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Todoroki was sitting in class like usual, his gaze directed to the empty seat that belonged to Midoriya Izuku.
'I wonder where he is... It's not like him to be late, is he sick? Or did something happen-'
His thought was interrupted when the door slowly opened, revealing All Might squeezing himself through the halfway opened door. He briefly nodded at Aizawa in apology before he waved the teen over. "Todoroki my boy, could you come with me?"
Todoroki nodded and excused himself, then walked through the door and closed it behind him when he existed. "What's going on?"
"It's about Midoriya-" the tall man quickly put his hands up in defense when the teen's eyes widened in shock and worry. "Nothing too bad, though. You see, there was an incident with a sick student whose aging quirk went wild... The Midoriya boy had been de-aged to the state of a small child."
Shouto stood there in complete shock for a minute before speaking up. "W-why are you telling me this?"
"Neither me or the boy's mother can watch him, even Recovery Girl has her hands full today. You're the one of his friends who can afford to miss a day the most, you are a good student. Could you take care of him until afternoon?" All Might answered, fidgeting in place as if nervous that the teen might say no.
"Uh, sure? I don't know much about things like that, but-"
"Great! He's with Recovery Girl right now!" All Might rushed and sprinted off.
With a sigh, Shouto made his way to the nurse's room and politely knocked before opening the door to be greeted by the old hero and a child hiding behind her.
"I'm glad you could come. Izuku-chan, say hello!"
The small kid blinked a few times before letting go of Recovery Girl's coat and made his way over to the teen. "H-Hello, I'm Midoriya Izuku!"
'This smile is killing me... He is too cute...' Shouto thought and tried his best to not catch fire in that moment. He carefully reached down to pick Izuku up and held him easily with one arm.
"Todoroki Shouto, it's a pleasure to meet you."
-~-
Todoroki settled down in an empty classroom and sat the small boy on the desk in front of him.
"Midoriya, how old are you?"
"Thr- uh, Four!" The boy grinned and held out four fingers.
"C-Cute...!" the other murmured and resisted the urge to cuddle. "And do you already know what you want to do when you're older?"
The small child with green hair suddenly stopped smiling and tears swelled up in the little eyes. "I-I..."
"I'm sorry, you don't have to tell me if you don't want to. But please don't cry, Midoriya!" Shouto said a bit in panic.
The kid shook his head, tears now streaming down his face. "I-I want to be a great hero like All Might! E-Even if... even if I'm q-quirkless..."
Todoroki swallowed and picked up small Izuku, hugging him to his chest. "I'm sure you will soon get your quirk and be an amazing hero, some people are late bloomers, you know?"
"H-How do you know?"
The teen sighed softly, pulling away enough to look Izuku in the eyes. "Intuition. If you want I can prove it to you."
"R-Really!?" The small child said excitedly, tears slowly disappearing.
"Yeah." Shouto said and set the child back down to take off the shoes. "There's an old technique to check, you see. You just count the joints on your pinky toe, and... you... you have two joints..."
Midoriya nodded, fresh tears falling again. "The doctor said because of my feet I have no quirk like my mum or All Might..."
"How weird..." The teen thought out loud but quickly snapped out of it and to wipe away the tears. "It's okay, you can still become a hero."
The small child smiled through his tears in a way that Shouto could've only descirbed as 'Midoriya'. "I doubt we can leave the schoolground, do you know something we can do in here?"
Izuku's eyes sparkled with excitement as he wiped the last of his tears with his sleeve. "Can we play Hero?! I play it with my mum all the time!"
"How do you play that?" Shouto asked in curiosity.
"You're the villain and I'm All Might catching you!" the child answered with a dertermined grin.
"Alright. Let me push the tables aside so we have enough room." the teen agreed and re-arranged the classroom to that six tables were pushed together in the middle and the rest to the sides.
"Fear no more! Why? Because I'm here now!" Izuku shouted with a giggle as he started to run towards Shouto with tiny legs.
"You won't catch me, All Might. I'm the... uh... evil... ice... monster..." Todoroki ran away slowly enough that Midoriya could almost catch up and produced thin ice walls behind him.
The small child laughed and could easily punch through them, running after the teen as fast as he could.
"Oh no. My ice powers are no match to you." Shouto said, making his ice walls smaller and smaller.
On one of the last, Izuku slipped and fell backwards on his rear. Todoroki immediately turned around and crouched down to check if Izuku hurt himself, but only got a cheeky grin in return and a pat on the nose.
"Got you, evil ice monster!"
'Shouto flashed a small smile and nodded. "Yeah, you got me."
"All Might saved the day once more!" the kid threw his hands up in happiness and jumped to his feet. "Again! Again!"
'Shit I want to keep him forever'
For the next half an hour, they played their hero version of tag, with Shouto pretending to fall down in defeat when Izuku got out of breath too much. The teen was equally surprised and embarrassed when suddenly the door opened.
"Deku? Are you in here?"
Uraraka stood in the doorway, looking around before spotting Todoroki laying with his stomach down on the floor and a four year old Izuku sitting on his back. "No, I'm All Might! I just defeated the evil ice monster, so fear no more!"
