Chapter Text
When Shouto went to visit his mother for the first time since her interment a decade ago, he had hoped to leave their less-than-ideal past alone. However, it was inevitable that the past would come up, no matter how much he wished it wouldn’t.
“He wants me to join him when I become a hero,” Shouto said, a hint of frustration seeping through the monotone. “It would be good for making connections in the hero world, but it’s as if he’s forgotten everything he did.”
“Shouto,” Rei said, always gentle and kind despite years of torment, “do you remember the song I would sing to you every night?”
“Yes.” Even when he thought he had forgotten his mother’s kindness, the words of the old song had never left his memory.
“And do you remember what I told you? His blood does not define you.”
Shouto was silent. He knew she was right, but the pain of his past clung to him like a heavy weight, preventing him from moving forward.
“You should forgive him.”
“Forgive?” The indignant exclamation burst from his mouth before he could stop it as he stared at his mother in disbelief. Did she expect him to interact with Endeavor as though nothing had ever happened?
Rei smiled as though she knew her youngest’s thoughts. “You don’t have to like him, you don’t even have to talk to him, but holding the anger in your heart will only hold you back and lead you to a dark place. When I first came here I hated him for what happened to you, but I realized that a man like him should be pitied rather than hated.”
Shouto frowned. She had a point, but the old feelings of resentment had rooted deep in his mind like a weed refusing to be torn out.
“You remind me of Touya.”
It gave Shouto mental whiplash to hear the name of his long-deceased brother, especially from his mother who he had not seen in just as long. “Really?”
“Yes.” Rei smiled, but a hint of sadness lingered in her eyes. “He was always so set in his ways, refusing to alter his course, like you never giving up wanting to be a hero.”
Faint memories stirred in Shouto’s mind, images of red hair and blue eyes, a confident smirk and gentle words.
“Sometimes I wish I was never sent here,” Rei continued. “I know it was for the best in the end, but I wasn’t there to protect you all, especially you and Touya. Maybe if I had been there he never would’ve—“
“Mom,” Shouto interrupted as gently as he could, seeing she was getting upset. “What happened to Touya wasn’t your fault.”
“He was always so angry.” Rei’s eyes gleamed with unshed tears. “I don’t blame him for feeling that way but I knew one day it would end badly. That’s why I want you to move on from your anger, Shouto, so you don’t become like him.”
Shouto was quiet for a moment. He had been so young when Touya had died that it was hard to remember his eldest brother at all, but he remembered the pain of his death. He looked at his mother and wondered just how long he had suffered under the guilt of what she might have been able to prevent. The thought only made him angrier at Endeavor for bringing yet another torment upon her, and he knew his father certainly hadn’t been the one to tell her of Touya’s death, so the burden likely fell on Fuyumi or Natsuo.
“Shouto, please never forget what I told you,” Rei begged, taking her son’s hand. “Your blood doesn’t define you, and you can’t let anger rule you.”
The heat of Shouto’s anger fizzled out. Rage against their father had driven his brother to death, but that was not he wanted. He wanted to be a hero, and to be a hero driven by anger would mean being exactly like his father.
The path to being a hero became a little less clouded in that moment.
“I’ll never forget it, mom,” he said, clasping their hands gently. “I promise.”
When the time came for Class 1-A to head to their internships, Shouto knew what he should do. His finger hovered over the call button in his father’s contact information as he warred with the last bits of hesitation in his mind.
“May my heart beat with courage,” he murmured, and pressed the button.
Touya heard the soft lilt of his mother’s voice and peeked into her bedroom. She sat on her sleeping mat, singing her song to Shouto as she stroked his hair.
“Will he be alright?” Touya whispered, creeping into the room.
Rei looked up, smiling at her eldest son, but the smile couldn’t hide the sadness in her eyes. “He’ll be fine.”
Touya’s eyes drifted to Shouto. He lay fast asleep, a hand fisted into his mother’s skirt, his face bearing a peace not afforded to him in waking hours.
“Mom?” he asked at last.
“Yes?”
“Where did you learn that song you sing?”
Rei shrugged. “I just made it up.”
“What does it mean?”
Rei looked back to Shouto, so young and small, but weighed with so much. “It means I hope one day all of you will forgive me for what you have went through.”
“It’s not your fault,” Touya murmured, “it’s his.”
Rei sighed. He was so angry, and it pained her to the core. “It also means I hope you will find the strength to let go of your anger.”
