept on top of Dabi and started making out with him. Apparently, he thought Shouto was an idiot who couldn’t figure out that they were trying to keep him from looking at whatever they’d been working on. Shouto hadn’t pushed, because it was none of his business, and then he’d left because their pretend make out had turned into a real one and he didn’t need to see that. Yuck.

Shouto had been putting off talking to Dabi about the upcoming school year. He really, really, really needed Dabi’s approval. Things have been beyond stressful lately. Between the end of the year exams, prep for the UA Entrance Exams, and the way that his quirk training had been ramped up so he won’t “embarrass” Endeavor at the quirk recommendation trial, Shouto was worn thin. Fuyumi tried to be encouraging, but even though she’s allowed to interact with him regularly now they’re still like strangers. She tried to hug him, or pat him on the head, or use the same platitudes that she used on her students, and sometimes he wants to shake her and scream about their family situation and how fucked up it is. 

He knew it was fucked up; he wasn’t making that up even though sometimes he felt like it. He’d asked Dabi, Hawks, and (indirectly) Tetsutetsu. Parents were supposed to love and care for their children, not abuse them physically and mentally and then gaslight them into thinking that it was ‘for the best.’ Parents weren’t supposed to drive their partners into an actual mental break and then shove them in an institution so the media wouldn’t find out about it. Their family situation wasn’t normal, and it certainly wasn’t good , no matter how much Fuyumi seemed to want to pretend.

Dabi used their father and how they were raised as further proof of a broken hero system. For Shouto, everything that was wrong with their father was a huge part of the reason he wanted to be a hero. He wanted to do better, he wanted to prove that you didn’t have to be a brutal person to be a hero. His ideal hero was strong and selfless, not ambitious and full of hatred. 

Possibly, the biggest motivating factor was spite. He’d survived his mother’s mental breakdown. He’d endured everything his father had to throw at him. He’d made it this far; he wasn’t going to back down now.

xxx

The worst part about the entrance exam was that his father was there. They rode together in a private limo where Shouto endured a speech about how he wasn’t going to embarrass his father in front of the other heroes and applicants. They had a similar conversation the night before, and Shouto had bruises on his upper arm from where Endeavor had grabbed him when he thought Shouto hadn’t been paying close enough attention.

Once they arrived, Shouto left his father’s side as soon as he could, using the time before the written exam began to get his thesis materials in order. Other students came in, chatting with one another. Shouto should probably join them. Making connections and networking was important, and obviously all of these students had already impressed heroes in the field, but he was in a bad mood and had his thesis statistics fresh in his mind. How many of these other students lived in a home like his? How many would grow up to make a home like his? He just wanted to go to Dabi’s. He could take the general exam instead. Or maybe move to America and work in a shop, and never think about heroes ever again. 

Present Mic interrupted his dire thoughts with his trademark yell, signaling the beginning of the written exam. Shouto has no problems with it; he’d been studying for this exam for years. There were one or two questions he wasn’t entirely sure he’d gotten right, and at least one question that didn’t have a right answer, but he passed. 

Next up was the practical physical exam. They were...running a race. Shouto was not impressed. He knew from both his brothers that the other UA applicants fought giant robots in a training simulation. A race compared to that just seemed...so easy. It did provide a bit of an edge for prospective students without a combat focused quirk, but an obstacle course seemed a strange choice for students who were supposed to be ahead of their peers. Maybe Shouto was just bitter that Midoriya would have excelled at this type of exam. Instead, Midoriya was probably going to fail whatever bullshit combat-based exam the less privileged students were given. He already knew the hero industry was almost entirely about who you knew, but it was depressing to see that favoritism in action. 

His opponent was a wildly cheerful guy with a wind quirk. He wasn’t even cheerful like Midoriya, where Shouto felt like smiling just by looking at him. He got the impression that this guy was looking down on him, smiling while he did it. There was no pressure for this kid. If he failed, he could just go to a different hero school, or even a normal high school. He was free to enjoy the exam, not crushed under the pressure like Shouto, or anxious with the thought of failure like Midoriya. Shouto normally reserved judgement on people he had just met (in that he usually just didn’t care about them at all) but he decided that this guy -- this guy he hated. 

To make matters worse, the asshole won. Shouto had used only his ice because his fire was dangerous. He could have prevented the other contestants from continuing if he’d laid down enough fire or driven them off the course. Though maybe that would have been seen as unheroic, that wasn’t really why Shouto didn’t use his fire. Even after training with Dabi, Shouto didn’t like to use his fire very much. He hated his father and didn’t want to be associated with him. But mostly it was that training with Dabi had taught him that fire hurt . It wasn’t something to be taken lightly. If he froze someone, he could unthaw them quickly enough to prevent damage. If he burned someone - he’d seen what the long term effects of that was. He’d use his fire in a fight if he had to, but unless he was prepared to hurt someone, he had no intention of using his flames casually.

And so the civilian kid beat him at the last second. Shouto hadn’t come first in the written, and he’d lost in the practical as well. Even if he did a fantastic job presenting his thesis, he wouldn’t make the top recommendation of his year. Shouto’s stomach turned just thinking about what would happen when they got home. He wanted to throw up.

Oblivious to his internal dread, the civilian kid cheered, “Aww yeah, I won! But hey that was really close huh? You’re so awesome, man! You must be Endeavor’s son, or something right? Too cool!”

Fuck, the kid was talking to him, “Yeah, sure, really cool,” Shouto said sarcastically, “If you like living with an abusive piece of shit who calls himself a hero, it’s fucking great.”

That shut the other guy up. Shouto stalked off, completely unaware of how much hanging out with his brother had influenced his personality. 

xxx

“So... How’d it go?”

“I came in second,” Shouto said. Well, he’d come in third, but the annoying kid had apparently decided to abdicate, “But they liked my thesis.” 

Personally, Shouto thought the principal had enjoyed it a little too much. He seemed to hate humans in general in the same way that Shouto hated Endeavor, and while Shouto recognized that feeling as valid, he was not interested in learning why the principal felt that way. 

“You passed!” Midoriya shrieked, and hugged Shouto, who suppressed his flinch at the last minute.

Midoriya started crying, of course, “I knew you could do it! You’re strong, and smart, and your quirk is amazing, and-”

“Please let me go,” Shouto said, because Hawks told him to always be blunt when he didn’t want people to touch him. 

“Oh! Sorry, I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable,” Midoriya mumbled and let go abruptly, stepping back to give Shouto a good two feet of personal space.

“It’s fine.”

“So they liked your thesis?”

“Yes. It was generally well received. My father hated it.”

“Your father sucks,” Midoriya said automatically, which was funny, because he still didn’t know who Shouto’s father was, “What was the practical exam?”

“It’s not the same as the general entrance exam,” Shouto warned, because he didn’t want to ruin Midoriya’s chance at passing through faulty information, “We had a three kilometer race using our quirks. I lost at the last second to a guy who controls wind.”

“Oh man,” Midoriya said, and sat down heavily on the stairs, “I’d never pass that.”

“The test is unfairly biased towards physical quirks, that’s true.” 

It was one of the weaknesses of the test, in Shouto’s opinion. At least in the recommendation exam, the candidates could get in through a combined interview and written test score. The general exam didn’t seem to provide any sort of compensation for non-physical quirks.

“Why didn’t All Might recommend you?” Shouto asked. That would have been bad for Shouto, because his secret identity would have crumbled away, but it would have greatly improved Midoriya’s chances of success.

“Ah, I’m not ready yet,” Midoriya said glumly.

“The general exam is only in a month, you have to be ready soon.”

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m sure I will be. It’s just - I couldn’t have taken it right now, Samui-kun.”

“Why not? You practically co-wrote my thesis.”

“I wouldn’t have passed the practical, though.”

“So what? Your analytical quirk more than makes up for any physical shortcomings. You’d make an invaluable partner for any hero team and-”

“I’m quirkless!” Midoriya shouted. Then his eyes went wide, and he put his hands over his mouth, as if to pull back the secret he’d let loose.

“What?” That couldn’t possibly...all of Midoriya’s analytical abilities...that wasn’t a quirk? That was just what, something he did? That couldn’t be right.

“I’m quirkless,” Midoriya said again, scuffing his shoe, “I’m not supposed to talk about this but you already know who Toshinori is so...He’s going to give me his quirk. But I’m not strong enough yet, which is what all my training is for. I’ll barely be ready in time for the exam. There was no way I’d be able to take the recommendation exam.”

Setting aside the fact that somehow All Might was going to give Midoriya his quirk , Shouto focused on the important information, “You’re going to take a physical exam, where you have to use your quirk, with a quirk you’ve never even used before?”

“I’ll manage somehow,” Midoriya said.

“You’ll - are you joking ? You don’t know how his quirk is going to react! You don’t know if your body can handle it. You could die .”

“I’m not weak!” Midoriya protested, “I can do this!”

“I don’t think you’re weak , I think you’re an idiot !” Shouto shouted, “Do you think my brother got those scars for fun? ”

That seemed to shock Midoriya out of his hurt, “I thought...your dad did that to him. Isn’t that why…” Midoriya gestured to the apartment complex.

Shouto huffed, “My father did do that to him. By making him use his quirk. Dabi’s quirk hurts him - a lot. But our father didn’t care, and made him use it anyway. Don’t you get it, Midoriya? What if All Might’s quirk hurts you?”

“I don’t care,” Midoriya said savagely, “I want to be a hero, no matter what. I finally have a chance to have a quirk - an amazing one - and I’m not going to stop no matter what you say.”

“I’m not saying don’t take it, I’m saying don’t be stupid ,” Shouto snarled, “I know what I’m talking about, okay?”

“All Might thinks I can do it.”

Midoriya wasn’t going to listen to him. Why would he? He thought Shouto was the son of some no-named fire hero who beat his children and managed to get Shouto into the recommendations somehow. “My father is Endeavor.”

“ WHAT?!” Midoriya shrieked.

“My name is Todoroki Shouto,” Shouto said, “Samui is my mother’s maiden name. I’m not supposed to be here. Dabi is supposed to be dead. I use a fake name and wear makeup to keep my brother safe.”

“That’s. He. You. Wait. Dabi is Todoroki Touya ? But he’s - wait but you said...” Midoriya trailed off, his eyes getting that glazed, unfocused look they got when he was mentally derailing. Sure enough, he started muttering nonsense under his breath and counting off on his fingers.

“His name is Dabi. He hates his birth name.”

“Oh! Right. Of course,” Midoriya said, coming out of his trance, “Whatever he wants to be called. You really wear all that makeup just for a disguise?”

“It works well. Get rid of my two-tone hair and my scar and people don’t even know what I look like.”

“That’s...true. I spent three days researching your family and I didn’t recognize you at all. Um.”

Shouto waved off his concern, “I’m the one who told you to look into Endeavor, didn’t I?”

“But - besides the fact that you lied -”

“Secret identity,” Shouto maintained.

“- you haven’t explained what that has to do with me taking All Might’s quirk.”

“I’ve been training my quirk since I was four years old. I get quirk training with a specialist after school every day, and all day ‘lessons’ with my father every Saturday,” Shouto said flatly, “If All Might thinks you can just take his quirk and use it effectively the day you get it, maybe he’s not any better than my father.”

“All Might is nothing like your father.” 

“Prove it.”

So that was how Shouto ended up glaring at All Might over tea. 

They were at All Might’s house (and some part of him was definitely screaming All Might’s house over and over) because Shouto wasn’t going to let either of these idiots into his own apartment and apparently Midoriya’s mother wasn’t in on the quirk inheritance secret. Personally, Shouto thought it was unwise that Midoriya hadn’t told his mother yet, but he was here to make sure that Midoriya would survive his quirk, not to interfere in his domestic affairs.

“...So…” All Might said awkwardly. He was in his skeleton form, staring down into his tea like it would somehow help him escape this situation.

“So. You’re going to give Midoriya your quirk on the same day that he has to take a practical quirk examination and you’re somehow okay with this?” Shouto said scornfully. He wasn’t afraid to get right to the heart of the issue.

“Young Midoriya has strength and passion!” All Might protested, “I’m sure everything will work out for the best!”

Great. All Might wasn’t purposefully abusive like Endeavor, he was just an idiot. Shouto didn’t know if that made it better or worse, “What if it doesn’t?”

“What?”

“What if it doesn’t work out, and Midoriya gets hurt, or hurts someone else? Have you even thought about this at all?”

“Ah, well, I’m sure -”

“I’ve been training my quirk my whole life,” Shouto said bluntly, “If I’m not careful, I could seriously hurt myself, or someone else. You’re the number one hero . Your quirk is objectively more powerful than mine. And you’re just going to hope it works out? ”

Both All Might and Midoriya looked anxious, as they actually stopped to think about it.

“I’ll be really careful,” Midoriya said.

“You tripped over your shoe and almost broke your nose this morning,” Shouto pointed out.

Midoriya turned bright red, and said nothing.

“What would you propose then, young Todoroki?” All Might asked, “I can’t give him my quirk any earlier, he’s not ready for it. And he must take the entrance exam.”

“You should have recommended him,” Shouto said bluntly, “But since you didn’t, he should learn how to pass the exam quirkless.”

“But!” Midoriya blurted.

“What? That was your original plan, right? You were going to be the first quirkless hero student.” 

Midoriya had spilled his entire tragic backstory to Shouto on the way to All Might’s house in a fit of nerves.

“Well, but then... I guess I realized...there was no way I could make it without a quirk.”

“That’s stupid,” Shouto said, “What if your analysis was actually a quirk? How would you get into UA then?”

“...I suppose I’d...analyze the exam, find weak points in whatever objective we were facing, and use my surroundings to find a way forward. But it’s not a quirk! I just -- It’s just a hobby,” Midoriya said lamely.

Shouto hadn’t thought there was a person on this earth who had lower self esteem than he did. Apparently, he was wrong. 

“Then do that. Analyze some of your favorite quirks and commission support equipment. Take advantage of your information network - you have All Might, and you have me. My brothers have both taken the entrance exam. Touya refused to let my father sponsor him, and Natsuo applied to UA but walked out of the practical. Both years, the test was the same.”

“Are you...telling me to cheat?”

Shouto sighed, “If the practical exam were an actual field situation, would utilizing privileged information be seen as cheating?”

Midoriya side eyed All Might before saying, “Not if I...filled out the right forms?”

“So fill out some forms. Get support equipment. Don’t use a quirk you know nothing about in a simulated combat situation.”

“B-but! I have to get used to it sometime!”

“So take after school quirk training classes. I can forward you the name of my trainer. Or train with All Might, if it’s supposed to be a secret.”

“...I can’t afford support equipment,” Midoriya said. He seemed legitimately ashamed. Shouto was getting tired of the excuses.

“All Might, you have connections with a support equipment company through your agency, right?”

“What? Oh yes, of course. I have a friend who makes all my costumes,” he said.

“Then pay for Midoriya’s equipment.”

Midoriya looked at All Might with pleading eyes. The man sighed heavily, and said, “...I’d be happy to, of course. You’re very passionate about this, young Todoroki.”

“You know how my brother died,” Shouto said flatly. The Commission had swept Dabi’s ‘death’ under the rug, of course, but All Might likely would have known.

“Ah. Young Midoriya will be fine, I give you my word.”

Shouto just glared at him.

“Support equipment would be a good idea. I never would have thought about it but...You’re right, it would be safer. At least until young Midoriya gets used to One For All.”

“Really?” Midoriya exclaimed, “Wow! I...I have so many ideas! Do you think I could imitate the Top Ten? I bet some kind of boots could make me jump like Miruko. Or! Mechanical wings? I could fly! That would be so neat . I’m not sure I could do anything to make my body larger like Mount Lady or control vines like Kamui Woods, but maybe if I-”

“Maybe something electrical,” Todoroki suggested, “You’ve used a taser before, right?” He knew Midoriya had one to keep himself safe on his way to and from school, or for when he was alone in his apartment while his mother was working. Not that Midoriya ever used it on his bullies, for some reason.

“I-- Well, yeah. Don’t you think a taser is kind of lame?”

Shouto, who knew that the practical exam consisted of robots, said, “Start small.”

“Ah-ha, yeah, that’s probably a good idea. I’m going to get my sketchbook! And...thanks, Todoroki-kun. No one’s really -- I mean other than All Might no one’s ever believed in me before. I -- I really appreciate it.”

“I just want you to be safe,” Shouto said firmly, “When your equipment comes in, let me know. I’d be more than happy to spar with you.”

“Okay! It’s a date!” Midoriya stopped and spluttered, “I mean a friend date. A placeholder in a calendar. I mean an appointment. I -- I have to go. Get my sketchbook. Okay, bye!” And he raced off.

That was a little weird. It also left Shouto sitting at the table staring awkwardly at All Might, who seemed to be decently chastised for his behavior. Which was good. Shouto did not attempt to re-initiate conversation. He drank his tea in one long gulp and showed himself out.

Notes:

Midoriya’s tombstone will probably just say, “I’ll manage somehow.”
Hope you liked it! If you did, leave me a note in the comments! It's very motivating. ;3

As always, thanks to my wonderful betas whatnameshallitake and NoPads_NoHelmets_JustBalls !!

Chapter 11: Fifteen (February, 20XX)

Notes:

Author’s notes: Figured I should post another chapter since I do have a bit of buffer! I got very little writing done the past month, but my apartment is organized for the first time ever, so win, I guess?

The next few chapters are relatively short, but I think they work pretty well as they are so I’m not going to fight with them. In unrelated news...the chapter count has gone up. :facepalm:

Warnings as usual for child abuse and Dabi being a pottymouth. Also just a heads up we start sliding into some angst here, and it’s only going to get worse for a while. There will be a happy ending though, I promise.

Thanks as always to my fantastic betas As always, thanks to my wonderful betas whatnameshallitake and NoPads_NoHelmets_JustBalls! :D

In a rare moment of freedom, Dabi had taken Shouto to Todoroki Valley to feed the ducks. (And to show him that maybe not everything with their name was terrible, which was oddly serene coming from someone who hated the name as much as Dabi did.) Shouto tried to relax and enjoy it, really he did, but guilt ate at him like acid.

“I have something I need to tell you,” Shouto said, once he’d finished feeding the ducks all their park-approved snacks.

“That’s your super serious face. You okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine. I just.. I want to be a hero.”

Dabi looked shocked for a moment, then snorted and shook his head, “Midoriya rubbing off on you huh?”

“Yes. No! I mean, he’s not the reason I changed my mind. At the recommendation exam, there was this other kid. I don’t even remember his name. All he could see of me was my connection to Endeavor. That’s all I was, even though I was supposed to be on the path to becoming a hero. So I decided, right there, that I was going to become number one, and then it won’t be people thinking of him when they see me. They’ll think that they’re safe because I’m there. No one will think about Endeavor at all.”

It sounded silly laid out like that. Maybe Dabi wouldn’t think that was a good enough reason. Maybe he was being selfish, wanting to be a hero just to be acknowledged as his own person. Not that Shouto didn’t want to protect people, he just didn’t want to do it in Endeavor’s shadow any more. 

When he was younger he’d thought he was stuck on the path his father laid out before him, whether he liked it or not. Meeting Midoriya had changed that. Midoriya didn’t let anything stop him, not even being born quirkless. He was determined to save people with a smile, and he had an inner fire that burned brightly and a smile that was like sunshine. He hid his pain in a way that Shouto had never been able to - he accepted the burden that society placed on him as a quirkless person and came out the other side smiling anyway. There was a kindness in Midoriya that Shouto had never really experienced in anyone else, and it made him want to be kind, too.

In some ways, Dabi had changed his mind, too. His brother hated heroes, though he’d mellowed out a bit since he’d started seeing Hawks seriously. He still was openly against the corruption of the Hero Public Safety Commission, and he still loathed Endeavor and anyone like him. But at the same time, Dabi had been the one to teach him to do what he felt was right. His brother made questionable choices, but he always did what he thought needed to be done. Maybe his actions weren’t traditionally the ones of a hero, but Dabi protected people. Shouto wanted to do that too. 

“Relax, Shouto. I’m not mad.”

“...You’re not? But you hate heroes.”

“Eh, Hawks’ isn’t so bad. And Midoriya seems like a good kid, even if I still want to set All Might on fire.”

“It’s not his fault Endeavor is the way he is.”

Not that Shouto was the biggest All Might fan, especially now that he’d met the guy. Honestly, some of the things he let Midoriya do - it wasn’t the kind of abuse Shouto got at home but wasn’t it supposed to be a hero’s job to protect? Not just...enable. Still, Midoriya seemed happy enough. Shouto wasn’t going to stop him, as long as he was happy. Even if Midoriya and All Might were both idiots.

“Not directly, maybe. But if anyone should have seen through that bastard’s bullshit...Who the hell else is going to put the “Number Two” in his place? Not to mention all the corruption in the Commission. If All Might is really as great as everyone says he is, don’t you think he would have noticed already?”

“...He’s kind of an idiot, actually.”

Dabi rolled his eyes, “That doesn’t really make me feel better, but whatever. You’ll be a good hero, so who gives a fuck about anyone else? If anyone can do better than what we’ve got right now, it’ll be you. You’re not blinded by the shine of heroes, you know what things are really like, and you’re stubborn enough to do something about it.”

It might be the nicest thing his brother has ever said to him.

“Thank you,” he said, because he didn’t know what else to say.

“Of course. And uh, since we’re being so honest and all, I’ve got something to tell you, too.”

“What?” Shouto was honestly surprised. 

Dabi had seemed pretty stable lately. He should have known the relative peace couldn’t last. Trouble found his brother no matter what he did. His anxiety helpfully informed him of several terrible scenarios of what Dabi could possibly be referring to. He had to leave the country. He decided maintaining contact with Shouto was too risky and this was the last time they’d see each other. He was dying.

“Whoa, don’t make that face. It’s nothing bad. Well, I don’t know, I guess it depends on how attached to your room you were. I maybe...picked up another stray.”

“What?” Shouto understood perhaps less than he had before.

“I adopted some homeless kid.”

“...You adopted a kid? ”

“...Yeah? His name’s Shinsou Hitoshi. He’s about your age, I think. Found him behind a dumpster. Some fucker muzzled him, so I took him to Maruki and got that shit off. And then he followed me home. I can’t say no to strays, it’s the eyes, you know?”

That was so much to process at once. On one hand, Dabi wasn’t fleeing the country, cutting Shouto out of his life, or dying. Wait.

“You’re not dying, are you?”

“Huh? No, no I’m fine. Well, as fine as I always am, so...”

“You’re terrible at being reassuring.”

“Ah, yeah. Sorry,” Dabi scratched the back of his neck lightly, like he was embarrassed. Shouto knew it was an act, his brother had never regretted anything he’d done in his life.

“I can’t believe you adopted a kid without telling Hawks,” Shouto said, because there was no way he’d told Hawks yet.

Dabi made a sound like someone had stepped on one of his cats, “Do you think if I don’t tell him, he just won’t notice?”

“Yeah, that’ll work right up until he comes over for a...what did you call it? A ‘booty call’?”

Dabi shuddered, “Never say those words again. Ah fuck, you’re right though. Maybe I can just tell him he can’t come over any more. No wait, I did tell him that, and he still comes over. Maybe I’ll just…” 

Dabi typed a text quickly into his phone, and then held down the power button. Before he could even finish shutting down his phone, it started ringing, “Fuck! Fuck, fuck,” he said, and made an aborted motion like he was honestly considering throwing his phone in the lake, before managing to figure out how to turn the thing off. It was honestly a little hilarious.

“...Do you think he’ll notice I turned it off?”

Shouto just rolled his eyes. Moments later, his own phone rang because Hawks wasn’t stupid. Dabi’s eyes went wide, and he swiped for the phone.

“Don’t answer that!”

Shouto sidestepped Dabi’s grab and stuck his foot out, tripping him. Dabi went flying face-first into the grass, and once he made sure Dabi was okay (he was fine, if cursing more colorfully than Shouto had ever heard him) Shouto answered the phone.

“Hi Hawks. Dabi would love to talk to you.”

“Traitor!”

xxx

Shouto quickly decided that he hated Shinsou. He knew he should sympathise with the other boy’s situation a little bit more. Shinsou had obviously been dealt a shit hand in life, maybe even worse than Shouto’s own. At least he had a place to sleep at night. Before this, Shinsou had been sleeping behind dumpsters. And Shouto did have people in his life who actually gave a fuck about him, whereas until he’d met Dabi, Shinsou had no one.

None of that made Shouto feel any better. Shinsou had taken over his room. All of Shouto’s belongings had been packed up and now lived in Dabi’s closet for the rare times he actually was able to visit. Apparently, one day a week wasn’t enough to warrant Shouto his own room. (Shouto knew it was only a two bedroom apartment, and it would be stupid to have Shinsou live on the couch when Shouto hardly ever used his bedroom, but that wasn’t the point. ) Living with his brother was a fantasy. It had kept him going through brutal training sessions, through news articles, and through interviews praising his monster of a father. Shouto was incredibly bitter about having that ripped away from him.

It didn’t help that Shinsou was an asshole. He found out what Shouto’s weaknesses were and went for them relentlessly. He said exactly what he was thinking in a way that should have been refreshing, but was just cruel. Shinsou hated Shouto. More than once he’d made a cutting remark about how easy Shouto had life with his perfect quirk. How privileged he was. Shouto thought that Shinsou should shove all his talk about privilege up his ass.

What was worse was that Shinsou liked Dabi. He sympathized with Dabi’s quirk. Apparently Dabi had had it rough as a kid, but somehow that sympathy didn’t carry over to Shouto. It pissed Shouto off. 

Dabi noticed, of course. Even though Shinsou only said rude things to Shouto when Dabi wasn’t around, he could tell Shouto was unhappy. One Sunday, he was walking Shouto back to the bus.

“If you want me to find Shinsou some other place to go, I will.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You’re a better liar than Hawks, but you’re not that good. I know you’re upset about your room. And that Shinsou is a vicious little shit. I’ve tried talking to him a few times, but I’m not really the best person to teach someone about tact.”

“It’s fine,” Shouto said. If he couldn’t handle Shinsou’s words, he’d stand no chance against the media. 

“You sure? I can find him someplace else to stay.”

“...Could you though?”

Dabi grimaced, “People are assholes, and with his quirk...Well, not a lot of places available that wouldn’t involve people from my uh...past life.”

Shouto rolled his eyes,“You can just say villains, you know.”

“Yeah, them. And Shinsou wants to be a hero, so…”

“You’re surrounded by heroes now, huh? How does that make you feel?”

Dabi scowled, “Don’t distract me. It’s not okay for him to make you miserable. If you want me to get rid of him, I will.”

“I don’t like him,” Shouto admitted, “But that doesn’t mean you should kick him out. Lots of people don’t like their siblings, I’m told. It’s fine.”

“Siblings huh? It’s not like I’m adopting him.”

“Aren’t you, though?”

“I’m too young to be a father! And besides, wouldn’t that mean he was your nephew, not your sibling?”

“Just go with it, alright?”

“Fine, fine,” Dabi agreed, “But you tell me if you change your mind, okay?”

“Yeah, because me having the power to kick him out at any moment is really going to make him like me more,” Shouto muttered to himself.

“What?”

“Nothing,” Shouto said, “my bus will be home soon.”

“You know, it’s rude when you don’t repeat yourself,” Dabi said, “It’s not my fault I can’t hear you.”

“Sorry, I was talking to myself. I’ll see you next week, alright?”

“Okay. You’re a good kid, Shouto.”

And that was that.

Notes:

Author’s notes: I would just like to let it be known that I wanted Shouto and Shinsou to be friends, but Shouto refused. Something something stealing my brother, fuck that guy. They will eventually both get over it, but for now...they’re basically mortal enemies who share Dabi and Izuku very very begrudgingly.

Let me know what you think! Comments give me life ;3

Chapter 12: Fifteen, (April 20XX)

Notes:

Another regular update?! Looks like we’ll be updating steadily every 2 weeks from now on, unless something drastic happens. (Which, I mean...at this point who even knows.)

Warnings: Bakugou’s potty mouth this time, Shinsou and Shouto’s rivalry. I’m counting this as a warning since apparently a lot of people were upset they don’t like each other? I don’t have a brother but at least to me they have big Sibling energy. They’ll get along eventually.

Not really a warning but I changed the entrance exam a bit to include civilians for rescue. I’ve seen this done in a few other fics and it just makes sense to me. We see there are rescue points because that’s how Midoriya gets in but why is rescuing not more...part of the exam? Maybe it was and Izuku was just too busy panicking, idk.

As usual, thanks very much to my betas whatnameshallitake and NoPads_NoHelmets_JustBalls! They make all this possible ;3

Midoriya passed his entrance exam. Apparently, he'd only gotten a few villain points (though, as Shouto had suspected, the taser gloves had helped considerably against the robots.) Most of his score came from rescue points gathered saving the test's "civilians", including a sixty point reward from pulling another student out of the rubble before she was crushed by a giant zero point robot.

Unfortunately, Shinsou had also passed. He'd gotten in entirely on rescue points, as his hand to hand and quirk didn't work well on the robots. As salty as he was, Shouto couldn't be too upset since it was Shinsou's use of his quirk that ended up saving Midoriya and the other girl. All the students had tried to run away, but Shinsou grabbed several of them with his quirk and used their abilities to bring the robot crashing down safely away from the other students and "civilians." He’d passed out afterwards apparently, and Shouto viciously thought he would have liked to see that. He knew it was mean but he didn’t care. He still hadn’t forgiven Shinsou for stealing his brother, and he didn’t plan to any time soon.

Even worse, Shinsou was in class 1-A with them. Apparently there was some grape-haired pervert that had originally been in their class, but Shinsou had caught him trying to grab another student’s breasts during the exam. One interrogation later, the kid was confessing a frankly disgusting list of crimes to the nearest teacher. Did it count as being expelled if you hadn’t actually been accepted yet? Shouto didn’t know. 

Shinsou was in their class instead of a creep. Shouto supposed that was a fair trade, even if he hated Shinsou’s guts. According to the seating chart, his assigned seat was behind Shinsou, so he could glare at him whenever their teacher wasn’t looking. Shinsou got to sit right behind Midoriya and Shouto wasn’t jealous at all. It wasn’t like Shinsou was going to steal his only friend as well as his brother - oh wait.

On top of that, there was some loud annoying fucker who sat in front of Midoriya, and Midoriya had paled at the sight of him. He probably would have cowered, but Shouto had knocked their shoulders together to remind him that he wasn’t alone. The loud kid was busy picking a fight with another boy who’d introduced himself as Iida Tenya. Another legacy hero student, wonderful. Shouto idly wondered if Iida’s family was as fucked up as his own.

“Who the hell is that,” Shinsou said, and Shouto had to agree with his tone. 

“O-Oh, that’s just Kacchan,” Midoriya muttered.

“Don’t call me Kacchan! It’s Bakugou, you fucking Deku!” the kid snarled, and Shouto realized that they were going to be enemies.

“Are you always this loud?” Shinsou said, and Shouto had to stop himself from smirking.

“Ah, Shinsou maybe-”

“I’ll be as loud as I-”

“Shut up,” Shinsou said, and Bakugou’s eyes glazed over and he shut his mouth with a click.

“Y-You didn’t have to do that,” Midoriya said, “he’s gonna be really mad when you let him go.”

Shinsou shrugged, “Then I’ll just make him stop again.”

“Excuse me!” Iida barreled towards them, his hands raised in a chopping motion. Shouto managed not to flinch away from his fast moving hands, “Did you just use your quirk on a fellow student?”

Shinsou stared blankly at the other boy for a long moment, then stepped past him and slumped down into his seat.

“Are you ignoring me?!”

“Um...Hi Iida,” Midoriya said, “I think maybe...Shinsou just wants to be left alone? He doesn’t like loud sounds…” As if that was the reason Shinsou had used his quirk.

“Still! That doesn’t excuse-”

“Maybe if Bakugou wants to be a hero student he shouldn’t call someone else worthless,” Shouto said, interrupting him, “I was under the impression that UA had a very strict anti-bullying policy.”

“Uh...is this a bad time?” came a voice from behind them. Shouto turned to see a round-faced girl. Her eyes lit up at the sight of Midoriya, “Oh! It’s you!”

So this was the girl Midoriya saved, then. 

“Ah! From the exam! Man, without you we all would have been crushed under that robot!” Midoriya said nervously, one hand in his hair. 

“Oh that was nothing! You got me out from under the rubble. You’re really strong! And we both would have been in trouble without that purple-haired kid. Is he here? I wanted to thank him!”

“Oh...uh…” Midoriya looked over at Shinsou, whose head was on his desk, feigning sleep. In front of him, Bakugou looked to be slowly turning purple from rage, but he still hadn’t said anything which meant Shinsou still had him firmly in hand.

“If you’re here to socialize, get out.”

The teacher had arrived.

xxx

When Aizawa announced whoever came last would be expelled, Shouto decided he was going to have to help Midoriya. Aizawa seemed to be gunning for him based on that grin. There was a good chance Aizawa had been at the entrance exam, and as their homeroom teacher, he would have the documentation that claimed that Midoriya had a quirk but had chosen not to use it. This entire test hadn’t been made up on the spot to force Midoriya to use his power...had it?

Shouto was probably just paranoid.

