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The knock on his door is not unwanted, but it is unexpected. Izuku turns his head toward his door, quietly contemplating whether he should answer it, but then through the word comes a soft, “Midoriya, are you inside?”
There’s nothing much he can do against that soft voice; Izuku had long since resigned himself to the fact that Todoroki wielded unimaginable power over him, such that even ridiculous requests he couldn't quite refuse. This behaviour of his carried over into his second year, then his third year, and now just a couple of months from their final exams and graduating he still felt weak in the knees when Todoroki looked at him with those gentle eyes.
He gets up from his desk and opens the door, smiling softly up at Todoroki, who- who actually looks like he’s a cross between annoyed, worried and pissed off. It’s most unlike the stoic boy, and Izuku is instantly intrigued. He steps aside to let the boy into his room. He’d like to say he’d long since lost all his All Might memorabilia, that with age he’d overcome his obsession with the hero, but he couldn’t find it in himself to get rid of it all, and a couple of posters still stared down at the two of them.
Todoroki doesn’t say much, didn’t then and didn’t now, he just sits casually on Izuku’s bed and lies backwards to stare at the ceiling, but there’s a twitchy air about him that Izuku can identify from years of sparring and familiarity that speaks of nervousness. Joining him on the bed, he places his hand firmly on Todoroki’s shoulder before moving to card his fingers through his hair. It’s soft and silky, the mismatching strands tangling with each other. He’d certainly let his hair grow out and now it’s as long as Aizawa-sensei's. He ties it up when they go into fights, and each time it sends a such a shockwave through Izuku he almost always has an aneurysm.
Todoroki says, deadpan as ever, “I think my father's been abducted.”
Izuku chokes and his hand unconsciously clenches, tugging what must’ve been painfully on Todoroki’s hair, but he merely blinks up at him with emotionless eyes. “Sorry, you think Endeavor’s been abducted?”
“Is that not what I said?” Todoroki asks, creeping further up the bed to put his head into Izuku’s lap and lie there. Todoroki’s much like a cat, seemingly aloof and intimidating but actually touch starved and desperate for affection, Izuku thinks with a slight tender huff, returning his hands to petting him. He’s not really sure what they are; you could say they treaded the fine line between romance and friendship very dangerously, but he liked it like this, all shy, pushing and pulling, waiting to see who’d break first.
“That is what you said,” Izuku concedes. “But why would you think your father’s been abducted?”
“He’s failed to call me for the past week,” Todoroki informs him. “I went home just the other day, but he also hasn’t been home for the week. His phone location puts him to be at the bottom of the central river, where it last pinged. I think he’s been taken.”
“Endeavor is the top hero now that All Might’s retired,” Izuku doesn’t feel a sense of urgency about this situation at all, for Endeavor was a hard father and a harder person to like; the shackles of familial abuse that still weighed Todoroki down even after all this years are ones that are difficult to forget and forgive. “I don’t think he’d let himself get taken so easily.”
“Anyone can take down Endeavor,” Todoroki says dismissively. “He’s got a flashy quirk, but if you fight him well enough he gets tired. He’s no replacement for All Might. I don’t think it’s difficult at all to believe he’s been taken.”
“What do you want to do about it?” Izuku chooses to believe him, because over the years he’s started to see a pattern in which Todoroki, when he puts his mind to it, has an annoying habit of usually being correct.
“Would you help me find him?” Mismatched eyes blink up at him innocently and earnestly.
“Shouldn’t we tell the school?”
“Endeavor would kill himself before he let UA, the police, or any other hero come rescue him. It’s going to have to be me and you,” Todoroki rolls over and sits up such that he’s on his knees and they’re eye-to-eye. “And maybe some of our classmates.”
Sigh. Izuku has mentioned his inability to deny Todoroki, right? It’s certainly come around to bite him in the ass.
