Work Text:
Midoriya Izuku was observant.
That much was known.
He could easily read a situation and come up with a solution in a matter of minutes, these skills allowed him to quickly scan over an opponent and win, he could even see smaller, minuscule things such as when his friends were having off days, or when his mother felt ill and tried to hide it from him.
He was observant, he knew that much.
So, it was quite easy to infer that his boyfriend was seriously hiding something.
Todoroki was never an open book. His mannerisms were concise and thought out carefully, as to not alarm others of his current situation. It didn’t take a genius, however, to notice that he was unnaturally close to their classmate Shinsou Hitoshi.
The two paired together whenever possible, they left school together and arrived at school together, and Midoriya wasn’t jealous, wasn’t jealous at all – he just didn’t know how the two of them worked together so well.
And not to mention Aizawa seemed to favor them immensely, and sometimes it seemed like he didn’t even realize it himself.
Something was happening between the three of them, Midoriya just couldn’t figure out what.
1
Midoriya first noticed they were close when Present Mic stated that they were working in pairs, way before him and Todoroki started dating.
“For you next assignment you’ll be working in pairs!” Present Mic announced, loudly, “I’ll give you some time to figure out your partners!”
Instantly, the class bustled with excitement and everyone began asking their close friends to work with them. Naturally, Bakugou worked with Kirishima, Sero with Kaminari, Jirou with Yaoyorozu, and so forth. Midoriya stood from his seat, scanning the classroom for a partner.
His eyes locked with grey and blue and he basically powerwalked towards him.
“Uh, hey, Todoroki,” Midoriya asked, sheepishly, bringing one of his arms to rub the back of his neck. “Would you like to be partners, perhaps?”
Todoroki let out a soft apologetic smile, “Midoriya,” he began, “I’m sorry, but I’m working with Shinsou. Perhaps some other time,”
As if called, Shinsou arrived plopping three English literature books onto Todoroki’s desk. “I was thinking one of these,”
Gently, Todoroki grasped one of them and flipped through the pages. “My mother used to read me this one,”
“I guess we’ll be doing that one then,” Shinsou said with a hum, before turning around to face Midoriya. “Hey, Midoriya,” he greeted with a small smile.
Almost stunned by the new alliance, Midoriya simply waved, said a quick goodbye to Todoroki, and went to find another partner.
He ended up working with Iida, which was fine, but he couldn’t stop thinking about when did the two of them become friends.
Everyone else also seemed shocked by the pair up as well when they walked to the front of the class to present their essay on the book, which turned out flawlessly and ended up getting the highest marks in the class.
2
The second was when Todoroki called Shinsou: Hitoshi.
It was during lunch, and Shinsou never really ate lunch with the hero course students. He preferred to sit either by himself, or around people he met in General Studies. Being new made it awkward to sit with people, and he never enjoyed that.
Todoroki, on the other hand, always sat at the same table with them. It was Midoriya, Iida, Uraraka, and sometimes Kirishima and Bakugou if their squad was being too goddamn annoying to handle.
Today apparently, was one of those days when they were too goddamn annoying to handle, because Kirishima and Bakugou sat next to each other with them at the table.
It’s when Todoroki came up with his tray did everyone stop talking to look at him.
“Hey, Todoroki!” Uraraka greeted, “We were wondering where you were,”
“Hello, Uraraka,” he responded back, nodding his head in greeting towards everyone. “I apologize but I won’t be sitting with you today,”
Midoriya instantly let out a, “Why not?” and Bakugou growled out a ‘good’ that got drowned out.
“I’m going to sit with Hitoshi, in fact; have you seen him anywhere?” blue and grey eyes scanned the lunch room for this…Hitoshi.
“And who is that, icy-hot?” Bakugou growled out, pausing eating to glare at him.
“Hitoshi?” Iida hummed aloud, “Perhaps he’s someone from class 1B?”
Todoroki paused in his search to look back at the group with wide eyes, before masking it and raising his eyebrow. “I’m sorry, Hitoshi is Shinsou,” he explained.
Midoriya could feel the confusion of everyone seated at the table, the two of them were on first named bases? Todoroki, however, looked none the wiser of each of their stares.
