Chapter 19: Constellation
By evening, Midoriya was released from the infirmary. Recovery Girl wanted to keep him for observation, but given that he would be close by and monitored, she let him out after aggressively taking his temperature and giving him fever-reducers.
Shoto's report came back with the best results they could have hoped for. His quirk factor had sustained some damage but was intact. Recovery Girl expected he would make a full recovery by the time school started up again.
Shoto was waiting outside the green-haired boy's room when he was discharged. Midoriya looked at him a little curiously, and Shoto looked back with his face in its typical controlled expression.
Emotions had been high during their match and the events leading up to it. Until then, however, he and Midoriya may as well have been strangers. What their relationship was now, Shoto was unsure. He'd never had a use for friends, but now he wondered if perhaps he had needed them all along. Was Midoriya a friend? He didn't know enough about friendship to make the call.
They'd been separate for so long, only to suddenly find themselves in each other's orbit, mutually bound by secrets they held close to their chests. Shoto was out of his depth in completely new waters.
Shoto slipped off the bed he'd been sitting on and looked at Midoriya to see where they were supposed to go next.
"Nedzu-sensei talked to you, right?" Midoriya asked.
Shoto nodded. After spending quite a long time with Midoriya, the principal had paid Shoto a visit of his own.
Getting him under UA's protection was more complicated than just declaring him a ward. Unlike Midoriya, he had living parents, and his father was the number two hero. UA might have been able to declare emergency guardianship, but that would only hold for a short while. In the meantime, they had to build an airtight case against Todoroki Enji.
But the principal had promised that Endeavour would never get him back. Shoto had been a little intimidated by the gleam in the rodent's eyes. It was beginning to sink in—he really wasn't going back. He never had to go back.
He followed Midoriya out into the hallway, where Midoriya opened a panel in the wall. The other boy blushed slightly. "My room is this way," he explained as he crawled in.
Shoto tightened the straps on his bag and followed Midoriya in. He hadn't even considered that UA might have been hiding something like this, but then again, he been very wrong in his assumptions about UA.
He'd assumed that because it was the school his father wanted him to go to that it would uphold the same values, and perhaps that was correct to some extent. UA was a hero school, and the whole hero industry was poisoned with the same beliefs that Endeavour operated on, but the heroes who worked there were the exceptions to the corruption. They were working under a system that they disagreed with, but they were doing good work.
Shoto had been wrong about Midoriya, he was more than willing to admit that now, and that meant he was also wrong about UA.
"If you ever get lost," Midoriya interrupted his thoughts, "you can follow the stars back to my room." He pointed to the pale gray stars barely visible on the wall of the tunnel. "Nedzu-sensei put them in for the teachers, in case they need to get to my room."
"The teachers don't use the tunnels?" Shoto wondered out loud.
"Mn, too cramped. I like them, though."
It was a little cramped, Shoto thought, running his fingers along the wood paneling. For an adult, it would be even tighter. But for Midoriya…
They went down a ladder, and the material of the tunnels switched from the ever-changing variety of the main building to a smooth black. Midoriya walked down the padded floor, carefree in the dim lighting. He looked totally relaxed. There was a soft smile on his face. Shoto wondered if that was what it felt like to come home.
Midoriya stopped in front of a large door that had some kind of bolt on it and punched in a code. The door swung open and Midoriya slipped inside.
Shoto made to follow him but stopped in the doorway.
The room was painted in dark colors, but the ceiling was filled with lights like stars. One wall was a corkboard covered in a mess of notes and string. A blanket-covered beanbag sat in one corner opposite a TV. There were hero posters on the walls along with diagrams and blueprints. Cozy and messy, it looked like it had been thoroughly lived in.
Mentally, Shoto compared it to his own bedroom. Midoriya's won on every count.
"You can come in," Midoriya said. He had kicked off his shoes and was sitting crisscross on his bed. "You won't be sleeping in here—Nedzu-sensei's orders—but you can come hang out whenever you want."
Shoto stepped into the room. "You say that like you wanted to have a—" what was it called?—"a sleepover."
Midoriya nodded earnestly. "I did. I haven't had one in ages. But, um," he held up his wrists with the quirk suppressing cuffs on them, "I take these off at night. We still don't know what prolonged exposure to my quirk could do to someone, and I'd rather not test it out on you."
"You really can't control it?" It seemed strange to Shoto, who'd been able to control his quirk almost as long as he could remember. Even the fire side.
Midoriya shook his head. "It's why I have the suppressors in the first place."
The list of questions that Shoto had about Midoriya was only growing. Back when he thought that UA was just trying to hide Midoriya's quirk, the suppressors made sense, but the real explanation was much less straight forward.
"So, what do you want to do?" Midoriya asked. It's not that late, and I've been unconscious long enough today that I don't want to go to bed just yet."
"I don't know," Shoto said. What did people do at sleepovers anyways?
"Well, we should probably get you some stuff." Midoriya slid off his bed and walked over to some cabinets that were built into the wall. "You probably didn't bring everything you needed for an extended stay."
Shoto didn't. The bag at his feet was very light, containing only a few things from his locker. He was still wearing his uniform, since he hadn't brought a change of clothes with him.
He followed Midoriya over to the cabinets and was met with a face full of bath towel. When he took it, Midoriya began piling other stuff on top of it—a toothbrush, a t-shirt with a character from a tv show that Shoto had never seen on it, pajama pants, soap, slippers.
"I think that's it," the other boy said at last. "Do you think you need anything else?"
"This should suffice," Shoto said, looking down at the mountain of stuff he held in his arms.
"Right." Midoriya exhaled. "Did you get a shower?"
Shoto shook his head, and Midoriya grimaced. The shorter boy pushed him toward the bathroom.
"Clean up, then. I'll get us some food, and then we can watch something. What do you like?"
"Soba, cold," Shoto said, allowing himself to be pushed into the bathroom. There was something pleasant about the way Midoriya was making sure he had everything he needed.
"Okay. Well, shower. Change. I'll come back with food." Midoriya closed the door in his face.
