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In an instant, every appliance and aging pipe in Shouto Todoroki’s dorm room seemed to fly into motion. The fan was whirring, vents buzzing with a disconcerting metallic hum, bedsprings creaking as the faucet in the adjacent bedroom carried on with a painfully consistent drip. drip. drip. He could hear the distant thudding of bass from someone’s speakers, the soft scritch of fabric against fabric, the scuffing of slippers as someone went to the kitchen for a glass of water. It was simultaneous, overwhelming in the worst way, every nerve alight and every sense tuned to listen for what was coming. Shouto stayed where he was, curled up tightly on his bed, and listened to the sounds outside his door. He mapped each set of footsteps before discarding them in turn.
Safe.
They were all safe, not the same as the plodding kritch-thunk of His. He wasn’t here. For a moment, Shouto held onto that thought, trying to pull in a breath of that balmy peace. Four in through his mouth. Pause. Six out through his nose. Pause. There was a rawness in his chest despite his silence, and Shouto found himself trying to pull the air up, letting it sit high in the back of his throat as if that would help to cool the fire burning in his mind.
In.
Out.
He tried to urge himself still. Steady. Nothing had happened, not really. The book he’d been holding still sat on the bed, tented next to his pillow where he’d flung it aside. It shouldn’t have meant anything, just another mandatory reading for Present Mic’s English class, but it had. It had started easily enough, some story about a girl adrift in a new country. Then he’d stumbled over a line about aching chests and racing thoughts that carried into a paragraph about the sickly sweet tang of burning flesh and, suddenly, his arms had flown up to cage his head, every muscle in his legs and feet growing tight, lips shaping denials over and over again as if he could chase the thoughts from his mind through will alone.
There was something comforting in the repetition. It wasn’t the words so much, the endless entreat for his mind to still, but the shape of them. He said “no” like a confession, as if by letting the shape trip over his tongue he’d bring an end to the itchy-wrong-burning pressure in his skull. He said “no” like he trusted it to work. Sometimes it did.
This wasn’t one of those times.
Shouto had only one other avenue that he felt like making use of.
Well, that wasn’t entirely true. He could call Izuku, but even the thought made an acrid bitterness rise to the back of his throat.
He was glad for Izuku. He truly, truly was. Izuku had pulled him into the sun and helped him to feel things again. Izuku had reached beyond the steel and stone bars of his ribcage and thawed his heart, and Shouto could never repay him for that… but feeling was a beast entirely its own. It burned, hissing and spitting as it prowled around between his bones. Rage scorched him, tendrils of flame and ash licking up his larynx and gnawing at his stomach.
Fear was magma, an eel of molten rock slithering around beneath Shouto’s skin and leaving shining obsidian points behind to cut at him when he least expected. Sorrow was just another fist around his throat dragging him down to the bottom of the pit, the pressure of large fingers prodding at the backs of his eyelids. Love, peace, happiness, contentment, they all burned too. That was a burning that Shouto could bear, even relish, a steaming bath after a long day. The other feelings were more difficult. Sometimes, the only thing Shouto could do was drown them.
Four. Hold. Six.
Four. Hold. Six.
Shouto pulled that cold air deep into his lungs, quirk blasting a gust of ice and frost out into the room without intention, letting his mind drift off into apathy.
Four seconds, another slow breath.
He chilled the memory, holding it tightly, feeling the fullness in his chest. He was on a frozen plateau, surrounded by heaping hills of snow and ice. A black pool lingered just beyond him, right there behind his eyes, the surface gently frosted over as the surface rippled in the breeze. Shouto let the air out in a smooth stream— no breaks, no edges— and plunged the fire and the fear beneath the surface of that cold, calm water. He held it there for the next breath in, letting the panic recede from his tense shoulders and shaking hands. Drown it. Bury down deep, so far beneath the ice and frost that it would not resurface. He paid no mind to the scratching of cotton sheets against overly sensitive skin. He paid no mind to the twitching of his hands, opening and closing, seeking something, though he knew not what.
It was an old feeling, a holdover from the time before Izuku when there was no choice but to chill himself down to the bone. Feeling was a beautiful, terrible thing, and most days Shouto preferred it to the alternative. When the flames got too high, however, his first instinct was to extinguish them. It was safer that way. More comfortable. Shouto didn’t like to hate, but he hated being afraid. He hated being angry. Most of all, he hated what he had very nearly turned into, that amalgamation of all the worst parts of his family. The fire was his inheritance in all its forms.