“Okay,” Todoroki guides him to his room and pulls out a binder in which there’s a couple of photographs and loose pieces of paper. Izuku likes his room; it’s peaceful and comforting, and smells always like home. The tatami mats are comfortable and the bamboo imbues a false sense of security. “He was last seen in this security camera walking by the central river,” he slides a picture of a fuzzy man with a flowing, lighter beard crossing the bridge. “He’s not on the next security camera on either side, so he’d disappeared within the gap.”
“How big is that?” Izuku asks, stretching his legs out into Todoroki’s lap. His hands land on his ankles and squeezes.
“About ten metres. The next security camera would belong to a convenience store if he’d continued walking in that direction.”
“So he managed to vanish within ten metres?” Izuku leans on the table and closes his eyes. “Maybe someone with a knock out quirk? Like Lady Midnight?”
“It has to be,” Todoroki’s hands ghost themselves over Izuku’s shins. “Even a water quirk would not overpower his flames, not in such a small distance. Besides, the light from the fire would’ve been seen in the other camera footage.”
“So we have no leads, no witnesses and nothing to go on,” he raise his eyebrows at Todoroki, who meets him squarely. “And you’re sure we shouldn’t go to the police seeing as Endeavor isn’t in a position to kick up a fuss?”
“I’m sure,” Todoroki eyes the picture and prods it as though it would reveal its secrets to him. “I’m trying to find someone with a quirk that helps locate people. There’s a few in the police department, I think. If I’m not wrong, one of them by the name of Takehara is crooked.”
“Todoroki-kun,” Izuku starts, his tone simultaneously fond and worried. “It’s touching to see you go this far for a father who was hardly good to you.”
“Oh,” Todoroki looks up at him, a steely glint in his eyes. “I’m not doing this because he’s my father. He’s the top hero right now. It’s better for society if he gets back to saving people as quickly as possible, especially since people are still scared All Might isn’t there.”
Oh.
“I guess that makes more sense,” Izuku rubs the back of his head and smiles, and, unbidden, so does Todoroki smile back at him. Ah, he’s beautiful, he thinks fondly, and can hardly tear his eyes away.
The night air is cold outside and it’s windy up here on the roof of a dilapidated building, but as Todoroki’s friend and only confidant, he has to be the one to survey the meeting going on below from up here to ensure no shit went down while Todoroki tried to find Endeavor.
Takehara, the supposedly crooked locator, is tall and good-looking, which only adds insult to injury. Currently, he’s standing several feet away from Todoroki, leaning against the wall and looking cool. Izuku wishes he could convey that kind of intimidating aura, but even after he’d hit his growth spurt and put on several pounds of muscle, no one seemed scared of him. At least, not until he beat them up. Then they were very scared of him.
Todoroki hands him the envelope, inside it containing one of Endeavor’s shirts.
“You find him first, then I’ll pay you,” he says, and while the locator doesn’t look very happy with that, where Izuku isn't intimidating Todoroki certainly is- hard eyes and hard lines of muscle coupled together with a strong, heavy build- he’s his father’s son through and through.
The locator takes the shirt and holds it in his hands- there’s a flare of blue light as his quirk moves into action, lighting up the alleyway with ill-gotten secrets and power, but then it stops as though it’s been cut off and Takehara drops to his knees and wheezes.
Todoroki kneels down beside him.
“What is it?” Izuku can hear him say. “Did you find him?”
“I can’t find him,” the man coughs and staggers to his feet, struggling to regain his composure. “Fuck! What was that?! I can’t find him. It’s like someone is jamming my quirk, I can’t get further than the central river.”
Todoroki’s frustration is obvious even through the darkness. Izuku longs to jump down to hold him, but he cannot for more reasons than the fact that he’s not supposed to be here. “Do you know anyone else who can?”
“Little dude,” Takehara says, even though he’s shorter than Todoroki. “I think you’re messing with some serious stuff here. You should let it go.”
“I’ll think about your advice,” Todoroki stuffs the shirt back into his pocket and turns to leave.
“Aren’t you going to pay me?”
