Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Touya woke up feeling very strange.

He couldn’t exactly place what was wrong, or how deep this feeling went, but he did quickly become aware that, on a very surface level, he didn’t know where he was. He didn’t recognize the bed he was in. It wasn’t his own, it felt weird, and it definitely was not the one he remembered going to sleep in.

Then again, did he even remember falling asleep?

He wasn’t sure he did.

Everything felt hazy and weird, and the moment he opened his eyes, he was bombarded with sterile lighting reflecting from the walls and scarce furniture which were all shades of white and grey.

It smelled like disinfectant, and there was an incessant beeping noise going off at even intervals, interrupting the otherwise oppressive silence.

After a couple of groggy moments, he woke up enough to recognize these sensations: He was in a hospital. Again. Which explained the feeling of wrongness.

Now, the question was why he was here.

Gently, and as quietly and slowly as he could so as to not alert anyone that he was awake before he had a little more information, a little more control over the situation, he started checking his body for damage, moving his limbs slightly and rolling his joints, trying to find out where he was hurt, because that was the logical explanation here; that he had been hurt, again, badly enough that it couldn’t just be treated at home like normal.

It happened often enough that it wouldn’t be all that surprising.

But he came up empty. Nothing hurt. At least not any more than it usually did.

But then why was he here?

He kept checking, a little more thoroughly now, because he really wanted to know what was going on, and he really wanted it to be a simple injury, because in the absence of one, he was becoming acutely aware of the distinct possibility of this being way more complicated than just some broken bones.

And this time around, when he moved his right arm just a little more forcefully than before, something rattled and constricted around his wrist. His eyes shot down and he stared at the handcuffs binding him to the hospital bed.

What?

Why?

He could feel his chest constricting in a way that he wished wasn’t so familiar, and maintaining a slow, even breathing pattern was no longer coming easily to him.

Now was not the time to panic, though. Think rationally and figure it out.

He quickly got a hold of himself and searched the part of the room he could see to find out if anyone was watching him. It really wouldn’t do to blow his cover so quickly, before he even had a chance to figure out why he was handcuffed here.

He couldn’t see anyone as he looked, but that meant nothing seeing as how he was lying on his side and didn’t have any way of checking the other half of the room without significant movement.

It had been quiet so far, though.

There were no noises that could have meant people, so he chanced it and looked over his shoulder, immediately catching the eye of the police officer sitting next to his bed.

Fuck.

Just his luck, too. Handcuffed and faced with a cop. Without any memory of having done something to warrant ending up in this situation.

The police officer smiled slightly, tipped his head down a little and said, “Good morning.”

Touya glared.

Good morning indeed, tied up in a strange place and clearly in some kind of trouble.

The officer maintained eye contact, didn’t acknowledge Touya’s hostility, and kept talking, “Do you know where you are?”

Touya just kept glaring in response.

Of course he knew; this was obviously a hospital, but he was in no hurry to start a dialogue when he had no clue which hospital or why he was even here. And what on Earth had compelled them to handcuff him. The officer took no notice of his mood, though, and continued, unperturbed.

“You don’t have to speak if you don’t want to, right to remain silent and all that. But it would make everything a good deal easier for everyone, including yourself, if you would talk to us. Not to worry, though, I’m sure we can figure this out either way.” The officer smiled down at Touya. “And I’ll make sure – ”

A door creaked behind the officer, causing said officer to stand up and turn around. Touya sat up in his bed, too, handcuffs clinking, to see who entered. It wasn’t like he could pretend to be asleep anyway.

The movement also served to make him aware that he wasn’t even wearing his own clothes, but instead one of those weird hospital gowns. And he definitely hadn’t put it on himself. Ew. Better not to think about that, so he turned his attention back onto the newcomer.

In the doorway was a tired, scruffy-looking man dressed in all black with a massive grey scarf around his neck. Which was a weird choice of wardrobe for the heat of summer.

Touya chanced a look out the window straight ahead of his bed to see if the weather was glum enough to in any way warrant the man’s mode of dress, or if this was something weird to keep an eye on.

His heart sank as he saw a tree outside, nearly empty of leaves, and the ones that were left were shades of red and brown.

Not summer.

How was it not summer?

The door creaked again, and Touya’s attention snapped back to the man, who was shabby-looking for sure, but not dressed strangely at all for… autumn?

The officer greeted the man as he stepped into the room and walked over to Touya’s bedside. Looking intently at Touya like he was some great mystery to be solved. Maybe that was what he was to the man; he could be a shrink, coming to explain that Touya had had a psychotic break and would be confined to this room and this hospital for the rest of his life.

It wasn’t unheard of in his family.

“Do you know where you are?” The man asked instead. Which was better than starting out right away with big words like ‘psychosis’, he supposed.

Touya kept quiet, though, not willing to risk possibly having his brain picked apart by this maybe-shrink and open up for them both to go in on him. Not when he didn’t have the first clue what game they were supposed to be playing here, or what he was here for, or how in the hell it was already fall.

“I already asked him that,” the officer said, shrugging, “he doesn’t seem to want to talk.”

The man looked to the officer. “Has he given any other indication that he won’t cooperate than just silence?” He looked back at Touya, gaze intent.

Touya looked away.

He didn’t like how they were speaking over him. Like he was dumb or something. Or crazy.

He could be crazy. It made sense, all things considered.

That didn’t mean it wasn’t rude for them to talk over him, though.

“No, he just hasn’t talked. But he also hasn’t been awake for more than a couple of minutes.” The officer moved across the room, picking up a chair and carrying it over next to his own and sat back down. The man sat down in the new chair.

“Maybe he just needs to wake up a little, then,” he said, making himself comfortable, looking like he was ready to fall asleep right there, “I have time to wait.” The man stopped moving and resumed his staring at Touya.

The officer seemed content with this and pulled out his phone and started fiddling with it.

Minutes passed, Touya growing more uncomfortable with every passing moment. The man just kept staring at him, not saying anything more. Which was unsettling.

It was a real possibility that Touya was more bored than actually uncomfortable, though, when he thought about it. Which, of course he was thinking about it, what else could he do now?

Because while the staring was, yes, unsettling, he was used to dealing with shitty people doing shitty things to intimidate him, and it really shouldn’t touch him that this man was doing it, too.

It was, however, deeply unusual and uncomfortable to realize that he had nothing to do while waiting out this strange man who maybe wasn’t strange for his outfit but definitely was for his behavior.

Touya could deal with unsettling behavior, though.

He was a seasoned pro, in fact, but it was easier when he had something to do while dealing with it. He always had before. This, not having anything to do, was not a situation Touya found himself in very often, and he didn’t know what to do with it.

He didn’t like it.

“What do you want from me?” He snapped at the man.

He immediately regretted it, too, biting his tongue and wishing he had just stayed quiet. Adults didn’t tend to like having teenagers get snippy with them.

The man seemed unfazed, however, simply answering, “I asked you if you know where you are. What I want from you is an answer to my question.”

That seemed deceivingly simple, but Touya decided that he was bored, and uncomfortable, enough to play. So, heart pumping slightly faster at the idea of giving away possibly incriminating evidence (because, hey, he had no idea what they were playing at and what might be incriminating to them), he answered.

“I’m in a hospital.”

There, nice and simple, and it didn’t give away his lack of knowledge as to why. Or the fact that he was still pretty sure it had been summer before, and now it was autumn, and he didn’t remember that transition happening at all. He was going to keep that tidbit to himself, thank you very much.

“You are,” the man agreed, nodding, “and what is your name?”

Oh no. That was a loaded question. One that would give them information he didn’t know if they had.

Okay, it was pretty unlikely that they didn’t already know who he was, and that his father hadn’t had a hand in placing him here, possibly to rot, which wouldn’t be the first time the bastard did something like that to his family.

But there was also a chance, with the months Touya had apparently missed, and he would not panic about that yet, that they truly didn’t know who he was, and if that was the case, however slim the chance may be, then he would be damned if he told them before he had more of a clue about what the hell was going on. Because bringing Father into the mix would. Not. Help.

But then what? The man had already proved himself willing to just sit there and stare and wait Touya out, and Touya had specifically started talking to avoid that. But he also wasn’t going to answer the question.

There had to be a third option, though. Preferably one that gave Touya a bit more control, and some much needed information. He took a couple of deep breaths, looking into the man’s staring eyes and decided to ask a question of his own. Not one of the big ones though. Because every question he asked was information he gave them about what he did and didn’t know.

“Why am I handcuffed?” He lifted his chin and tried to gauge both the man’s and the officer’s expressions.

The man just sighed, “For the safety of yourself and others. Mainly to prevent you from running away.”

What the hell kind of a textbook answer was that?

“And why would I run away?” Touya asked tersely.

He didn’t like the fact that he had apparently already been labeled a flight risk, high risk, or whatever.

It didn’t bode well for his stay here if they had all already decided he was untrustworthy. It wasn’t fair either, when he had no idea why they’d decided that they didn’t like him.

“You tell me,” the man answered, “as it stands, we just want to ensure that no one gets lost, or hurt.”

“What, you think I’m dangerous?” Touya half-yelled, irate at having these people think so little of him when he had done nothing wrong.

It wasn’t fair to just tie people up, not give them a logical reason why, and then just expect them to be okay with it.

“Like I would hurt someone if I wasn’t tied down?” he slammed his right arm to the left to emphasize his point, and his anger, hearing the loud rattle of the chain and feeling the shock of pain in his wrist as the handcuff reached its limit. Ow.

The man and the officer both sat up straight at the noise, though, and that reaction was satisfying enough to make him do it again, ripping his arm to the left, only stopping when the handcuff clanged and bit into his wrist. Relishing in the way the man cringed. Hah.

“Stop that,” the man said, sounding calm, but his rigid posture betrayed him.

“What, this?” Touya smiled, and did it again, clenching his teeth at the pain as the chain rattled loudly. He couldn’t help but feel delighted at having managed to unsettle this strange, cold man.

“Exactly that,” the man replied, “stop it or I’ll have to restrain you.”

Touya furrowed his brow. That seemed like a pretty extreme overreaction, no matter how annoying the sound may be.

But he was getting a reaction, he was in control, and the man had stopped with the questions, so he definitely wasn’t going to give this up. He did it again, loud clanging filled the room as pain seared through his wrist.

The man jumped up, startlingly fast, and crossed quickly to the right side of the bed grabbing Touya’s arm under the wrist while speaking to the officer in a commanding tone:

“Give me the keys to the handcuffs and go ask the nurses for some softer restraints.”

The officer hurried to comply, tossing the keys to the man and headed straight for the door.

It really did seem like a massive overreaction, though, but maybe that was the point. Maybe they were trying to scare him into complying. It seemed plausible. But that didn’t mean it would work.

Touya turned himself fully towards the man and immediately shied back when he realized how far into his space the man was.

He didn’t like this at all.

Touya tried to yank his arm out of the man’s grasp while he was busy unlocking the handcuffs, trying to get some distance.

It didn’t work, the man just grabbed his arm harder.

Touya threw himself to the left hoping to put enough weight on the man to make him let go. All he succeeded in doing was rob himself of his equilibrium making it easy for the man to reach out and pull him back, pinning him to the bed and looking him in the eyes, looking exasperated.

Touya wriggled desperately to get away. The man was really too close for comfort right now.

“Stop it! I understand that this is a stressful situation for you, but you don’t get to hurt yourself, no matter the reason.” The man barked at him.

Touya blinked, stilling.

Hurt himself? Why was that the focus now?

He opened his mouth to ask what the man meant, but he closed it again, unsure if he wanted to let the man know how confused he was. His face must have betrayed him, however, because the man’s expression softened minutely as he gently grasped Touya’s right hand and moved it up so Touya could see how scratched and discolored it was from slamming against the handcuff.

Of course, that meant that he could also see the many thin, actual self-harm scars he had on his arm, and come on.

The slamming had barely even hurt. He hadn’t drawn blood or anything and it was clear to anyone who looked at that arm that in the realm of things he did to himself that hurt, this wouldn’t even come close to registering as serious. This whole thing was such an overreaction it wasn’t even funny.

Not that Touya was going to say that with the man so close up in his space and serious-looking.

“Wrist banging,” the man said when Touya remained silent, “a fairly common method of self-harm. Doesn’t it hurt?”

Of course it hurt.

Not much, though.

And that hadn’t even been the point. Touya hadn’t been trying to hurt himself. If he had been, he would have done better, or worse, depending on how you looked at it. He was just… just trying to gain some control, make them stop dictating how this… meeting, interview, interrogation went.

And the clanking had gotten him that, for a little while. Even though, now, he had even less control than before, so it really hadn’t been worth it. But he didn’t know how to tell the man any of that, let alone make him believe it. He just nodded instead.

“I figured.” He seemed… not happy, but pleased with Touya’s answer, as he let up a little, still keeping his hands on Touya’s wrists and watching him closely.

But he was no longer so close that it felt suffocating. Which Touya appreciated.

The door opened again not long after that, a large nurse marching in with something fabric-like in his arms, the officer trailing behind him as they moved towards Touya.

He instinctively shrank back from the intruders, which brought him closer to the man.

“Right,” the nurse said in a stern tone, “These restraints are made for mental patients. It takes two free hands to take them off, and without that it’s pretty much impossible –”

“Bet,” Touya mumbled without thinking.

The officer looked mildly amused, the nurse less so. The man maintained the same tired, bored look he’d had on when he first entered the room.

“Give one hand here, so I can begin the restraint.” The nurse held out his hand expectantly, looking at the man who was still holding him down. No one was looking to Touya. This clearly wasn’t up to him.

The man complied, and Touya’s wrists were quickly enveloped in soft, plush fabric and he was once again bound to the bed. Touya immediately started fiddling with the closing mechanisms.

He liked puzzles, and this was as good a way to spend his time as any other he could see. That was, it was something he could do to spend his time. A marked improvement from the cold handcuffs. So the ‘wrist-banging’ had been good for something.

“What is your name?” The man asked again, from a different angle than expected, making Touya snap his head up towards him, finding him seated in the same chair as before, looking relaxed. Like nothing out of the ordinary had happened. This likely was the ordinary for him, actually.

“What’s yours?” Touya asked instead of answering, which he still wasn’t going to do.

“Aizawa Shouta,” the man said easily.

It probably was easy for him, not having to worry about his bastard father potentially finding him, confused and without any foothold at all right now. Although it was still more likely that they already knew who he was and all he was doing was annoy them.

Suppose he could find out if they knew or not.

“Why don’t you tell me my name, and I’ll tell you if you’re right?”

Alright, that had sounded less stupid in his head.

He continued fiddling with his cuffs, looking down.

“Do you not remember it?” The officer chimed in, sounding concerned.

“Yes, I do,” Touya snapped, chewing on his cheek as his face heated up, “I just wanna know if you know.”

“We don’t,” the man, Aizawa, said, “We don’t know who you are, and we are trying to find out. Because we can’t help you if we don’t know who you are.”

The man was honest, had to give that to him.

And now Touya had a choice. He obviously couldn’t keep his identity a secret for very long, but he really would like to know a bit more about his situation before bringing Father into it.

Plus, it would be nice to have a break from that house, even if it had to happen in a hospital.

Not too long, though, that would be unfair to his siblings. But a day or two to suss out this mess wouldn’t hurt.

Especially in comparison to however long it had actually been since his last clear memory.

Which had been in the summer.

He would need to figure out why that was, too.

And not panic.

Not panicking was an important part of this tentative plan.

“Trust me,” Touya said, “telling you who I am will not help me right now.”

Chapter Text

This was exhausting.

This whole day had been exhausting and it wasn’t even noon yet.

One would have thought that the capture of one of the most wanted Villains in the world would be cause for celebration, not more work.

But somehow, this particular capture-situation had managed to become even more headache-inducing than the alternative of just allowing another Villain to roam free.

And, of course, Shouta had to be right in the middle of it.

He hadn’t been from the beginning. In reality, he had had nothing at all to do with bringing Dabi into custody.

No Heroes had.

Instead the Villain had just walked into the wrong shop at the wrong time and ended up in the crosshairs of a very angry antique-shop-owner with a bat and a de-aging Quirk.

The whole event had been recorded by the in-shop surveillance cameras and had been, frankly, more than a little amusing to watch. Because it showed the infamous Villain and serial killer Dabi get overwhelmed by a short, fat, balding man with no other weapon than a polished branch.

Now, other than being amusing, it would also have been more than a little insulting to the Heroes who had tried and failed to contain Dabi, himself included, if this hadn’t so clearly been achieved through a healthy portion of luck and the element of surprise rather than any actual skill by the shop-owner.

Debates of the merits of luck over skill aside, the result was that Dabi had been overwhelmed enough to be unceremoniously knocked unconscious only a few moments after entering the antique shop, actually.

And Shouta had to admit that the question of why a serial killer had deigned to enter an antique shop in the middle of the day for no apparent reason was weighing heavier on his mind than it probably should have.

It definitely wasn’t what was most important now.

It was, in fact, much more important, although very easy to miss even upon close inspection of the footage, that in that short time before he was knocked out, Dabi did manage to char the bat black and, unbeknownst to both himself and the shop-owner, burn a hole in the gloves said angry shop-owner wore at all times to prevent accidental Quirk-use.

Because apparently the man wasn’t very good at controlling it. Extra points for self-awareness at least.

The problem with the hole was that, despite its size being so minuscule that the man wearing the gloves didn’t even notice it, it was apparently big enough for the man’s Quirk to no longer be contained.

Which quickly became obvious, first of all to the shop-owner, when he grabbed a hold of Dabi to prop him up against a wall, which was considerate of him, to not just leave Villains littering on the floor, and, in the span of maybe five to ten seconds, turn the Villain into a small, honestly pretty frail-looking teenaged boy with none of the identifying scars that adorned his adult counterpart, and an unruly shock of dark red hair that Shouta definitely hadn’t seen coming.

And now that he’d had the time to look closer, the combination of that red hair with the Villain’s trademark piercing blue eyes had made Shouta uncomfortable for reasons he didn’t quite understand, but he felt like he should. Like he was missing something.

But that was also not important right now, because the shop-owner had then realized his actions, discovered the hole in his glove, shaken his fist angrily at the unconscious boy for putting him in this situation, put on some new gloves and picked up the kid to drop him off at the nearest police station where he had been disbelieved and openly laughed at until the surveillance video had been retrieved and viewed.

After that they had been quick to call in Tsukauchi and take the kid, who had indeed been Dabi, into custody. And then that bastard had called Shouta in to help clean up this mess.

The shop-owner was also currently in custody, same as Dabi, which had clearly not been what the man expected if his righteous anger was anything to go by.

But he really should have seen it coming, because while, yes, the person the man had attacked was a Villain, he had still attacked a person, a human being, with a bat and without any license or legitimate, or at least legally legitimate, reason to do so.

It had instead been very clear in the surveillance footage that Dabi had been non-violent in those brief moments before he was attacked, which meant that the shop-owner couldn’t reasonably claim self-defense.

Which in turn meant that Shouta would likely have to help bail out the angry would-be Vigilante some time soon. Because the person he had attacked had been a Villain, and Shouta wasn’t going to let someone go to jail for that.

But it would have to wait until after the man’s Quirk had been looked into a little further, so they knew which effects to expect.

Surprisingly, although maybe not considering his self-evident control issues, the guy hadn’t had a straight answer for their questions right away. Although, in his own word, it was because he “didn’t just go around de-aging people for shits and gigs,” so that needed to be investigated now, too.

Which was adding even more work to this situation, but luckily not for Shouta. He would happily leave that research project to someone else.

That didn’t mean, though, that knowledge of the exact workings and duration of this Quirk wasn’t currently of great importance to Shouta. It was, actually, of greater importance than the swift recovery of the angry shop-owner’s freedom to batter another high-level Villain some other time.

Because, as it stood, he had now been thoroughly roped into cleaning up this mess that was the direct results of the shop-owner using his Quirk on Dabi which was, to summarize: a teen-aged brat with no scars, a mess of red hair, and an angry, distrustful attitude that Shouta had now spent the better part of his morning dealing with.

Except the no scars part wasn’t actually fully true. The kid had scars, and grim ones. They just weren’t the same, or as big and noticeable, as the ones adult Dabi had.

There were the easily identifiable ones covering the space between his wrists and elbows as well as some still-healing burns centered mainly on his upper body and neck. Which they had at first glance assumed to be self-inflicted as well. Because that would have been so easy and quaint for them.

And then there was also some pretty painful-looking redness under both his eyes that the doctors were still looking into because, in their words, it was interesting. And not as easily written off as the rest of the marks on the boy. It was also currently the only marking on the kid that even alluded to the pattern of extensive scarring that had covered adult Dabi.

And even if this was far less than his adult self, it was still far too many scars and wounds for a kid his age. Well, the age they were guessing at, because they likely weren’t going to be able to get him to tell them any time soon. The kid had been oscillating between stonewalling and redirecting every last one of their questions, to Shouta’s immense frustration.

And why did Shouta even have to be dragged into this?

He didn’t want to have to deal with the even bigger mess that this was shaping up to become.

“So,” Tsukauchi began as he closed the door behind them, ending their walk through the hospital and forcing Shouta to focus on him and not his own frustrated musings, “what do you think? Does it seem to you like this de-aging affected Dabi’s mental age as well?”

“It looks like it, but it really is too early to tell for sure,” Shouta answered, looking at the officer as the two sat down across from each other in the small private waiting room that had been placed at their disposal.

They had only just finished what was promising to be the first of many one-sided interviews with one sullen and unwilling subject, and now they had to discuss their findings and come up with a plan of attack.

And Shouta was already so tired.

“I agree,” Tsukauchi nodded, looking far too awake for this. “We’ll need more information before we can make a definitive judgment on this matter.” He paused to sigh and run a hand through his hair. “I won’t lie; this would be a lot easier if we could prove that Dabi is still in possession of his adult mental faculties and memories.”

Shouta quirked an eyebrow to silently ask why. And Tsukauchi readily obliged.

“Because if he is, then we can simply treat him like the criminal that he has made himself into and send him to Tartarus where he undeniably belongs, but if he doesn’t… If he doesn’t have the memories, or the mental age, or the physical age of Dabi… If he is truly a child again, I mean that kid can’t be more than fourteen… that opens up for some legal and moral questions that I do hope we can avoid asking ourselves.” Tsukauchi ended his speech with an uncomfortable grimace.

“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” Shouta said, as the discomfort of this possible moral dilemma made itself present in his mind as well. “It’s far too early to tell either way in regard to Dabi’s current mental state, and it is even more so too early for us to know if this de-aging is anything even remotely permanent. As it stands, it would not be rational for us to go down that hypothetical path… yet.” And he didn’t want to.

“Right,” Tsukauchi sighed, “but we do have to make a decision about what to do next. We’ll have to keep up the interviews until we know enough to act… However we end up acting. And you know… I brought you in on this case specifically for your knowledge of teen minds, not to mention the fact that you are one of very few Heroes who have had the… pleasure, of meeting and speaking to the adult Villain Dabi.”

Tsukauchi looked sideways at him. And he was definitely fishing for Shouta to step up here. But he didn’t want to have to do that. Why couldn’t he just go back to his own brats? They were more than enough to keep him occupied without adding this to his plate.

“I wouldn’t call it a pleasure,” Shouta grumbled, “he attacked my students and kidnapped one of them. And not to mention that the Dabi I spoke to was actually a clone. Or two. It was two different ones, I think, actually.”

“But clones of Dabi with his personality,” Tsukauchi countered, still fishing.

And yes, that was true. Shouta had undeniably met Dabi’s personality.

It had been a most unpleasant experience that he didn’t want to ever repeat, and while it was not rational for Shouta to hold a grudge against Dabi in particular over the attack on the training camp, he did.

The Villain had looked him directly in the eye and threatened his students. That wasn’t something Shouta took kindly to.

But at the same time, Shouta didn’t seem to feel any of that animosity towards this young boy who had apparently become Dabi. Which was another part of the mess.

Because as clear as he had been with Tsukauchi that he was not yet ready to cast final judgment on the boy’s mental state yet, he was already pretty much convinced that the kid was, in fact, a teenager of mind as well as of body. And his natural, subconscious, reaction to that was apparently to firmly divorce the kid from the actions of his older self.

Which may or may not be an unwise thing to do.

This kid had a proven capability to become a terrorist and a murderer and for Shouta to ignore that enough to feel… bad for him? It wasn’t rational.

But how could he believe that there wasn’t a marked difference, a tangible change, a de-aging of his personality to a more innocent, non-villainous disposition as well as the rest of him after witnessing the very different, if not completely opposite reactions these two versions of Dabi had had to being pinned down?

Where the adult (clone) Dabi had been nonchalant and confident, speaking evenly and mockingly, no fear evident even as his arm was broken, this young kid had been terrified as his personal space was invaded, had admitted to feeling pain, albeit reluctantly, and overall hadn’t had any of the calm, menacing energy about him that radiated from his older self.

On the contrary, the kid had been on the defensive from the start.

He had acted like a scared kid who had no idea where he was or who he was speaking to.

A scared kid who didn’t trust the adults he was speaking to, regardless of who they were, who was scared of people getting close to him, and who had a very obvious history of self-harm at a very young age.

Shouta agreed with Tsukauchi in placing the kid’s age around fourteen, albeit a small fourteen considering how tall he knew Dabi had grown to be, and that was too young to not wonder if his family and home life were the cause of the pain he was taking out on himself.

Because all of this, the defensive behavior, the default distrust of adults, and the clear aversion to fast movements and touch combined with the burns and the scars didn’t exactly paint a pretty picture of his home life.

Especially when Shouta considered the possibility that the burns might not be self-made. Quirks were hereditary, after all.

Not that any of that was at all surprising, though.

Very few kids with loving, well-adjusted, non-abusive families grew up to be Villains.

Which just went to show that being a Villain wasn’t necessarily something they were born into.

The adversity every single Villain he’d ever met had faced and been subjected to had made them grow into that role, and while Shouta did not pity Villains for the consequences they had to face as a result of the very wrong choices they had made for themselves after they became adults, he now found himself in a situation where he did very much pity the child who had become a Villain.

Because he hadn’t been one yet at fourteen. As far as Shouta knew, he had only been a victim at that time.

But at the same time, not every victim became a perpetrator like this kid had. Which had also been hard to ignore when pinning the kid down and feeling the too-hot burning of his skin, which had been exactly the same as how Dabi’s skin had felt. Serving as a physical reminder of exactly who this kid was... or grew up to be.

Which lead him back to the current issue of finding out if he was right that this kid had none of Dabi’s memories and wasn’t actually him… yet.

Which, as true as it felt, was an uncomfortable thought that brought along with it that slew of moral and ethical questions he really didn’t want to have to answer, but would have to, to some extent, if he was right.

He found himself fervently wishing that he was wrong and that Dabi was just a really good actor.

Or that maybe this was all temporary, and they could be nice to the kid while he was a kid and then bring Dabi to justice once he turned back.

It would make everything so much easier.

But either way, whatever ended up happening, there were so many questions that needed to be answered here before they could be done with this. And there was no point in delaying the inevitable.

“So, what you want is for me to lead the investigation into Dabi’s current mental state?” Shouta asked.

Tsukauchi visibly slumped in relief at being addressed again, and Shouta realized that he must have been quiet for a long time as he thought all of this through. He couldn’t find it within himself to feel bad about it considering the burden Tsukauchi was currently trying to pass on to him.

Because it was obvious that the answer would be yes, but he still needed the verbal confirmation to truly accept that this burden would indeed fall on his shoulders.

“Yes, given your expertise, I believe it would be best if you were the one to speak with him,” Tsukauchi affirmed, looking more relieved than was polite. “Also, this is more of a feeling at this point, but I don’t believe Dabi liked the authorities in his youth, either. I have already branded myself as an officer of the law by appearing in my uniform, but you will still be an unknown to him, provided that he doesn’t remember you.”

“Which would be a test in and of itself if we can get him to slip up with me,” Aizawa agreed, “and I don’t need to tell him that I am a Hero in order to ask him questions. With any luck he’ll be too preoccupied with everything else to even think to ask me who I am.”