Even now, reading a book for a class that surely no one else was having difficulty with, that no one else was even thinking about at a time like this, it interfered and interceded in his every action and reaction.
Shouto loved feeling, but it was so much sometimes. He knew suppression wasn’t the answer, but he wasn’t sure what else to do. It wasn’t a skill he could just cast aside. He couldn’t go around assuming that he’d never need it again. He slowly stilled the trembling in his hands, pulling back the layers of ice that had spiraled out in waves as he panicked.
Shouto had survived. He was proud of that. He couldn’t bask in that pride for too long, however, before the other hand came up sharply to slap him back to earth. He had survived, but he couldn’t tell anyone about what that meant. No one except for Izuku.
Not his mother, so close to stable enough to leave the hospital after what his father had turned her into.
Not his siblings, all apathetic, desperate, or rage-blind with the knowledge of what that man had done.
Not the public, who couldn’t be allowed to know what had happened in that house.
Endeavor was still covering the hospital bills Rei had racked up, as well as her continued care. Without that financial support, her life would fall on children who were too unstable, both mentally and financially, to support that weight. Shouto raked a hand through his hair, staring down at the flat gray carpet beneath his bare feet. He had to hold on until they were established. Then, it wouldn’t matter if Endeavor withdrew his support. Shouto had to play nice until then and being here at U.A. was a step in the right direction. It was just difficult to let everything go, to let the fear-flame-rage fall on the backburner, seeing as Endeavor was the reason he had gotten in at all.
Shouto let his legs swing against the side of the bed, tapping the fingers of his right hand together. It helped, focusing on the dull press of thumb to ring finger, middle, pointer, middle, again and again. He was tense, echoes of raised voices and crackling flames still ringing in his ears, but he could do this much. He wasn’t paralyzed. He wasn’t trapped. He could sink into the motion, make as many mistakes as he needed to in order to get the pattern right. It was safe here.
Shouto’s thoughts were muddled, clouded with too little logic and too much emotion. Shadows were darting at the edges of his awareness. They were ghosts of his fear, not only of the person who caused it, but they still haunted him. Reminders of his weakness, of how dim the fire in his heart had grown before Izuku had stepped into his life. Of how many pieces of himself he’d drowned in that icy, black water. He’d been determined to freeze it all down, to encase every bit of terror and happiness in a block of ice. If he couldn’t feel it, he’d thought, it couldn’t hurt him. He was wrong. Frostbite could cause just as much damage as flame. Shouto of all people should have known that, but he let the calm detachment of not-caring shield that from him, too. His mother had remarked on it when he finally went to see her again, fresh off of his loss at the Sports Festival.
“Oh, Snowflake.” She’d said, cupping his face between her hands. “You’ve chilled yourself down to the bone, haven’t you? I’m glad to see you’re thawing.” He hadn’t known how to process it, then, had curled his body beside hers atop the roughly woven hospital blankets and cried for hours. He’d been so cold before Izuku had found him. For all of his apathy, for all of the nonchalance he spoke with about what would become of his father after the truth came to light, Shouto wasn’t unaffected by the past. He’d just managed to postpone the feelings that came alongside it.
He could still see it when he closed his eyes, the bruises on his arms, the flames rising higher, the heat that seemed to permeate every room as his father bellowed on in another. He remembered Endeavor’s words late at night, childhood threats, encouragement to carry on. The precise color snow turned when it mingled with blood. The crinkling of black garbage bags as items he’d grown “too attached” to were heaped inside. The way ramen he’d allowed to get too cold had turned into streaks of crimson chili oil dripping down the kitchen window and a stain on the sill that never quite came out.
Shouto’s eyes stung, but he ignored it, standing to look out through the windows over the courtyard below. It was so easy to get lost in the memories. Speaking of them was difficult when he wasn’t chilled down. He’d learned that after the Sports Festival as he shared bits and pieces of his past with Izuku—with his friend. Yes, speaking was incredibly challenging, but remembering? Remembering was as easy as breathing, and Shouto remembered it all.
Years of torment, of walking on tiptoe to avoid an inevitable flare of anger, of being ignored because the teachers and tutors were “such big fans” of his father’s work, of accumulating memories that were impossible to fully move past. Years of apathy, of hurting others, of hurting himself because he’d frozen every part that felt human—that felt anything —solid.
The damage that Endeavor had done to him was as intense as it was exhaustive. That wasn’t even accounting for the physical reminders. Early on, before the dorms, Fuyumi and himself had gotten into a screaming match. Fuyumi never yelled, but he’d pushed her to the point of rage, her eyes wild and frosty lashed as she spoke. He was too quiet, she’d shrieked, always putting her on edge when he went to the kitchen for a glass of water or to retrieve his bags.