“You can have half,” he hands him the cash. “Because you didn't find him, did you?”
“For such a young one, you’re a cocky little bastard,” Takehara shakes his head, but takes the offered money. “You’re lucky I’m nice. Others might’ve tried to rough you up a bit.”
“Oh, they can try,” Todoroki resumes walking away from the man, and Izuku does not miss the knowing glance he sends his way, a soft smile on his face. It sends a thrill through his body. “But I’ve got someone watching my back. And they’re scarier than me.”
“Scarier than the mutant son of Endeavor?” Takehara shakes his head and turns away from him too. “I don’t think that’s possible, little dude.”
“Well,” Izuku says once they’ve regrouped and are walking back towards the school. “That was unexpected.”
“A quirk jammer?” Todoroki questions in frustration and ice flares up on his right. “How is that possible? I’ve never heard of that before.”
A comforting hand on his shoulder has the ice melting right away. “I’m sure we’ll figure something out, Todoroki-kun. Let’s walk past the river for now.”
Todoroki sighs and looks at him with what could be fondness. “Right.”
They walk in silence next to each other, their shoulders and hands brushing occasionally. The night is quiet and cool, a soft breeze whipping through their hair and past their faces. Izuku really likes the way Todoroki looks in the moonlight- his silver side catches it and makes it brighter, and his red one turns an almost luminous scarlet. It’s hard to believe he hasn’t had a girlfriend yet, that he'd turned away everyone who came to him with a box of chocolates and a soft Todoroki-kun on their lips.
Walking beside him, Izuku is also free to note how even though Todoroki is slightly taller than him, he is broader and more sturdily built- the nature of his quirk demands it to be. He likes it. Being broader than Todoroki, that is, not because it makes him feel more powerful but- well, he actually doesn’t know. He just knows that when he and Todoroki stand together and he is that much bigger it makes him feel all kinds of good.
“We’re here,” Todoroki gestures to the bridge, and the white rush of the river below it. Izuku walks over the bridge and peers into the water, but standing here in the dark reveals nothing of Endeavor’s location. Todoroki comes to stand by him and they both look int the dark, silvery stream of freshwater that rushes beneath them.
“You know, I’ve read somewhere that running water acts as a barrier against magic,” Izuku mumbles, watching the dark water intently. “It’s a sign of life, so ghosts and monsters can’t cross it.”
“Quirks aren’t magic,” he replies, looking up from the water to study Izuku’s side profile. “It’s an evolution of our species.”
“Well, sure, you could think that way,” Izuku smiles. “But there are some quirks you think are magic, right? They’re so breathtakingly pretty you think there’s no way a human made that, but they did. Like yours, Todoroki-kun.”
“My quirk is pretty?” Todoroki blushes in spite of their situation and turns away. Even after all these years, Izuku still held such an emotional leverage over him it’s hard not to react.
“Of course it is! I have never seen ice or fire more beautiful than when you make it,” Izuku laughs and tugs on his sleeve. “Come on. We have to get back, or people are going to get suspicious.”
“I know someone whose quirk is that they can release small glowing orbs that disappear after a minute,” Todoroki tells him as they walk away from the water. “I know what you mean by beautiful. It’s like the entire sky was lit with fireflies.”
“Right?” he turns to him excitedly. “Quirks are so…unique and special, you can hardly label them all as a science,” he falls back so that they walk together once more. “When I didn’t have a quirk, I was obsessed with researching them. I don’t think that’s stopped.”
“It’s cute,” Todoroki tells him, and Izuku blushes prettily and turns his face away. “You always get so passionate about quirks.”
“It’s hard not to be when you realise how intriguing they are,” Izuku shrugs, takes his hand, and once again they walk in silence.
“Any news of Endeavor?” Izuku asks two days later when he’s heard nothing from Todoroki about his father. They’re sitting in class, Todoroki’s legs on his lap as they lie on the floor, exhausted from studying for their finals and the level of difficulty of the classes.