“And I doubt I need to remind you that this is a very opportune time to try to find out Dabi’s true identity, too?” Tsukauchi questioned.

“You don’t,” Shouta confirmed, “whether or not this de-aging has affected his mental age, he is going to be vulnerable right now. And I have to admit, one of my greater reservations in determining his mental age with certainty is his unwillingness to tell us his real name. It could mean any number of things other than Dabi still being in possession of his adult memories and motivations, but it is a little too convenient for my taste.”

And, as a matter of fact, he could work towards answering all of his most pressing questions at once, by throwing out this question that adult Dabi would definitely never answer truthfully, and frankly seemed like a sore spot for him, which would make him even more vulnerable to slip-ups of some sort which in turn might give them clues that would help them identify him.

Not to mention the fact that the kid was using deflections as his main method of self-defense right now, and those deflections would serve equally well to ascertain the extent of the Quirk he was under. And who he was.

And if the kid was truly de-aged, then he had to have some other motivations for his silence, which Shouta had an inkling might be an important piece of this big and confusing mess that he was now a part of.

“So, we are in agreement,” Tsukauchi concluded as he stood back up. Shouta mirrored him, although much less enthusiastically. “I’ll leave you to it then, and I’ll go tend to the mountain of paperwork this case has already created.”

Shouta winced at the thought and sent Tsukauchi a look of sympathy. Because maybe he wasn’t being saddled with the worst part of this after all.

“Be sure to let me know of any new developments, as well as whatever you find out from the shop-owner.” He moved towards the door, readying himself mentally as he went.

This was going to be a long day.

“I will, and good luck,” Tsukauchi called out after him.

Shouta didn’t need luck. He needed answers.

Chapter Text

Touya looked up from fiddling with his cuffs when he heard the door creak open. It was Aizawa again, moving slowly towards his chair, looking exhausted, which at this point seemed to just be the man’s normal.

Although, at this point it was also getting late enough that it was more natural to be tired; looking out the window in front of him, he was currently being treated to the view of the eastern sky during sunset, which… magnificent. Truly worth his time.

Which also meant that Aizawa had been coming and going here all freaking day, and maybe, just maybe, if this was the man's normal, the permanent exhaustion from that was justifiable.

So Touya didn’t say anything as Aizawa sat down in his chair and immediately threw the same question at him that he had been asking on repeat all day.

“What’s your name?”

It was honestly a wonder that he hadn’t gotten sick of this yet and just quit.

Well, he did get tired and leave for a short while every now and then. But he always came back again, sometimes almost immediately, bringing a fresh cup of coffee, even though he didn’t seem to like it if the grimacing every time he took a sip was anything to go by. But then again, he’d drunk at least seven cups of the stuff today so it couldn’t be all bad.

He always came back, was the point.

And Touya didn’t get it.

The man must know at this point that all he would get out of Touya was deflections and tangents about inconsequential things like food preferences (although, strangely, Touya’s lunch and dinner had both included several of the favorites he’d mentioned), favorite shows (that didn’t last for long as apparently neither of them had the time to sit down and watch something), and whether cats were better than dogs (spurred on by Touya noticing a cat pendant on Aizawa’s keys, and Aizawa had been weirdly passionate about the topic).

Touya appreciated the distraction, though, so he was glad Aizawa hadn’t given up just yet. He honestly didn’t know what he would do when the man eventually did.

Or what would even happen then.

He decided that he would throw the man a bone some time during this conversation. Just enough to keep him interested in continuing these talks in the hopes of finding out more.

Not yet, though.

“What will you do when I eventually figure out these cuffs?” Touya smirked, half as a deflection, half because he felt like he was getting close to finding his way out of them and he wanted to know if it would be better to keep it to himself when he did.

It wasn’t like he was actually trying to get away or anything, though. He liked it well enough here and as long as they didn’t figure out who he was and sic Father on him, he would prefer staying for at least a little while longer.

After all, he had a bed that he wasn’t required to leave, food delivered to him three times a day, and near constant company from a person who hadn’t done anything even remotely horrible to him yet.

He’d actually been borderline nice almost the entire time, which was unusual and mildly disconcerting, but not necessarily a bad thing.

There were also the nurses of course but they didn’t count as company because they never actually talked to him. They never even looked him in the eye. Just did whatever they needed to do and left as quickly as they could.

And they reminded him that there was very much also the fact that it might be a good idea to stay in a place filled with doctors until he found out why he couldn’t remember the last couple of months.

Which was a fact that he was slowly coming to terms with by staunchly ignoring what his absence might have meant to his siblings. Because that was a thought he couldn’t dwell on for more than a couple seconds before his chest did the cramping thing and his breathing picked up enough to force one of the nurses into his room to reluctantly check on him.

“I find it strange that you choose to spend so much time on those things when you don’t seem to have any desire to actually leave,” Aizawa deflected. Apparently he could do that, too.

“I’m bored, and these are the only distraction you’ve given me,” Touya answered honestly, if a bit sharply. Okay, maybe a bit too sharply, so he hurried to soften his words before Aizawa could react. “plus, I like puzzles.”

He really did like puzzles, too, so it wasn't even a lie, and these cuffs were just a difficult puzzle for him.

A puzzle he wanted to solve.

To prove that he could.

He had learned lockpicking for nearly the same reason, even though there were next to no locks in his house, which had made it a pretty useless skill for him.

It had just been fun to learn.

... Although there was also that one persistent nightmare where he always found himself in a locked room either completely alone or alone with Father, and he didn’t know which one of those was worse, but knowing that if that really happened he would have the ability to at least get the door open, helped. Like a lot.

But he knew it was a weird hobby that he had taken up for weird and deeply personal reasons no less, so he was going to keep that tidbit to himself.

No reason to make Aizawa take even more precautions to keep him here when he wasn’t even trying to get away.

“I’m sure we can arrange for you to get access to some other form of entertainment. Books or TV-shows or something,” Aizawa said, apparently taking Touya’s words at face value, completely overlooking the snark in them, which was honestly pretty rude of him even if Touya had backtracked on the snark already.

Because Touya was trying to start a discussion here, and that wouldn’t be easy if Aizawa kept on being so damn logical and reasonable.

Touya didn’t know how to argue with reasonable people, he’d never really had to do that before.

“That doesn’t answer my question, though. What will you do when I get out of them?” Touya levelled a glare at Aizawa to encourage him to answer and maybe get a rise out of him, even though he knew that the man had him beat hands down in the glaring department and also had a scary level of control over his emotions.

The man hadn’t lost his temper even once, despite Touya’s constant snarking and refusal to cooperate. Two things that would have had Father seeing red in thirty seconds flat.

“To be fair, you’ve been refusing to answer my question for almost a full day now.” Aizawa returned his glare half-heartedly, no real emotion in it.

And there it was again. Aizawa was very clearly aware that Touya was fighting him and yet he wasn’t applying any real pressure to make him change his tune.

It was weird.

Touya refused to let it intimidate him and be beaten so easily, though, so he maintained eye contact even though it was quickly becoming uncomfortable and continued.

“I’m refusing to answer for safety reasons. As far as I can tell there are none of those stopping you from answering my question, though.” There, that gave Aizawa a reason to answer him about the cuffs, and it subtly threw the man a bone about Touya’s identity that, while possibly intriguing, really wouldn’t help much in uncovering who he was.

Because he just wasn’t sure he wanted to do that yet.

Eventually, yes, he would have to.

Not yet.

“I don’t know what other options we have as far as restraints go. I can promise you that we won’t just let you roam free,” Aizawa said calmly, probably only answering Touya’s question because he knew that Touya wasn’t going to let it go without an answer, no matter how inconsequential it really was. So reasonable of him. “Why don’t you think it’s safe for you to tell me your name?”

Right.

Follow up questions.

He should have considered those.

He looked down, hunching his shoulders to shield himself from Aizawa’s scrutinizing stare while he thought, biting down on his lip hard enough to make himself worry that Aizawa would consider that a form of self-harm, too. And the thought of that alone made him stop again because he didn’t actually want to find out.

This wasn’t fun anymore.

He didn’t want to talk about this, and it had been stupid to open the door because Aizawa definitely wasn’t going to let it go, either.

“Is it a person? Or people? An organization? Either way you’re safe here, we can protect you from them, whoever they are.” Aizawa sounded so sure of himself as he leaned forward in his chair to move into Touya’s field of vision again.

He was just so certain that he had the power to help Touya, huh?

It made him so irrationally angry that the man apparently didn’t realize that there were people he had no control over. Times when he couldn’t help because he didn’t have the power.

No power, no say, no autonomy, just helplessness.

The thought of someone actually not knowing what it was like to be powerless made him so pissed because he wanted that.

He wanted to be able to believe that there were checks and balances in place, and that bad people couldn’t get away with what they were doing just because they had enough money and power to control the system.

That it was the good guys and the Heroes who helped people who had that power, and that the bad guys would always lose.

But he wasn’t naïve.

He knew how the real world worked.

And it wasn’t the way Aizawa apparently thought. The man didn’t even have a clue and yet he was talking like he did.

It was infuriating.

“No, you can’t.” Touya said angrily, “He’s too powerful. Once he knows where I am, he’ll come for me, and you’ll just hand me over, I know you will.” He felt the tears well up in his eyes as he fully realized the truth of his own statement.

No matter how nice this Aizawa seemed in his strangeness, he wouldn’t dare stand up to Father.

No one ever did.

And Touya would have to go back. He already knew that, but admitting it out loud still fucking hurt.

“I won’t. Not if you don’t want to go. I can protect you.” Aizawa still sounded so calm, so sure of himself as he made impossible promises.

And Touya needed him to know he was wrong.

“Even if you don’t want to, you still will. He has the power to make it happen, legally or whatever, so unless you’re telling me you’re willing to become some kind of criminal, you’re wrong,” His voice broke with emotion.

Aizawa just looked at him, listening. Not refuting anything or trying to plead his case. Fully willing to hear Touya out, apparently.

And he didn’t know why, but that just made everything feel even worse.

The tears spilled over, and he could feel a lump growing rapidly in his throat as he fought to not cry out loud, “I’m not safe – and you can’t protect me. The only way for me to stay safe right now - is by not telling you my name,” he sniffed, “So please stop. Please just stop.”

He couldn’t do it. Saying it out loud like this had made it too real and he lost the fragile control he'd had over himself, pressing his cloth-covered wrists roughly to his eyes as he began to cry for real, choking on the sobs trying to escape.

He shouldn’t have opened up that much. It just hurt to be forced to realize the hopelessness of his own situation all over again.

Because he would have to go back eventually, no matter how it ended up happening.

He was trapped in this hell, just as tangibly as he was trapped in this bed.

He heard rustling, and then the bed dipped beside him as Aizawa sat down and wrapped his arms around him, pulling him into his side.

And Touya wanted to fight that.

Wanted to yell and scream and thrash and get this man off him, because he had no right.

He had no right to try to hug Touya like this.

But it had been so long since anyone had even tried.

So long since anyone had tried to comfort him at all.

Other than his siblings, of course, but that was different because he couldn’t let himself fall apart in front of them. They needed him to be strong, stronger than he actually was. He couldn’t accept their comfort.

But he could accept this.

It would be a lot easier than fighting it.

So Touya didn’t move.

He didn’t move into the hug, but he didn’t move away either. He just kept his arms up, covered his face and let himself be hugged. He couldn’t stop the sobs from getting even louder and more insistent at the gentle touch, though.

He didn’t have to do that here either, so he let himself fight a little less hard to end the tears.

Aizawa stayed quiet for a long while, too. Just sitting there, running his hands over Touya’s back and shoulder until he calmed down and the crying became quiet.

“You know, I know some pretty powerful people, too. People I could get to help you,” Aizawa said quietly into his hair. Like he was telling him a secret.

“Oh yeah?” Touya sniffed, trying to sound sarcastic although it came out way too wet and whiny. He was slightly amused at the thought of this scruffy looking man thinking anyone he knew would be powerful enough to stand up to the Number Two Hero, though, “and who would that be?”

“All Might,” the man stated, simply, like it was no big deal.

Touya startled, pulling away and moving his hands away from his eyes so he could see Aizawa’s face. He looked serious, but this had to be a joke.

There was no way.

“You know All Might?” Touya cringed at how incredulous he sounded, but honestly, at the moment, he was more than a little doubtful at Aizawa’s statement.

Because, come on, who just casually knew All Might?

Aizawa, however, doubled down on it.

“I do, and I don’t doubt I can convince him to help you,” he said, calmly, “after all, saving everyone is sort of his thing.” That sounded borderline sarcastic, like Aizawa was mocking the Number One Hero. Which was a bold move considering his popularity.

“How do you know All Might?” Touya asked, trying to poke holes in the man’s story.

Because there was No Way.

“From work,” Aizawa stated flatly, “I don’t claim to be friends with him, but I do see him fairly often and he tends to do what I ask him.”

From work? Touya still hadn’t been able to work out what Aizawa’s job really was, because his dogged pursuit of one question and one question only didn’t seem like something a shrink would do, and he had enough natural authority that it would make sense for his actual job to have something to do with bossing other people around.

But he also didn’t wear a uniform like a cop would, like that other officer had.

Touya would have leaned towards Hero if there had been even just a bit of a hint of his outfit being a Hero costume, but other than it being all black, and that oversized scarf (what was with that?), he just didn’t see it.

He could ask now, though.

Aizawa had opened up the possibility. And depending on his job, that could also help discredit his story about knowing All Might.

“What work?” He was aware that he sounded sullen but honestly, he was getting tired of playing this game. He wanted to know if Aizawa was serious, and if he was; How?

“… I work at UA,” Aizawa admitted, “I know a lot of different Heroes, All Might just happens to be one of them.” He sounded so sure of himself, still. Like all of this was just boring facts.

Touya still wasn’t sure if he believed it, though.

While he could absolutely see Aizawa as an authoritarian, no shits given high school teacher who secretly cared way more about his students than he would ever admit, the whole story seemed more than a little convenient.

Like it was just something that had been made up to soothe the hysterical and possibly crazy teen into oversharing.

And while that obviously wouldn’t work, Touya also wasn’t sure if that was what it was. Aizawa didn’t strike him as someone who lied for the sake of convenience. Then again, Touya didn’t actually know the man all that well.

“Tell you what,” Aizawa broke the silence, “how about I go talk to All Might, and if he agrees, I’ll bring him here so you can meet him? It probably won’t happen until tomorrow, though.” The last statement was accompanied by a look out the window where it was now dark.

And that definitely would serve to prove that Aizawa did know All Might. Not to mention that with the Number One Hero on his side, maybe he actually could stand a chance against Father.

That was a dangerous thought, though.

One that had left him hurting far too many times in the past.

Because every single time he’d ever tried to reach out to a Hero or law enforcement in the past, about what was going on, trying to get help for himself and his siblings and his mother, he had been left severely disappointed and disillusioned and hurt.

Because they always bent to Father’s will in the end.

Father always knew how to make people shut up, whether it was through threats or bribery, or… Touya knew of at least one occasion where Father had used the pain he himself had inflicted against him.

It had been a special kind of painful to watch Father tell the Hero Touya had been talking to (begging for help, more accurately) to look at Touya’s wrists, going so far as to grab his arm and pull up his sleeve to show off the damage, and ask himself if those scars were the scars of a mentally stable person.

And then he’d been off on a rant about him having inherited his mother’s frail psyche and Father was really just trying to do what was best for him in these trying circumstances, but it was hard with such a rude pathological liar of a son, and it really was better if this didn’t get out to the public.

For Touya’s own sake.

He wouldn’t be able to deal with the publicity, see?

But Aizawa had already seen the scars and he seemed willing to hear him out anyway.

Maybe, if the All Might thing was true, the Number One Hero would be open to listening, too.

There might actually be a reason he was number one; maybe the saving everyone bit was actually something he held to and not just media fodder.

And maybe it would include Touya as well.

And maybe, if he had a big enough audience, of influential enough people who couldn’t be threatened or bribed as easily, maybe Father wouldn’t be able to silence all of them.

Maybe Touya could actually get help.

Maybe, just maybe, Touya could allow himself a sliver of hope here.

As much as it threatened to hurt, it was worth a shot.

Especially if it meant that he could stop Father from hurting the others, too. So Touya nodded his assent, and then quickly brought his hands back up to his eyes as he felt the tears streaming down his face again, because hope was fucking terrifying when he knew just how easily it could be snuffed out again. Or turned against him.

Aizawa wrapped his arms back around him. He didn’t say anything more. Didn’t ask for anything more.

He just stayed.

Chapter Text

Hawks was at UA to… check up on Tsukuyomi.

Which was a totally normal and acceptable thing for him to do, and he totally wasn’t only doing it to keep busy and stay far, far away from anything that might remind him of the dire straits he was finding himself in currently with his liaison and in with the League of Villains suddenly AWOL with no warning or even a sign that something was up.

No, that definitely wasn’t it. Because he knew, he knew that Dabi had never been the communicative sort.

Although he did tend to keep Hawks up to date on need-to-know tactical issues like big picture plans and stuff… most of the time, anyway.

… Okay, that was a lie, too, but only kind of.

Dabi might not always tell him what was going to happen, but he would absolutely tease that something was going to happen which was usually enough to clue Hawks in. And he had not done anything of the sort recently that could have been a sign of an upcoming disappearing act.

And beyond that, Hawks always got snide texts and enigmatic questions on his burner phone that made it very clear that the Villain was keeping close tabs on him. Which was to be expected in this situation.

It was what Hawks expected.

And Dabi had not done that in any capacity for longer than ever before now.

Which was unusual and worrying, because, well, Hawks would like to think that he had more reasons to do all of that now, not fewer.

However, that did not mean that there was any reason for Hawks to start panicking and fearing the worst now. Whatever the worst might be here.

This absence could have any number of legitimate reasons, after all. Or illegitimate reasons. Since Dabi was a Villain. And it was just that Hawks wasn’t privy to these reasons at all.

Which sucked because he wanted to know, damn it.

He wanted, needed, to know what was going on. That was the whole point of his mission. Recon. And it was going very poorly at the moment. Which was what he was upset about, obviously.

But really, in all likelihood, the fucker was probably just off somewhere creating chaos for the hell of it and would be back once he’d had his fun.

Hawks still couldn’t shake the feeling that something wasn’t right, though.

He didn’t know why he was feeling that way, which was even more infuriating right now.

It was an inkling or maybe an instinct more than anything else, which meant that it was far too vague for him to know what, if anything, he was supposed to do with it.

Which was the worst.

Hawks hated not knowing what to do.

He was totally good with getting even the most difficult tasks done; he was intelligent, resourceful, charismatic, and those were facts that no one could deny without lying or just plain being wrong.

But he was never the one to decide what his tasks actually were. The thinking and moralizing was always done for him and then all he had to do was follow orders. Easy peasy.

He’d never learned how to change directions based on changed circumstances or how to tell when it was even necessary to do that, beyond what was needed in the heat of battle where there wasn’t time to ask for directions.

And this situation was not that.

Not by a long shot.

Which meant that he had no idea what to do in this situation. He was in desperate need of direction right now, but for the first time ever, he had no one to give it to him.

Because it wasn’t like he could talk to any other Heroes about it since he was supposed to be undercover and all that secrecy shit.

Which meant the only people on the right side of the law that he could tell were the Hero Commission which he knew was the right thing to do but, hah, was he not going to give them any reason to start pulling strings before he had at least some knowledge about what the hell was even going on here and if that was even necessary.

Because if Dabi really had just fucked off for shits and gigs then involving the Hero Commission in possibly visible ways would fuck over the whole mission, which would quickly become Hawks’ fault, and if Dabi, and God he hoped it wasn’t true because what a headache, but if Dabi was actually missing, that would also do bad things to the security of this mission, and again, it would easily become Hawks’ problem, Hawks’ fault, something the Hero Commission could use against him in fun and creative ways that he just… didn’t want to deal with.

And either way, there probably wasn’t much they could do yet, so he was just going to keep it to himself until he couldn’t anymore. For the safety of his mission.

And he couldn’t even reach out to the wrong side of the law and the rest of the League either, because while he had finally talked Dabi into giving him the contacts of one or two of them, they likely wouldn’t take too kindly to him if the first thing he did with that contact was drill them for information.

Possibly sensitive information as well.

And they would definitely also start asking questions about why he cared.

Which… first of all, would mean possibly bringing attention to his motives in a way he had fought long and hard to keep from Dabi, and second of all, if he couldn’t ask about Dabi in what one might call a ‘professional’ way or setting, then the question could easily be turned to more personal matters, which was another topic that he DID NOT want brought up because frankly, he wasn’t even ready to admit to that to himself, never mind nosy Villains.

… And that was why he was here at UA, because he had a semi-plausible reason to do so. One the Hero Commission hopefully wouldn’t question.

And it was keeping his mind occupied elsewhere, anywhere other than the part of him that wished so desperately to know where Dabi was, and to have an explanation that hopefully didn’t involve being told that he just didn’t matter enough to the Villain for him to factor into the other’s plans beyond when he was convenient.

For ‘professional’ reasons or otherwise.

No, not otherwise.

There was no otherwise, there couldn’t, shouldn’t be.

No need to worry about that.

It really was just that he wanted to know what was going on so that he could know what he was supposed to do, or was at least safe to ask someone else about it.

But for now, he didn’t have that, so he would do what he did best, clamping down on any sense of doubt and fear to get other shit done.

Even if that other shit didn’t actually need to get done, it served as a distraction, so it was fine.

And so he strolled into the Teachers’ Lounge like he owned it, using that laidback walk his Handlers had trained him endlessly on and maintaining a carefully rehearsed lazy smile on his lips, scanning the room for Eraserhead, who was Tsukuyomi’s main teacher, which, he was sure that had a different name, but he had forgotten what it was.

And the Hero wasn’t even there, so it didn’t really matter what to call him, Hawks supposed.

But then what?

Who was second best to talk to?

Who plausibly had knowledge about Tsukuyomi and about where the hell Eraserhead was, because hi, curiosity, it was kind of Hawks’ thing, and who was also able to serve as a distraction, like, right now?

… All Might.

All Might was right there. He worked with Tsukuyomi’s class, the kid had mentioned, he was pretty sure.

Perfect.

He walked over to the retired Hero’s desk, making sure to keep up the suave laziness that had been made into his trademark attitude.

And it didn’t take long for the older man to notice him, looking up, face gaunt, but with the same fiery determination in his gaze that had always been there.

Yeah, it would be fun to talk to All Might.

“Hey, All Might, you busy?” he called out casually, smiling as the former Number One Hero shook his head and stood up to greet him. “I was really looking for Eraserhead, but I suppose you’ll do just fine.”

“Well, if there’s anything I can do, then I’m more than willing to help,” the gaunt man offered in a very kindly, old man kind of way.

“How nice of you, I say, you might even call it heroic. Have you ever considered making a career out of it?” He jibed, hoping to strike up a friendly, and distracting, conversation that might go beyond what he needed (or really didn’t need) to know about Tsukuyomi.

He was rewarded for his efforts with a smile and a shake of the head before moving on.

“Actually, I’m wondering, do you know where Eraserhead is?” He asked, and quickly followed up his question with the relevant observations he’d made that led to him asking, “It is school hours right now, yeah? So his absence has me curious. Is he teaching? Not that it really matters, of course, what I need is a little sparring on Tsukuyomi’s Quirk to see what I might be able to teach him, you know, passing on my wisdom to the younger generations in my old age.”

That got him a laugh, albeit a slightly wry one. “No doubt some of my students will agree in calling you old, but from my perspective, Young Hawks, you’ll forgive me that I don’t really see all that much of a difference between you and them.”

“Ouch, call me a child, how dare you,” Hawks put on a mock pout, but softened it into a grin when he saw All Might tense up like he didn’t get that Hawks was just playing along. “No, it’s fine, I’ll take it as a compliment that I’m staying youthful in my looks.”

They could take the whole being-infantilized-by-older-Heroes conversation later. Or maybe not at all. While Hawks definitely had opinions on the topic because it annoyed the hell out of him to be brushed off for his age alone, he also knew that bringing up those opinions would be divisive and could possibly make older Heroes resentful of him for trying to dictate how they should interact with him.

Which would benefit absolutely no one.

“That you should, Young Hawks, and be happy that you have many years ahead of you to be a great Hero.” All Might smiled sagely, and Hawks found it hard not to laugh at the solemn tone.

There was a beat of silence after that, though.

Which just wouldn’t do.

“So… about Tsukuyomi? And Eraserhead, because I’m a curious little git,” he prompted, swaying back and forth on the balls of his feet to radiate calmness, to let All Might know that he wasn’t in a hurry but also to please fill the silence.

“Oh, right,” All Might straightened up a little, “well, about Young Tokoyami, we have files on our students and their Quirk training and progress, so maybe that’ll hold some answers for you.”

Which Hawks knew, had already read, and didn’t actually have any follow-up questions to because Eraserhead’s notes on his students were immaculate, but shh.

“I’ll ask around to see if you can get a copy and then, if that isn’t enough you can ask Aizawa for further sparring, he’s probably better for that than I am, but where he is right now…” All Might trailed off briefly, “I think he had a mission or something like that, Hero work, you know, because he isn’t at school today and normally he would be, but beyond that I don’t – no, never mind that, he’s arriving now, I can see him coming in the door.”

Hawks turned around to see, too.

His feathers had of course already alerted him to the fact that someone was arriving, but he wasn’t quite good enough to know who exactly it was from wing feedback alone, so turning around was sadly necessary. How inconvenient.

It being Eraserhead, or Aizawa, was good news, though. More people to talk to and extend this visit as much as he could to raise the odds that when he turned his burner phone back on, there would be a message from Dabi, and the unexplained silence would be over with no need for Hawks to sound any unpleasant and possibly dangerous alarms.

And when he looked, it was in fact Eraserhead, easy to know from his grungy black appearance.

Hawks was just about to call out to the tired old man, but said man was already making his way towards him and All Might. Perfect.

“Hey, Eraser,” he said easily as the man drew within talking distance, “Where’ve you been? I’ve been looking for you, you know.”

Eraserhead paused to look at him, one eyebrow raised in a silent question.

Yeah, he probably shouldn’t have expected Eraser to be easily drawn into conversation, considering what he knew about the man, but that would just make this a fun challenge.

“I wanted info on Tsukuyomi, but All Might already told me that most of it would probably be in his files so I’ll take look at those first, but maybe you could tell me where I might find you if I have questions? All Might said something about a mission?”

Not very subtle, but Hawks wanted to know, damn it.

“There’s hardly any reason you can’t just arrange a meeting within school hours,” Eraserhead stated bluntly, “I know you’re busy but so am I, and I wouldn’t appreciate being interrupted in the middle of a mission.”

How cold.

“I guess not,” Hawks pouted, more because his indirect question hadn’t yielded any answers than because Eraser wasn’t willing to possibly compromise a mission for the sake of appeasing the Number Two Hero.

If he had been, then that would have made him sink significantly in Hawks’ esteem.

And as for knowledge about the mission, he could always just go the direct route instead. Eraserhead might actually appreciate that with how much of a straight shooter the man was himself.

“but what is your mission, if you don’t mind me asking?” he said, molding his expression into something a little more obviously curious and hopeful. He would have batted his eyelashes, too, if he’d thought that would get him anything other than laughed at.

Eraser shot him an enigmatic look, like he was carefully calculating pros and cons of divulging the information.

In the end he turned to face All Might, completely ignoring Hawks as he began speaking.

About his mission.

Was this some sort of weird teaching tactic to make sure Hawks was listening or something?

Because he definitely was. Very intently. With his best innocently curious look firmly in place, of course.

“I am actually here about the mission,” he began, “because I need to ask you a favor, Yagi.”

All Might looked surprised, but he nodded enthusiastically, clearly up for it. Whatever it was. He opened his mouth to say something, as well, but Eraser cut him off.

“It isn’t public knowledge yet, but the Villain Dabi was taken into custody yesterday.”

Oh.

Oh no.

Oh fuck, that was bad.