Fifteen minutes later, his hair freshly damp and smelling like vanilla coconut, Shoto stepped out of the bathroom. The t-shirt Midoriya had given him must have been leagues too big on the smaller boy because it was baggy even on Shoto. He could imagine Midoriya absolutely swimming in the fabric of it. The pajama pants—pink and covered in cartoon kittens—fit better.
He ran his fingers over the pattern of the fabric. He'd never worn something so silly. All his clothes ever since he was a child were picked to make sure he was representing the family name well. Even his gym clothes were color coordinated and well-cut. He couldn't imagine wearing something like this in Endeavour's house.
He could imagine how Endeavour would react. His blue eyes would blaze, and the flaming beard on his face would flare up. The air would smell like smoke. The tension could have been cut with a knife. Then there would be the interrogation, the reminder of what family they belonged to, the shame.
"Todoroki?"
Shoto blinked. Midoriya was sitting on the beanbag, a remote in his hand, looking at him in confusion. "Are you all right? I was calling you, but you didn't seem to hear."
"I'm fine," Shoto reassured him. He padded over and sat on one of the pillows scattered around the beanbag.
"All right," Midoriya said, but he was still staring at Shoto. "If there's anything I can do…" he trailed off.
"Could you," Shoto hesitated. He wasn't sure if this was something he wasn't supposed to do. Was it right to ask this of Midoriya when they'd just barely made this connection? "Could you call me Shoto? Not Todoroki," he clarified. "You could call me something else, too. I don't care. Just, not Todoroki."
"Of course," Midoriya said softly. "Then, you can call me Izuku."
"Izuku," Shoto tested the name out. It suited the other boy.
Izuku passed him his Soba and some bags of crunchy snacks then settled down in his beanbag, cocooning himself in a blanket. "I wasn't sure what you like to watch, so I didn't start anything," he said. "Do you have a favorite show or movie?"
"I've never seen any," Shoto admitted. Endeavour hadn't been fond of frivolous entertainment. He was pretty sure he'd seen bits and pieces of movies and shows on TV before, but he'd never sat down and watched on in full. Even when he had more time to himself, he hadn't been particularly interested, but Izuku was looking at him with wide incredulous eyes.
"We are going to fix that," the other boy said.
They spent the next few hours bingeing one of Izuku's favorite shows. It was a pre-quirk show about ninjas with magical powers. Shoto was quickly engrossed, asking questions every few minutes. Izuku was more than happy to answer.
He wasn't quite sure how, but at some point, he ended up half sprawled out on the beanbag, eyes still locked on the screen. The ninjas were fighting each other for their big test, kind of like the tournament round of the sports festival.
"You know who my favorite character is?" Izuku asked sleepily.
"Who?" Shoto said, just as sleepily.
"Mm, Lee," Izuku said.
"Is it because he wears so much green?"
Izuku wrinkled up his nose. "No, I like how strong he is."
In a world with fantastic powers, Izuku's favorite character was the one who was unable to use those powers. Come to think of it, he had said something…
"You're kind of like Gaara, you know?" Izuku observed.
Watching the two characters fight on the screen, Shoto was reminded of their match earlier that day. "Is it because he has red hair? Or because he wants to kill his father?"
"Shh, don't admit to it." Izuku giggled. "No, it's because he keeps all aloof and doesn't want friends."
Shoto frowned. "I'm not like that. Am I?" he couldn't be entirely sure. Sure, he hadn't wanted friends, but he hadn't been killing people and screaming about blood.
Izuku chuckled. "You'll see. He gets better."
Shoto would have to take his word for it. But, the conversation had brought something back to mind from their earlier conversation in the infirmary.
"You mentioned before that when you went to the orphanage, you were quirkless. You were eight then, and quirks manifest at four. You said you thought you were quirkless, too, but you don't have a lot of control over your quirk." How did you not know?
Izuku was silent for a bit, and Shoto wondered if he had said the wrong thing. That was something personal to ask, even if they already knew each other's biggest secrets. He was genuinely curious about this, though.
"You don't have to tell me—" he started to say.
At the same time, Izuku said, "My mom put me on quirk suppressants."
The admission made Shoto suck in a breath, because what the hell? His education was lacking in the pop culture department, but anything hero related he knew enough about, and quirk suppressants were one of those things.
Put on implied that Izuku had been taking the pills, not just wearing cuffs or some other suppression device, and the pills were only used in dangerous cases. A quirk like Izuku's he could see being one of those dangerous cases, but they weren't supposed to be for children.
"How long?" he asked, his voice low. Izuku had said his mother was dead, which was probably a good thing, because no matter what Endeavour had done, he hadn't drugged Shoto at the very least.
"I was taking them until I was about eight. The dose got changed a few times. I…I didn't really go to the doctor. I think, well, I think, no, I know that by the end I was taking too much, but there was no other way to keep my quirk under control. Recovery Girl…Recovery Girl told me, after I came to UA, that being on the suppressants for so long damaged my quirk. It's part of the reason why I'm not able to control it."
For medical abuse that could have poisoned and killed him, Shoto would have liked to say that Izuku had gotten off lightly, but the nature of his quirk meant that was the worst possible outcome.
"Your own mother," Shoto said through gritted teeth. He at least had his mother on his side. She may have burned his face, but she hadn't meant it. She had always taken his side, always protected him.
"What you're thinking," Izuku said, and his voice quivered, "it wasn't like that. She loved me more than anything, she was just afraid. I think she was afraid that someone would take me away from her because of my quirk. So, don't say anything about her, please."
Shoto exhaled. "Okay." That kind of paranoia didn't excuse drugging her own child, but she was Izuku's mother. He wouldn't say anything against her, even though she was already long gone.
Izuku sniffled, then chuckled like he was trying to cover it up. "It's also the reason why I'm short. Well, either that or I just have really bad genes."
Shoto's heart clenched, because it wasn't funny. Izuku was clearly trying to lighten the mood, but honestly, hearing that there were even more side effects, he just felt worse. But, there was still something he needed to check.
"So, you don't use your quirk because you can't control it?"
