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He’d spent most of his life training. He knew when he’d overworked himself and knew when to fall back and let someone else take the lead. The tightness in his chest was something he was all too familiar with and he sat down, taking deep breaths and digging his nails into his palms. Izuku was the first to notice. “Hey, wait up!”
“He’ll be fine, Deku. Let’s just get this patrol over with.”
His old friend kept walking and he hesitated a moment before jogging back to Shouto. “Everything okay, Frostfire?”
“Fine,” he said, his voice tight. “Just fought a bit too hard back there.”
“Yeah, that guy put up more of a fight that I would’ve thought. Do you want to rest a few minutes? I’m sure Katsu-- er, Ground Zero will be fine on his own.”
“Go on ahead. Don’t want him scaring any kids again.”
“Okay. You should head back to the agency when you’re feeling better. We’ve got the rest of the patrol covered and I’m sure he’ll understand.”
He could only nod as his vision swam. I’m fine. I’ve handled worse than this.
Then it was clear and Izuku was gone. He forced himself to his feet and ran after them, ignoring the persistent ache. He’d use his quirk later and ice his muscles.
“About time you showed up,” Katuski muttered as he caught up. “Deku was worried you’d passed out back there or something.”
“Just overexertion. Like you said, let’s get this over with.”
“Icyhot.”
He glared at the nickname.
“Deku’s concerned about you. Would you please tell him you’re fine before he works himself into another panic?”
“I’m not!” the boy protested, pushing past Katsuki. “I mean, I am, but not that much!”
“Izuku, I’m fine. I just overworked myself.”
“If you say so…”
He really was feeling better. He just didn’t know how to convince them. Thankfully, they seemed content with his answer and he was left alone again.
He was exhausted and had barely changed out of his costume before he passed out.
“Half ‘n Half!”
He covered his ears and internally groaned. No matter how long their internship lasted, he would never get used to being woken up by Katsuki’s yelling.
“Get the hell up! We’re heading out in five minutes with or without you! Just because you pushed yourself too hard doesn’t mean you get to slack off!”
“I would think I’d get a recovery period of some kind--”
“You’re wasting time that could be spent making sure you don’t look like a mess by talking back, but if you’re okay with that--”
His reply came in the form of a pillow to the face and Katuski smirked. “Four minutes now.”
“Then get out--”
He got ready in record time and met Izuku on the street.
“You look---”
“I don’t want to hear it. I was woken up only minutes before we had to go.”
“...Tired.”
They walked in silence after that, the only noise that of Katsuki snapping at people that didn’t get out of his way fast enough. He stole glances at Izuku and realized he was shivering and trying to hide it. He’d barely noticed it but the temperature had dropped probably twenty degrees from the day before. He used his quirk and felt his left side warm up.
“You’re freezing. Stand closer to me.”
“Oh, th-thanks.”
“What did you just say?!” Katuski barked. “You’re talking to a Yuuei third-year and hero in training! Take it back!”
“Katu-- I mean, Ground Zero, no!” he cried, rushing forward to stop the other boy.
Shouto tried not to laugh as Izuku practically tore him off the boy who’d apparently insulted him. While he’d gotten better, he had a long way to go before he could handle the publicity on his own. That went for all of them except maybe Yaoyorozu.
His laughter was cut short as the pain returned full force and his breath caught. I’m not going to pass out.
Everything began to fade and he tried to sit down.
“Shouto!”
Then he hit the pavement and it all went dark.
Shouto was more used to hospitals than he’d care to admit. Whether he was a patient or visiting Izuku, he was all too familiar with the off white walls and lingering smell of antiseptic. When he found himself in a hospital bed and with an oxygen mask on, he didn’t panic. He simply removed the mask and tried to sit up, much to the horror of the nearby nurse.
“Mr. Todoroki, you can’t do that--!”
“What happened?” he demanded.
“You suffered a sudden cardiac arrest that seemed to be triggered by an extreme change in temperature in your body. Your quirk is… Half-Cold, Half-Hot?”
He kept quiet. Things weren’t supposed to reach such a state. He’d been able to hide it for years. Why was the truth coming out so suddenly?
“You’re very lucky. It seems you didn’t suffer any brain damage.”
“...Now what?”
