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Shoto sat down at a park bench, looking out over the green space in front of him. He breathed in the fresh air. This scene wasn’t new to him, he could still remember a vague picture of him just existing with his siblings. Before his quirk was fully certain.
It felt as if he was back in the past.
“Well if it isn’t the masterpiece.”
Shoto looked up and found a familiar? scarred face staring back at him,
“I don’t know who you are. Do you like cold soba?”
He remembered Midoriya’s words about being more friendly and decided to invite this person to share his favourite food with him. That was being friendly wasn’t it?
The person looked a bit shocked.
“Huh, so you don’t like cold soba? That’s sad.”
“What are you doing here, wouldn’t you be too busy training?”
“I don’t see how you would know much about me?” Shoto asked, “Also you didn’t answer my question.”
Shoto was oblivious to the fact that the stranger was trying to change the topic.
“Why would it matter what my favourite food is, it doesn’t change much especially since our lives are so beneath the likes of you.”
“I’m sitting down and you’re standing up, how would your life be beneath mine,” Todoroki asked with dotted eyes. (Anime emote time)
Seeing that the stranger was silent, Shoto tried to remember the question the stranger asked before.
Upon remembering it, he answered it, (see Midoriya, he could interact with people)
“I am here because I decided I wanted to go to this place.”
The stranger just looked at Shoto with a deadpan expression, or as deadpan as they could make it with half of their face burned and something told Shoto that they didn’t quite believe him. And it became awkward.
They both sat there for a moment in that silence, and Shoto wondered if he was really bad at interacting with people.
Shoto eyed the stranger’s hands to see if anything had happened to them in the time they had interacted with Shoto, and Shoto breathed a sigh of relief when he found they were still mostly intact.
“Why are you here?” Shoto asked the stranger, copying their original question because he found that he had no better ones. And because he wanted to get to know them. Mostly because he wanted to break the silence. Yes, he, introverted and antisocial Todoroki Shoto wanted to break the silence.
The stranger looked wistful, “This place just… brings back some memories of a time long ago,” they said, voice raspy.
Shoto just nodded. He could understand that. He hunched down a bit, thinking.
He saw glimpses of white hair, a female, and a male voice, he tried to reach for the memories but it was overcast by the shadowed face of his father.
Shoto didn’t truly want to go to this park, he didn’t know why he was here, but he was still here. He should’ve moved on by now, he was literally living in Heights Alliance at school.
So why was he still sitting in this same place, this same place that he could barely remember.
It was the start of the year when he had moved in, and he was still wallowing in the past, even though it had been weeks.
He was pathetic and he was spiralling.
_________________
Dabi had walked up to Shoto with the intention of getting into his head and making him doubt himself.
Except why was he in this place, the place where he and Natsuo had hung out, the place Endeavour sent them too when he wanted Shoto to train with no distractions.
He didn’t see why the masterpiece would be here.
The only memories Shoto would have of this place would likely have been long forgotten by this point in time.
Yet as he talked with his brother he found himself wondering exactly how important those memories were to his younger brother, how impactful such a simple thing must have been to a kid.
And for the first time Dabi was starting to wonder exactly how privileged this kid, this brother of his, would have actually been growing up under their father’s roof.
So he replied to his brother’s (very unoriginal) question. (He pointedly ignored the first question, his favourite food was none of his little brother’s business.)
He didn’t expect his brother to look so lost as he hunched down. Dabi was about to make a remark, likely a snide one to make up for this pointless talk but the way his brother’s expression had twisted made Dabi stop.
He didn’t realise he still had big brother instincts but obviously they were buried down somewhere because why did he care so much.
His brother was panicking and dabi was lost.
He didn’t know how to deal with this, how could he? He had no memories of anybody comforting him and his time with the league didn’t help matters.
So he did the only thing he could remember anyone doing for him.
He awkwardly patted his brother on the back, trying to ground them.
Dabi didn’t say it was a good tactic, just a tactic.
So he stayed there, in a place with so many memories tied to it, of a time where he was (mostly) carefree behind a boy who was the reason he left in the first place.
Dabi sat down next to Shoto, mainly because his arm was uncomfortable before, but also because maybe they (his mother and his siblings) weren’t the one he needed to get revenge on, maybe the real problem was Endeavour all along. Endeavour.
Dabi’s mind was elsewhere. He could still vaguely register his brother’s harsh and ragged breaths, but it felt as if they were far away.
He could still get his revenge, but he didn’t have to drag his siblings and mother into this mess as well.
Endeavour could suffer alone.
So if Shoto finally calmed down and looked up to see Dabi still there patting his back?
No he didn’t. He was still a villain after all.