Chapter Text
Uraraka frowned as she stared at the bulky gloves covering her hands. They weren’t like the mittens she wore to bed so she didn’t activate her quirk in her sleep or the soft gloves Papa had given her as a child when her quirk first manifested. She’d been prone to activating it on everything she could get her hands on, even people, until it was too much and she got sick, so he’d made her wear them until she learned self-control.
And she learned that very quickly. Papa had never tolerated slow learning. He’d never been cruel to her, but she had seen the outcome of Tomura’s training. The way his feet dragged against the ground as he made his way to his bedroom, the red rims around his dim eyes, the dry skin cracking on his lips from overuse of his quirk. She hadn’t wanted to be like that, so she learned and she learned fast.
“You’ve always been such a good, obedient girl,” Papa told her as he gently ran a hand over her head. “That’s why you’re a perfect fit for this role.”
She bit her lip. What would he say if he saw her now? Holed up in her bedroom, wearing thick gloves, afraid to be around others in fear of what they would say. Ever since her quirk had...evolved, she hadn’t known what to do, how to act, or what to say. Her quirk wasn’t what she’d thought it was. This entire time, she’d believed she could only negate gravity, but it turned out she could control it. She could take away – and she could give.
Seeing Deku struggle to breathe on the ground while gravity crushed him had been both elating and terrifying.
Uraraka doubled over and buried her face in her hands. As pathetic as it sounded, all she could think about was how much she wanted Papa. She wanted him to comfort her, pull her into his arms and hold her against his chest as he spoke in a low voice about how proud he was of her and how she would only grow stronger just as he imagined. Unfortunately, he was rotting away in prison after All Might defeated him at Kamino Ward. She didn’t understand how he could’ve left them alone – why he didn’t just break out – but…
Maybe he trusted them. Maybe he knew it was their time. She didn’t know how, but he had to have some sort of grand plan. He wouldn’t have allowed himself to be defeated and captured at Kamino Ward over fucking Bakugou. Kidnapping and turning him to the villains’ side might’ve been Tomura’s stupid idea, but it wasn’t important enough for her father to get locked up. He could’ve easily stayed out of sight and simply used that transportation quirk to take the others out of the line of fire.
Why couldn’t he be here? Why did she have to be alone? Tomura might’ve complained about her living with the heroes, but he would never understand how lonely it was here. He mocked her friends, but in truth, they weren’t her friends at all. It was fake – this was all fake – and one day they would see that. One day, they would know she was a traitor, and they would hate her, and everything she’d built up in the past two years would be for naught and she would be alone again and–
A knock on her door snapped her out of the spiral. She jerked her head up, gawking at the door with bated breath. Out of all the people she expected on the other end, Todoroki calling out, “Uraraka?” was not one of them.
Wiping at her eyes with the back of a gloved hand, Uraraka took a deep breath and replied, “Yes?”
“You, uh, didn’t come to dinner.” Todoroki paused, mulling over his words. “Again.”
Uraraka glanced at the clock on her desk. Oh. It was an hour past the time they normally ate dinner together. She hadn’t even realized it was this late, much less the fact that she’d missed it enough times for Todoroki to notice. To be honest, she would’ve expected Tsu, Momo, or Iida to swing by to make sure she was eating properly, so she was caught off guard by Todoroki’s presence. He didn’t seem like the type that would notice or care if he did. Sure, he cared about his friends, but he didn’t go out of his way like the others.
“I lost track of time,” Uraraka said distantly. It wasn’t a lie, not like so many other things she said. Living here at UA was strange. Many of the things she talked about wasn’t necessarily a lie. Her “parents” were poor and did own a construction company, but Papa had spoiled her on the days he had her when she was growing up. She did want to become a hero to make her parents’ lives easier – or well, at least her real father’s life. “Thanks for letting me know. I’ll get something later.”
There was another pause in which she thought Todoroki might’ve walked away and then: “Can I come in?”
Uraraka’s first instinct was to look around the room, but there was nothing amiss. The last burner phone she’d used to contact the League had been destroyed, so there was absolutely no evidence tying her to them. These days all she had to do was call the hospital to check up on her father’s treatment – a very simple story since her adoptive father had suffered a construction accident – and she was brought to them via some Nomu. It wasn’t Kurogiri, but it was better than nothing.
There were no pictures of her and Tomura. He made Toga delete any she tried to take with her in order to solidify their friendship. Nope, this room was completely innocent and devoid of her double life. Her father had made sure to impress upon her the importance of keeping them separate, just as he had before when she was little.