Had Dabi blown his cover? Was he going to? Was that what Eraserhead was subtly trying to tell him by letting him listen in like this? But he was letting a lot of people listen in, seemingly without even noticing, by having this conversation in the Teachers’ Lounge.

And what did All Might have to do with any of this?

Hawks had a million questions, most of which he couldn’t ask without compromising his mission, so he bit his tongue and did his best to appear unaffected despite his rising panic as Eraserhead thankfully continued sharing valuable information with anyone who wanted to listen in.

“Due to a… complicated set of circumstances that I don’t think it’s necessary to waste time conveying,” damn it, “Dabi is currently under the effects of a Quirk, the extend of which is still unknown. But long story short, he has, at least in appearance, been returned to approximately fourteen years old, by our estimates.”

Hawks couldn’t help but react to that, mouth falling open with shock, because what the fuck.

But it didn’t matter that he’d lost control of his reactions for a moment because All Might took the cake for dramatics, violently coughing up blood.

And a number of other teachers who had apparently decided that subtly eavesdropping wasn’t the thing were also sharing their reactions, loudly, and was it really safe to share all of this with so many people? He knew they were all highly respected Heroes, but still.

He was about to ask if maybe this conversation shouldn’t be had somewhere more private, even if it meant cutting himself off from it because this was dangerous news, but Eraser was already spinning around, glaring at his fellow Heroes.

So he was going to address it himself.

Although, he wasn’t actually saying anything. Just glaring.

At any rate, he still got answers from the others around him.

“Oh, come on, Aizawa, you can’t expect us not to listen when you’re literally talking about one of the most infamous Villains of our time,” one lady said. Was she the one called Midnight? He thought so.

“I don’t mind you listening, because I trust you not to talk, but please don’t interrupt me,” Eraserhead said, a bored tone to his voice.

Huh. That was a lot of faith to put into his colleagues.

Or maybe it was a test? Maybe this was Eraser’s subtle way of letting them know that if they talked, he’d know it. Very clever, if that was the case.

And it implicated Hawks, too. Oof. He would have to be careful about relaying this to the Commission, it seemed.

Well, at least with the apparent de-aging of Dabi, the risk of his undercover mission being compromised was way lowered.

Good news, that was good news.

“But anyway,” Eraser turned back towards All Might, “I am still in the process of figuring out if this change is mental as well as physical. That is, if this… child still retains any of Dabi’s memories or goals. As for now, the tentative belief is that he truly has been fully de-aged, or at the very least that Dabi is acting like he has, but further probing is still necessary before I’m willing to sign off on it.”

And that was wild and all. But what did it have to do with All Might?

“A part of this process is obviously also to find out as much as we can about Dabi’s background while he is vulnerable.” Duh. “I am also putting extra focus on learning his real name. For one, because it would serve to fully identify Dabi without wasting more man-hours on research than necessary, and also because it is something I can say with relative certainty that the adult Dabi wouldn’t tell me.”

Yeah, no kidding.

The Villain was secretive enough by half. And driving Hawks more than halfway up the wall with his enigmatic bullshit.

“To that end, I have made a deal of sorts with him, that he’ll tell me who he is if you’ll come speak with him as well,” Eraserhead concluded.

And all in all that was definitely more words than Hawks had ever heard Eraser speak in one go before. That was really a lot.

All Might was blinking rapidly as well, apparently having issues taking all of this in.

Understandable. All Might had never been known for being a fast thinker, but rather a very patient and methodical one.

Hawks still just had so many questions, though, and he wanted answers to all of them now, please.

“That doesn’t make sense, though?” He broke in before All Might could fully break out of his stupor and respond himself, “Dabi never seemed all that preoccupied with All Might in particular. Why would he be now?”

Eraserhead sighed at that, but he answered, so the slight derision was worth it.

“Again, I don’t know if this kid has any of Dabi’s memories or motivations, so I don’t know if this is the motivations of Dabi or a young kid. Either way, I’m the one who brought up All Might, because the kid claims that the reason he won’t talk is out of fear that some unknown entity will find him and that I won’t have the power to stop whatever it is he fears will happen. So I needed a show of power on my side, and in the eyes of a kid, which is what he’s supposed to be right now, who would be more powerful than All Might?”

Okay, that made sense.

But it also raised way more questions than it answered. Like, for example, what this unknown entity was that somehow managed to be frightening to the coldest hardass Hawks had ever met.

Oh, curiosity. He had to know.

“But… If Dabi has lost his memories… wouldn’t he also have no idea about my true form?” All Might had furrowed his brows, concerned. “And you know I can’t transform anymore.”

That was also a very valid question. Hawks looked to Eraserhead to see what the answer would be.

“Yes, that would be a test of his mental age,” Eraserhead agreed, “and in case he doesn’t know, we’ll have to come up with a story of how this happened that doesn’t divulge too much information. It isn’t ideal but I’ll admit that I forgot that the kid wouldn’t know about your injury, and at this point I can’t back out without labeling myself as untrustworthy in his eyes. Which would severely hinder my ability to get through to him.”

“What would be the issue with divulging too much information?” Hawks still wasn’t entirely sure what the hell was going on in this whole situation, but so far, Eraserhead had been more than willing to answer his questions, which was nice of him.

It was difficult to understand his motivations for being so open, though, which was slightly worrying. Added to Hawks’ feeling of not having a full grasp on things. But it was also just nice.

“We haven’t told him about the Quirk yet, in the hopes that he would reveal himself. So to him, if he truly has been fully de-aged, he is currently living as if this were approximately ten years ago with no knowledge about his future. So, ideally, we would spin a story that contains most of the truth, but would cover up the parts that would tip him off about the de-aging Quirk,” Eraserhead explained patiently.

Because that gave Eraser more power. Clever.

“Well, I suppose it’s worth a try,” All Might acquiesced, “and if he really is a young boy in need of help, I will of course do my best to provide it. In whatever way I can.”

What an All Might thing to say.

And Eraser’s facial expressions had gone through quite the journey at those words, too.

Sadly, it had been too fast and jumbled and varied for Hawks to really catch what he was feeling. Hell, it was possible that Eraser didn’t even know what he was feeling himself.

“Good, then we have that in order,” he said, gruffly, “if your schedule is free, we might as well go now. We can talk about possible cover stories on the way.” And with that he turned to leave without a second thought to Hawks, apparently.

No, no, no, that wouldn’t do. Hawks needed in on this.

“Whoa, hey, wait, Eraser,” he called, forgetting himself for a moment and jumping along slightly as the man walked away. He clamped down on it within seconds, though, so hopefully no one noticed his slip-up. “Don’t you think maybe I could help here, too?”

Eraserhead paused and turned to stare him down appraisingly. “And how do you think you can help?”

Yeah, how? Without blabbing about the whole double agent thing, what could he say?

First things first, he needed to school his face back into something just a little more neutral because desperation would give rise to questions he couldn’t answer. And then think logically about what he could offer here.

“Well, you said he wanted powerful protection, right? And I’m the current Number Two Hero. I know I’m no All Might, but I’m not half bad, you know.” Hopefully he wouldn’t have to have the whole being-infantilized-by-older-Heroes conversation now, either, because that wouldn’t help his case.

“Might be worth a shot? If he doesn’t believe All Might.” Hawks tacked on when Eraser didn’t answer immediately and did his best to frame it as a simple matter of efficiency and logic, because getting feelings involved right now would help no one and instead create so many questions that he would not, could not, answer.

Eraserhead stared him down hard for another couple of seconds before turning back around.

Hawks let himself slump just a little bit in disappointment and was already halfway towards accepting that he would need to sleuth his way into this some other way, when the man finally bothered to speak up.

“Come on, then. I’m not waiting for you,” Eraserhead called over his shoulder.

And if this wasn’t a lesson in the importance of indulging in procrastination from time to time, because sometimes the weird and winding way that it led you down instead of acting prematurely were what got you in on the real action.

And it had gotten him out of his bind without any nasty consequences so far.

Hawks let himself smile widely and honestly as he followed along.

Chapter Text

Touya sat waiting in his bed.

Which wasn’t good.

Waiting with nothing to do for an indeterminate amount of time wasn’t good.

He had already figured out the weird cloth cuffs which was both a good thing and a bad thing.

It was a good thing because he’d said that he would, and he’d fucking delivered. In only about a day’s time, too. He was pretty damn proud of that, and he couldn’t wait to rub it in Aizawa’s face. Even if the man likely wasn’t going to react beyond just finding some other way to restrain him.

With that in mind, he actually wasn’t entirely sure why it was so important to him to show Aizawa, but it wasn’t like he was going to try to run away anyway, so why not.

But freeing himself from the cuffs was also a very bad thing in ways that he hadn’t even realized until after he’d already done it.

Because that had been his only good distraction and now he didn’t have it anymore.

And now he was alone and bored and that wasn’t good because the distraction had been his means of escape from having to think about what was happening to him right now and the many, mostly bad, implications of this whole confusing mess of a situation.

Well, actually, the cuffs hadn’t been his only good distraction. Aizawa had been pretty good at keeping him out of his head when he was there as well.

The problem, though, was that he hadn’t seen Aizawa since he broke down yesterday. Which, that whole situation was embarrassing enough to be another thing on the list of things he didn’t want to think about, but couldn’t find a way to stop himself from thinking about because he was bored and alone and had zero distractions.

But that time yesterday was when the man had promised to get All Might to help him, which was presumably, hopefully, what he was doing right now so Touya shouldn’t resent him for not being here when he was actively not here because he was busy trying to help Touya like no one ever had before.

Except he still couldn’t even really convince himself that it was real, which made not resenting Aizawa just a little bit harder.

Then again, he couldn’t convince himself it was fake either and that made him feel guilty about the resentment because what if it was real and here he was acting like a spoiled brat for not getting enough attention. Pathetic, really.

It was a strange middle ground to be in, and he didn’t like it, and it would again be so much easier to focus on other things rather than try to figure out how he would feel and what he should do if All Might did actually end up showing up.

Or how he would feel if he didn’t.

If Aizawa had lied to him.

So he had spent his time this morning focusing on the cuffs instead, first on getting them off, and then on figuring out the best, most dramatic way to show Aizawa. Although, that line of thought had quickly become dull and repetitive due to his appalling lack of options.

And then there was no more distraction to find in the cuffs.

He hadn’t realized how much he’d depended on those damned things to keep himself occupied and it fucking stung. Because now he was getting bored, and the thoughts he didn’t want to acknowledge were making a strong comeback.

Just like they always did when he wasn’t distracted.

And he had tried replacing the hole the cuffs had left, he really had, it wasn’t like he wasn’t trying or something, he’d tried.

He had tried watching some of the shows on the TV that Aizawa had given him access to, which had only served to make him wonder if watching TV was actually an ability that you were supposed to learn in childhood and, because he just hadn’t, he couldn’t figure it out. It was just so boring. And so fucking easy to zone out to and then for the thoughts to come creeping back in.

And then he had tried the books. They had been slightly better, mainly just because he’d had to actually focus on reading the words and therefore couldn’t just zone out, but they had also been boring as hell, and if TV was a learned skill then maybe so was reading for fun and he couldn’t even remember the last time he’d read something that wasn’t a picture book.

It was really hard to stop himself from subconsciously reading out loud, too.

Maybe he just needed better shows, or books, but that didn’t help him now as he oscillated quickly between being bored by one thing and switching to another and then getting bored by that and needing something else.

But there was nothing else.

Other than giving himself over to the thoughts, and no.

That was exactly what he was trying to avoid here.

… Maybe the lack of physical activity was getting to him.

He couldn’t remember ever having this long a period of time before without training and direction and orders, not to mention taking care of his siblings, because God knows someone needed to do that.

He had never had much time at his disposal. There had always been something to do, someone who needed him in some way, or a bastard of a Father to simultaneously try to avoid while also keeping close enough to be able to run interference if one of his siblings didn’t manage to get out of dodge on a bad day.

Maybe he had just never learned how to relax.

And now, without a distraction and being completely incapable of just relaxing, he had no way of stopping the thoughts.

He didn’t even have a sharp enough object nearby to make himself one. And maybe he didn’t actually want Aizawa to yell at him about self-harm again. That hadn’t been fun at all.

So, instead, he gave in to the some of the thoughts pressing on him, just a little bit, staying far, far away from anything to do with Heroes and Aizawa. And he let himself indulge in a slightly more creative and less visible form of self-harm; thinking about what had happened to his siblings.

Because he might have only been awake for about a day, but it had clearly been months since the last thing he remembered. So, what had happened in that time, and why didn’t he remember any of it?

More importantly, were his siblings okay without him for that long?

Or had he been there with them and just couldn’t remember it?

He didn’t necessarily have to have been gone just because he couldn’t remember, but at the same time he could have been. How would he know either way when he couldn’t even fucking remember?

And why couldn’t he remember? What had happened, what was wrong, so wrong that he couldn’t remember several months of his life?

What if he had been gone? What if he had been somewhere else, possibly laid up in a coma for all this time, leaving his siblings to fend for themselves against all of that - that… against Father?

The guilt and unease of not even knowing if he’d been there for them gnawed at him and he couldn’t find anything to do to make it stop, even just for a little bit. Because that had been the whole fucking problem that had led him here in the first place.

Because he was stupid enough to not be able to just fucking relax for half a day while Aiz- while other people were busy, and he didn’t need to be so damn needy when it was his own goddamn fault, his own weakness that made him unable to shut down this train of thought that he shouldn’t have even started on in the first place.

And like clockwork, because why not make this morning just a little bit worse, the door swung open to let in an annoyed nurse who stalked up to him, stared him down for a moment and then turned back around and stomped back out the door, not even bothering to notice that he wasn’t restrained anymore.

If nothing else, her appearance abruptly made him aware of just how fast his heart was racing, how fast he was breathing.

They always had to check on him when that happened and it always made him feel bad because they clearly didn’t want to be here, and he didn’t want them here and it really would be easier for everyone if he could just fucking not.

He shouldn’t have given in to the thoughts.

It had been a bad idea.

But how the hell was he supposed to stop now?

The answer to that particular question was delightfully simple, though; he couldn’t.

By the time the door finally opened to admit someone other than an increasingly exasperated nurse who somehow continued to not even check on him well enough to notice that he was free (not that he minded her being quick about leaving with that mean attitude of hers), Touya had been driven half insane by a strange mix of boredom and guilt and he was so ready for a real distraction.

And maybe some answers. That would be nice, too.

He was delighted to see Aizawa instead of the mean nurse and, although he didn’t recognize the tall, slim, sickly looking man with a tangled mess of blond hair walking right behind him, Touya didn’t much care about it as he immediately threw up his untied arms and, with a big self-satisfied smile, cried out:

“Got them! Told you I would.”

Aizawa looked confused for a moment before he seemed to grasp the meaning of those words, studying Touya’s wrists with his usual intensity.

Touya could have sworn he saw a small smile behind the scarf, too. And it instantly made him feel better.

Yes, a distraction was what he had needed, and Aizawa would do just fine for that. All he needed to do was ignore the fact that the skeletal man wasn’t All Might for a little while until he felt ready to deal with it. He could do that now. He could. He just had to talk about other things. Like the cuffs.

“You did,” Aizawa nodded, “Now the question is what we do next.”

“About what?” A chipper voice called out from behind the tall gangly man, and a shorter man with fashionably tousled blond hair and massive red wings appeared.

He looked around the room quickly before focusing in on Touya, tilting his head like a curious puppy. Although there was also something almost theatrical about the movement that Touya couldn’t quite place.

“I’m afraid I don’t follow either,” the tall man said as he furrowed his brows, “it would appear that the young man has done something with his hands, but I really can’t see what.”

All three of them looked to Touya then, the two strangers clearly wanting answers and Aizawa leaving it to Touya to provide them. Proving himself to be a real asshole here.

Because Touya honestly didn’t know how to make it sound not crazy for him to have spent so much time freeing himself from psychiatric level handcuffs only to then immediately tell someone who would be sure to lock him back up again.

Aizawa seemed to get it based on that little smile he’d had, which was impressive considering the fact that Touya didn’t even fully get it himself, but Aizawa was weird and these two men might not be.

Oh well, it wasn’t like he was trying to impress these people.

On the contrary, given just a moment to process the fact that while Aizawa had apparently spent the morning bringing people in, neither of them was All Might, which was what he’d promised.

At least this did serve to show him how far he could trust Aizawa.

Not very.

Which was an unpleasant thought.

It had been so nice when he could believe that someone was in his corner.

But for now, all that meant was that there was no need for him to impress any of these men.

Especially Aizawa.

“Um…” Touya mumbled, looking down to where the cuffs lay. He still didn’t know how tell them, though. And he was upset enough about the betrayal of trust that he couldn’t think of anything snarky to say on the fly.

It wouldn’t even be fun anymore so what even was the point?

But they were staring at him and expecting an answer and he didn’t want to fight them right now so he had to come up with something.

In the end he just grabbed them and held them up for the men to see, keeping his head firmly down, heat rising in his cheeks, and a stinging in his eyes. He really did wish he hadn’t gotten his hopes up.

The smaller man started laughing, loudly, which only made Touya’s blush stronger because not only was he being betrayed but now one of the conspicuously not All Might strangers apparently saw fit to mock him, too.

He glared up at the three men through his hair and saw the short man slapping his hand over his mouth to muffle his continued laughing, wings flapping in and eyes flashing with mirth and something that might be an apology if it weren’t for the fact that he was still fucking laughing. The whole thing felt fake as fuck, too, but at this point Touya had already decided that he didn’t like this guy so that might just be his anger talking.

The tall man at least had the decency to try to hide his smile behind his fist, which was nice of him, and Aizawa was staring disapprovingly at the both of them, face half buried in his scarf.

Or maybe he was smiling, too, under there. It wasn’t like he actually cared enough about Touya to not join in mocking him after all.

“Who are you two anyway?” Touya said, loudly, letting enough venom seep into his voice to hopefully make them stop laughing at least.

He wanted their attention away from him and his weird half-escape that he shouldn’t have told them about in the first place as fast as possible.

And he wanted answers from these strangers.

All three of them.

It worked, too. Almost too well. Both of the newcomers quickly turned solemn as they turned their attention back towards him.

“Well…” the short one said, although he didn’t seem to know how to continue from there, his wings doing a weird half-drooping thing before quickly righting themselves again.

“I am All Might,” the tall, skeletal-looking man said instead.

It was Touya’s turn to laugh, mostly in surprise at being fed such an obvious load of horse shit, although he quickly made sure to make it sound as mocking and sarcastic as he could manage.

Because seriously, there was no way in hell that this sickly beanpole of a man could ever have been All Might the muscleman. Who did they think they were fooling?

Touya finished his laugh quickly enough to make it look entirely fake and turned towards Aizawa and levelled him with the meanest glare he could muster. Doing his best to disregard the stinging in his eyes.

Honestly, what the hell? Not only was the man a liar, but he was a lazy one who couldn’t even be bothered to find someone just a little more convincing to play All Might.

And Touya had believed him, too. That part stung. He should have known better.

“No, no, it is true,” the tall man spoke quickly now, stepping forward to bring Touya’s attention back on himself, “you see, my Quirk was always a muscle-form that I could take on, and this is my true form. Although I wasn’t always so… well, you see. Unfortunately, I can’t prove this to you by changing to my muscle form… due to an injury. The same injury that has rendered my true form so… weak.”

At this, the tall man lifted up his shirt to show a truly gnarly scar taking up almost half his torso.

Problem was, that scar was definitely more than a couple months old, and Touya distinctly remembered seeing All Might around doing Hero work this summer.

“That’s an old scar, though,” Touya said, trying to call their bluff.

The lying was getting old, and at this point he really just wanted them to quit it and leave him alone. He didn’t want to be around them anymore. But he didn’t know how to get them to quit other than forcing them to realize that he wasn’t buying it.

So that was what he was going to do.

“Well, yes, but, you see,” the tall man floundered, “while I got the injury seven… seven or eight years ago, I was still able to work, but I was constantly getting weaker, not being able to stay in muscle form for as long and having to take more breaks, but I could still work until… recently. When I lost the ability to transform at all… because…”

“He is a feeble old man,” Aizawa said dryly, earning him a wounded look from the tall man and a laugh from the short one.

Touya looked away to hide the wry quirk of his own lips. Because they were really just joking around weren’t they? Mocking him with this absurd spectacle and if he smiled they’d probably think he was okay with it.

And he wasn’t going to let Aizawa think this was okay.

He wasn’t going to let Aizawa think he was forgiven for pulling this bullshit. Because he fucking wasn’t.

“That just means you can’t prove it, though,” Touya stated tiredly, willing himself not to sniff as the farce continued, “and I still don’t believe you.”

“That is why I am here!” The shorter man exclaimed, mirroring All Might’s catch phrase and flaring out his wings for dramatic effect, “As backup in case you needed more. I am Hawks, the current Number Two Hero after All Might’s retirement, and a pretty good – oh no, wait, what’s wrong, what did I say?”

Touya had given up on his fight with the tears that had been pressing to get out ever since he realized Aizawa was lying to him.

That was what was wrong.

This was just too much. And it seemed to prove the very thing he’d been fearing, relegating to the back of his mind because he couldn’t be actually going crazy, could he?

He’d already known that he wasn’t, like, sane, but he’d never been anywhere near Mother’s level of insanity.

Had he?

Was he really having a total mental breakdown where he was forgetting things and being unreasonable and dangerous?

It seemed like the only logical explanation right now.

Because why else were they going on like this?

Why were they weaving such an intricate lie that would topple the moment he had access to the internet, unless he was never going to get access to the internet, and he really had been stuck in this room to rot. Forever.

And he didn’t even know if that was unfair because he couldn’t remember the last few months at all, and it would make sense for them to weave these massive lies if they thought he was crazy enough to believe them.

Because he would have to be crazy to believe them.

Because all of that couldn’t happen in just a couple of months, could it?

All Might losing his power, retiring, the Hero rankings changing, a Hero he’d never even heard of rising to the number two spot which had been occupied by the same person for all of Touya’s life.

It was too much, and he didn’t believe it.

He couldn’t believe it because believing it was crazy, and he didn’t want to be crazy, but the fact that they were telling him these tall tales meant that they believed he was crazy enough to believe them and they might know better than him because he didn’t even remember the last however many months which was crazy!

Besides, there was also the niggling thought that if it were true, which it wasn’t, and if Hawks actually was the Number Two Hero now, who was the Number One Hero?

And more importantly, what had happened to the previous Number Two Hero?

Was he the Number One Hero now?

Oh God, please no.

That couldn’t be true, it couldn’t.

But what if it was?

But it couldn’t be.

Touya couldn’t imagine it.

He couldn’t.

It couldn’t be.

They had to be lying.

But if they were lying then that just proved that he was insane.

Touya could feel his head spinning as the thoughts and scenarios ran rampant in his head, bringing up his palms to press against his temples to force his head to slow down, his pulse was racing in his ears so loud that even if one of them tried to keep talking he wouldn’t have been able to hear them, and he could tell that he was breathing way too fast, but he couldn’t stop it.

He closed his eyes, trying to hold it in.

The last thing he saw was the shocked and confused faces of the two strangers, who had both clearly not expected him to react so strongly to their words.

They should have, though.

He was crazy after all.

“Both of you, out,” he heard Aizawa hiss, much more intense than he normally was, intense enough for it to break through his haze and be heard, “I told you to be careful about overloading him with information.”

“But I was just – “ the shorter man began.

“No! Out!” Aizawa yelled. Touya couldn’t help but flinch from the yelling and the anger, instinctively curling in on himself to protect his face and stomach from what usually came after that sort of yelling.

He vaguely heard movement and the creaking of the door before the bed dipped, and then Aizawa’s arms were around him, pulling him in and holding him tightly.

It felt better that Aizawa was there, even though logically Touya knew that it didn’t change anything. And he really should be mad at him. Or should he? He was too disoriented to even know that right now.

Everything was a mess, and so confusing, and he couldn’t figure anything out. His head hurt, and he was still breathing way too fast and he could feel the sobs working their way up his throat, but he absolutely refused to cry like a baby on Aizawa’s shoulder again.

And it wasn’t like anything had really happened, he reasoned with himself.

He had known that something was up with the lost memory stuff and this was just confirmation of that, nothing to cry about.

It wasn’t like it was going to change anything after the fact anyway.

And he didn’t even know if things needed to change because he didn’t actually know what was going on. Beyond becoming increasingly certain that whatever was wrong was inside of his head rather than outside of it.

And at this point he just had to know, no matter how much it would hurt to hear the words ‘psychotic break’ used to describe himself. Because at this point even that was better than not knowing.

Ignorance might be bliss but knowing what he didn’t know wasn’t.

So, he sucked it up and asked, hoping that Aizawa would at least have the compassion to tell him the truth now that whatever charade he’d tried hadn’t worked.

“What is happening to me?” His voice wobbled pathetically, and he kept his head down. He needed to know but he couldn’t bring himself to look at Aizawa while he told him. Because that would definitely break his tenuous hold on the sobs in his chest and he didn’t want that.

“It’s a long story,” Aizawa said, and then he sighed deeply. Sounding like he was resigning himself to something he didn’t like. Which wasn’t a good sign. “And this isn’t the best time for me to tell it. But I’ll give you the gist of it, and then you can decide if you need time to digest this, or if you want to continue talking to All Might and Hawks to set up a support system. How does that sound?”

Why was he keeping up with the names still? That made no sense. But Touya couldn’t focus on that right now. He needed to focus on what Aizawa was willing to tell him about this whole mess.

“Better than nothing, I guess,” Touya sniffled, hating himself for sounding so weak, even though he clearly had nothing to prove here. Aizawa already knew how pathetic he was. He knew about the scars, the craziness, the weakness, all of it. “But can you at least tell me the whole story later?”

He needed to know, he really did. Even if he was loath to ask Aizawa to promise him anything again after this fiasco. The man was still his best bet.

“Yes,” Aizawa answered, and Touya actively clamped down on his desire to hope that he was being honest. That line of thinking only got him hurt. And then Aizawa sighed again, “Short story is that you were in a Quirk accident with a man whose Quirk de-ages whatever he touches. We don’t know your name, family relations, or age before the transformation, but we’re guessing that you’ve lost around ten years.”

He really shouldn’t have expected anything other than another lie, but he was still just so… disappointed.

“You want me to believe it’s been ten years and no one bothered to tell me?” Touya snapped and leaned away, trying to get this stupid, awful man to let go of him.

Because this was just too ridiculous.

Like, sure, he’d been desperately, stupidly holding on to hope that he wasn’t crazy, and that there was a logical explanation for all of this.

But some rogue de-aging Quirk wasn’t it. It wasn’t it at all.

And he definitely couldn’t just believe it because Aizawa was saying it, either.

That man had quite the track record of lies and broken promises at this point and he didn’t want the man hugging him anymore so why wouldn’t he let go?

It wasn’t even a comforting lie.

Because with how much he’d been freaking out over a couple of months, he couldn’t even imagine how much worse this would be once he actually had a moment to think clearly about it.

If it was true.

Which he did not believe it was, and honestly at this point he would need some serious proof to believe anything Aizawa told him.

“Yes, around ten years we’re guessing,” Aizawa stated calmly, not even acknowledging Touya’s thrashing, which just made him fight harder. “That is also why you haven’t been given access to the internet or any actual TV channels. As to why no one has explained your situation to you, we wanted to investigate everything here a little further before we told you anything we couldn’t be sure of.”

That… made a backwards kind of sense, except for the part where he wasn’t allowed to know about this shit. Because why couldn’t they have just fucking told him? There was definitely something more going on here, and he hated knowing that Aizawa definitely wasn’t going to tell him what it was.

And the whole thing had also cut him off from getting the information he needed to believe any of them. Or know that he couldn’t believe them.

Although… not anymore now, right?

If what Aizawa was saying was true, then there was no more reason to keep him from checking the internet now, right?

He stopped struggling for a moment as he considered what Aizawa might be willing to give him.

“Can I go on the internet now, then? Since I know?” There was definitely a healthy amount of venom in his voice, but who could blame him.

As it was, Touya was desperately grasping at the straw he’d been presented with, because if he actually got access, that would be absolutely golden, and he couldn’t stop himself from considering what he could look up, find out.