“I can’t,” Touya said, a hard edge in his voice. “I won’t.”
Long ago, Dabi had given up caring about the kid who was his youngest brother. He insisted on being a hero despite all the torment the scum that they had to call father put him through.
When Shouto began school at U.A., Dabi knew soon enough thanks to the attacks, and it only solidified his anger towards his youngest sibling. Something in him had hoped that in the last decade the kid would have given up on his foolhardy and misguided aspirations, but no such luck.
Dabi kept a close eye on all of Endeavor’s dealings, always searching for weak spots, things that could be used against him. When he saw Shouto’s name in a list of interns, he nearly combusted his phone in enraged disbelief. It angered him beyond reason that Shouto would work with Endeavor despite everything.
Dabi decided then: Shouto was his enemy just like all the other heroes. His brotherhood meant nothing; if he wanted to be a hero, Dabi would treat him like one.
The Hero Killer came and went, and Dabi joined the League. Shigaraki wanted to take down heroes, and so did he. The fact that they contended with U.A. was an added bonus.
When their first mission came, to disrupt some training camp and grab a kid, Dabi knew he would likely see his little brother. He should have felt excited to have a chance to confront the kid that followed in Endeavor’s footsteps for some inexorable reason, but when he first learned of the mission, something else stirred inside him. It seemed a small sorrow, a faint love rising from the ashes of his heart, but he was quick to tamp it back into whatever far corner it had come from.
Shouto was his enemy, foolish kid that he was.
True to his expectation, he did see Shouto at the training camp. He had seen pictures, but it surprised him to see how much the kid had grown as he flew towards him with a hand outstretched for the marble that contained his classmate. He was now as tall as Dabi if not taller, and far more muscular.
Dabi snatched the marble away at the last minute. He had hoped for a chance to confront Shouto, to ask him why he followed in his father’s footsteps despite everything, but he didn’t want to reveal his past quite yet, and they had no time.
So he left his youngest sibling with four words.
How sad…Todoroki Shouto.
He saw the confused, shocked expression on Shouto’s face, and Dabi relished it. The wannabe hero could do nothing to save his classmate, gaining a taste of the fruitlessness of so-called “heroism”.
But another part of Dabi, far down in his heart, felt a little proud of the kid for striving so hard to save his friend as old memories of his infatuation with All Might resurfaced, though he pretended he didn’t feel it at all.
Of course, their plans went awry in several ways, first with the Bakugou kid being rescued and then with the Shie Hassaikai, but finally Dabi was presented with the opportunity to confront Endeavor. As he looked down upon his father’s slashed, scarred body, he strangely thought of Shouto.
Regardless of Endeavor, Touya was drawn to his brother’s cries. Hot anger boiled in his stomach as he neared the piteous sobbing, knowing what had happened.
Again.
“Shouto?” Touya ran to his little brother, who crouched on the floor of his bedroom. He gently prized the boy’s hands away from his body, taking stock of the damage inflicted. Several bruises already turning nasty shades of blue and black littered the child’s skin, and upon lifting his shirt, Touya saw with mounting disgust that even more littered his torso.
“I want mom!” Shouto wailed, throwing himself at his eldest brother.
“Mom’s gone to the store, remember?” Touya gently wrapped his arms around Shouto, trying not to put pressure on the bruises. He silently cursed Endeavor for purposely training him when their mom absolutely had to go out, to avoid her “interference”.
“It hurts!” Shouto sobbed, trying to rub at the wounds.
“Stop that,” Touya said, pulling his hands into his own. “You’ll only make it worse.”
Shouto didn’t reply, muffling his sobs in his eldest brother’s shirt in an attempt to keep their father from hearing.
“Natsuo!” Touya bellowed, uncaring if their father heard.
Natsuo knew the tone well by this point, and came running so fast he nearly skidded into the wall in his haste.
“Again?” he asked, sighting Shouto’s crumpled form.
Touya nodded grimly, pushing Shouto away from him with gentle hands. “Natsuo is gonna make you feel better, alright?”
“Alright.” Shouto’s sobs died to sniffles as Natsuo applied ice to his bruises, but he kept one hand clasped with Touya’s. “D’you think All Might gets hurt like this?” the boy asked.
Touya bit back a sneer. Even after all this, Shouto still looked up to heroes, but he supposed he could let it go considering how young he was. As for himself, he had stopped looking up to heroes a long time ago.
“Not like this,” Touya said, stroking Shouto’s hair. “Not like this.”