“Nothing,” Todoroki pushes a pillow over his face and sighs. “Maybe we should go to the police about it.”
“He’s in tabloid magazines. Some say he eloped with a foreign wife and is now living as a farmer in America,” Izuku holds up his phone to show the online article, and Todoroki huffs a small laugh that wipes away all his troubles. Todoroki doesn’t laugh much, but when he does, it’s breathtaking, it really is.
“My father a farmer in America? I think he’d rather spontaneously combust,” he rolls his eyes and picks up his notes. “I can’t understand this section on geography.”
“I’ll help,” Izuku offers, just as Katsuki walks into the classroom and stops dead at the sight of the two of them.
“Has anyone told you you both are really fucking gay?” he says, and kicks several chairs out of the way. Age has not cooled down the volcano that is Katsuki Bakugou, but it has made Izuku more resilient to it.
“Yes, you have on multiple occasions,” Izuku laughs and Katsuki rolls his eyes. “Hey, Kacchan, if someone was missing and even a locator couldn't find him, what would do you?”
“Give up.”
“Not an option,” Izuku sighs and leans back against the wall. “What would you really do?”
“I don't fucking know. Surveillance tapes? Eye-witnesses? Nearby abandoned buildings? What the fuck is this for anyway?” Katsuki grabs his bag and swings it on his shoulders. “Who’s gone missing?”
“No one has,” Todoroki puts down his notes with a crinkle of paper. “But what if someone does? It might be on our Hero test.”
“Fuck the Hero test,” Katsuki sticks both middle fingers up at him as he leaves the classroom. “As if paper can decide how we react in life or death.”
“Sometimes you make sense, Kacchan.”
“Sometimes? Bitch, you have three seconds to- actually, I’m too fucking tired for this shit. Have fun,” there's a slam as the boy exits the room.
“Kacchan’s gotten a lot nicer,” Izuku comments, slumping down the wall until he’s lying on the classroom floor. “You know, I am starting to get worried about Endeavor.”
“Let’s go back to the river,” Todoroki swings his legs off Izuku and stands up in a fluid motion. “Maybe people in the nearby stores saw something.”
There’s a different air to the river now that they’re standing there in daylight; the vibe that Izuku gets is a lot less personal, and so he keeps a distance between his and Todoroki’s shoulders that was not there the night they were here.
“If you’re saying that the gap between this security camera and the next is ten metres,” Izuku says, walking the line with him and eyeing the stores around him. “Then the ones with a perfect vantage point is the convenience store, the house on that hill, and the dumpster. Anyone in those locations could’ve seen something.”
Todoroki looks at him, at the distance between them, then back at him again. A slight huff; then he crosses the distance and purposely bumps their shoulders together, as if making a very public statement. It makes Izuku’s face turn beet red as he inwardly flails and screams.
They go to the convenience store first, where Todoroki slams on the counter and demands to know who was on shift at ten on the nineteenth of June, and are quickly referred to a man named Tanaka who lives a couple of blocks from here please don’t hurt me!
Izuku feels compelled to stay behind and comfort the trembling store assistant.
“Sorry about that,” Izuku rubs the back of his head and smiles disarmingly at her. “He gets rough when he’s worried. Don’t think too much about it.”
“You’re friends?”
“Yeah,” he buys a pack of sweets because he feels guilty. “Thanks for telling us! Have a great day.”
“Is he single?” the girl asks, and Izuku goes through the seven stages of shock in about zero point three seconds.
“I- uh- hah- what? No! No, he’s, he’s not, he’s not…single,” Izuku babbles, his hands coming up to cover his face. “Um. No.”
“Midoriya! Let’s go,” Todoroki sticks his head back into the store and taps his foot impatiently; it snaps him out of his embarrassed flailing and sends him tripping clumsily over to him. “Wait, did something happen?”