Information.

Proof.

That would be good.

Great, actually.

Help him figure out what to do.

Who of the people he’d met to trust, even a little bit.

In short, just find out what the hell was going on.

He would be able to find out other things, too.

It obviously couldn’t be too closely related to his family, he realized, or else Aizawa and his people would definitely be able to figure him out, and he needed them to learn that on his terms, not theirs. It was his turn to keep secrets until he had done his own investigation.

The thought of having the high ground, finally, and having a clear plan of attack helped him calm down some more. As long as Aizawa agreed.

But if he didn’t, then at least Touya would know for sure that the man was full of shit and then he could stop trying to give him the benefit of the doubt just because he’d been nice yesterday.

“You can with supervision,” Aizawa said, and yippee for that. Finally a fucking win. “It would also give me the opportunity to show you proof that All Might is who he says he is. And that Hawks really is the Number Two Hero. I could do that right now, matter of fact.” He was silent for a moment, clearly considering it. “I’m going to. Please wait a moment, while I find a tablet.”

He went to leave, finally letting go of Touya now that he wasn’t fighting anymore and rising from the bed.

He was actually going to prove it!

But he couldn’t do that if he’d been lying.

Oh, there were too many what-ifs here, and Touya didn’t even know where to start, but if this was actually true then Aizawa had just kicked out two strong allies after Touya spent an entire conversation doubting and mocking them.

Not good. That was not good. If this was true, he needed them to like him enough to listen to him, enough to maybe want to help him.

He couldn’t make them listen if they weren’t here.

“Wait,” Touya called out nervously just before Aizawa reached the door, making the man turn halfway around. “Are they gonna leave?”

Seeing Aizawa’s blank stare, he realized that he would need to be a little more specific, “the… All Might and Hawks?” Better to play along until he knew the truth for sure.

“Do you want them to leave?” Aizawa asked, turning to face him fully.

“No, if you can prove that they are who they say they are, I want to talk to them,” Touya started twisting his hands.

His guilt at possibly leaving his siblings behind had very quickly grown impossible to ignore this morning and he didn’t want to not have some way to try to make it better.

Whether in had been two months or ten years, he needed to make sure that they were okay, because he didn’t know what had happened in the time he had lost, but he just couldn’t imagine Father having lost his power.

And if Father was still in power, then that meant that his siblings were still, possibly, in harm’s way.

And if he could do something to change that, then he had to.

He needed to know what had happened first, though.

He also just really wanted to find out how his siblings were, especially little Shouto who had already had an even worse start to life than Touya himself, what with Mother going insane on his face and all.

He needed to know what had happened to him, and if things had gotten any better.

And if he’d been around to help.

He couldn’t imagine that he hadn’t been but with everything so up in the air he just didn’t know.

Besides, if he’d stayed, then why didn’t they know who he was now?

No. no need to start down that rabbit hole.

Yet.

He needed proof first.

And, what had Aizawa called it? A support system?

“I’ll go tell them to come back in, then,” Aizawa looked at him for his assent, and Touya nodded, “and then I’ll go find that tablet.”

And with that, he left the room.

-

It was only a short moment before both of the blonds came back in, and the shorter one, Hawks, who may or may not be the Number Two Hero immediately launched into a very dramatic apology.

“I am so sorry I told you that, I didn’t realize how telling it was until I had already said it and you started reacting, I mean, I honestly still don’t know why that’s the puzzle piece that did it for you, but it obviously did, and I am so sorry about that, I didn’t mean to open this whole can of worms for you, I swear.”

The whole thing rushed out of him in a single breath, wings sweeping around behind him as he spoke.

The strange thing was, while on the surface this was exactly the kind of apology he would have expected from some ditzy and scatterbrained but well-meaning blond, and it definitely fit into the first-glance impression Touya had gotten from Hawks’ previous behavior, the whole thing also still felt performative somehow, like he was cheesing it up for… for what? His image? There was no one here for him to impress.

On the other hand, it didn’t feel disingenuous, and Touya found himself believing that while the blond might be overdramatizing, he still meant what he was saying.

And he didn’t know what to think about that.

Especially when he had already decided to try to be nice here.

“It’s whatever,” Touya mumbled, not sure how else to deal with such a dramatic yet strangely controlled apology, especially coming from a man who somehow managed to come off both as scatterbrained and highly manipulative and apparently very powerful, “I mean, it got Aizawa to tell me the truth, so it’s not like it was all bad.”

The flighty – birdlike? – what was a good nickname here? He obviously wasn’t going to say it out loud, but mocking the guy in his thoughts felt justified. Whatever, the guy – dude – bird – who was apparently the Number Two Hero, God help us all, looked like he wanted to say something more, but he didn’t get the chance as Aizawa reappeared with a tablet in hand.

“All right,” he said, sitting down on the bed next to Touya, “let’s work our way through this as methodically as possible. First things first, the year.”

Aizawa showed Touya as he turned on the tablet, opened a browser and went to some official website about time telling and time differences and all such important time matters.

It also showed the current date, month and year.

It was November, and it was eight years into the future from Touya’s last memory. He said as much.

“It’s wrong by eight years. To me at least,” he shrugged, ducking his head as he tried to process this new information.

Or rather proof of what he’d already been told.

It wasn’t quite ten years, but it was a far sight more than just a couple of months, and it meant that all of this shit might be real… No. It meant that all of this shit was real.

And he just knew that he wasn’t even processing any of it anymore.

If he had been, then there was no way he would be so… detached? Numb? Okay?

“How old are you?” Hawks asked, “as far as you know, I mean.”

“I…” Touya looked at the tablet again. Eight years. “I would be, what, twenty-four in your time? But to me, I’m sixteen. I guess.”

He couldn’t imagine being twenty-four. Eight years…

This whole de-aging thing was confusing, and Touya would definitely need some Time to process it all.

Maybe he should have taken Aizawa up on his offer to do this some other day.

But what if they didn’t come back again?

No, he had to do this now, strange numbness and time travel be damned.

“When’s your birthday?” Hawks continued, looking both confused about something and also very curious, like he just wanted to know more about Touya.

Which, he supposed, was the entire reason they were all here.

But he didn’t know if he wanted to answer such an identifying question yet.

He still didn’t have proof about their identities.

Or if he even needed their help.

A lot could happen in eight years.

Even All Might, the seemingly immovable pillar of Hero society hadn’t been impervious to time if they were telling him the truth about that, too.

Maybe Father hadn’t, either.

Even in this numb state, he couldn’t imagine Father losing his power, though.

Aizawa must have read some of Touya’s reluctance in his expression, because he cut in: “The next thing to show you would be proof of All Might’s true form. I don’t know if there is any other way than to show the video of his final battle. It’s gruesome, though.”

Aizawa looked up at… All Might. Silently asking a question.

All Might just shrugged, however, and Aizawa turned back to the tablet, quickly searching up a video.

It was gruesome.

Touya had never seen anything quite like it; an entire city laid to waste; All Might nearly beaten by the most horrifying Villain that Touya had never even heard of.

Aizawa was clearly doing his best to skip through most of it, but Touya still saw… so much.

But he also got his proof, because right there, in front of the cameras, All Might deflated and became the very skeletal man Aizawa had brought to the hospital.

He really was All Might, then.

And Aizawa had said he would be willing to help Touya.

Which was unfathomable, and definitely another thing to process, once he started feeling things again.

And now he just needed to find out if he actually needed the help he was being offered so freely.

This numbness was actually kind of nice, on further thought.

It felt like he was getting things done.

No pesky emotions getting in the way.

It also felt terribly, horribly wrong on some basic human level, but he could deal with that later.

He could deal with all of this later.

“And then Hawks,” Aizawa said. And oh yeah, there was him, too.

“Saving the best for last,” the birdbrain (hah! That was it! Sounded perfectly derisive while alluding to the guy’s penchant for the dramatic, and birds were actually usually pretty fucking smart, too) quipped, smirking at Touya.

“You’re literally the Number Two Hero, which, by definition, makes you not the best,” Touya countered instinctively and watched as Birdbrain squawked and ruffled up his feathers in indignation.

Performative but somehow still honest. It was a weird combination.

“Here, his official Hero profile,” Aizawa interjected before Hawks had a chance to get going on a comeback, which was a shame because that might have been fun, might have made Touya feel something. Or maybe it was good that he got to keep the numbness as it lowered the chances of Touya going off the deep end again.

Either way, Aizawa completely ignored the interlude he’d interrupted and showed the tablet to Touya, with proof that Hawks, too, was who he said he was.

At this point, was there even anything left that Aizawa had said that he hadn’t proved was true?

That was surprising.

A good kind of surprising, but still.

Touya wasn’t used to that kind of honesty.

“Any other questions?” Aizawa said.

Tons, obviously, but Touya didn’t know where to start. Most pressingly, though, there was the fear niggling at his brain, behind the protective but somehow thinning veil of numbness, that with the Number Two Hero spot occupied, and All Might not at Number One, the current Number One Hero was going to be exactly the person he was hiding from.

And if he was, Touya didn’t know if this comfortable numbness would survive that.

But he needed to know before he could continue.

Before he could start figuring out what he needed to do.

And besides, if he was going to tell them who he was, he would find out regardless of his wishes, and it was becoming increasingly obvious that his guilty conscience wouldn’t let him keep this to himself when Shouto would definitely still be living at home with that man unless something had already been done, which was unlikely, and the kid really didn’t deserve that.

So, he sucked it up and asked, in a voice that was barely above a whisper, because, God, he didn’t want to know.

“Who is the Number One Hero now?”

He could tell by the looks the three adults were shooting each other that they could tell something was up.

“Endeavor,” Aizawa answered after a little pause.

And it hurt far worse than Touya had thought it would.

The numbness shattered and a surge of completely overwhelming emotions overtook him in its place.

Fear, guilt, shame, and pain being notable contenders for the top spot.

But at the very forefront, mingled almost inextricably with pain was rage.

The bastard had gotten exactly what he always wanted, and he hadn’t even needed Touya or Shouto to do it.

Which meant that their lives had been shit for no reason at all.

Father hadn’t needed to put them through any of what he did to reach his goal.

But he had.

He had done all of it, causing so much harm, breaking Mother, neglecting Fuyumi and Natsuo, scarring Shouto, and ruining Touya’s entire life.

And he was still the Number One Fucking Hero.

And that was just too much for Touya to take lying down.

“Of course he fucking is,” he spat, glaring into his lap as the tears began to fall.

There was a beat of silence before Aizawa moved the tablet away and wrapped his arms back around Touya.

So much for not crying again, huh.

And it was so very tempting to let himself just lean into Aizawa and dissolve and let all of this mess disappear for a little while, but he couldn’t.

He couldn’t break down yet.

Because Aizawa had kept his end of the deal to the letter.

Actually, he’d done more than that, he’d gone above and beyond here, pulling God knows how many strings to do so, and the very least Touya could do was hold up his own end.

And that meant he had to say it and just hope that he was placing his trust in the right people.

Pinning his hopes on their willingness and ability to help him.

So he sniffed, holding back the sobs for just a moment longer as he looked up and said the damning words that would take away all of the power he’d had in this situation, giving it to them and hoping they wouldn’t use it to hurt him.

“My name – My name is Todoroki Touya. I’m the – the oldest son of – Endeavor, and he is… He’s…” Touya didn’t have the words. He didn’t know where to even start on what his father was. In the end, he just… “I can’t believe – you made him the Number One –”

That was as far as he got before the crying overtook him in long, continuous sobs that didn’t allow for any more words to come out.

He admitted defeat, and let himself dissolve into tears, melting into Aizawa’s arms and crying out all of the pain and confusion and rage that was boiling over inside of him.

Chapter Text

Shouta couldn’t help but wonder at just how quickly his go-to method of dealing with this kid’s mood swings had become hugging him until he stopped crying.

Did it really take so little for him to forget who this was? Who this kid had the potential to become?

It was far too easy to forget it when the kid cried. When he actively sought comfort from Shouta, clinging to him like he was terrified that Shouta might leave him if he weren’t physically held back.

He didn’t feel like a Villain then.

Or at all, really.

It was also so very clear in the kid’s behavior that he didn’t come from a happy home. That just a day ago, he had fully expected to be beaten and screamed at whenever Shouta came too close or moved too fast. Which made his willingness to accept Shouta being close now, and even taking comfort in it even more surprising. And made Shouta much less willing to let go.

And the fact that the kid’s latest bout of crying had been caused by the mention of his father’s name only cemented in Shouta’s mind just how terrible that man must be.

Endeavor.

Endeavor was the reason this kid was crying like this.

It made Shouta grateful that the kid was clinging to him the way that he was, weighing Shouta down and making him stay put for now. Because if he hadn’t been, he would have been sorely tempted to go out and do something very, very stupid.

A track down the Number One Hero and punch him right in his ugly, scarred face level of stupid.

Preferably hard enough to leave some lasting damage of his own.

Yes, it was good that he couldn’t leave the kid right now, because no matter how much Shouta wanted to, how satisfying it would be, how much that bastard deserved it, it wasn’t going to help the kid right now.

So, he wouldn’t.

Yet, anyway.

Instead, he took comfort in holding the kid close enough to hopefully alleviate any fear that he would leave, rocking gently back and forth and whispering soothing words about how everything was going to be okay, and they would figure it out, and they would fix it so don’t worry.

He wasn’t at all sure if the kid even heard him, let alone registered the meaning of what he was saying, but it felt right to say it. And Shouta would make it true.

He used the quiet mumbling to put himself into the mindset he needed to be in. One focused on fixing this mess and helping this kid some way more permanent than just decking Endeavor.

Preferably some way that hurt Endeavor more than a punch to the face, too.

God knew the bastard deserved it for what he had done.

Because the Number One Hero was now directly implicated in the creation of a Villain.

And yes, Shouta had already known that Dabi’s backstory had to be tragic from the very first time that he’d seen him; no one with that amount of scarring didn’t have a sob story to go along with it. But this was… More than that. More than he’d bargained for.

This was the undoing of the Number One Hero if Shouta got his way.

Oh dear God, not only had he taken to hugging the kid who became Dabi more than once in a twenty-four-hour period, the same kid had steered him on the path of plotting the downfall of a fellow Hero.

And bringing other Heroes into the plot as well.

Both All Might and Hawks had spent the entire time he was comforting the crying child looking on awkwardly, not doing or saying anything, but neither of them tried to leave, either. Strangely enough.

All Might had only moved to sit himself down and crumble in on himself like he was carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders and wasn’t up to the task anymore.

Hawks hadn’t even done that much, instead almost freezing on the spot where he stood, eyes wide and mouth shut in a way that Shouta knew was uncharacteristic for the young Hero, but he was too occupied right now to be willing to try to figure out what this change in demeanor meant.

But he was glad that they’d chosen to stay because he could definitely use their help on this new vendetta of his.

And now he had to admit to himself that the kid had known what he was doing when he insisted that he needed more help than Shouta alone could give him. Which also meant raging just a little more over what kind of a childhood this kid had had that had primed him to seek out such powerful allies before even bothering to try to speak up.

Punching Endeavor wasn’t the right thing to do right now. No matter how much he wanted to.

He let himself take the time as the kid finally tired himself out and quieted down to once again bring himself out of the anger that threatened to overtake his logical reasoning skills by bringing his focus onto the kid again.

Which abruptly became very easy as he noticed that the high temperature, he’d learned to associate with the kid wasn’t present anymore.

It definitely had been when he’d first wrapped his arms around the kid, and for a long time afterwards. But some time while the kid was calming down, his temperature had started to fall. To the point where he was now almost cool to the touch.

And asleep, too, Shouta noticed. And wondered briefly if there was a connection between the two things.

“Is he asleep?” All Might asked, bringing Shouta out of his musing and back to the moment as he moved his focus from the kid to the retired Hero, who himself was eyeing the silent form that was slumped against Shouta.

Right.

Now that the kid was asleep, it was about time to move. And get a plan together.

Hopefully drawing on the resources of the former Number One Hero and the current Number Two Hero. Because he would need them in his corner to ensure that he could pull off a proper enaction of justice against the current Number One Hero.

However he was going to do that.

“Yes, he is,” Shouta answered simply. Leaving it up to the others to start a conversation beyond that as he realized that he didn’t know what else to say.

It wasn't that there wasn't anything to say, of course, but that there was too much to say and no clear place to begin on saying it.

Because this revelation had changed everything.

And yes, he knew that what they needed to do was bring Endeavor to justice, give this kid the justice he deserved.

But that was only the end goal.

He had absolutely no idea how to get there.

Not to mention how many questions there still were whose answers would drastically change how they went about this.

The most pressing question that needed answering now, of course, was the very one Shouta had so easily forgotten as he worked to calm the child in his arms. Because the fact remained that he wasn’t supposed to be a child. He was supposed to be the apparently twenty-four-year-old Villain Dabi and the only reason he wasn’t was because of the effects of a Quirk that might wear off at any moment.

But how long did the Quirk last?

They would of course need to deal with this revelation regardless, the end goal stayed the same, but they would have to do so in very different ways depending on whether they would be dealing with the adult Villain called Dabi or the young, vulnerable child named Touya.

“Do we believe him?” Hawks asked quietly, hesitantly, which was a question that hadn’t even entered Shouta’s mind.

Because he was absolutely certain that the kid was telling the truth.

At no point had he done otherwise. Even with the damn cuffs, he’d said that he could get out of them, and then he had made that statement true.

Shouta saw absolutely no reason to doubt the kid. Which upon closer examination was perhaps a bit odd, considering how earth-shattering this revelation really ought to be.

Maybe he should doubt the kid.

But he just didn’t.

“We do,” he said, “or at least, I do. I see no reason to doubt him, although the blood analyses that are already running will need to be specified to confirm it. That will likely only take a couple of days, though, and then we’ll know for sure.”

“But how are you so sure already?” Hawks whined like a petulant child, snapping out of whatever had caused his previous subdued behavior. And Shouta already missed it. “This is like a massive bombshell for me and I don’t know why it isn’t for you.”

“I suppose… I think on some level I already had my suspicions, even if I wasn’t fully aware of them yet,” Shouta tried to explain, to himself as well, “the red hair and the blue eyes; I knew they reminded me of something, but I couldn’t pinpoint it.”

It had just made him uncomfortable.

Which the idea that the Number One Hero was such a rotten, abusive monster obviously would.

“And even though I may look calm to you, I am…" pissed, enraged, actively plotting a murder, "angry. At the implications of this. How could I not be? The Number One Hero, the person we’re meant to be able to trust implicitly has just been branded as a criminal and an abuser. That isn’t a good thing. For anyone. But it happened. It is happening. And now we need to deal with it. Because we, as Heroes, will have a duty to see him to justice, and stop the abuse.” He paused briefly to take a breath.

And shake off the uncomfortable feeling of making a speech about morals and doing the right thing that he would have been happy to leave to All Might or some other idealist.

“Luckily for us, due to the dorm system we put in place at UA, there are no minors currently living in the Todoroki residence, which will give us a bit more time to think through our next moves without our delay putting anyone at risk. But we will have to make a move at some point.” He stressed every syllable as he tried to impress the importance of this upon the others.

And thanked God that he didn’t have to worry about his student’s safety right now because if he did, nothing would have been able to stop him from doing the very stupid thing.

And maybe he should consider punching himself in the face, too, for not looking further into the worrying behaviors he had observed in the kid.

... But right now he needed to focus on making it clear to Hawks which side of this issue he ought to be on.

Something he would have hoped was obvious, but judging by the way Hawks had physically deflated at the censure, brows furrowing and wings drawing closer to his body, it was very much not obvious to him.

No doubt the young Hero had just been handed a dilemma that he would need to work through, but that wasn’t and couldn’t be Shouta’s main concern in a situation where there were children who needed to be saved from their own sadistic, villainous parent.

Hawks was an adult and a Hero who had hopefully been trained in ethics and he could handle himself here. Or ask for help later if he couldn’t. The children couldn’t be trusted to do that, so Shouta would have to do it for them.

“But we will have to protect Young Todoroki, I mean the younger… ah… the one in 1-A. Protect him further now, too, right?” All Might asked.

And Shouta quietly wondered when he had become the head of this investigation. That wasn’t his job. It was Tsukauchi’s job, and he could have it back, thank you very much.

“Yes, of course,” he agreed quickly. That was obvious, but wouldn’t really become relevant outside of home visits which would need to be halted.

But he would need to do that some other time because right now they were talking about Touya. And when it finally came to it, dealing with Touya’s abuser would deal with Todor- Shouto’s as well.

“But we really shouldn’t discuss these matters in front of a… in front of… Touya. We don’t know when he might wake up. And we should go find Tsukauchi. He is supposed to be the one in charge here.” Shouta let his exhaustion bleed into his voice on the last statement.

“Does he know that you’ve brought us in?” Hawks asked, a slight nervousness breaking through the deep, still pensiveness he’d fallen into again after Shouta answered his first question.

He really wasn’t behaving like himself.

Or, at least, he wasn’t behaving like he usually did in public.

Who was Shouta to say how Hawks behaved behind closed doors? He’d barely even met the guy before today.

“Are you afraid he’ll send you home now that you’ve been accidentally given access to what we should assume will quickly become highly classified information?” Shouta asked sarcastically.

Because he would not be held responsible for protecting Hawks’ emotional stability.

For all that he looked and acted like a kid, Hawks was an adult and a Hero in his own right, and whatever he was working through right now was his own damn responsibility.

Unless he ended up making the wrong decision. Which would be a headache to deal with, so Shouta probably would have to keep an eye on that part. But not the rest of it. No thanks.

Hawks puffed his wing up ever so slightly at the sharpness of his tone and looked ready to give Shouta an even sharper reply.

And there was the brashness he was used to seeing in Hawks’ public performances. Good to know it wasn’t gone for good.

Luckily, this was neither the time, nor the place to indulge it, however, so Shouta quickly continued, disregarding the younger Hero’s dramatics for the time being.

If he truly had something important to say, he would.

“He knows about All Might because I obviously told him about my plan before executing it. The decision to bring you in was, however, very last minute, but I don’t see him objecting to it. He seems to trust my judgment.”

And with that, Shouta began the slow process of unwinding himself from the boy without waking him, deliberately ignoring Hawks in the hopes that he would get the memo and let their conversation run out into the sand for now.

He got the kid to let go of him enough to shimmy his way off the bed, but he hesitated for a moment when said kid whined in his sleep at the loss of contact.

A quick swap using a pillow seemed to mollify the kid, especially when paired with a couple of quick, gentle ruffles of his unruly red hair.

“Wow, you’ve practically already adopted him already,” Hawks snarked.

Memo to self: don’t ignore Hawks; he spends the time he’s being ignored coming up with preposterous ideas to pester you with.

“Do you think it would have been better to just get up, let him wake up, and then have to have a conversation that I don’t think any of us is ready for yet?” Shouta hissed.

“I didn’t say there was anything wrong with it,” Hawks held up his hands in mock surrender, “just that I’ve heard you kind of have a track record of finding – what was it you called them, ‘problem children’? – and taking them in, one way or another. And it looks like you’ve found your next victim.”

This kid was aggravating.

But a reaction was clearly what he wanted, so a reaction he would not get.

Shouta turned away without a word and walked towards the door, leaving it to the others to catch up to him.

He waited once he was out of the room, hearing the telltale sounds of footsteps following him before calling Tsukauchi to let him know how this had gone, and set up a meeting time to discuss their respective findings.

Because hopefully Tsukauchi would have some definitive information about the Quirk Touya was under, most importantly how long it lasted.

Because Shouta really needed to know that before his planning could go any further beyond knowing that he had to do something.

It was more than a little discombobulating to have a ringtone go off across the hallway at the same time as he began his phone call.

It was even more confusing to realize that the person he was calling was standing right there and he didn’t actually need to be calling them.

Oh well, it would save time.

“Don’t bother answering that,” he called out to Tsukauchi as he shut off his phone again, abruptly ending the ringing from Tsukauchi’s phone. “I was calling you to get you here, but I no longer think that to be necessary.”

“No, I’ve actually been waiting here for quite a while, hoping to catch you once you were done. It took you a while,” Tsukauchi answered, smiling, “hello All Might, nice to see you again… and Hawks, a pleasure. Let’s move this to the private room, shall we?”

Shouta nodded and they quickly made their way to the waiting room they’d set aside, which was luckily large enough to easily accommodate all four of them without felling crammed even when taking Hawks’ wings into account.

“So, I assume we both have news. Why don’t you start?” Tsukauchi said as soon as they’d all seated themselves in a loose circle, Hawks taking up quite a bit of extra space for his wings.

And Shouta began to speak, being as methodical as possible even as his head was still half occupied by a desire to deck Endeavor.

“Well, first off, in case you didn’t notice, I brought Hawks in to bolster my end of the deal I told you about. I hope you don’t have any objections to that.” He waited for Tsukauchi to nod in agreement as he expected before continuing; “And it worked, with some minor hiccups.” He very purposefully didn’t see Hawks’ face twist in amusement at his phrasing. “Mainly that the cover stories we had invented didn’t hold up, and I had to tell him the truth about the de-aging Quirk to repair things enough to get us back on track. Which is regrettable. I didn’t tell him anything about who he was before that incident, though.”

“But he told you his name?” Tsukauchi asked, cutting to the bone of the matter.

“Yes.” He took a deep breath. “His name is Todoroki Touya. The son of exactly the Todoroki you’d imagine.”

Tsukauchi stilled.

And then slowly let out a long breath.

“Well, that certainly complicates things.” He reached up to rub his forehead. “This was going to be a headache regardless, but this definitely doesn’t help matters. I was just coming to give you the bad news that it seems like we will have to find the answers to all of those unpleasant moral questions we’d rather not touch.”

Shouta groaned but took the time to revel in the complete confusion on Hawks and All Might’s faces before speaking up to confirm what he already knew.

“So it’s permanent?” He asked.

Tsukauchi nodded, “It would appear so. We still need to find and interview the remaining people the shop-owner has de-aged. Apparently, it’s happened four times, but he’s never taken off more than a year before. To his knowledge, at least. He also didn’t keep up with any of them as, apparently, accidentally de-aging someone isn’t good for maintaining a good relationship, so finding them again is proving to be a little bit of a process. The lack of a significant margin obviously makes it a little harder to gauge the effects on physical aging, but the two we’ve already found and interviewed were positive that they never regained any memories at least. So it’s fairly safe to say that the effects of this are forever.”

Shouta let his face drop into his hands. This was going to be uncomfortable.

From an ethical and legal perspective, at least.

But he couldn’t deny that knowing he’d have the chance to actually help this kid instead of having to see him turn back into the angry adult who was the result of never getting the help he so clearly needed, the chance to give him a second chance instead of justice after the fact… it felt better.

That didn’t mean he wouldn’t gripe about the amount of red tape and difficult conversations they’d have to have now.

Because he absolutely would.

“Excuse me,” All Might broke into his self-pity party, “Can I assume that the moral questions are about how to deal with Young Touya moving forward?”

“Yes,” Tsukauchi answered, “to keep a long story short, we don’t know if we can, or should, prosecute him for the crimes Dabi has committed, because it can both be argued that he has and hasn’t done those things yet.”

Shouta knew where he stood in this matter. But he didn’t have anything other than a gut feeling to back him up. Which wasn’t enough.

“But you were willing to bring in quite a lot of help for him when you judged it necessary?” Hawks asked, like that meant anything.

“Well, obviously. Villain or not, if he is the victim of a crime, then the perpetrators of that crime need to be prosecuted,” Tsukauchi said.

Which was more than a little idealistic.

But also true.

“And it was what it took to get the information we needed from him,” Shouta added. Just to ensure that the very basic, logical reason for doing what he’d done wasn’t forgotten in this talk of ethics.

“A Villain isn’t born,” All Might said, jumping right into said ethics. “A Villain is made through choices, both the choices of those around them and their own. And Young Touya has not yet made the choices that made Dabi a Villain.”

“But how do you know that he won’t?” Shouta asked, even though he was fairly sure he knew what All Might’s answer would be. He still wanted to know how the former Number One Hero would phrase it.