Regardless, Shouto had a vested interest in keeping Midoriya in his class. He honestly didn’t care about the rest of their classmates. He didn’t know them, and he didn’t care to. But Midoriya was his inspiration for being a hero and his first friend. Shouto knew how hard Midoriya had worked for this. Besides, heroes worked together to overcome obstacles all the time. And Aizawa hadn’t said that they couldn’t help each other.

Shinsou was staring at him. When Shouto turned to him with a scowl, Shinsou looked over at Midoriya and then back again, and shrugged. Shouto sighed, and nodded. Thus began their sabotage campaign. Between a strategically placed patch of ice, or a sarcastic question, Midoriya managed to avoid being last in every event. Midoriya was getting frustrated, but he didn’t directly call them out on it.

Aizawa, interestingly enough, didn’t say anything. He actually grinned sadistically the second time that Kaminari fell for one of Shinsou’s drawled questions. Tenya, on the other hand, was vibrating with indignation. He was in the middle of a lecture on ‘unsportsman-like behavior’ and something about heroes and cheating when Aizawa announced they were on their last test: a ball throw.

"Midoriya, you haven't used your quirk at all," Aizawa said, “Why don’t you go first?”

"Tch, cuz he doesn't have one," Bakugou snarled.

"I do have a quirk! It just… I'm not very used to it yet. I only got it a few months ago…"

Aizawa spoke over him, "If you're not going to push yourself, you're wasting my time. Use your quirk on this test or you're expelled."

"B-But! I haven't come last in everything!"

"I'm not repeating myself." 

Midoriya took the ball and stared at it for a long time. As far as Shouto knew, he'd never used his quirk at all, unless he'd been using it with his trainer. They'd all been focused on sparring quirkless to prep for the exam. Any training Midoriya had done on his own had been focused on strengthening his body. Did he even know how to activate his quirk?

"Any day now, Midoriya," Aizawa drawled. Shouto kind of wanted to punch his teacher in the mouth.

"Right. Yeah. I've got this," he muttered, and took a few deep breaths before chucking the ball as hard as he could.

There was a popping sound from the air displacing, and a sort of 'whooshing' sound as the ball flew out of sight. There was also a horrible crackling sound and the smell of burning flesh.Midoriya's arm was hanging useless at his side, broken and burnt and mangled to hell.

Some of their classmates started screaming. Midoriya was in shock, staring at his arm going 'what the fuck' over and over before the pain kicked in and he started screaming.

"Everyone quiet down, now !" Aizawa snapped. That cut off most of his classmates, but Midoriya was still whimpering and crying, "Nurse's office, Midoriya Now. And then we're going to have a talk about your quirk."

"Y-Yes sir!"

"The rest of you, get to your next class. Move it!"

That got everyone going, and his classmates scattered. Shinsou came over to him and said, "Did you know that was going to happen? You keep telling him not to use his quirk."

"I knew he inherited a super powerful quirk really late in life, but I didn't know it would do that ." 

Why the hell hadn't All Might warned them?

Notes:

Kind of a short one, but I hope you liked it! (Ok but seriously, re-watching Izuku break his arms why was no one f r e a k i n g o u t?!) I hope you all enjoyed Shinsou and Shouto joining forces to protect, even if they still hate each other! As usual, comments give me life ;3

Chapter 13: Fifteen (April, 20XX)

Notes:

Author’s notes: Hey all, life has been especially shitty for me so far in 2021 so I’m going to keep posting all the chapters that are done so far bi-weekly and then...we’ll see after that. I do really want to finish this fic but right now I have zero motivation for writing. Just wanted to give everyone a heads up.

Chapter warnings: Nothing we haven’t seen before in this one; Endeavor’s A+ parenting, Dabi’s potty mouth, etc. This is another short one but I really didn’t want to do an entire play by play of the USJ incident so this is what you get. Hope you enjoy it.

As usual, thanks to my beta’s whatnameshallitake and NoPads_NoHelmets_JustBalls, without whom this chapter would never have seen the light of day.

The entire USJ incident was a lot less terrifying than it probably should have been. The villains were obviously aiming to hurt them, but they were so weak that Shouto couldn’t be bothered to take them seriously. Maybe it was the way he grew up, but was he really supposed to be frightened by adults who he incapacitated before they could even land a punch? If they’d been facing his brother or father, they would have been incinerated. Pathetic.

He probably should have been frightened by the Nomu.  It managed to take on All Might, which meant that its power was no joke. The warp villain who could have closed a gate on any of them and cut them in half should have ; or the one with the disintegration quirk, he should have been frightening. Instead Shouto just found him - odd. Who wore hands on their face? Reducing your field of vision and ruining your center of balance - that was just poor planning. 

He really should have felt something. Thirteen had half their body ripped away; Shouto didn’t even know if there was a way to fix that . Aizawa had his face bashed into the concrete until he was unconscious. Even All Might looked exhausted. But the only thing that Shouto could really manage to feel was furious that Midoriya had broken both of his legs. What the hell was he paying Midoriya’s quirk trainer for?

Shouto followed the rest of the class out into the parking lot where they were supposed to wait to be checked over by EMT’s. Shouto was fine, so he went and sat on the grass with Shinsou while Midoriya got taken away by people who seemed horrified about his legs.

“...Midoriya is an idiot,” Shinsou said, in lieu of conversation.

Shouto snorted, “We can agree on that much, at least. He’s got to get a handle on his quirk.”

Shinsou made what might have been a grunt of agreement then turned to his phone. Shouto didn’t mind. He didn’t actually want to talk to Shinsou but found his presence more tolerable than the way everyone else was losing their minds. He wasn’t sure how they were supposed to get home since the EMT’s had taken two of their teachers away and there was no sign of All Might. Present Mic had gone into the ambulance with Aizawa, and the various other heroes were milling around, setting perimeters or hauling away villains or talking to the police. 

The detective in charge was saying something about needing to get them back to the classroom when he was interrupted by the loud roar of an engine and the screeching of tires. Police officers shouted, Pros got into fighting stances, students cowered. (Except Bakugou, who looked ready to fight whoever the fuck was on the motorcycle.)

Two figures hopped off of the motorcycle, and then - “Shouto!”

“Dabi? Dabi! Wait, that’s my brother! Don’t arrest him!” Shouto shouted, sprinting for his brother and surprising Vlad King who looked one moment away from freezing his brother in blood.

He heard “ Glitch?! ” in the background and part of his brain went oh, they’re related to Kaminari, of course. The rest of him was focused on launching himself into his brother’s arms. His teachers were beyond shocked and the police weren’t impressed, but that didn’t stop him.

“Fuck, Shouto, we came as soon as we could. You okay?” 

“Yeah, yeah, I’m okay. How did you even know?”

“Yes, how did you know?” the detective said, “Tsukauchi Naomasa - lead investigator here. I could have you arrested for trespassing, so it’s in your best interest to cooperate.”

Dabi looked like he was struggling not to roll his eyes. Typical police, threatening before even finding out if someone was going to cooperate. “Glitch keeps a tab on Kaminari. He’s their ward, they have similar quirks. He lost his parents in a villain attack. Glitch is really protective. The signal went out, so we knew something was happening. Glitch knows Shouto is in Kaminari’s class, so they texted me and I gave them a ride.”

Shouto hadn’t known that Kaminari’s parents were dead. Or that Kaminari was related to Glitch, for that matter. He’d have to talk to the other boy about it at some point. He wasn’t surprised that Dabi had thrown Kaminari under the bus instead of Shouto though; Glitch was monitoring both their phones. 

“Why didn’t you notify the authorities?”

Probably because Dabi had never met an authority he didn’t hate, Shouto thought. But his brother merely replied, “We did.”

“He’s telling the truth, detective,” said an authoritative voice from somewhere around Shouto’s feet. “This is why we were able to react so quickly to Young Iida’s request for help - we had already been alerted and were on our way after taking measures to ensure the safety of the students still at UA.”

Shouto looked down at his principal, who was studying Dabi intently. Shouto didn't really like the particular gleam Nezu had in his eye.

“Glitch sent an alert to the police too, but I doubt your department takes mysterious electronic messages very seriously,” Dabi said dryly.

“We’ll need to interview both of you -” the detective began, but stopped when Dabi shoved his lawyer’s business card at him. He looked down at the card and sighed, before handing it back, “Principal Nezu, do you have matters in hand here? I’m needed elsewhere.”

“I think we’ll manage,” the principal said smugly as the detective took his leave.

“Horitsu-san?” the principal asked, gesturing to the business card. When Dabi nodded he smiled wickedly, “She’s an excellent attorney. Now, Shouto-kun, is this young man your secondary emergency contact?”

Right, he’d said Dabi like an idiot, instead of his cover name. Hopefully that didn’t come back to bite him in the ass later. Obviously, the principal had noticed it.

“Yes,” he agreed.

“Samui Sohen, officially,” Dabi said dryly, and handed Nedzu his license.

“And Todoroki-kun, unofficially?” the principal said, examining his credentials.

“ No ,” Dabi said coldly, “I had myself removed from his register and changed my name.”

“I was under the impression that deceased individuals couldn’t change their names,” the principal said.

“Good thing the bastard didn’t bother filing for my official death then, isn’t it,” Dabi bit out.

“Of course, of course,” Nezu said, and handed his ID back. “We did just suffer a major security breach, Samui-san. You’ll forgive me for taking precautions.”

“Yeah, sure, whatever. What are you going to do about it? Do I need to call Horitsu-san?” Dabi growled. 

Nezu laughed, “Ah, no, I don’t think so. But feel free to do so if it will make you feel more secure. She’s missed our last three chess matches. Drawbacks to being highly successful, I’m sure. We’re going to be moving all the students back to UA for the time being, and then contact their various guardians. You don’t mind waiting to take Shouto-kun home until then, do you?”

“We’ll follow behind the bus,” Dabi agreed.

“Very good. I’m glad you’re safe, Shouto-kun,” Nezu said, and pranced off towards Glitch and Kaminari, signing interrogations excitedly.

“...Is he a bear or?” 

“No one knows,” Shouto said, “Wasn’t he your principal too?”

“I went to school for like a week. I don’t fucking remember.”

Shouto went for a hug again, but was interrupted by the arrival of Shinsou, who got hugged instead. Shouto scowled at him behind Dabi’s back, but Shinsou just smirked at him. Shouto resisted the urge to either stick out his tongue or kick Shinsou in the shins. It wasn’t worth it.

Notes:

Shouto, dear, that's called disassociation, please please please get a therapist. But don't worry, he's fine!

Let me know what you think! Not fishing for compliments but they do really make my day. ;3

Chapter 14: Fifteen (May, 20XX) - Sports Festival

Notes:

The ending of this one is a cliffhanger, I’m going to be honest with you about that up front. The next chapter is written and will be up in two weeks, so if you’re the kind of person who doesn’t handle cliffhangers very well, maybe wait until then. I appreciate you either way! Take care of yourself.

Warnings as usual for child abuse and Endeavor’s shitty parenting, and the Commission being assholes (you all know how the sports festival ends in canon.) Shouto has a panic attack at the end of the chapter and disassociates. And a double warning for child abuse because I cannot stress this enough, this chapter is pretty brutal. Take care of yourself!!

In this fic we follow Sif’s headcanon that Aizawa passed out and Mic had to take him to the nurse because no one ties up Aizawa’s kids and muzzles them on national television. Kay? Kay.

Less important, but I changed the cavalry battle teams, so if you’re curious it’s:

Izuku, Shouto, Uraraka and Hatsume.
Shinsou, Tetsutetsu, Shiozaki, Tokoyami
Aoyama, Yaoyorozu, Tensei, Kaminari

The other teams are basically the same.

As usual, thanks very much to my betas whatnameshallitake and NoPads_NoHelmets_JustBallswhom I messaged in the middle of the night angsting over whether this chapter was Too Much.

Now, onto the fic~

Shouto hadn’t really been looking forward to the sports festival until he found out that Dabi was going to attend with Iwaiwa. Just like that, he was motivated to do well beyond avoiding punishment. Most of his other classmates were excited about it, hoping to catch the eye of a pro hero and take part in a valuable internship. Midoriya, on the other hand, was freaking out.

“How am I supposed to compete in the festival?” Midoriya practically screamed.

“I still can’t use my quirk without breaking my bones! Recovery Girl said if it happens again she’s telling my mom! I can’t let her tell my mom! Do you even understand what would happen?” Midoriya gestured wildly with his chopsticks, making Uraraka duck in order to not be hit in the face with a dumpling.

Shouto refrained from mentioning that if Midoriya broke his arms on live television, his mother would know anyway. He seemed stressed enough.

“So win the festival quirkless,” Shinsou said, sipping his juice box hard enough to cause a loud slurping sound. He stared pointedly at Shouto while he did it, because he knew the sound made Shouto want to strangle him.

“...What?” Midoriya was so shocked that he dropped his dumpling, which Shouto promptly stole off his plate, “Hey!”

“Should’ve eaten that,” Shouto said, “But you should win the festival quirkless.”

“Guys I can’t. I mean, I barely passed the entrance exam. I’m not - I can’t - I need my quirk.”

“I essentially fight quirkless,” Shinsou pointed out, “Aizawa essentially fights quirkless. Sure, he can cancel quirks, but that doesn’t always work. And he still kicks ass. He won the sports festival his first year and transferred from GenEd to the hero course.”

“I...I’m not...Aizawa is…” Midoriya sunk into his chair until he was practically sitting under the table.

Shouto poked him in the side and stole another one of his dumplings, “You could do it if you tried.”

“You have two quirks!”

Shouto shrugged, “So I’ll fight quirkless.”

Midoriya’s eyes popped up above the table, “You’d really do that? Won’t your dad murder you?”

“Not if I win,” A partial lie - Endeavor would probably be...displeased. Whether his pride at his ‘superior’ offspring winning would cancel out his fury about Shouto competing quirkless, Shouto really couldn’t say. It would be worth it to help Midoriya grow a spine.

“Or we could cooperate, instead,” Shinsou suggested.

Shouto scowled at him, but Midoriya actually crawled out from under the table and sat down to eat again, “Like the practical exam?”

“Basically. We won’t know exactly what kind of obstacles the sports festival will throw at us, but based on past performances, there’s no rule against cooperation for anything other than the one-on-one fights. Even then, there are technically no rules, but the fights don’t end until one person is defeated or forfeits.”

“So you want us to cooperate for any group competition and fight quirkless in the one-on-ones?”

“Only if we fight each other. If I get paired with Bakugou I’m making him walk out of bounds,” Shinsou said, clearly already thinking about it.

“I’ll agree to that if you’ll stop moping,” Shouto said.

“You guys…Hey! That’s my last dumpling!”

Shouto wasn’t even a little sorry.

xxx

As it turned out, Midoriya didn’t even need their help in the first round. He won first place with his wits alone. Shouto was so proud he thought he might burst. When the team competition was announced Shinsou and Shouto headed to Izuku’s side, but he’d already been snapped up by two partners. One was Uraraka, who looked uncharacteristically nervous, and Hatsumi Mei, who made support equipment. Mei was a good choice, since Midoriya really needed to start cultivating relationships in the support department. Uraraka could have joined another team, and Shouto was about to suggest that she do so, since they’d made plans, when Shinsou said,

“We’re using our quirks for this one, right?”

“...We probably should, huh?” Midoriya said nervously. “I mean, everyone else is going to, so that would put us at a disadvantage...although Mei has some really cool inventions!”

“Oooh, going quirkless and relying entirely on my babies? A bold strategy!” Mei laughed evilly, and Shouto fought the urge to shiver.

“Still...we probably should use our quirks if we want to win, right Izuku? If you’re still worried about yours, you can be our strategist! If you’re the rider, you won’t need to worry about quirks anyway, that’s what the horses are for!” Uraraka flexed her surprisingly built forearms.

“Right, I’m going to go find some minions then. I’d say good luck but…” he looked at Shouto for a moment, then turned away and walked off.

“...You two really don’t get along, huh?” Uraraka said, “It’s kind of weird since you all hang out all the time.”

“Midoriya likes him,” Shouto said.

Midoriya laughed nervously. “Um, alright, well...should we talk strategy? Between Mei’s inventions, Uraraka’s Gravity, and Shouto’s ice, we should be able to avoid attacks easily. We don’t really have anyone suited to grabbing points, but since we have the one million headband, I’m really more worried about defense.”

“If we get close to someone, I could always just freeze them long enough for you to grab a headband,” Shouto said. “Or we could spend the entire half-hour inside an ice dome, but that won’t really help us get internships.”

“How good is your aim, Midoriya-kun? I’m sure I have something that could help you grab from long range. I haven’t tested it but there’s no time like the present!” Mei said enthusiastically. 

“I think we should go on the defense,” Midoriya said, “We’ll save grabbing someone’s points for a last resort. I think between the flight capabilities of Hatsume’s inventions and Uraraka’s quirk, we should be able to keep far enough away from people to use Shouto’s ice as a barrier. We can do this!”

“Project Keep Away, begin!” Uraraka cheered.

Keeping the million-point headband throughout the entire cavalry battle seemed like an impossible task, and in the end they fell short. Bakugou’s team was out for their blood from the beginning, but luckily Monoma took Bakugou’s focus away from Midoriya for most of the match. Several other teams posed a threat; they almost lost their headband to Asui’s tongue from where she lurked inside Shoji’s arms.

Probably their biggest challenge was Team Aoyama, who was making excellent use of both Kaminari’s electricity and Yaoyorozu’s ability to shield her team from its effects. At first they were able to outmaneuver the other teams, but about half-way through the battle, the jetpack failed. Once grounded they were vulnerable to Kaminari’s attacks, and Aoyama knew it. With Tenya on Aoyama’s team, Izuku’s team was hard pressed to avoid them. Shouto did what he could to play defense. Ice wasn’t a particularly good conductor, and when it was pure it blocked almost all of Kaminari’s attacks.  Creating pure ice was a great deal more challenging than just his normal ice attacks, and it was more tiring as well.

Shouto’s strength gave out with less than a minute to go, and he stumbled, barely avoiding a fall. This created an opening for Aoyama to grab Midoriya’s headband, and Shouto felt the crushing bitterness of defeat. He shivered with cold, and forced more heat through his body in an effort to regulate his temperature. They hadn’t even made it into the final round. His father was going to murder him.

“I did it!” Uraraka shouted, waving a headband in her fist. “Hatsume, your invention was amazing! They didn’t even notice!”

Hatsume cackled, and Shouto and Midoriya stared at each other in relief. “We did it!”

xxx

After the cavalry battle, Midoriya insisted they both go see the nurse.

“I’m fine, though,” Shouto said, taking in deep breaths and breathing out fire like his brother had taught him.

Midoriya rolled his eyes. “You’re basically hypothermic. I can see your nails turning blue. And you’re trailing frost when you walk.”

He was.

“Besides, I uh. I kind of punched Kaminari there at the end? Not enough to hurt him! But I’ve never used my quirk without hurting myself so I figured I should go get checked out.”

“How bad is it?”

“I’m actually fine, I think? I thought really hard about not hurting Kaminari, so I only channeled a fraction of the power I normally try to use. And it worked!”

“Hm. Stick to hand-to-hand for the one on one fights,” Shouto advised. “But good job.” Any time Midoriya didn’t hurt himself was to be praised.

Recovery Girl checked them both over and gave them both a clean bill of health, though she insisted Shouto drink a hot beverage before she let him leave the nurse’s office. The hot chocolate she made him was very good and he ended up feeling a lot better after drinking it. 

They went to the cafeteria after that, which was a madhouse. Shinsou had gotten them both lunch, and Shouto eyed his soba suspiciously.

“You need to be in top form if I’m going to beat you,” Shinsou said. “Shut up and eat your noodles.”

“...Midoriya’s going to wipe the floor with you.”

“‘Ch, we’ll see,” Shinsou said, and then buried his face in his food and refused to talk to them any more.

Lunch passed quickly, everyone more focused on their upcoming fights than making conversation. Once they were finished they headed back to the stands. Midoriya was stopped by All-Might, who wanted to give him a pep talk. Shouto went on ahead, because hearing those two get worked up about truth and justice just gave him a headache. He saw his father’s flaming hair flickering around a corner, and managed to duck into one of the empty prep rooms just before Endeavor turned into the hall. His father stormed past, probably looking for him. Endeavor was obsessed with Shouto winning the tournament, and so far he hadn’t come first in anything. It would be better to just avoid him completely.

He made it back to the section of the stands reserved for their class, and found Tetsutetsu waiting for him.

“Yo!! I got some stuff for ya! Auntie said you probably didn’t wanna wander over to see them since your dad’s a shithead, so I come bearing gifts!” He held out a box in Shouto’s general direction, mad enthusiasm on his face. His eyebrows were even more out of control than usual. 

“...thanks.”

“Sure! I’m gonna wreck ya in the one on ones, just so ya know.”

Shouto smirked. “I look forward to seeing you try.”

Tetsutetsu stomped off, shouting something about manliness that Shouto ignored in favor of opening his gift. There was a very comfortable looking striped scarf that he immediately wrapped around his neck, a handful of high energy protein bars, and two bottles of fancy mineral water. At the bottom was a note scribbled on the back of a Sport Festival program. 

The bird was worried you might get cold, so we got you a scarf. Proud of you - D

Shouto smiled at the note, ate two protein bars and drank one of the bottles of water. He wasn’t planning on using his quirk against Sero, but a little more energy wouldn’t hurt. He’d watched the other boy during their practical classes, and while it would be difficult to avoid his quirk, Shouto was fairly sure he could beat Sero in hand-to-hand. Three years of judo classes had to be worth something. Besides, Sero would never see it coming.

The first match after the break was Shinsou versus Midoriya, which Shouto unfortunately didn’t get to watch as he was required to head to the staging area to prepare for his upcoming match. He couldn’t decide which one he wanted to win. If Shinsou won he’d be insufferable but Shouto would get a chance to finally show Dabi he was the superior little brother by destroying Shinsou during their match, which would be fantastic. If Midoriya won, Shinsou would sulk over not making it past the first round, but he’d have to beat Midoriya in his second match. Midoriya wouldn’t hold it against him, but Shouto didn’t feel comfortable fighting against All-Might’s  successor. Not many people knew the connection between All Might and Midoriya, but if his father found out, it would become a Thing. He really didn’t want to drag Midoriya into his family’s drama.

In the end he didn’t get too much time to think about it. By the time he’d made it to the staging area and gone through a full set of warm-up stretches, it was time for his match against Sero. He tried to put Midoriya and Shinsou out of his mind as he walked out into the very crowded stadium. His father was out there somewhere, looming, but Dabi was there too. There were more people here to watch him that genuinely cared about him than just wanted to show off his power, so that would have to be enough.

Shouto v Sero

Without his quirk, Shouto was at a disadvantage at long range, so the first thing he did was sprint right towards Sero. That threw the other boy off long enough for him to get in range, and he was already reaching out to grab Sero by the time the other boy adjusted to the situation.

Sero shot his hand out and up, aiming to shoot tape across Shouto’s eyes and blind him. A solid tactic. Shouto stepped into his space, one leg forward, his arm coming around to grasp Sero’s head and catching Sero’s outstretched arm in the other. He yanked the extended arm forward, shifted his weight, and pulled Sero up and over his shoulder to slam into the ground. Shouto followed him down, keeping Sero’s head locked inside his arm and Sero’s arm outstretched.

“Oh come on! ” Sero yelped. “You aren’t even using your quirk!”

Sero struggled, turning into Shouto’s body and trying to wrap his hands around Shouto’s waist. Shouto shifted his weight, further pinning Sero into the ground. The other boy squirmed wildly for a few moments, but he obviously hadn’t studied judo. Against Ojiro, Shouto might have lost, but Sero projected his movements enough that Shouto was able to keep control of his hands and keep him pinned.

“Do you yield?” Shouto asked him, after a few minutes of futile struggle.

Sero whined and thrashed in Shouto’s hold. He did not succeed in freeing himself. “Ugh, fine. Fine! I yield!”

In an unexpected turn of events, Shouto takes down his opponent completely quirkless! Has class 1-A taken some kind of pact? Let’s see what happens in the next match! Present Mic yelled.

Shouto helped Sero onto his feet and tried not to feel guilty for taking him down so swiftly. If he’d used his quirk, he probably would have just encased Sero in ice so...at least he’d allowed the other boy to get a bit of hand-to-hand experience in. Not that he really cared if Sero got an internship, and it was good practice for a hero in training, but Shouto wondered if someone with a quirk as powerful as his should really be fighting quirkless. Was that being patronizing? He wasn’t sure. Regardless, they’d made a pact, and he was determined to honor it. Plus, it would make his father so angry .

Shouto v Midoriya

The fight with Midoriya was brutal. Midoriya didn’t have formal training in judo, but he’d watched Shouto train, and he’d obviously been paying close attention to Shouto’s fight with Sero. No matter how many times he tried, he couldn’t get Midoriya in a good position to pin him. 

Even without his quirk, Midoriya’s hits were powerful. He was fast too, not so much in raw speed, but Midoriya’s eyes saw everything and he reacted almost instantly. Shouto tried to vary his punches and kicks, but no matter what moves he tried, Midoriya was able to see them coming and compensate for them. His own moves were inelegant in comparison, but it didn’t matter when Shouto couldn’t fucking hit him .

In the end, he won through endurance. Midoriya had been through a frankly insane training regimen that summer, but Shouto had been training since he was five years old. Midoriya grew tired, and his dodges became more sloppy, his punches slower. Finally, he tripped while back-stepping to avoid one of Shouto’s kicks, and that was the opening Shouto needed. He stepped forward into Midoirya’s space, grabbed him around the waist, and tossed him out of the ring.

“Damn,” Midoriya said, after he pushed himself up onto his hands and knees. “I really thought I might beat you.” He turned to Shouto with a watery smile. “Great work Shouto!”

“C’mon Midoriya, let me help you back to the showers.”

“Ah-ha, that’d be great. I don’t think I can stand.”

Shouto v Iida

Fighting Iida was both harder and easier than he’d thought. It was harder, because Iida had also been paying attention to the last few matches, and he kept his eyes on Shouto’s hands and himself just out of reach. Clearly he wasn’t going to be able to grab Iida. 

It was also easier, because Iida was overconfident. He’d gone so far as to say that there was no way Shouto could beat him without his quirk, and that he should stop being a disgrace to UI by fighting in this underhanded manner. So. Shouto was definitely going to beat him quirkless. 

Shouto had also watched the other matches, and he knew that Hatsume Mei had made an utter fool of him on national television. He probably should have felt bad about using underhanded tactics to win, but if Iida didn’t get his ideas about fair play and what a hero ‘should do’ he was going to get killed so really Shouto was doing him a favor. He stuck to the edges of the ring, waiting until Iida dashed directly for him. Then Shouto stuck his foot out. Iida saw the move, but was going too fast to correct his course. He tripped and flew head over heels, directly out of the ring.

Shouto had never heard Iida swear like that before.

Shouto v Bakugou

Shouto was in the prep room, trying to decide if he was going to use his quirk in the finale or not, when the door was thrown open. It wasn’t Bakugou, this time. Endeavor’s flames roared , and his expression was murderous.

“Shouto! Have you been hiding from me?”

“...No, of course not,” Shouto said. (He had.)

“Your behavior today has been abysmal. I expected better from you! You have a quirk that millions of people around the world would kill for, and you’ve decided to squander it in front of the entire world? I’ve raised you better than that.”

Shouto barely restrained himself from laughing in his father’s face. The only thing Endeavor had raised Shouto to do was bury his feelings and purchase a lot of burn cream.

“Of course father. Don’t worry, I’ll do the right thing in the finale,” Shouto said calmly, managing a straight face despite his rebellious thoughts.

“You’d better,” Endeavor growled. “I don’t know what the hell you think you’re trying to prove, but it ends now.”

Shouto inclined his head just enough that his father would think he was agreeing. If Endeavor hadn’t come in and made a big deal out of it, he probably would have used his quirk against Bakugou. His promise to Midoriya was important, but so was putting Bakugou in his place. Then again, pissing his father off was basically the only reason Shouto got out of bed in the morning, so he decided to take the course of action that would anger his father the most.

Shouto walked onto the stadium floor as he had for all his other matches, an expression of cool professionalism on his face. In contrast, Bakugou was practically foaming at the mouth.

“You better not try that quirkless shit with me,” Bakugou snarled. “I’ll pound you into dust!”

“...Sorry to disappoint you,” Shouto said, and then took three quick steps backwards.

What’s this? Todoroki walks himself out of bounds?!

“I forfeit,” Shouto said blandly.

And just like that - we have a winner!! Congratulations Bakugou! What a stunning turn of events! We - hey Eraser, you okay?

Bakugou and Endeavor let out twin howls of rage, and Bakugou launched himself at Shouto. “I’ll kill you! I’ll fucking kill you!”

Shouto pulled up his ice into a protective dome, which Bakugou hit with a loud thud and a crack. 

“ FUCK YOU!” Bakugou howled, rocketing Shouto’s ice with explosion after explosion. Shouto kept reinforcing the ice from the inside, but Bakugou’s blasts were not something to trivialize. 

“Okay, that’s enough!” Midnight called into her megaphone, but Bakugou didn’t stop. He wasn’t even swearing any more, just making incoherent sounds of rage.

“I said enough !” Midnight said again, and Shouto had just enough time to realize she’d used her quirk before he passed out.

xxx

The Commission put a muzzle on Bakugou and chained him to the podium. At least, Shouto was pretty sure it was the Commission, because while it was difficult for him to trust adults, he didn’t think this was the kind of behavior Aizawa would approve of. Plus, after everything he’d heard about the Commission from his father, his brother, and Hawks, it really seemed to fit with their MO. 

The minute the Commission representative turned around to signal that it was time for them to raise the podium up into the stadium, Shouto reached out and pulled the muzzle off Bakugou’s face. He didn’t expect Bakugou to be grateful, Bakugou wasn’t a grateful sort of person. But he did not expect Bakugou to start screaming at him to,

“Put that back on, you fucking coward! I don’t need your help! I don’t need anyone’s help, - mmmf!”

Shouto stood there in shock as the Commission representative took the muzzle out of his hands and put it back on Bakugou’s face. The other boy was so angry he was turning purple. Shouto wanted to be somewhere else. Anywhere else. 

The podium raised itself up into the stadium, and all Shouto could think about while he looked out at the hordes of screaming people was, Why was no one doing anything about this? He felt disconnected from his body, his mind floating away. 

All Might gave Tokoyami an award, and no one took Bakugou’s muzzle off. All Might gave Shouto an award, and no one took Bakugou’s muzzle off. All Might said something to Shouto, who stared at him blankly, because he didn’t take Bakugou’s muzzle off. All Might gave Bakugou an award, and took his muzzle off so he could shove the medal in-between his teeth.

Maybe this was all a bad dream.

The next time his brain connected with his body, the awards ceremony was over, and he was being led off the podium by a furious Midoriya. Bakugou was being unchained by a round, petite woman with Midoriya’s green hair while she absolutely destroyed the Commission representative with her sharp tongue. 

“Do you know who I am? I hope you’re prepared to lose your entire quarterly budget when I win the lawsuit I’m going to file. Hell, you’d better start looking for another job, because there will be nothing left. You’ll have to rebuild from the ashes, except you won’t be able to, because you’ll be in fucking prison for child endangerment! ”

“Auntie, please,” Bakugou said, once she’d finally gotten him free. Shouto couldn’t believe the soft tone of his words.

“No! Just because no one else around here has any spine doesn’t mean I’m going to let this go. I’ve successfully sued the Commission seventy-three times, and if this little worm thinks he can wriggle out of the charges then-”

“Please, can’t we just go?” Bakugou sounded desperate.

The woman seemed to recognize the desperation in his tone, because she turned to him, all smiles. “Of course, dear. We’re going out to celebrate and you’re more than welcome to join us. I’ll have more than enough time to start dealing with this disgrace,” she turned and glared venomously at the Commission representative, “tomorrow.”

“...I don’t really think…”

“The restaurant serves yuzu-kosho yakitori - your favorite! And we’ve already made the reservation.”

“...of course, Auntie. Whatever you say.” Bakugou looked at Midoriya over the woman’s hair and mouthed ‘ help me .’

Midoriya snickered beside him. “Just give in now, Kaachan. You know you’ll do whatever she wants.”

“‘Tch. I’m not a pushover,” Bakugou grumbled, but he looked less miserable, so that was something.

Apparently when Midoriya’s mother - “just call me Inko, dear” - said they were going out to dinner, she really did mean all of them. Shouto texted his father that Hawks had wanted to talk to him about an internship and he’d be back later, then turned off his phone. They took chauffeured cars to a ridiculously fancy restaurant which made sense when one considered that Iwaiwa was rich as fuck and Hawks was the number three hero. 

Hawks, Dabi, Inko and Iwaiwa made up the adult portion of the table, and the rest of the seats were filled by Bakugou, Midoriya, Shinsou, Shouto and Tetsutetsu. It was an absolute madhouse, with everyone talking over each other, Bakugou shouting and Tetsutetsu’s enthusiasm, and Shinsou falling asleep in his curry. Inko explained how yes, she was Horitsu-san, (“It’s a family name, you see. With the kind of people I deal with, I didn’t want to have anyone coming after us, so I’m Horitsu in the courtroom and Midoriya at home.”) She shared a few stories of her various victories against the Commission that had Hawks absolutely howling with laughter. Dabi was actually smiling. 