That was one of the only times he’d yelled back.
He could still feel the way the carpet in her apartment had bitten into his ankles when he sunk to the ground, tears beading up in his eyes then the same way they were doing now for recalling it. “That’s what abuse does to people, Fuyumi! I can’t turn it off!” They’d spent an hour on the floor holding each other, after that. It was the first time they’d seen eye to eye in years. There were also, of course, scars. The obvious one around his eye, but the ones on his arms and back, too. Places where he hadn’t dodged fast enough. Patches of permanent tanning from the equivalent of repetitive sunburn. A few were reminders of the early days, before he’d learned to do first aid properly, from times when his siblings weren’t around to help patch him up.
Shouto’s body bore the remains of a battlefield.
Of course, he couldn’t forget.
—
Shouto pressed his hands to his cheeks, sending out a light covering of frost to decrease the redness and tear-streaked swelling before walking down to the kitchen. He needed… something. Tea, maybe, or a glass of water. Something to hold between his palms until he could get his racing thoughts to still. The blank uniformity of the halls didn’t help matters, sprawling out in front of him like some sort of endless gray and white fever dream.
Another door, another placard with another name. Would they all make it to graduation? Would he? If his classmates saw him right now, staggering down the hall in his slippers, sleep shirt buttoned incorrectly, would they try to help, or would they just ignore his steps like he had theirs? Shouto’s eyes felt hazy, simultaneously too wide and so tired, sticking on blurry doorways even as he tried to redirect them. It was a relief to step over the threshold of the kitchen, if only because the visual clutter provided some variety.
There were still dirty dishes stacked beside the sink, a sea of multicolored plastic cups lined up on the countertop. One of Bakugo’s stock pots was perched on the back burner, the stove having been turned off for hours. Shouto peered over the top, met only by about a quarter inch of soup, stone cold and still smelling of spice and tomato, the surface glimmering with a delicate layer of oil. He turned to the fridge, already halfway stepping toward it to check for a leftover bowl, when he saw Izuku sitting at the small breakfast table in the corner. He had two cups of tea in front of him, both gently steaming. There wasn’t a kettle in sight. Shouto let out a soft breath, half fond, half surprised, sending a bit of frost racing up the side of the stainless-steel refrigerator door. It was like he’d just known somehow. He always did.
“Hey, Shouto. I heard your door open and decided to pour an extra cup. I hope you don’t mind!” Izuku said, voice soft and bright as it rang through the nearly empty room. Shouto felt a smile nudge at the corners of his lips, eyes creasing at the edges. His fingers fluttered at his sides, brushing against his thumbs as he walked over to the table and sat down.
“No. I don’t mind. Thank you, Izuku.” Shouto pulled the mug over, cupping it with both hands, joints flexing against the porcelain as the warmth chased some of the clammy chill away. He rotated his ankles beneath the table, basking in the comfortable quiet. Izuku was fidgeting with his hands, slowly rolling the fingers in towards his right palm until the joints cracked while absently scratching at his elbow with his left. His eyes, though, were perfectly still, staring with an absent blankness down into the bottom of his own mug.
Shouto was sure they both looked weary, a product of too many late nights and too much time spent fighting. If he was honest, it barely felt like fighting anymore, just a sort of bloody-palmed scrambling to hold the territory they still had left, to protect the lives they hadn’t yet lost. It seemed wasteful, to think of fighting in this moment where everything was tranquil, where they could let the full density of the darkness roll out over their heads like thunderclouds without masks, but Shouto couldn’t help but think of it, too. He looked down into his own mug, saw the fine bits of tea that had escaped the infuser dance around in a yellow-green pool that smelled of chamomile and ginger, and couldn’t help but see plumes of smoke and ash along with them.
Shouto shook his head, muttering a quick admonishment to himself before looking once more to Izuku. In the moments Shouto had nearly fallen into his own head, Izuku must have pulled himself out of his. He was looking at Shouto, too, freckles standing out starkly on pale cheeks. So much roundness had drained from his features over the course of the last few months of villain attacks and mayhem, but he was clearly still trying to maintain that sunshine exterior. His smile was bright, but his eyes spoke of heaviness, deep purple smudges lurking beneath his tear ducts.
“So, what brings you here this late? Did something happen?” Izuku asked, taking a slow sip of his tea. Shouto’s leg twitched, but he flexed his foot a few times, getting it to settle.