In the end, Dabi was somewhat glad Hood had not killed Endeavor. Instead, he suffered a fraction of the pain he had inflicted on his family, especially Shouto.
It was not enough, but it was a start.
And Shouto was still his enemy.
He found himself hungering even more for a chance to confront Shouto after he encountered Endeavor, to ask him why. He didn’t care what befell the kid, but he had to know. Fuyumi and Natsuo had taken up professions that would actually help people, but Shouto persisted with heroism.
His chance finally came in the form of a very foolish yet very distracting villain named Starservant.
Dabi, of course, had known about Endeavor’s work studies ahead of time, and he knew Shouto would be there. He did not intend to reveal himself; he only wanted to watch how the kid interacted with his father.
The villain watched them from afar, surprised to see that Shouto had brought two other kids, the green haired one and the loud one—his friends, maybe? Bitterness welled in him as he watched Shouto interact with Endeavor. Though he could not see the kid’s face from the alley he stood in, it was clear there was no anger in him.
Endeavor went off and the kids trailed after him, but it was not long until a scream shattered the air. Dabi caught sight of a crazy-looking old man down at the end of the road, glass orbs shimmering around him as he bellowed something about the end of days.
Endeavor ran towards the apparent villain, destroying what looked like an attempt at a Super Move. Dabi watched with only vague interest. The villain was nowhere near as strong as Hood, and Endeavor may have been many things, but he wasn’t weak.
The next thing Dabi knew, Endeavor had vanished down into a maze of alleyways to pursue the villain, and after a moment green kid and loud kid followed, leaving Shouto standing alone amidst the web of dark side streets.
This was his chance.
“Todoroki Shouto.”
The boy in question started as a low, rough voice spoke his name. He whirled, catching sight of cerulean eyes watching him from a small nook in between two buildings, glowing with an inward fire.
After a moment, Shouto realized. “You,” he said flatly.
“Me,” Dabi smirked.
Shouto wasted no time, ice flaring beneath his right foot and shooting towards the villain, but Dabi was just as quick. A burst of blue fire stopped the ice in its tracks.
“I’m not with that idiot if that’s what you think,” Dabi said, gesturing vaguely in the direction where the sounds of battle emanated.
Shouto didn’t answer. He remembered the man from the forest, the one who his father had described as the sender of the Hood Nomu.
“You’re doing well, little wannabe hero,” Dabi said, regarding him with an unreadable expression. “Following in your father’s footsteps.”
Shouto felt a swell of irritation at that, biting back a harsh retort. Instead, he settled for saying, “Why did you send that…thing to kill Endeavor?”
“I have my reasons,” Dabi drawled, leaning against the grimy brick wall as if it were a casual conversation and Shouto wasn’t in a fighting stance, ice crackling at his fingertips.
“What reasons?” Shouto pressed. Somewhere amidst the alleyways, an explosion that was either Endeavor or Bakugou’s making shook the ground, briefly illuminating the gloomy space.
Shouto got a good look at Dabi’s face then, and the sight made him shiver internally. For all the scars that marred him and the staples that gleamed with every shift, it was his eyes that unnerved him for some reason he didn’t know.
“I will make the Hero Killer’s will a reality,” Dabi replied. “I will rid the world of false heroes.”
“Are you going to kill me?” Shouto asked. “Am I a false hero?”
Something in Dabi’s face shifted, barely there through the stoic wall. “I haven’t decided yet.”
“Then why are you here?” Shouto was growing more on edge every second, waiting for some sort of surprise attack.
“I merely wanted to see how Endeavor’s fanboy was getting along.”
“I’m not his fanboy,” Shouto growled.
Dabi watched Shouto carefully. He was far less expressive than he had been when they were young, his face an emotionless mask that he had likely learned to wear thanks to Endeavor. However, he could hear the faint hint of irritation in the kid’s voice, which was not quite what he had expected.
“Sure seems like it,” Dabi carried on, his eyes drifting briefly to the faint orange glow visible above the tops of the nearby buildings. “This is the second time you’ve done his work study.”
The fact that he knew that unnerved Shouto, but he ignored it in favor of another question. “Why do you care?” he asked. “Why do you care what I do? Why did you try to kill him?”
Dabi huffed. Even when they were young, Shouto had been all questions and no answers. It seemed if he wanted the answers he sought, he would have to force it from the kid. He pushed himself off the wall, standing straight and fixing Shouto with a gaze full of fire.