“Nah, I was making sure you didn’t traumatise the poor saleslady,” Izuku meaningfully bumps his shoulder as they pass each other in the doorway, and Todoroki has the decency to look at least somewhat sheepish.
He glances at the saleslady as they walk by, manages to catch her eye- and suddenly has the overwhelming urge to take Todoroki’s hand once more.
Izuku knocks on the door of the person’s house, but there’s no reply- or at least there’s none until Todoroki narrows his eyes at the wooden door and shouts, “police!”
Immediately, there’s the sound of scuffing and banging from within the house as whoever is in it apparently tries to run away. Todoroki and Izuku exchange panicked glances.
“The balcony,” Izuku says. His gaze, when he turns it to him, is alight with the fire he gets in a chase; sinful and dangerous. “Go.”
Todoroki dashes down the stairs and around the block to where there’s a middle-aged man attempting to drop down from the third floor, his legs pinwheeling as he holds himself by the railing.
“You’re going to fall, old man! Do you need help?”
“Go away!”
“If you fall, you’re going to get hurt,” Todoroki taps his foot on the floor, but when he sees the man’s grip start to falter and slide, he doesn’t think twice before sending up a gentle slope of ice to guide his fall and instead have him slip down to his feet. “You’re welcome.”
“You don’t look like police,” the man squints at them and crosses his arms. “What do you want?”
“I’m interested to know why you would run from the police,” Izuku says as he rounds the corner, an amused lilt to his voice. It’s unintentional, but it's menacing in its nature, and Todoroki is not lying when he says he never looks forward to being on the receiving end of that voice.
“You brats don’t need to know shit,” the man dusts himself off and turns away from them.
“Where is Endeavor?” Todoroki asks, and the man freezes up, chokes, and turns red all at once.
“Saving people, probably.”
“You lie even worse than this guy over here,” Todoroki jerks his head over at Izuku, who looks at him in betrayal. “You know what’s happened to him. You saw it.”
“I saw nothing,” the man spits at the two of them and stalks off. “Get away from me before I call the police.”
Izuku grabs hold of Todoroki’s arm just as he’s about to turn him into an ice centrepiece. “You’re right, sir. But we’ll come back.”
“For what?”
“Well, you know who took Endeavor,” Izuku smiles innocently at him, and for some reason, it scares him even more than the other one. “We can’t let that slide, can we, Todoroki-kun?”
“If you come after me, I’ll kill you in your sleep,” the man draws a line across his neck, and Todoroki rolls his eyes. They continue to watch him as he stalks away, hand in his pockets.
“Maybe we do need the police,” Todoroki mutters, twisting his arm free of Izuku’s grip.
“Maybe we don’t,” Izuku says, a quiet smile playing about the corner of his lips. “Who do we know that’s adept at getting people to do what he wants?”
“Bakugou?” Todoroki squints his eyes at him, but he can see Bakugou threatening the man to an inch of his life.
“What? No. Kacchan would probably make him less likely to talk,” Izuku laughs and puts his hands into his pockets as they walk away from the apartments. “Shinsou, Todoroki-kun. Shinsou.”
“You want me to do what?” Shinsou questions in alarm when they corner him after class the next day. As promised, in year two he’d been moved up to the hero course, and he’d never looked more tired or more happy. His success story was largely due to Izuku’s nonstop complaining and the fact that he’d managed to aid them with the League of Villains incident, and it made him super glad when he’d finally been officially recognised. “That’s illegal, Izuku-kun.”
“Shinsou, please,” Izuku whines, clasping his hands together and silently looking at Todoroki to do the same. “Someone important is missing and this man knows where he is.”
“We’d rather not beat the answers out of him but I will,” Todoroki continues, looking at Shinsou with no-nonsense eyes that do speak of a threat.
“You know me! I won’t do anything bad,” Izuku adds on, bowing at the waist. “Please! Just ask him what happened on the night of the nineteenth of June.”
Shinsou looks at the two of them intensely. “Fine,” he concedes, slipping his books into his bag. “Show me where he is.”