“And what about Dabi’s victims? Don’t they deserve justice, too?” Tsukauchi added. Just to muddy the waters some more.

“I…” All Might floundered for a moment before pulling himself up to his full height and began speaking with a level of authority Shouta wasn’t used to seeing from All Might in this form.

“Dabi’s victims deserve justice, of course, but prosecuting someone who never made the choice to harm them wouldn’t be justice, would it? And whether or not Young Touya would just become Dabi again… I don’t believe we can’t stop that from happening. I – it’s… I think it’s pretty well known that I believe in saving, or at least trying to save everyone. I believe that’s what makes a difference. I believe… I believe that Villains are people who weren’t saved. And Young Touya has already told us exactly who he needs to be saved from. So, I believe that… if we do save him, as we should, we’ve already established as much” All Might paused and looked around, silently begging them all to not disagree with him. “Then I don’t believe he would. Become a Villain, that is. And the very least we can do is give him a chance, an honest chance, to not go down the same path again.”

All Might could be very convincing when he wanted to be.

And he’d just given Shouta all of the talking points to convincingly convey what he already felt was right.

But he wasn’t actually sure if he agreed with what All Might had said.

His conclusion, yes, but Shouta was not as naïve as All Might in this; he didn’t believe everyone could be saved; some people were just too far gone. He was certain Dabi had been.

The question right now, though, was if this boy was, too.

And all he had to do was remember that heartbreaking crying, a young boy clinging to him in a silent plea for help, to decide that, no, he wasn’t.

He could agree with All Might here.

“So, we’re going to give him a new chance at life?” Shouta asked the room to gauge if they were all on the same page.

“We’re going to do our very best to save him,” All Might agreed.

“We’ll still have to work this out legally, and it’ll be a long process. But yes, I think that would be the right thing to do,” Tsukauchi added his assent.

Hawks had been very silent throughout their conversation, which was still just as uncharacteristic for the young spitfire as it had been in Touya's room, and Shouta didn’t like the possible implications of that so he fixed the young Hero with a firm stare, wanting him to vocalize his stance, whatever it was. And give Shouta a chance at correcting him if he was wrong.

Hawks flinched at the attention, looking like he had been far away in thought.

“Oh, yeah, that’s probably best,” he smiled easily, “I mean, if it’s what you, my wise elders, believe, then it must be right.”

That sounded a little put on. But at least it wasn’t outright dissent. Shouta could live with that.

He would have to keep an eye on it, though.

“Then again,” Hawks then decided to add as his smile took on a teasing air that Shouta didn't like one bit, “you were wrong about his age, so it’s not like –”

“How is that in any way relevant?” Shouta snapped. And halfway regretted his tone when Hawks flinched again.

The kid had probably just been trying to diffuse the tension with humor. Which wasn't a good call in this situation, but it didn't warrant getting yelled at, either.

“We were wrong about his age?” Tsukauchi cut in, and Hawks quickly bounced back to his happy-go-lucky default once the attention was off him.

“By two years,” Shouta grumbled, “he’s sixteen. It’s not really that much of a difference.” Even though it made Touya's small stature and overall frailty that much more concerning.

“No, I suppose not,” Tsukauchi nodded and thankfully moved on without further incident.

“For now,” Tsukauchi continued, “I don’t think we’ll be able to get very far without Touya finding out the whole truth about who he was before. You said you’ve already told him half of the story because you couldn’t find any way around it, and I think we’ll find ourselves in that situation again before we know it, so it would probably be better if we told him all of it now, in a controlled environment, before it gets in the way of progress.”

Shouta hated that he knew where this was going.

“And by we you mean me,” he stated dryly.

Tsukauchi nodded.

“He does seem to like you,” All Might added. Which was not helpful.

But as awful as it would be, having to look this kid in the eye and tell him exactly what he’d become… Shouta couldn’t disagree that it might be better if it came from him.

If nothing else, it would serve to uphold his promise that he would tell the kid everything later.

Now was later.

This would not be fun.

Chapter Text

Touya woke up with a splitting headache, the sun shining in through his window.

It was morning.

He must have fallen asleep during his meltdown last night.

Fallen asleep in Aizawa’s arms, in front of two of the most influential people in the world.

After crying like a little baby.

Couldn’t forget about that part. That mortifying part of a mortifying whole that he would now have to deal with.

Just his luck, really.

Speaking of his luck, though, Father didn’t seem to have shown up to ruin his life yet. Which was odd, and meant that Aizawa, All Might, and Hawks had at least not immediately betrayed him.

Which was nice of them, and honestly far more than he felt safe expecting.

Because he knew how all of this worked, and he knew his odds, and in all likelihood this was just a small mercy before even Aizawa admitted defeat. Either because he couldn’t find a way around the law due to the undoubtedly ridiculous levels of red tape that would accompany lodging any level of complaint against the Number One Fucking Hero, or – or – he could just decide that it wasn’t worth it to stick out his neck like this for the sake of a single, stupid, damaged kid.

So Touya really should just be grateful for the small mercies he was being afforded right now, because all talks of hope aside, he was unlikely to get any more than that.

He wondered where everyone was now, sitting up and scanning his room, finding it empty of all of the people he knew had been there last night when he fell asleep. And people in general, but he was mostly concerned with the Heroes whose choices would directly impact how his life unfolded from this point onward.

He raised his hand to rub his eyes, sticky with the dried tears from last night, and startled when he realized that it wasn’t constricted at all.

It was free.

He was free.

No one had tied him back up after he escaped the cuffs.

It could have just been an oversight, but it felt significant, somehow. Aizawa had been pretty adamant on the restraints, after all, so them being gone was… weird.

Not that it really changed anything. Because even if he had been planning to escape, which he wasn’t, he definitely wouldn’t do it now before he knew how the legal side of all of this would unfold.

Now if they came back with Father… then they might end up regretting the lack of things keeping him in place.

But right now, he still just felt exhausted to the very bone even though he must have slept for at least twelve hours or something ridiculous like that.

And he honestly would have considered trying for another couple of hours, if it weren’t for the fact that as he slowly woke up, his thoughts started becoming intrusive.

Which meant no more sleep even if he tried.

There were still just so many unanswered questions, like what had happened in the eight years that had apparently passed; and how were his siblings, and did they still live at home; and did Shouto break under the pressure or had he been stronger than Touya; and who had Touya become as an adult?

He didn’t like the fact that he had needed to tell them his name in order for them to find out who he was. He really didn’t.

Shouldn’t there have been at least one person in his adult life who noticed that he was missing and connected the dots? Like Yumi. Did she not notice he was gone? How could she not notice?

Unless something had happened to her.

Or to him.

That was a scary road to go down, but he’d already started and now he couldn’t stop thinking up scenario after scenario, filling his mind with all of the horrific imagery his overactive imagination could think up about just how badly things would have to turn out for him to apparently not be in contact with Yumi anymore.

He knew his thoughts were running rampant here, but he also knew that he was helpless to stop them.

Because he still had no distractions and nowhere near enough answers, his head instead full of questions and they were becoming bigger and bigger and scarier and scarier the longer he considered them.

Because even with the de-aging part of the puzzle explained, this situation still didn’t make any sense.

There were too many things that still didn’t make sense, even with an eight year gap for things to change, because he didn’t know how things had changed and he didn’t know if he even wanted to know because so far every answer he’d gotten about this future he’d been hurled into had been the worst case scenario, and if his lucky streak kept up, so would that trend.

But even then, he didn’t actually know what the worst case scenario was here. Other that the fact that it was most likely just reality now.

And that Aizawa or some of the people, cops or whatever, that he was working with had to know more.

There had to be something more to the story.

Something they weren’t telling him.

Which wasn’t surprising. They’d already proven that they were more than willing to keep things from him for their own gain.

And they only told him things when they had to.

Or when they thought they could gain something from it.

And he knew that he’d thrown the ball into their court, given them all of the power he’d had, and he knew that it was probably his best chance to do so, but just because it was his best chance didn’t mean that it was a good chance with good odds of turning out in his favor, because nothing ever did, he knew that.

And all that meant was that he couldn’t feel at peace here, because there was just so much at stake, and he had no leverage, only surviving on the mercy of others which was a fickle thing, and he was just so… scared.

He was scared.

He wished Aizawa would come visit so he would at least not have to be alone with all of this.

But why would he show up?

He had always expressly been there to find out who Touya was.

And he knew that now.

What if, now that he knew, he just wasn’t going to bother showing up anymore? Surely, from here on out, a lot of what needed to be done, whatever the Heroes decided that was, could and would take place somewhere else, with other Heroes and adults deciding his fate and doing whatever adults did in these cases without ever needing to consult him again.

Because he was just a stupid, useless kid with nothing left for them to gain from him.

Except for more problems.

The fear that maybe no one was going to show up at all, that maybe he didn’t have anyone who cared to anymore was what finally did him in and brought a fresh volley of tears to his eyes.

And there really wasn’t any reason he could see for him not to spend his morning crying into his pillow.

So he indulged.

The pillow would make it easier to ignore the nurses, too.

-

He didn’t know how long he’d been crying for when he heard the door creak open.

He immediately swallowed the sob that had been working its way out which was less than comfortable, but better than just letting it loose when he didn’t know who was there. He also kept his face firmly planted in the pillow, however, not looking up to see who it was. Both to hide what he knew was clear evidence of his crying, and because he didn’t want to get up yet, no matter the occasion.

There was no need to make a scene, and no need to go out of his way to greet whoever was coming in.

It might just be a nurse, after all. Even if they had yet to make an appearance for today’s breakdown.

It was, however, quickly proven that this wasn’t a nurse. The nurses wouldn’t sit down on his bed and ruffle his hair like this. It was nice, though. Felt like Aizawa.

He chanced a look and felt a wave of relief wash over him as he recognized Aizawa’s tired form.

He came back.

That relief was quickly replaced with worry, though, as he took in the man’s posture: It was stiff and rigid, nothing like it usually was, and he was very pointedly looking away from Touya even as he continued to ruffle up his hair.

“What’s wrong?” Touya asked even as he knew that he probably wouldn’t like the answer. He still felt a need to ask because it was clearly about him.

Why else would Aizawa be looking away from him?

Why else would he have come back at all if not because he had to?

Because something had happened that necessitated this visit even though Aizawa didn’t look like he wanted to be here. And after all, why would he want to be here anyway?

… Maybe he was ashamed of whatever it was.

Maybe that was why he wasn’t looking at Touya.

Maybe he had been wrong about All Might and Hawks helping.

Maybe it had been decided that it was better to just hand Touya over to Endeavor anyway to avoid making a fuss.

That would all fit in very nicely with the scenarios he’d spent the morning cooking up and honestly, if Aizawa would just go ahead and say it so they could move on and he could get back to his regularly scheduled breakdown, that would be nice.

“I have to tell you something. Something I wish I didn’t have to say,” Aizawa said, voice dead, even more so than usual. “But it’s necessary for us to… We can’t progress without you finding this out, and it was decided that it was better if you heard it from me than… anyone else.”

Now, Touya was scared.

This sounded big, unavoidable and all-encompassing in a way that he didn’t know if he was prepared for. There being bad news wasn’t really surprising. He was prepared for that, even had some ideas about what might be wrong. It was the story of his life so far.

But it being something that hindered their progress – which meant that they still planned on moving forward which totally didn’t fit into the ideas Touya had been throwing around which pretty much all ended with them throwing in the towel – he didn’t like the sound of it at all.

Touya didn’t want to know, he decided, but it didn’t look like he was going to get a choice. He never did.

He sat up, wiping his face, trying to at least be in control of himself, even if he couldn’t control anything else.

The least he could do was take it with a bit more grace than usual from him.

“I told you earlier that we didn’t know who you were,” Aizawa began, just jumping in, apparently. Which Touya should appreciate, but it also really freaked him out that he likely wouldn’t get a moment’s reprieve here. He had come to expect Aizawa withholding news from him, so this shift was unexpected and he didn’t like it at all. “And that wasn’t entirely false. We had no idea what your legal name was, but we did have an alias that your older self used.”

He fell silent, looking upset at his own words. Or upset at whatever it was that he knew.

Touya didn’t understand why. This was a strange thing to be so upset about.

Or at least for Aizawa to be upset about.

So he’d had an alias. So he’d been living as someone other than Todoroki Touya, which…

Which meant that he really had left his siblings behind, huh? That was bad news. For Touya. But Aizawa wouldn’t know that, would he? So why was he so upset?

Why was Aizawa so upset about this?

Had he been someone important? But then why wouldn’t they have told him? Or had someone on staff or something to identify him or protect him from being identified or whatever happened for important people?

He opened his mouth to ask at least one of his many questions, but Aizawa chose this moment to break out of his self-induced stupor and beat him to it.

“This alias… I’m sorry Touya, but it was a Villain’s name. Your adult self was identified as the Villain Dabi.”

“Dabi…” Touya muttered as he struggled to follow, because this had so not been on his list of possibilities, “a Villain? Me? I’m a Villain? Named Dabi?”

That couldn’t be right.

Matter of fact it had to be wrong.

Sure, he didn’t have any interest at all in being a Hero or anything of that sort, but that was a far cry from villainy. That didn’t make sense. He didn’t want to be a Villain, they had to be wrong about that. Have the wrong person or something.

“Not you,” Aizawa corrected, interrupting his thoughts by contradicting himself, which wasn’t helping Touya’s confusion. “You are sixteen and have done nothing to brand yourself as a Villain as far as we know. Your adult self, however. He was a Villain.”

“But how do you even know it was me?” Touya asked frantically, not acknowledging whatever nonsense Aizawa was spouting. It wasn’t important anyway.

Because this couldn’t be real.

He couldn’t be a… a Villain. Could he?

“We have your transformation on video – security footage – so we know it with absolute certainty. I wouldn’t be telling you otherwise. But Dabi had some very distinctive markings. It made him easy to identify,” Aizawa answered with brutal honesty.

The honesty he now knew to expect from the man. Who, Touya had to remember, had never actually lied to him before.

That he knew of, at least.

But he couldn’t be telling the truth here, he couldn’t. This had to be a mistake.

“This makes no sense.” Touya felt breathless, the world was blurry, and none of this felt real. Because it wasn’t. It couldn’t be. “I can’t be a Villain. I’m not evil, how could I become a Villain?”

He looked up at Aizawa even though he didn’t really expect him to have a good explanation. Beyond maybe poking holes in his own story so that Touya could find a way to prove that this couldn’t be him.

It really couldn’t be.

“I don’t know exactly what happened to you to make you go from this to… that,” Aizawa looked down at him, reached out to put an arm around his shoulder, eyes soft, completely contradicting what he was saying about Touya being a fearsome Villain. “But it is very obvious that something traumatic happens to you between the ages of sixteen and twenty-four.”

“How is it obvious?” Touya couldn’t help but to raise his voice.

Because that was ridiculous. There had already been tons of trauma before the age of sixteen and none of that had turned him evil. So what was the trauma that was bad enough to break him? Bad enough to make him turn his back on everyone he loved and become… evil?

What was so bad that it warranted becoming a Villain in Dabi’s – Touya’s eyes?

On second thought maybe he didn’t want to know.

Because this couldn’t be right, and there was no reason to start speculating over shit that wasn’t real.

And even if he did have a breaking point, he didn’t want to know what it was. How close he was to the edge. He didn’t want to know, and it didn’t matter anyway because Aizawa was wrong. He had to be.

But before he could say as much, Aizawa was already talking again.

“Dabi’s markings, what made it so easy for us to identify him, they’re scars, covering over half of his body.”

Okay, so that sounded bad, but he couldn’t really imagine it. What did it mean to have scars covering half your body? What kind of scars? Which parts did they cover? And why did they prove that he was Dabi?

This had to just be some massive misunderstanding.

He just couldn’t picture it.

Himself with tons of scars of some kind.

And older.

And evil.

He wanted to know more. He needed to know more.

He needed to know what the trauma was. He needed to know what Dabi’s motivation was. What had happened?

Had he just decided to hurt back the world that had hurt him?

Or was there an actual concrete reason that he just couldn’t see because he wasn’t a Villain?

Yet.

But if this was true, then he would be.

“What do I look like, then?” Touya asked quickly, trying to get away from that thought and hopefully find some loophole to prove that this couldn’t actually be him.

“You?” Aizawa sounded confused, but it was clearly overexaggerated, like he was playing a part, or talking to a small child who was asking dumb questions. “You are thin, small for a sixteen-year-old, you have red hair – ”

“No! Not me now, me before - or after, or –” Touya growled with frustration. Why was Aizawa trying to make this even more difficult than it had to be? Aizawa was saying that he was Dabi and he was playing along. Why didn’t he seem to want that? “Dabi. What does Dabi look like?”

“Dabi is not you,” Aizawa stated calmly. Which so clearly contradicted everything he’d said earlier to the point where one of his statement had to be an outright lie. What game was he playing here?

“Yes, he is! Or – You said he will be,” Touya was quickly getting pissed at Aizawa’s apparently intentional denseness, as he played his stupid mindgames. “You just said yourself that I am Dabi.”

“No, I did not,” Aizawa argued, still infuriatingly calm, “I said that your adult self is Dabi. You are sixteen. You have not done anything villainous. You didn’t even recognize the name. You are not Dabi.”

This was impossible.

Touya was not willing to argue the semantics of time travel right now.

Or ever, really.

He was Dabi, Dabi was him, that was what Aizawa was claiming and fuck whatever barrier the man was trying to build up to… to do what?

Whatever. The barrier he was trying to build up between them while still claiming they were the same person

He was going to focus on the part that wasn’t just stupid wordplay, and he was going to figure out if Aizawa was right, which he really couldn’t be, but Touya would clearly have to prove that himself since everyone else was apparently perfectly content to identify Touya as a Villain.

And if. If they were right… he was going to find out what had made it so.

And that was regardless of what Aizawa said.

He could play as many stupid games as he damn well pleased as far as Touya was concerned.

… But if it made Aizawa help him get the information he needed, then he was willing to play along.

That was all he’d been trying to do anyway by accepting this bullshit.

“Fine,” he sighed, “what does Dabi, who is not me, but will be in the future according to you, look like?”

Aizawa looked at him in a way that clearly communicated that he knew Touya wasn’t buying a word he said, but he answered anyway:

“He is taller than you, and slightly thinner, too. He is covered in scars, as I have already told you. Likely burns, but we aren’t certain on that one. And he has dyed his hair black. I can go get the tablet and show you if you’d like.”

This suggestion was accompanied by a searching stare. Aizawa was definitely testing him, although he didn’t know what the test was.

Just like he didn’t know what the mind games were for.

He didn’t really care anyway. It wasn’t important.

What was important was getting Aizawa to show him pictures. He really needed to see this; description was not enough. He needed pictures, facts, something that would prove if he was or wasn’t Dabi beyond what Aizawa thought and said.

And it would make it easier to disprove this whole theory altogether.

“Yes, do that, please,” Touya said quickly, afraid that Aizawa might change his mind, or that he had failed the test by agreeing and Aizawa wouldn’t let him find out any more now.

Luckily that wasn’t the case, and Aizawa got up, quickly moving out the door and coming back with the tablet within a minute.

The most nerve-wracking minute so far. It had been just long enough for Touya to genuinely begin to fear that he wouldn’t come back.

But he did.

And he sat back down on the bed so they could both see the screen, and Touya moved as close to him as he dared without invitation so that he could see more clearly.

“Now,” Aizawa began as he opened the browser, forcing Touya’s attention back on him. “You need to understand that, unlike with Heroes, Villains don’t get their pictures professionally taken.” Yeah, no, duh. “All of the pictures and videos we have of Dabi are footage taken by civilians and media corporations, often in high stress situations, so these pictures might not be the best quality, and they may show something uncomfortable. Is that understood?”

“Uh-huh,” Yes, Touya understood, this was all perfectly logical, he followed, he got it, and he needed to see this. Bring it on.

“All right, then,” Aizawa opened some fancy image search engine, typed in “Dabi”, and then he looked up at Touya and changed his might, Touya could see it in his eyes as it happened, and then the screen was flipped away from him so he couldn’t see it.

“No!” Touya yelled, slapping down into the comforter next to him in frustration. “You said you were gonna show me, you can’t just take that back!”

This wasn’t fair! He had to show him, he had to! Or Touya would never know and he had to know, he needed to know, didn’t Aizawa understand that?

“I am not. I simply decided to look through these images myself, first, so that I could weed out anything that I don’t want you to see,” Aizawa said with that infuriatingly calm, assertive voice that made it obvious that this man lived his life fully expecting to be heard and obeyed.

Touya shot the man a withering glare as he started fiddling with the tablet, still ensuring that Touya couldn’t see what was going on.

And Touya didn’t try to move around him because he knew that wouldn’t help when Aizawa had already decided how this was going to go.

“Don’t you think it’s a little overkill to try to shield me from pictures of myself?” Touya asked, deliberately lacing each word with acid, because this was honestly ridiculous.

Aizawa just shot him a withering glare of his own, once again proving that he was better at those, and shook his head, mumbling a barely audible, “Not you…” under his breath.

And Touya wanted to argue that, because Aizawa’s whole argument was that that wasn’t true and that Touya was this mystery Villain. But he knew that if he said that, all it would do was make Aizawa less likely to share at least some pictures with him.

So he held his tongue.

For now.

“Alright, here, I created a file with some of the better pictures for you,” Aizawa finally handed him the tablet after way too long of a wait during which Touya had taken to huffing with increasing levels of volume, being ignored at every turn regardless of how loud and obnoxious he was being. Rude.

And even though he’d handed over the tablet, he stayed close, clearly monitoring Touya’s use of it, ready to intervene should Touya try to look up any other pictures than the ones Aizawa wanted him to see.

Touya rolled his eyes and opened the first picture.

A lanky man, deathly pale, dressed in all black, the only pop of color being his violently blue eyes that seemed to be looking straight at the camera appeared on the screen.

Blue eyes to match Touya’s own.

The face overall would have been a good match, too, if it weren’t for the horrific scars stretched out across this man’s… well, across his entire body, held together with what looked like staples.

He looked like a Villain.

And he also, undeniably, looked like Touya.

The scars Touya could see were placed where Touya knew he was more prone to burns, too. Although none of his previous burns had ever left any severe scarring behind after they’d healed. He reached up a hand to rub at the almost healed burn he knew he had on the side of his throat, feeling the roughness of the tender, damaged skin. It was still mostly healthy skin, though, and would fade in time. Unlike what he was seeing in the picture.

He dared a glance towards Aizawa, but the man wasn’t emoting. Just looking at him. Waiting.

Looking back to the picture, he zeroed in on the face again, studying the scars right underneath those blue eyes so eerily like his own, like Endeavor’s, and again, almost instinctively, he moved his hand to feel underneath his own eyes.

He knew they were red and irritated, they always were, always had been, but Touya had honestly never thought they were burns.

He distinctly remembered being told by some doctor Father had hired that it was probably just eczema from crying so much, and so to stop doing that. Which was easy for them to say. They weren’t living his life. He had many, many reasons to cry and very few reasons to stop when his siblings weren’t there to see.

And wasn’t it an odd placement for burns, too?

Then again, Touya had a fire Quirk that was too strong for his body, so burns in odd places was kind of just par for the course.

This really looked like him.

Because it was.

Looking at the picture he just knew. He knew that this was… him.

But older.

And covered in scars.

And evil.

“Are you all right?” Aizawa asked, pulling Touya out of his trance, making him look back up at the man still seated right next to him.

Was he all right?

No.

But he honestly didn’t know how to even begin to unpack the numerous reasons why not. Even to himself.

And he didn’t want to do it right now either. He felt drained, his head was still buzzing, but it was like he was so tired he couldn’t even focus on a single thought right now, the exhaustion he’d felt when he just woke up returning threefold.

“I don’t want to look at pictures anymore,” he said instead, fully aware that he had only seen one.

One had been enough.

He closed down the tablet and handed it back to Aizawa, hoping that the man would see how exhausted he was and not try to ask any more difficult questions.

Or force him to have any more unwelcome, earth shattering revelations about himself that would take so much time to even begin to work through.

And it looked like he was going to get his wish, Aizawa simply taking the tablet and rising.

“Okay,” he said, “you look tired, which is perfectly logical after receiving the kind of information you just did. I’ll go return the tablet, and then I’ll come back and keep you company for a while. How does that sound?”

Touya nodded his acquiescence.

Company sounded nice as long as it didn’t come with questions. Or talking in general, because he really couldn’t handle that right now. His mind was too full and clouded. But company from Aizawa would be nice, just until he stopped feeling so full and empty at the same time.

Or until he fell asleep. He might just fall asleep again. And then he could wait to deal with this. All of this. Until he woke up.

Good plan, he yawned.

It might not even be noon yet, but to hell with that. He’d already had a plenty full day and it could end now, thank you very much.

No more today.

Chapter Text

This was what he got.

This was what he got for procrastinating on telling the Commission that Dabi had gone missing because he didn’t want to think about it.

Because of course the Universe’s way of punishing him for that would be to put him in a position where he really did have to think for himself for once in his goddamn life.

Ask himself those – what had Tsukauchi called them? – Unpleasant moral and ethical questions?

Yeah those.

He didn’t want to.

He really didn’t want to.

He wanted to go back to yesterday when he’d had no idea who Dabi was, and how flawed (awful, villainous, monstrous) his childhood Hero was.

And here was the thing.

Hawks wasn’t stupid.

He knew better than to think that all Heroes were perfect paragons of lawfulness.

He knew better than to think the Hero Public Safety Commission always operated on what was technically the right side of the law. Matter of fact he had often seen evidence to the contrary with his very own eyes. Or even been asked (told) to participate in the illegality himself.

He knew better than to deny any of these facts to himself even as he also knew better than to ever speak them aloud.

But at the same time he had always believed that they were doing more good than harm. And that the harm they were doing was justified. That the things they did were necessary evils that just had to happen that way for the sake of society as a whole.

Because the trolley problem wasn’t hard: If you had to kill one person to save five others, then you did that.

Obviously.

And if you had to give up your own childhood to grueling and painful training in order to become the type of Hero who could save so many others effortlessly, then you did that.

For the greater good you did it.

You did what the Commission told you because they understood this perfectly, and they knew what had to be done.

And that was why he’d never shied away from Endeavor’s high civilian mortality rate, not to mention the Villain mortality, which no one really had an exact number on to be fair because for that to exist people actually needed to care enough to create it, but everyone knew it was very high regardless of the exact number.

And that had always been just fine by Hawks. Or, at the very least, he’d always told himself that it should be.

Because Endeavor was just doing what needed to be done in order to save as many lives as possible. He was the epitome of what the Commission had taught Hawks a Hero needed to be; more than willing to make sacrifices in order to secure a necessary win.

More than willing to not even try to save everyone because that was a lost cause to begin with and instead focus on achieving the best possible outcome for all of society.

And that was the part that Hawks had still needed to learn: To stop being so caught up on ensuring that everyone got away safely at the cost of victory. Hawks had needed to take a page out of Endeavor’s book there.

Because Endeavor did what was necessary for the greater good.

But now… for the life of him, Hawks couldn’t see a reason why Endeavor had to abuse his son the way Touya so clearly had been.

Because as far as he could see, that hadn’t been for the greater good.

Quite the opposite, actually, as Endeavor’s abuse really seemed to have been what ended up creating a Villain who had then gone on to hurt and kill so many more people. People who would have been fine if Endeavor hadn’t…

And it hadn’t done any good that Hawks could see.

He just couldn’t see it.

He couldn’t explain it away.

He couldn’t find a way to see it as anything other than needless cruelty.

The kind that he had been trained as a Hero to stop or prevent wherever possible.

And stopping or preventing that abuse from happening here would involve, first of all, ensuring that Endeavor didn’t get anywhere near Touya again. Separate the abuser from the abused, it was logical.

He was pretty sure he wasn’t letting his emotions clouding his judgment there.

The emotions that screamed that he liked Dabi and no one should be allowed to hurt someone he liked even if that someone was not the same anymore at all, and didn’t remember him, which… which didn’t feel great.