“Uh, I saw him leave the lunchroom, I think he was going back to class early,” Midoriya supplied.
“Yes,” Todoroki nodded, “That makes sense. Thank you. I’ll be back tomorrow,”
He bided goodbye and pivoted around to leave the cafeteria.
It was awkward silence before Uraraka spoke, “Do you think they’re like… dating or something?”
Bakugou snorted, “There’s no way in hell their dating, Round Face,”
“I don’t know,” Midoriya spoke up, his voice quiet and slightly wavering, “They’ve been around each other a lot,”
Kirishima, as if sensing how upset Midoriya was, immediately jumped in, “Hey, it’s alright! They’re probably just close friends,”
Close friends, right.
3
The third time Midoriya realized something was going on, when was he realized Shinsou and Todoroki texted a lot.
Todoroki never really used his phone much, but ever since his friendship with Shinsou began he was always on it.
Midoriya wasn’t creepy, he wasn’t a stalker or anything. He just found Todoroki, very pretty. So, he often dozed off while staring at him during classes with a lull. It was happening now, in Cementoss’ class. But what he noticed was that he was furiously typing and turning around to glare at a quietly snickering Shinsou.
Todoroki whipped around, mouthing something angrily at Shinsou who simply let out a quiet laugh.
Shinsou typed something back, which seemed to infuriate Todoroki more.
“Todoroki, Shinsou”
The two of them looked up from their typing to stare at Cementoss, even Midoriya was pulled from his train of thought by the low voice.
“Could you please put down your phone and listen to the lecture?”
The two of them said their apologies and placed their phones into their bags. Midoriya, however, still witnessed Todoroki whip around to glare at Shinsou who said something he couldn’t decipher.
It only proved Midoriya point further that they were closer than originally thought.
4
The fourth time he realized they were closer than the class originally thought, was when both fell ill at the exact same time.
Aizawa, also fell ill, and proved to be a big part of the conspiracy.
Aizawa had practically dragged himself into the room, throat raw and eyes droopy, he explained the assignment before falling asleep in his sleeping bag.
They were working in pairs, again. And when Midoriya went to ask Todoroki if he wanted to work together, he was displeased to see that Todoroki and Shinsou had already paired up.
Todoroki pulled up a chair to Shinsou’s desk, however the latter didn’t seem to be listen to whatever Todoroki was saying. His head was buried within his arms, and he seemed practically asleep.
“You’re staring again, Deku,” Uraraka stated, simply.
“Am I?” Midoriya jerked up to look at his partner, “I-I didn’t notice,”
“You should just ask him out,” she mentioned causally, beginning to cross out topics she didn’t like. “It’ll save everyone from your pining,”
“He probably has something going on with Shinsou,” Midoriya said, regretfully, looking back to stare at Todoroki who seemed to get more frustrated by Shinsou as the time passed.
“I mean, they’re close but they don’t exactly look like a couple,”
“You said so yourself though,”
“Forget what I said, Deku, go ask,” she urged.
Midoriya nodded softly, just as he was going to get up and ask, Todoroki stood first.
He yanked a tired Shinsou to his feet and pulled him towards Aizawa.
The class instantly quieted down, because who was insane enough to wake up Aizawa. Todoroki certainly knew better, and Shinsou was half asleep so he could hardly protest.
“What are they doing?” Kaminari had softly exclaimed.
The two of them crouched low towards Aizawa, and when they woke him up the three of them spoke in soft and fast whispers.
Not even a few minutes later, Aizawa stood and announced to the class he was leaving.
As he walked out the door, still cradling his head with his hand, Shinsou and Todoroki followed closely behind them.
When they left Bakugou hissed out a,
“What the fuck was that?”
What the fuck was that, indeed.
5
The fifth thing he noticed was that Shinsou was oddly protective of Todoroki.
This was after they started dating. Midoriya was stunned to be asked, figuring he was already taken. However, he accepted delightedly.
He was walking back towards the dorms when he saw Shinsou leaning against the wall, gaze lowered, and hands stuffed in his pockets.