It was a fantastic dinner, which made going home afterwards that much worse.

xxx

Endeavor was waiting for him, and he boiled up into a rage the moment Shouto stepped in the door.

“Where the hell have you been?”

“...at dinner with Hawks. I texted you.”

“You really think you deserved to celebrate?”

“I got second place without using my quirk at all, so -”

His father backhanded him across the face so hard he was thrown to the floor.

“You’ve embarrassed me for the last time. You will learn your place.” 

Shit, he was serious. Shouto barely had time to put his hands up in front of his face before his father’s fist was flying at him again. And again, and again, and again, until he blacked out.

Notes:

Please don't murder me! 😅 Let me know what you think in the comments!!

Shoutout to the reviewer who suggested Inko was the notorious "Horitsu-san." Hope the reveal was everything you wanted ;3 Don't mess with Mama Midoriya, she'll wreck ya.

Chapter 15: Fifteen (May, 20XX) - Interlude

Notes:

This one’s rough, so be careful, okay? I’m adding the tag unreliable narrator and I mean it. There’s a lot of things Shouto is trying to work through, and he’s not really coming to the same kind of conclusion you or I would. There’s a lot of shit he tells himself that is okay that is not okay, so just, protect yourself if you need to, kay?

Warnings for child abuse, Endeavor’s shitty parenting, and a little bit of Mitsuki’s bad parenting too, because everything sucks for everyone in this chapter. Just remember - there will be a happy ending for everyone - except the various shitty parents.

As usual, thanks very much to my betas whatnameshallitake and NoPads_NoHelmets_JustBallswho help me realize just how broken the English language is.

 

I put all the JSL in this chapter as italics + bold, to help differentiate it from normal emphasis. I put written words as just italics and I think it’s fairly straightforward? But let me know if any of this ends up being confusing and I’ll look into maybe using brackets or something. I try not to get too fancy with my formatting because I never know how it’ll play with screen readers, mobile, etc.

Shouto woke up in the doctor’s office. He hadn’t been expecting that. Usually a private doctor came to their home to tend to any injuries he suffered in training that Fuyumi couldn’t handle. Then again, his father had never quite lost his temper like he had last night. Appearance was everything in their family, so while his father was always brutal in training, he was usually careful not to leave bruises that couldn’t be explained away from a simple training exercise. He’d certainly never broken Shouto’s bones before - damaging his prized heir could jeopardize his ability to use Shouto to surpass All-Might. Apparently Shouto was no longer so prized. 

He...didn’t know how he felt about that.

“Could you tell me how you came by your injuries?” The doctor asked, placing a white board and marker on the tray table in front of Shouto.

I fell down the stairs. Shouto wrote. At least it wasn’t his left arm that was broken. His handwriting with his right was barely legible.

“Your father said you sustained injuries in the Sports Festival. Something about your opponent having a strength quirk?”

Midoriya would never hurt me , Shouto wrote below that. He didn’t even know how his father knew about Midoriya’s quirk; he hadn’t used it in the festival at all. Unless - he would have had to register the quirk with the Commission...of course, this was a cover-up. A poor one, since any idiot who’d recorded the festival would have video evidence that Midoriya never laid a hand on him. Still, a strength quirk sounded more believable on paper than falling down the stairs.

If it was a Commission cover up, it wouldn’t have mattered what Shouto said. And his father was obviously not interested in what Shouto had to say, or he wouldn’t have broken Shouto’s jaw. That didn’t mean that Shouto was going to implicate Midoriya. Midoriya wouldn’t hurt him; he actually cared about Shouto.

I fell down the stairs , Shouto tapped his first message.

The doctor glanced at the door, where Endeavor’s furious flames were just visible through the window set into it, then he looked back at Shouto with a frown, “This is a safe place, Shouto-kun. You can tell me what happened.”

It was nice that someone cared, but Shouto knew how things were handled in his family. His mother’s illness and subsequent hospitalization never made the news. Dabi’s death was similarly covered up. As far as the world knew, Shouto’s mother was a recluse and his brother had decided to study abroad. This incident would be handled the same way. If he pushed, the only thing that would happen would be the involvement of other people. The doctor would lose his license, Midoriya could be arrested and charged. The only thing Shouto could do was endure and keep as many other people safe as he could. He didn’t get to be saved; that was just how things were. He could handle it.

I fell down the stairs, Shouto tapped the white board insistently.

The doctor sighed sadly, “If you’re certain, then I’ll invite your father back in and we can discuss treatment options.”

Shouto looked away. The doctor let his father back in and began explaining all the damage and the various options for treatment. Shouto tuned them out. It wasn’t like he had a choice, anyway. 

xxx

School was a nightmare, as he knew it would be. Instead of being dropped off at the subway station and meeting his friends as he did every Monday, Endeavor had him chauffeured directly to the front gate of UA, limiting possible exposure to the media. Of course this meant that when he was helped out of the car, everyone was staring.

Shouto overcame this obstacle by remaining silent and refusing to look anyone in the eye. He headed directly to the infirmary, his medical files gripped tightly in his one good hand. Luckily, he had a reputation as being cold and unapproachable. So while almost everyone was staring, no one actually said anything. (To his face, anyway -- he could hear them whispering behind him.)

And then he was caught by literally the last person he wanted to see, besides his father.

Bakugou was coming out of the nurse’s office, hands jammed in his pockets, scowling harder than usual. He stopped in his tracks at the sight of Shouto, his expression twisting into something nasty.

“What the hell happened to you? Find someone you actually respect enough to fight, asshole?”

Shouto really had meant to keep his mouth shut. No matter what he said, no one was going to believe him, and shouting about Endeavor’s bad parenting would only make life worse for him at home. But for some reason, the sneer on Bakugou’s face pulled the words right out of him.

His jaw had been wired shut after the surgery, so talking was difficult. The doctor had told him to try to talk slowly and clearly, and with the power of spite he said,

“My father beat the shit out of me for forfeiting our match.”

Bakugou narrowed his eyes at Shouto, and mouthed some words to himself. Just as he wondered if he should try and say it again, Bakugou replied with some equally shocking personal information, “What the fuck, I thought my parents were the only ones who hit me.”

They both stared at each other for a moment. Bakugou recovered first.

“I didn’t say anything , and I didn’t hear anything. This conversation didn’t happen, got it, you half-and-half bastard?”

Shouto nodded and stepped out of Bakugou’s way as he stormed off. Bakugou’s parents hit him too...he wasn’t sure how he felt about that. Should he tell someone? Bakugou’s parents weren’t heroes, but maybe there was some other reason he hadn’t told anyone. Was it heroic to tell an adult about what was happening to Bakugou when he had no intention of saying anything about himself? 

Would Bakugou retaliate? Who was he kidding? Of course he would. The Commission had already muzzled him on live television, who knew what they’d do if Bakugou started shouting about Endeavor’s domestic issues? He’d probably be yanked away from his family and put into the same hero program Hawks was raised in. Shouto wouldn’t wish that on anyone.

He had to keep his mouth shut.

xxx

Chiyo didn’t buy his story any more than the hospital doctor had. She didn’t fight him on it. Instead, she just looked up at him through her glasses with a look that made Shouto hope the earth would open up and swallow him.

“And when exactly did these stairs hit you-- I’m sorry, when did you fall down them?”

“...Friday night. After the sports festival.”

“And you spent the weekend in the hospital?”

Shouto nodded, even though she was already reading his file. 

“Hm, this is a complicated break. If it doesn’t set properly you could lose coordination in that arm. And the jaw, tricky. Especially since they wired your jaw shut - need to make sure everything heals correctly. It’ll take multiple sessions. Come see me after class every day this week and we’ll re-evaluate on Monday. 

“Okay.”

“Absolutely no physical training exercises until I clear you,” she instructed, “Here’s a note for Aizawa. Lunchrush will be instructed to provide something you can drink through a straw. Don’t forget to come see me again before you go home for the day, alright dearie?”

Shouto nodded again.

“And dear,” she said, her voice kind, “I hope you don’t fall down the stairs again.”

He bowed and headed out of her office as fast as he could without running.

xxx

If dealing with Chiyo’s disappointment was difficult, dealing with Aizawa’s dead eyed stare was impossible. The man was still bandaged from head to toe, but Shouto could see just enough of Aizawa’s expression to unsettle him. He couldn’t tell if Aizawa was angry or just tired. He was tired of adults being angry at him - he just wanted everyone to go back to how they were before the festival. Nothing had actually changed, so what was the big deal? Why were they concerned now?  

Because he’s gone too far , he thought, then shook his head and shoved those thoughts away. That was stupid. His father told them Dabi burned to death, surely that had been going too far. Or when his mother had a nervous breakdown just because Shouto’s eye looked like his father’s. Surely that had been too far? Or any of the other times a doctor had to be called to their house to patch up injuries that showed beyond the sleeves of his summer uniform. The only difference this time was people knew.

“Put your form on my desk,” Aizawa said gruffly, “You can sign to me if you want. I understand JSL.”

Shit, that meant he’d known everything that Midoriya said to him during class. He was surprised they hadn’t gotten detention for it. Shouto tried not to show how nervous he was when he put his paper down in front of Aizawa. He stood there awkwardly as Aizawa read the document, and then slowly turned to him.

This was it - he was going to interrogate Shouto. He’d come up with some kind of logical puzzle that Shouto would fail to navigate and then everything would come out in the open. Any second now, it’d all be over.

“Todoroki.”

Shouto gulped.

“Are you waiting for permission? Go sit down.”

Shouto let out a breath he hadn’t known he was holding. He walked stiffly to his desk, sitting down and pulling things out of his bag one at a time. This was going - well, it was going okay. He just had to make it through class and hope no one would say anything about his injuries and-

“Shouto! What happened?”

Nothing .

Midoriya gave him a look that he’d definitely learned from Shinsou. 

Training accident.

That brought fury to Midoriya’s expression. “Do you mean -”

It’s fine.

“But-”

Please.

Midoriya closed his mouth, his expression thinning into a firm line of determination. He turned around and rummaged around in his backpack. Shouto watched in horrified fascination as Midoriya pulled a fresh notebook and wrote in terrifyingly neat kanji at the top: “Plan to Destroy Endeavor.”

Shinsou’s reaction was both better and worse. He looked at Shouto’s broken arm and the way Midoriya was scribbling frantically in his notebook and said, “Ah, so we’re finally doing that then.”

That was all bad enough, but when everyone else in 1-A wanted to know what had happened, Bakugou was the one to tell them to ‘fuck off and mind your own business, you shitty extras’ Bakugou, fellow domestic abuse survivor, defending him. This really was the worst day.

xxx

He made it through the school day somehow. He lingered in his seat after everyone had left, not wanting an audience when he went to the nurse’s office. Before he could head out, however, a familiar face appeared in the classroom doorway.

Hawks? Shouto signed, startled.

“Hey squirt, came to pick you up.”

At Shouto’s confused look, Hawks explained, “I got permission to start your internship a week early. Twice the experience, am I right?”

School?

“You can just work with me after school each day. You don’t need to miss classes or anything. Wouldn’t want you to fall behind. Of course, you’ll be staying overnight with me, since it takes over an hour on the bullet train to get to Fukuoka.”

Ah. The Commission was using Hawks to get Shouto out of the picture. In this way, Endeavor couldn’t cause them any more problems, and Shouto wouldn’t be seen running around obviously injured. He wondered if they’d reserved him a private car on the train to keep everyone’s mouths shut.

“Who the hell authorized that?” Aizawa said, and Shouto was surprised. Aizawa actually sounded...angry. Though it was practically impossible to read his teacher’s facial expressions with all the bandages in the way.

“Ah right, here you go,” Hawks said, putting some papers down in front of Aizawa.

Aizawa glanced through it, and then said, “I see. Thank you for bringing this to my attention.”

“Sure, sure, no problem. You ready to go, Todoroki-kun? I’ll get your bag.”

Shouto looked over ar Aizawa, but his teacher simply said, “Don’t think this means you can be late. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

See you tomorrow . Then to Hawks he signed, Need to go to the nurses’ office .

“Sure, lead the way.”

xxx

Shouto was surprised when they didn't get on the bullet train. Instead, Hawks asked for permission before picking Shouto up and taking off into the sky. “Easier to avoid detection this way. I’m flashy, sure, but no one’s going to be looking for you up here.”

Shouto just shivered and upped his body temperature. He wasn’t looking forward to flying all the way to Fukuoka. 

He was surprised again when Hawks landed on a very familiar balcony only a few minutes later. . ..Dabi’s?

“The Commission doesn’t actually care what I do with you this week, as long as I keep you out of trouble and don’t fall behind on my work. I figured you’d rather stay here than take the bullet train.”

Thank you .

“Wish I could do more,” Hawks said. 

I know . Shouto didn’t know the details, but he’d overheard enough conversations to know Hawks was as much at the mercy of the Commission as Shouto was his father. He’d never expected even this much.

“Should have given you one of my feathers ages ago. I just...didn’t think he’d go that far. I’m sorry, Shouto.”

Not your fault. Shouto signed and took a shuddering breath. Suddenly, everything that had happened in the last few days felt real. By the time Dabi got the balcony door open, Shouto was crying. 

xxx

He disassociated through most of the evening. He vaguely remembered Dabi prodding at him until he ate something, and he remembered the warmth of his brother’s arms, and soft, gentle words murmured into his ear. He remembered Shinsou’s awkward expression, wavering somewhere between anger and empathy. He knew Hawks had tucked one of his feathers into Shouto’s pocket so he could call for help any time. Everything else was just a blur.

Shouto woke up to the sound of his brother shouting. Someone had tucked him into a futon on the floor in Dabi’s room, and two of the cats were currently tucked into the blankets along his left side.

“I’m going to kill that fucker,” Dabi snarled, “I’m going to burn him to ashes .”

“Shut up,” Hawks hissed, “You’re going to wake Shouto up. Don’t be stupid.”

“Did you see him?” Dabi replied, quieter this time. Shouto had to strain to hear them.

“Of course I did. I saw his medical files too, thanks to your friend.”

“You have them?”

“I handed them off to Aizawa. He’s a mandated reporter, if anyone has a chance of actually getting something done, it’s going to be him.”

“Murder would be very productive .”

Hawks made a sound in the back of his throat, “If you actually thought you could kill that bastard, you’d have done it already.”

“ Fuck you,” Dabi spat.

“Aizawa knows the system. Just...give him a chance, alright? He’s not going to just let the Commission roll over him.”

“Fine. But if Shouto gets hurt again -”

“I know. I know . Look, I’ve got to get back to my apartment. I’ll be here to pick Shouto up for school first thing.”

“You should just stay. You told your handlers you were stashing Shouto somewhere right? They won’t be surprised you stayed with him.”

“You sure you want me here? I’m not family.”

“Tch, you are . Stay.”

“Alright, alright. Be quiet though, don’t want to wake the kids up.”

Shouto shut his eyes and regulated his breathing just in time for the door to slide open. 

“I’ll get the futons laid out, you get ready for bed,” Hawks whispered, quieter than before. 

Some time after that, his brother’s warm body crawled into the futon next to him. Shouto instantly relaxed, curling into the warmth. Hawks was on Dabi’s other side, making quiet chirping noises as he fussed with the blankets. Eventually he settled, one wing draping itself protectively over both of them. He barely stopped himself from crying. He was warm and safe for the first time he could remember.

For once, Shouto slept without nightmares.

Notes:

Don’t hate me!
...comments give me life ;3

Chapter 16: Fifteen (May, 20XX) - Internships

Notes:

Heads up, I'm pretty sick today soooo hopefully this chapter makes sense. Thanks to my beta's as usual for their hard work because no editing would otherwise have happened today.

Warnings: canon typical violence, Endeavor's shitty parenting.

As usual, thanks very much to my betas whatnameshallitake and NoPads_NoHelmets_JustBalls.

Shouto’s injuries were healed by the time the real internship began. It was a good thing, too, because Hawks was not the kind of hero who liked to slow down. He probably would have, based on what Shouto had seen of his behavior the past week. But it would have made him miserable, which would have in turn made Shouto miserable, so in the end it was for the best that Shouto was healed. Besides, Shouto wanted to make the most of his internship and learn things. He couldn’t do that if he was still benched because of his father’s poor life choices.

The first day was boring. They took the bullet train to Hawks’ office, and then Hawks left him with HR and went on patrol. The HR person was very nice and took the time to walk him through all the forms, what they meant, and why they were important. It was important to learn, especially if he was ever going to start his own agency. That didn’t stop him from being annoyed that Hawks had ditched him right after sticking to Shouto’s side like glue for the last week.

Shouto finished the last form just before lunch, and then sat there awkwardly, wondering what he was supposed to be doing. He took out his phone and checked the group chat for a little bit; there were always cat memes and other uplifting pictures to look at, especially since his injury. Sure enough, Midoriya had posted sixteen cat gifs, to which Shinsou had reluctantly admitted to liking. (The other boy tried to pretend he was aloof and untouchable, but they all knew he was an absolute sucker for cats.)

Shinsou had added a few photos of each of Dabi’s cats, which stung a bit more than it should have. The cats even preferred him when he was there, probably because of the warmth of his left side. It was stupid to feel jealous about it, so Shouto decided he wasn’t going to. He posted a picture of Mouse making a particularly silly face while batting at a toy Shouto had held in front of her face.

Hawks appeared suddenly in a gust of feathers, a shit-eating grin on his face. “Hey squirt, all done with your paperwork? Great, let’s grab something to eat and then we’re going to teach you to fly .”

“What?!”

Flying was apparently a requirement at the Hawks Agency. Everyone he employed there could either fly on their own, or had special equipment made so they could fly. 

“It’s better this way,” Hawks said, “If I’m zooming around in the air, I need my sidekicks to be able to keep up with me. Well, they usually can’t keep up with me, but they can reach me if they need to. Most of them prefer to stay on the ground, but everyone can fly if they need to.”

“What if they don’t have a quirk that’s suitable for flying? Isn’t that quirk discrimination?”

Hawks grinned, his eyes sparkling, “My dear Todoroki-kun, that’s what the jetpacks are for.”

Hawks was not joking about the jetpacks. The support company that made all the gear for Hawks’ Agency had apparently put in a rush order to make a special jetpack just for Shouto. It took an input of fire and ice and converted them into steam, which was then used for propulsion. 

“There’s a backup power source just in case, but the whole point is you’ll be doing the flying. Most quirks can be converted into flight with enough imagination, you know. And flying gives you a tactical advantage on the battlefield. Especially since you can use your quirk at a distance! Plus, it’s fun ,” Hawks said, and Shouto didn’t know if he’d ever seen the man this happy.

They spent the rest of the day practicing short bursts of flight in the R&D room, teaching Shouto how the support equipment worked. Hawks gave him tips for take off and landings, for maneuverability in the air, and some suggestions on using his quirk. He was right, flying was fun. It was a little bit terrifying at first, since he was normally earthbound, but Hawks was clearly having a blast and that helped Shouto relax and enjoy himself too.

The second day Hawks took him out on patrol, and Shouto got to put his lessons into practical action. It was more difficult than zooming around the R&D room, but it was also invigorating. Flying out in the open air was a completely different experience, and Shouto loved it. 

He also got to see Hawks’ approach to the public, which was completely different from Endeavor’s. Hawks was happy and approachable, often landing to talk to civilians and take photos and sign things, asking about their days and generally just seeming happy to be of assistance. It wasn’t all glorious villain fights either, Hawks seemed just as content to rescue kittens from trees, help the elderly with their shopping, use his feathers to help prevent minor accidents such as items falling off the back of trucks and just genuinely improve the lives of citizens. He took his lunch break at a different food stall each day, seeking out newer or upcoming places that had great food but lacked the money for advertisement or prime locations that more wealthy owners could afford. One Instagram post of Hawks enjoying a meal was a guaranteed boom in sales for struggling businesses, and Hawks managed his fame carefully.

All in all, Shouto was learning a lot more than he’d thought he would.

xxx

On the third day of Shouto’s internship, they were dispatched to Hosu. Apparently, the Hero Killer was still at large, and every hero that could be spared was pulled into the search. Hawks was adamant that they wouldn’t go looking for him; they were just going to assist on patrol and that was it. It wasn’t worth exposing Shouto to the potential danger, he said, no matter how much the Commission was hounding him to bring them Stain’s head.

The first few hours were the same as patrol had been the previous day except it was night time, so Hawks gave him tips about figuring out where he was in the dark. Nothing was really completely dark in the city, but the bright lights against the darkness of the sky could actually be more disorienting, and it took him a few tries before he could orient himself properly to follow Hawks as he jetted around the streets.

Everything went to hell when the Nomu attacked. Three of them appeared out of nowhere and brought chaos in their wake. Hawks was flying around so fast that Shouto had trouble keeping up, even with the jet pack. They’d just dropped off some wounded civilians to a first aid station when Shouto felt his phone vibrate in his pocket.

He pulled it out and saw a strange message in the class group chat. Midoriya had sent a GPS ping to the chat with no context at all. He stared at it for a moment, a strange feeling forming in the pit of his stomach.

“Midoriya’s in trouble,” Shouto said, his conviction growing now that he’d said it. 

“Huh?”

“Look at this,” Shouto showed Hawks the group chat. “It’s just his location but...Midoriya never sends anything without a reason. And with all this,” he waved around at the absolute mayhem happening around them, “he’s got to be in trouble.”

One of the Nomu crashed into a building next to them, rubble raining down around them. People screamed and Shouto shot out ice to suppress a fire from breaking out as power lines were downed and gas lines ripped up from the concrete. Hawks cursed, more feathers leaving his wings to pull civilians out of harm's way.

“I can’t leave these people,” he said. “Doesn’t Midoriya have a fucking mentor? What’s he doing by himself?”

“It’s Midoriya.” Shouto said, as if that explained everything. 

Fire shot out of the air, blasting away the Nomu who had pulled itself up from the ground. Shouto managed not to flinch as his father entered the fray. Of course he was here. Probably hoping to arrest the hero killer and finally surpass All Might.

“Fuck,” Hawks said, and tucked two feathers in Shouto’s pockets. “Go find your friend. Defend yourself however you need to, help people along the way if you can. If anyone gives you shit, you’re acting under my orders, okay? Snap the feathers if you get in over your head.”

Shouto didn’t need to be told twice. He pulled up his navigation app and took off towards Midoriya’s pinned location. He sprinted as fast as he could, stopping to use his ice to prop up falling buildings or put out fires, and twice when he had to stop to rescue a trapped civilian. Mostly he just stayed out of the way since it seemed like Hosu was teeming with heroes. Apparently, his father wasn’t the only one who’d been hoping to catch Stain.

Except Stain wasn’t out there on the street with the villains, and the looters, and the Nomu. Of course he wasn’t. He was in an alleyway with Midoriya, Ida, and some other hero Todoroki didn’t recognize bleeding out against a wall. 

“What the fuck,” Shouto said, and snapped both Hawk’s feathers.

Stain counted as getting in over his head for fucking sure. The only thing worse would have been running into that creepy hands guy again, probably. Then again, he hadn’t actually seen the hand guy kill anyone, whereas Stain was famous for murdering heroes. 

Shouto threw himself into the fight, because Hawks was fast but he didn’t have a teleportation quirk. He shot out his hand and called fire, forcing Stain away from Ida. Frost spread from his right side, pushing the others up off the pavement. Another blast forced the hero killer even further away, while the ice ramp brought the others to rest behind him.

“I knew you were in trouble,” Shouto said. “Be less cryptic next time.”

Izuku muttered something like, “didn’t have a lot of time.” Shouto would have to have a talk with him later. Couldn’t he have messaged All Might, or something, and not their class’ group chat? Whatever, he couldn’t focus on that now.

“Hawks will be here soon,” he said, partly to himself, and partly to the hero killer. “Until then, I won’t let you past me.”

Stain merely grinned. “You’ll deliver the number three liar directly to me? And here I thought this night might turn out to be a waste. Tell me, son of Endeavor, will your father weep when he finds your dead body?”

“I doubt it,” Shouto muttered. Ida made a wounded sound, and Shouto realized he’d said that out loud. Whoops.

There was no time to think after that, because Stain was fast . Shouto kept him at bay with walls of ice for a short while, but Stain was faster than his ice was, and once he got inside Shouto’s defense radius, he closed the distance between them very quickly. A knife sliced Shouto’s cheek, and then there was a long, disgusting tongue reaching out for his blood.

“Look out!” Midoriya shrieked, and Shouto burst into flames.

Stain retreated with a curse, but it wouldn’t last long. He easily cut through Todoroki’s smaller walls, and creating spikes only made him jump around on the walls. In a move of desperation, he filled the alley with ice, completely blocking his view of the villain.

There was the terrible sound of metal on ice, and Stain cackled. “Using a move that blocks the sight of your opponent, not too smart kid. Thought your old man would have taught you better than that.”

“Shut up! ” Shouto shouted, and gathered flames around him. He didn’t normally use Prominence Burn, because it could very easily kill an opponent. But in this case -

Two throwing knives hurtled toward him, and Shouto could only watch as they got closer and closer. He hadn’t even seen Stain move .

“Move it!” came a shout from behind him, and the knives were knocked off course by two red feathers. Hawks was here.

Shouto moved out of the way as Hawks flew into the alley, his face twisted in anger. “Get the fuck away from my brother,” Hawks snarled.

“Such language ,” Stain chuckled, until he was assaulted by feathers as sharp as blades. 

The fight was over shortly after that. Stain and Hawks were both so fast, throwing blades and feathers, moving so fast that they were basically just one big red blur. Shouto heard Stain’s curses and Hawks primal shriek, and then it was over. Stain was prone on the concrete, and Hawks was standing over him, one boot pressed down on the villain’s throat. He was heaving for breath and bleeding from half a dozen cuts, but he’d won.

“See if there’s any rope around here, will you? I don’t want to take my eyes off him.”

Shouto hurriedly obeyed, surprised to find that there was indeed rope lying among the refuse of the alley. Convenient, almost suspiciously so, but maybe he was owed some good luck after the events of the rest of the day.

He brought the rope to Hawks, who had begun to strip search the villain, relieving him of more weapons than Shouto would have thought possible for one person to carry, including one between his shoulder blades and another behind his wrist band. Hawks had a grim expression on his face while he checked the villain over several times before he was satisfied he’d found all the man’s weapons.

“Rope,” Hawks said, holding out his hand. Shouto handed it over, and Hawks tied Stain’s hands together behind his back, using a particularly vicious knot that tightened the more someone struggled.

“Good. Now, are you okay?” Hawks said, still not quite looking at Shouto.

“Yeah, I’m okay. Just a cut on my cheek.”

“What about the rest of them?”

“Oh - I’ll check,” Shouto said. 

It turned out that no one was seriously injured. Apparently, Stain liked to play with his food before eating it, so each of the victims only had one cut that the Hero Killer had used to paralyze them. Iida was furious — at himself, at the rest of them for interfering, at Stain for existing. Shouto didn’t  give him the satisfaction of arguing with him, just helped Midoriya and the other hero - Native, apparently - to their feet.

“Thanks for the save, Shouto,” Midoriya said.

“It was mostly Hawks,” Shouto muttered uncomfortably.

“Yeah but you’re the one who told him! I was worried no one would come,” he said.

“Speaking of, why didn’t you text a pro? Like All Might, or your mentor.”

Midoriya paused, “I...I didn’t think about it. Honestly I probably only messaged the group chat because I’d just been talking with all of you.”

Shouto sighed, “Shinsou is going to murder you when he finds out.”

That made Midoriya slump, “Yeah. He’ll tell mom for sure. I’m going to be grounded for a year.”

“Just be glad you’re still alive,” Native said dryly, “I appreciate the rescue, but really, you kids shouldn’t have been here.”

“It’s all my fault,” Iida said bitterly, looking like he was about to launch into some kind of speech when Hawks cut him off.

“Yeah, it is. I hope almost dying taught you a lesson. Now come on, there’s still at least one Nomu out there, and some of us were trying to save people instead of chasing after revenge.”

Iida flushed with shame and followed Hawks out of the alleyway. Native and Midoriya followed after them with Shouto bringing up the rear. There were a bunch of pro-heroes there, waiting for them. His father was one of them, scowling at the Hero Killer’s body. He was probably angry he didn’t get the credit for taking the man down. Or maybe he was angry that Shouto didn’t defeat the villain by himself. Who even knew what kind of bullshit went through his father’s head.

“The police and paramedics will be here soon,” Hawks said, dropping the Hero Killer on the ground like a sack of garbage. He kept looking at the man while he spoke, like he was waiting for Stain to suddenly leap up and try to strangle him. Shouto couldn’t fault him for that - Stain had been a nightmare.

“Shouto-” Endeavor began, but Hawks interrupted him by throwing up a hand.

“Don’t you have anything better to do, Endeavor ? Like apprehending the Nomu, for instance?”

Anger clouded his father’s face, and Endeavor stepped forward.

Several things happened at once. Hawks looked up from Stain’s body and stepped forward to put himself between Endeavor and Shouto. Stain’s eyes opened the moment Hawks stopped watching him and leapt to his feet. A Nomu swept down from the sky and picked Midoriya up in it’s terrible claws.

Hawks cursed and turned towards the Hero Killer. His father cursed and shot fire at the winged Nomu, barely missing Midoriya. Stain did something disgusting with his arms, so they were now in front of his body instead of behind even though he was still tied up. 

Hawks reached out for Stain and missed. Endeavor threw another fireball and hit one of the Nomu’s wing, causing it to shriek and drop closer to the ground. Stain darted forward and jumped, landing on the Nomu’s back.

Endeavor shot into the air. Fire poured from his mouth and hands, billowing towards the Nomu, Midoriya, and Stain. Stain shoved his thumbs into the Nomu’s brain, making it scream. It let go of Midoriya, who suddenly found himself hurtling towards the ground. Hawks course corrected and shot several feathers forward, catching Midoriya before he could hit the ground.

Midoriya was safe.

Everything sped back up after that. Stain and the Nomu crashed to the ground. The Nomu flailed around in a death throw. His father pulled back a fist to finish the hero killer, and then stopped, paralyzed with fear. Stain was talking - Shouto couldn’t even understand what he was saying over the mind-numbing terror that gripped him. He couldn’t move, he could barely breathe. Was this some kind of secondary quirk effect?

The paralysis stopped just as suddenly as it started, and the Hero Killer fell over unconscious.

Shouto didn’t mean to, but his mouth moved without permission from his brain, “I never want to patrol ever again.”

That made Hawks laugh. Midoriya was pulled back over to them, and Hawks inspected his wounds. Apparently, Midoriya had heard him, because he said,

“Shouto, did you just make a joke? I’m so proud of you.”

Worst day ever.

Notes:

Comments give me life!

Chapter 17: Fifteen (June-July, 20XX)

Notes:

Notes: I’m not anti-All Might, I swear to god. It’s just that uh, reading summaries of say, his fight with Izuku and Bakugou and the aftermath? Uh...yeah, he shouldn’t be a teacher. Like I get UA goes overboard or whatever, and there’s some questionable things with the other final exams too but my god, beating a child you know is less powerful than you unconscious? Idk man, that doesn’t seem like very #1 hero behavior. The more I read about All Might the more he comes across as one of those parents who’s like “I was beaten every day as a child and I turned out fine!” as an excuse for corporal punishment. Not a good look sir. So anyways uh, if you’re a huge All Might stan maybe don’t read the last part of this chapter? I honestly don’t know if it’s going to be addressed on screen or not since we only ever see Shouto’s POV, but in theory All Might will eventually get his shit together. Today is not that day.

Warnings: Endeavor’s shitty parenting, All Might’s poor life choices.

As usual, thanks very much to my betas whatnameshallitake and NoPads_NoHelmets_JustBallswho help me realize just how broken the English language is.

Now that the internships were over, Shouto fully expected to go back to hell. Hawks dropped him off at school the morning after his last day, and Shouto spent the entire day dreading seeing his father again. He sat at his desk after the last period until everyone else had gone home, wondering how long he could stay at the school before someone forced him to leave.

Aizawa interrupted his dark thoughts with a gruff, “Todoroki.”

“...Yes?”

“You won’t be going back to Endeavor’s house,” his teacher said, and suddenly Shouto’s entire world shifted on its axis.

“What?”

“I’ve sent someone to pack up your room, along with anything your sister thinks may be useful. I’d prefer to see that bastard in prison, but for now, he’s lost custody while the investigation is ongoing.”

“...I…”

Aizawa looked at him, and something about the man softened, “You didn’t think I’d leave you with him, did you?”

“I didn’t think you had a choice. No one has ever - does the Commission know?” Shouto didn’t know how the Commission could not know, but he also didn’t see how they ever would have let him go.

“We’ve reached...an agreement,” Aizawa said, and the grin on his face was absolutely terrifying. 

“...Oh. Alright,” Shouto hitched his school bag a little higher onto his shoulder and followed Aizawa out of the school and into the teacher parking lot. To his surprise, Present Mic was waiting for them, leaning against a small, yellow car that was as loud as his hair.

“ Todoroki! ” Present Mic yowled, “ready to go home?”

“...”

Present Mic turned to Aizawa with a look of longsuffering. “You didn’t tell him? Really Shouta?”

Aizawa just shrugged and got into the passenger’s seat.

“‘Tch. Well, whatever. C’mon, get in! I’ll explain on the way!”

