Chapter Text
Shouto’s life had been decided for him, long before he had opened his eyes for the first time or said his first words.
He had rebelled against it, for a short little while—sometime not too long after his mom had been taken from him and his memories of her had distorted in his mind and then faded altogether. He had refused his father’s training sessions even though he got beat for it, he’d stubbornly insisted that he wouldn’t be a hero, he’d rather be anything but a hero. But his father wouldn’t have that, and when the beatings were transferred to Shouto’s siblings instead, he caved. He would be a hero, but he would be a good one. He wouldn’t be like Endeavour.
Endeavour was the Flame Hero, so Shouto would be ice. Cold and collected, focused to a point unlike his father’s wanton flames. He didn’t need the flames. He didn’t want them. His mother’s ice was enough to make a hero. He got into UA with just his mother’s ice, so obviously, he was right.
Classes at UA required laser focus, but Shouto wasn’t used to anything less. He studied his classmates in combat training, kept records in his head of each of their names, each of their Quirks, each of their personalities. It wasn’t difficult to spot those of them that were really and truly competition. There was Yaoyorozu, who occupied the seat next to his in class. She was polite and clever, with a powerful Quirk that had nearly infinite applications. He was glad that he’d given his class representative vote to her instead of taking it for himself—his father would have liked for Shouto to be a Class Representative, so Shouto, on principle, wouldn’t do it. There was Iida, too, who was from a hero family like him. Speed was his forte, but he was level-headed and driven, too, which was enough to make him competition. And lastly, probably the strongest of them all, was Bakugou. Bakugou was mostly quiet, and intense, but too many probing questions from one of their classmates resulted in explosions of rage until said classmates learned not to ask. And Bakugou’s Quirk was strong, just as strong as Shouto’s ice. And also, if his landslide victory in combat training at the beginning of the year was anything to go by, which it was, Bakugou had a head for strategy and application unlike anyone else.
Shouto knew the look in Bakugou’s eyes, anyway. It was the same look that was in his own. Whatever Bakugou’s past was, he had something to prove to somebody too. The two of them, they were here to win.
So, when the Sports Festival came around, and Endeavour was watching, Shouto threw down the gauntlet at Bakugou’s feet. He was the strongest, other than Shouto himself, so Shouto would take him down. With just the ice. And then he’d know for sure that Endeavour’s way was wrong, and Shouto had carved the correct path for himself.
Bakugou had looked at him, that explosive light in his eyes sharpening, and he’d snarled. “Have it your way, Half ‘n’ Half. It’ll be me on that first-place podium, though, and it’ll be you eating my ass.”
Shouto had only nodded and said, “Fine.” He wanted a challenge, anyway. And like he’d already told the rest of the class, he wasn’t there to make friends.
Bakugou won the obstacle race, by a hair. Shouto won the cavalry battle, by a hair. They went into the tournament one-for-one with their victories, and when they made their way up the bracket to face off against each other in the final, Shouto’s ice was not enough, and Bakugou stood on the first-place podium. Shouto did not eat his ass, though.
Bakugou had accepted the medal, as stiff as a board, when All Might offered it to him. As soon as he thought the cameras were off of him, though, he ripped it off his neck and threw it to the ground, where it would lay forever, probably.
After everyone else left he shoved Shouto against a wall in an empty hall. “Why didn’t you use your Quirk?”
Shouto cocked an eyebrow. He didn't see much point in lying, so... “It’s not mine.”
“The fuck you mean?”
“The fire Quirk. It’s not mine. It’s just a useless gift from my shitty old man.”
Bakugou shoved him into the wall again, as if to prove a point. “That fucking victory isn’t mine, because of you. You held back.”
Shouto blinked. “Do you think the victory would have been mine if I let him have a part in it? I’d rather lose without using my father’s power than win with it.” He shoved Bakugou off, making his way down the hall. “You won, anyway, whether you want that particular victory or not. You’re stuck with it.”
“Tch,” Bakugou said, but he did not follow.
Shouto was eating lunch alone on their first day back to school after the Sports Festival when a tray plunked down unexpectedly in front of Shouto’s, and then Bakugou plunked down unexpectedly behind it. Shouto was used to eating in his lonely little corner, at this point. He hadn’t expected anyone to be brave enough to broach it.
“Oh?” he said, cocking his eyebrow at his explosive classmate.
“Shut up,” Bakugou growled. “Listen. You’ve obviously got some emotional baggage about your past with the Number Two hero as your father. That means you’re not gonna ask me stupid fucking questions like these other idiots, because there’s shit you don’t want to be asked, either. So this arrangement will be beneficial for both of us.”
Shouto hummed thoughtfully. He had a point. “No, I won’t ask questions. I suppose you won’t ask me questions either?”
“Like I fucking care enough to ask you questions about jack shit.”
“I’ll take that as a yes.” Shouto said, returning to his soba. Bakugou didn’t respond, other than eating his own lunch in silence across from him.
They always ate together after that. And if anyone had been brave enough to climb the walls of ice Shouto erected around his heart before, they certainly weren’t brave enough with Bakugou there, guarding his secrets with his rage.