Those emotions were pointless and added nothing of merit to these considerations and should be dismissed out of hand.

Because, it wasn’t even like he could pretend to be getting anything useful out of weaseling his way into Dabi’s life anymore. Which, even that should have had nothing to do with his own feelings.

So he should drop it.

Not think about it, and especially not think about how Dabi seemed to be gone for good now that he’d been de-aged and replaced with this younger version of himself who didn’t know who Hawks was, didn’t even recognize him, and how much that hurt, okay? It hurt.

Because those thoughts didn’t help anything, they were pointless, and he needed to drop it.

And get back to the actual, important matter at hand.

Which was that if he told the Commission what he knew, then they absolutely would shut down any possibility of letting Touya get away from his abuser, or of making Endeavor face the harm he had done and take responsibility for it.

Because to them, covering up the unsavory parts of the Number One Hero’s past would just be a necessary evil in the pursuit of maintaining the status quo of this Hero Society that they had built up.

Touya was just the person they needed to sacrifice to save five others.

The greater good.

Hawks knew all of that without having to ask them.

He knew how they worked. Had been a part of how they worked since he was six.

And he didn’t know if he could agree with them anymore.

Because it felt like there should be a difference between accepting that a Hero might, likely, have to get his hands dirty in some way to ensure that things went the way they should, and letting a Hero, or anyone, really, get away with doing unnecessary harm because holding then accountable for their actions might get uncomfortable.

But he didn’t know!

He might be way off here, he’d never thought about any of this before, just deferred to the Hero Commission because they did think about it and they made the decisions for the greater good and all he had to do was nod and agree with them.

But he didn’t.

Not in this situation, he didn’t. But if he couldn’t defer to them, then he had to make a decision for himself about what he thought was right, and he did not trust himself to do that.

He didn’t know how.

There was a goddamned reason he’d worked so hard at making someone else the figurehead of Hero Society. Because then that person would be the one to make decisions and give directions that he would have been happy to follow because he’d genuinely believed it would be for the better.

But that person had been Endeavor, and he’d been… wrong.

He’d been wrong.

He couldn’t trust Endeavor to make the right decisions, or even try to, because Hawks had seen living, breathing proof that he didn’t always.

And Endeavor was everything the Hero Commission stood for and he knew they’d back him on this, so he couldn’t trust them either.

Which brought him right back to square one.

And he needed to talk to someone, defer to someone else who could make these decisions better than he could, and it couldn’t be the people he’d grown up being told to defer to because he didn’t trust them. Couldn’t trust them with this.

Could he?

How would he know if he could?

And if not them, then who?

The natural answer would be All Might, wouldn’t it? The heroic antithesis to Endeavor. The Hero who believed in saving absolutely everyone, regardless of the costs.

But that didn’t… feel right. He didn’t want to talk to All Might about this.

Which was an annoyingly vague, not good enough reason to pass him over.

But he was also retired as a Hero, and he wasn’t even the lead on this case. He had quickly positioned himself as the moral and ethical epicenter of this whole thing, yes, because he was motherfucking All Might, but his views were just so idealistic and so far from what Hawks was used to that he didn’t know how to even begin to make him understand where Hawks was coming from let alone find common ground with him.

Or make sure that All Might was doing anything other than just stubbornly adhering to his belief system regardless of what he actually thought was best.

And Hawks needed to talk to someone who was willing to… compromise? Think things through in a way that Hawks wasn’t willing (or able) to do? Even though Hawks actually still didn’t know if that was even what he was supposed to do.

… All Might had clearly deferred to Eraserhead on more than one occasion.

Erasedhead, who was an active Hero, who claimed he wasn’t the lead on the case, but Hawks would beg to differ. And he seemed to work from a very similar moral standpoint as All Might in this case, but without the stars in the eyes and the painful idealism that would make him unwilling to consider alternatives.

And he behaved in a way that Hawks was more familiar with from authority figures; ignoring his quips except when he got too annoying, dictating how things were going to go without asking Hawks’ opinion, and just expecting Hawks to fall in line.

He was used to that, so used to it that it almost felt safe. Because he knew how to work around it. Unlike All Might’s kindliness which was so foreign that Hawks could help but find it funny to see it coming from someone who held any level of power over him.

Eraserhead might be a better option to go to, yes.

Hawks could do that.

He could talk to Eraserhead.

As a matter of fact, he could talk to Eraserhead right now!

His patrol had technically ended a little while ago, but he’d taken that as an opportunity to fly around thinking, figuring out what to do next, which wasn’t a waste of time, especially because he’d still been flying around, keeping an eye out for trouble and being visible to the public the way he was supposed to.

But now that he did know what to do next, he needed to get going, not space out any further because who was he kidding, he’d been all caught up in his head and he’d be lucky if no one noticed that he’d been even more on autopilot than normal, because the civilians definitely weren’t supposed to know that his trademark customer service smile was a reflex that had been trained into his very bones and not genuine joy at being at work for the fifteenth day in a row, living off coffee and Commission-approved ready-meals.

Oh well, too late to worry about it now. If there was a problem, the Commission would let him know about it in very uncertain terms, and regardless, he was unlikely to ever find himself in a situation like this again.

Hopefully something like this would never happen to him again.

But where was he?

Oh yeah, patrol was ending, and he was close to the hospital, so being the impatient creature that he was (who also knew that he’d end up talking himself out of having this conversation if he waited), Hawks decided to brainstorm what exactly he could tell Eraserhead on his way to the hospital because as far as he was concerned it was go time.

And Eraser would be at the hospital because today was the day he was telling Touya the truth about him being Dabi.

And Hawks didn’t think the kid would take that well, given how he’d been relying on a Hero so much, so it was definitely going to have taken all morning.

Hopefully not more than that, though, because that would throw a wrench in Hawks’ plans of throwing himself headfirst into this conversation before rational thought caught up with him and steered him right back toward the Commission.

And if it had taken so much longer, that would also mean that Touya was that much more upset by the future he had made for himself.

And Hawks didn’t like the idea of Touya being so upset. Seeing him cry once had been bad enough.

And even though he wasn’t Dabi anymore, and he didn’t make Hawks feel the way Dabi had made him feel (like fear and exhilaration, like flying through a thunderstorm, feeling the electricity all around you and keep flying no matter how stupid you knew it was to do so) he still… liked the kid.

Just in a different way.

And he wanted to help. That was the whole point of this moral breakdown of his, that he wanted to help Touya even though the Commission would want to sacrifice him for the greater good.

Hawks wanted to help Touya.

Which… maybe he could help with the issues Touya was undoubtedly having now if he told Eraser about the double agent thing and his relationship with Dabi.

… His working relationship with Dabi. No need to dig any deeper than that.

Not with Eraserhead and not with Touya.

But he could give Touya a deeper insight into who Dabi had been than any other Hero could (and even then he had to admit that wasn’t actually saying much because of how much of an enigmatic bitch the Villain had been) and maybe that could help him come to terms with this and… and maybe not do it again? If he knew what would happen.

And he knew Eraser could keep a secret, so he wasn’t really worried about it compromising the mission, anyway.

As a matter of fact, it might actually help the mission to have someone who could tell him what, and how much, he could safely tell the League of Villains if and when they found out that Dabi had been captured and decided to use Hawks for intel as any sane criminal organization would.

So he was definitely telling Eraserhead about that. Because if he was really going behind the Commission’s back here, then they couldn’t decide on safe to divulge information for him, which meant Eraserhead had to do it.

And maybe he should caution the man about the Commission, too? Without saying too much before he had a better read on the situation, of course, but saying enough to hopefully open up a discussion about the merits and faults of sweeping this whole thing under the rug like they’d want to.

And maybe give Eraser’s team some time to get ready to take on the Commission if need be?

That was an unpleasant thought.

That he didn’t have time to consider any further, what terrible luck, because he was at the hospital now, and looking straight at the chronically tired-looking Eraser walking down the hall. Excellent timing!

Showtime.

“Hey, Eraser! You got a minute?” Hawks called out, making the older Hero stop in his tracks and look up at him.

He really was looking very tired, even more so than usual. And he continued looking tired as he fixed Hawks with what he might not have meant to be a glare, because why would he be glaring right now, but boy was it ever a glare.

“Can’t this wait?” Ouch. Brushed off.

“Wow, rough day, huh?” Hawks didn’t let the rejection phase him because he wanted to have this conversation now, please, before his resolve left him. And Eraser had been more bark than bite in the past, so he wasn’t worried about actually pissing him off, yet.

“I just had to tell a kid that some time between his time and ours he went through trauma severe enough to make him a Villain, and also, mind you, tell the kid that he did, in fact, become a Villain,” Eraserhead bit out.

Okay, maybe Hawks should be a little worried about pissing him off, because his fuse seemed exceptionally short right now.

“And he didn’t take it well?” He tried for sympathy, furrowed brows and gently cocked head, to hopefully keep the conversation moving without causing anger.

And, after all, he could see how dealing with another one of those crying fits would be exhausting. Just seeing one had made Hawks’ chest constrict painfully for hours as he’d fought not to cry himself.

“He accepted it after a while, but it looked like he got overwhelmed before he really processed it, so I’m sure we haven’t seen the last of his issues with this yet,” Eraser answered, and was definitely still trying to brush him off.

“Yeah,” he wasn’t going to let that happen, even if it meant subjecting himself to the Hero’s wrath. He’d had worse, it was no big deal. “That’s actually kind of what I wanted to talk to you about? In private?”

Eraserhead shot him an annoyed glare, but, thankfully, silently acquiesced by turning to walk in the direction of the office-room-place that they’d been in for that meeting with Tsukauchi yesterday.

And at this point, Hawks thankfully also knew that Eraser was expecting him to follow along, so he did, hoping to stay as close to the older Hero’s good side as possible while making him have a conversation that he clearly didn’t want to entertain.

In the same spirit, he also didn’t utter another word until the door was closed behind them and he’d swept the room for bugs, just to be safe, with Eraser looking on, his expression somewhere between mild annoyance and bemusement.

Hawks had captured his attention.

That was good.

“So…” he began, and then immediately stopped, feeling the resolve that he’d been fighting to hold onto since his patrol ended slipping rapidly out of his grasp.

Because the people who taught him how to sweep for bugs as quickly and effectively as he just had were the very people he was actually considering betraying now.

The Commission had taught him how to do that, just like they had taught him everything else about being a Hero, and now he was turning his back on them, how could he do this?

… But he had to.

He had to if he was ever going to get any answers because he knew, he knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that the Commission wasn’t going to entertain his sudden interest in discussing the morality of their endeavors.

And maybe the answers would point him right back to the Commission, and if that was the case, he’d happily do whatever they said. He’d be so happy to just go back to how things were and not have to think about who he was taking orders from.

But he had to question them first, no matter how wrong that felt.

He needed to have this conversation.

Which meant that he needed to lock himself into this conversation somehow, and quickly. Find a way to ensure that it would have to happen even if he lost steam and wanted to try to quit. And the best tactic to do that was probably to just say the highly compromising thing he’d already decided to share. Rip it off like a band-aid so he couldn’t take it back no matter what Eraser’s reaction was or how quickly he got cold feet.

So he would do that.

“I knew Dabi. Personally.” Yeah, that would do it. And needed swift amendment before he got himself arrested. “Because I was infiltrating the League of Villains and he was my contact.”

Several seconds passed in uncomfortable silence after that as Eraser schooled his face into stony neutrality.

And then came the questions.

Because they were having this conversation now.

“You were working as a double agent?” a nod, “On orders from the Hero Commission?” another nod, “Why are you telling me?” That was not a yes or no question. And it was not an easy question, either.

Hawks took a deep breath as he considered what he could say.

“I… figured that it might help if you knew that?” He shrugged. And accepted Eraser’s glare as justified this time. Because he needed to say more than just that.

“So that you could utilize it, I mean. Without telling anyone, preferably,” he shot Eraser a searching glance, hoping that he had been right in trusting him, and was answered with a derisive tilt of the head, like Eraserhead wasn’t even deigning to answer that stupid of a question. And if that was the case, he’d just have to move on. Because it was too late to back out now anyway.

“And I don’t think the League is going to take this lying down, either, and if they have any brains at all between them, then they’ll absolutely try to use me for information, which means you’ll need to tell me what I can and cannot tell them, you know, what we can falsify and what we can’t, that sort of thing.”

Eraserhead sighed deeply at that. And Hawks didn’t let himself fidget as he waited for the man to let him know where he stood.

“All right,” he said, “That makes sense, I suppose, and we can work with it. I will have to tell Tsukauchi, and really, he should be your contact for information, not me, but other than that, it’ll stay between us.” Thank God. “But how do you suggest we utilize your knowledge here without tipping anyone off?”

“Well…” Hawks bounced a little on his toes, “You said yourself that Touya is gonna have issues with this whole being a Villain thing, and he’ll probably have questions that I might be able to answer, you know, since I knew him before.” He stilled for a moment as Eraser shot him yet another glare that he couldn’t figure out what was for. “And, I mean, it’s not like he’s gonna be in a position to blab about classified information anytime soon, right? So it might help, and it can’t hurt?”

“Preferably, he would be,” Eraser answered.

And it took Hawks a moment to catch up because that was not a response he’d been ready for at all.

“What? To who?” It made no sense. The kid was literally in police custody. Who was he going to meet?

“He is sixteen,” Eraser was speaking slowly, like he was explaining something rudimentary. “We’ve already learned that this is a permanent condition, which means we should strive to treat him like the minor that he is now, and minors need guardians.” Okay, but why couldn’t Eraserhead just do that? He already dealt with teenagers on the daily anyway, didn’t he? “Ideally, he would have had family we could contact to pass the buck to, but even though that doesn’t seem to be the case here, it’s still necessary to find someone to be fully in his corner here.”

But Eraserhead was already doing that, though!

“But why? He has you, doesn’t he? You’re in his corner. And All Might. And me. Wasn’t that what the recruiting was for? To have people in his corner?” Hawks was so confused. Why did the kid need anyone else?

“Because we’re all Heroes.” Eraserhead emphasized, leaning forward and staring intensely into Hawks’ eyes in a way that made him want to do nothing more that curl up in a corner, he felt so small and stupid.

And Eraserhead just continued.

“This is our job, not…” Eraserhead worked his jaw as he thought for a moment. “A Hero can only go so far within the constraints of the law before it becomes inappropriate, an overreach or a misuse of our power. We’re supposed to be fighting for justice in general, not just one kid. Which means we can’t push everything else aside for his sake without acting unethically. And as a child, he needs to be someone’s first priority.” But why? “So we need to find someone we can trust to fight for just the kid so that we’ll be free to do our jobs which, yes, will include high levels of fighting for this kid for the time being, because that’s what we need to do to fight for justice in this case, but he needs to have someone beyond that. So that it doesn’t have to be the Hero he only just met two days ago breaking these kinds of news to him and helping him through it because he has no one who knows him better. Who he knows better.”

Eraser wasn’t letting up on the staring, and Hawks desperately needed him to stop, so he hurried to nod his acquiescence even if he didn’t fully get where the other was coming from or why this was so important to him.

It clearly was, and that was enough when this wasn’t even the conversation Hawks was here to have.

“That’s – yeah, okay, when you put it that way – I mean, that was truly an All Might level speech right there, ” Hawks stalled with a quip that was immediately met with a withering glare as he simultaneously tried to yield this point and also find some way to segue back into that moral and ethical conversation he was here for.

And, actually, the best way he could come up with was to not agree but instead turn the whole thing around and argue the Commission’s side no matter how uncomfortable it made him.

If it got him the answers he needed, then that plus Eraserhead’s possible anger were worth it.

“But is it, though?” He forced himself into a skeptical frown, tucking his wings close to his back so they wouldn’t betray his disdain for his own words as he said them. “I mean, wouldn’t it be easier to just… let Endeavor know we have his kid and try to work this out without possibly bringing down the Number One Hero and all of Hero Society with him? He is Touya’s father, after all, and you said you wanted to contact his family, so –”

Eraserhead narrowed his eyes in such a mean glare that it briefly made Hawks fear that he had gone too far here.

“Are you testing me?” the man asked, and whew, it didn’t look like he’d pissed off the Hero too much just yet.

And it honestly wasn’t too far from the truth to say that this was a test, so Hawks just shrugged.

“Why not, though?” He said easily even as his stomach cramped in discomfort. “It’s easier for us, and it doesn’t disrupt the very nice status quo we’re in. Some might say it would be for the greater good to just kind of let this one go…?”

“No.” Eraserhead said with a cold sort of anger that made the cramping in Hawks’ gut even worse. “We’re not going to hand a kid over to be abused. And any status quo that would allow that needs to be disrupted. That’s what the law is for, what Heroes are for in the first place.”

“I – yeah in most cases,” Hawks agreed, and he really wanted to be done arguing because it just felt like playing Devil’s advocate at this point, and his stomach hurt and he wanted to be done, but he also felt like he owed it to the Commission to try just one more time. “But in this case the status quo that’s being disrupted is all of Hero Society, and it’s gonna bring a lot of bad with it if we go down this path, and maybe it would be better if we didn’t?”

“For the greater good?” Eraser raised an eyebrow, and Hawks nodded uncomfortably, and became aware that his mask was slipping a moment too late as Eraser’s face softened just a little. “I don’t believe in the greater good the way you seem to. I don’t believe in sacrificing a child so that others get to sleep a little easier at night. And by the way, this, right here, is exactly why the kid needs a guardian who cares for him. So he doesn’t end up as a pawn in someone else’s game of planning out the greater good.”

And that was Hawks’ limit.

He wasn’t going to argue about this anymore. He couldn’t. It made his stomach hurt in a way that touched on something deep inside him that he didn’t want to think about or even acknowledge, and he needed it to stop.

“You’re fighting for him, though? He trusts you,” Hawks tried weakly, changing the subject in a way that would hopefully convey that Eraserhead had won and he didn’t need to say any more painful and confusing things now.

Because Hawks really hated this.

“I know, but he needs more,” Eraser said tiredly, thankfully letting the argument drop. “And I was going to ask him who he trusts from his past, if there’s anyone at all. Because that’s probably the best place to start. But I should have done that before I told him he became a Villain because I don’t know if he’d be willing to tell me now. A stupid oversight, but it’s too late to waste time on that now.”

“I could ask him,” Hawks offered, not really knowing why. Eraserhead could do it himself, no one was stopping him even if the order of things was off. The order would still be off if Hawks was the one doing the asking. This proposition made no sense.

“Why are you so keen on talking to him?” Eraser asked the million-dollar question.

The question Hawks had no idea how to answer beyond the flimsy excuse he’d already given.

“I… If I can help, I want to – ” he began.

“And you believe you can help because Dabi was your contact with the League of Villains?” Eraserhead didn’t look convinced.

“Yeah?” Hawks tried, “I mean, I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I’m kind of a blabberhead, and I used that to my advantage with Dabi, and I’d –”

“And that worked?” Eraser pressed on. “With Dabi?”

The older Hero was definitely onto something now, and Hawks had absolutely no clue how to distract him because what had there even been for Eraser to latch onto and get suspicious about here?

“You know, he really isn’t – or wasn’t – as antisocial as you seem to think,” Yes, he absolutely was, the vast majority of the time, but that fact would prove that Hawks was hiding something, so he’d just keep it to himself.

Except he couldn’t, because Eraserhead was still giving him that look and there was no way he wasn’t about to be called out unless he figured out some way to frame this that Eraser might actually believe.

Keeping in mind that Eraserhead seemed to have a pretty good grasp on Dabi’s personality and would absolutely catch on to an outright lie.

Well, the best lies were the ones that contained mostly the truth, anyway, so maybe he should just spill. Everything but that one thing that he was not going to admit to.

“I – look, I don’t claim to be an expert on all things Dabi or anything because God knows that bastard was confusing enough by half, but he had… mood swing? I guess?” Hawks tried, and Eraser had toned down the suspiciousness in his expression just a tad, so maybe this could work. “And, I mean, I’m no shrink or anything but you’ve gotta agree that it wouldn’t be surprising if Dabi might have been a little... Plus, and I really hope this isn’t shocking to you, but Dabi was definitely some kind of addict, too.”

“An addict?” Eraserhead repeated, and Hawks nodded emphatically.

“Yeah, and – I mean, I have no idea what he was taking, or what the side effects were, but I would hazard a guess that he was self-medicating for pain because no way those scars weren’t hella painful, and he kinda showed sometimes and then other times he didn’t, and maybe some of the mood swings were from that as well, or maybe he had something else, like, in his head that did that, or maybe it was like a mix of the two –” he was sidetracking himself, fuck. He was so far out of his depth. “But that honestly doesn’t even matter, okay? What matters is that he had mood swings and sometimes he was, like, talkative.”

Talkative wasn’t the right word, but it was good enough, and Eraser looked like he might be buying it, so Hawks would just keep going with it.

“And when he was in those moods…” not talkative, but willing to spend time around Hawks just listening, and snorting in a way that Hawks was definitely supposed to find unattractive when Hawks managed to say something funny enough to not just be ignored, and even letting himself be roped into sharing harmless little tidbits about himself like his hatred for all kinds of seafood and love of bad horror movies. “When he was like that, we talked. I mean, I was there to spy on him, obviously I was gonna use any chance I got to mine him for information, yeah?”

Even if he kept most of that information to himself. The Commission didn’t need to know the extent of Dabi’s deep-rooted loathing for shrimp and how he could rant about how disgusting they were for minutes on end if he was in the right mood, did they?

“So you got close to him in order to take advantage when he was in a vulnerable state?” Eraserhead didn’t look judgmental as he said it, but Hawks still blanched. Because he really should have been, for work, and he really hoped he hadn’t been.

And really, he didn’t think it was possible to take advantage of someone who was actively crawling on top of you, burning eyes and freezing hands roving over every inch of exposed skin, which quickly became more and more –

“Oh, I’m not sure I would ever agree to calling Dabi vulnerable,” he smiled easily. “He was never fucked up enough for me to actually be able to get anything useful from him, and he was definitely always ready to throw down if need be, ya know?”

Because even though it had been easy to ignore during the shrimp-rants and hot kisses, Dabi had never trusted him fully, and he’d known that.

Not enough to actually put himself in a possibly compromising situation, addict or no.

Even when they talked, even when they… more than talked, Dabi never fully relaxed, never relinquished control, never let down his guard enough for Hawks to see more than fleeting glances of the person he’d been underneath all of the scars and murderous intent.

But those glances were more than rewarding enough for Hawks to keep coming back for more, wheedling and jabbering and searching for a way in, simultaneously trying to convince himself that he was just doing his job and knowing that he might not be able to make himself actually take advantage even if the opportunity presented itself.

“But he still talked to you?” Eraser drew him back out of his own mind, and the suspicious look was back, and Hawks didn’t know how to deal with that. “Enough so that you think you know him?”

“I’m probably the Hero who knows him the best,” Hawks shrugged, ignoring the way his wings wanted to flare out at the challenge, “but how much that’s worth… I dunno.” He really, really didn’t. He wished he did, but he didn’t.

“And how do you feel about him?” Oh, that was a loaded question. Time to be real careful now.

“I – it – we were friendly, yeah? – I mean, I was buttering him up so that I could –” Eraser sighed very loudly to interrupt him.

“Not what I asked,” he said, “You already explained why you were talking to him. And that he apparently took a liking to you,” another suspicious look that Hawks did not need right now, “but how did you feel about him?

Hawks took a deep breath. A lie worked best if it was mostly true.

“I liked him,” he admitted. “As a person I liked him, even if I hated what he was doing. I wanted – I want to stop the League, and that goes for Dabi’s part in that, too, but…”

“But?” Eraserhead pushed.

“But beyond that,” Hawks obliged, “I could tell that he was hurting. That… that maybe he didn’t like what he was doing, either. Like he was just doing what he felt like he had to in order to… to get whatever it was that he wanted. And I get that, you know? Doing things you don’t want to do because you think you’re doing what’s right.” It was his whole life in a nutshell, honestly.

“And obviously, Dabi was wrong.” But maybe so was Hawks in following the Commission’s orders, so was he really in a position to judge? “But I still… I dunno, I felt like there was something more there than just a Villain who wanted to watch the world burn, and I wanted to… help him?” Not the right word, again, he wanted Dabi to let him in, to trust him, to talk to him, but he’d never had any idea how to help him.

He forced out a dry laugh.

“I wanted to help Dabi, how heroic of me huh?” he glanced up to see how Eraser was reacting to this. And couldn’t decipher the look on the older Hero’s face, so that was a waste of time. “But I knew I couldn’t. Because he was very focused on being as terrible of a Villain as he could, okay? No helping someone who doesn’t wanna be helped.” Which was a bitter pill to swallow. “But now…” Time to bring this full circle. “Maybe I can help Touya not become Dabi. And I want to. I wanna do that. Because I… I think it’s the right thing to do? For him?”

Eraser nodded at that, like he believed him, which was a surprise, because Hawks wasn’t even sure if he believed himself anymore. It all just rang hollow in his ears at this point. Which was weird because he’d somehow managed to get through this without telling any outright lies.

And then Eraser somehow managed to sigh deeply enough for Hawks to feel it in his own bones.

“Alright,” he said slowly. “You want to talk to him, you can. If you want to tell him about the double agent act, you can. I don’t think he’ll be around anyone who can’t keep a secret anytime soon, and if he is, we’ll just have to be there to intercept. And giving him a way to find answers about who Dabi was might be what he needs.”

Hawks really hadn’t expected to be granted permission for this, he’d just been pushing for… for the hell of it? Because he wanted to talk to Touya? But why did he even want to talk to Touya?

Should he even tell Touya any of this?

Wouldn’t it just confuse him more?

Eraser seemed to believe it might help, though, and at this point, Hawks was willing to go along with whatever the man thought because he seemed to have a much better idea of what the right thing to do was here than Hawks ever would.

Yes, Eraserhead had this shit figured out. So Hawks could just follow his lead.

“So… should I do that now, or?” Hawks begged for input. Because it felt like his brain was fried and he didn’t want to take any more initiative today. Or ever.

“No, I’m pretty sure he’s asleep right now,” Aizawa answered dryly.

And Hawks was dizzy enough after all of this that he would have been willing to believe that the whole day had passed if it weren’t for the sunlight streaming in through the window.

“It’s noon?” He tried, letting his confusion shine through in his tone.

Did teenagers nap?

Hawks hadn’t, he knew, but he hadn’t exactly been a normal teenager, so maybe this was normal. How would Hawks know either way?

Judging by Eraser’s expression, though, it wasn’t.

And that was also a really creepy smile that Hawks didn’t know how to interpret.

“And he’s exhausted,” Eraser said, not losing the smile even as Hawks wished he would. “It’s probably better to give him a couple of hours of peace now. Even if he isn’t asleep, it might very well be that he’s just decided to hide under the covers until the sun goes away and if that’s the case you won’t get anything out of bothering him before evening anyway.”

“And why do you think he’s hiding under… why all of that?” Hawks wasn’t sure if this was Eraserhead’s version of a joke.

“Experience.”

The matter remained unclear.

And maybe just slightly terrifying.

Oh well, it gave him a couple of hours to decompress after accidentally pouring his heart out to a fellow Hero, which was probably a good thing.

The time to decompress, not the pouring his heart out, because he really shouldn’t have done that.

Oh well. No turning back now.

Chapter Text

Touya was sitting in his bed. Thinking. Missing the fog of exhaustion or shock or whatever that feeling had been that had been clouding his mind and preventing any rational thought, or any thought at all, earlier.

Now, his mind was all too clear, and he was alone, and the thoughts were bombarding him from every direction.

Although, it was really all just different iterations of the same basic premise again and again and again.

He was a Villain.

Or he would become one, at least. He didn’t see the distinction Aizawa had been so keen on building up. Present or future, it happened. That wasn’t up for debate.

It obviously wasn’t something he wanted to believe about himself, but Aizawa had had proof, and Touya wasn’t in the business of denying facts. No matter how eager the Hero was to make him. For whatever reason.

No, he wouldn’t deny reality.

No matter how horrifying it was.

Horrifying and scarred and evil.