Shouto did as he said, because he honestly didn’t think he had any other option. He slid into the back and dropped his bag on the floor, barely getting his seat belt on in time before Present Mic took off with a laugh.

“Please don’t kill Todoroki before we even get home,” Aizawa said, leaning the seat back as far as it would go and closing his eyes with a sigh.

“...So...Why are you coming with us?” Shouto finally said, when it was clear that Aizawa was actually asleep.

“Shouta and I are married!” Present Mic said cheerfully, “The apartment is going to be kind of full since we only have a two-bedroom. Luckily Eri sleeps with us right now, and we never use the home office anyway, so I think it’ll make a great bedroom for you! It’s probably a lot smaller than you’re used to though, so sorry about that.”

“I’ll be fine,” he said.

“Of course you will! No one will hurt you while you’re with us,” Mic said confidently. “If they try, I’ll scream so loud it will shatter every single one of their bones!”

Shouto decided that he liked Present Mic.

xxx

The apartment was much smaller than the Todoroki mansion, that much was true. The kitchen was open, with a large island that allowed whoever was using it to look over into the living room. There was a large balcony off the living room which was absolutely covered with plants. The rest of the apartment was off a hallway to the left, including a tiny laundry room, a bath, a toilet, and two bedrooms. The bedroom Shouto was given was actually smaller than the one he’d had at Dabi’s, but this time he didn’t have to share with Shinsou.

Present Mic chattered the entire time. He took great joy in showing Shouto where everything was, and helped him unpack. “We use a western style bed but Shouta said you were pretty traditional, so we got you a futon - I hope it’s okay! I never used one growing up, my mom is American, so we all had mattresses. Shouta would sleep on the floor in his sleeping bag if I let him, but that’s terrible for his back, so we got this really cool bed frame that reclines!”

Shouto found the noise soothing. It was the furthest thing from the oppressive coldness of the mansion, and reminded him of some of the more lively evenings he’d spent at his brother’s apartment the last two weeks. Part of him desperately wished he could have gone to live with Dabi instead, even though it was unlikely his brother was ever going to be able to get custody. He was working a respectable job now , but even some of the legal work he’d done in the past would be looked down on by child services. If anyone dug too deeply into his past as a criminal, losing custody would be the least of his worries. 

So Shouto understood why that could never happen. He was grateful to be here, really, he was. He’d honestly never thought that he would be able to escape his father’s house before college. Aizawa and Yamada’s house was so warm and comfortable and full of life. There were cats as well, which Shouto loved. The furniture was high-end, designer, and loud, just like Present Mic, except for one extremely ugly armchair where Aizawa was reading a book to Eri.

Shouto had never had a younger sibling before, but he liked Eri already. She was extremely shy, but that was alright. Present Mic had filled him in a little bit on her situation so that Shouto would understand why she hid behind Aizawa’s pant leg rather than coming to greet him formally. Shouto liked the thought that his brother had helped rescue her, and he couldn’t wait until she was comfortable enough around him to actually interact. For now, he gave her space and tried to appear as non-threatening as possible. She’d come around eventually.

xxx

Shouto spent most of his free time studying. 

“Don’t think I’m going to go easy on you just because you live here,” Aizawa said one morning over breakfast.

“Don’t be an ass, Shouta,” Yamada chided.

“...Ass?” Eri said carefully.

Aizawa put his head on the table with a thunk. “You said it, you deal with it.”

Shouto got to sit through a stuttered, fifteen minute explanation about curse words and why you shouldn’t say them until you were an adult. It was objectively hilarious. He would have recorded it on his phone to show Izuku later if it weren’t for the fact that he was sworn to secrecy where Aizawa and Yamada’s relationship was concerned. Shouto took notes.

xxx

He was allowed to visit Dabi on the weekends. Explaining his sibling situation to Aizawa had been awkward, but it turned out that Aizawa knew all about Dabi and Touya and what had gone down at the Todoroki mansion. Shouto was surprised his brother had told anyone , much less a certified hero, but apparently his testimony was a huge part of the reason Aizawa had been granted temporary custody.

Dabi didn’t want to talk about it. In fact, Dabi didn’t seem to want to talk about much of anything. His brother was distant in a way that he’d never really been before. Shouto would come over and do his homework on the kotatsu and Dabi would stand out on the balcony and smoke for hours, staring out at the city with empty, distant eyes.

“He’s been like this since you were in the hospital,” Shinsou confirmed, when Shouto finally pressed him about it.

“What, so it’s my fault?” Shouto snapped.

Shinsou shrugged, “I don’t know what his problem is. He hasn’t said shit. He’s barely even been home.”

Shouto looked out to the balcony and studied the unhappiness in his brother’s eyes. Maybe it was just bad memories stirred up by the court case. Maybe everything would be okay.

The next time he visited he asked, “you’re not mad at me, are you?”

“Huh?” Dabi blinked a few times, and lost a little bit of his thousand-yard stare. “No, of course not. Why would you think that?”

“...You’ve been smoking a lot. And we haven’t really talked since you told Aizawa about...everything. For the court case. And I just — Am I doing something wrong?”

Dabi sighed, stubbing out his cigarette. “Nah, it’s not your fault Shouto. I’ve just got a lot on my mind. Do you need help with your homework? Exams are coming up, right?”

“...Yeah, next week. Quiz me on my English?”

Dabi rolled his eyes. “Don’t you live with your English teacher now?”

“He makes us talk only in English at dinner,” Shouto admitted. “And during breakfast we only sign. Well, Eri’s allowed to do whatever, because she’s still learning.”

“See? You don’t even need me,” Dabi said, and his smile was brittle.

“Aizawa and Mic are both shit at math,” Shouto said, which was true. No way was he going to let Bakugou beat him in math again.

“Fine, fine, I’ll come supervise you and Shinsou while you fight over math,” Dabi said. “I’ll order some soba.”

“I’d like that,” Shouto said, trying not to sound desperate. Just because he didn’t need his brother, didn’t mean he didn’t want him around any more. It felt like everything was slipping through his fingers, and he didn’t know how to stop it.

xxx

Even with all the extra studying, Shouto did not manage to beat Bakugou’s final exam scores.  Bakugou came in second, Shouto third, Midoriya fourth, and Iida fifth. Momo came first again, to no one’s surprise. The rest of the class did similarly to the midterm exams, though Shinsou had managed to beat out Jiro and Ojiro to place seventh in the class. (Seventh was much lower than Shouto’s third, and Shouto made sure Shinsou knew it.)

Shouto was able to work together with Momo to pass their practical exam, even though his mind was distracted with thoughts about his brother, his father’s upcoming trial, and the absolute media shitstorm that was sure to follow. Shinsou dragged Sero to victory against Midnight, showing impressive proficiency with his capture weapon even though he’d only been using it since his internship. Shouto was not impressed, not even a little bit, shut up Midoriya.

Watching Izuku and Bakugou against All Might was more stressful than taking his own practical exam. Thankfully, they managed to pull through, and Izuku didn’t even break any bones. Both boys were in the nurses’ office far longer than Shouto expected, and he felt a momentary bond of kinship with Shinsou when they both camped outside the door waiting for results. All Might exited first, and Shinsou’s glare was a thing of beauty. He managed to express all the disdain Shouto felt at All Might’s actions. Shouto didn’t even like Bakugou and he still didn’t think that beating someone unconscious was a good way to teach them. Endeavor taught that way. All Might was supposed to be better than that.

“...Er…” All Might looked at their twin glares and shuffled uncomfortably.

“I called Mama Midoriya,” Shinsou said, and Shouto thought he might actually have to call a truce to their feud, because the look on All Might’s face was priceless.

“I...I...I have to grade things!” All Might said, and ran away.

“Did you really call Inko?” Shouto asked.

“Fuck yes I did. Are you kidding? First he doesn’t even question someone muzzling Bakugou on live television, then he beats him unconscious. Some number one hero,” Shinsou sneered. “And it’s not like Bakugou’s parents will give a fuck.”

Interesting. Shouto wondered how Shinsou knew. “Do you think she’ll sue him?”

“She already is ,” Shinsou said. “She’s gonna lose her motherfucking mind . I hope he loses his teaching license.”

“I don’t think he has one…” Shouto said absently, remembering one of Aizawa’s late-night rants.

“Holy shit,” Shinsou said, whipping out his phone and firing off a quick text. He stopped abruptly and looked at Shouto hard. “This doesn’t mean we’re friends.”

“T’ch,” Shouto said. “Of course not.”

“We’re just making sure shitty adults are held accountable for their behavior,” Shinsou said, like he needed to convince himself it was true.

“Exactly.”

Notes:

My sperm doner was a teacher and I learned a lot about what one must do to become/stay certified to teach and it is not easy. The idea that they let All Might teach a bunch of kids (kids with superpowers!!!) without a license just because he’s the Number 1 really says all there needs to be said about the corruption of the MHA world. Like, what the actual fuck, that’s so illegal. (In the US, I couldn’t find out the exact requirements to teach in Japan other than foreigners teaching English.) Idk, maybe it’s different in Japan but it just seems...wild to me.

Comments give me life! (Sorry I haven't responded to a lot from last chapter...it's been a hell of a few weeks. I've appreciated each and every one!)

Chapter 18: Fifteen (August, 20XX)

Notes:

Y'all, we have hit the brick wall of canon. So many things happen in such a short period of time omfg. I tried to write things in a more interesting way, only highlighting things that are different and not just beating the dead horse of canon, but I really struggled with this chapter (and the next several chapters.) Just so much canon, I can't even. T^T If I missed anything huge you can leave a gentle note in the comments, but I tried my best.

Warnings: Shouto suffers from heat related sickness, so an emetephobia and medical warning here. See end notes for where/how to skip over. Also of note, and I probably should have been mentioning this the whole time but please don’t use any medical treatments in this fanfic as a basis for real life first aid. I do research and base some things off reality but also like...quirks. Stay safe kids.

As usual, thanks very much to my betas whatnameshallitake and NoPads_NoHelmets_JustBalls for all their help!

Summer break was officially here, and Dabi had disappeared. If Iwaiwa or Hawks knew where he was, they weren’t talking. Shinsou said that Dabi mentioned he was leaving but Shinsou didn’t know where he’d gone or when he’d get back. Glitch refused to answer any questions about Dabi at all, which was beyond frustrating. So far, Shouto had gotten exactly one photo from his brother to serve as proof of life. The photo was a generic time-stamped snapshot that could have been photographed anywhere. For all Shouto knew, Dabi had fled the country. 

It was like he was five again, except it was worse. He knew enough to worry, now. Of course he had worried as a child, but mostly he’d been glad his brother was out of the house and safe. Now he knew that his brother didn’t have to be in the Todoroki mansion to be in danger. Had the Yakuza found him? Had the Commission done something in retaliation for the child abuse case that was slowly but surely working its way through the court? Had he fallen back into hard drugs? Had someone found out about his powerful quirk and made him an offer he couldn’t refuse? There were so many possibilities; so many things that could have gone wrong. 

Shouto was hoping summer camp would keep his mind off things. He'd overheard some of Aizawa's plans and it sounded like he would be far too busy training to worry about anything but making it through the day, which sounded like exactly what he needed right now. 

They changed locations at the last minute, because Midoriya couldn't even go shopping without running into trouble. (Shouto did care about his friend, but he was also a little exasperated. Midoriya honestly seemed incapable of staying out of trouble for even a moment.)

The bus was loud and crowded, with assigned seating. He was stuck next to Shinsou, while Midoriya was across the aisle from him next to Iida. He entertained himself watching Iida shout at everyone for a few minutes, then put on his headphones and tried to sleep. Their training would start soon enough and he'd need to be well rested.

He was right. At the very first stop, the summer camp abruptly changed tone to a survival style melee through the forest. Shouto was exhausted and frozen when they finally arrived at camp, having held back his fire so he didn't light up the forest. After that was dinner, a soak in the hot springs, and bed.

The next day's training was sure to be brutal, so Shouto ignored Kaminari and Kirishima who were trying to coax everyone else into playing truth or dare. It was almost impressive how much energy the two of them still managed to have. He looked forward to seeing how tired they both were tomorrow.

xxx

They’d only been doing intense training for about an hour and Shouto was already exhausted, dripping sweat from his body, but he didn’t stop. Aizawa was determined to help them push beyond their limit and Shouto wasn’t about to fail him. Aizawa had been kind to him, taking Shouto into his family, and Shouto wasn’t going to repay that by slacking off in his training. He normally only used his fire with Dabi so he wasn’t as strong with it as he was with his ice, but he could do this. Ice, fire, ice, fire. Colder, hotter, colder, hotter.

Blue fire burst out around him in answer to his call. Shouto felt a massive wave of dizziness hit him as the air supercharged and the water he was sitting in shrieked as it boiled. It was so hot .

“Shouto!” Shinsou’s irritating voice broke through his concentration, and he snarled a “What?!” back at the boy before he realized that Shinsou was also training his quirk, and his entire body froze as Shinsou stole his will.

“Chill the water before you pass out,” Shinsou said irritably, and Shouto’s ice kicked in before he’d even processed the fact that Shinsou was...helping him? No, surely this was some kind of attempt to embarrass him in front of Aizawa. Shouto had been fine , he was just a little dizzy, and - oh, he was going to throw up.

Shinsou’s control fell away in time for him to lean out of the tub and vomit up his breakfast. He felt sick and dizzy and like he needed to sit down, except he was already sitting down. Even worse, Shinsou was suddenly there at his side, pressing a hand to his neck and feeling his clammy skin with actual worry on his face.

“Sensei! Todoroki’s suffering from heat stroke!”

“I’m coming Shinsou,” Aizawa said, “He’s heat-resistant, he’ll be fine.”

Shinsou scowled. “Against blue fire? Because his brother has blue fire, and he’s had heat stroke so often he had to get his liver transplanted.”

That made Aizawa’s face crease in concern, and suddenly his teacher was very close, checking the temperature of the tub water and making worried faces when he felt Shouto’s forehead and the back of his neck.

“How...do you know that?” Shouto said, trying to keep his mind off how awful he felt. He didn’t have Dabi’s weakness to fire, he was going to be fine. He couldn’t fail at this. It was only the second day.

“They shout a lot when they think I’m asleep,” Shinsou muttered.

“ Who shouts a lot - no, you know what, I don’t want to know,” Aizawa said. “I’m going to go get some supplies, sit here and try to cool down, alright? Use your ice, if you can, but otherwise, just rest. Keep an eye on him Shinsou.”

Shinsou nodded.

“I’ll be right back.”

That left Shouto leaning against the tub and trying to breathe. Did Dabi really have to deal with this on a regular basis? He was so overheated he wanted to just pass out until the feeling went away. Normally he could regulate his own body temperature, but he seemed incapable of doing more than covering his right hand in frost and holding that against his neck. The cold of the ice felt fantastic on his skin.

“Drink this,” Shinsou said, and when Shouto looked up, he was holding out his half-drunk water bottle.

“That’s disgusting.”

“Just do it,” Shinsou snapped.

“Fine, shut up,” Shouto said. The water bottle was full of half-melted ice water, and the cold liquid felt good going down his throat.

“Idiot. You should have told Aizawa you can get heat stroke.”

“I don’t think I ever have...before.” He’d certainly never made his fire blue before. His father would have been ecstatic.

“You’re seriously telling me Aizawa pushes you harder than that bastard?” Shinsou scoffed.

“I don’t...try as hard...for him.”

“You are such an idiot.”

Aizawa returned not long after that, his arms full of supplies which he set down in a heap beside him. “Open,” he said brusquely and stuck a thermometer in Shouto’s mouth.

Shouto could have told him it wouldn’t work, that his internal temperature was constantly in flux even when he hadn’t been using his quirk. He didn’t get a chance to however, because the thermometer made a sad little noise and sparked wildly before dying a premature death.

Aizawa sighed heavily. “I suppose I should have expected that.” He placed a hand on Shouto’s forehead instead, first on his fire side, then his ice side. He frowned deeply.

“Can you regulate your temperature right now?” He asked, and Shouto shook his head miserably.

“If you’re still unable in an hour, I’ll have to call for medical evac,” Aizawa said.

“No! I’ll be fine,” Shouto insisted, “I can do this. I’m not weak.”

That made Aizawa sad, rather than angry as Shouto had expected. “I’m hard on all of you because I don’t want you to get killed the moment you go out on a patrol. But I’m not actually trying to kill you. Heat exhaustion can be deadly, you should know that.”

Shouto thought of Dabi’s flushed and haggard face, gripping his tired hand in the hospital. The months it took him to recover after multiple organ transplants, and the fact that without the correct application of quirks he would have been at risk for organ rejection for the rest of his life. It was dreadfully arrogant to think that he was above such problems. They were related, after all. Just because Endeavor had yet to find Shouto’s limit didn’t mean that he didn’t have one. The whole reason his father had chosen to have children was he’d hit his own limit. Maybe this was just as far as he could go.

"I just wanted to make you proud," Shouto said miserably, thinking about how awful it would be if he had to be airlifted out of the summer camp for medical reasons. Bakugou would never let it go.

"Jesus, kid. Of course you make me proud."

"Really?"

"Of course you do," Aizawa said, and then patted his shoulder in what was probably supposed to be a comforting gesture.

Shinsou coughed awkwardly.

There was a huge explosion, and then a bunch of screaming, and Aizawa sighed.

"Look, just... Get some rest, alright? I have to go deal with these idiots."

"Ok sensei," Shouto said, and leaned back against the tub and closed his eyes. He was very tired and dizzy, and the cool water felt really good against his overheated skin. Maybe he could rest for a few minutes. 

xxx

Shouto didn't have to be medically evacuated. That was good, because he honestly didn't know if he could have dealt with the shame, or Bakugou's heckling.

Once he'd stabilized, Aizawa had let him join the others to train again, on the condition that he would take frequent breaks, drink lots of water and sports drinks, and only use his ice for now. Shouto was frustrated by this set back, but it was better than having to be sent home entirely so he tried not to let it get to him. 

Aizawa had him doing precision exercises with his ice, making tiny sculptures and then submerging them in hot water and trying to keep the statue from melting. It was difficult, and a totally different type of training than he'd ever done before.

When they were finally done training for the day and dinner had been consumed, Shouto went inside the training center to use the single landline to call his brother. Technically, they were supposed to use this line for emergencies only, but Aizawa had caved much quicker than Shouto expected, possibly from guilt. Personally, Shouto didn't think his teacher had anything to feel guilty about, but that wouldn't stop him from taking advantage of the situation.

He honestly wasn't expecting Dabi to answer the phone, so when a rough voice said, "You get a new number again boss?" He almost dropped the phone.

"It's me," he managed, after a few moments of shock.

"Shouto? The hell are you calling from an unknown number for?"

"It's the, uh, the landline. At summer camp."

"What's wrong? You okay?"

"I'm-- I'm okay," he managed. Dabi sounded wrecked. Shouto missed him so much. 

"The hell you calling for then?" His brother asked, and then coughed wetly for almost a minute. 

"It's nothing. I'm better off than you are, it sounds like."

"Don't be like that. There's no way you called me from the middle of nowhere for nothing. And I'm fine."

Sure. Shouto was fine, Dabi was fine, they were all just fine. Spite made him spit out the truth.

"I almost passed out in training today. Heat exhaustion."

"The fuck are they doing to you? Do I need to call Feathers?"

"It's my fault," Shouto said, "I made blue fire today, and I couldn't handle it."

"God damnit Shouto! You know how dangerous that is."

"I didn't do it on purpose! I was just...Aizawa took me in and I wanted to do my best. He says he’s proud of me," Shouto mumbled.

"Well fuck," Dabi said, "Look, just-- Just be careful, okay?"

"I will. Aizawa-sensei and Mic-sensei are taking good care of me. It's nice. Peaceful."

"Good. I'm glad you're out of that hellhole. Look, Shouto, I probably won't be able to text you any more."

"What? Why?!"

"Glitch and I uh, we had a disagreement. I'm getting a new phone soon and I just - without them making sure it's untraceable I can't. I love you though, you know that right?"

"Yeah," Shouto said dully, "I love you too."

There was the sound of angry yelling and shattered glass, and then Dabi snarled, "I'm on the phone you fucking assholes can't you-fuck, fine. Fine!"

"Look, Shouto, I have to go. Just... Remember that I'm doing what I can to keep you safe, ok? I love you. I'll see you again sometime, I promise," And then he hung up.

Shouto stared at the phone in his hands for a long few minutes. Was this really the last conversation he was going to have with his brother? He couldn't believe it. What the hell had Dabi done to piss Glitch off? And why would he need to be untraceable? Did he really think their father was going to come after him?

He had to be on drugs again. Or burning bodies, or something awful, otherwise Glitch would still handle his IT. Hell, they'd been friends back when Dabi had been burning bodies so he had no idea what his brother could possibly be up to. 

Was it the stress from the trial that pushed Dabi back to old habits? Dabi said he was doing what he could to keep Shouto safe, so did that mean it was his fault? He couldn't live with himself if Dabi got hurt because of him.

There was a gentle knock on the door, and then Midoriya’s voice, “Todoroki-kun, you okay?”

Shouto hung up the phone hastily. "Yeah, I'm fine. What's up?"

"Everyone's getting ready to do the after dinner activity. You coming?"

"Yeah, I'll be right out." 

Maybe playing a stupid game with his classmates would help keep his mind off everything. As long as he wasn't paired up with Bakugou.

Notes:

Notes: Emetephobia skip: skip from " and his entire body froze as Shinsou stole his will." down to "Sensei! Todoroki’s suffering from heat stroke!” and you should be good. Relevant info - Shouto overheats and Shinsou uses his quirk to get him to cool the water.

This is my first time leaving a warning of this type so I hope it's helpful!

As usual, comments give me life!!!

Chapter 19: Fifteen (August, 20XX)

Notes:

Author’s notes: I chose to take a different approach to the next few canon events, because I really don’t want to just rehash canon over and over. I just find that really boring to write, and there’s a lot of fanfics that have already done it better than I ever could. Hope you like the changes!

Warnings for Endeavor’s A+ parenting, as usual, along with some reminders of how much the Commission sucks as well. Unreliable narrator, because Shouto doesn't really look at things through a clear lens. Nothing we haven’t seen before in this fic but better to remind everyone in case you’re having a shit day and need to step back for a bit. We’ll get to that happy ending eventually!

Also not to be rude but this year has been really hard. So if you don’t like something I’ve written in this free fanfic, you can just go read one of the other 50k fics in this fandom. Please, I can’t deal with concrit or angry comments right now. (Passionate comments are ok! I loved y’all screaming at the end of the last chapter. Just if you don’t like something I did or the way I wrote a character, it’s ok to keep it to yourself.)

Mini-rant over! ;3 If you’re still here, enjoy the fic.

“All right Todoroki. I know this is hard for you, but I need you to tell me what happened,” the detective said, a pad of paper and a pen sitting in front of him. 

Shouto wondered if they’d chosen detective Sansa to interview him because someone found out he liked cats. He didn’t trust the police as a general rule, which was probably a bad sort of attitude to have if you wanted to be a hero, but he couldn’t help it. Detective Samsa did have a friendly sort of aura around him though. Maybe it was the ears.

“He’s obviously in shock, and it’s late. Can’t this wait until tomorrow?” Aizawa said, sounding exhausted. 

Shouto was keeping him up because he hadn’t answered all the detective’s questions. If he could just get through this interview, then Aizawa could get some sleep. Aizawa was kind; he’d taken Shouto in. And he’d fought Dabi’s clones to protect all of Shouto’s classmates. Because his brother had tried to kill all of Shouto’s classmates.

“I can do this,” Shouto said, “It’s important.”

“That would be very helpful, Todoroki,” Detective Samsa said, ignoring Aizawa’s glare.

“...Where do you want me to start?”

“At the beginning of the attack, if you would.”

“...I got paired with Bakugou for the evening exercise. He was yelling the entire time. The first thing we noticed was the smoke - the mountain air is really clear, so the smoke was very noticeable. I saw the blue flames and thought of my brother.”

“And why is that, Todoroki?”

Shouto looked at Aizawa, who shrugged. “...His quirk is blue flames. As far as I know, it’s unique. My father can make blue flames sometimes, but Dabi is the only one who can make them all the time.”

“Todoroki Touya has a strong fire quirk, but there’s nothing on record about it being blue.”

“Of course not, because when it got strong enough to turn blue, he fucking burnt himself nearly to death.”

“Todoroki,” Aizawa said.

“Of course dear old dad wouldn’t want that on record,” Shouto said bitterly.

“ Todoroki .”

“No, no, it’s alright,” Sansa said, scribbling furiously, “Please continue.”

“I tried to call Dabi, but there was no signal in the forest.”

“Mm. Wouldn’t have done any good; we ran the number you provided. The sim card has most likely been destroyed.”

“I called him on the land line...just before dinner. He said I wouldn’t be able to contact him any more. He said it wasn’t safe. I’m sorry, Aizawa-sensei, if I hadn’t called him -”

“It’s not your fault, Shouto. Your brother can make his own stupid decisions.”

“...Yes, Sensei. I couldn’t get reception to call anyone, and there was a toxic gas that knocked out Tsuburaba from class B. He was supposed to be scaring us, but he passed out. So I carried him on my back as we tried to find a safe path back to camp. There was a villain with knife teeth in our way. I’m not sure if we could have defeated him, but Dark Shadow defeated him. Bakugou and I helped Tokoyami control his quirk, and then we found out the villains were after Bakugou.”

It all sounded so...complicated, laid out like that. At the time, he hadn’t been able to focus on any one thing, just trying to stay alive and protect everyone. It was only afterwards, looking back on all the events, that he realized how long the night had been. It was the same way he’d felt after the villains had attacked at USJ. Besides the devastating betrayal of seeing his brother there, Shouto hadn’t been afraid of the villains. He’d fought them, he’d survived. Mostly he just felt empty . He didn’t know what that said about him.

“We all went together, with Bakugou and Tokoyami at the back of the group. We should have kept them in the center but we didn’t know the villains wanted Tokoyami too. Tokoyami’s quirk took down Moonfish, and I guess we all thought - it doesn’t matter. We made a mistake. By the time we’d caught up with Uraraka and Tsuyu, they were gone.”

“The magician villain taunted Midoriya about Bakugou. I tried to stop him with my ice, but he dodged it easily. ‘Todoroki Shouto, Dabi put up such a fuss about you, but honestly, I don’t see why he bothered.’ And then he took off.”

“When we caught up...I didn’t react as quickly as I should. Dabi said ‘You shouldn’t be here Shouto,’ and he threw fire at us. We didn’t - Dabi trained us, Midoriya and I. We didn’t react as quickly as we should have. Midoriya got burned, and I was useless. Aoyama knocked the marbles right out of the magician’s hand, and I couldn’t catch them in time. Dabi took him. Right in front of me.”

That wasn’t the worst part, though. Before he’d disappeared into the mist, Dabi had some choice words to impart.

“He said he joined for me. To keep me safe,” Shouto said dully, staring down at the table.  “And then he dragged Bakugou through the portal by his neck, and they were gone.”

“Ah,” Detective Sansa said, somewhat awkwardly, “Well-”

The interrogation room door slammed open and Hawks barreled his way through. People were shouting out in the hallway, but Hawks ignored them all to sweep Shouto up in a hug. He returned it gratefully, burying his face in Hawks’ uniform. Hawks’ wings shielded them from everyone’s prying eyes, and Shouto was mortified when he found himself starting to cry.

“Hawks,” Aizawa said sharply, and then Hawks’ wings dragged on the ground. 

“Ah fuck,” Hawks said, and Shouto looked up to see Aizawa’s floating hair and red eyes. When Aizawa saw his face (saw him crying) he stopped his quirk, and Hawks’ wings came up protectively again.

Someone shut the door, because the angry shouting cut off, and Hawks said, “you okay, chicklet?”

“No.”

“Yeah, that’s fair.”

“What are you doing here, Hawks?” Aizawa said.

“Well I just - I was worried.”

“Do you know where Dabi is?” Shouto asked. Because surely Hawks knew, right? Glitch hadn’t responded to any of his texts, but Hawks and Dabi were so codependent that it was disgusting. He had to know where Dabi was.

“Ah. We broke up a month ago,” Hawks admitted.

“Excuse me?” Detective Sansa said. Shouto had honestly forgotten he was here.

“Ah, yeah, Dabi and I dated for...shit, a while.”

“Since I was twelve,” Shouto said.

“Damn, has it been that long? Anyway, he dumped me. Said he was going to do something stupid, and he didn’t want me to get involved.”

“And exactly why didn’t you report this?” the detective asked.

“Well...I was kind of expecting him to try to murder Endeavor, but I didn’t think he’d join the League of Villains. ”

“Setting aside the fact that you declined to report a possible attempted murder -”

“Please, Endeavor deserves it,” Hawks scoffed, gently smoothing Shouto’s hair. “The way the Commission has buried his case, it’ll never go in front of a judge. That man deserves to get what’s coming to him. If Dabi wants to be the one who makes that happen, I’m not going to stop him.”

Shouto hadn’t known that his case had been buried. If Hawks knew, then Dabi definitely did. Was that why his brother had been so upset? The world had failed him again, and he wasn’t even surprised. His father had all the power, and always would. Shouto was powerless to resist him, he didn’t know why he’d even tried.

“ Hawks ,” the detective barked, “Can you honestly say you hadn’t expected this? You must know Dabi’s history.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Hawks said smoothly. Shouto had always thought that Hawks was a bad liar, but that was actually very convincing. Shouto might have actually believed him if he hadn’t actually seen Hawks and Dabi fight over his brother’s Yakuza clients. 

“We have over a dozen open cases involving blue fire, or connecting to one Samui Sohen. We were granted a warrant to unseal Todoroki Touya’s registry, and it turns out Samui Sohen is his current legal name, under his mother’s registry.”

“Huh, yeah, you know, mostly we just fucked,” Hawks said. 

Another lie. Before tonight, Shouto would have said Hawks was the person Dabi was closest to in the entire world. Hawks wasn’t - Hawks couldn’t be in on it, could he? His hands were warm, his wings were a heavy shield around Shouto. Shouto couldn’t think. Hawks loved him, he was sure of that. (Dabi loved him too. Maybe love was a terrible, horrible thing.)

Aizawa sighed. “Detective, are we done here? I need to get back to my other students.”

“Yes, fine. Hawks - do not leave this building before I get a full debrief.”

“Sure, sure,” Hawks said blithely, and the bad liar Shouto knew was back. He might have thought about it a little more, if he wasn’t so tired.

Hawks helped him out into the hallway, one wing curled around Shouto protectively. Once they were out of the room, Aizawa said, “Mic’s on his way up, he’ll take you home. Try to get some rest for now, if you can.”

“Yes, Aizawa-sensei.”

“And Hawks,” Aizawa said sharply.

“Mm?”

“I’m watching you.”

“Man, he’s a scary mother fucker,” Hawks said drily, as Aizawa stalked off.

“He cares about us, that’s all,” Shouto said.

“That’s good. Here, sit down before you fall down. You look tired.”

“I am tired. Hawks, was the lawsuit really buried?”

Hawks’ mouth twisted in displeasure. “The Commission made sure to discuss it where I could overhear, so yeah, I’m pretty sure. Horitsu-san is relentless though, so if anyone can make the charges stick it’ll be her. They hate her at the Commission, you know. She’s won more suits against them than anyone else combined.”

Shouto tried to picture Midoriya’s sweet mother taking on the Commission. He remembered her vicious verbal attack on the Commission representative at the Sports Festival, but it was still hard to reconcile that with the woman who cried at just about anything. 

A terrible thought occurred to him, and he glanced around out of the corner of his eye before moving his left hand between them where it was out of sight, and signed, danger?

Hawks shook his head ever so slightly.

Well, that was one good thing, at least.

“Do you think they’ll find Bakugou soon?” He didn’t say ‘do you think they’ll catch Dabi soon?,’ but he didn’t have to.

“They’ve got basically everyone working on it, so don’t worry. They’ll find him soon. Ah, speaking of which, the Commission volunteered me to cover everyone’s patrols so...I really gotta jet. You gonna be okay here?”

“...” Shouto considered it, and then heard loud, excited English coming from down the hall. “Mic-sensei is here. I’ll be fine.”

“You’ve still got my feathers?”

Shouto nodded. “I’ve got one left.”

He’d broken one in the woods, though he’d probably been out of Hawk’s range until they’d been brought to the hospital. The feather was probably why Hawks showed up at the hospital to begin with, now that he thought about it. 

“Well, hopefully you don’t need it. But if you do, I’ll be there. Sorry I couldn’t come save you before.”

“We were hours away, even you can’t fly that fast.”

“I tried though. I can only get a vague sense of direction after a couple hundred miles, but I was on my way, I promise. I should have been faster.”

“You’re not a teleporter, it’s fine. You came as soon as you could.”

“Hey Listener!” Present Mic shouted, having spotted Shouto. “Ready to get out of here?”

“Text me if you need to,” Hawks said, and squeezed Shouto’s shoulder. “Take care of him Mic.”

“Oh yeah! You can count on me!”

Hawks left, ducking out of sight around a corner before someone could remind him he was supposed to be debriefed. Shouto followed Present Mic out of the hospital and to his car, and sat quietly in the passenger’s seat while Present Mic chattered away next to him. Present Mic was nervous, Shouto could tell. He always liked to talk, but when he was nervous he literally did not stop talking. And he switched rapidly between English and Japanese like he was just saying absolutely whatever was running through his brain. Shouto didn’t mind it though, because Present Mic wasn’t looking for a response, so he could just listen while he checked to see if Glitch had answered any of his messages.