"Yes." There was too much hesitation for that to be the entire truth, so Shoto stayed quiet and let the silence draw the answer out of Izuku. "I don't like using it. You were there at the USJ. You saw what it did. I've used it before, accidentally, taken away people's quirks. It's awful. I hate it."
"That's just if you touch them though," Shoto pointed out. "You could just not touch them. Then your quirk would be just like Aizawa's."
"It's not the same," Izuku protested. He gripped his blanket more tightly. "My quirk, it isn't right."
"Why?" Shoto asked. His own refusal to use the fire of his quirk was because it came from Endeavour, but Izuku had no such qualms. It could be a simple question of the danger involved. Izuku suffered heavy backlash from using his quirk, if the USJ and their match were anything to go by. That much he could understand. But, as Izuku's quirk had been explained to him, Izuku hadn't suffered any serious effects from just letting out the dampening part of his quirk.
"I destroy quirks," Izuku said. "I-I love quirks. I always have. They're so special and they're such an important people, and I take that away from them. Forever. That's all I can do. I destroy and ruin just by existing." Izuku's voice was bitter. "And, I know that I'm not my quirk, but that's what my quirk is—to destroy. I don't want to use a power like that. I'd rather not have a power at all than only be able to take away everyone else's power. If that makes any sense."
"It doesn't."
Izuku sat up. "Shoto, I could have erased your quirk entirely. It might have killed you!"
"I could have speared you through the heart with an icicle," Shoto said, not batting an eyelash. "I could have frozen all moisture in your body. I could have burned you." That came our more bitter than intended. "I can do all that, but I don't. Not even to villains. I respect your desire not to use your quirk, but I don't think there would be anything wrong with using it."
There was a long pause.
"Would you," Izuku said at last, "would you think it was wrong for you to use your fire?"
Shoto frowned. "I don't want to."
"But would it be wrong?"
A memory twitched in Shoto's heart, pulling at the strings there. "No," he said. "I choose not to use it because I don't want to acknowledge Endeavour. I don't want to make what he did seem right because it gets results. I don't want to be connected to him. But, I had a brother. I can barely remember him, but his name was Touya. He was a fire user, like Endeavour. I…I don't think it was wrong of him to use the fire that he got from our father. It's not the quirk, even if it's a quirk that can hurt, that makes the person bad, and using the quirk doesn't make a person bad either."
"But your fire is beautiful, Shoto. It's warm, it's bright. I'm…not. My-my quirk…it's not like that. All it does is destroy. It isn't the same."
"You know, when they first told me my quirk was erased," Shoto said softly, leaning further into the beanbag as if to hide himself from the intimacy of this confession, "I was kind of happy."
Izuku sat up abruptly. "No!"
"Yes," Shoto insisted evenly.
"But, your quirk is so beautiful!"
"Still, I never asked for it, or the twisted legacy that came with it. I kind of wished that I could just put an end to it all, all Endeavour's ambition, just like that." Shoto sighed. He hadn't meant to turn this into a rant against Endeavour. "You wouldn't have hurt me, even if you erased my quirk forever. Your quirk would have done something good for me."
In the light of the TV screen, Izuku's face looked pale. "No! It's not right! Shoto, it's not right, even if—"
"Even if I wanted it," Shoto supplied. "Then, you don't have to use your quirk to erase people's quirks, but you could be incredibly powerful if you just chose to let yourself use the power you have."
"I could say the same to you. It's your quirk, not your father's. Your fire is yours no matter where it came from, and you are not an extension of your father. You should be able to do whatever you want with your own quirk, without thinking of yourself as belonging to him or connected to him." Izuku flopped back on his beanbag and chuckled a little wetly. "We're both fucked up, aren't we?"
"I wouldn't know," Shoto said honestly. There was one thing, though, that he did know. "Someday, you're going to have to use your quirk again. It won't make you a bad person."
"I know," Izuku said softly. "I know."
*
Anan had been put on clean-up duty after the sports festival, like she was every year. It was just the first day, but she was already tired.
Tired or not, she wasn't going home without stopping by to see her favorite student. She hadn't been able to stop by the infirmary, which meant she got all her reports on Izuku's health second-hand. He was doing fine, and Nedzu was trying to get guardianship of the Todoroki boy apparently. It had been quite the day.
The pro hero made sure to stay quiet as she approached Izuku's room. Nedzu had warned her that Todoroki was with him and had asked her to make sure the boy found his way back to the infirmary. They both needed their sleep.
The door swung open soundlessly. It took a moment for Anan's eyes to adjust to the darkness. Izuku was passed out on his bean bag, green curls all askew. Todoroki, in a Sailor Moon t-shirt and pink kitten pajamas was sitting next to the bean bad and looking at her with a distinctly cat-like gaze. It gave her goosebumps.
"Who are you?" Todoroki said in a low voice.
Ah, of course he wouldn't recognize her out of costume. She held up her still gloved hands. "It's me, Thirteen!"
Todoroki's face relaxed into something tired. "Oh."
Anan entered the room and tiptoed over to them. She tucked the blanket around Izuku, then picked him up in her arms. He was all muscle, but he wasn't big or bulky, and she was a pro hero. It was light work. She dropped him off at his bed and tucked him in before she went back to where Shoto was sitting on the ground and watching the proceedings with wide eyes.
"I need to take off his suppressors," she whispered. "So, we need to leave."
Todoroki looked over to where Izuku was sleeping but nodded.
Anan returned to the bed. She released the bracelets and set them on the nightstand. Then, she ushered Todoroki out and closed the door behind them.
"I can show you back to the infirmary," she offered once they were outside and she had checked the door's seal.
"Thank you." Todoroki ducked his head in acknowledgment.
They walked together in silence for a little. Anan admittedly didn't know much about the Todoroki boy, at least not until today. Nedzu had held another one of his emergency briefings, and that meant Aizawa was hopped up on enough caffeine to kill an elephant while he prepared to introduce Endeavour's face to an asphalt surface somewhere sometime soon.
Truth be told, Anan had thought Todoroki a little cold, much in the same way that Endeavour was ironically. She understood better when Nedzu played the video of his conversation with Izuku. That was almost certainly a breach of privacy, but it was school property, so Nedzu probably had some kind of legal right, and it wasn't like any of his staff would have reported him.