“Shinsou,” Midoriya greeted, “What’re you doing out here, shouldn’t you be inside?”
Shinsou opened his eyes to look at Midoriya, a smile stretching across his face. “Midoriya, just the person I wanted to talk to,”
Said man instantly shrunk back as Shinsou stood to his full height, using it to tower over him. Shinsou was menacing, tall, and his quirk terrifying. To say Midoriya was intimidated was an understatement.
“You’re dating Shou-Todoroki, right?” Shinsou corrected him mid-sentence, but Midoriya still heard the way he almost said Shouto.
“Uh, yeah, everyone in the class has probably heard about it by now, I mean Todoroki is a great person and all, I don’t see why you’d care so much pardon me, I’m sorry that was rude but like..”
“You’re rambling,” Shinsou sighed.
Midoriya jerked upwards, clamming his mouth shut and nodding. “I’m sorry,” he apologized, “Look, I don’t know what’s going on between you and Todoroki but we’re dating now and if you could please…”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” Shinsou’s eyebrows shot into his hairline and his hands waved in front of him, “Nothing is going on between me and Todo, that’s ew, I mean, gross, dude, no,” Shinsou started cringing, his entire body shaking in disgust as he acted like a toddler eating broccoli.
“Look,” he continued, “I’m just trying to say that if you hurt him, Midoriya, I won’t ever forgive you,” the negative connotations caused Midoriya’s spine to shiver. “Got it?”
Midoriya nodded, “Yeah, yeah, of course, I would never!”
Shinsou hummed, “Good.”
With that, he turned around and stalked back into the dorms.
Shinsou certainly was terrifying.
Midoriya realized he had everything wrong the whole time when Todoroki brought him home to meet his family.
“You want me to meet, Endeavor?” Midoriya asked, stunned.
Todoroki shook his head, “Oh, no, absolutely not,” he said. “I’ll will take you to meet my mom someday, though. And my siblings. But I want you to meet my other family,”
The two walked together in comfortable silence, however Midoriya was freaking out about what could Todoroki mean by ‘other family,’ He didn’t receive his answer until the two of them were at the door. Just as Todoroki was about to open the door, he heard a shrill, ‘They’re here!’ from inside and the door flung open.
“Eri! What did I tell you about opening the door!”
Midoriya stopped, “Present Mic?”
He was proven to be correct, when Present Mic appeared in the doorway. His hair down and cascading down his back. Present Mic exclaimed happily,
“Midoriya! Welcome! Come in,”
“Hi Izuku!” Eri cried from Present Mic’s arms, waving her chubby hands in his face.
“Hey…Eri,” Midoriya said, head spinning. “Uh, Todoroki, what’s going on?”
“You’ll see,”
Was all that Todoroki said before he walked inside, pressing a soft kiss to Eri’s forehead causing her to let out a giggle. Midoriya followed his boyfriend in, if Present Mic and Eri’s appearance wasn’t enough to give him a heart attack the scene before him certainly was.
Shinsou relaxed entirely over the couch, flipping through channels aimlessly.
“Hey, Hitoshi,” Todoroki greeted, flicking said man on the head.
“Welcome home,” Hitoshi said, turning off the tv completely before raising to his feet. “Midoriya, I’m glad to see Shouto finally took my advice and brought you to meet the family,”
“I was going to do it anyways,” Todoroki stated softly.
“Sure, baby brother,” Shinsou sneered playfully, patting Todoroki’s cheeks, “Of course you were,”
Brother?
“Wait,” Midoriya exclaimed, waving his arms in the air, “You two are brothers?!”
“Aizawa adopted us,” Todoroki explained simply, walking towards Midoriya and taking both of his hands into his. “It’s a lot, I know,”
“Mr. Aizawa’s here too?!”
Midoriya jumped when Shinsou’s hand clasped his shoulder rather roughly if he may say,
“You have much to learn,” Shinsou stated simply, before leaving to disappear to what Midoriya assumed was the kitchen.
“Come on, Hizashi probably cooked dinner,” Todoroki urged with a soft smile.
Midoriya followed mindlessly,
Shinsou was right, he did much to learn.
Perhaps he wasn’t as observant as he thought.