After all, she wasn’t like the others – she was special – or so Papa had said.
Straightening up on her bed, Uraraka chirped, “Yeah, come on in!”
The door slowly opened to reveal Todoroki wearing pajama pants, a t-shirt, and house slippers. He’d clearly been about to go to bed before making a detour here. Why? It was out of his way. Her dorm was on the fourth floor while his was on the fifth. It wasn’t like he could’ve walked by her bedroom by chance. He hesitated for a moment after stepping inside, probably because he’d never been in her room alone with her, but then shut the door.
It was serious then. He wanted it to remain private.
“Is everything okay?” Uraraka asked in concern.
Todoroki turned back around to face her and said, with all the delicacy of a brick, “I noticed you haven’t been using your quirk recently.”
Uraraka froze. Of course she hadn’t been using her quirk. She didn’t know how to use it. Despite talking with Recovery Girl and Aizawa, she hadn’t been able to figure out how she activated that part of her quirk. All they could do was guess that it had remained dormant or perhaps it evolved under pressure. Maybe she’d been misclassified from the beginning since she’d only floated things, so, not knowing she could add gravity, she’d never touched that part of her quirk.
The irony of waiting on a quirk evaluation by Ujiko (more commonly known as the innocent Dr. Garaki Kyudai) was not lost on Uraraka, but she said nothing.
“Oh, um…” She didn’t know what to say, but she had to come up with something. The bubbly, determined girl she’d created for UA wouldn’t falter for long. She’d recover some way or another. “I guess I’m just a little nervous.” She plastered a smile across her face. “But I’ll figure it out eventually!”
“You have a dual quirk,” Todoroki pointed out. “It’ll take time getting used to it.”
The smile faltered on Uraraka’s face. “How long did it take you?”
“Too long,” Todoroki answered honestly, “but I wasn’t willing to learn for a long time. I was...scared.”
Ah, scared. She could understand that. As much as she hated to admit it, Uraraka was scared of her quirk. She didn’t know what to do. Tomura had told her to be proud – that she could move planets with this kind of strength – but it was difficult to believe him when she didn’t know how to work it to her advantage. She’d used it by accident on Deku. Any attempts she’d done to do it on purpose had just ended with half her belongings floating on the ceiling.
And then the one time she’d added gravity had been on herself in the middle of solo training in the gym, and it had utterly terrified her. She’d almost suffocated herself.
“I guess I’m a little scared,” Uraraka admitted. “I didn’t expect anything like this to happen.”
“It caught us all off guard,” Todoroki said.
“No, I mean–” Uraraka folded her gloved hands in her lap and gave him a sheepish look. “I didn’t think it would happen to me. I’m nothing special. I’m not like you, Deku, or Bakugou. I’m not anything like Momo or Iida. I’m just...me, so when my quirk changed…”
Todoroki furrowed his brow like he didn’t understand. After a moment of staring her down in confusion, he walked toward her and sat down on her bed beside her. It wasn’t like him to get this close on his own, not unless he was serious. Judging by the hard expression on his face, he was very serious. Todoroki was something of a wild card. She wasn’t sure about him if he was being honest. They were friends (or as much as she could have friends), but he also remained somewhat aloof no matter what she did.
“It’s stupid to think you aren’t special,” Todoroki told her, the intensity of his words surprising her. “You got into UA on your own, didn’t you?”
“Yes.” And without any influence from her father either. She’d gotten in without his help, determined to prove her worth and she wasn’t pampered like Tomura accused her of being sometimes. “But–”
“You came in fifth in the last Sports Festival,” Todoroki continued, “and you’ve already received multiple offers for internships aside from Ryukyu.” Uraraka closed her mouth, the urge to protest fading away. “You were strong before this – and you’ll be even stronger after, so don’t dismiss yourself.”
For a moment, all Uraraka could do was stare at Todoroki. In these little moments, it was easy to forget who she truly was – what she was – and live this life as her own. She wasn’t a spy for the League or the daughter of perhaps the most notorious villain in history. She was simply Uraraka Ochako, UA student and future pro hero. She could almost pretend like she was actually their friend and wasn’t betraying them.
But it was dangerous to fall into that lull. She didn’t want to be accused of having a soft heart or for Tomura’s faith in her to fall, and truth be told, she was terrified of failing her father more than getting caught.