She didn't agree with what Todoroki had done to Izuku, though. Izuku didn't seem to mind, judging by the way he'd been curled up next to Todoroki and had brought him to his room. But, Izuku was single-minded like that. Nedzu had confessed to recruiting him to help solve the Todoroki problem, which he had picked up on during his first meeting with the boy, which meant Izuku would excuse the way Todoroki had targeted him and forced him to use his quirk because he needed to get close to Todoroki, and it all turned out well.
It was one of the bean's few faults. He knew how to stand up for himself, and he would, but he also put himself second, consistently. Anan wasn't sure just how it had started or if it was an effect of growing up with heroes for role models, but it had become obvious in the way Izuku pushed himself beyond his limits to complete projects for other people or the way he'd run into danger at the USJ. It wasn't healthy.
That was why, despite the fact that she genuinely felt bad for Todoroki and what he had been through, Anan didn't like Todoroki being around Izuku. It was slightly irrational, but she'd seen what Izuku using his quirk at the USJ had done to him, and the thought of someone forcing him to go through the same thing again made her upset, and she rarely got upset.
But, she was willing to give him a chance. Nedzu had extended him a place at UA, which meant the principal had confidence that Todoroki wasn't a threat to Izuku in any way.
They exited the tunnels in a hallway near the infirmary. Anan didn't like using the entrance in there. It was awkward and tight.
"Here we are," she announced.
"Thank you," Todoroki said, looking at the door. He looked back at her and nodded. "Good night, Thirteen-sensei."
He ducked inside the infirmary, leaving Anan outside with a vision of a much younger Izuku curled up with her while they watched movies or played video games. She'd tuck him into bed after he got sleepy, and as she left, he'd call out a sleepy good night. Todoroki's wasn't the same—not the same voice or person. But the intonation of it was the same.
It looked like UA really did have another ward.
*
The journey back to his fosters' house after the sports festival was unbearably long, but not long enough.
Hitoshi had met his match in the semi-finals. Bakugo had it out for him, and he wasn't stupid. He'd figured out how Hitoshi's quirk worked and kept his mouth determinedly closed.
Hitoshi had tried his best to stay in the match, but after a particularly nasty explosion that sent him reeling backward, he hadn't been able to get up. A concussion, Recovery Girl said later. The school nurse had healed him, although she couldn't fully heal the concussion or take away his quirk exhaustion. His head hurt so badly he could hardly walk straight.
His skin was still tender when he got back to his house. He'd slipped off his shoes and headed for his room, just wanting to lie down in the dark and sleep away the pain.
Instead, a painful blow landed on the side of his head. The ladle that Ando-san had thrown at him clanked as it fell to the floor.
Hitoshi winced. His foster mother's face was livid. Her normally placid eyes were bulging out of her skull, and she was red in the face as she stormed over to him. She grabbed him by the ear, pulling him down so that he was at her eye level.
"You lied to me!" she screeched, hitting him across the face with the towel she used to dry dishes. "Did you think I wouldn't find out?"
It was not the time for an answer. Hitoshi stayed silent as he was dragged by the ear into the hallway, past the bedrooms where his foster siblings slept.
"You're a villain! A dirty villain! I tried so hard to be patient with you, to help you do better, but you threw all that away." She stopped in front of the hall closet, a place the family stored all their odds and ends. Throwing open the door, she pulled Hitoshi inside. "Do you have any idea how hard I tried to treat you fairly, with kindness, to give you a chance?"
Ando-san let go of Hitoshi's ear, and he reached up to rub at it. The relief was short-lived, however, as he saw what she was reaching for. On the top shelf of the closet was the muzzle. The horrid metal contraption that made his lungs spasm at just the sight of it.
Ando-san's eyes flashed. "I should never have let you go to that school! You were just plotting the whole time, weren't you? You've been tricking us all along."
Hitoshi didn't have the strength to fight, and even if he did, what good would it have done? To fight back would be to cement his status as a villain.
But, he couldn't wear that horrible muzzle again. He couldn't take the pain and the shame and the way it left him truly defenseless. Just thinking about it took the air out of his lungs. Fear wrapped its icy fingers around his throat.
Hitoshi sank onto his knees, touching his forehead to the ground in the cramped space of the closet. "I'm sorry," he told his foster mother, even though he knew it was a lie. What did it matter? She wouldn't have believed him if it was the truth.
"I'll be good," he whispered against the floorboards. Anything not to feel the sting of leather biting into his scalp and the cold pressure of metal on his skin.
Ando-san grabbed a fistful of his hair and pulled him upright. Hitoshi held back a gasp of pain at how the motion made his head ache more insistently. She looked him in the eye. "I don't want your lies," she spat.
Against his will, tears pooled in Hitoshi's eyes from the way Ando-san's nails dug into his scalp. "Please?" he begged against the rising sob in his throat.
"You brat, I—" Ando-san's grip slackened.
Hitoshi fell forward as his headache hit him with renewed force. If he could just hold it together long enough to get away…
He crawled forward, unable to get to his feet. He didn't trust his balance at the moment anyways. His head throbbed, like there was a knife lodged somewhere between the lobes of his brain, and no, picturing it didn't make it better.
"Honey?" a man's voice called from the kitchen. His foster father.
Heavy footsteps. Hitoshi attempted to pull himself a few more pitiful inches forward. He cried out as a boot came down on his fingers, crushing them against the floor.
His hold on his foster mother slipped.
"You fucking brat!"
Hitoshi let his head fall against the floor. He'd failed.
*
Izuku had been planning to find Shinso at lunch their first day back at school after the sports festival to tell him the good news, that Aizawa-sensei was planning on taking him on as an apprentice and even considering moving him to class 1-A, but he had barely gotten his lunch when someone tugged at his arm, pulling him harshly out into the hallway.
Entirely focused on making sure he didn't lose any of his food, Izuku didn't catch a glimpse of who it was pulling him until the doors closed behind them and he was released.