“Shinsou, you are the best,” Izuku claps his hands together excitedly and helps to gather his things from the classroom. “I promise it’s not that illegal.”
On the bus to the apartments, Shinsou looks over at him fondly. After the fight they had during the sports festival, they’d gotten a lot closer, and now Shinsou is proud to call Midoriya Izuku a friend. But- well, he’s still a dumb, idiotic friend, that’s for sure. He’d pulled on his sleeve so that he’d sit next to him, and now that he is and he’s far enough away from Todoroki, he asked, “don’t tell me you still haven’t told Todoroki-kun that you like him.”
His words have the same effect on Izuku as they did a year ago- he turns red all over and starts to fidget uncomfortably. “I…”
“God, you told me you were going to three months ago! What happened?”
“I got distracted!”
Shinsou raises both eyebrows at him and rolls his eyes. “If you don’t tell him before graduation I'm using my quirk on you to get you to do it. He obviously likes you back. Look at him! He’s even upset that you’re not sitting with him.”
“I think he’s just tired. I don’t think he’s slept much this past few days,” Izuku spares a glance over at him and indeed, Todoroki does seem to look a little morose. But only if you looked really, really, really hard at him.˙
“The fact that you can tell he’s tired is another thing. He looks the same as always,” Shinsou rolls his eyes once more. “I swear, you’re the biggest idiot ever. You could be doing so much more if you just sucked it all up.”
“Eh,” Izuku shrugs and studies his side profile, likes the way the sunset looks on Todoroki’s pale skin. “I like it like this.”
“Hey mister. Do you know who I am?” Shinsou asks once they’ve broken into his apartment- Todoroki froze solidly through the locking mechanism and just…broke the door down. Izuku had winced at the property damage but had said nothing.
“Of course not! What are you doing in my-“ there’s a stutter as Shinsou takes control, and the man quietens down almost immediately. Izuku pats his shoulder comfortingly as Shinsou looks away from the man in regret.
“Tell us what happened on the night of the nineteenth of June,” Shinsou says. There’s a jerk as the man tries to fight it, but as always- everyone loses out to Shinsou’s quirk. “A man went missing. Who was it? What happened?”
“I helped a group of men smuggle someone onto a van. They offered to pay me for the camera footage and my time.”
“Tell us. What did you do?”
“I invited the man into the store and asked him to try some new sushi we’d made. They were drugged and he was out cold in no time. I helped to put him on the van.”
“Who was this man?” Shinsou continues. Izuku starts forward with a no barely being able to be formed on his lips before the answer comes.
“Endeavor.”
Shinsou startles at the answer. He turns to look at both Todoroki and Izuku in confusion and shake his head when he sees the both of them look at him in guilt and nonchalance.
“Tell us where they took him.”
“I am not supposed to know, but I followed the van when it left. It came back after a while. They took him under the river.”
Under the river…? Todoroki and Izuku look at each other in alarm. Todoroki snaps out of it first and comes around to the man who is still staring blankly ahead of him. There’s a moment when he considers what to do, then he’s raising his fist and knocking the man out, much to the others’ alarm.
“Help me tie him up, if he tells the others while we’re there we’re dead,” he says emotionlessly, and Izuku shrugs before joining him.
Idiots in love, Shinsou thinks with a sigh. We’re lucky they’re both on our side.
“I’m going home,” Shinsou says with a lazy wave of his arm and turns to walk out of the decimated door. “Let’s hope this man doesn’t sue us-“ his eyes scan the apartment and land on a duffel bag in the corner, which, upon closer inspection, is revealed to contain several pounds of cocaine. Why does this always happen to me? “Actually, I’ll just call the police. You guys go.”
“Use his phone,” Todoroki hands it to him from his pocket. “And run like hell.”
“Thanks man,” Shinsou holds the phone gingerly. “You sure you haven’t thought about becoming a serial killer?”
“I would be good at it,” he nods, and on that unnerving note, he and Izuku both step out of the apartment.