- August XX, 20XX -

S: Do you know where Dabi is (Yesterday at 8:40 PM)

S: His phone comes back as out of service 

S: Please Glitch, he took one of my classmates hostage (Yesterday at 8:45 PM)

S: I just want to know what’s going on (Yesterday at 9:15 PM)

Still no reply. Shouto decided to try another tactic.

- August XX, 20XX -

S: He said he joined to protect me. I can’t deal with that. (Today at 12:45 AM)

… Glitch is typing a message

Shouto actually held his breath while he waited for a reply.

G: i can’t help you find him (Today at 12:46 AM)

G: i told him i’d stay out of his business, but i wasn’t helping him any more

G: so no one has to worry about me covering for him, but i’m not tracking him either

G: i don’t help heroes or villains, he knows that. this was his choice

S: It was a stupid choice. (Today at 12:50 AM)

S: You have to know where he is, I know you. No way you’ve just ‘lost’ him.

They’d arrived back at the house, so Shouto slipped his phone into his pocket. He let Present Mic shepherd him inside the house. He pulled off his shoes tiredly, and Present Mic took his bag. Then he stumbled his way into his room and collapsed on his futon. (Present Mic must have laid it out for him, it smelled fresh and clean like it’d been hung outside on the patio that afternoon.)

“Brought you a warm weighted blanket, if you like it Todoroki! Shouta finds it helpful when he’s stressed, and the doctor said you might still be in shock. I’m just going to lay it over you, okay?”

Shouto nodded, and Mic laid the blanket on him. It was warm, and soft, and the weight of it made Shouto feel like he was being hugged by Hawks’ wings. It was much more relaxing than he was expecting.

“I’m going to lay down in bed so Eri can sleep, but don’t be afraid to come get me if you need anything. I probably won’t be asleep for a while. I’m taking my hearing aids out but you can text me, or flick the lights on and off if I don’t respond, okay?”

“Okay. Thanks Mic-sensei.”

“Goodnight Todoroki.”

“Night Mic-sensei.”

Present Mic pulled the door shut behind him and padded down the hallway, humming to himself. Shouto was grateful that he was here instead of at his father’s house, where he probably would have been put through remedial training instead of allowed to sleep. Or still in the hospital with most of the rest of his classmates, where he would have nothing to do but sit in the waiting area and hope that everyone that was injured would wake up soon. This was much better, because he was warm and safe, and he could take a minute to process everything without having everyone looking at him or asking him questions. He was worried about Midoriya, but he needed medical care, and Shouto knew Aizawa would keep an eye on him. Present Mic would let Shouto know if anything changed there, he was sure. 

He pulled out his messaging app again. Glitch hadn’t replied, so Shouto decided to get a little brutal. He felt bad, but they could have been hurt, or killed. Dabi had made it clear that Shouto wasn’t to be touched, but had no problems burning Midoriya or Shoji, and he’d set the Nomu loose in the forest without a care for whether it would kill students or not. Glitch didn’t get to just sit on the sidelines after that - they had information, and Shouto was going to get it. Even if that meant that Glitch wouldn’t help him any more, it would be worth it. 

- August XX, 20XX -

S: Glitch, the villains were trying to kill us. One of Dabi’s clones attacked the classroom Kaminari was in. He could have been burned alive. (Today at 1:15 AM)

...Glitch is typing...

G: (⁎˃ᆺ˂ ) ...i can’t argue with that, u win (Today at 1:16 AM)

G: if anyone asks i didn’t help u 

G: and keep denki out of this, i mean it!

G: i’m watching u ( ๑òᆺó๑ )

S: Thank you.

The navigation app opened on its own, with a pin in a seedy bar on the poor side of town. The pin was labeled “Nefarious secret den of evil kidnappers not as secure as they thought it was”

Shouto took a screenshot and texted it to Aizawa.

His phone rang less than thirty seconds later. Shouto didn’t even get to say hello before Aizawa said, 

“Where did you get this?”

“...Anonymous source?”

“You’re not a reporter or a licensed Hero, so don’t give me that shit.”

“Look, sensei, does it matter?”

“I will let this go, because this is an extremely time sensitive matter. But we are going to have a talk about how you managed to get this information later.”

“...If we have to.”

“Since I’m your primary guardian now? Yes, we need to have a talk about where you’re getting insider information about the League of Villains, especially now that Dabi is involved.”

“It’s not insider information. I know a hacker who’s been helping keep Endeavor out of my business,” Shouto admitted. Technically not a lie, but also not really the whole truth. But maybe enough to keep Aizawa from digging too much and trying to arrest Glitch for being a known associate of Dabi, now that he’d joined the League. Shouto knew Glitch did illegal shit, but it was all gray hat hacking. Vigilante work more than anything, exposing corruption among heroes.

“You have a hacker friend -- fine. I don’t want to know the details right now. We are going to have a conversation later about...so many things. For now you’re off the hook but please try to refrain from doing anything illegal for the next few days, alright? Thank you for the information. Please try to trust us. We’ll bring Bakugou home.”

“Okay, sensei. Be safe.”

“That’s my line. Get some rest Todoroki.”

Aizawa hung up. Shouto felt - not better exactly, but like, maybe he could get some sleep now. He’d talked to Hawks, he’d gotten Dabi’s location for the heroes, short of breaking into the bar on his own there wasn’t much he could do. He didn’t trust heroes as a whole, but he did trust Aizawa. He didn’t trust All Might as a teacher, but he did trust him as a hero. All Might could bring Dabi in without killing him, and then maybe they could figure out what the fuck was going on. Everything wasn’t... okay , but it was as resolved as it was going to get for the night.

Shouto plugged in his phone, pulled the weighted blanket closer, and went to sleep.

Notes:

You could say this chapter is Dabi bashing because all the characters are like “this fucking idiot became a villain, how could he?!” But please just hang on for the ride ;3 Comments are welcome! Your feedback keeps me believing I can finish this thing some day! (Also yes the chapter count did go up, it’s fine T^T)

As usual thanks to my betas whatnameshallitake and NoPads_NoHelmets_JustBalls who deal with my complete lack of a regular updating schedule.

Chapter 20: Tired Dad Interlude

Notes:

Aizawa demanded a chapter so he could yell about his Problem Children. Who am I to refuse such a request? Enjoy this Tired Dad(™) interlude.

Warnings: I read a bunch of stuff about the foster system in Japan and got super depressed -_- I’m trying not to continue the trope of ‘all foster care is bad’ but yeesh. Anyways, I figure in a society as irresponsible as BNHA the foster system (at least for kids with ‘bad’ quirks and quirkless children) is probably not great. So just be aware that there’s some stuff in this chapter that alludes to that. Though child abuse is really par for the course for this fic. Just remember kids - happy ending! Happy ending!!

As usual thanks to my betas whatnameshallitake and NoPads_NoHelmets_JustBalls. Remember when this fic was supposed to be 20 chapters??? Thanks for sticking with me. ;3

Aizawa was tired. That wasn’t anything new; he’d been battling chronic fatigue his entire life. But this week - this week was hell . Bad enough that his students were attacked, and one got kidnapped. Worse -- he’d had to hold Todoroki while the boy completely broke down after finding out his brother was one of the people responsible for kidnapping his classmate. It would have been easier if Todoroki had cried, because Hizashi cried a lot, and while Aizawa wasn’t exactly comfortable with tears, at least he knew how to comfort someone having that kind of breakdown. Todoroki just got quiet and far away, clearly disassociating while he gave the police his statement. Aizawa struggled to know how to help him, short of wrapping him in blankets and supplying him with tea and cats. That was why he’d called Hizashi and bullied the police into allowing Shouto to go home. Staying in the hospital wasn’t going to do anything for his mental state.

Then his newest problem child had texted him an image of Dabi’s current location, which he’d apparently gotten from a hacker that he used to keep his whereabouts a secret from his abusive father. The entire conversation he’d had with Todoroki made him want to go lie down. What child was so terrified their father would find out where they were that they had to hire a hacker to help obfuscate their trail? Of course Aizawa knew the answer to that question, because the father in question was Endeavor, and Shouto had been sneaking out to visit his brother. Said brother had gone so far as to remove himself from his father’s register, change his name and get his records sealed. Obviously Dabi wouldn’t have wanted any way for Endeavor to track Shouto back to him.

If you’d asked Aizawa a week ago, he would have said that Dabi was a positive influence on Shouto. Having a family member who actively cared for his well being was probably the only reason Shouto hadn’t had a complete nervous breakdown. The amount of pressure Endeavor put on that child - even if he hadn’t been physically abusive, Aizawa would have wanted to remove Shouto from that situation. 

Now on top of everything else, Aizawa had to find out who this hacker was, what their motivations were, and whether they were still involved with Dabi now that he’d shown his true colors by joining the League. Aizawa could almost understand where Dabi was coming from - Dabi had testified to a bunch of strangers about his very personal and traumatizing childhood in an attempt to get his brother away from their abusive father. To have Shouto be injured to the point of being hospitalized, and then watch the Hero Commission abuse their authority and sweep the entire thing under the rug had to be a devastating blow to someone who already struggled to stay on the right side of the law.

If Dabi had attacked Endeavor directly, or burned down the Commission headquarters or something, Aizawa thought he might be more inclined to take the man’s side. But he hadn’t done that. Instead, he’d joined a terrorist organization, hurt, kidnapped and threatened to kill his brother’s classmates, and then told Shouto that he was responsible for Dabi’s actions. Aizawa had gone straight past understanding and into protective rage. He generally tried to take down villains swiftly and efficiently, but if he was in a situation where he could punch Dabi in the face, he was absolutely going to take it.

That hadn’t been the end of his week of hell. He’d passed off the information to the police as coming from an informant, and found out Yaoyorozu had managed to slip a tracking device onto the Nomu that had been with them. This gave them two locations - one where Dabi was known to be, and potentially the location they were holding Bakugou - and another where at least one Nomu was being kept. This required setting up a complicated inter-hero agency strike aimed to take out both targets at the same time. With luck, they could put an end to the League of Villains before they even really began.

Aizawa hadn’t joined the dual pronged attack. He’d been at a press conference with Vlad and Principal Nedzu, apologizing for his failure to protect his students in front of the entire nation. He was absolutely garbage at interacting with the public, and the conference only underscored the shame he felt about being unable to keep his students safe again.  

First USJ, where he’d at least kept them all alive and mostly unharmed, but if All Might hadn’t come at the last moment… Then at the sports festival, where he’d passed out from his injuries and Bakugou had been muzzled on live television, which had put him in the League’s sights to begin with. That same incident had terrified Shinsou so much - the boy had been seriously considering switching schools because he’d been convinced they’d have a muzzle for him next. Aizawa had been so certain that the training camp was going to be safe, but that was an even worse failure.

He deserved to be chastised for failing his students. He just hoped that his words had come out the right way. He wanted to encourage and support Bakugou while taking responsibility for his own failures. He wanted to convey how precious his students were to him, and that he would go to any length possible to see them happy and safe. He was a teacher, and he would help raise the next generation of heroes, but while they were learning and growing he wanted them to feel safe, supportive, loved. Hizashi said his speech had been ‘badass,’ but he still wasn’t sure he really said what he’d wanted to. Words came harder to him than to Hizashi, doubly so when he had to say anything live without planning it first. He was often considered brusque and cold, but mostly he just didn’t know what to say.

Any of these scenarios would have been Enough for one week. But his week of hell hadn’t ended there. No, his precious, darling students who he would not murder had decided that the top fifty pro heroes weren’t enough. No, they had to be the ones to rescue Bakugou. Midoriya’s involvement wasn’t a surprise, or even Shouto’s, since he obviously blamed himself for his brother’s actions. Iida was also unsurprising, considering he’d been involved in the mess that was Stain’s arrest. Aizawa was still a little shocked that they’d dragged Yaoyorozu into this. Kirishima had also seemed like a steady, reliable student (albeit one who needed a lot of tutoring) until he’d pulled this stunt. 

To his absolute shock, none of his students were injured. He was glad they were alright, but was concerned that facing absolutely no repercussions for their actions would only encourage this sort of behavior in the future. He would threaten to expel them, of course, but that excuse was wearing a bit thin. He’d have to come up with something else to keep them busy and out of trouble, if at all possible. Especially with Shouto - as his new guardian, Aizawa absolutely didn’t want to use punishment as a way to control him; Shouto had lived through enough of that. At the same time, he needed to impress upon Shouto that he was still a student, and that there were people who very much cared about him being hurt, and that sometimes it was, in fact, okay to leave things to an adult. He’d have to practice his talking points in advance so he was sure to get it right. 

The talk would have to wait, however, because after being with his students in the hospital for two days, the press conference, staying with his students in the hospital again for another night, and dealing with the police, the press and the Commission's response to Bakugou’s kidnapping and subsequent rescue, he desperately needed a nap.

Eri was an absolute sweetheart who cuddled in bed with him until he managed to pull himself together at ten am the next day. Hizashi had made breakfast and laid out the clothes he’d need for the home visits, which were supposed to begin after lunch. Eri chatted happily with Hizashi as Aizawa slowly drank his coffee and ate his tamagoyaki, fighting to keep his eyes open and not take another nap right there on the table. He was absolutely going to pay for the hell he’d put his body through this week, but he needed to get through these home visits first. Then he could crash for forty-eight hours while Hizashi watched the kids.

The first home visit was relatively easy. He walked over to the couch with his second cup of coffee and sat down across from Shouto, who was bundled up in the weighted blanket on the armchair. One of the cats was draped around his neck and the other was purring happily in his lap. Shouto looked a bit better than he had the last time Aizawa had seen him. 

“Because of all the recent attacks, UA has decided to move to a dorm system,” Aizawa said. “We’ll be keeping the apartment, but Hizashi, Eri, and I will have a room on the ground floor of the dorm, with the students living in rooms on the floors above that. Do you have any questions?”

Shouto was quiet for a while, clearly processing. He started petting Jelly slightly faster, and he looked very intently at the wall just to the right of where Aizawa was sitting. “What does that mean for my custody situation?”

“Your father will not regain custody. The school will retain the partial guardianship it has had since you entered the hero course, and Hizashi and I will continue to be your legal guardians until such a time as the court decides something different. Realistically, the only way that will change is if you turn twenty and become a legal adult, or your court case reaches a verdict.”

“Which it never will since it’s never going to get in front of a judge,” Shouto said bitterly, “Whatever. As long as I don’t have to go back.”

“You absolutely do not. You’ll have a room a few floors above us instead of down the hall, but you’ll be more than welcome to hang out in our suite whenever you’d like. Students will be encouraged to take communal meals, but you can still eat with Hizashi and Eri if you want. I’ll be on duty most of the time, but I intend to spend time with all of you at least once each weekend. The other students will have the option of going home for visits on weekends; you are currently allowed to visit Natsuo or Fuyumi if you’d like. For long breaks, we’ll likely come back here for the duration.”

“...Could I stay over with Midoriya sometimes?”

“Probably. I’m not going to promise that right now, because it’ll depend on the current state of events, but if you’d like to, let me know and I’ll at least consider it.”

Shouto nodded, “That’s fair. I don’t want to bring Midoriya-san any problems.”

Of course he was concerned about Midoriya’s mother and not his own safety. At least Aizawa wasn’t going to have to fight him on it.

“What about the cats?” Shouto asked, “Hawks has been checking in on them but Dabi...he left them behind. If Midoriya, Shinsou and I are living in the dorms they’ll be really lonely. Hawks works too much to take care of three cats who are used to constant company.”

Aizawa sighed, “Technically pets aren’t allowed, but we’re bringing Jelly and Mochi, so we can probably set something up for your brother’s cats as well.”

“They’re used to a pretty small space. They used to only have a studio apartment, before Dabi got a better job. I can put up walkways, and they have an exercise wheel, and if we net off the balcony they can get some exercise and sun, and I know how to bathe them and -”

“Shouto, I said you could keep them,” Aizawa said gently, “I’m not going to punish the cats for their owners’ poor life choices.”

“...Thank you.”

“Do we need to set up a schedule for you to go over to care for them before the dorms open? It’s going to be a few weeks before everything is set up.”

“I’d like to see them. But they...have a temporary cat sitter, right now,” Shouto said evasively. 

He was obviously hiding something. Aizawa found it highly suspicious that the apartment hadn’t been raided by the police already - perhaps Hawks’ doing. As for a temporary cat sitter, he suspected perhaps Shouto’s hacker friend was squatting in the apartment. He’d go over sometime in the next few nights and case the place out. After he got some sleep - whoever it was probably wasn’t going anywhere.

Xxx

Aizawa had ordered his home visits from the least to the most problematic of his students, in hopes that he wouldn’t completely burn out before he got half-way through. Everything had gone suspiciously well so far, which was why the visit at the Bakugou household turned out to be a complete nightmare, he wasn’t even surprised. First Bakugou’s mother slapped him upside the head in front of him - repeatedly. Then she screamed at him and finished it up by blaming him for his own kidnapping. Aizawa didn’t say anything about her behavior, but after the first hit he’d casually opened the video app on his phone and recorded the entire thing. He was a mandated reporter, so why she thought this sort of behavior would go unremarked and unpunished, he absolutely did not know.

The important thing was to file a complaint and get Bakugou out of the situation as soon as possible. The video would help with that, and if he said anything during the visit, it was highly likely that Bakugou would be the one that would pay for it as soon as they were gone. He could potentially remove Bakugou from the situation immediately, but he’d be on much firmer legal ground if he reported his findings and was granted permission first. What he absolutely did not want to happen was to remove Bakugou from the situation only to have the local government rule against them and return Bakugou to his parents. It ate him, but he knew how things worked. It took Endeavor sending Shouto to the hospital before he was successfully removed from his father’s custody; there had been over a dozen complaints filed before that all swept under the rug. Bakugou’s parents were wealthy and worked closely with the Commission designing hero costumes, so he absolutely had to do everything by the book. 

He did not kidnap Bakugou or break Bakugou’s mother’s arm when she grabbed the back of his head and forced him into a bow. He was calm, reasonable, and mentally composing the email he was going to send to the social worker who owed him a favor. He thanked Bakugou’s parents for their time, and informed them the dorms would be available for early move-in on Saturday afternoon. Then he left, before he could do something he would absolutely regret.

Bakugou stormed out after them, and for a moment Aizawa thought that the kid was actually going to say something about his living situation. But no, he wanted to talk to All Might about Midoriya. And he heavily implied that Midoriya was All Might’s successor. If that was actually true...Aizawa was going to have so many Words with All Might. And Midoriya. And Midoriya’s mother. No wonder Midoriya broke his bones every goddamn time Aizawa took his eyes off him.

“You’re taking the Midoriya’s?” Aizawa asked, once All Might had lied particularly badly to Bakugou and the boy had gone back towards his house. I’ll take the car to the children’s center to check on Shinsou and pick you back up, then.”

“Eh? The hell are you driving for? That purple haired fuck lives in the same building as Deku,” Bakugou said. He apparently had not gone inside.

“...The children’s center is twenty minutes from here by car.”

“Well, Eyebags sure as fuck doesn’t live there. He and Deku walk to school together every fuckin’ day.”

“...” 

Of course. Of course Shinsou wasn’t living at the group home, that would have made Aizawa’s life easy. It wasn’t like Aizawa had forms stating the contrary, or that he regularly received correspondence from the center, or that Shinsou had gotten his summer camp waiver signed as requested. Aizawa had dropped him off at the center every day after his internship was over. Had he taken a cab after that? The center was supposed to be under government jurisdiction. The last time Shinsou’s social worker had checked in, she left very detailed notes about how well Shinsou was doing there. What the actual fuck .

Bakugou looked at Aizawa’s face and beat a hasty retreat back into his house. Yagi seemed like he was going to say something, but then thought better of it, walking awkwardly beside him as he stalked angrily towards Midoriya’s address. He had Dabi’s apartment number from the time when Shouto had stayed there during his internship and Aizawa had been feeling particularly protective. He had wanted to know where his problem child was going to be at all times. Apparently he’d been concerned about the wrong problem child.

“Don’t wait for me,” he said to Yagi, and knocked perhaps harder than necessary on the apartment door.

Any hope that Bakugou had been mistaken was shattered when Shinsou opened the door. He was looking down at his phone, and said absently, “I thought you weren’t coming over until later, Hawks.”

Aizawa was going to murder Hawks. Actually, he was going to torture him for information first, since Hawks apparently knew what was going on. Then he’d murder him. Aizawa took a deep breath and forced himself to focus, and then said, 

“This doesn’t look like the children’s center.”

Shinsou dropped his phone, which shattered when it hit the floor. “Aizawa-sensei! What..uh...what are you doing here?”

“Do you really want to have this conversation in the hallway?”

“...No,” Shinsou picked up his phone, looking a little mournfully at the shattered screen before sliding out of the way so that Aizawa could come in.

Aizawa toed off his shoes in the genkan and closed the door firmly behind him. He took his time walking through the apartment, inspecting it for signs of neglect. Everything was very clean and tidy, comfortable and lived in. There were a few dishes in the sink, and Shinsou had clearly been doing work at the kotatsu with a snack when Aizawa knocked on the door. The three cats were peering at him curiously - one behind Shinsou’s ankles, another from the top of the cat tree, and one silently judging him from underneath the kotatsu’s blanket.

The apartment looked like Dabi had never left. There were no missing possessions, no spaces on the bookshelf or dishes missing, no empty photos or other items that had clearly been removed. Some things very obviously hadn’t been used in months. Some of the research books on a bookshelf, a desk in the corner of the room, and several of the mugs had a clear layer of dust. Apparently when he’d left, Dabi hadn’t taken anything with him and yet, Shinsou or Hawks had felt enough attachment to the items that they hadn’t removed them. Aizawa wasn’t sure exactly what it all meant yet, but he knew he didn’t like it.

“...Do you want some tea Sensei? Or uh...we have some jelly packs, probably. I don’t have any coffee, though. Hawks confiscated it all.”

“Are you living here with Hawks, Shinsou?”

“...Straight to business huh?” Shinsou slumped. “At least sit down first.”

Aizawa followed Shinsou to the kotatsu where the boy curled up miserably with the elderly cat under the blanket. The other two cats came over to him, one climbing up onto his shoulders and one butting its head against Shinsou’s side until he scratched under its ears. Aizawa sighed, and knelt at the table.

He looked at Shinsou with tired eyes until the boy answered his question.

“I lived here with Dabi, but he left months ago. Paid out the lease for the next three years in cash and told me I could stay here.”

Aizawa would have to find out if they could trace the cash. Probably not, if Dabi was even remotely good at being a criminal, but it was a lead worth following up on at least. Did the League give signing bonuses? In theory, with the mastermind now behind bars, the League should begin to be less of a problem. But if they still had access to that kind of cash they could build up a considerable amount of followers in a very short time.

“Hawks checks in on me a couple times a week. Stays the night sometimes if he’s got a patrol in the area, but otherwise I live by myself. I’m doing just fine. I’ve got a part time job that pays for the utilities and groceries, and my schoolwork hasn’t suffered at all.” Shinsou said all this earnestly, like he was trying to convince Aizawa that he was fine. 

“Why aren’t you living at the center, Shinsou?”

All the boy’s bravado melted away, and he shrank in on himself. The cat on his shoulder gave Aizawa an impressive stink eye, and started grooming Shinsou’s hair.

“Please don’t make me go back there, Sensei. It was awful.”

“I’m supposed to be talking to your legal guardian about you moving into the dorms for your own safety. You’re a ward of the state, Shinsou. At the very least, I need to call your social worker.”

“No!” Shinsou looked legitimately frightened, and Aizawa knew then that he was going to have to open an investigation into both the center and Shinsou’s social worker. He was never going to sleep again.

“He won’t believe me! They never...No one ever believes me. That place was - I was living behind a dumpster for a while when Dabi found me, and it was better than the fucking center.”

“What happened, Shinsou?”

“...I’ve gotten passed around a lot, because of my quirk. No one wants to be responsible for me, because obviously, I’m just going to turn out to be a villain. What if I made them do something?” Shinsou said bitterly. “It’s not official but the center is where they send all the bad kids. All the villain kids. They’re supposed to straighten us out, make us productive members of society. But it’s all bullshit. They wired my jaw shut for a year until I ran away and Dabi took me to a doctor.”

“They what? Didn’t you attend school? Did no one notice?”

Shinsou looked at him with something between misery and pity, “The teachers were just glad they didn’t have to worry about me brainwashing them. Everyone agreed it was safer if I couldn’t talk.”

“And your social worker?”

“I didn’t tell him. You couldn’t really tell my jaw was wired shut if I didn’t show my teeth, and they told me if I said anything I’d wish all they’d done was wire my jaw shut. He was impressed that I -- that I was embracing discipline so much. Finding other ways to communicate that didn’t involve potentially using my quirk. He said he was glad it was working out . I ran away a couple weeks after that.”

Aizawa was going to need so many lawyers. 

“I’ve heard enough,” Aizawa said, and pulled out his phone. Shinsou looked like he was waiting for a death sentence.

“Done already, Shouta?” Came the bright and cheerful voice on the other end of the line.

“Hizashi, how do you feel about adopting two more kids?”

“Shouta...we have a two bedroom apartment.”

“Bakugou’s mother hit him three times in our five minute visit, and Shinsou is living in Dabi’s apartment.”

“Right. I’ll call the realtor. And the social worker. And my moms. At least we’re moving to the dorms in a week. Maybe they can sleep on futons in the living room until then?”

“...Bakugou’s staying with his parents but he’s moving into the dorms on Saturday unless I can get the court to approve an emergency injunction. Shinsou’s coming home with me since I found him living alone.”

“He’s not living at the center? Do I wanna know?”

“I’ll fill you in later, but either way he’s not going back.”

“Alright. Maybe if we talk to Emi she can expedite the paperwork for us and we can have Bakugou here before the end of day Friday. I’ll give her a call and pick up something for dinner.”

“Thanks. See you in a bit.”

Hizashi was a fucking lifesaver. Aizawa would never be able to do this without him. He hung up and put his phone back in his pocket.

“Get your stuff packed, you’re coming home with me,” Aizawa said to Shinsou.

Shinsou looked at the floor guiltily, “What about the cats?”

Aizawa sighed. It was always about the cats. “I’ll arrange for a professional sitter to be escorted by a hero three times a day until you move into the dorms, and we’ll figure out how to split custody of them between you and Shouto. Now get your things, I’m not leaving you in an apartment that belongs to a League member. You’re lucky they haven’t tried to use it as a safe house yet.”

Shinsou looked around at the apartment in despair. He really had made it his home. There was definitely more stuff than he could reasonably pack in a few minutes.

“Just get the essentials for now. You can move things over to your dorm room or put them in storage later. I’m not punishing you, Shinsou. I just want you to be safe.”

“Yeah, okay, I- Yeah. Give me five minutes.” He stepped into his room and closed the door.

Aizawa fought the urge to lay down on the floor. He hoped Toshinori’s home visit was going better because honestly, he didn’t see how it could possibly go worse. This was going to be fine - Hizashi would make the calls, Aizawa would email his statement and show the video from Bakugou’s home visit, and they’d get all his problem children moved into the dorms where he could watch them. His students would be safe from abusive parents and villains. He just had to get through one more week and things would be okay. 

One more week.

Notes:

Hope you all enjoyed the interlude! I think it works much better than trying to have Shouto somehow be around for all that.

I named Aizawa’s cats Sushi and Jelly...I feel like I’ve read another fic or twelve where they were named that so please if you’re like HEY THOSE ARE MY CAT NAMES please let me know. I’ve read...so much fanfiction, you don’t even know. I do my best not to deliberately copy anyone but at a certain point I honestly don’t know if things are coming from my brain or my memory so just shoot me a gentle note in the comments if that happens!
As always, comments give me life!!

A quick heads up - we’re trying to buy a house and move in six weeks (haaaaaa help me) so I MIGHT have to stop doing bi-weekly updates. I’ll let you know next time, I’ve got at least one more chapter written. Thanks for all the love and support, it really keeps me going!

Chapter 21: Fifteen - (August, 20XX)

Notes:

As a heads up; there will only be one more chapter posted before this fic takes a haitus. I'm trying to figure out how exactly to do the ending, so the last four chapters or so are really intertwined. Rather than posting them and having to go back and make edits, I'm just going to stop posting until everything is figured out. We're also supposed to move in a month (though that could change) so things are going to be pretty busy. This fic is not abandoned! I have lots of ideas for the last few chapters, I just really want everything to be solid before posting. I'm sad I won't be able to keep up the bi-weekly updates, but I think the ending will be much more satisfying this way. I hope you all understand! Just remember you can subscribe to get notified when the chapters do go up!

Warnings: No specific warnings for this chapter beyond Dabi and Endeavor's poor life choices and mentions of child abuse but that's the whole fic.

As usual, this chapter wouldn't have been possible without my betas whatnameshallitake and NoPads_NoHelmets_JustBalls!

Edit: As a reminder, I don't approve collection requests. I love that you want to collect the work, really! It's lovely. But works can be accidentally hidden or deleted this way, so if you'd like to collect this work, collect the bookmark of it instead!! Love you all!!

“I did it to keep you safe, Shouto,” Dabi said. He looked awful. His burns had spread to cover almost all the visible skin, and he was so thin his face looked like it was just one massive scar stretched out over the bone. Dabi coughed, and blood splattered onto his hand. He looked up at Shouto with crazed eyes that were painfully bright blue, blood leaking from his eyes and nose and mouth.

“Don’t you get it? This is all your fault!”

Dabi’s face caught fire, blue flames eating away what was left of his flesh, and he laughed. He laughed and laughed and the fire spread until all Shouto could see was a conflagration of fire as Dabi's cackles turned into screams.

Shouto was halfway to his feet before he realized he’d been asleep. He tripped over Mouse, who howled in indignation, and fell to his hands and knees on the tatami beside the tangled mess of his futon and blankets. Her cries woke the other cats, and Lil’ Shit poked his head out through the cat walkway to check on him. Mister Meowvelous simply started howling from the adjacent room. Fuck, they were going to wake Shinsou.

Shouto stumbled to his feet and left his room, taking care not to let Mouse or Lil’Shit out, and raced over to Shinsou’s door. It was locked because of course it was, it was fuck all in the morning. And Mister Mewovelous was still crying. Which Shouto understood, because he was crying.

“Todoroki?” Came Shinsou’s exhausted voice from his room.

“...Yeah. Your door is locked.”

“Ugh,” Shinsou said.

There was some cursing and then the door opened, and Shinsou handed him an elderly cat. “I’m going the fuck back to bed. You - oh fuck are you okay?”

“I - I -” Shouto wasn’t sure he was actually awake.

Shinsou scrubbed his hands over his face, “I didn’t need sleep anyways. Sleep is for the week.”

“…”

“Aizawa’s apartment. Now. Let’s go.”

“But…”

“Mister Meowvelous is too old to cause trouble just fucking bring her. Let’s go.”

Shouto let Shinsou manhandle him into the elevator, focusing on keeping his body temperature high so that Mister Meowvelous would be comfortable. She was in a thick rainbow colored wool sweater, but she was turning sixteen this year, so Shouto always took extra care to make sure she was comfortable. 

“You didn’t have to,” Shouto said, “I’m fine.”

“Yeah right. You’re a terrible liar, you know that? It’s okay not to be okay, you know. After...everything,” Shinsou said a little awkwardly.

“...Thanks.”

“Sure,” Shinou said. Luckily the elevator dinged, and they were saved from any more awkward conversation by the doors opening.

Shinsou led him to the door next to the kitchen that said Staff Only and used his key to open it. They were both being quiet so they wouldn’t wake up Eri, easing the door shut behind them. No one was awake in the apartment, but the weighted blanket was on the couch and two pleasant smelling candles were burning merrily on the kotatsu.

“Want some water?” Shinsou asked, nudging Shouto towards the couch.

Shouto nodded numbly and stumbled over to the couch. Mister Meowvelous chattered at him irritably, clambering out of his arms and onto the arm of the couch. Shouto laid down mechanically and wrapped himself in the weighted blanket. Mister Meowvelous nosed his hair a bit and chattered at him some more, but didn’t seem like she was going to leave her perch.

She fussed at Shinsou when he set a cold glass of water on the side table next to Shouto before taking his mug of tea over to Aizawa’s chair. He’d gotten his Switch from somewhere and curled up on the chair, yawning as he booted up some kind of game - the latest Animal Crossing from the cheerful sound of music. Mister Meowvelous hopped across the space between them and started kneading vigorously on Shinsou’s lap.

“Traitor,” Shouto mumbled.

“You’re just jealous that the cat has better taste than you,” Shinsou said dryly.

Shouto didn’t even bother acknowledging that with a response. He pulled the blanket tighter and put his back to Shinsou. He did it out of spite at first, but the couch was very comfortable, and before he knew it he was asleep.

xxx

The smell of coffee and the vaguely grumpy sounds of Aizawa making breakfast greeted Shouto as he slowly woke up. Aizawa’s two cats, Jelly and Sushi, were curled up with him while Mister Meowvelous was nowhere to be seen.

“Making egg crepes. You want some, Todoroki?” Aizawa asked gruffly.