Yellow eyes underneath a curtain of blond bangs. Twin buns. A fanged grin.
Izuku started so badly that half his lunch fell off his tray. "Himiko-chan!"
He knew she was in the school, of course. Logically, it was only a matter of time before they caught sight of one another, but Izuku had hoped that being in different years and different departments would put off their inevitable meeting. The sports festival was an unfortunate wrench in those plans.
"Izu-kun!" Himiko planted her hands firmly on his shoulders. "It's so good to see you again!"
Izuku liked to think that he was half-way decent at reading people, but Himiko was one person he had very little confidence in reading correctly. Himiko was the kind of person who could stab a person with a genuine smile. If she was angry at him for what he had done to her by not taking his meds, she was hiding it well.
"It's good to see you, too." That much at least was not a lie. Izuku got a warm feeling in his chest whenever he saw her around the school clean, healthy, far removed from the tiny, too-thin girl he'd met in an alleyway.
"I saw you in the sports festival," Himiko said, the smile still on her face. "To think we've been going to the same school for weeks, and we haven't met once."
"How strange," Izuku remarked.
Himiko looked him over with that piercing yellow gaze of hers. He could practically feel her raking him over, taking in all the details.
"You're still so tiny," she remarked. She waved a hand from the top of her head to the top of his, a difference of many centimeters. She giggled. "How have you been? Since, y'know?"
"Ah, I'm sorry about that," Izuku said, hanging his head. If he closed his eyes, he could still remember Himiko's betrayed expression, how she'd hugged him so tightly looking for comfort and found none. "I am so, so sorry. I never meant to—I don't do that. It was a mistake."
Himiko tilted her head to the side like a bird. "There's no need to apologize, Izu-kun. Some people are just like that." She flashed her fangs at him. "I came back in a bit, and you weren't there, but one day this cool hero showed up. He had a knife, and there was another bloody hero with him. And Izu-kun, I have the best family now! I wanted you to be there, too, but they said you were okay, and, Izu-kun, they were so nice! Amajiki-san drinks blood, too, and she can match people's blood type. She uses it at the hospital she works at. I have a big brother, and he's the best!"
"Tamaki." Izuku smiled.
If it was possible, Himiko's smile brightened. "You know Tamiki-nii? Isn't he great? He has the most interesting blood."
"He's a great person. I like him a lot."
"Me too!" Himiko let go of his shoulders so that she could twirl in the hallway. "Oh, it's so good to see you, Izu-kun. I'm just so excited. Even if I can't try any of your blood, I like you a lot. And isn't UA great? They let me do art, and I can paint with as much red as I want!"
The subtle fear that had lived in the back of Izuku's mind for so long dispersed, and a weight he hadn't even realized had been there was gone, replaced by a lightness. He had always thought that the people he cared about would change when they came into contact with him and his cursed quirk. His mother had. Himiko had, or so he thought. He'd kept his quirk away from the teachers for fear it would do the same. Now, he saw that she hadn't. Shoto hadn't either. His quirk had touched them and not altered them. If it had altered them, it was for the better, like with Shoto.
"Who are you?"
Izuku turned to see Shoto standing in the middle of the hallway with a slightly confused look on his face. He held his lunch tray, evidently having followed Izuku out of the cafeteria.
Himiko's grip on his arm tightened. "Is this your friend, Izu-kun? I bet he has the nicest blood!"
Todoroki knit his brows. "My blood is just like anyone else's?" He sounded a little unsure about it.
Himiko shook her head vigorously. "Everyone's blood is special, but some people have nicer blood than others. Of course, I don't bite people I don't like or people who say no." She leaned forward with her hands clasped behind her back. "I like you."
Shoto blinked. "Okay."
Izuku shouldered Himiko aside. "Don't mind Himiko-chan. She's an…old friend."
"Aw, Izu-kun!"
Himiko threw her arms around Izuku, wrapping him up tightly. It was surprisingly reassuring, and Izuku relaxed into the embrace. After the way their last hug had gone, the fact that Himiko would even touch him, much less hug him, was amazing.
Shoto made an odd face.
Himiko seemed to notice because she locked onto Shoto with her manic eyes. She detached herself from Izuku and tripped over to Shoto. She blinked up at him. "You're tall. Can I hug you?"
Shoto blinked back at her, and Izuku made a go ahead motion. A hug would probably be good for him. He hadn't missed the way Shoto had subtly gravitated toward him during their time together, how despite his formerly cold persona, he liked to be close to people but didn't know how.
Hesitantly, Shoto put out his arms, and Himiko wrapped him in a big hug. His face looked oddly blank in the way it did when something good happened and he didn't know how to react.
"You're so warm!" Himiko practically purred.
"Really?"
"Mm, on one side. The other side is nice and cool. You're like those pillows that have one warm side and one cold side. They're like super cool." Himiko nuzzled her cheek against Shoto's arm
"This is…nice," Shoto said.
"Come on, Izu-kun! Get over here!" Himiko hissed in a stage whisper.
A little hesitantly, because he'd been careful about how much he touched Shoto since the tournament incident, Izuku joined the hug.
After an appropriately long hug, Himiko dragged them back into the cafeteria to sit at a table with a bunch of her friends. The Big Three dropped by, and Tamaki was suitably surprised to learn that Izuku was in fact the mysterious Izu-kun that Izuku got the feeling Himiko had never shut up about.
If Shinso made an appearance, Izuku didn't see him. Knowing that Shinso generally didn't eat in the cafeteria, it was entirely possible that Izuku had missed him.
*
At the end of the school day, Izuku made his way over to the General Education classroom. Aizawa-sensei may have decided to take Shinso as his apprentice, but Izuku wasn't confident that the man had let Shinso know about it.
The last of the students were trickling out of the classroom when Izuku arrived. He peered through the grating, but Shinso was nowhere to be seen. Izuku dropped out of the vent and walked over to Shinso's desk. There was no note explaining his absence. Shinso had never left like this before. Was he upset about his loss? Did he not want to train with Izuku anymore?
Curious, Izuku returned to the vents. He emerged in Nedzu-sensei's office. His mentor spun in his chair.