Serial killer boyfriends, Shinsou thinks with a shudder. An unstoppable force. No one would survive.
They walk back to the river, standing over the bridge once more and looking into the foamy white water that churns past them. A lot has happened this past week, leaving Izuku in a dizzy state of worry, but now that they’re this close to finding Endeavor he’s not sure what to do. On one hand, he’s glad this is going to be over, on the other, the whole incident has given him a lot of time to spend with Todoroki, and it had made him ridiculously happy.
“I’ve been thinking,” Izuku says as the wind whips the water up even more. “You know how Takehara said his quirk was jammed? What if it’s not jammed, it was suppressed? Like Endeavor’s being kept in a bunker where there’s quirk suppressing material?”
“Like what we saw in our first year, those bullets,” Todoroki takes his hand and guides the two of them down to the edges of the bridge, where they claim over and manoeuvre down to the river bank. “That’s scary.”
“We might not be able to use our quirks down there.”
“At least Aizawa-sensei taught us enough hand-to-hand,” Todoroki says as they peer under the bridge. It takes a while of careful knocking and pressing before Izuku gets bored of it and instead winds up a punch that smashes the air- it brushes all sides of the wall under the bridge and there’s a quiet beeping sound as a specific panel is pressed down and moved aside.
“They have a secret base,” Izuku claps his hands together and looks way too gleeful for their situation. “A secret base with a secret door, Todoroki-kun. That’s insane! What else do you think they’ll have down there? Alarms? Creepy guards? What will we find? Why is Endeavor being kept here-“
“Midoriya, your muttering is loud,” Todoroki says deadpan as they walk into the darkness, the light from his fire the only thing in the base that shows them the way. As they delve further into the dark corridor, the light does not get any weaker. “Do you think they reserve the suppressants for the prison cell itself?”
“Quirk suppressant in the walls,” Izuku stage whispers, and prods the wall- activating a panel of security installations that pop up along with emergency stair lighting. “Oho. You’re welcome.”
“You could’ve pressed something that could’ve killed us, but thank you,” Todoroki rolls his eyes and they continue walking.
“Do you think they’ll have a sign saying Endeavor here? It’ll be helpful,” Izuku is starting to feel uncomfortable with the lack of humans and the harsh white lighting and just how far the corridor is stretching.
“We can ask him,” Todoroki says, and gestures to a man who is walking in a corridor just off of them, studying his notepad with a zeal. It’s the first person they’ve seen this whole time. “Hey! Do you know where Endeavor was transferred to?”
“He’s still in room 2A,” the man says on reflex, then stops and whirls around. “Wait, who are you?!”
“I’m his son,” Todoroki says, and kicks him in the balls, then on the head, knocking him out.
“I wonder where room 2A is,” Izuku ignores the body on the floor and picks up his notepad instead, which is littered with symbols and random letters. Izuku tosses it back on the floor and sighs.
They resume walking, eyeing the various doors that appear before them and eventually find room 2B- with 2A in the corridor just next to them, but contrary to the absence of people the entire time, there’s seven guards standing in front of the door.
Seven.
“We can take them,” Todoroki says, and sure enough with just a stamp of his foot and a knock on several heads they’re all trussed up in ice and unconscious.
“Is it just me, or does this feel too easy?” Izuku mutters but does nothing, instead focusing on the little exhale of visible air Todoroki always does when he uses his ice half.
It falls to Izuku to smash open the door, having to go up to fifteen percent of One for All to do so, for it’s a heavy set iron door that Izuku suspects even if it was unlocked the two of them could not push it open themselves.
Inside, Endeavor sits shackled to the walls, his usual flamboyant flame beard gone and replaced with a serious red beard that’s peppered with grey. He looks up as Todoroki comes in and there’s a moment of panic that crosses his eyes, one that Izuku has seen many times in other heroes, and has the presence of mind to yank Todoroki back before the ceiling above where he’d just been standing caved in and collapsed.