The girl's eyes widened. "Oh my... how cute!! What happened?"
Shouto fought a small blush and carefully sat up, pulling the child in his lap. "Midoriya got affected by some aging quirk so he's a four right now. I'm watching over him until his mother can pick him up."
Uraraka hummed and got closer, crouching in front of the child. "So you're watching him because you can afford it to be absent with your grades and to make sure he doesn't get hurt with his quirk? Kids can't properly control them at that age, after all!"
"Uh. Yes."
"Well, Iida and I got worried something might have happened since you and Deku disappeared and split up to investigate. I'll call him to say Deku's alright. Well, sort of." she chuckled.
"I'm Izuku, don't call me Deku!" Midoriya pouted, crossing his arms. "Kacchan calls me that all the time..."
The girl's look softened. "He's around here too, if you wanna meet someone you know-"
"No! Kacchan is mean!" the child shouted with wide eyes. "I like Shou-chan!"
Shouto instantly blushed and stared at Midoriya unbelievingly as Uraraka laughed.
"Alright then, I'll inform the others you guys are fine, just busy. Have fun playing with Shou-chan!" the girl giggled and quickly made her way out of the room before the other teen could comment it.
"Hey, Shou-chan?"
Todoroki looked down at the child fidgeting in his lap.
"I'm hungry, can we go eat?"
"Oh. Sure, let's go." he picked Izuku up and carried him on his arm to the still empty cafeteria with the child clinging to his shirt.
The chef put two bento boxes on the counter as he saw them. "All Might told me you two would drop by, have these bento boxes before the other students arrive for lunch."
Shouto nodded his thanks and picked the boxes up with his free hand, making his way back to the classroom just in time before the lunch bell rang.
The teen had to feed most of Izuku's bento to the child, but found that he didn't mind much. He began to get attached to the sweet kid and thought absently how his Midoriya was only barely different from the one in front of him.
Afternoon arrived quicker than he had wished, he barely had time to play with the small child more before Recovery Girl entered the room to inform Todoroki that Midoriya's mother had come to pick him up. He nodded and carried the kid outside, where the woman looked both excited and worried.
"Oh what a precious little thing my Izuku is!" she exclaimed as she took him into her arms. "Thank you for taking care of him... Todoroki-kun, right?"
Shouto raised his eyebrows. "Yes. How do you know?"
"Izuku talks to me a lot about his friends, he always tells me how cool you are!" the woman smiled in a way Todoroki reminded of his friend.
"Huh... Anyways, it was a pleasure taking care of him and I hope he gets back to normal soon."
Inko smiled and nodded. "Izuku, wanna say goodbye to Todoroki-kun?"
"Bye Shou-chan! See you around!" the small child said and waved with a happy grin.
Shouto flashed a smile. 'He's too cute!'
-~-
Two days later the quirk had finally lost it's affect and Midoriya went back to school. Right before class started he went to Todoroki's desk with a small blush on his face.
"My mum told me you took care of me when I was small... I just wanted to say... Thank you..."
"It's no problem. You were rather cute." Shouto blurted, blushing when he realized what he had said.
Izuku was equally flustered, holding his hands up in defense. "Oh, uh, no... I was probably really annoying with my All Might obsession..."
The bell interrupted them, with Shouto sighing and telling Midoriya to talk after school in peace.
The day went by far too slowly for both until they met behind the school to talk.
"I'm curious."
"Huh? About what?" Midoriya asked in confusion.
"You have two joints on your pinky toe. How can you be so strong if you're actually quirkless?"
Izuku instantly fell dead silent. The silence went on for a good minute before Shouto added. "Don't worry, I wont tell anyone. I just want to know."
The smaller teen nodded as thanks and sighed. "Since you found out, I guess I can tell you... It's true that I as born quirkless... It all started right before I went to Yuei..."
For the next minutes, Izuku confessed everything about his powers and All Might, only leaving out the part about the number one hero being heavily injured.
"So that's why your powers are so similar to All Might..." Shouto sighed in realization. "Your secret is safe with me, Midoriya."
"Thanks..." Izuku smiled, making Shouto feel weird inside.
"And... playing hero tag with you was really fun... you weren't annoying at all..." the teen muttered.
"Oh my gosh..." Midoriya buried his face in his hands in embarrassment.
Todoroki smiled softly. "Also, your mother told me how cool you think I am. Is that true?"
Midoriya crouched down. "You're making this so much worse... Yes I think you're an amazing guy, not only because of your quirk but also... because you're just you."
Shouto sat down on the ground and pulled Izuku's hands away. "I think you're amazing too... and... I like you."
Izuku looked up, his blush covering his whole face and neck. "L-L-Like, m-more than a-a friend?!"
The taller teen nodded and pulled Izuku closer to gently press his lips against the others. "Midori- Izuku. Would you like to go out with me?"
The latter stammered a few sentences as one, with Shouto only understanding 'yes' in the somewhere in the middle and pulled him in for another kiss.
When they parted again, Izuku gave Shouto the smile he had loved the most out of all the smiles the teen had. A smile of pure happiness.