"Izuku! How unusual to see you at this time! Don't you have training?"
Izuku plopped down in his beanbag. "Actually, I had a question, sensei," he said. "Did Shinso come into school today?"
"Ah, yes, the student we're working on transferring." Nedzu-sensei hummed. "He was marked absent. Actually, I have an appointment with his guardians in a few minutes. They called and said they wanted to speak with me about something important."
Izuku frowned. Were Shinso's guardians upset about the outcome of the tournament? "Did they say what about?"
"No." Nedzu-sensei busied himself with preparing tea. "Although, I'm sure they'll tell me once they get here. Would you like to listen in?"
Izuku nodded. "I'll be in the passages."
"Excellent. Ah, they're here. My secretary is showing them in." Nedzu-sensei turned his attention back to his computer.
Izuku climbed back into the passages and slid the door closed behind him. He settled down with his back against the wall to listen. It bothered him that Shinso hadn't come in, but his guardians were coming. Was he sick? Was it quirk exhaustion? Izuku hadn't been able to talk to him since he'd been in the infirmary, and Shinso hadn't answered any of his texts.
Through the door, he heard the soft click of the door to Nedzu-sensei's office opening, and Nezu-sensei's greeting. After the initial peasantries, Nedzu-sensei got down to business.
"So, what brings you here today? Your son has been doing very well in his classes and we've had no behavioral problems from him. he even performed admirably during our annual sports festival. We were planning to transfer him to the hero course as soon as the paperwork could be arranged."
If they were upset about the outcome of the festival, this was where the meeting would end. They would be happy that something was being done, and that would be it.
Instead, there was a long and awkward silence.
"Well, principal Nedzu, that's, well, we came here today," the woman's voice was uncertain.
"We'd like to pull Shinso out of school," the man said firmly. "Frankly, his behavior, especially at the sports festival, was unacceptable.
"How so?" Nedzu-sensei asked. To his guests, it probably seemed innocently inquisitive, but Izuku could hear the edge in his tone.
"He knows not to use his quirk," the woman said. "And he started using it again. We've tried to guide him, but he won't listen. It…it isn't safe for the other children to be around someone like him. We're not sure how long we can keep him, either. He's a danger to our other children. And, he simply won't listen. I'm afraid he's going to turn out to be a villain."
Izuku clenched his fists and tried to control his breathing. He knew that other people had a problem with Shinso's quirk, but this was too close to home.
"That's why we're pulling him out," the man said. "We can't allow him to continue at this school."
"I see." Nedzu-sensei sounded thoughtful.
In his pocket, Izuku's phone vibrated. He pulled it out. There was a message from Nedzu-sensei.
Meet Aizawa outisde and go to Shinso's home address. I will keep the guardians here.
Izuku's heart beat faster. If Nedzu-sensei was asking him to do this, it meant he suspected something was wrong, and Izuku didn't like the implications.
He hurried away through the tunnels, sending a text to Shoto and the Big Three that he and Shinso wouldn't be there for training. Shoto responded with a face-time.
Shoto, as usual, didn't beat around the bush. "Is something wrong?"
Izuku, still running, searched his brain for an excuse. "I have to go somewhere. I'm on my way to meet Aizawa-sensei right now."
Shoto nodded. "I'll meet you at the gates." He hung up.
"Wait—" Izuku sighed and put his phone away. Shoto was incorrigible.
When he burst out of the tunnels at the entrance, sure enough, Shoto was there standing beside a tired-looking Aizawa-sensei who raised an eyebrow when he saw Izuku and cast a pointed glance at Shoto. Izuku shrugged in response.
"Whatever." Aizawa-sensei sighed. "We're headed to the Ando's house. Nedzu thinks something is happening with Shinso, and I have to agree." He wrapped the last strand of his capture scarf around his neck and tucked it into a large black trench coat that covered up his costume.
Izuku had to jog to keep up with his teacher's long strides as they left the main building and left through the main gates. Leaving the UA campus was exhilarating. The air had a different charge to it. Despite the errand they were on, Izuku couldn't keep the smile off his face.
Aizawa-sensei led them down to the station and they boarded a train. Izuku looked around eagerly the whole way. There were so many people with so many different quirks for him to think about. Like the business man with the stripe of long, blue hair down the middle of his scalp. He watched in fascination as the man used it to turn the pages of his newspaper.
Shoto, who was sitting next to him, elbowed him lightly. "What are we doing?" he whispered.
Izuku turned his head so that he could speak directly in Shoto's ear. "You remember Shinso from the sports festival, the Gen Ed kid?" When Shoto nodded, he continued, "I've been training with him to help him transfer into the hero course. He didn't show up today, and his foster parents are trying to pull him out of school."
Shoto frowned. "Why? Didn't he place? He could still transfer."
Izuku felt sick to his stomach. "They don't like his quirk, and…" He was so stupid. He should have picked up on it, should have figured it out somehow. No wonder Shinso so rarely used his quirk.
"But, he has a powerful quirk."
"I know. Shinso, he's told me before. A lot of people see it as a villain's quirk."
"That's not right," Shoto said. He thrust his fists deeper in his pockets.
"I know."
They settled into an uncomfortable and strained silence after that, not because of anything between them, but just because neither of them knew what to say. To Izuku, it felt like déjà vu. To Shoto, whose entire life had been dictated by the quirk he had been born with, it was likely equally odious.
When they were one stop away from their stop, Aizawa-sensei turned to them and spoke in a low voice. "Neither of you have your licenses, so leave everything to me. You're here to help Shinso once I've found him. Don't do anything rash."
They both nodded in assent, and Aizawa leaned back in his seat again.
It was a silent walk from the station to the small house where the Ando family, Shinso's foster family lived. At the door, Aizawa stepped forward and knocked.
After a minute of silence, their teacher pulled a set of lock-picking tools from his belt and began to pick the lock. "Not a word about this," he warned in a gruff voice.
Izuku shared a smile with Shoto before Aizawa got the door open. He put his tools away with a grunt and motioned them inside.