“I only wanted the father,” the figure standing in the dust says and looks up at the two of them. It’s a man in all black, with a mask covering his mouth. He’s holding a gun in one hand and holds it up to point at Todoroki’s head. “But it seems I’ve got the son too. Interesting. Your quirk is powerful.”
“What do you want with him?” Izuku asks, his eyes narrowing; he’s long since past the age of getting scared of villains.
“Quirks are overrated,” the man says. “We’re going to get rid of them. Starting with the number two hero, and, now it seems, with the future of heroes with powerful quirks. We don’t need magic to be strong. We just need to be able to make others afraid.”
“Good luck with that,” Todoroki says, and neatly dodges the first bullet. From the make of the gun, it seems to be a model that can hold twelve bullets. To win, they'd need to first get rid of it. From how Todoroki is fighting (beautifully, but that’s not the point)- hand-to-hand, trading kicks and basic blows without the use of any of his flames, the walls inside the prison are indeed made of a quirk suppressing material, an invention that scares the pants off Izuku, but has no time to think about it.
So if the inside of the cell is suppressed, then with a quirk like his, he could just- he stumbles backwards out of the cell and braces himself on the opposite wall.
“Your friend is running away,” the man laughs and shoots, but Todoroki dodges once more and nails him in the solar plexus.
“Midoriya would never run away,” Todoroki says, spares a hurried glance over at him and sees the green lightning all around him. “Oh, but now I am,” he says, and leaps over him and out of the cell. “Go ahead, babe.”
“Babe?" Izuku laughs breathlessly. “We gotta talk about that, you know.”
“We can talk after. Don’t bring the building down. Don’t hurt the hero.”
“I hear you, babe,” Izuku watches the man advance toward them- then he launches his fist forward and the air explodes, slamming the man hard against the back wall and making the wall of the cell crumble and fall. “Oh. I think I might’ve brought the building down,” he says, as he eyes cracks that start to appear in other walls.
“What did I say?” Todoroki rolls his eyes, yanks him down by the shirt collar, and kisses him. His lips are both warm and cool, a sensory overload that has Izuku slipping down the wall and onto his knees, his hands going to land on Todoroki’s waist and pulling them together harshly.
“Kiss later,” Izuku pulls away from him to gasp for breath and looks away, red-faced. “Get out of here first?”
“You look good when you’re fighting.”
“I should say the same. I think I know that guy, by the way. Wasn’t he in the news for running rogue from the Quirk department?”
Todoroki steps into the ruined cell and pulls down his mask. “Oh yeah. It is. Help me carry Endeavor out? He’s still conscious but I’d like to lord it over him once we do.”
“Cool. I’ll call the police.”
“Okay,” Todoroki says, smiles at his father, gives him a self-suffering wave as he puts one arm on his shoulder and Izuku takes the other one.
“Can you believe that guy thought he could take us down with a suppressant and bullets?” Izuku asks as they make their way out, Todoroki freezing anyone who comes their way.
“Yeah, they could only take down Endeavor,” he smiles at Endeavor, who glares at him rudely.
Izuku laughs in spite of himself.
There’s a knock on his door. Izuku stands up from his bed, dusting off his trousers from the notes he’s making and pulling the door open smoothly. Todoroki looks up at him, and Izuku steps aside to let him in.
“Thanks for helping me save my father,” Todoroki says, and looks at him earnestly. “It was pretty fun. I can also bring it up every time I go back home.”
“It’s no problem,” Izuku laughs and rubs the back of his head. “What are you doing here?”
“You said to kiss later,” Todoroki eyes him with slight nervousness underneath that stoic mask. “It’s been a day.”
“It has.”
“So I’m going to kiss you now,” he takes a step forward and Izuku takes a step back, bumping against the wall. “If that’s okay.”
“I don’t mind,” Izuku laughs and leans forward, and when they kiss, he thinks maybe I should've done this a lot earlier.