And his future.

His not so distant future. No one had told him how long this de-aging thing was supposed to last, so this future might actually just be tomorrow, if his lucky streak persisted. He might become a Villain tomorrow. And he would have no way to stop it because it was too late and it had already happened. Just not to him. Yet.

The key word here was yet.

Because it would happen.

He couldn’t stop the change. He couldn’t stop himself from turning into that horrifying monster that had stared back at him through the screen with his own eyes.

He didn’t want it.

The helplessness of it all was tearing through him in the form of heaving breaths threatening to become full blown sobs, and he did nothing to stop them. Because it hurt.

It hurt, and that was good.

He needed to hurt.

Honestly, it needed to hurt a lot more than it was currently, it needed to bleed and scar – it wasn’t like a couple more of those would make any difference for his future self anyway, and the pain might distract him just a little bit for now, tide him over until the part of him that cared about not becoming a fucking Villain died again.

The part of him that cared about anything at all, about his fucking siblings who had been alone with that monster for God knows how long because Touya had apparently decided that the best use of his time wasn’t to try to be just a little bit useful to the kids who fucking needed him – needed him because they didn’t have anyone better – and spent it shaping himself into a Villain instead.

If only the rest of him had died along with the parts of himself that he didn’t outright hate. Honestly, while he was at it with the self-harm or whatever, he needed to just fucking kill himself and get it over with.

… If he killed himself now while he had the control to do so, then he wouldn’t have to become Dabi again.

That would be better for everyone, wouldn’t it?

And Touya wouldn’t have to deal with all of this anymore.

All of the things he’d held onto, the things that made his life worth something, were things that he now knew he would abandon.

His siblings…

Suppose the bright side of all of this was that he now knew for sure that life wasn’t going to get any better for him, so why not just fucking end it? It wasn’t like he had any reason not to at this point.

And the idiot Heroes still hadn’t tied him back up, so there wasn’t anything to stop him from getting up and finding something, anything to use. He wasn’t picky, it just needed to be sharp enough.

And he just needed to stop pussying out and get up and do it.

Take the control he had and cut and carve himself away from the future that awaited him.

The idea that he wasn’t fully helpless in this was exhilarating, and terrifying, and he could feel the sobs wracking through him get even heavier at the very thought.

He would have to ride this out first, then.

No use trying to be productive when he could barely see out of his own eyes for the tears that were pouring out. And he’d need to time it so that there wouldn’t be anyone coming in to disturb him.

For some reason the planning wasn’t helping in calming his body down like it usually did.

He was still shaking and heaving, and his head was starting to buzz again.

But he’d calm down eventually.

He just had to wait it out. It wasn’t like his future was going anywhere.

… But it really was taking a long time.

Too long, as someone knocked a cheerful melody on the door. Which meant it wasn’t Aizawa because Aizawa didn’t knock (and the nurses didn’t, either, but fuck them), and he really should pull himself together when it wasn’t Aizawa, but he couldn’t.

He couldn’t stop.

“Hey, what’s up! I hope I’m not – Oh, hey, no, wait, are you okay?” Touya didn’t recognize the voice and he didn’t bother to look over and see if he’d recognize the face it belonged to, either, opting instead to just turn around and bury his face in the pillow to smother the sound of his crying.

And block out the world and this unwanted person, too, hopefully also conveying his deep desire for the person to kindly piss off.

He didn’t want to deal with people right now.

He couldn’t.

And he needed to be alone if he was going to take advantage of the lack of supervision before it was too late. And he didn’t know when that would be, so he really needed to act fast.

Whoever it was didn’t go away, though, but came closer instead, speaking in what was probably meant to be soothing tones, but Touya wasn’t listening. He just wanted them to go away. To be alone with the hurt and the planning and not have to deal with whatever bad news were being brought to him this time.

It was always bad news anyway, and he was already planning on taking himself out of the equation so they could save their breath for all he cared. Whatever they had to say didn’t matter to him anyway.

And then the person sat down on his bed and put their hand on his back.

Like they had any right at all to fucking touch him.

“Fuck off!” Touya screamed, channeling as much offense into his voice as he could as he turned around to glare at the offender. He didn’t want this, this wasn’t Aizawa, who did they think they were trying to touch him, help him, be nice to him? Who the fuck?

The Number Two Hero, Hawks, of course.

Just his fucking luck.

Touya almost swallowed his own tongue as he realized who he had just screamed at, but Hawks wasn’t faring much better himself, having jumped back up with his hands raised, eyes wide in surprise at his angry outburst.

Great. Touya had managed to bite the head off one of the few people who seemed to actually want to help him in this fucking mess that was his life now. Just fucking peachy.

He could feel another sob building in his throat, but he knew that turning back into his pillow wasn’t going to solve anything here, no matter how tempting it was, so he tried to sniff and stifle it instead, maintaining eye contact with the startled Hero while he brought his hand up to wipe at his face.

“I’m sorry. I just wanted to help, I didn’t mean to startle you,” Hawks said quietly, like Touya had been the one who’d just jumped off the bed in fright when faced with a literal crying teenager.

“Looks like you’re the one who got scared, though,” he countered wetly. Because he didn’t know what else to do.

And that was apparently all the invitation Hawks needed to start a mock argument as he puffed himself up, wings growing to twice their original size, huffing indignantly all the while.

“How dare you,” he hissed with mirth glinting in his eyes, “suggest that I, the Number Two Hero, would ever be scared of anything!”

Touya choked on a snort. As incongruous as this was to how he was feeling, it was a much better option than whatever heartfelt bullshit he might have been forced to endure otherwise. The kind of heartfelt and confusing bullshit Aizawa kept pulling.

Plus, a quick back and forth might convince the Hero that he was fine and make the bird leave him alone again.

And if so, it really wouldn’t do to ruin the charade.

“Yeah, it is weird for a bird to be such a scaredy-cat, but hey, you managed it somehow,” he smiled, studiously ignoring the aborted sobs that were still making their way out, sitting up and using the comforter to wipe the remaining tears from his face. And again, studiously ignoring the fact that more were still coming.

Hawks picked up on that part of the game, too, and joined him in ignoring the tears, puffing himself up even more as he gasped at Touya’s half-hearted insult.

“You wound me, sir,” he said, “and here I was trying to be nice to you. Honestly, I don’t know why I bother.”

“Beats me,” Touya answered, scrubbing at his eyes when the tears still wouldn’t get the memo that their time had passed. “I don’t know why anyone bothers at all anymore.” Too deep, that was too deep.

But Hawks just smiled, although his wings deflated almost like they were losing steam in keeping up the act even as his face remained under studious control.

“That’s fair,” he sat back down on the bed, the foot-end this time, not touching Touya at all, crossing his legs in front of himself, and looking at Touya in a way that clearly conveyed that he would not be able to get out of a heartfelt emotion-driven conversation completely. Even if the birdbrain wasn’t quite as serious as Aizawa. “So, what has you so upset?”

Touya highly doubted the Hero didn’t already know, but if this was how he wanted to start the conversation then so be it.

He would just have to play along with this until the Hero called it quits and walked away.

Not like he could pretend to not be upset either.

“You know who I am, right?” Touya didn’t know how else to even begin to explain all of this. And of course that simple admission was enough to start the waterworks right back up again, much to his chagrin.

The fact that he wasn’t able to stonewall even an actual stranger anymore after having spent years perfecting his unaffected façade with his siblings, the fact that he was now faced with someone who was clearly a master at the game of deceit and couldn’t even begin to put up a solid mask of his own fucking sucked.

“Yeah…” Hawks looked at his face for a moment, obviously noticing the new volley of tears, but he didn’t comment on it, so whatever. Touya could just blame it on having had kind of a rough morning if he did try to question it, anyway, so no bother. “But you know… we’re gonna help you through it, it’s not –”

“Help me how? I’m a Villain!” Touya yelled, immediately done with playing along. He wasn’t going to let this stupid birdbrain sugarcoat things like Aizawa had. That didn’t help anyone, it was just a useless attempt at confusing him or making themselves feel better or whatever bullshit they were doing it for.

Realistically, they were probably just biding their time until he turned back so they could pat themselves on the back for not arresting a kid or whatever. It was bullshit all the same, and he wasn’t going to make it easy for them.

And besides, Touya didn’t need their help, or the distractions, he just needed a couple of moments alone and a sharp object. Then he could take care of this whole problem on his own. Really, they should be fucking grateful that he was fixing this problem for them so they could stop having to pretend to want to help him.

And of course that was when another sob broke through.

“We’ll figure it out!” Hawks raised his voice in response, whether it was to Touya’s yelling or the crying, he didn’t know, but he still wasn’t actually yelling himself. Just speaking forcefully enough to be heard. “Okay, so no one has a manual for how to deal with this, but –”

“I don’t wanna deal with this! I don’t wanna be this!” Touya yelled. Because he really just wanted out.

“Then don’t!” That was a yell.

And so fucking easy for him to say. Where the fuck did the Number Two Hero get off lecturing him on how to avoid becoming a Villain.

“How the fuck am I supposed to do that? How am I supposed to change the fucking past, huh?” It wasn’t fair to put that on him.

It was impossible was what it was, and it didn’t help Touya’s fight for his breath at all. There was only one way to avoid turning back into a Villain and he was fucking doing it. Would do it as soon as this asshole of an idiotic birdbrain fucking left.

“Not the past,” Hawks ground out, sounding thoroughly exasperated. As if he had any right to be annoyed at the fucking truth. “No one can change the past, I know that, but you can choose to be different now! You have a whole life to make different choices this time around. A second chance. That’s not something a lot of people get to this extreme, you know?” Hawks was quieting down again, voice turning gentle as Touya pulled back in confusion.

“What do you mean a whole life?” He asked. Because that part made no sense at all.

Hawks looked confused at Touya’s question, too.

“Because you’ve been de-aged?” he tilted his head to the side, very birdlike honestly.

Touya wasn’t going to dignify that non-answer with a response. Especially because he had a feeling that there was something he wasn’t getting and like hell he was going to put that on display any more than he had to.

Hawks seemed to realized that he hadn’t said enough, too.

“Like, I get that it’s a lot to take in and your reaction here is totally justified, I mean, I’d freak out, too if someone told me I’d become a Villain.” Touya blanched at those words being spoken so casually. And Hawks flinched, too. And he was either way better at acting natural today or his façade wasn’t actually as thick as Touya had thought.

“Okay, I just said that I get that it sucks, yeah?” Hawks continued, “but it’s not like it has to be that way, you know?” No, he didn’t. Why was this stupid birdbrain so incapable of getting to the goddamn point?

And Hawks was definitely reading the malcontent in Touya’s face.

“Look, all I’m saying is, the past isn’t for us to change – like, duh – but the future is. And at this point you… You have a choice about where you wanna go from here. You can choose to just accept that what you became once is your only option, or you could let us help you choose a different path this time.”

“But how?” Touya stressed. Because the how was pretty fucking important here. And Hawks needed to have a rock solid answer if Touya was going to take him seriously at all.

“I already told you there is no fucking manual for this shit,” Hawks spat out, looking frustrated at Touya’s lack of cooperation. “But you literally have so much power on your side. I mean, Eraserhead, All Might… me,” Hawks added himself to the list with a sheepish grimace that Touya didn’t understand.

But it also wasn’t his first priority to try to understand here, because he still needed to figure out just exactly how Hawks was proposing that he not become Dabi again. Because that part was still beyond unclear.

He opened his mouth to ask, snidely of course, but Hawks was already talking again and honestly did the guy ever shut up?

“And Tsukauchi even basically said that they aren’t gonna prosecute you for any of it, so you’re literally free to move on and do whatever you want with your life going forward. It can work, okay, if you just try. Just at least try?” Hawk’s shot him a pleading look, but he was too busy finally putting the puzzle pieces together to respond to that with an appropriate amount of disgust.

Because why would they not prosecute him for the crimes Dabi had committed unless they really did believe that he wasn’t Dabi on some fundamental level.

Why would Hawks spend so much time trying to convince Touya that he was getting a chance to not become Dabi unless there was actually something to it.

Why wouldn’t they tie him back up like they’d been so keen on in the beginning unless the reason they had been keeping him tied up was no longer an issue.

Because they’d found out that he wasn’t going to turn back.

He wasn’t going to turn back.

This was permanent.

And maybe he should be mad that they hadn’t deigned to fucking tell him that earlier, like, before he started desperately planning out a goddamn suicide because it was the only way he could see to take back control of how his life went. But he wasn’t.

He was just so… relieved

Relieved enough to start laughing hysterically as it sank in.

Holy fuck, he’d almost killed himself over a non-issue.

That was hilarious was what it was and Touya wasn’t going to pretend that it wasn’t even as Hawks shrank back, eyeing him nervously.

“You okay there, dude?” The birdbrain asked hesitantly, and it made Touya laugh even harder. Hard enough that he couldn’t form any words to answer.

So he just nodded instead, leaning forward as he gasped and hiccupped in an attempt to calm himself down enough to say what was on his mind.

“I’m just – I just – this is fucking –” was as far as he got before giving up again. This was going to take a while.

“Look, can you just, like, nod if you need me to go find a doctor or something?” Hawks asked, concern lacing his voice, and Touya hurried to shake his head. He didn’t need a doctor. That wasn’t it at all.

“Nono, no – that’s not – you’re right,” Touya gasped out, “I’m just – it’s just funny is all.” At least the threat of a doctor had brought his laughing fit down a couple notches.

“Oh,” Hawks looked dubious, which set Touya laughing again. “Okay, well… that’s good. And if you would let us help, that’d be good too, yeah?” He sounded like he was trying to convince himself more than Touya, so he just nodded along as he giggled.

Hawks went quiet for a while after that, looking like he was thinking very hard about something.

Touya took the time to calm himself down to the point where only sporadic giggles escaped him when Hawks finally spoke up again.

So, you’re gonna let us help you?” He asked again, still looking wary. Touya just nodded, because apparently he was.

“O-kay, then. So… Did you have anyone in your old life that you trusted?” He asked, “I mean, when you were sixteen for real – or… the first time? The first time you were sixteen who did you trust?”

Well, that was certainly one way to bring the mood all the way down.

“No,” Touya very much didn’t pout. He was just mad that the stupid bird decided to spring that shit on him without warning. And he was fucking tired, he couldn’t be expected to handle this kind of shit with grace after the day he’d had.

“No one?” Hawks deflated. And pouted. “Not even, like, a friend or something?”

Why did he insist on digging? Stupid, mean bird.

“Seriously? What did you expect? For me to have time for a fucking social life in between fighting for my life and taking care of not one, but three younger siblings? Who the fuck has time for that?” Touya bit out, hoping to discourage further questioning of his friendless status. It wasn’t exactly easy making friends when your asshole father kept pulling you away from society. In more ways than one.

But instead of being discouraged, Hawks actually perked up.

“Wait, siblings? Plural?”

Touya nodded. And tried not to show just how confused, and frankly unsettled he was by the shift in mood. Why was Hawks so keen on his siblings?

“Three of them?” Hawks leaned forward enthusiastically, and Touya leaned back accordingly. “How old are they? Or were they, I guess?”

“Yes, three. And they’re all younger than me,” Touya fought to keep up after the tone shifted. Hawks was suddenly being way too energetic when Touya had been saying shit that normal people would be upset by. At least a little.

“And you like them?” Hawks asked, putting enough weight into the words that it felt important.

“I – yeah?” Of course he did. They were his baby siblings. “But why do you care?”

“Well, since you’re not under arrest and are now technically a minor Eraserhead wanted you to have a guardian or something,” Hawks said blithely. “And it needs to be someone you trust so obviously we had to ask you who that would be. And you said your siblings.”

Hawks looked way too fucking proud of himself with that stupid smile.

“Wait, did you not hear me? They’re my younger siblings. They can’t be my fucking guardians or something,” Touya sputtered.

“Not anymore, they’re not,” Hawks smiled, looking like he was begging to be punched in the face. “If they were close to you in age before then they’re adult now. And you’re not. So they’re older.”

Touya hated time travel.

“You can’t just spring that shit on me, what the fuck,” he whined, rubbing his hands over his face. He was going to get a headache from this, that was for sure.

“Oh come on,” Hawks said playfully, fully reverting back to his perky persona, “You’ve had days to figure that out. If you didn’t, honestly, that’s on you.”

What a dick.

“Or maybe I was spending that time worrying about slightly bigger things like whether or not I was gonna turn back into a Villain because none of you geniuses thought to tell me that this shit is permanent!” Touya shouted, feeling righteously angry.

The anger was tempered minutely when he took in Hawks’ confusion.

“Wait, but didn’t Eraser tell you it’s permanent?” He asked incredulously.

And it really was funny how badly the Heroes had apparently screwed this up that they themselves were confused by their own ineptitude.

But his desire to laugh again, preferably hysterically enough to put the birdbrain back on edge, was overshadowed by his need to figure out who this guy was that Hawks kept talking about like Touya was supposed to know who the fuck he was.

No time like now for that.

“Who the fuck is Eraser?”

Hawks looked just about ready to fall off the bed at that, brows drawn tight over large, disbelieving eyes. There might even be a bit of worry there. Which was so unfair. There wasn’t anything weird in not knowing something he hadn’t been told, and if he needed to know it then it was on the Heroes for not fucking telling him.

“I – Eraserhead? The main Hero on this whole case?” Touya shrugged, aggravated, and Hawks continued, “You know, all black wardrobe, weird scarf, could use a shower and a nap?”

“Aizawa?” Touya recognized that description. Even if the name still meant nothing to him.

Hawks nodded hesitantly, though.

“He’s a Hero?” Touya asked. To clarify. Because while he had kind of figured already, no one had bothered to actually tell him.

Except for this guy who was a veritable cornucopia of information that he apparently just assumed Touya would be privy to.

He was also more than a little dramatic and had seemingly decided that the best reaction to Touya’s honest question was to actually fall off the bed. Dramatically.

Which succeeded in pulling a laugh from Touya as he leaned over to see where the Hero had sprawled himself across the floor, a slight, but no doubt carefully orchestrated, sheepish smile on his face as he looked back up at Touya and nodded.

“Wow, way to go with the information-sharing, Birdbrain,” Touya couldn’t help the sarcastic quip that escaped through his smile.

If this wasn’t all so tragically disorganized it would have been really funny.

Or maybe the tragedy actually made it funnier.

Hawks didn’t seem to think so, though, as his eyes widened and his smile dropped like he’d seen a ghost.

“What?” Touya didn’t get what was so shocking. It could only really be the nickname that did it, but he didn’t see how.

The guy literally had wings. Like a bird. And he’d done something dumb. So, birdbrain. It wasn’t even particularly clever. Nothing to act so shocked about.

“Nothing, it’s not –” Hawks got back to his feet quickly, smile back on his face, albeit a little wobbly, “it’s just… That’s what Dabi used to call me.”

And wasn’t that just great?

“So I am just him, huh?” Touya bit out as the information hit him like a punch to the gut, “well that’s just great. No running from this train wreck.” He flopped back onto his pillows, wishing he could do something to hold onto the fun he’d had a moment ago because now he felt so drained, and he didn’t want to cry again.

But he did.

What else was there to do?

“Don’t be so dramatic, it’s just a nickname!” Hawks yelled.

Touya didn’t bother responding to that.

“Oh, come on! Don’t be so – ugh!” Hawks had apparently had enough, too, as he let himself fall back onto the foot-end of the mattress like a mirror image of Touya.

This was just typical.

He’d finally found a bright spot in all of this awfulness only to then be ruthlessly reminded of who he’d become. Who he had the capacity to become. Because Dabi had still been him, on some level.

Because apparently, he still had the same taste in nicknames for stupid birdlike Heroes.

“Wait,” Touya sat back up, furrowing his brows and wiping at his face, again, as he focused on the part of this that didn’t make sense. “Why did Dabi have a nickname for you?”

It felt like a stupid question as he said it. Heroes and Villains were bound to clash on occasion, and it wouldn’t be that weird if there was some taunting thrown in there, too. Especially with a Hero like Hawks who seemed to thrive on it.

Even though the idea of fighting Heroes didn’t exactly fill him with joy.

As a Villain it probably did.

Hawks immediately drew himself up tightly and looked away, though, which indicated something more going on.

“We… talked.”

Talked? That implied more than exchanging insults on the battle ground. It wasn’t negatively charged at all, actually, which…

“You were friends with Dabi,” Touya realized, aghast, and Hawks hurried to sit up ans turn towards him, a half-guilty look firmly in place. “No, wait, how could you be friends with a Villain when you’re supposed to be the Number Two Hero? How the hell is that supposed to work? Wouldn’t it be your job to, like, arrest a Villain if you got close enough to talk?”

“We weren’t friends like that, though,” Hawks objected, “We were… look, I was trying to infiltrate the… the Villain group Dabi was with and he was my contact. Which is classified information so shush.”

If it was classified information then he shouldn’t be sharing it even if it made things make a little more sense, stupid birdbrain. Ugh, and now that nickname was ruined.

“Anyway,” Hawks said firmly, “We weren’t friends, we barely talked outside of necessity for a long time, and we never met without a, like, work-related cause, but sometimes I saw a glimpse of, of something, in him that made me wonder what kind of a person he was, or had been. It made me think we could have been… friends… if he hadn’t been a Villain that it was my job to, like arrest or something.” Hawks mirrored Touya’s words back at him in an obvious attempt at restarting the friendly banter that Touya didn’t think was going to be possible again for a while now.

And then things were back to not making sense because that was… really weird and it felt like he was missing something.

Like even with the classified information he was spewing, Hawks might still be concealing something.

And there was a nervousness to the way Hawks was holding himself, furrowing his eyebrows and scratching at his neck, pointedly not looking at Touya outside of when he was trying to make a point. And he could have sworn the pompous bird was blushing, too. Which felt off, and he needed to find out why.

“Is that why you’re so interested in me now?” Touya asked hesitantly, confused, “because I’m not a Villain yet, so you think we could be friends now?”

That made a little bit of sense in a backwards kind of way, he had to admit: It gave Hawks, the Number Two Hero, a personal reason to care about what happened to Touya instead of just that talk about helping him, which had never been any Hero’s first priority.

But it was a flimsy reason.

Hawks would have to be pretty damn starved for friendship to be willing to befriend a sixteen-year-old whose older self had kinda-sorta been interesting if it weren’t for the fact that he was a Villain.

And even as Hawks began talking again, a mile a minute as he did so – plenty of dramatic flailing thrown into the mix, too, for flavor – Touya wasn’t listening.

Because he didn’t need to.

Hawks had already answered him involuntarily with the way he reacted to what Touya had said. He had definitely flushed a deeper color at the word ‘interested’, and then he had twitched at the word ‘friends’, and then immediately started flailing as if to distract from his involuntary tell, which Touya could feel was important.

Hawks had been interested in Dabi, that much was clear. He was here now, after all, so that checked out and made perfect sense.

But there was something about the word ‘friends’ that didn’t. It almost felt like Hawks disagreed, like it wasn’t the word Hawks actually wanted to use…

Touya felt his own face heating up as he realized.

Hawks hadn’t been friends with Dabi. He had been in love with him.

He knew the moment it clicked that he was right.

The Number Two Hero had fallen in love with a Villain, and judging from what he said, he hadn’t been happy about it. But now, he had shown up in Touya’s room to convince Touya that he could choose to not be a Villain, to not be Dabi.

So that Hawks could have him without the guilt of being with a Villain?

“That’s disgusting!” Touya exclaimed, causing Hawks to stop his pathetic reaching for excuses and twist around abruptly, and apparently his epiphany was written in his face because Hawks blanched, paling considerably.

“You’re doing all of this, trying to convince me I can just choose to be a good person, just so you don’t have to feel bad about being in love with a Villain? What the hell is wrong with you?” Touya could feel tears press their way out again.

Obviously he had to have an ulterior motive for being here, trying to help and saying nice, uplifting things to Touya. It couldn’t be that he actually just meant it. There had to be another reason, and here it was.

“No!” Hawks cried out, and for once, Touya couldn’t see any falseness about him, “no, that’s not true!” He moved himself closer to Touya, turning so that they were facing each other directly, looking into his eyes with such earnestness.

This close, Touya could see that he wasn’t the only one in tears. Even if Hawks was clearly way better at holding them back.

“I mean, fuck, you’re right that I was… I wouldn’t say in love, I didn’t love him I don’t think, but I – maybe I could have,” Hawks began fumbling, “if he hadn’t been a Villain… So, that part is true, but that isn’t why I’m talking to you now. I mean, I’m not in love with you, not even close, I mean, you’re sixteen! And I’m twenty-two. That’s not okay!” There was an undeniable honesty in his voice, the act he usually carried had been dropped completely for once.

“But it was okay with a Villain?” Touya countered, trying to ignore the sting of being told he wasn’t loved, because that really wasn’t what he should be taking away from this conversation.

“No, it wasn’t okay with a Villain, but at least the Villain was old enough to consent!” Hawks cried out, and then he immediately seemed to realize exactly what he had just divulged, or maybe he was just seeing it in Touya’s rising blush that he was actively trying, and clearly failing, to distract from by sneering, “Oh God, I didn’t mean it like that –“

“Then how did you mean it?” Touya pressed despite how uncomfortable the topic made him, certain that Hawks had meant exactly that. He might not have meant to say it, but he had meant it: “If it isn’t that you apparently had sex with a Villain and are deluding yourself into thinking it was okay because of some consent bullshit, then what is it?”

Touya’s face was burning. Frankly, he felt like he was one wrong word away from total spontaneous combustion. He had pretty much accepted the idea of seeing Dabi as separate from himself, but that didn’t change the fact that they shared the same body, just with a few years’ interval between them.

And that meant it was his body Hawks had seen, and touched, and done God knows what to, and that made Touya so extremely uncomfortable for reasons he really wasn’t willing to explore right now.

He wished he could just ignore it, but he knew that wasn’t going to be possible. This was too close, too personal, and he didn’t like it.

Matter of fact, he hated it.

And he hated Hawks for telling him.

For doing shit with Dabi to begin with.

“I wasn’t trying to tell you about that!” Hawks squawked, “That isn’t… It’s not appropriate, okay, so let’s just –”

“I know it’s not appropriate!” Touya interrupted, irate, “but you still fucking did it, and I don’t care what else you have to say to try to excuse what you did, and I don’t want you here!”

The Number Two Hero could kindly take his disgusting, perverse desire to be close to Touya now and shove it where the sun don’t shine.

“If you’d just listen!” Hawks tried again, sounding a little desperate.

And Touya wasn’t going to hear it.

“No!” he moved to stand on his knees in the bed, trying to gain some leverage, “No, I won’t listen to you. I don’t care how you wanna justify yourself, just fucking leave!”

Touya wasn’t here to make him feel better about himself by being a convenient fucking charity case.

Hawks finally got the memo, too, and got up, wings drooping dramatically behind him. A disgusting bid for sympathy that Touya saw right through, so it wasn’t going to work.

“Okay,” he said softly, hands raised slightly in surrender, “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have come. And I shouldn’t have told you that. I’m sorry.”

And then he finally left, throwing a final glance over his shoulder at Touya, looking pathetically like a kicked puppy. As if he had any right to be upset now.

And then Touya was alone to digest his disgust.

And maybe in time realize that he had just alienated one of his strongest allies.

Chapter Text

There was something fundamentally wrong with only learning that your student has siblings, and multiple of them, after his older brother, who became a Villain likely in part due to the abuse he’d suffered in your student’s childhood home, where said student still lives, was de-aged and started talking about it.

It just seemed like the sort of situation that shouldn’t have come up.

Ever.

Both because high schoolers are usually chatty enough for their teachers to learn far more about them from simply existing in the same space as them than any grown adult would ever want to learn about random teenagers; and also because of the whole De-aged Villain Older Brother thing.

And, although Shouta didn’t know if this was a good thing or a bad thing, after Touya had admitted to the fact that he was, or at least had been, on good terms with his siblings, two of whom were now legal adults, finding them had actually not been at all difficult.

There had been some red tape, of course, but it had melted away before Tsukauchi’s professionalism.

Which was a good thing.