When Bakugou was taken from their summer camp by the League of Villains, Shouto went along with Kirishima and Yaoyorozu to rescue him. He wasn’t friends with Bakugou, but he was allies with him, and put simply, he just wanted to help. Iida was with them too, although he mostly only seemed to come because he felt obligated to keep them out of trouble.
It was Shouto’s ice, plus Iida’s speed, plus Kirishima’s strength and Yaoyorozu’s support that made it possible for them to rescue Bakugou. They watched the Symbol of Peace die on television screens in Kamino Ward. Oh, All Might was still alive, but his work as a hero was over.
Huh, Shouto thought, as All Might pointed a skeletal finger at the screen and said, “You’re next.” I guess this means I have no reason to surpass him now.
He wasn’t stupid enough to think that would mean his father would leave him alone, though.
On the night they moved into the dorms, Bakugou laid flat on his back on Shouto’s floor, a scowl on his face. His own room was unsafe, he explained, because the rest of the class came to his door to pound on it and ask him if he was okay. But nobody was brave enough to knock on Shouto’s door on a regular night, and they definitely weren’t brave enough to knock now that Bakugou was holed up in here too.
Not that Shouto minded his presence, anyway. Sharing sullen silences with Bakugou was a staple of their alliance, so it’s not like Bakugou’s presence was affecting him.
Maybe we really are friends. How depressing.
Shouto shook the thought from his head, focusing back on the bits of summer homework he still needed to do.
“I bullied another kid so much he jumped off the roof of our middle school,” Bakugou said, so suddenly that Shouto actually paused to look at him.
Shouto considered. There wasn’t really a good way to respond to a statement like that. That’s pretty horrible of you. Maybe you shouldn’t have done that. Why the hell would you care enough about another person to actually actively bully them? He decided on, “That’s pretty fucked up.”
“I know,” Bakugou said, voice uncharacteristically quiet. “I bullied him enough that he attempted suicide, I had to sit through a well-justified live recruitment ad for villainy, and then I caused the Symbol of Peace to die. I don’t know—” He took a sharp breath. “Nevermind.”
Shouto hummed. “You were going to say you don’t know why you’re even trying to be a hero, weren’t you?”
There was a long moment of silence, followed by a simple, “Yeah.”
“I think the same thing about myself a lot, too, you know,” Shouto said, leaning back against his desk and studying his classmate sprawled on the floor. “You know what Quirk marriages are, right?”
Bakugou snorted. “Let me guess. Oh great Endeavour has an overheating problem, so he bought some ice bitch to make babies with until one of them got both Quirks, like you.”
Shouto delivered a swift and forceful kick to his ribs. He grunted, but didn’t protest. “Don’t call my mother a bitch. But yes. At the end of the day, I’m just some tool someone manufactured to be the ultimate hero. Then I was just plopped down here, in this hero course, all while barely expending any of my own effort. Everyone here had to work hard to get here, and continue working hard just to move forward. On the other hand, for the longest time, I was just…going through the motions.”
“The fuck you want to be then, if not a hero?”
“I do want to be a hero,” Shouto said, shrugging as he turned back around. “At least, now I know I do. I want to—I want to do better, than him. I want to actually help people. Save lives. Give people reassurance that everything is going to be okay.”
A pause. “You’re a fucking softie.”
Shouto’s lips quirked up into a sad imitation of a smile as he continued working on his English essay. “I know. And…I’m guessing that this person, the person you bullied…I’m guessing they survived. Otherwise, you wouldn’t be here.”
“He decided not to press charges,” Bakugou admitted, his tone of voice bizarre. Shouto wasn’t the best at reading emotions, and whatever this one was, it was unfamiliar to his admittedly limited understanding. “He probably should’ve.”
“No,” Shouto said, erasing a word and then writing in a new one. “I always had this feeling you had something to prove to someone, so now that I know, I guess it was him?” Bakugou didn’t correct him, so he assumed he was right. “I think the fact that you’ve actually got something on the line makes you better at this sort of thing, I guess. You’re not trying to be a hero just because it seems cool or pays well or whatever. You need to be a hero, because you weren’t one when it mattered most.”
Bakugou was silent for so long that Shouto almost considered speaking again. Almost. But then, Bakugou said, “You should use your left side.”
Shouto rolled his eyes. “What’s with you and saying random shit tonight?”
“You’re holding yourself back. I know you have personal reasons, or whatever bullshit. But it’s pretty fucking belittling, too.”
Shouto’s mouth quirked in that sad imitation of a smile again. “Belittling? That’s rich, coming from the guy that calls everyone extras.”
“Shut the fuck up, you know what I meant. It’s like you’re looking down on the rest of us, since you’re only skating by on fifty percent of your power while the rest of us have to go a full one-hundred.”
“I’ll use my bastard father’s Quirk in battle the day you grow a pair and apologize to the kid you convinced to jump off a roof,” Shouto said with a snort.
Bakugou was silent for another long moment. “I tried, actually.”