“Yeah,” Shouto said. He didn’t question how Aizawa knew he was awake. It was just a fact of life - Aizawa knew everything.  

“It’ll be done in five minutes. Made you some tea.”

“Thanks, Sensei,” Shouto said, getting up and stretching. Shinsou was already at the table, asleep next to his extra-large coffee mug.

“Hi Sho-niisan!!” Eri said enthusiastically, “We’re eating eggs!” 

Shouto smiled in spite of his general misery, “They look good. Are you enjoying them?”

“Yeah! Dad makes the best egg crepes!” She said and smiled.

Aizawa coughed awkwardly. Shouto looked up in time to see his teacher actually look embarrassed. Mister Meowvelous, who was draped across his shoulders, chattered at him and patted his face a few times with her paw. Aizawa sighed, took a piece of cooled crepe from the plate next to him, and fed her.

“You’re spoiling her, sensei.”

“Eh, it’s fine. Go brush your teeth.”

When he came back to the kitchen after brushing his teeth, he had a plate with egg crepes on it and a mug of tea waiting for him.

“Thanks, Sensei.”

“Not a problem,” Aizawa said gruffly, sitting down at the table with even more coffee, a single egg crepe and a pouch of pureed fruit. 

Must be a bad sensory day; Aizawa got them a lot, apparently. Textures could get overwhelming for him to the point that he couldn’t eat anything he had to chew, so he kept a lot of the same types of foods-in-a-pouch that Dabi had. Shouto swallowed. Apparently everything was determined to remind him of his brother today.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

Shouto shook his head. 

“Alright, let me know if that changes and we can talk. I’m just doing prep for the upcoming semester. It’s nothing that can’t wait.”

“...Could Midoriya come over?” Shouto asked. He really wanted to see his friend, but the thought of having to leave the safety of Aizawa and Mic’s apartment made him so tired he almost asked to go back to bed instead.

“Midoriya is grounded,” Aizawa said tiredly.

“...It would make me feel better,” Shouto said quietly, because Mic-sensei said he should ask for things if he wanted them. The semester hadn’t even started yet and Midoriya was already in trouble. When Shouto was feeling better he was going to have words with Midoriya.

Aizawa sighed. “Fine. I’m going to catch up with my grading in the office. Do not make me have to come out here.”

“Of course not,” Shinsou said dryly, “When have we ever gotten in trouble?”

Aizawa rolled his eyes and grabbed the entire pot of coffee off the counter, disappearing into his office.

xxx

“You really just went out and fought Bakugou?” Shouto asked. He was in the main room with Midoriya, both of them sitting on one end of the couch. Shinsou was lounging in Aizawa’s chair, head hanging over the edge where he judged them while chewing on a lollipop. 

“He picked a fight with me!” Midoriya protested, “Plus he needed to work out some stuff. It’s fine!”

“You and the kid who bullied you your whole life beat the shit out of each other, and that’s working things out? ” Shinsou said in disbelief, “That is not how that works. Where the hell were the teachers?”

“It was the middle of the night! We snuck out!”

“That’s so much worse,” Shouto said.

“Well, we’re both grounded. Aizawa-sensei said we can go to therapy or we can go to another school, so I have an appointment with a therapist on Monday.”

“Good,” Shouto and Shinsou said together. They looked at each other, and Shinsou sighed and looked away first. At least they could agree that Midoriya was an idiot and protecting him was a full time job.

“So if you both got punished, why are you so upset? Seems fair,” Shinsou said.

“Aizawa-sensei called my mom! He told her about - you know what. ”

“About fucking time,” Shouto muttered. 

Honestly, Shouto should have done it months ago, but he hadn’t trusted any of the adults enough at that point. Midoriya’s mother was wonderful, but he hadn’t wanted to risk saying something about the number one hero when no one had ever taken him seriously about his father. He should have known that Aizawa would have no such qualms.

“I don’t even know how he found out!” Midoriya shrieked.

“‘Cuz I told him, you fuckin’ nerd,” Bakugou sneered from the door. 

Shouto turned to look at him. His hair was damp like he’d just come from the shower, and he was wearing casual clothes that Shouto assumed were probably designer. He looked pissed, but that wasn’t anything new.

“What? Aizawa and Mic have custody of me too. I’m allowed to be here just as much as you two freaks,” Bakugou scowled.

“Kachan! I - I didn’t - uh, well, uh, I -”

“Would you please stop calling me that? I fucking hate that name! I’m not a god damn child , no matter what you and the fucking hag think.”

“But!” Midoriya protested, but Bakugou just kept talking like he hadn’t said anything.

“Whatever, I’m not gonna hang around this fuckin’ place if you three idiots are here. Are you even allowed down here, Midoriya? ”

“...Shouto invited me.”

“Ch. Whatever. I’m gonna go take Eri to the playground. See you losers later.” Bakugou stalked off.

“Was that weird?” Shinsou asked. “That was fucking weird.”

“Maybe Bakugou already started therapy,” Shouto said.

“Do people change that much after one therapy session?”

“Kacha- um. Bakugou’s been through a lot lately,” Midoriya said, “That can affect someone in a whole bunch of ways.”

“Honestly, I thought he’d just get angrier,” Shinsou said.

“Is that even possible?” Shouto wondered.

“I know you assholes are talking about me!” Bakugou shouted from Eri’s room.

“If you don’t like it, come out here and I’ll say it to your face!” Shinsou hollered back.

“Are siblings always like this?” Midoriya asked.

Shouto shrugged. All of his siblings were different. Fuyumi had taken somewhat of a mother role, Natuso was always picking fights with their father, or wasn’t there at all, and Dabi had been - Dabi had been…

“Shit, are you crying? The fuck did you say Midoriya?” Bakugou snarled. Eri peeked out at him from where she was riding on Bakugou’s shoulders, frowning in concern.

“Nothing! I didn’t - oh, Shouto, I’m so sorry.”

“I miss him,” Shouto said, “I know he’s totally fucked up, and he’s in the League, and he kidnapped Bakugou, and that he’s not a good person, but I miss him .”

“Is it okay if I hug you?” Midoriya asked.

Shouto nodded, and Midoriya practically jumped across the couch to get to him. Midoriya’s arms were really strong, and he was warm. Shouto buried his face in Midoriya’s shirt and cried.

“Is Sho-niisan okay?” Eri whispered loudly.

“He’ll be alright. Let’s give him some space okay?” Bakugou said in a voice that was almost kind before stomping across the apartment and slamming the door behind him. It was strangely comforting to see he hadn’t changed that much.

“What’s going on out here?” Came Aizawa’s tired voice from behind them, and Shouto straightened up hastily, wiping his eyes.

“Nothing. I’m- Bakugou was just...taking Eri to the park,” Shouto said lamely, not looking Aizawa in the eyes.

Aizawa sighed, “Shinsou, take Midoriya back to his room, will you? And Midoriya - first thing tomorrow, you and Bakugou are on cleaning duty. Don’t be late.”

“...Yes sir,” Midoirya said, “Text me later, if you want, Todoroki.”

Shouto nodded, wiping at his eyes again. He just couldn’t seem to stop crying today. 

They left, and Aizawa came over to sit beside him. “It’s alright to cry, Todoroki. I didn’t come out here to stop you.”

“I’m fine,” he said.

“There’s not much point in lying to me, you know? It’s illogical. Do you want a hug?”

Shouto opened his mouth to say no, and risked a glance at Aizawa. The man looked tired, like he always did, but there was genuine concern in his face. Shouto’s instinct was always to say he was fine and power through, especially with an authority figure like Aizawa. It was easier with Mic since he wasn’t Shouto’s homeroom teacher, but Aizawa was actually very kind under his gruff exterior. He was endlessly patient with Bakugou, and he was tender with Eri, and let the cats get away with just about anything. Maybe...Maybe it was actually alright if Shouto let himself be vulnerable. 

“...Yeah.”

Aizawa raised his arm, and Shouto buried his face in Aizawa’s shirt. Aizawa stroked his hair and didn’t complain at all about the fact that Shouto cried all over his shirt collar and neck. He just let Shouto cry until he couldn’t any more, making vaguely soothing noises in the back of his throat.

“Thanks, Aizawa-sensei,” Shouto said once he’d finally pulled himself back together.

“Any time,” Aizawa said seriously, “Sometimes you just need to cry.”

Shouto snorted. “You’re so put-together sensei. You probably never cry.”

“You’d be surprised,” Aizawa said dryly, “But as your guardian, I do try to stay put-together where you kids can see. I want you to feel safe to come to me with your problems, not be burdened with mine. I do cry sometimes, and I have a support system for when I’m not feeling well. A lot of heroes think you can’t show weakness, but personally I think acknowledging your problems and working through them makes you a better person and a better hero.”

“I don’t think my father has ever acknowledged a problem in his life,” Shouto said.

“Yes, well...” Aizawa was clearly thinking some very uncharitable thoughts about Shouto’s father, but he didn’t say anything about them out loud.

“Yeah, you make a good point,” Shouto said, “Fuck that guy.”

Aizawa chuckled, “You want to talk about what’s bothering you? Or we can just shit talk your father some more, whatever makes you feel better.”

“...I don’t think talking about it is going to help. I mean...unless you can make Dabi turn himself in, or make me wake up and have this all be a nightmare? I just...I used to daydream that I’d get to move in with him after I graduated- that we’d be a real family. I know he’s a villain, and he’s hurting people, but I still...care about him.”

“No one expects you to stop caring about him, Todoroki. Or at least, Mic and I don’t. You don’t stop loving someone just because they’ve made poor life choices. It’s perfectly normal to still have strong feelings about someone, even if they’ve hurt you. Especially if that person was a parental figure for you. From what you’ve said, Dabi and Hawks basically raised you the last few years. The kind of connection you build in that kind of situation doesn’t just vanish because the other person made bad decisions.

“I’m not going to force you, but I think talking to a therapist could really help. Either way, you deserve a safe space to process your feelings and work through this. Mic and I will do our best to provide that, and if you need anything let us know and we’ll do our best to help.”

That almost made Shouto cry again. “You’ve both been great. I didn’t know it could be like this - a family, I mean. I’ll...think about talking to someone.” Shouto didn’t generally trust adults, but if Aizawa and Mic found him a therapist they both approved of, that would probably be okay. And it would be nice to stop crying so much. School was hard enough as it was without having to deal with - everything. But he wasn’t ready yet.

“Let me know what you decide. In the meantime, your mother wrote to me. She’d like to see you, if you feel up to visiting her.”

Shouto’s eyes widened. “Endeavor never let us visit her.”

“Luckily he doesn’t have custody any more. I’m more than happy to take you- or Mic can, if you’d feel more comfortable with that.”

“Yes, please. I want to see her.”

“Visiting hours are until three today if you want to go now.”

“Yes! Aizawa-sensei! I - let me go get changed and - I’ll be right back.”

Shouto hugged him again on impulse. He was going to see his mom! There were bound to be some bittersweet feelings, considering the last time he’d seen her was when she’d had a mental breakdown and poured boiling water on his face. Still - the fact that she wanted to see him gave Shouto hope. And if it didn’t work out, he’d still have Aizawa and Mic. Having two dads, two brothers and a sister wasn’t exactly the type of family he’d always imagined. But even considering how much of an asshole Bakugou was, Shouto found that he rather liked it. Individually they were all pretty broken, but together they were a family. And for now, that would be enough.

Notes:

I really did try to make this a happy chapter but apparently Shouto is determined to be Sad. T^T Poor kid, he's having a rough time.

Let me know if you liked it! Comments really make my day.

Chapter 22: Fifteen (October, 20XX)

Notes:

Notes: I'll be removing the haitus chapter soon so you may see a chapter jump. This chapter is dedicated to everyone who left kind words and comments on the hiatus chapter. It really meant a lot. I couldn't have finished this one without you. EDIT: the hiatus chapter has been deleted. I saved all the lovely comments people left; it really helped. Thanks all!

I added the Shinsou/Kaminari tag since they’re mentioned as a couple here. It’s not a huge deal, just something Shouto comments on. But it’s there, and some day maybe I’ll write them a side story because I love them together. Shinsou is nb and Kaminari is gender fluid, and they’re just very gay together and it makes me happy.

Warnings: Bakugou has taken over for Dabi as being our resident potty mouth. Also this chapter is self-beta'd because I finally finished something and didn't want to wait to post it.

Our official move is in 2 weeks, so idk when I'll get the next chapter out but it's about half done so I'm hopeful I can get it up in a month or so. Maybe sooner! I've got another Shinsou one-shot I'll probably post in-between just to try to keep some momentum going. Thanks to everyone who's stuck around through all this!

“Do you two even know why you’re here?” Aizawa said tiredly.

Shouto shook his head, and Bakugou crossed his arms stubbornly. He kept his gaze firmly on Aizawa’s mouth, and refused to look him in the eyes. 

“Both of you have failed your last three English tests. Hizashi is very upset.”

“How come he’s not here then?” Bakugou said mulishly.

“Because student interventions are my job, as your home room teacher. And as your guardian. So what the hell is going on with you two? Do you need more therapy?”

Shouto shook his head vehemently, while Bakugou groaned and put his head on the table. “I’m already going three times a week, if I go any more I’ll basically be living there.”

“Then what is the problem ? These are the kind of results I’d expect from Kaminari, but he actually beat both of you on the last test.”

“Shinsou’s been tutoring him,” Shouto said, a little defensively. If you could call aggressively making out tutoring - Shouto could hear them through the cat walkway opening. Honestly he didn’t care what they got up to, but he drew the line at hearing them do it.

“And getting his dyslexia diagnosed helped a lot,” Bakugou said sulkily. “He’s 8th in the class now.”

Aizawa massaged the bridge of his nose with both hands. “Will you two please just tell me what the hell is going on? We’re not leaving this table until you do.”

Bakugou groaned and buried his head in his arms, and said nothing. Aizawa turned his gaze on Shouto, his exhausted expression boring directly into Shouto’s soul. It wasn’t fair, Shouto couldn’t handle it when Aizawa looked at him like that, he cracked every time. 

“I’m...having a hard time seeing the board,” he finally admitted, when he couldn’t take it any more. “It’s fine for the rest of my classes but it’s...harder with English.” 

“I can’t understand anything anyone fuckin’ says in that class,” Bakugou muttered into the table.

“You never understand anything anyone says,” Shouto said.

Bakugou scowled up at him. “I do too! I heard you just fine right now. Ass.”

Shouto stuck his tongue out at Bakugou, who flipped him off.

“Enough,” Aizawa barked. “You’re both going to the doctor. Todoroki, when’s the last time you had an eye exam?”

Shouto frowned. “When I took the UA Exam?”

“Not a test, an exam. At the doctor. Children are supposed to be examined every two years.” Aizawa’s voice gained an edge of desperation. “Your sister has glasses, surely she must have gone to the doctor.”

“Natsuo and Fuyumi went to a general practitioner,” Shouto said slowly. “I only saw my father’s private doctor.”

Aizawa pressed his fingers into his cheekbones and made a disgusted noise. “You’ve never been to an eye doctor, have you.”

“...Someone looked at my eye after it got burned...I think?” He assumed they had, since he hadn’t lost the eye to infection.

“For fuck’s sake,” Aizawa muttered. “And you,” he said to Bakugou, “your parents never took you to a doctor for your hearing? With an explosion quirk?”

Bakugou scoffed. “My mom thinks doctors are for pussies.”

“I think I need to call your social worker again,” Aizawa sighed. “In the meantime, I want Shouto to switch with Shouji and Bakugou to switch with Hagakure, and tell someone if you’re still having trouble. Bakugou, how do you feel about signing?”

Bakugou scowled. “It’s fine. I just don’t like it. People should just have god-damn captions.”

“Hm, well, the specialist will have more suggestions once we know more about what’s going on. There’s a few different things we can try. And we will find something that works for you. I’m not going to make you sign if you don’t prefer it.”

“Except during breakfast,” Bakugou sassed. 

Aizawa sighed.

Bakugou bit his lip and offered, “it’s fine, whatever, I know Mic-sensei prefers sign.”

“Everyone is different, Bakugou. Each person’s experience and preferences are valid. We’ll figure it out.”

“I’m sure Midoriya would share his notes,” Shouto offered. “He keeps asking me if I want them.”

Bakugou made a sour face but didn’t automatically refuse. He absolutely hated to lose, and Midoriya was second in the class right now. Shouto probably should have been using Midoriya’s notes as well, but he’d assumed if he tried hard enough he’d be able to figure it out himself. He’d had times where he had a hard time reading the board in the past, and with some concentration and the right amount of squinting, he’d always gotten by.

After all, everything could be solved if you worked hard enough. Right?

xxx

Apparently his father should have taken him to the eye doctor as soon as his burn had healed.

“You’ve never seen someone about this?” his new optometrist, Dr. Hamada, asked for the third time. She frowned in concentration, and added another lens to the contraption on his face. His right eye was currently covered by the device while the optometrist continued to try to correct the vision in his left.

“No,” Shouto said, resisting the urge to shake his head and ruin her hard work. He could see the edges of things now, though everything still looked like it had a kind of film over it.

“Unbelievable,” she muttered. “How about this one?”

“...I still can’t read it. Sorry.”

“It’s not your fault,” she said gruffly. “Alright, let me take this off you.”

“Did I fail?” he asked. He’d been able to read everything just fine after only a few adjustments on his right eye. He actually hadn’t realized how bad of a headache he’d had until the lenses had made it go away. His left eye though…

“We can make adjustments enough to give you some far sightedness back, and if we use a contact lens your peripheral vision will improve in your left eye, but I’m afraid your eye is permanently damaged. I’m sorry we weren’t able to help you earlier.”

“Not your fault,” he said, and she gave a little chuckle at receiving her own advice back from him.

“What are his options?” Aizawa asked. “He’s been having trouble reading the board in class, though so far it hasn’t seemed to impact his extracurriculars.”

“I imagine Shouto has been dealing with poor vision most of his life, so he’s likely learned to manage his quirk around his vision. The corrections should help prevent further strain. For hero work I’d recommend contact lenses specially crafted to handle the upper and lower temperature levels of your quirk. For class, we can use a pair of glasses which block vision from the left eye while correcting the right eye. That should help you focus. How does that sound?”

It sounded pretty good, actually. If he didn’t have to try to focus past his blurred left eye, he’d have a lot easier time actually reading things, especially further. And improved vision for combat could only help. 

“That sounds good.”

“Great! You’ll have to work with a support company directly for the contacts, but if you’d like to come back out to the reception area they can help you pick out a pair of frames for your new lenses.”

Shouto looked cautiously at Aizawa.

“Go on, I’m sure I’ve got paperwork to fill out.”

The optometrist laughed. “Not too much.”

“You’ve clearly never had to work with a support company. They basically run on paperwork.”

xxx

The visit with his mother went pleasantly enough, as it usually did. He told her about what they’d worked on in school that week, and she showed him the various crafts she’d made along with passing along well wishes from his brother and sister. Neither of them brought up Shouto’s father. The trial had been pretty thoroughly buried by the Commission but there was supposed to be a hearing soon. Shouto didn’t know if his mother had been interviewed for it like Dabi had been, and he didn’t want to bring it up if she hadn’t. Too many painful memories.

The visit was winding down and his mother was looking around for something to say, before her eyes fell on his glasses with a smile.

“I like your glasses. Are they new?”

Shouto nodded awkwardly. “They’re temporary until the support company can make me some contacts.”

“Do you like them? Fuyumi just got a new pair as well. She seems to enjoy them quite a bit.”

“I like them. There are a lot of different shapes for the frames, but I liked this one best,” he said. “Bakugou made fun of how big and round they are, so Shinsou made him do jumping jacks and say that they were the best glasses he’d ever seen. Then Aizawa showed up and we were grounded for two days.”

Rei smiled gently at Todoroki’s awkward re-telling. “He seems like he takes very good care of all of you.”

“Aizawa-sensei...he’s…” Shouto didn’t want to hurt his mother with the truth.

Rei’s smile turned slightly bitter. “It’s alright, Shouto. I can’t take care of you in here, and your father...well.”

“Aizawa-sensei isagooddad!” Shouto said finally, because it was true. He hadn’t thought much about love or family relationships until he’d come to live with Aizawa and Mic. Being an older sibling to Eri was something he’d never expected to experience, and he enjoyed it quite a lot. Even Shinsou and Bakugou weren’t that bad, when they weren’t deliberately trying to piss him off. Part of him felt guilty that he didn’t have a sense of connection with his blood family, but at the same time he was so relieved that he had somewhere to live where people cared about him. It gave him hope for the future. Maybe...maybe once his mother got out of here...once they caught Dabi and straightened him out, and he got out of prison…

Rei opened her arms for a hug and Shouto went gratefully. He hadn’t even known he was crying. She hummed a tune he didn’t know, and smoothed his hair gently. “I’m glad you have someone to look after you, Shouto.”

“I want - I want to live with you ,” Shouto said. And Dabi, and Hawks, and all their cats, and maybe Natusuo and Fuyumi if they wanted. Somewhere. Anywhere. Far, far away from his bastard father.

“Some day, sweetie. I promise.”

xxx

In general, Shouto was able to avoid public transit now that he lived in the dorms. It had been one thing when he was doing his makeup and no one recognized him, it was another taking public transit after the disaster of the sports festival. People stared . Unfortunately, it was a required activity if he wanted to see his mother - which he did, very much.

The first time he’d visited his mother, Aizawa-sensei had taken him. Mic-sensei had escorted him two times after that. The fourth time Midoriya had traveled with him, and now Shouto went by himself. He generally just put on his headphones and ignored everyone on the subway. He didn’t get as many stares now as he had just after his father had lost custody, but there was still enough attention from strangers to make him feel uncomfortable. 

He was just about to put on his headphones and ignore everyone when he heard a familiar name.

“HunterX is unveiling their new look on Halloween, and I can’t find an invite anywhere! ” a girl across the car complained to her friend.

Her friend, who was eying the back of a CD with a critical eye, replied, “Oh shit, they’re changing their look? But I thought someone who had six singles about the evils of hero society and corruption among the elite would be totally fine with their inspiration coming from a supervillain.”

“No way! HunterX is anti-establishment but they’re not villains . They don’t think the Public Safety Commission really has the best interests of the population at heart, and they hate Endeavor. They have a lot of thoughts about quirk discrimination and suicide rates among quirkless people - what do you think Just Wondering is about? But they don’t actually promote violent crime. They said because Dabi took part in a kidnapping, they weren’t going to use him as their muse any more.”

Some of the adults were side-eying the teens, but the two girls were clearly in their own world.

“Wait, so him being a serial killer isn’t the problem, but kidnapping is?”

“Dabi’s not the serial killer, that’s Shigiraki, the hands guy. Did you see the Inquirer article speculating he's made over a hundred people disappear? There's nothing left of them with a quirk like that. Scary as hell. I don’t actually think they’ve been able to prove Dabi’s killed anyone.”

“If Shirigaki makes people disappear how does anyone prove he's a murderer? Plus you know the Inquirer is a gossip rag. Besides, everyone knows Dabi’s temper and his quirk. You really think a guy like that is going to join the League of Villains and not murder people?”

“I didn’t say he hasn’t murdered anyone, just that they haven’t proven it yet. Anyways, none of this matters because I can’t find out where the event is!! They must be keeping this one super close to the chest.”

“Well duh , they probably don’t want Dabi to show up,” and that was Shouto’s cue to leave.

Luckily he was only two stops down from his usual exit so his walk back to the dorm was only a little longer than normal. He texted Aizawa to let him know he was going to be a little late because he’d worry otherwise. Once the subway had been twenty minutes late and Aizawa had almost put out an APB on him. Shouto thought it was kind, that Aizawa cared about him so much. He still wasn’t really used to it, but it was nice.

Shouto normally arrived back in the dorm just as Midoriya’s weekly hangout with Uraraka and Iida was wrapping up. Midoriya would usually drag him off for a study session (which really just meant begging for details about how the most recent visit with his mother had gone.) Today he was late enough that his friends had already packed up and had been replaced by Aoyama, Kaminari, Jirou, Hagakure and Tokoyami. There was makeup completely covering the table, and Aoyama and Kaminari were arguing over shades of purple glitter while Jirou tested a new black eyeliner. Tokoyami was looking at the various shades of black as if they’d insulted his entire lineage, and Hagakure was - well, he wasn’t sure what she was doing, but there was a lot of glitter involved.

Shouto almost thought about telling them they’d have better results if they bought higher quality makeup, and then decided that he didn’t feel like being social. He trudged past the table, wondering if he should seek out Midoriya or take a nap when Kaminari wailed,

“I just can’t get the Visual Kei style right! It’s so hard!!”

“Ah, moi aussi! It’s so hard to get your skin flawless enough!”

“Well you two losers better figure it out if we want to go to the HunterX reveal. Halloween is only two weeks away.” Jirou said.

“You have HunterX invites?” Shouto asked, unable to keep his question to himself.

“Yeah!” Kaminari said brightly. “My untie got them for us! Shinsou said he’d go if I could do his makeup, so I’m gonna figure this out!”

“...do you want some help?”

“You know how to do Visual Kei makeup?” Tokoyami said in disbelief. Everyone else in the room had stopped talking, so the question echoed off the walls, and Shouto swallowed hard. 

“Of course he fuckin’ does, he used to wear it every fuckin’ day.” Bakugou said, sticking his head out from the communal kitchen to bitch at them. 

“No way, really?”

“Um. Yeah. I’d wear it after school so people wouldn’t recognize me when I went to...my brother’s apartment.”

There was an awkward moment when everyone realized that he meant Dabi. But then Hagakure piped up saying “so, any chance we can get a tutorial? Because uh, I have no idea what I’m doing.”

Shouto set down his bag and came over to the table. “Well, the first thing you’re going to need to do is buy some higher quality products. This foundation is shit. You can get away with cheaper eyeliners and shadows, but quality foundation and lipstick are key.”

“Damn, you weren’t kidding, you do know what you’re talking about.”

Shouto rolled his eyes, and continued his lecture. They had a lot to learn in the next two weeks.

xxx

“Oh, Todoroki!” Kaminari called after him as they exited English class. 

“Your makeup hasn’t come in yet,” Shouto said, because he couldn’t think of anything else Kaminari would want to talk to him about.

“No, yeah, no that’s fine. I mean, do you think it’s going to get here in time? Because I was really looking forward to that shade of orange - no wait. I didn’t - here, this is for you.”

Shouto looked at him blankly for a moment, and then took the letter out of Kaminari’s hands. “...thanks?”

“Sure, sure. Any time,” Kaminari said, louder than he really needed to. Then he leaned in and whispered, “Glitch asked me to give that to you. They said you should probably burn it after.” Then he looked around and said in an exaggerated manner, “okay, well, I’ve got to go study with Shinsou, see you later Todoroki.”

Kaminari marched off, looking as suspicious as someone could possibly look. Shouto just shook his head and hoped he didn’t get paired up when they had to do undercover exercises. Even Bakugou wasn’t obvious, yeesh.

Shouto was curious about his letter, but since he hadn’t failed the module on undercover behaviour he waited to read it until that night. There were no security cameras in the dorm bedrooms, so Shouto locked the door and curled up on his futon with Mister Meowvelous and Lil’Shit to read it.

He wasn’t sure what he’d been expecting, but it wasn’t - this. 

Dear Shouto Todoroki,

We hope this letter finds you well. This year has been a wild one, and I’m sure you’re going through a lot. Condolences on your brother being a terrorist piece of shit. Glitch says you guys used to be close; that must be hard.

We’re writing to you because Razor realized we should probably ask you before you show up to the Big Reveal and get a shock. This letter is a fucking mess, so I’ll just ocme right out and say it - can we use you as our new muse?

Sorry that probably sounds weird, but hear me out. Your dad sucks ass (and not in the fun way.) We’d really like to continue the tradition of writing songs about how much Endeavor is a giant flaming dumpster fire, but we really can’t use Dabi as our muse any more. Sorry, that probably sucks to think about, but the League just isn’t something we can endorse.

You have a fuckin aweseome look, and I think we could have a really successful debut inspired by you, but consent is important, so let us know what you think. If you want us too, we’ll scrap all our plans and do a look based on Eraserhead or something. Messy black hair and red eyes is a pretty cool look, even if it’s not as cool as heterochromia.

Best,

HunterX

It was hands down the least composed letter Shouto had ever received. Personally, he thought it was a little weird that the band wanted to base their new look on him. On the other hand, his father would be furious.

Shouto burnt the letter to ash with his quirk, a quick application of ice preventing any smoke from setting off the alarms. Even though he’d been careful, the cats grumbled at the abrupt change of temperature and he had to spend a few moments petting them before they would settle back down. He opened his phone and sent a quick text to Glitch before going to bed for the night.

- October XX, 20XX -

S: Tell them yes. (Today at 11:42 PM)

Notes:

I really struggled with Bakugou in this one. In the end I decided to make him losing his hearing and have an undiagnosed auditory processing disorder. I’m not deaf, only hard of hearing, and I also have auditory processing issues. I don’t use sign, I use a combination of reading people’s lips, context clues and subtitles and I get by pretty well. Then again, I’m mostly communicating through text at this point, even in my job. Obviously a hero student is going to face different challenges.

I feel like Bakugou would want to learn sign and be the best at it, but might be pretty resistant to actually using it. (Resisting the idea that he “needs help.” Because you know his mama taught him all the toxic thinking) So I tried to reflect that here. He’s probably going to get hearing aids, although I’m not sure if that’s going to come up or not. It’s a struggle for me, because I’m not deaf or involved in deaf culture and I don’t want to totally screw it up. At the same time I don’t want to not make him deaf just because I’m scared about it. That being said, if anything is grievously wrong or harmful, drop me a gentle note in the comments and we can chat about it on Discord or something. :)

Regardless, drop me a comment and let me know what you think! It's been a bit since the last chapter so I'd really love to hear how you think this new one holds up against the rest.

See you next time!

Chapter 23: Fifteen (October, 20XX)

Notes:

I had to split the last chapter up because it was 5k and counting, so enjoy the rest of that! This chapter is also not beta’d so apologies for any grievous grammatical errors!!

Warnings: Dabi continues to make poor life choices. There is some off-screen violence, minor character death (Shouto doesn’t directly see anything, but he knows what’s happening.) Details in the end notes if you need them. 

I wouldn’t say this one is a cliffhanger, but it does get pretty dark. The next chapter is probably going to be dark too, before we start to upswing the happy ending. If you’re like me, and you can’t handle waiting for that relief from a heavy angst fic, maybe take a break for a few chapters and come back once the fic is done. I promise it’ll keep.

What had started as a small group event had grown to include half their class. Shouto had helped everyone put on the finishing touches to their makeup while Melissa Shield gave costume tips from Midoriya’s phone. Kaminari had convinced Aizawa to let them all go to the concert with just Glitch supervising after several hours of wheedling. Halloween was notorious for street parties turning into riots, and every single hero was required to be on patrol. Only once Glitch had proven they could hack into any and all security cameras and keep an eye on all of them from literally anywhere had Aizawa relented.

The party had started on the train, hundreds of young people in visual kei flooding the cars. Glitch had winked at them all and tapped a few things on their phone, and the train had sped past the normal stops before finally coming to a halt at an abandoned underground station. Midoriya was freaking out, telling them all the various villain fights had taken place here five years ago. Apparently it had been the debut for some hero Shouto had never heard of (currently number 187 in the rankings, according to Midoriya.) He was muttering about the heroes and villains involved, the casualties (none, only a handful of injuries) and the grievous structural damage that had caused the closure of the station.

"Grievous structural damage?" Iida said with concern. It had been hell to do his makeup with how strong his jaw was and how often he touched his face to adjust his glasses but it had been worth it. Shouto thought he looked fantastic. If he smudged his eyeliner again though, Shouto might have to murder him.

Totally safe , Glitch signed, and Kaminari piped up.

"One of the techs has a quirk kinda like Cementoss, they totally fixed the place up, it's completely safe. They even repaired the emergency exits just in case. The elevators aren't working but they put in ramps for accessibility!"

Iida muttered something about wishing they'd gotten the proper permits, but Shouto stopped listening. The band had appeared, and every single one of them had on a wig with red and white hair split down the middle. 

"Holy shit," Jirou said. "Did you know about this Todoroki?"

Shouto nodded. Whoever was in charge of the band’s makeup had done an impressive job. Maybe too impressive. The lead singer had a perfect rendition of his scar. It was eerie. He consoled himself with the fact that when his father found out about it he’d probably have a stroke.

"HEY EVERYONE!!!" the lead singer growled into the mic. "As you all know, we wanted to share our new look with you! I don't know if any of you watched the UA Sports Festival but we sure did, and we've never seen anything as awesome as the look on Endeavor's face when Shouto threw the final match. He's a really cool kid, I think he'll go far!!"

The crowd cheered, and Shouto covered his face his with his hand in embarrassment. He’d worn a wig and his scar was completely covered by his makeup, so at least no one knew who he was other than his classmates. He’d never hear the end of their teasing, especially if anyone told Bakugou. (Who was he kidding, Shouto was surprised Kaminari hadn’t told Bakugou already.)

“ Alright! The bassist growled into their mike. “Who’s ready to hear our newest song? That’s right! It’s Fuck Endeavor, Volume 7! ”

“FUCK ENDEAVOR!” The crowd cheered.