“Not… recently. I was just given an unexpected reminder. That— the novel Mic-sensei assigned a few months ago— Did you read it?”
“Yeah. I think I know which part you mean, too. Are you doing alright? Now, I mean. Would talking help?”
Shouto would never be able to do enough to repay Izuku’s unhesitant helpfulness.
“Possibly. I just. It’s frustrating.” Shouto paused, trying to come at the feeling from a different angle. “It’s a novel. A story. Just because a portion of it bears a resemblance to my life… There is no reason why it should have bothered me so much. It’s nonsensical. I know that my history is, well, mired in baggage. I know that it’s a lot to deal with— And I am, you know. I’m trying to deal with it. It’s just that sometimes, I can’t help but wonder if I’m also… a lot. We both know that I’m not the best at communicating effectively, or reading a room, or engaging in the sort of joking everyone else seems to parse so easily. I’m not bothered by the big things that usually impact you all, but the little ones that they have no trouble with— like reading a novel for class, or being near Bakugo when we do quirk training— those bother me. Immensely.” Shouto was immediately self-conscious about the stilted, stopping-and-starting nature of his speech, but tried to put it from his mind.
This was Izuku. Izuku wouldn't mind. He felt a slipper nudge his own from beneath the table, hiding a soft smile in another sip of tea. As if he knew which paths Shouto’s mind had begun to meander off onto, Izuku chimed in.
“You know that doesn’t bother us, right? It’s ok that you don’t understand everything right away. You don’t have to apologize for your past, either. It’s nothing that you’ve done. It’s things that have been done to you. You aren’t the person anyone would blame for that.”
“Well—”
“Any rational person, Sho. The only thing that bothers me, or anyone in class for that matter, in regard to your past is that you were hurt by it. Badly. No one’s mad at you for hurting, Shouto. You’re our friend. We wouldn’t want you to be anyone other than the person you are. As for the novel…” Izuku paused, considering, that familiar crease becoming visible between his brows. “Talk to Mic-sensei about it. I can always give you a summary, if you want me to, but I don’t think he would make you finish it if he knew how badly it was affecting you. He assigned me alternate reading last semester when I had a similar issue. He’s nice like that.” Izuku grinned over at Shouto, a soft, comforting thing. “Anything else you’ve been worrying about?”
“What if…” Shouto stilled, pulling in another deep breath of chamomile-scented steam. “What if the book isn’t the problem. You say you want me to be myself, but what if who I am is bad? What if, when you get down to the center, I’m just like him?”
“Sho, you’re not like him. Not in the ways that matter. But. Even if there are ways that you are, they aren’t bad. Kids… We learn everything from our parents. From the moment we can see, we look at them as examples of what an adult should be. They teach us something new, every time they interact with us… and sometimes, those things that we internalize, that we think are correct just aren't.” Izuku paused, rubbing at his knuckles, trailing his fingers over the freckles and scars that dotted them.
Shouto reached a hand across the table, settling it beside Izuku’s own. An anchor. He looked like he needed an anchor, and Shouto was happy to provide. Izuku took a deep breath, knocking his hand against Shouto’s gently, words leaving him in a rush when he found the strength to continue. “My dad wasn’t great.” Shouto’s eyes were already sharpening as Izuku’s hands came up, waving a frantic dismissal in front of his chest. “Not the same way yours isn’t! He was just absent… a lot. I don’t think I’ve seen him in person since I was four. I learned from watching him, and I tried to do everything the opposite.”
Izuku brought his hands down, laying one over the top of Shouto’s, still stretched to rest on Izuku’s side of the table. “I clung where he drifted, I listened where he interrupted… but I still put on my shoes the way he used to. I still brush my teeth from the back to the front. I crack my knuckles before I drive, the same way he did when he was around. He still taught me things, Sho, things I can’t get rid of. Things so small that I can’t unlearn them the same way I did the big ones. When I relax, there are parts of the person he taught me to be right next to the ones I chose for myself, and that’s ok. It’s ok if you’re like that, too. We’re going to be so much more than they ever tried to make us, because even those parts that we learned… they aren’t carbon copies. They’re our own interpretations, their edges sanded over to form our gentle parts. You get to choose who you want to be, and you are so much more than the culmination of all that bullshit. It’s all about your choices, Todoroki Shouto, not your thoughts. Not your impulses. Your choices are what lead you.”