The house was…normal, at least, it fit with what Izuku remembered as being normal. It had been a while. He noticed framed pictures on the walls and stopped to look. Most of them contained some variation of a man, a woman, a boy about twelve, and a girl who couldn't have been older than five. Izuku didn't catch a glimpse of Shinso until he got to a collage board made up a bunch of pictures that looked like they'd been taken by a personal camera, not by a photographer. The were of the family out on trips, at the zoo, hiking. Shinso was in a few of them, looking like a zombie and always on the sidelines.
Shoto looked over his shoulder awkwardly. They had to leave the searching to Aizawa-sensei, which meant they were left to wait until he found a lead of some kind.
Was it possible they were too late, and the fosters had already sent Shinso away? Izuku shook his head. Nedzu-sensei wouldn't have sent them here if Shinso was already gone.
"Izuku!" Aizawa-sensei called from the hallway. "I found him."
Izuku ran, nearly tripping over the couch in his hurry. He skidded around the corner and had to stop short to catch his breath because the sight in front of him knocked all the air out of his lungs like a punch to the gut.
The door at the end of the hallway was open, revealing a small closet space. On the floor in front of it, Aizawa-sensei sat, supporting an unconscious Shinso in his lap. Shinso's face was pale, and his hair a rumpled mess, but what Izuku couldn't look away from what the metal contraption over his friend's jaw.
Shoto was behind him and sucked in a breath.
Izuku jolted forward. He knelt beside his teacher and took Shinso from him, holding him up while Aizawa got to work on the lock on the muzzle. He was shaking, he realized.
"How could they do this?" he bit out. The shadows under Shinso's eyes were darker than ever, in stark relief against his pale skin. It brought back an image of a much younger Shinso, similarly muzzled. How could he have let this happen again?
"Shoto, go to the bathroom. Get some towels and water, if you can," Aizawa ordered. He had the lock undone and was carefully removing the muzzle as he spoke.
The contraption was more complicated than Izuku initially thought. It hinged in the middle, so that it could be locked in place over the jaw. When Aizawa-sensei pulled it away from Shinso's face, he saw a layer of duct tape sealing his mouth shut as well.
Aizawa-sensei's warm hand closed over Izuku's shaking one. "I know," he said. "It's not pretty. But he's safe now. He's not coming back to this."
"Right."
Aizawa removed the duct tape as gently as he could. Shinso didn't wake up, which was in itself troubling.
Shoto returned with the towels and a basin of warm water, which Aizawa used to wipe down Shinso's face. It was only then that Izuku noticed the stink wafting from the closet. It smelled absolutely foul. He wrinkled his nose in disgust. Shinso didn't smell so good either. Like he hadn't showered…since the sports festival.
How long had he been in that closet?
In the meantime, Aizawa passed Shinso back to Izuku with instructions to perform first aid on the few lacerations on Shinso's face. He pulled out his cell and dialed a number that picked up quickly. Izuku was expecting him to call Nedzu-sensei, so it was a little surprising to hear the curt greeting of, "Tsukauchi."
Aizawa was calling the police, as Izuku quickly picked up from the context. Minutes later, an ambulance pulled up outside the house, and they handed Shinso over to actual medical professionals.
Aizawa followed them out of the house that already had a few police officers in it examining the closet and documenting the state of it. "Go with him," he told Izuku. "I can handle it here, and he'll want a familiar face when he wakes up."
So, Shoto and Izuku rode to the hospital in the back of the ambulance with Shinso. He still hadn't awoken by the time they made it to the hospital.
*
Nedzu eyed the clock. It had been a good half hour since he sent Aizawa and Izuku on their way. In that time, he'd explained to Shinso's guardians the process of transferring schools, schools in the area that might have been a good fit for Shinso, and of course, the process for withdrawal.
"Yes, Shinso-kun just has to request the necessary forms, and we'll be happy to arrange it." He smiled tight-lipped at the humans in front of him.
"Oh, that's unnecessary," the woman said. "We can just do it now."
Nedzu's grin widened. "I'm afraid you can't do it at all."
"What do you mean?" the man demanded.
"As you may be aware, UA is a hero school, and several of our policies, even those extending to the entire student body, are a little unique. According to the forms you signed upon Shinso-kun's entrance to this school, he alone has the legal right to make decisions regarding his schooling. You are not paying for his education, either, so I believe you'll find you have no way of removing him from this school's rosters."
"That's ridiculous." The man slammed his fist on Nedzu's desk. "That boy should be expelled. We are his parents. We have the right to oversee his education."
Mm, Aizawa should be at the house by now. Perhaps it hadn't been wise to send Izuku with him. Nedzu did not expect the outing would be pleasant, but Izuku wanted to be a hero. Who better to save than his friends?
He turned his attention back to the matter at hand. "I'm afraid it isn't like that, Ando-san," he replied coolly. "These policies are for the protection of our students. I have seen nothing in Shinso-kun's conduct that would lead me to expel him. I have to question what makes you think you can make my decisions for me."
On his screen, Nedzu saw the police report come in. Aizawa must have found young Shinso, then. He sent out his own notification that he had the parents at his location. The police would doubtless be interested in detaining them.
The man sat back with a huff. "Whatever. I'll make sure the boy knows what he has to do. He should know better than to disobey again."
Nedzu felt his hackles raise at the undisguised aggression. It was disgusting, what humans were willing to do, even to one of their own kind.
He waved cheerily, regretting that he couldn't solve the problem by putting poison in their tea. "I look forward to seeing you again." In court went unsaid.
The couple got to their feet and left.
On his monitor, the principal pulled up the security feed of the front gates. A police car had just pulled up outside it. He sipped his tea gleefully as he watched the couple leave the building and the officer approach them.
It was a special kind of vindicative joy to see them cuffed and locked in the back of the squad car. Serving justice was one of Nedzu's favorite hobbies.
*
When Hitoshi finally woke, it wasn't to the dark of the closet, it was to a clean, white room that smelled of antiseptic. The main lights were off, but light streamed in softly through the window, making golden squares on the floor and the coverings of the bed. A stray sunbeam wandered across a freckled cheek, and Hitoshi had to blink a few times before it registered that that was Midoriya lying there, his green curls strewn across the blanket.