“Well, you have two visitors who have refused to leave. As for the long term, you’ll need to be fitted with an implantable cardioverter defibrillator. It’s a bit like a pacemaker but it will try to shock your heart back into a normal rhythm if something like this were to happen again.”
“I want to see my friends.”
“Yes, well, the one will need to keep quiet if he wishes to see you.”
“I… I’ll tell him.”
She left and Izuku and Katuski entered a minute later.
“What the fuck do you think you were doing?” he snapped.
“Keep your voice down or they’ll kick you out.”
“I’ll be as loud as I damn well please! Why don’t you explain to me what the hell is going on and why your heart suddenly stopped? And don’t even think about giving me that bullshit excuse that you ‘overworked yourself’ because none of us are buying it.”
“Have you ever taken a biology course? Ever really looked at the human body?”
“What are you driving at?”
“The body is peculiar. There are certain proteins that don’t like temperature change. Even things like exercising and sleeping cause it to freak out a bit, which can cause the heart to beat too fast or too slow, or even skip a beat entirely.”
“But bodies adapt based on quirks,” Izuku mumbled. “That’s how you have a half resistance based on which side of your body.”
“Of course they adapt, but there’s only so much the body can take before it reaches its limit and fails.”
Katuski was silent. “You knew,” he said at last. “You knew your limits and pushed past them--!”
“Of course I knew about this! This has been happening since I was five years old!”
“I don’t understand…”
“You know what kind of man my father is, Izuku. I was born to become a hero to surpass All Might himself. I was so young and my body couldn’t handle it, so it just shut down. It’s not like he cared. He learned that his masterpiece had a fatal flaw and tried to train it out of me.”
“Shouto, I--”
“If only that were the end. When it only made things worse, he started sleeping around in case he needed a backup. I probably have siblings that were meant to take my place and I don’t even know about them. If they weren’t failures and he cast them aside, that is.”
The three of them were silent as the implications of Shouto’s words hung in the air.
“I’m sorry,” Izuku started.
“Apologies mean nothing. This all happened because that bastard wanted perfection. He got a perfect quirk but a broken child.”
“...Your dizzy spell yesterday--”
“I’ve dealt with this for as long as I can remember. They’ve just gotten worse recently.”
“And what are you going to do now?” Katuski spat. “You can’t exactly continue like this!”
“Of course I can. I’m going to become a hero on my own terms, just like I’ve been doing for the past three years.”
“It’s going to kill you,” Izuku whispered.
“...I know. I’ve known for awhile, but a low life expectancy didn’t mean anything to me at the time.”
They were interrupted as a doctor entered the room. “I’m going to have to ask you two to leave. We’ve already received noise complaints and I have confidential information to share with my patient--”
“They’re staying,” Shouto said firmly. “I’ve lied to them enough. They deserve to hear the truth.”
“Mr. Todoroki, I don’t think you understand--”
“It’s my sentence, isn’t it? That I have to cut down on my quirk usage.”
“Not… quite. Even with an ICD, your quirk will kill you if you continue to use it in such a manner. Your body can’t handle another big shock like this.”
“So what?” Katuski snapped.
“The three of you are students, are you not? He’ll have to drop out and stop using his quirk. Maybe in time he could use it as it was intended in moderation, but he certainly can’t continue training to be a hero.”
“And if I did?”
“Without an ICD, I can’t say you’d see graduation. With it… it’s unclear. You’re a rather peculiar case, Mr. Todoroki.”
“I get told that a lot,” he said flatly.
The doctor sighed. “I’ve treated all kinds of patients, many of them heroes. I know the look in your eyes and I’m telling you now that continuing your training is a guaranteed death sentence.”
Shouto didn’t say anything.
“Thank you,” Izuku said quietly.
They were left alone again and small explosions began crackling along Katuski’s palms. “You dumbass--”
“You don’t understand--” he started.
“You think you’re so mysterious, Icyhot, but you’re not. I’ve known about your fucked up family situation since we were first years. I know that you want to prove your old man wrong and I’m all for that, but not at the cost of your life.”
“It’s my life and I’m free to do with it what I wish--”
“Not when you’re just gonna throw it away like this! You and I never even got to have a no holds barred fight to see who should’ve won that sports festival!”
“I’ve actually written out such a scenario,” Izuku mumbled, “and based on a number of factors determined that--”
“Shut the hell up, Deku!”