Shouto couldn’t wait to see what happened when his father found out.

xxx

The concert went on for almost an hour before anything went wrong. Shouto had been a little nervous about going out on Halloween because his father had always complained about how much crime happened on Halloween. To be fair, most of that was riots (which had their own set of problems) but there was still a significant amount of villain activity. Sometimes there were even villain riots. He’d been convinced by his teammates' assurances that they would be fine if they stayed in a large group, and had been treated to many recollections of everyone’s first Halloween party. His father had never allowed him to go out on Halloween night, but apparently there was trick-or-treating in Midoriya’s building in the American style, and Jirou’s parents regularly threw Halloween music festivals. Glitch had also assured him they’d be perfectly safe.

He blamed Class 1-A’s absolutely horrendous luck for the fact that the concert was crashed by a team of villains in hockey masks. They had garish outfits on, large cloth sacks thrown over their shoulders and giant shaggy wigs. One of them was holding an assault rifle pointed at the ceiling, but Shouto didn’t know if it was real or just a Halloween prop.

“HEY,” one of the villains screamed into a megaphone, and HunterX cut off their song with a screech of feedback. “Everyone shut the hell up and give us your money!”

“OH YEAH,” another said in English, in a twisted parody of Present Mic. “That’s what you get for liking a trashy band supporting the League!”

“A bunch of pussies, that’s for sure! ” Said the first, and they all roared with laughter.

“Are you fucking kidding me,” Shinsou hissed under his breath. “Wasn’t the whole point of this for the band to distance themselves from Dabi?”

Shouto shrugged. In his experience, people did what they wanted and made up the reasons why after. These idiots probably would have attacked the concert no matter what HunterX had done.

“What do you want to do? There’s a lot of civilians and not a lot of exits. Technically I can’t help you either, I still don’t have my license.”

“Comply for now, look for an opening?” Jirou suggested.

Midoriya set his jaw mulishly, like he was going to argue, and then the lead villain let off a burst of fire from the gun that was definitely not a prop.

“Where the hell are the heroes who are supposed to be on patrol right now?” Shinsou cursed.

“Not patrolling abandoned subway stations, apparently,” Shouto muttered. Because of course they weren’t - that was the whole point of choosing the location for a secret underground concert.

“I said get the fuck down and give us your shit! ” the villain with the gun screeched.

Kaminari was signing frantically at his untie, who was doing something with their phone. “They’re going to turn off the lights,” he whispered. 

“But what if the villains start firing into the crowd?” Urarakura whispered back.

“We’re just going to have to take them out the second the lights go down!” Kaminari said.

Glitch had their hand up, counting down until the lights would go out. Just before they hit zero, the entire station lit up with blue fire.

“Hey assholes,” Dabi drawled, fire dancing all around him. “I heard you guys had some beef with the League. Wanna talk about it?”

“Oh shit.”

“Ice wall, ice wall! ” Midoriya hissed, as the villains turned and rushed Dabi, and the civilians scattered in panic. 

Shouto complied, wondering how much trouble he was going to get into. Saving people’s lives was more important, of course, but Aizawa was going to murder him. He iced off the area around Dabi and the villains, the roar of flames and the crack of a gun muffled through it.

Glitch pressed a button on their phone, and every electronic screen in the subway flickered to life with an evacuation alert, guiding the panicked civillains to safety. HunterX had already disappeared, their band equipment abandoned in front of the tracks. Shouto focused on keeping the ice wall up while his classmates ushered people to the exits saying, “I’m a provisional hero student, I can help!”

“You fucking murderer! ” came a scream from behind the wall, followed by the sound of desperate gunfire. Then everything went very quiet.

“Get down,” Shinsou yelled, and pushed Shouto to the ground just as the ice wall exploded, destroyed by the blue inferno surrounding Dabi.

His brother looked like a nightmare. He was grinning, his eyes wild, fire licking along his arms and around his head like a halo. Behind him there was nothing but ash.

Shouto was going to be sick.

“Hey bro,” Dabi giggled. “Long time no see.”

Shouto couldn’t move.

“Are you high?” Shinsou asked in disbelief.

That made Dabi laugh. “Of course I am! Do you fucking see me? I’m practically melting. Oh shi-” Dabi’s eyes glazed over as Shinsou’s quirk took over.

“Go the fuck away.” Shinsou said firmly.

Dabi turned around like a marionette on strings, awkward and stilted, and marched away from them up the station steps and out of sight.

“Fuck, I should have told him to go to a police station or something.”

“He’d just kill them all,” Shouto said shakily. “How long will that hold?”

“Not long. If he’s in as much pain as I think he is, he’ll break out - fuck, there it goes. Let’s get out of here.”

“We should...help…” Shouto said, pushing himself to his feet. 

The station’s fire suppression system had kicked in, and the sprinklers were working full blast to put out the fire. All the civilians had evacuated, and the heroes would be here soon.

“We need to get you away from him. C’mon.”

Shinsou pulled him towards the emergency exit. The media was already there, interviewing Jirou and Uraraka. The police and paramedics had also arrived, and Shinsou ushered him over to one of the ambulances.

“He’s in shock,” Shinsou said, and the paramedics wrapped him in a blanket and talked to him in soothing voices. Shouto had no idea what they were saying. All he could see was Dabi’s maniacal grin, and the piles of ash on the subway floor.

Time seemed to smear at the edges. It seemed like an eternity and also no time at all before Aizawa’s arms were around him, picking him up and cradling him to his chest like Shouto was a child. 

“I’ve got you now, Shouto. You’re going to be alright.”

Shouto sniffled and buried his head in Aizawa’s shirt. Nothing was ever going to be alright ever again.

xxx

Aizawa got them both home, putting Shouto on the couch when he refused to stand on his own. Shinsou got him a blanket, and Aizawa went into the kitchen for a bit while Shouto huddled into the blanket like it could keep the entire world out if he just pulled it around himself just right. Aizawa came back with two mugs of hot chocolate, which he set on the coffee table in front of them.

“You want to talk about it?” Aizawa said.

Shouto shook his head and pulled the blanket closer around himself. 

“Fine, but I’m mentioning it to your therapist. Get some rest, both of you. I’m going to go deal with the media but if you need anything - I mean anything , call me.”

“Thanks sensei,” Shinsou said, and Aizawa left.

Shouto stared at the hot chocolate and wished it made him feel better. Aizawa cared for him a lot, that much was obvious. But Aizawa wasn’t someone who’d ever interacted with Dabi as anyone other than a villain. He hadn’t known him - before. But Shinsou - they’d lived together. If anyone would understand how Shouto was feeling, it would be the boy sitting sullenly beside him.

“He’s really a villain,” Shouto whispered, refusing to turn around and see the pity in Shinsou’s eyes.

“Yeah,” Shinsou said. “Yeah. He is.”

“He killed those villains. I mean...they were threatening people but they were still...and he just murdered them.”

“Yeah,” Shinsou said, his voice hoarse.

“I thought. I don’t know what I thought. But he said he joined to protect me. And I knew it was all bullshit but I thought maybe...but he’s just killing people.”

“I didn’t want it to be true either,” Shinsou said. “If he hadn’t found me I’d probably still be living behind a dumpster. Or dead. He saved my life. And now he’s just...it sucks.”

“I was so mad at you for so long,” Shouto said. “You stole my room and took my brother away. But now neither of us gets him, because he - it just seems stupid to stay mad at you.”

“I was jealous of you, you know? Sure your dad is shit, but Dabi - he was...he was great, you know? He was so supportive of you. And your brother and sister seem cool too. You’ve actually got family that gives a shit about you, and I was so mad that you weren’t doing everything you could to stay with them.”

“My father is Endeavor .”

“Yeah, I know. I mean, I knew then, but I didn’t really get how totally fucked you are, when it comes to him. Like, the Commission just lets that bastard do whatever the fuck he wants. I thought you should just - run away. Fight harder to keep Dabi, or something. I figured it was just fine for me to take Dabi, because you didn’t appreciate him properly. And then he just. Fucked off. He didn’t even try to excuse his behavior saying he was trying to do it for me . He just fucking left.”

“I was trying to protect him,” Shouto admitted softly. “If Endeavor...I thought if our father knew where he was he’d...hurt him. Dabi worked so hard to make a life for himself and I thought if I ran away then the Commission would just come in and ruin it. But then it got ruined anyway, so what was the point? Maybe I should have run away. Gone to America, or something.”

“US Heros get too much press. Better to settle down in Northern Canada or something, no one would ever look for you up there.”

“Maybe in another life,” Shouto said bitterly.

“...you want to call a truce? It’s not like we even have anything to fight about any more.”

Shouto scowled. “Midoriya was my friend first.”

Shinsou rolled his eyes. “Midoriya befriends everyone. You can’t try to stop that, it’d be like standing in front of a boulder rolling down a mountain.”

“Fine,” Shouto said, because Shinou had a point. Midoriya still tried to be friends with Bakugou , so there was obviously no hope for him. “Truce.”

They shook on it.

“Well, that was more of a heart-to-heart than I’ve ever wanted to have so...wanna go see if Eri will share her Halloween candy with us?”

Shouto nodded. “As cute as she is, I bet she’s got enough for the entire class.”

“We’re doing her a favor, really. Keeping her teeth from rotting or whatever.”

“Exactly.”

It was weird, being friends with Shinsou. But Shouto thought he might actually end up enjoying it.

Notes:

Warning from above explained: Dabi kills a bunch of unnamed villains. Shouto doesn’t see them die but he hears it, and sees ash left on the ground afterwards. He has a panic attack/disassociates.

Comments are appreciated, even if it’s just to scream with me about all the poor life choices Dabi is determined to make.

I'm hoping to get the next chapter up in 2 weeks (it's like...75% done) but I'm not sure if I'll meet that goal. There's a lot of bullshit happening in my country right now and my anxiety is 9000. But we moved into a nice, quiet new house so I'm hoping to get lots of writing done! See you next time!

Chapter 24: Sixteen (January, March 20XX)

Notes:

*Rolls up a month late with Starbucks* Yo~

The house is finally starting to be livable, so have a chapter! The next one should be up on our usual bi-weekly schedule since it's already written, and then 2 epilogue chapters. We're gonna make it to the end, I can't believe it. It has been literal years since I've finished a chapter fic, and it's very much thanks to everyone's love for this fic, so thank you.

Notes: graphic description of a panic attack and the aftermath thereof. Unreliable narrator - more than usual. This whole chapter is one big child abuse/aftermath of trauma warning. Shouto’s dealing with some pretty adult realizations about his home life.

There is a very tense moment in this chapter - to avoid spoilers, see end notes for details.

Is the second half of this chapter a tie-in to my Bakugou-centric fic The Hag? Yes. Yes it is. You don’t need to have read that to understand this, but you should go read it anyway because I think it turned out well. ;3

A note on collections - I've gotten a few requests that I've had to turn down so I just wanted to say that I *love* being requested for a collection. Honestly, it's very flattering. However, being in a collection means if the owner turns their collection anonymous or deletes it, it hides or deletes all works in that collection. Which means it's very possible for someone to accidentally remove other people's works. I would be devastated if I lost everyone's comments and kudos, so I don't allow works in collections any more.

That being said, you should be able to collect a bookmark of the collection which is perfectly safe - and you don't need my permission! Collect away!

Finally, I continue un-beta'd so please forgive my overabundance of commas.

January, 20XX

Shouto’s sixteenth birthday started poorly, to say the least. His father called him eight times, left four messages and sent him twelve emails. Each was more aggressive than the last, until Aizawa finally took his phone and went into his office. Shouto couldn’t make out what was said, but there were a lot of harsh, angry words, and he ended up just going back to bed and hiding under the covers.

He slept through breakfast, and would have been late to first period if Shinsou hadn’t come and dragged him out of bed. He was in an absolutely terrible mood all day. He snapped at Midoriya after one particularly long rant and made his friend cry. He tripped during a spar and ended up taking a nasty fall, and had to spend a good part of the afternoon in Recovery Girl’s office. Aizawa and Mic offered to take him out to dinner for cold soba, and they were interrupted by an urgent news bulletin.

Dabi was trying to murder their father live on television.

That would have been bad enough, though Shouto would be hard pressed to say Endeavor didn’t deserve it. But Dabi had a Nomu, and it didn’t care who or what got in its way, threatening civilians and infrastructure and anything else that got in its way. And on top of that - Dabi was trying to kill Hawks, too.

Endeavor managed to defeat the Nomu, but he wasn’t getting up. Dabi strolled up to him, his smirk and crazed eyes telling Shouto that this was it - he was actually going to see his brother kill his father. And then Hawks was in the way, his feathers burning to ash under the power of Dabi’s quirk. They were shouting at each other but the camera couldn’t pick up their voices over the roar of Dabi’s flames.

Dabi’s eyes narrowed in victory, and fire spiraled out from his hands, along his arms and dancing around his head. He leapt for the two heroes, but was stopped at the last minute by the appearance of Miruko. Shouto let out a breath he hadn’t even known he was holding as the Rabbit Hero lashed out at Dabi, driving him back.

Shouto saw the moment Dabi realized he’d been outclassed. He threw his head and hands back and screamed in rage, and flames erupted from every part of his body. Miruko shouted in alarm and grabbed Endeavor and Hawks and pulled them away with a powerful leap. When the fire finally went out there was nothing left of the Nomu or the villain but ash.

Shouto couldn’t breathe. There was a ringing in his ears, static filled his head. He stared at the smear on the concrete that had been his brother, and wondered if he had any right to feel this way. Dabi was a villain. He’d murdered people. So why -

“-a double,” Hawks voice filtered through the static in his mind. “One of the members of the League, Twice, has a quirk that makes copies of others. They’ve used this quirk to their advantage before to engage with heroes when they’re not expecting to win. Doubtless the League felt their pyrotechnic could cause more damage if he didn’t have to worry about immolating himself or being caught.”

A double. Right, of course. He’d - forgotten they had someone who could do that.

“...you okay Shouto?” Midoriya asked cautiously. Not surprising, considering Shouto had made him cry earlier.

“Not really,” he managed to say. His therapist would be so proud of him for expressing himself.

“You want to get out of here?” Midoriya asked, looking awkwardly around at the rest of the room.

Shouto blinked a few times and realized that the entire class had gathered to watch the fight on the television in the common room. They were all staring at him, except for Bakugou, who was pointedly staring at the wall. Just fucking great.

“Yes, please.”

Midoriya took him by the hand and pulled him out of the room and up the stairs to his own room. Shouto let him, still numb from the flood of emotions he’d experienced moments earlier. He should probably go find Aizawa and maybe call his therapist. Or call his sister and check in on his mom - what if she’d watched the broadcast? What about Hawks? He’d gotten out alive but he hadn’t looked very good. Shouto should check in on him.

Instead of doing any of that, he just stood there, staring dully at all of Midoriya’s All Might merchandise. The breadth of Midoriya’s collection truly was impressive. How did someone with anxiety as bad as Midoriya manage to get a hold of all of these? He knew that poster was only given out as a commemorative item for the All Mighty Festival 25th Anniversary, and that reselling of the item to non-attendees had been highly discouraged. That probably didn’t stop scalpers, but Midoriya didn’t seem like the type of person to rely on a scalper for merchandise. 

How did he handle all the crowds? Shouto had been to exactly one convention as a prop for his father’s image and he’d hated every second of it. There was probably a difference in going to a convention as an attendee versus a child celebrity, but still. So many stares . Some woman had even tried to cut off a lock of his hair. It had been - a lot. Shouto hoped Midoriya had never had to deal with that.

“Shouto? Do you want to come sit down?”

“...right.”

Midoriya looked worried. He gently ushered Shouto across the room, one hand on Shouto’s lower back. That seemed important somehow. Had Midoriya ever touched his lower back like that before? Shouto didn’t actually mind, it just stood out as odd to him. He didn’t really touch people on principle. He used to hug his brother a lot, and he sometimes hugged Aizawa or accepted a hand on his shoulder, but other than that people didn’t really touch him. Except Midoriya, who had no concept of personal space.

Actually, now that he thought about it, Midoriya didn’t actually touch many people either. He mostly just hovered nervously. But with Shouto he was unreserved, sitting so closely that he was pressed up against Shouto’s left side. Maybe that was just because Shouto was warm on that side, but then again, no one else cuddled up to him like that. Actually, if anyone else tried that, Shouto probably would have shoved them away from him, or gotten up and left. But with Midoriya it was different. He liked it when Midoriya touched him. He felt...safe.

“Can I - can I kiss you?” Midoriya asked suddenly, and Shouto stared at him in shock. He hadn’t quite gotten around to thinking that he might like to kiss Midoriya, but his brain had been sort of heading in that direction. How had Midoriya known?

“Ah, nevermind, nevermind, that would be stupid, forget I said anything, ha, wow we have a lot of homework, don’t we, I mean if you want to work on it, I just thought that would keep your mind off -” Midoriya babbled nervously. His thigh was still pressed against Shouto’s.

“I don’t mind.” Shouto said, interrupting him. If he hadn’t, Midoriya looked like he might have jumped out of the window from anxiety.

“R-really? I’ve never kissed anyone before so if I suck -”

Shouto reached up and smoothed away one of Midoriya’s wild strands of hair. “It’ll be fine.”

“You’re. Wow. Okay,” he said, and leaned in and kissed Shouto.

It was not the best kiss Shouto had ever gotten. Midoriya was nervous, and his lips were chapped, and he narrowly missed smashing his forehead into Shouto’s. But he smelled nice, and his body was warm where it was pressed against Shouto’s, and overall, Shouto enjoyed it a lot more than he thought he was going to. It wasn’t the kiss itself that mattered, so much as it was Midoriya who was giving it. He’d have to consult his pamphlets later to figure out what that might mean, but for now, he settled for kissing Midoriya back.

“Wow,” Midoriya said again, when they’d finished. “You’re really good at that.”

Shouto shrugged, and said, “I’ve had some practice.” Then his eyes went wide, and he said, “I didn’t mean it like that. It was - I kissed a lot of people in middle school. To. Argh.”

Shouto put his head down on Midoriya’s shoulder. He was ruining everything with his stupid words. “I didn’t know if I was gay or straight, or what. So I experimented a lot while I still had time. Since UA was basically going to be the start of my career.”

“Oh,” Midoriya said. “Have...you kissed anyone recently?”

“Just you. I’m pretty sure I’m asexual so-”

“Oh shit, are you okay? I didn’t - I mean, I wanted to but I thought you wanted to, I didn’t mean to force you into -”

His hand on Midoriya’s neck seemed to calm the other boy down. “It’s fine. I wanted to. I don’t mind touching. Or. I mean I haven’t really done anything with anyone, before but. Holding hands is nice,” he finished lamely.

Midoriya nodded so hard it looked like his head was going to fall off. “We can hold hands. I’d love to hold hands. Holding hands is so great.”

Shouto let Midoriya grab his hand and hold on like he thought Shouto was going to run screaming for the hills if he didn’t. Honestly, they were both terrible at this, it was kind of ridiculous.

“Kissing wasn’t bad,” he admitted. “I don’t normally like it but...I liked kissing you.”

“It was terrible, wasn’t it,” Midoriya said sheepishly.

“You just need practice.”

“Er. I could...we could practice...now?” Midoriya suggested a little desperately.

“Yeah, okay.”

Later, Shouto and Midoriya were sprawled out on Midoriya’s bed, both a little bit breathless. Shouto could now definitely say that kissing Midoriya was an enjoyable activity. He wasn’t sure what that meant, but he could figure it out later. Midoriya had assured him they could go at Shouto's pace, and it wasn’t like either of them were very experienced anyway. They had time to figure it out.

“We should do this again Midoriya,” Shouto said, because after everything, his brain to mouth filter was shot.

“You should call me Izuku, don’t you think? I mean...you know,” Midoriya said awkwardly, flushing.

“Okay...Izuku.”

Izuku started crying. 

Shouto was alarmed, until Izuku blurted, “No! No these are happy tears, no stop looking at me like that. Shouto!"

It was a pretty good ending to his birthday after all.

March 20XX

It was the last Sunday of spring break and Shouto had been hoping to go visit Izuku at his mother’s house before they all had to come back to the dorms for the next semester. Instead, Aizawa had brought Bakugou home early, and had spent the rest of the day on the phone in his office, yelling at people.

Shouto wasn’t sure exactly what had happened. Bakugou’s parents had petitioned to have custody over him during spring break on a probationary basis as part of their parental re-education by the government. He didn’t know the exact details since Endeavor hadn’t even bothered to try to pursue guardianship after he lost custody, but apparently it involved parenting classes and proving to the government that they really wanted to be Bakugou’s guardians. And since the government really liked to keep biological families together, Bakugou had been shipped off to his parent’s house whether he’d liked it or not.

No one had said anything specific, but from the angry set of Bakugou’s shoulders and the sound of Aizawa’s voice, it had not gone well. Bakugou was sitting in the corner of their shared room, petting Jelly so hard the cat actually sassed him for it a few times. Finally, Shouto couldn’t handle the silence any more.

“So...your mom-”

“Shut the fuck up, Icy Hot, I swear to god,” Bakugou snarled.

“I just meant...I just want to understand.”

“My mom lost custody because she beats the shit out of me every time I open my fucking mouth, what’s so hard to understand about that?”

“I mean...why?”

“Because she fucking wants to, the fuck do you mean why? ”

“It’s not for...training? Or?”

Bakugou looked at him like he was insane. “Why the fuck - are you seriously telling me that bitch told you he was hitting you for training? And you believed it? How fucking stupid are you?”

“I’m supposed to be number one,” Shouto said slowly. “It was only...if I behaved, then…”

Bakugou scoffed. “The only thing getting beaten teaches you is to hit other people. Do you even know how much therapy they’re making me go to? Bitch, this is basic . Get out of my fucking room, I can’t even look at your stupid face any more.”

“This is my room,” Shouto protested. He’d had it first. Just because Aizawa and Mic hadn’t had time to shop for a larger apartment and had asked him if he could please, please share didn’t make it any less his room. 

Bakugou raised his arm like he was going to spark explosions at Shouto, then made a disgusted sound. He picked up Jelly and put her around his shoulders before stomping out of the room. Shinsou slid his headphones off, apparently done pretending he wasn’t eavesdropping.

“He’s got a long way to go with the eloquence of his vocabulary, but he’s not wrong, Shouto.”

Shouto frowned at him.

“You think my foster family was trying to train me when they wired my mouth shut?”

“...no,” Shouto said. They were trying to suppress Shinsou’s quirk, not make it stronger. Shinsou hadn’t been moulded to be a hero since conception. “It’s different.”

“It’s really not,” Shinsou said. “Just because your dad’s number two and not facing consequences doesn’t mean what he did was right. He abused you because he could. Anything he said was just that - words to justify his behavior. He didn’t have to hit you. He did it because he wanted to.”

“...but…”

It wasn’t like Shouto didn’t know his father was abusive. He’d forced Dabi to train with his quirk until it burned him, then tossed him aside like garbage when it became obvious he wasn’t what Endeavor wanted. Dabi had almost killed himself trying to get their father’s attention. Rei had been driven to insanity and institutionalized. His siblings had suffered broken bones for the crime of speaking out of turn. He knew that. He hated what had happened to his family. He hated his father.

But there was a part of him that insisted that surely his training must have happened for a reason. He knew his father was abusive - he knew it. It was easy enough to accept that the general violence he’d experienced was bad. His father beating him so badly he had to be hospitalized was obviously abuse. But that hadn’t been training, that had been about his father’s pathological need to control him.

Surely the actual training had a purpose. Heroes had to start training early if they wanted to survive in the cutthroat industry. You only had to look at UA and other hero-prep high schools to see just how hard young people had to train. And you needed to be at a certain level to pass the UA entrance exam, so it wasn’t like there weren’t other kids who trained hard at a young age. (None of them had started at five, but that just meant that Shouto would have the physical advantage, right?) Except even that wasn’t true, because Shouto wasn’t the top ranked student in his grade. Yaoyorozu had beaten him in the Quirk Apprehension test, several students had come ahead of him in the midterms, Bakugou had won the sports festival (even if Shouto had forfeited), and he had failed his provisional license exam.

So what the hell had it all been for? The isolation, the diet plans, the endless workouts, being thrown to the ground while sparring with his father again and again and again . What was the fucking point ? His quirk was strong, but he was barely even in the top five of his class. Midoriya hadn’t even started seriously training until his last year in middle school, and he won almost half their spars. 

Could it really be that there wasn’t a point? That his father had just been controlling and abusive and nothing he had done had any meaning at all except to hurt Shouto and make himself feel better? Shouto couldn’t process that. He didn’t know if he wanted to process that. He suddenly, viciously missed his brother. Dabi would understand. He’d help Shouto work through his feelings, he’d call their father a fucking bastard, and then they’d go out for froyo and everything would be okay again.

Why wasn’t Dabi here ? Shouto needed him, and he was just...off seeking revenge as a villain, like Shouto didn’t matter any more. Shouto was suddenly incandescently angry. How dare his brother abandon him? How dare he try and say that he was doing this for Shouto’s sake. Didn’t he know how that made Shouto feel? Didn’t Dabi know that made him sound just like their bastard father, always telling Shouto he was hurting him for his own good?  

Fuck that.

“I’m going to Midoriya’s,” Shouto said.

“...are you going to make me tell Aizawa? Because he’s gonna be pissed that you took off.”

“I don’t care,” Shouto said mulishly. He didn’t want to be here any more.

Shinsou studied his expression, and then shrugged and put his headphones back on. “Your funeral.”

xxx

Izuku wasn't home.

Midoriya-san opened the door when he knocked, and she smiled at him. (There were dimples. It was extremely hard to continue to be upset when Izuku’s mother was smiling at him. He tried his best to school his expression into something that was at least not horribly grumpy.)

“Oh, Shouto-kun! I’m sorry, Izuku isn’t here right now. He went to help All Might buy some new clothes, bless him.”

“ Izuku is helping someone shop for clothes?”

Midoriya-san giggled. “He was very determined.”

Shouto hoped whatever store they went to took returns. Between the two of them, they couldn’t fashion their way out of a paper bag. “They should have asked Bakugou.”

“Ah, yes, I did recommend that, but Izuku said that Katsuki was visiting his parents this week and didn’t want to bother him.”

“...yes. It didn’t...he’s back at Aizawa’s,” Shouto said lamely. He wasn’t sure how much detail he should go into if Midoriya-san didn’t already know.

“Already?” Midoriya-san said unhappily. “I wish I could say I was surprised. Mitsuki was my best friend once, you know. I thought...well. I guess people don’t really change all that much, do they? But what am I saying, keeping you here out on the doorstep. Come in, come in! I’ll make some tea!”

Shouto reluctantly came in. He wasn’t sure exactly what he was going to do without Izuku there, but he couldn’t turn down Midoriya-san. She was just...too nice. It was probably for the best that she used her powers for good. If Midoriya-san had ever become a villain, no one would have stood a chance against her. It was the dimples. Or the tea. The tea was really very good.

Once they had drunk the tea and eaten the snacks - home made mochi , Shouto was powerless against Midoriya-san - Izuku’s mother fixed him with a firm stare and smiled at him. Her dimples were on full display. Shouto felt sweat forming on his brow.

“Now, Shouto-kun. What exactly is bothering you? You wanted to talk to Izuku, right? Is there anything I can help with instead?”

“...well, I,” Shouto looked down at the table. Did he really want to talk to Izuku’s mother about this? He’d honestly been more hoping to have a breakdown and cry on his boyfriend’s shoulder, and then maybe kiss some more. He certainly hadn’t pictured this gentle confrontation instead. But Midoriya-san was a very nice maternal figure, and Shouto was in short supply of those. His own mother tried her best, but it wasn’t really the same. When Shouto visited, he was trying to support her . Sometimes though, he needed support of his own. Mic-sensei and Aizawa-sensei were amazing, of course, but they just didn’t have that motherly feeling that Izuku’s mother did. She was soft, and kind, but had a backbone of steel. With her, Shouto could understand the stereotype of mother’s defending their young with everything they had. He just got a feeling like if Midoriya-san faced off against Endeavor, she would be the one who was victorious. 

“This might seem silly to you,” he began cautiously.

“I promise whatever it is, I won’t laugh,” she said sincerely. Shouto believed her.

“I realized today that my father abused me.”

“Oh honey,” she said softly, and offered her hand for Shouto to take. He gripped her hand tightly, careful not to harm her. 

“I knew he wasn’t a good person. It’s just, I thought he was training me. I mean. I know when he put me in the hospital, that wasn’t training. I’m not stupid. It’s just - the rest of the time, I thought everything he did was good. Or. Not good, really, but that it had a point. It had a purpose. I thought he was actually training me to be the number one hero. Like Hawks was trained by the Commission.”

That made Midoriya-san frown.

Shouto wanted to put his face down on the table. He’d heard Hawks and Dabi talk about what he’d gone through at the Commission, and it wasn’t good. Shouto had felt the urge to join Dabi in burning down the Commission headquarters when Hawks had explained what Appearance Management Day meant. Somehow it had never seemed to apply to him. In his own mind, his father always had a reason for hurting him, and that reason was usually Shouto’s fault. He should be stronger, smarter, faster, and his father only wanted him to succeed. Looking back on everything, he felt sick to his stomach.

“I should have noticed sooner,” he said.

“It’s perfectly natural for you to look for a reason you were treated that way,” Midoriya-san said. “A child wants to make their parents happy, it’s normal. Your father was the one who stepped over the line, not you.”

“My whole life was a lie. He wasn’t training me, he was just hurting me to make himself feel better about being a failure,” Shouto said bitterly. “What a fucking asshole. Um. Sorry.”

Midoriya-san was crying again, but she had a vengeful look in her eye. “It’s alright, Shouto-kun. Endeavor is a fucking asshole. Don’t tell Izuku I swore, I have a reputation you know.” And she winked at him.

That made him laugh. There was just something about this tiny woman calling his father an asshole that filled him with joy.

“Thank you for listening,” he said. “I had to talk to someone, and I didn’t want to talk to Mic-sensei or Aizawa-sensei, because they already knew. It feels like everyone knew, except me.”

“You did what you had to do to get through each day while living with that monster,” Midoriya-san said firmly. “Now you’ve gotten some space to heal, and think about what you’ve experienced. It’s always harder to come to a realization about ourselves instead of someone else - self reflection is difficult! Now that you have, you can work towards healing, and that’s a good thing. Have you talked to your therapist about it yet?”

Shouto shook his head.

“Well I’m sure she’d be more than happy to help you as well, but I’m always here if you need someone to talk to. Or you can talk to Izuku, of course! He tries to be discreet, but I know he really enjoys talking to you.”

Shouto wondered if Izuku had told his mother they were dating yet. She probably knew, even if he hadn’t said anything - Midoriya-san was insightful like that.

“Thanks. Talking to you really helped.”

“I’m so glad! Now, would you like to stay for dinner? There’s a cold soba recipe I’ve been meaning to try. You can help me prepare the toppings!”

“I’d like that,” he said. 

“Fantastic! Let me go get my recipe.”

Shouto smiled down at his phone as he sent Aizawa a quick text that he wouldn’t be home for dinner. Today had been a pretty terrible day, but talking with Midoriya-san had helped more than he expected. For the first time in a long time, he thought that maybe things would actually be okay.

Notes:

Spoiler warning: Shouto thinks Dabi dies, but it's a Twice clone. He has a panic attack.

It only took them 23 chapters to kiss, bless. Hopefully you all liked this portrayal of Shouto! I pulled a lot from my own experiences. Am I panromantic? Am I gray ace? Idk man labels are hard. Shouto finds labels and pamphlets of information very comforting, so you know he’s going to consult those later. For now he knows what he likes and what he doesn’t like, and they’re going to learn together and Midoriya will be the most supportive boyfriend ever. ;3

I did not originally plan on having Inko in this chapter. She was very determined to give Shouto some life advice. Also - does she actually have dimples??? SHE DOES NOW.

Let me know what you thought about this chapter! Comments give me life. ;3

Chapter 25

Notes:

Author’s Note: the timeline here is...wibblydy-wobbly. Lol. Please forgive any plot holes xD

Warnings: Dabi’s potty mouth, Dabi’s poor life choices, and a good amount of references to fucking. I don’t think it’s more explicit than anything else so far, and still not more than you’d probably find in an R rated movie but figured I’d mention it just in case. Note the relationship added to the fic with this chapter. If any of these things are something you really want to skip, you can jump to the section that starts with League of Villains Instrumental.

Another reminder about collections - I don't allow my works to be collected, because they can be hidden or deleted by the collector. You can collect a bookmark instead! Bookmark the work, then there should be an option to "Add to Collection." You don't need my permission for this! :D

Another another note - this chapter is un-beta'd for now! Please forgive my commas.

With all that out of the way, on with the show~

Dabi really, truly, hated the League. At first, he hated them because they'd targeted Shouto's class. Then he'd hated them because they wouldn't go away . Despite being less of a League and more a brat, his nanny and a bunch of D-list villains hired by said brat's dad, they'd gotten away. After he'd joined they'd grown on him like some kind of fungus, and he hated them because honestly some of them had good points - hero society was fucked, and heroes like Endeavor could go eat a dick. 

Currently he hated them because they were ruining his plans.