Hitoshi put a hand to his face. The muzzle was gone. A few bandages made ridges along his jaw and over the bridge of his nose. He opened his mouth to make sure, moving it around in ways he hadn't been able to do in…he didn't know how long.
In his left arm, he spied an IV connected to a bag. That explained the cold sensation in his arm.
He sat up slowly, noting that he was wearing a hospital gown. The sheets felt soft against his skin.
"You're awake," a new voice said.
Hitoshi turned his head. On the chair next to his bed sat Todoroki Shoto. Hitoshi frowned. Midoriya he could understand visiting him in the hospital, but Todoroki? That made no sense.
Wait. "How did I get here?" he asked, or tried to ask. His voice came out in an unintelligible rasp.
Todoroki frowned. "Don't try to speak. I'll get a nurse."
He left the room, and Hitoshi put a hand to his throat. His throat was dry, he realized. And he hadn't spoken or had anything to drink in…days?
His memory was hazy at best. After he passed out from quirk exhaustion, he had woken up in the closet with the muzzle. He knew better than to pound on the door, but after hours passed and no one let him out, he had tried the handle again and again in some delusional hope that it would be unlocked. He wasn't able to properly fall asleep, only go in and out of light dozes that made the time pass maddeningly slow.
Todoroki returned with a glass of water and a nurse with a bird's head and iridescent black feathers. She checked over his vitals and did a quick exam, then left him with Todoroki who was still holding the glass of water.
"Here," the other boy held the glass out to him.
Shinso took it with a hand that trembled embarrassingly. He gulped down the water, relishing the way his throat seemed to soften. He set the glass on the bedside and turned back to Todoroki.
"How did I get here?" he asked again. His voice came out soft and quiet this time.
Todoroki looked down at Midoriya. "Izuku, Aizawa-sensei, and I found you at your…at your guardians' house. The principal sent us after your guardianscame to see him."
Hitoshi shifted uncomfortably. Did that mean UA was expelling him?
"You were unconscious when Aizawa-sensei found you. He called an ambulance and you were brought here. We stayed overnight."
As thrilling as it was that his idol had saved him, Hitoshi was also embarrassed. He wanted to be in the hero course, damn it. He wasn't some damsel in distress.
He nodded at Todoroki. "Why are you still here?"
Again, Todoroki looked at Midoriya, but then he looked up at Hitoshi. His eyes, both a unique color, made his gaze seem lopsided, and made Hitoshi unsettled.
"Your guardians are in jail," he said, instead of answering the question. "In fact, I doubt they're your guardians anymore. Nedzu works very quickly."
"How do you—"
"He was able to get me under UA's guardianship very quickly," Todoroki explained, not needing the entire question to know what Hitoshi meant. "My father is Endeavour, but you probably already knew that." His voice was bitter.
Hitoshi did know. It was kind of impossible not to, the way students talked about it. In his opinion, it was yet another example of nepotism and hero culture. From the sound of it, though, Todoroki was just as fed up as Hitoshi was.
"The principal decided that Endeavour was unfit for my care, and took emergency guardianship of me," Todoroki continued, a look of smug satisfaction flitting across his face. "He tried to break into the school yesterday, and Nedzu activated the UA barrier. He even let me watch on the security feeds."
"So, you live there now?"
Todoroki nodded.
Hitoshi frowned. "Am I going to live there?"
"I assume so." Todoroki shrugged. "Unless you have somewhere else you'd rather live."
A shiver ran down Hitoshi's spine. Compared to literally every other place he remembered, living at UA sounded pretty good. It would make training easy, at least, even if he wasn't transferred to the hero course. The whole emergency guardianship thing would have shocked him more if he hadn't already seen how much of a favorite Midoriya was with the principal.
Midoriya stirred. He was wearing his school uniform still, much like Todoroki was, come to think of it. The blazer was off, and the collar of his shirt was crumpled. He must have come to find Hitoshi directly from school. The thought sent a wave of warmth through Hitoshi. In the dark of everything he had to struggle through in his life, Midoriya had been a bright spot over the past few weeks.
Bright green eyes blinked open, and Midoriya sat up. There was a red mark on his face from where he'd used his arm, and his bracelet, as a pillow.
"Shinso! You're awake!"
"Yeah," Hitoshi said quietly. "I'm pretty hard to ki—"
He didn't get to finish that sentence because Midoriya launched himself at him and wrapped him in a crushing hug. "I'm so glad you're okay," the other boy sobbed into his shoulder. Hitoshi wasn't very experienced with people crying on his shoulder, but he was pretty sure his hospital gown shouldn't have already been soaked through.
Then, Midoriya pulled back, wiping his eyes. "Sorry. I'm just glad you're okay."
"Thanks to you," Hitoshi rasped. His voice was getting tired again.
"Right, your voice. Don't worry about talking just yet. Focus on resting."
Hitoshi smiled at the concern. It felt good.
He got a lot more information over the next half hour. He would have to spend another day or so at the hospital recovering, but then he'd be free, "to go home," Midoriya said. Home. It was such a foreign concept, but Midoriya said it like it was warm and safe and the best thing in the world. Midoriya was apparently also a ward of UA, albeit a much less recent one than Todoroki.
"Fuck. I should have run away, too," he groaned when Izuku told the story of how he'd run from the home and eventually wandered onto the UA campus.
Midoriya chuckled and patted his back. "Well, we did both end up at UA somehow. It was meant to be, I guess."
If Hitoshi was being honest, it did feel something like fate, especially when heard that being a ward of UA technically made Eraserhead one of his guardians. It wasn't quite getting adopted, but he would take it.
He was going to be in the hero course, too. At least, his transfer was in the works. Hitoshi was weak from joy. Well, he was weak from quirk exhaustion, starvation, and dehydration, too, but he was choosing to think that he just wasn't used to being so happy, and that was why he was so tired.
Hearing Midoriya refuse to leave when visiting hours were over, "because he was family," as Hitoshi drifted back to sleep, almost made everything worth it.