A smile slowly touched Uraraka’s lips. “Thanks. It’s pretty lame, but I need to be reminded of that sometimes.”
Instead of responding, Todoroki held out a hand. Somehow without words, she knew what he was asking and clenched her hands tighter in her lap. After taking a deep breath, she slowly tugged her gloves off, one finger at a time, and set them in his hand. Her hand trembled as she handed him the second glove, and she pulled away quickly as he set them aside, making sure to keep her pinky fingers in the air.
“You still need to touch things with all five fingers, right?” Todoroki asked.
Uraraka nodded. “And it doesn’t seem to depend on what hand I use, unlike your quirk. It just…”
“It just happens,” Todoroki finished for her.
“Usually when I’m a little, um, frustrated,” Uraraka added.
Todoroki smiled faintly. “You were quite angry with Midoriya.”
Uraraka flushed. “I wasn’t–” She ducked her head. “I wasn’t really angry with him.” At the time, she’d thought she was, but upon further reflection, she had understood she was angrier with herself. She was terrified of being a failure and, stuck lagging behind the boys with their powerful and flashy quirks, she’d lashed out. “I was more tired of feeling like I’m chasing you all. It’s exhausting and upsetting when I work just as hard as you all and then I get asked about how tight my costume is instead of how I took down a villain.”
The smile vanished from Todoroki’s face. “You really get asked stuff like that?”
“All the time,” Uraraka huffed. “Even from heroes!”
“That’s not right,” Todoroki said, shaking his head. “I think your work is more important than how tight your costume fits your body.”
Despite the anger still lingering in her heart, Uraraka couldn’t help but blush lightly and tease, “So you noticed?” He blinked, a startled look flashing across his face. She had to bring a hand to her mouth to muffle her laughter. It was a little embarrassing to have a conversation like this with him, especially when he didn’t seem to know how to respond when he’d been speaking genuinely, so she put him out of his misery. “It’s okay. I’m only joking.”
Todoroki sighed and rubbed the back of his neck. “I’m glad to hear you laughing. It’s been a while.”
Her amusement faded, but oddly enough, it wasn’t sadness or anger that took its place. Instead, all she felt was relief. “Yeah, it has been.”
“You’ve always been around to help us when we’re struggling or upset,” Todoroki told her. “The least we can do is return the favor.”
Uraraka nudged his shoulder with hers. “I didn’t think you were the comforting type.”
“I’m not,” Todoroki said flatly. “That’s more Midoriya’s style, but he didn’t seem like the right person for this.”
No, he most certainly wasn’t. Even if neither one of them could possibly understand why she didn’t want Deku of all people to try to comfort her, she was glad they’d recognized that. She’d have to go to him eventually and make up some sort of excuse, probably even apologize, but for now, she needed her distance. She still wasn’t sure why he was so special when he’d been abandoned, but it wasn’t like she could question her father about it. All in all, it left her in a very awkward position.
“I can’t comfort you like Midoriya, Iida, or Yaomomo,” Todoroki continued, “but I can do something else.”
Curious, Uraraka tilted her head. “What’s that?”
“I can help you with your quirk,” Todoroki said, “if you wanted it.”
This time, it was Uraraka’s turn to blink in surprise. “Help me with me…” She clenched her hands into fists on top of her thighs. “Why?”
“Because this other half of your quirk is a part of you and something you can’t run away from,” Todoroki told her honestly, looking her dead in the eyes. “It wasn’t that long ago when I felt that way about my fire.” He turned away from her and held up his left hand. She watched as he conjured a simple flame in his palm, the orange and yellow glow washing over them. “I know it’s different circumstances, but… I don’t want you to be afraid.”
She didn’t know what to say. It was so hard to get a read on Todoroki sometimes, but this was the most open she’d ever seen him. She did need to figure out how to use this new part of her quirk. It would’ve been better to do it on her own so she could have a few aces up her sleeves, but she honestly wasn’t sure if she could. Out of everyone, save for perhaps Momo or maybe Aizawa, Todoroki was her best bet. He understood the nature of dual quirks. He could help her.
And truth be told, she liked him. She hated admitting that when he was supposed to be the enemy, but...
Uraraka held out a hand, pinky finger up. “Okay, deal.”
Todoroki took her hand and shook it. “Deal.”
She smiled at him, and he returned it faintly. One day, when her true loyalties were made clear and she turned away from them, he would be furious that he had been the one to push her forward, but that was a sacrifice she would have to be willing to make, no matter how she felt about Todoroki and the others.