Dabi and Hawks had a great plan. Dabi was supposed to resurrect his villain persona, infiltrate the League, find out who was actually in charge and then Dabi would give Hawks enough information to stage a raid and bring them down in one fell swoop. It was a great plan - Shouto would stay safe, Hawks would get another great arrest on his record and beat Endeavor out for number two, and Dabi would get an official pardon because he was officially undercover as an informant.

That plan went to hell almost immediately. Dabi’s first job for the League was a kidnapping that made national news and pissed off Hawks’ handler. Then All-for-One showed up, clearly the leader of the League, and got himself captured instantly. Of course All Might got the credit, and not Hawks. But then - but then - the League didn’t collapse on itself. Somehow they were still going. Things weren’t going well , but they still hadn’t been arrested, and creepy hand fucker seemed to think he still had a way to rise from the ashes. Which meant that there was someone else controlling everything from the shadows. For fuck’s sake.

And then - and then - Dabi had to get medical care after another battle gone horribly wrong, and that was how the League met Dr. Maruki. Which wouldn’t have been a bad thing on its own, if the universe didn’t hate him so much. Somehow, Natsuo was interning with Dr. Maruki, running the clinic at night when they were less likely to get patients. This meant that when Dabi broke his leg running from the police as they all abandoned yet another shitty squat, Shigaraki went to the clinic and dragged Natsuo back to their hideout to treat him. 

The entire point of this absolute fuckery of an undercover assignment was to keep his family safe, not introduce his quirkless brother to someone who could turn him into a pile of dust before Dabi could even scrape himself up off the floor. But was Natsuo worried about the actual threat to his health? No, the idiot actually flirted with Shigaraki . Dabi had to fight not to gag as they made googly eyes at each other while Natsuo set his leg. It was absolutely disgusting. The only thing that could have been worse was if Natsuo had actually recognized him. 

And then they started dating. The most infamous man in all of Japan, brought down by Dabi’s stupid fucking quirkless brother. Instead of spending his days planning nefarious deeds and decaying his Playstation, Shigiraki spend most of his time fucking Natsuo. It was absolutely unbearable. And Dabi couldn’t even protest without the rest of them thinking he was a homophobe - which he wasn’t , it was just that Shigaraki was fucking his brother . There were things a man didn’t need to know about his brother, and knowing that Natsuo screamed in bed was one of those things.

It had been over a year of this shit, and Dabi hadn’t gotten any closer to actually finishing this fucking assignment than he’d been when he’d joined. They’d ended up merging with the Meta Liberation Army, which Dabi absolutely hated. He hated their fucked up philosophy, he hated how much money they had and how much they absolutely rubbed it in the League member’s faces, and he hated the fact that if anything, his goal of keeping Shouto safe was further out of his grasp than it ever had been. With the MLA backing him up, Shigaraki was a bigger threat than he ever had been. On top of that, he now had the complete and total support of All for One’s pet giant and the creepy fucking doctor that Dabi and Hawks had been unable to track down until it was too late.

At least knew who was making the Nomu now, some creepy fuck named Ujiko Daruma that Shigaraki shouted at on the phone once a month or so. Apparently the doctor also thought that Shigiraki should stop fucking Natsuo all the damn time and ‘reclaim his destiny’ or some bullshit. Even Dabi could have told the guy the harder he was pushed the less likely Shigaraki was to do something. The man absolutely hated being told what to do.

Everyone wanted Shigaraki to destroy the world for them, but Shigaraki was more interested in taking Natsuo out on nice dates than destroying anyone. Natsuo had shown Shigaraki the wonders of skin and hair products, allergy medication, and therapy. Their boss actually looked pretty put together most of the time now - more himbo art student than unhinged serial killer. They’d also bonded over terrible fathers. Shigaraki’s thoughts on All for One took almost a complete one-eighty once Natsuo started mentioning how much he seemed like Endeavor in his parenting style. As a result, the most villainous thing Shigaraki had done lately was embezzle from the MLA.

All this was probably wonderful for Shigaraki’s personal growth path, or whatever, but it was absolutely terrible for Dabi’s use as an undercover agent. Everything was all fucked up; his health was shit, he was back to smoking a pack of cigarettes a day, and he’d actually gotten used to all the various acts of crime that the League regularly committed. He didn’t know where Dabi the criminal ended and Dabi the undercover agent began. He’d killed more people since being undercover than he ever had before. Most of them deserved it, and he wasn’t really sorry for it, and he didn’t know what that said about him. His chance at a pardon was pretty much shot at this point. The Commission was corrupt and unforgiving, and he hadn’t had any solid leads for them in months. At this rate even if he helped bring the doctor in they’d just throw him under the bus and let him hang. 

He’d gotten into this mess to save his brother’s life, and now he was in so deep he didn’t see a way out.

xxx

Dabi, Hawks, Natsuo and Shigaraki were in the main living space of their fancy new hideout, courtesy of the MLA’s stacks of cash, relaxing after what could be called a double date if you really stretched the meaning of the word. The rest of the League had been dragged off to have a spa day by Magne, who insisted they all deserved it. Dabi almost wished he was single, so he could have gone with them instead of sitting on the couch and playing with his phone while his brother cuddled one of the most wanted men in the entire world.

"If only there was a way to stick it to Sensei, Dr. Ujiko, the fucking Hero Commission and those MLA assholes at the same time," Shigaraki grumbled into Natsuo's shoulder. He’d been complaining about his various nemesis all night, and Dabi was sick of it.

Natsuo scratched Shigaraki’s scalp and made a noise of agreement. "And Endeavor."

"Fuck Endeavor," Shigaraki and Dabi said at the same time.

Shigaraki glared at him and then nuzzled back into Natsuo's neck. Gross.

"I'm tired of being a pawn," Shigaraki muttered. "But I'm not going to just turn myself in and roll over for the police," he sneered. 

"You know," Hawks said, perking up.

Dabi elbowed him in the side and Hawks wheezed.

"You sure you want to open your mouth, stupid bird?"

"What, I think fucking over the hero commission, that creepy doctor, the MLA and the world’s two worst dads sounds pretty fucking good, don't you? I mean sure it might not solve all the problems the League wanted to fix but honestly it's better than anything we've done so far. Why not go out with a bang?"

"The hell are you talking about?" Shigaraki said. "We don't have a way to do all that."

"Well…" Hawks said, and then started laying out his plan.

Honestly, Dabi thought Hawks was going to get disintegrated. Shigaraki looked furious at first, especially when Hawks mentioned that they were both double agents. Natsuo’s hand on his arm kept Shigiraki from launching himself across the room and murdering them both, which Dabi was begrudgingly grateful for. Their relationship was still gross.

Hawks proved that his actual Quirk was talking people around to his side, because by the end of his speech, Shigaraki actually looked pleased. He was grinning that maniacal grin he wore right before a lot of people died, except this time they were hopefully all people that Dabi wanted dead. Which, again, probably said a lot about him, but he didn’t give a fuck. If they pulled this off, it would all be over.

“We’ll take them all on. And we’ll fucking win ,” Shigaraki said savagely. “And we’ll change the whole world.”

Dabi couldn’t fucking wait.

xxx

League of Villains Instrumental in Largest Arrest in Japanese History

Today the League of Villains turned on their former allies, coordinating with heroes to launch a massive attack on the Meta Liberation Army that resulted in over twenty thousand arrests. 

Nomu Threat Neutralized!

Citizens will be relieved to know that the creator of the Nomu, Ujiko Daruma (also known as Dr. Kyudai Garaki, a once respected chairman of the board at Jaku Hospital) was arrested today following a tip from an anonymous inside source. Heroes arrived at the scene to find dozens of destroyed Nomu and a bound Ujiko waiting to be arrested. Shigaraki Tomura and the League of Villains are taking credit for the removal of the Nomu threat. See page four for an exclusive interview…

League of Villains Disbanded - Members Elude Police

The League of Villains leader, Shigaraki Tomura, turned himself into the police earlier this month as part of a plea bargain with Japan’s top prosecutor. Dabi was also arrested following the joint operation to take down the MLA and is currently in a maximum security hospital in critical condition. The rest of the League’s members seem to have gone into hiding, and Shigaraki claims to not know where they are. “The agreement was to disband the League, not hand them over to you,” Shigaraki said in an interview where he harshly criticized heroes and police. “If you want to arrest them, find them yourselves.” 

The League’s teleporter, Kurogiri, was broken out of Tartarus almost two months before Shigaraki turned himself in. Police have little hope of finding the rest of the League members. “They could be anywhere,” said a source inside the Musutafu Police Department. The source preferred to remain anonymous.

Leader of League of Villains Takes Plea Deal

Details surrounding Shigiraki’s arrest were released to the public today. In return for disbanding the League of Villains and handing over the Meta Liberation Army, as well as permanently ending the Nomu threat, Shigaraki Tomura made a plea deal with Japan’s lead prosecutor for seven years hard labor. Japanese society is in an uproar. As the infamous ‘Symbol of Fear,’ many expected him to get the death penalty. Shigaraki and his lawyer declined to comment. 

Shigaraki Tomura - Villain or Victim?

The Shigaraki Tomura trial has turned the hero world on its head. What is a hero? What is a villain? If someone is groomed from childhood to murder, is the fault that of the child or the one who groomed him? Bold claims were heard inside the courtroom today, including one outburst in which Shigaraki insisted that the heroes themselves were at least partially responsible for his creation, as they allowed him to be taken in by All For One. Child psychologist and best selling book author Fukunaga Masahiro weighs in on this topic.

Hero Commission Scandal!

Corruption in every rank of the Public Safety Hero Commision has been uncovered during the Shigaraki Tomura Trial. Shigaraki Tomura, born Shimura Tenko, was the grandson of Shimura Nana, a Pro Hero and mentor to All Might. Accusations are flying in the courtroom, claiming the Hero Commission deliberately allowed Shigaraki’s quirk to trigger in the devastating awakening that ended in the deaths of his entire family. It has been inserted that the Hero Commission allowed this in hopes of recruiting Shigaraki to the recently uncovered ‘Hero Acceleration Program” - a program that amounts to one of the most insidious child trafficking schemes in the last hundred and fifty years.

Dabi Revealed As Undercover Agent

The villain Dabi was revealed as an undercover agent, working in concert with the Hawks Hero Agency to infiltrate and dismantle the League of Villains. In light of this information, Dabi has been granted a suspended sentence. Dabi was transferred to a high security intensive care unit in Musutafu General Hospital today, and remains in critical condition. He is the second League member to receive a less harsh punishment than expected. The remaining members are still at large.

Endeavor Arrested In Child Trafficking Scandal

Will the charges stick this time, or will our former number one hero escape the consequences of his actions once more? Read on to see our in-depth analysis of Dabi’s confession video, released on January 11th, 20XX. Many of the allegations made in the video have been entered into the public record as evidence in the upcoming trial. The trials for the former leaders of the Public Safety Hero Commission are ongoing, but it has come to light that countless lawsuits against heroes were swept under the rug and buried - including a suit last year in which Endeavor lost custody of his son, Shouto Todoroki, due to allegations of child abuse. Endeavor has been stripped of his hero ranking and placed under house arrest until his trial.

Endeavor Rendered Quirkless by Rogue League Members

Today a violent assault was committed on the steps in front of Musutafu Supreme Court. Endeavor was being led into the courthouse for the preliminary hearing in his upcoming trial, when suddenly a voice from the crowd shouted out his name. The former hero turned to face his accuser and was shot point blank in the chest by a man who resembled Dabi. The wound was not fatal, but when doctors examined Endeavor, they found he had been shot by a bullet that contained a substance reminiscent of the quirk-destroying drug confiscated from the Shie Hassaikai two years ago. 

When authorities attempted to arrest the shooter, he turned the gun on himself and dissolved into a puddle of goo. Police believe this man was a double created by the villain Twice, still at large. When questioned, Dabi said, “I don’t know how they pulled it off, but it couldn’t have happened to a better guy.” Dabi remains in intensive care, and authorities are investigating the potential new angle on his ties to the League of Villains.

Enji Todoroki, Former #1 Hero, Sentenced to 20 Years in Prison

After months of court battles, the final decision in a landmark case was decided today. The presiding judge came down hard on the former number one, finding him guilty in multiple counts of felony child abuse, human trafficking, and corruption.  

“We must hold our heroes to a higher standard,” the judge said. “No one is above the law, not even the number one hero. I hope that this verdict will send a message to all our citizens that this type of behavior will not be tolerated.”

This was the last in a string of strict judgements that have spelled the end of the Public Safety Hero Commission and the abolishment of hero rankings. As for what it means about the future of our society, it is still too soon to tell.

Notes:

The timeline is a bit different from BNHA here for a few reasons - first of all the timeline of BNHA is like ???? (I think? They’re at the very end of first year when the Paranormal Liberation War happens???????) Also there was no arc at all with Chisaki Kai (which is why Magne is still alive.) If you remember, Hawks arrested them back in chapter 6.

Shigaraki is also dating Natsuo and as mentioned, spends most of his time hanging out with Natsuo and hating Endeavor and honestly accomplishing very little villany. He only fights Gigantomachia and the MLA because he’s forced to, and after that he mostly just has a lot of sex and complains about everyone wanting him to do things for like...almost a year.
Then I figure that it takes a few month’s planning to get everything together for the coordinated attack on the MLA/Nomu. Then at least six month’s worth of trials.

Shigaraki did not get experimented on by the doctor in this AU, because he unlocked his memories during the MLA fight and told Natsuo about them, who was like ‘wow all the red flags, don’t trust that guy.’

Someday I may write a ShigNat side fic that ties into this AU. Idk, we’ll see.

Chapter 26: The End

Notes:

*Drives up two months late with Starbucks* turns out wrangling an ending for this thing took longer than I wanted. But here it is, at long last - an ending! I hope you all like it as much as I do.

Seventeen - July, 20XX

The first thing Shouto heard as he approached Dabi's hospital room was Natsuo yelling. It did not bode well for the happy family reunion that Shouto had been hoping for. Part of him was still angry at his brother for all his stupid choices, but the rest of him really just wanted to hug Dabi and have everything be alright again.

Nothing would erase the last two years, but knowing that his brother really had joined the League to protect him had eased some of the hurt he felt. Their father was finally in jail, and his flames would never burn Shouto or his siblings ever again. The hero commission had been exposed for the corrupt institution they were, and Hawks was finally free. The League was still at large, and that did make Shouto a little uneasy, but all the leaders of the organization were either dead or in jail, and that made things easier to bear.

Shouto opened the door to Dabi's room and the muffled yelling became clear. 

"You want to talk about my poor life choices? You fucked Shigaraki!"

"So fucking what?" Natsuo snarled. "My dick basically saved the world!"

"You’re so fucking disgusting."

"At least I didn't try to blame my poor life choices on Shouto," Natsuo sneered.

"For the love of fuck, get over it already. I told you-"

Shouto cleared his throat awkwardly.

A horrible, cloying silence fell over the room. Natsuo was looking away from him, his face red with anger and embarrassment. Dabi just looked tired. 

No one moved for a second, and then Natsuo snarled under his breath. “Fine. We'll talk about this later.” He stalked out, stepping around Shouto without even glancing at him.

"Don't let the door hit you on the way out," Dabi growled, then coughed wetly into his shoulder.

"...Natsuo is dating Shigaraki? How long has that been going on?"

"Since he became the League's medic. He’s a fucking idiot."

Like Dabi had any room to talk. That wasn't the important thing here, however. "Natsuo joined the League? That didn't come up in any of the trials."

"Because we all kept our damn mouths shut about it, not that he appreciates that. Anyway, he didn't join, he just patched us up a lot. Dr. Maruki will treat anyone, and Natsuo's been interning with him," Dabi said.

"I didn't know that," Shouto admitted.

"Treating the League was one thing, but dating that fuckhead is something else entirely," Dabi growled. "I have absolutely no idea what he sees in Shigaraki."

Shouto didn't either. Shigaraki creeped him out. Even after the trial that showed that they had had eerily similar backgrounds, Shouto still didn't like him. It had been a bit sobering to realize how he could have ended up if he'd taken a path of vengeance after his upbringing, but Shouto didn't sympathize with Shigaraki or any of the League. Maybe if they hadn't attacked Shouto's class of literal children or joined forces with a serial killer like Stain, he'd feel differently. Natsuo was an adult, and if he wanted to date Shigaraki that wasn't really wasn't any of Shouto's business. If they were still together when Shigaraki got out of jail, then he'd deal with that during their terribly awkward family dinners. Until then, he was going to try to move on with his life.

"How are you?" He asked quietly, once Dabi was done coughing.

"Oh you know, I need at least three organ transplants because I used my quirk too much, the usual."

Shouto frowned.

"Don't make that face, I'm fine. Well. I will be fine. Hawks is loaded now that the Commission is gone. Once they let me out of here I'll go see Dr. Maruki and get the transplants done and I'll be as good as new."

Dabi's smile was more like a baring of teeth.

Shouto came and sat down by his brother's bed, and offered his hand. Dabi took it with a sigh, and rubbed his thumb over Shouto's palm. 

"You've got more burn scars now," Shouto said, because he couldn't stop staring at how Dabi's burns now went down his entire throat and disappeared under his shirt. Other than a bit on his face and the ends of his fingers, every piece of skin Shouto could see was covered in burns now.

"The nerves are damaged pretty badly, so it doesn't hurt," Dabi said. 

"That's good," Shouto said, because he didn't know what to say.

"Fuck this is awkward. I don't mean to be a depressing pile of shit, I swear."

"Mom wants to see you," Shouto said abruptly.

"What?"

"I visit mom every Sunday. She wants to see you. The doctor says she's been making good progress lately.  Now that dad's been convicted and she'll never have to see him again they're talking about releasing her. But she wants to see you."

"They're just gonna what, put her out on the street? The bastard controlled all the money, how is she gonna -"

"Fuyumi is taking care of it. Also um. We're all getting a cut of dad's money. Horitsu-san met with his lawyers about the estate since he's going to, you know, be in prison. Money shouldn't be a problem, at least. Fuyumi is getting an apartment; she wants mom to come live with her."

"Oh," Dabi said. "I guess that's why no one's brought up billing then. I figured Hawks was just taking advantage of being number one or something. I guess it's fine if it means the bastard has nothing left when he gets out. ‘Life sentence,’ my ass."

"Well he'll be almost seventy."

"Yeah and he can make my life miserable for another twenty years before he finally fucking croaks. Whatever. Maybe I'll get lucky and he'll die in prison."

Shouto frowned, and gripped Dabi's hand tighter.

Dabi sighed. "Maybe you should come back some other time, Shouto. I don't think I'm very good company right now."

"I've missed you," Shouto said.

"Aren't you mad at me?" Dabi asked helplessly.

"Furious," Shouto agreed, and Dabi's mouth twisted in regret. "I can't believe you went undercover in the League like that. You could have died. You - you killed all those people."

"Yeah," Dabi said. "Yeah, I did. I got - a bit lost near the end, I think. If Natsuo hadn't shown up and brought Shigaraki around to something resembling sanity, I don't know what would have happened."

Shouto resolved to never, ever go undercover. "I know you said you wanted to protect me, but I didn't want -"

"You were on the kill list," Dabi said abruptly. "Because dear old dad was too difficult a target, so they decided you were acceptable collateral. I would have done anything to keep you safe."

"You shouldn't have had to."

"I don't regret it," Dabi said. "I regret some of the things I did, and that I hurt you and Shinsou and Hawks so much, but I don't regret joining the League. Not when it got you off that list."

Shouto didn't bring up the many times he'd been in danger regardless, simply by being in Midoriya's class. He'd worked extensively with his therapist about it since Dabi's actions had hit the news, and he'd come to terms with it all. Part of him would probably always be angry about it, but he understood why his brother thought he hadn't had any other options. He'd forgiven him for it. Mostly he just wanted to focus on the opportunity to be a family again. Not that everything that had happened would magically go away, but he thought they could work through it, together.

"I forgive you," Shouto said, because he hadn't told Dabi that before. Not out loud, anyway.

Dabi made something that sounded suspiciously like a sob, and gripped Shouto’s hand so tightly that Dabi's staples dug into his hand.

"I swear you're the adult one around here. How'd you get so mature huh?"

"Aizawa-sensei is a good teacher."

"He must be, if you turned out ok after everything. I should thank him."

"You should come over for dinner sometime. See where I've been living. I have my own room now, it's nice. I was stuck with Bakugou and Shinsou for a while, and that - did not go well."

"I can imagine. No offense Shouto, but I really doubt Aizawa wants me in his house."

Shouto thought of the expression on Aizawa's face when he mentioned who he was going to visit. "You're probably right."

"Hey, it's ok. He has his reasons for disliking me."

"You'll still come see me though, right?"

"If you want me to, of course. I don't know what I'm doing when I get out of here. Moving in with Hawks maybe. But I'll be there for you, whatever you need."

"Good," Shouto said firmly. "Get better soon. I want you to come to my graduation."

Dabi chuckled. "Yes sir."

Eighteen - March 20XX

With their class' track record, Shouto half expected a villain attack at their graduation. Apparently he needn't have worried, because everything went smoothly. The closest thing to drama that happened was All Might being invited back to give the graduation address after having been forced to step down as a teacher by Izuku's mother in their first year. Aizawa clearly hadn't forgiven the man for his complicity in the Bakugou Muzzle Incident based on his scowl but he didn't make a scene, which was probably the best anyone could hope for. Shouto spotted All Might talking to Bakugou after the ceremony, and based on Bakugou's murderous expression and the tears in his eyes, they were having a long overdue conversation. Shouto hoped it provided the resolution they both needed.

He didn't have much time to worry about it, because all his friends and family were gathering at the after party, which meant that his mother was finally seeing Dabi again for the first time since he'd run away.

“Touya!” she cried, and swept Dabi up in a hug. 

Dabi smiled awkwardly down at her. Shouto didn’t really remember it, but apparently things had been pretty strained between the two of them before Dabi had left home.

“Oh, but you go by Dabi now, don’t you!” Rei exclaimed, and pulled back from the hug to study him.

“Yeah,” Dabi admitted. “Sorry, I know you picked it for me, but that name just doesn’t fit me any more.”

“That’s alright,” Rei said with a smile. “We’re all very different people now, wouldn’t you say? Oh, it’s so good to see you again!”

“Shouto said you were doing a lot better now,” Dabi said. “I’m sorry for -” He stopped when Rei put her finger in front of his lips.

“You were the child, your father and I were the parents. No matter how awful you acted, we were the ones who were responsible. I wasn’t able to be the mother you needed before, and I’m sorry for that. But Shouto is right - I am doing better now. I know it won’t ever be the same, but I’d like to try being a family again, if that’s something that you want.”

Dabi’s eyes looked glassy, like he would cry if he could. “Yeah. I’d like that. Fair warning though, my boyfriend is a complete disaster.”

Hawks, who was idly scrolling through his phone, suddenly snapped to attention. “Hey!”

Rei giggled at his outraged expression, and Shouto couldn’t help but smile at the joy on his mother’s face. 

“Well, Fuyumi and I would love to have you over for dinner regardless,” Rei said. “Does Saturday night work for you?”

“We’ll be there,” Hawks promised, giving a little salute. He elbowed Dabi gently in the side and hissed, “I can’t believe you told your mother I’m a disaster!” “Well, you are,” Dabi drawled, letting Hawks pull him away towards the hors d'oeuvres.

Rei watched them go with laughter in her eyes. "I'm glad he's alright. All of you turned out pretty well without me."

That was a loaded statement. "We missed you," Shouto said, because they had. He'd have to unpack how he felt about it later. At least his therapist wouldn't worry about losing him as a client any time soon.

"I missed you too. It's good that we have this second chance," Rei said softly. Then she seemed to realize where they were and brightened. "Why don't you introduce me to your friends? I'd like to meet all these people you keep telling me about."

"Right, of course. This way."

xxx

Izuku had agreed to meet him at a popular lookout spot on the nearby mountain. It was far enough above the city that you could see the stars, even with all the light pollution. Izuku was already there when he arrived, a blanket spread out on the ground to make for more comfortable viewing and an actual wicker basket full of snacks next to him.

"You really went all out, huh?"

Izuku blushed. "It's just some blankets. Mom made the snacks."

"It's romantic," Shouto said. He'd only ever heard of dates under the stars in books before. He never actually imagined he'd have one in real life.

"Is it stupid?"

"I like it, stop worrying," Shouto said, and kissed Izuku's forehead.

"Ha, right, of course. It's not like it's our first date as adults, no pressure."

"Technically we're not adults until we're twenty."

Izuku chuckled nervously. "Of course, that just means I can freak out again in two years, no problem. And anyways, aren't we adults? We're graduated, we've got jobs we have to start next week, everyone's moving out..."

Izuku seemed upset, and Shouto didn't know why. He sat down next to his boyfriend and put his arm around Izuku's shoulders. Izuku turned his head into Shouto's chest with a miserable sound.

"What's wrong?"

"I don't want to move out!"

"Who says you have to?" Shouto said, bewildered. 

"Everyone! They're all talking about getting apartments together and getting their own space away from their parents and I - and I - I don't want to leave my mom alone!"

Shouto thought about Midoriya-san living all alone in her apartment. She thrived on taking care of others - any time Shouto came over she made him snacks and checked in on him, offering hugs if he wanted. Midoriya-san was a competent high-powered lawyer who could and would fight anyone. She would survive on her own, but Shouto thought it might make her quite sad. Not to mention he wasn't that confident that Izuku could handle life on *his* own. His boyfriend could fight crime like few other heroes could, but in the dorms he would often forget to eat or sleep or do his laundry when he got hyper focused on a research project.

"Why do you have to move out? Unless your mom wants you to leave?"

"No! She'd never kick me out. I think she's as sad as me about leaving. She got this look on her face when I forgot to put the apartment listings away."

"I don't get it. If she wants you to stay and you want to stay, why are you moving out?"

"Because we have to get an apartment together!" Izuku said, gesturing wildly.

This was the first Shouto had heard of them getting an apartment. I'm fact, he hadn't been planning on moving out at all. He had to stay with Aizawa-sensei until he was twenty unless he wanted to contest his custody order, and if he was going to move out he wanted it to be because he was going to live with his brother.

"I... Don't want to get an apartment with you." Shouto said. 

Izuku stared at him, his mouth open in shock.

"No, that came out wrong. It's. I want to get an apartment with you, if I was going to get an apartment with anyone, but I don't want to get an apartment. No, wait, that doesn't make sense. I. I didn't know we - why did you think we were - why is this so hard." This was going so wrong. He just wanted to start this date over.

"You... Don't want to get an apartment with me?"

"I don't want to get an apartment with anyone . There's legal complications, and honestly I've been really looking forward to living with Aizawa-sensei and Mic-sensei without Bakugou and Shinsou around."

"You don't want to get an apartment with me."

"I just... Always thought I'd live with my brother. Ever since I was little, that's all I've ever wanted. It's not that I don't like you! I just... I've always wanted that, and it's never been possible. But when I'm an adult, no one can stop me. It wouldn't really be fair to you if we got a place and then I left to move in with my brother."

"Shouto!" Izuku shouted excitedly, "you don't want to get an apartment with me! I can live with my mom! And you can live with your brother!"

"I'd like that," Shouto said wistfully.

"Me too!" Izuku said brightly. "I always thought we had to move in together, because... That's what people do."

"I don't think we should let other people define us," Shouto said. "I like you very much, and it would probably be nice to live together at some point, but I don't think I'm ready for that."

Izuku let out a sigh of relief. "Me either! Wow, I was so stressed about that. I thought you'd dump me if I wanted to live with my mom. It's, well it's kind of lame right?"

Shouto scowled. "Did Bakugou tell you that?" Izuku and Bakugou's relationship was miles better than it had been, but they still didn't exactly get along. And no matter how much therapy he'd done, no one would ever describe Bakugou as a particularly supportive person. Except perhaps Kirishima, who was an exception and shouldn’t be counted.

"No way, Bakugou would never disrespect my mom. It's just what I feel like people would say, I guess. A stereotype or something. I thought I'd forever be That Quirkless Guy who was forty and still living with his mom."

"If anyone actually says that to you, I'll punch them."

"Shouto!"

"What? Your mom is amazing."

"She'd be so mad if you punched someone for her though."

"True. She could ruin them financially and publicly all on her own."

Izuku grinned. "She would though."

Silence fell between them, and Izuku snuggled closer to him. He leaned on for a kiss, which Izuku returned enthusiastically.

They broke apart after a few minutes, Izuku's face flushed and happy. Shouto still didn't know how he felt about kissing; sometimes he enjoyed it, and sometimes it was kind of gross. Making Izuku happy made him happy, and that was good enough for now.

"Would it be rude if I asked about the snacks now? I haven't eaten your mom's cooking in a week. I'm suffering withdrawals."

Izuku snickered and reached for the basket. "Well we wouldn't want you to suffer..."

Everything was going to be ok.

Twenty - Jan 12, 20XX

“Are you sure you’ve got everything?” Yamada-sensei asked him. “You don’t have to leave today, you know. It’s totally fine if you want to stay with us for another couple days. A week even. Longer, if you really feel like you need to! It’s no trouble at all, you know! Eri’s going to miss you. Promise you’ll visit? Every weekend probably isn’t too often, is it? We’ll keep your room available; I know I said I was going to make it into a music studio but I was just joking, you know I-”

“Hizashi.”

“Ah, ha...I’m babbling, aren’t I?”

“Yes.”

Yamada-sensei wiped away tears, and Shouto tried not to feel awkward. “You’ll be fine, I know you will,” said the man who had become something like a father to him. “Give me a hug before you go?”

“Of course,” Shouto agreed, and swept Yamada-sensei up in a hug, just the way the man liked it. Shouto was almost as tall and broad as Natsuo now, and Yamada-sensei felt tiny in his arms. It was a little bittersweet, but Yamada-sensei was right. He was going to be fine.

Aizawa-sensei was looking at him softly, and Shouto couldn't help but say, "you want a hug too?" 

"... Just this once," Aizawa-sensei agreed, and Shouto stood there shocked while his sensei gave him a brief, but warm hug.

"You're always welcome here," Aizawa-sensei said. "No matter what."

Shouto felt tears welling up and scrubbed his eyes quickly with a sleeve. He hadn't expected leaving to be this difficult. "Thanks. I'll keep in touch."

"You'd better," Bakugou drawled from where he stood leaning against the front door. "I don't want to have to hear about you from Midoriya."

"Yeah, he's terrible at giving us the good gossip," Shinsou piped in. 

"...We have a group chat," Shouto said. He didn't offer to hug either of them, because they were both assholes.

"You'll visit lots, right Shouto-nii?" Eri asked, her eyes pleading. She'd grown up so fast - she was already in elementary school, and had everyone in the family absolutely wrapped around her finger.

"Of course I will," Shouto said, crouching down so she could hug him tightly around the neck. "I can come pick you up after school sometimes, if I don't have a shift."

Japan's hero system was still adjusting to the abolition of the ranking system. As a result, Shouto didn't have to be on call at all hours, and could generally schedule his shift with the other interns at Hawks' agency. Still, he was at the bottom in terms of seniority, so he generally ended up working the shifts no one else wanted. That meant lots of late night and early morning shifts, which were hell on his sleep schedule, but should allow him to see Eri after school.

"I'll miss you," Eri said, as he stood back up and adjusted the bag on his shoulder. Yamada-sensei was sniffling, about to burst into tears any moment. 

Bakugou rolled his eyes. "Get the hell out of here already."

"See you around asshole," Shouto said fondly.

"Language!" Aizawa-sensei snapped, which made Shinsou snicker and Bakugou scowl.

He was going to miss this.

xxx

"I'm home," Shouto called out softly. He took off his shoes and put them next to Dabi's discarded combat boots and hung his bag by the door.

Dabi and Hawks were there, waiting for him. Dabi opened his arms in invitation, and Shouto hugged him, leaning down and tucking his head up under Dabi's like he was still a child. His brother was warm and smelled like cigarettes (even though he'd promised their mother he'd work on quitting.) This was everything he'd ever wanted. 

Part of him mourned for the childhood he'd never had where he lived with his brother in peace and neither of them had gotten involved in a war on hero society. Maybe in another life they all could have had a peaceful family life without Endeavor standing over them like a funeral pyre. Shouto would have liked that life, but even among all their suffering, there was good in this life too.

Shouto would probably always have regrets about what could have been, but he tried to focus on the positive things. He'd reconnected with his mother and his siblings, and Yamada-sensei and Aizawa-sensei had taken good care of him. He'd gained a little sister in Eri, and two more begrudging siblings in Shinsou and Bakugou. It might not have been a perfect life, but it was his. He'd finally made it to this point, and he wouldn't give this up for the world.

Dabi whispered softly, "welcome home."

He was here to stay.

Notes:

And they all lived happily ever after. ;3

I can't believe I actually finished something. That hasn't happened since...2016 probably. Everyone's comments, kudos and bookmarks have really made my day. I definitely couldn't have finished this without all of you. :3 Thanks for making my time in this fandom fun!

I don’t know if I”ll write more in this fandom, though I’ve started half a dozen fics for it that I might go back to. I’m currently planning on writing an MZDS fic for NaNo (please, if anyone wants to help me with that hit me up on tumblr, the names and titles are killing me.) After that I think I’m going to take a break from writing and work on other projects. Still! This has been a lot of fun, and I can’t believe it’s actually finished.

Let me know what you thought, I'd love to hear it!

Series this work belongs to:

• Part 2 of Not Quite As Much Of A Jerk As You Could Have Been