“Because I know,” he said.
Shouto went numb, and not because of the ice that had been lurking beneath the surface of his right arm, ready at a moment’s notice. A strange dread filled him as he met the villain’s gaze, which bored into him with a terrible intensity.
“Know what?” he breathed at last.
“I know about the beatings, the training, the isolation. I know how he drove her to pour boiling water on your face because she couldn’t stand the sight of his eyes.” His voice remained steady, ringing with the hardness of steel, but on the final sentence his words turned to an angry snarl. “So tell me, why do you follow him? After everything that scumbag did to you, why do you continue down the path of a hero?”
Shouto gaped at the villain. There was no way he could know about all of that. Endeavor had gone to great pains to keep all the misconduct deep in the shadows, going so far as to threaten him and his siblings with unspeakable consequences should they dare to tell someone or try to get help. In the back of his mind, he was aware that Dabi had stepped closer so that they were now only a few feet apart, but he was too stunned to react.
“How…how do you…?” Shouto whispered.
“Tell me,” said he.
Shouto swallowed. He knew he shouldn’t be talking to the villain, much less divulging such personal things, but the fact that he knew compelled him to answer.
“I want to become the hero he never was,” he said quietly. “I want to save people from the situations he put my family through. All he wanted was to be strong, which made him weak, and I will not follow that path. I work with him so I can remember what not to be. I swore I will never be like him.”
As Shouto spoke, Dabi’s anger towards his brother died away, and for the first time in ten years he saw things clearly, how he had lied to himself in thinking he didn’t care about his brother, that they were enemies. In truth, he cared so much it was scary, and he knew that was what had driven him to this confrontation. They may have stood on opposite sides of the battlefield, but Shouto was his little brother, and he had to make sure he was safe, perhaps even to save him if necessary.
He looked at Shouto with a new clarity, a startling love rising from his heart that for years he thought was dead. “I’m sorry…brother.”
Before Shouto could even process what Dabi had just said, a tremendous explosion rocked the world around them. In the sky, Endeavor’s fire shone like a second sun as he battled the Starservant, superheated glass shrapnel flying from the throes of their fight. Too late, Dabi realized the explosion had sent molten-hot spears of glass everywhere, including straight towards them.
“Look out!” he roared.
Shouto turned just as a projectile slammed into the brick wall behind him, sending debri tumbling towards him. Dabi scrambled forwards, but Shouto had already been hit upside the head with a piece of masonry and was in the process of falling when Dabi caught him.
“Idiots!” Dabi hissed, shooting a hateful glare at the sky before checking on Shouto. Fortunately, the brick had only caught a glancing blow, and there was only a small cut bleeding a faint red into the snowy white of his right side. However, it would be enough to keep him out for a few hours and certainly warrant a concussion.
Dabi glanced at the sky again, trying unsuccessfully to rid himself of that old protective urge he had long tried to pretend was gone. Endeavor and Starservant had disappeared beyond the nearby buildings again, but as he caught a glimpse of a red-winged figure in the sky, he knew they couldn’t stay here lest he be found. Besides, he and Shouto needed to have a talk.
With a grunt, he hoisted Shouto into his arms. The kid was far heavier than he used to be, but he could manage. With a final glance in the direction of the fight, Dabi carried his brother off into the alley.
When Shouto returned from the hospital, he snuck into Touya’s room the first chance he saw.
Touya kept his gaze on the ceiling even as the small feet padded across the floor and a warm weight settled beside him. He had not slept since it happened, sick with worry and mad with rage.
Now Shouto knew the pain of his own burns, which was something he had hoped his little brother would never know.
“How’s your eye, little one?” Touya murmured at last.
“Numb,” was the small reply.
At least it was not paining him. Touya heaved a shaky sigh, not sure what to feel.
“Touya?”
“What?”
“Where’s Mom?”
“She’s gone to the hospital, Shou. She’s sick.”
“When will she be back?”
Touya knew the answer, but it was too horrid to say aloud. “I don’t know.”
“Will you sing her song to me?” Shouto asked, his voice too small and young for any of this to have come upon him.
Touya repressed a shudder. He knew the words well, but what they spoke of he could not abide. The rage and sorrow was too much for him to say them aloud.
“I can’t, Shouto,” he answered honestly. “I really can’t.”
One week later, Todoroki Touya perished in fire.
Todoroki Shouto swore never to use his own fire again.
For a time, the song Todoroki Rei sang was lost to the household so full of despair.