He drew back and Katuski looked as though he was resisting the urge to blow something up. “You are going to get that fucking ICD,” he growled, “you are going to graduate, you are going to fight me and settle this once and for all, and then you can do whatever the hell you want. It if means killing yourself, so be it.”
“...Fine. Izuku, do you have any terms to add?”
“Wha-?! You can’t be serious!”
“Don’t even include him or he’ll call the whole thing off. I’ll go find that damn doctor and you can tell him right now you want this damn machine.”
Shouto laughed without humor. “It’s been awhile since you’ve gotten properly fired up. I look forward to our rematch. You’ll be the referee, won’t you, Izuku?”
He looked to be on the verge of tears. “N-No! Of course not!”
It had been too long since he’d just taken the time to walk somewhere. He was so often running and he’d forgotten how nice it was to just enjoy the sun and observe the people around him.
That changed as he got closer to the house. If not for the distinct lack of an electric shock, he would’ve thought for sure his heart had skipped a beat.
He didn’t even get a chance to knock on the door before it swung open.
“I thought you vowed never to come back,” his father practically spat.
“I’m only here to pick up my belongings.”
“And you think you can just waltz back here after what you said last time?”
He pushed past the man and had almost reached the steps when a hand grabbed his wrist and he was wrenched down the hall. “Let go,” he demanded.
“You don’t get to act as though you have a say in things. Not after you left your family behind.”
“This is no family.”
He was pushed forward and fell against the counter. Hard. He did his best to look mad when he’d just had the wind knocked out of him.
“Why are you really here, Shouto?”
“What do you remember about my childhood?”
“I remember your pathetic attempts at sparring and matches that ended in tears rather than you actually trying. I’m only going to ask once more: why are you here?”
“Pathetic attempts at sparring, huh? How about Mom on her knees and begging you to take me to the hospital?”
“Your mother was a weak, spineless woman who didn’t understand that everything I was doing was for you.”
“Maybe not, but she knew the beginnings of a heart condition. And so did you, yet you did nothing. No, you tried to train it out of me.”
“I’m going to have to ask you to get out of my house--”
“I imagine it wasn’t hard to find women willing to sleep with you once you realized your masterpiece was broken. I know Mom was grateful for the break. I still remember her crying on those nights, but now I realize they were tears of joy.”
“You dare mention her in front of me--”
“How many half-siblings do I have? Surely you know the number. You must’ve checked in on them to make sure their quirks were meeting your standards.”
“You stand alone, Shouto. Those things have no relation to you.”
“At least two, then. Probably more, if Fuyumi and the others are any indicator.”
He was cut off as a hand wrapped itself around his throat. “I see you still haven’t grown out of your childish rebellion.”
“Never,” he managed. “But just remember that if you kill me now, you’ll never find out why I’m feeling nostalgic.”
The pressure on his windpipe disappeared and he gasped for breath.
“Why?”
He laughed dryly and pulled at the collar of his shirt, revealing a raised, discolored patch of skin under his collarbone. “All that training, all those blows, all those changes in temperature… they finally put me over the edge.”
“You--”
“My heart stopped beating because you were so insistent on using me to settle your petty grudge. They had to thread a wire through it because it’ll probably happen again. I’m not even supposed to use my quirk for six months, but…”
He raised his hand and a small flame danced along his fingers. The look in his father’s eyes was one he’d never forget.
“Are you scared? Afraid your little project is going to crash and burn too soon?”
“Get out of my house.”
“You did this to me!” he yelled. “Now you have to face the harsh reality that your experiment, your magnum opus is going to retire before you do. I can’t beat All Might in this state. I can’t even summon an ice wall like I did in the sports festival all those years ago. I suppose I could… but it would probably kill me.”
“Get out!”
Shouto stepped forward, his face only inches from the other man’s. “Burn in hell,” he spat.
He barely even registered the blow, running a hand over the now stinging skin.
“You’re afraid. You can’t control me anymore and you don’t know what to do with yourself.”
“I could never be afraid of a weakling like you.”
Frost crept up his arm and he watched the man’s eyes go wide. He couldn’t stop himself from smirking. “That’s what I thought.”
He made his way upstairs and returned a minute later with a framed photo. “I figured I’d drop this off with Mom, seeing as this’ll probably be one of the last times I see her. I took the liberty of burning you out of it years ago. She only cares about the real members of the family.”
He didn’t look back as he walked out the gate.