“Really? Now that’s shocking. The great Bakugou Katsuki, descending from on high to actually apologize to a mere commoner.”
“Do you want the story or not, you absolute piece of shit?”
“Calling me an absolute piece of shit was unnecessary, but do tell.”
“Deku and I were childhood friends, but he didn’t have a—”
“I’m sorry, who? Did you say Deku?”
“His name is Izuku.”
“Oh, I see,” Shouto said. “The kanji. I’m guessing that’s one of your…delightful…nicknames, then. Calling someone useless is a bit harsh, though.”
A pause. “It was because he was Quirkless.”
Oh. Oh. “That’s why you bullied him too, huh?”
“He wanted to be a hero, even though he…” Bakugou sighed. “It pissed me off. I didn’t like him, and no matter how many times I tried to shake him as we grew up, he just stayed around anyway. I used to think he was pitying me, but now, I don’t know why the fuck I’d think that. I mean, he was the one that was Quirkless.”
“Your prejudices are all over the place,” Shouto said, rolling his eyes. “Is it bad to be Quirkless or not? Just make up your damn mind.”
“I was prejudiced against it,” Bakugou said, voice snapping with frustration. “See? Fine, I admit it. I was prejudiced against him just because he didn’t have a Quirk, and I thought that made him lesser. That's why it made me even angrier, when I thought he was pitying me.”
“People are still people, Bakugou,” Shouto said, turning to face him again now. “You can’t just—”
“I fucking know!” Bakugou sat up with the force of his rage. “I get it, okay? I was wrong. I was fucking wrong. Anyway, this one day, I found out he was going to try to get into the heroics department here and I snapped and I blew up his stupid notebook and told him to jump off the roof and he actually did it. And so, after he was released from the hospital I went to his house—oh, our moms were friends, by the way, that’s how I knew where he lived—and his mom opened the door and I said I wanted to apologize and she told me to go fuck myself for hurting her kid. But in a nice mom way of course. And you know what? She was fucking right. So there.”
Shouto frowned as he reached the end of the story. “What’s the nice mom way of telling someone to go fuck themself?”
“Katsuki-chan, you have some nerve showing up here after everything you’ve done. To think you came to ask my son for forgiveness! He doesn’t want to see you right now. You should count your lucky stars he’s a good boy and doesn’t want to cause you any trouble.”
Shouto snorted at the high-pitched imitation. “She had a point, you know. You can’t bully someone until they jump off a roof and then just waltz into that same person’s home after they get out of the hospital.”
Bakugou paused again, as if weighing his words. “I got a text from him afterwards. After she sent me away.”
“I’m surprised he even had your number, since you were probably like the human embodiment of his worst nightmare. Example: I don’t have my father’s number. Well, more accurately, I have it blocked and not saved in my contacts.”
“Daddy issues, much?” It was Bakugou’s turn to roll his eyes. “He said, I heard you talking to my mom outside. You got your wish. I won’t be a hero. I guess you’re going to UA still though…make it count, I guess.”
“No offense, but there’s no way he said that. No one is that nice to someone that told them to jump off a building.”
Bakugou whipped his phone out of his pocket, scrolled through his messages, opened one, and then shoved the phone under Shouto’s nose. Sure enough, the three messages there were pretty much word for word what Bakugou said, even though each sentence was a new message.
“You never responded,” Shouto commented.
Bakugou sighed, putting the phone back in his pocket. “I responded. I got into UA.”
“Did you tell him that, though?”
“Do I have to?” When Shouto blinked at him blankly, he gestured to the silver medal hanging on Shouto’s wall. He’d kept it and displayed it, just to spite his father. “Oh, the Sports Festival. He might not have watched, though.”
“He watched. He’s a nerd.”
“Being a nerd doesn’t necessarily equate watching the Sports Festival.”
“He was a Quirk nerd. He watched it.”
Shouto frowned, tempted to ask what the hell a Quirk nerd was, but then decided to let that one go. “Do you ever wonder what he’s doing now?”
He didn’t know what exactly prompted him to ask the question. Maybe it was because he wondered what his mom did, locked up and alone in a hospital room somewhere. Or maybe it was because he wondered what Natsuo did, at college, or what Fuyumi did, holed up in a house with no other company besides Endeavour. He wondered about the ghosts in his past. Maybe Bakugou wondered too.
“Probably physical therapy,” Bakugou said, voice quiet, and a little broken. “It was pretty…bad. I found him, you know.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah,” Bakugou said, standing. “Well, that’s enough mushy shit for one night. If somebody else knocks on my door, I’ll just blow them up until they get the idea. Though, knowing them, they’ll just send that rock-headed idiot.”
“Kirishima?”
“Yeah, him.”
“Well, good luck.”
“Whatever.” Bakugou opened the door, then slammed it behind him. Frankly, Shouto didn’t know what his vendetta against doors was about, and he was a little afraid to ask.
Left alone in the silence of his room, Shouto returned to his work, shaking all thoughts he had about the conversation out of his mind as soon as they came up.