And Shouto did have a choice. He was learning to make them all the time. Izuku had burned right to the center of an issue Shouto hadn’t even realized he was grappling with, and it sent his mind reeling, thoughts and impressions and seemingly reasonless moments of discomfort skittering across his consciousness as they clattered into place. Everything made so much sense. That raw tension in Shouto’s chest seemed to be bubbling over, choking him as the pressure crept up his throat and into the back of his nose. For a second, Izuku’s eyes could have been brilliant blue, like for that split instant he could have been the family Shouto’s skin had always crawled in the absence of. Like Shouto hadn’t been cursed before he could even breathe to never have that sort of protective, guiding closeness with anyone. He blinked and the likeness faded, disappearing like steam into the chill of the air conditioning or the name of someone he’d once missed the chance to know.
Gods, Shouto just wanted to feel safe, to be held for once in his barren life of ash and ice, and here was Izuku, opening up to him about his own past and looking at him like he mattered. It was almost more than he could stand. Something about it burned, this stillness, this unprompted, unabashed caring. This was a different sort of fire than what Shouto had become so deeply accustomed to bearing, though. It was gentle, even as it ached, made him want to lean into the tension instead of cowering away. He pulled in another slow breath, turning his focus to the cool, soothing way the air slid through his nose and down into his lungs.
This was good. It was a good idea, coming down into the kitchen. Talking to Izuku. Even the tea that was slowly growing cold on the tabletop had served a purpose. Taking this moment to lay everything out, to talk to someone he trusted implicitly, to have everything reframed… It was like that compassionate burning had turned some of that lingering anxiety to ash. Shouto took another drink from his mug, and that lukewarm chamomile tea was the best thing he’d ever tasted.
“Izuku. I’m not my father… and you aren’t yours. You listen. You stay. You fight for us, all of us, even when it is difficult. You’re making the right choices.” Shouto smiled, a faint thing, and squeezed the hand resting beneath his own. Izuku’s eyes blew wide, staring for a second before lunging forward to pull Shouto into his arms.
“You too, Shouto. You’re choosing right. We’re not like our fathers— not in any way that matters.” He muttered, chin hooked over the curve of Shouto’s shoulder.
“We will be kinder.” Shouto affirmed. The weight on his legs was nice, and Izuku was warm. Not enough to burn, to singe. Not cold as ice, prickling at the skin exposed by his sleep shorts. Just… warm. Comfortable.
Shouto liked that.
“Yeah.”
“... We should do this more often.”
Izuku pulled away a bit, putting more weight on his elbows as he leaned back onto the table. “The tea or the talking?”
“Both.” Shouto grinned, teeth showing as he raised an eyebrow. It felt good, good enough that Shouto didn’t even mind the way his skin pulled, those dried-down tear tracks still nudging at his awareness. It didn’t matter, not right then.
“Alright.” Izuku smiled back at him, scrunching his nose a little, teasing. “I’d like that, Shouto.”
“Next time, we should drink it before it gets cold, however. You know better, Izuku.”
Izuku just laughed, taking a long drink from his stone-cold mug. “Let's try to get some rest now, yeah? Aizawa-sensei’s gonna murder us in the morning.”
As Shouto walked back down the hallway to his dorm room, the placards on the doors looked a little bit less like a necrology. They were going to make it. Shouto’s friends were going to get older, make mistakes, and grow into the people they wanted to become. They may not have learned to note footsteps like he had, but that didn’t mean they didn’t listen. They were always there when he needed them. Shouto reached his own door, carefully opening and closing it before walking across the room to pick up the novel. He closed it gently, setting it on his desk before flopping back into bed.
All those earlier sounds were still present. The fan was still humming, vents still clattering as bedsprings creaked and water dripped. The thudding of bass was a bit softer now, but Shouto could still feel it vibrating his bones from the floor below, and the fabric shuffling was as present as ever. Without the edge of that urgent panic, however, they bothered him a lot less. On the contrary: It was sort of nice, getting to live in a place that felt so lived in. No one here was creeping around silently out of fear of anything worse than one of Aizawa-sensei’s Hell Trainings.
It was safe to be messy and make noise here. Shouto was safe. He was learning, coping, and growing toward something that his Father could never have imagined. Shouto was taking all those jagged, broken parts and polishing them, making gentle places from his sharp edges. There was a different sort of fire burning within him, now, one that didn’t threaten to consume him with it. One that burned in the shape of outstretched hands, of It’s Your Power, of chamomile-scented steam and the family he was working so hard to build.
This fire was Shouto’s to hold, to claim, and to use.
Not a copy. Not like his father’s.
This was something entirely his own, and, as Shouto fell asleep to a symphony of the sounds of the people who loved him, he couldn’t think of anything more worth the burns he’d borne to get it.