Because now, Shouta could focus his energy on actually talking to these mysterious siblings and hopefully find them willing to step up and be advocates for their wayward brother.

Not to mention the fact that if they were willing to step up, and speak up, that would be very beneficial to the strength of the case they needed to start building against Endeavor. Because while punching him in his stupid, ugly face wasn’t technically allowed, prosecuting him very much was.

So that was what Shouta would do.

One could only hope that all of his children would agree to helping with that.

Would agree to being helped.

Tsukauchi had kindly informed him that they had both been contacted and asked to meet at a safe house without being told exactly why. Because this was the sort of situation that was best explained in person.

They had apparently been apprehensive about the situation, but willing to show up when asked nicely by a police officer.

So that safe house was where Shouta was now.

Because he had volunteered to do this instead of Tsukauchi.

Because he’d be damned if he didn’t personally make sure that these kids were safe, both from harm and for Touya, before introducing them into this mess.

Or rather, before figuring out how to introduce them to this mess.

They couldn’t really avoid the mess, no matter how they reacted now because they were unequivocally a part of it. But lines would be drawn and sides would be chosen, and this conversation would be when Shouta found out what side the two (currently) adult children of Endeavor would choose in the upcoming controversy.

And this mess just kept getting messier with every passing moment and there didn’t seem to be any way of stopping it.

Especially as it now somehow also involved Hawks as a main problem rather than the solution that he was supposed to be.

Figures, honestly.

And Shouta was very much at a loss as to how to go about dealing with this new issue that Hawks so clearly represented, especially after Hawks’ conversation with Touya had gone… poorly. In some way.

He didn’t know how exactly because the Number Two Hero had been all too eager to leave after quickly spilling the information Shouta had needed and nothing more and then promptly going AWOL, not to be seen or heard from again. He’d seemed upset, then.

Which wasn’t a good sign coming from the chronically upbeat blond. Those tended to swing violently in the other direction if their equilibrium was disturbed.

Touya hadn’t been much better when he checked in on the kid, either, clearly upset but completely unwilling to share the reason why.

Which made fixing it a whole lot harder.

It was always harder to try to help people who didn’t want to be helped.

Shouta could only assume that the fault was his, though, for allowing that conversation to happen to begin with and not supervising it, and try to not make that sort of mistake again. And eventually try to sort out what exactly had happened between those two.

But that would be an issue for another time because even though he’d shown up early, he still wasn’t the first one in the room at the safe house that had been designated as the meeting place for the older Todoroki siblings.

That honor instead befell a young woman with red stripes in her white hair and glasses. Todoroki Fuyumi. Age twenty-two. Preschool teacher. Currently the best candidate for guardianship of Touya.

Unless she hated him.

Which was what Shouta needed to figure out.

She’d stood up quickly from the couch when he’d entered the room.

“You…” she started, uncertainly, “you’re Shouto’s teacher, aren’t you? Aizawa-sensei? Is Shouto okay? What’s wrong?”

Shouta held up a hand to stop her flow of questions and she immediately halted, chewing on her lip and looking at him nervously.

“Shouto is fine,” he said, pleased that she’d recognized him and shown worry for at least one of her brothers. That was a good sign. “I’m not here as his teacher. But we should wait for Natsuo before we start. Why don’t we sit down?” He eyed the soft-looking couch across from the one Fuyumi had been sitting on longingly. He really was feeling very tired today. And every day. But especially today.

“Natsuo is coming?” she sat back down at his request and he moved to do the same. “I didn’t know that. But if you’re talking to both of us then this has to have something to do with our family, right?”

Shouta considered his answer for a moment as he sank into the plush couch. And promptly sat up a little straighter so as to not fall asleep in the middle of this conversation.

“Yes,” he said. She furrowed her brows worriedly at that. “I will explain more when your brother shows up. But why didn’t you know your brother was coming, too?” that part was nagging him. It didn’t exactly speak of good communication between the two of them.

“Oh, uh…” she flushed, “Natsuo is… busy. At college, you know. He’s moved out and he doesn’t really have time to call, and –”

She was obviously hiding something regarding her brother. But then again, her other brother had become a Villain. A second angry child in that family wouldn’t be surprising. Just inconvenient. Hopefully he wasn’t actually a Villain, too. If he was he probably wouldn’t have agreed to this meeting. Hopefully.

“But you still live in your father’s home?” He interrupted. Because that was a far more important question right now. One that didn’t bode well for Fuyumi’s ability to care for Touya.

“I – yes?” She went back to chewing nervously on her lip, and Shouta sighed inwardly as his hopes were dashed. “I’m sorry, but I don’t see what that has to do with any –”

And she was interrupted again, this time as the door opened and a tall, white-haired boy walked in, stopping dead in his tracks as he saw Fuyumi. Who looked right back at him, her own eyes wide and worried.

Todoroki Natsuo. Age nineteen. Medical student. Apparently a better option for guardianship than his older sister who still lived with their abuser. Which was another issue that would probably need to be remedied. Shouta was so tired.

“Todoroki Natsuo?” Shouta interrupted their little staring match. This wasn’t the time for… well, no, this was the time for family reunions, actually. He just hadn’t realized that there would be more than one.

“Yeah, that’s me,” the youth said, moving forward towards their couches, eyes roving around the room suspiciously. “Why is Fuyumi here? Actually, you know what, why am I here? The cop on the phone didn’t wanna tell me.”

“Why don’t you sit down –” Shouta tried to begin, but was interrupted.

“He said it has something to do with our family, but it’s not Shouto,” Fuyumi said breathlessly as she moved back down onto the couch. Nervous but not afraid in the company of her brother.

Natsuo’s apprehensive expression quickly morphed into an angry scowl.

“If this is some fucking press thing, I swear to God!” He exclaimed, trying to stare Shouta down.

“No, no, no!” Fuyumi jumped up again, hands raised as she tried to placate, “Natsu, that’s Aizawa-sensei, Shouto’s teacher, he isn’t –”

“Sit. Down.” Aizawa interrupted sternly, activating his Quirk for added gravitas. “Yes, this has to do with your family. No, I wouldn’t waste my time running press for Endeavor. Do you want to insult my integrity as a Hero some more, or can we get started?”

Both the Todoroki siblings took a moment to stare at him before quickly scrambling to sit down next to each other on Fuyumi’s couch. So at least they weren’t opposed to being near one another despite their apparent estrangement.

“First of all,” Shouta began, maintaining a stern look from where he sat across from them. “I will need some basic information from you. Then, I will tell you what this is about.” He waited for them both to nod. Fuyumi did so quickly, nervously, Natsuo slowly and suspiciously. “How many siblings do you have?”

They both looked surprised for a moment before Fuyumi schooled her expression into something more neutral.

“I mean… there’s really only Shouto –”

“Oh my God, Yumi, you can’t just pretend Touya never existed!” Natsuo interrupted angrily.

“I’m not!” she defended herself, “but whatever this is about, Touya’s gone. And he has been for a long time.”

“That doesn’t mean you can just –”

Shouta activated his Quirk to quiet them. He wasn’t going to waste energy trying to be heard over Natsuo’s yelling.

“Tell me about Touya,” he said. Because that was what he was here for.

“It really has been a long time,” Fuyumi said, at the same time as Natsuo bluntly said, “He’s dead.”

Fuyumi fell silent at that and looked down in resignation.

Shouta focused his attention on Natsuo who shrugged angrily, “Freak accident.” It was clear he didn’t believe that himself.

“Fire related?” Shouta asked. That would certainly explain Dabi’s scars.

Natsuo’s eyebrows shot up, and Fuyumi tensed.

“We weren’t there,” she said tersely, “we don’t know what happened.”

Natsuo shot her a glare that clearly communicated that he begged to differ. But he didn’t speak up.

“Can you tell me when the… accident happened?” Shouta purposely hesitated to let Natsuo know that he was more than willing to listen to any theories the kid had.

But Natsuo hesitated in turn and looked to Fuyumi for the answer. Shouta got the feeling that as much as Natsuo yelled and interrupted his sister, he still trusted her not to lie about indisputable facts.

“We were… I was almost fifteen, Natsuo was eleven, and Shouto was still seven. It was November, I think. Or maybe it was still October. Touya was sixteen. Looking back… he was so young.” She had a far off look in her eyes as she remembered.

“We were all really young,” Natsuo said, looking down into his lap, “but he was always more grown up than I think he should have been.”

That didn’t necessarily fit Shouta’s view of the kid. But it was a good sign that his younger brother seemed to have idolized him in some capacity.

“What was your relationship with Touya like before that?” Shouta asked.

“He was our big brother,” Natsuo started, “I mean, he wasn’t really physically big, but his personality… he was really strong. Mentally. After Mom –”

“Natsu!” Fuyumi hissed.

So there was definitely something up with their mother as well. Oh, this family must be a mess. Which was expected, but also deeply exhausting. Would the troubling revelations never end?

“What? It’s the truth!” Natsuo hissed back, and then he turned back to Shouta. “There was a good year after Mom… went away – can we at least acknowledge that she wasn’t fucking there, Yumi?” He shot an angry glare at his sister even as he apparently respected her wish to not discuss their mother.

“Anyway, it was like a year where he practically raised the three of us. Like, Yumi is pretty good with household stuff, and we helped each other a lot with food and homework and clothes and that sort of stuff, but Touya… he protected us. Even before that year, he was always… always looking out for us, making us laugh, helping us with whatever he could…” the kid’s eyes were getting shiny. He definitely adored his older brother. A quick glance at Fuyumi showed that she was getting choked up, too, remembering.

But there was someone missing from the story.

“Where was your father in all of this?” Shouta asked.

“Busy.” Natsuo spat out angrily, glaring at Fuyumi, who glared back at him. As much as they both seemed to adore Touya, they clearly didn’t agree on their father’s place in the narrative.

“Was Endeavor abusive?” Shouta asked. Might as well get it over with.

“I wouldn’t say –” Fuyumi began before being cut off once again.

“Yes.”

“Natsu!”

“He asked!”

“I did,” Shouta interrupted before they could really get going. “And you didn’t say anything I didn’t already know.” Although the details of Endeavor’s abuse were still very much up in the air.

“You’re finally investigating this?” Natsuo looked so hopeful.

“Did Shouto tell you something?” Fuyumi was worrying her lip again, and while Natsuo had quickly recovered from his misty-eyed recollections, she still looked close to tears.

“We’ve uncovered some new information,” Shouta said, still hedging on telling them the full truth until he had a better feel on why Fuyumi viewed her father so differently from how her brothers did. “About Touya.” He saw them both react to that, jumping, wide-eyed. “I would like to know more about his relationship with Endeavor. And with you.”

The siblings seemed to wage a silent war between them, Fuyumi frowning as Natsuo scowled.

It seemed like Natsuo won as he turned to Shouta and started speaking, losing the scowl while Fuyumi kept frowning.

“I meant it when I said he was busy,” Natsuo began, and Fuyumi’s frown let up a little. Like that wasn’t how she’d expected him to start. “He honestly wasn’t home much, and when he was, Shouto was his first priority.” Shouta mentally noted that. He would need to have a long conversation with his student. Soon. “But before Shouto, it was Touya.”

“What do you mean when you say they were his first priority?” Shouta had seen too much to not worry about parents getting too close to one of their children.

“Training.” Fuyumi cut in, having apparently read something she disliked in Shouta’s face. “He was training them to be Heroes like him. But he had to stop training Touya so much because his Quirk was hurting him.” She frowned defensively. “Touya hated not being able to train.”

“That’s bullshit and you know it!” Natsuo raged at his sister, temper flaring in an instant. “Touya fucking hated training! He fucking hated Endeavor! Period.”

“He begged to train, Natsu!” Fuyumi argued, raising her voice at the accusation even as she took on a pleading tone. “I know you saw that, too, please don’t pretend you didn’t!”

“Of course I fucking did!” Natsuo kept yelling, and Shouta was too busy trying to keep up to bother quieting him down. “He was protecting Shouto! That’s what he always did! The only reason you can sit here and pretend like it wasn’t that bad is because Touya protected you!” Natsuo turned to Shouta then, lowering his voice but not his intensity. “He never… Endeavor never hit me. Or Yumi. Because Touya – he just knew when Father was in a bad mood and he’d herd us to our rooms or something to keep us out of it, and then he’d go and make sure Shouto and Mom were okay, too.” Natsuo frowned as he fought back tears. “And all I could ever do was listen to him afterwards.”

Fuyumi looked somewhere between defensive and indecisive as she listened to her brother.

“We never saw any of it, though,” she tried, “we don’t know -”

“Oh, come on,” Natsuo broke in, exasperated, “do you even hear yourself? So what if we didn’t see the hits land, we still fucking well saw the bruises! And the fucking burns! On Mom and Shouto and Touya! Or do you have a better explanation for all of those?”

“It was training!” Fuyumi looked desperate as she glanced over at Shouta, “of course they were gonna get a little –”

“A little what? A little black eye and a little nosebleed and a little busted lip on a day where Touya wasn’t even fucking training?” Natsuo’s tone had quickly shifted into cruel mockery of his sister, and if Shouta wasn’t so keen on hearing the continuation of this he probably would have stopped this.

“We don’t know -” Fuyumi tried again.

“Why else did Father keep him home from school?” Natsuo denied her the chance, “if he didn’t think he was doing anything wrong, why wouldn’t he just send Touya to school?”

Fuyumi bit her lip, eyes watering. She didn’t seem to have an answer.

Natsuo leaned into her space, looking ready to drag an answer out of her. But Shouta had heard enough.

“So Touya didn’t go to school?” he asked by way of distraction. And because the answer was important to him.

Natsuo straightened up and looked over at him.

“He started homeschooling in high school,” he said, “Father claimed he was unstable because of –” Natsuo reached down to his wrist, tugging at his sleeve edge while glancing at his sister. Implying that he knew about Touya’s self-harm while Fuyumi did not. And deciding to not mention it. “But if he really cared about Touya’s mental health, he wouldn’t have done that! Touya couldn’t handle being isolated like that! It just made everything worse until… until he died.” Natsuo quieted down as he finished that sentence, but then he glared at his sister and raised his voice again. “And I don’t care if Endeavor isn’t the one who physically killed Touya! It’s still his fucking fault because it wouldn’t have happened if it wasn’t for him!”

“He’s trying!” Fuyumi cried in response, “he’s really trying to be better, Natsu!” And if that wasn’t an admission that things had been bad before. That Endeavor hadn’t always tried.

Natsuo squared his shoulders out even more as he opened his mouth to respond. Likely yelling.

Shouta didn’t let him.

“Do you think that exonerates him of his crimes?” he asked quietly, knowing that the question would capture their attention regardless of volume. And it did.

“I – it’s,” Fuyumi fumbled, “I don’t – look,” she implored, “Touya’s dead, okay? He’s dead and we only have each other left and I just want – I just want us to be a family. I just want a family. Is that really too much to ask?” She lifted her glasses to wipe at her eyes. Natsuo looked on, uncertain at the sight of tears. His anger all but forgotten as quickly as it had surfaced in the first place.

“It shouldn’t be,” Shouta said softly, finally understanding where Fuyumi’s reactions were coming from. Because even if he still believed that she was acting unreasonably, he did understand. She was just a lost, neglected child, trying to reach out to her father, begging him to not reject her this time. “But you don’t get to sweep decades of abuse under the rug for the sake of family.” It was tough, but it was true.

Fuyumi only curled in on herself, wiping at her eyes, looking angry at herself for crying in the first place. But she was at least not arguing with him.

And now, Shouta had a choice to make.

It was obvious at this point, regardless of how much Natsuo adored his brother, and how deeply Fuyumi cared about her family even if she was misguided, that neither of them was stable enough to be a reliable guardian for Touya.

But did that mean that he should just pack up and leave, not bothering to tell them about Touya’s fate?

No. It didn’t.

Even if they couldn’t function as his guardians, they were still his family, which meant something in the eyes of the law. Which could both be a good thing and a bad thing depending on the family in question. But in this case, they could function as an extra set of eyes on the case, watching over the proceedings and speaking up if they felt that Touya’s needs weren’t being met, which was valuable to have.

If he brought them into the case as witnesses and even victims, that would strengthen the case against Endeavor, too. More victims coming forward strengthened the legitimacy of all of their claims. And throwing Endeavor in jail would feel really nice.

And they could maybe serve as a positive element in Touya’s life, too. To keep him from being isolated again. God only knew how much Touya needed that right now.

There were a lot of good that could come from bringing the two older Todoroki siblings in.

But here was the thing.

He didn’t doubt that Natsuo would be willing to at least hear him out, and there was little to no risk of him running to his father even if he didn’t agree to be a part of this. Fuyumi on the other hand was difficult to place. She clearly loved her brother, too, but she was also harboring a good deal of loyalty towards Endeavor, which made Shouta wary of trusting her with sensitive information.

But on the other – third? – hand, if he worded this correctly, there was a good chance that he might be able to use her familial loyalty against Endeavor and thus heighten the chance of her not choosing his side when it came down to that.

He could try at least.

“Before I tell you anything, I need you to understand that this is highly classified information that you cannot pass on, even to other family members. Even to Endeavor,” Shouta emphasized, looking at Fuyumi to gauge her response.

“But he’s the Number One Hero?” Fuyumi protested meekly, “shouldn’t he be able to access highly classified information, too?”

Yes, he was perfectly able to access this information once they reported it to the Hero Commission. But as long as no one knew where to look, there was a chance that they could delay this getting out into the wider Hero community, hopefully postponing that particular clusterfuck for just a little bit longer in order to use that extra time to bolster their case. But he couldn’t explain that here.

“Not when he’s the suspect of a crime,” he said instead.

“So you are investigating him!” Natsuo immediately looked delighted. Which said a lot about his stance in this.

Fuyumi was also visibly wavering. Hopefully he’d be able to give her the final push she needed to at least hear him out.

“And I need you to keep quiet about this to protect your brother.” He said quietly.

That did the job in shaking up Fuyumi. “But he’d never actually hurt Shouto! He wouldn’t! Even if he wasn’t always the best, he still didn’t –”

“How can you say that after –”

“This isn’t about Shouto,” Shouta interrupted maintaining his quiet tone. It was still enough to shock them both into silence, complete with wide eyes and open mouths as they connected the dots.

Natsuo recovered first.

“Touya?” he choked out.

“Yes,” Shouta answered, giving them both a moment before continuing, “Your older brother is alive and in my custody.”

Fuyumi burst into tears. The first sob was loud, but she quickly brought her hands up to her face to muffle the sound.

Natsuo wasn’t far behind her, but he was visibly straining to hold it in.

“But how?” he whispered, an audible lump in his throat, “I heard – how is he okay? Is he really okay?”

“He’s alive,” Shouta answered, “and well enough to spend his days aggravating every Hero he comes into contact with.” Hawks apparently included.

Natsuo let out a wet laugh at that as his tears started flowing.

“That does sound like him,” Fuyumi piped up, possibly trying to cover up her sniffling.

“Can we see him?” Natsuo leaned forward, “I know you said it’s classified, but we already know, so can we please? I just need to see him again. I need to – I don’t think I’ll really believe this before I see him, okay?”

And this was the point where Shouta had to tell them the rest of the truth, as much as he wished he could just pretend it wasn’t real.

They both saw the apprehension on his face, worry progressively lining their faces more and more during his short, but still tellingly long, silence.

“There is something more to the story, isn’t there?” Natsuo asked quietly.

“Touya was… he was hit with a Quirk three days ago,” Shouta started, wanting to ease them into this. Giving them the highest possible chance of accepting it.

“But you said he’s okay? What kind of Quirk?” Fuyumi asked. Natsuo nodded, leaning even more forward to listen to Shouta’s answer.

“A de-aging Quirk. He’s been reverted to the age of sixteen, likely shortly before his… whatever happened to him,” Shouta said.

“He’s sixteen,” Natsuo exhaled, “Still. Or again. Like nothing ever happened. He’s just back, and nothing happened to him?”

A lot had happened to him, actually. But he didn’t remember any of it. So in essence, Natsuo was right. Touya was going to be exactly the same as his siblings remembered him.

“But where was he before that?” Fuyumi asked, “Do you know?”

“Yes,” Shouta sighed, and wished he didn’t know. Wished he didn’t have to be the one to break these news for the second time in as many days. “We have identified the alias he lived under for at least half a year before this incident. But between that and the incident when he was sixteen, we don’t know. And neither does he. He doesn’t remember anything that happened past the age of sixteen.”

“But where was he?” Natsuo demanded, “You say you know something, so spit it out.”

“Natsu!” Fuyumi hissed, “That’s rude.”

“He knows something he’s not telling us!” Natsuo countered, his ever-present anger flaring up again. And Shouta couldn’t fault him for it. Because he was right.

“I do,” Shouta agreed, “And I am going to tell you. But it’s not… good, so I’m trying to give you all the surrounding facts first.” Because he needed to do his everything in his power to ensure that they wouldn’t take this as poorly as he feared.

“Well, are you gonna be done with that anytime soon, cause I’m getting tired of this,” Natsuo sneered, making Fuyumi glare at him again, silently mouthing his name in admonishment.

“We have video evidence that before he was de-aged, Touya was the Villain Dabi,” Shouta said, leaning back in anticipation of their reactions.

“I fucking knew it!” Natsuo screamed as he jumped up.

And that wasn’t the reaction Shouta had been expecting.

“Natsu!” Fuyumi looked just as surprised as Shouta felt. Which was nice. It would have been a bit awkward if this was just a well kept Todoroki family secret.

“No! I knew it! I knew there was something familiar about Dabi and I don’t fucking blame him!” Natsuo continued, and now Shouta wondered if he should be worried about the blatant endorsement of a Villain. Even if said Villain was his brother.

Natsuo must have read some of that feeling in his face because he went on to explain, still loudly, though.

“I’m not saying I agree with the whole Villain thing, but I get it, okay? And I can’t be mad at him for giving Endeavor a scar to match Shouto’s, either. Bastard deserved it.” The kid definitely didn’t harbor any love for his father. And Shouta couldn’t say that he disagreed about wanting to see Endeavor scarred. Although the connection to Shouto’s scar was another thing he’d need to bring up again some other time because that spoke of a terrible history.

And Fuyumi was keeping quiet now, too.

“Wait,” Natsuo said after a moment of silence. “You said he doesn’t remember any of this? He doesn’t remember becoming… Are you still gonna prosecute him?” Fuyumi furrowed her brows at that. “What are you gonna do? And what do you want us to do?”

Shouta wasn’t about to look a gift horse in the mouth by asking how they could be so okay with their own brother turning to villainy, so he focused on moving forward instead. That seemed to be what the siblings were interested in, too.

“I wouldn’t prosecute him, but this isn’t fully up to me,” Shouta said gravely, “and the reason I reached out to you two is exactly that. He’s sixteen and vulnerable. As a Hero it isn’t appropriate for me to place myself so firmly on his side, but he needs advocates. People who are willing to step up for his sake. And you are both legal adults. The only legal adults he’s expressed any level of trust in.”

“He talked about us?” Fuyumi asked, getting misty-eyed again while Natsuo furrowed his brows in a moment of deep thought.

“Yes,” Shouta answered, “not directly to me, but to my colleague.” He wasn’t going to let them know about Hawks’ involvement just yet. The winged Hero had been acting strangely enough that it made him hesitate.

“And he said he trusted us?” Natsuo asked, joining his sister in shiny-eyed emotion as that reality caught up with him.

“He did,” Shouta confirmed. And silently thanked the powers that be for the clear adoration these two had for their brother. Regardless of what he had become.

“Where is he? I really need to see him, I need to talk to him, I need – I need to help him now. Please, can I? Can we?” Natsuo begged, walking towards him, hands opened in a silent plea. Fuyumi was nodding fervently, too, tears still flowing freely, all thoughts of Endeavor apparently forgotten.

“It might be a better idea to wait a little while,” Shouta tried to reign them in, “Let yourselves calm down and feel –”

“Fuck that!” Natsuo yelled, making Fuyumi hiss his name at him again. “I’ve already spent eight years missing my brother. I’m not gonna waste another second before I see him again!”

He was making quite an impressive figure in his anger. Tall, broad, and looming, fists and jaw clenched stubbornly as he stared Shouta down.

“I’m not gonna back down,” the kid said, “I’m not going home before I see him.”

And Shouta believed him.

Ultimately, this was what he’d wanted, too. For someone to truly stand up to the Heroes for no other reason than because they loved Touya and wanted what was best for him. So he really couldn’t fault them for doing exactly that now.

“Alright,” he sighed, making both Natsuo and Fuyumi jump with almost childish excitement. “I’ll take you to see him. But remember that this is all very overwhelming for Touya, so you can’t expect too much from him.” And exactly how much was too much would remain a mystery for the time being, too.

He stood up to lead them out to the waiting car. No reason to try to stall now. At least not any he could see.

He would need to call Tsukauchi to give Touya a bit of warning, of course, but he could do that on the way back. Not right now, though, as emotions were still running high. Loudly so.

“I don’t care if he can’t be strong right now, I just need to see him! It’s my turn to help him!” Natsuo continued yelling. Shouta shushed him briefly before he opened the door out to the main area of the safe house.

And Shouta would need to brief them on what to expect on the way back, too… No. Actually, he really didn’t. They knew him when he was sixteen. They would know. Likely better than Shouta did.

Natsuo thankfully took the silencing to heart as they continued out to Tsukauchi’s car, which Shouta had been graciously allowed to borrow. The detective might have thought twice about that if he’d known Shouta’s driving record, but there had been absolutely no reason for Shouta to enlighten him, so…

“There’s no chauffeur,” Fuyumi remarked, which, for the first time, reminded Shouta of the deep financial divide between himself and the family of the Number One Hero. It was odd to think about Touya coming from that kind of wealth because he certainly didn’t act like it. And neither had Dabi, really.

“I’m driving,” Shouta said. Because he could do that. Technically.

The siblings simply accepted it, too, and got in while Shouta pulled out his phone and placed himself in the driver’s seat. There was no reason to distance himself before making this phone call. The siblings already knew everything he was going to say.

“I need to call the detective on the case before we go,” he explained briefly as he dialed the number. He heard only silent acceptance as the phone began to ring.

And kept ringing.

And went to the answer machine.

Damn it, Tsukauchi.

“He isn’t answering, so I’ll have to try again when we get there.” Silent acceptance again as he started the car. It seemed that they were content to not rock the boat now that they’d gotten what they wanted. Which Shouta could appreciate.

Once he got on the road, they were a lot less silent, though, but he didn’t have the luxury of listening to them beyond occasional exclamations of “watch out!” and “slow down!” as he maneuvered the car through busy city traffic.

And in the end, they got to the hospital in one piece and without any new dings on the car, so he thought he’d done rather well all things considered. But the pale faces he saw when he looked in the rearview mirror might beg to differ. But that was their problem.

He tried calling Tsukauchi again, but again he didn’t pick up, and then Natsuo noticed where they were and practically jumped out of the car.

“Why are we at the hospital? Why is he in a hospital? I thought you said he was fine?” he asked briskly as he started walking and Shouta had to rush to catch up, Fuyumi hot on his heels.

“Well, it started out as keeping him under observation after unauthorized Quirk usage, but at this point we just don’t have any better place to put him,” Shouta answered honestly, the majority of his brain working hard at trying to find out a way to delay the charging bull that was Todoroki Natsuo long enough to get a heads up to Touya.

Fuyumi shot him a disappointed look that he didn’t have time to decipher as she jogged to keep up with her brother who was still taking the lead despite not knowing where to go beyond into the hospital.

Shouta tried calling Tsukauchi one more time as they walked through the hallways, vaguely aware that Natsuo was now keeping pace with him, and he barely had time to sigh in frustration before they got to Touya’s room and he turned around to tell them to stay put for a moment, but Natsuo beat him to it.

“Is this it?” he said as he opened the door, and in hindsight, Shouta really shouldn’t have lead them all the way to the door and then expect them to not just barge right in.

He was just so tired.

Chapter Text

Touya looked up when the door opened, expecting to see Aizawa or Tsukauchi or maybe even one of the nurses, and frankly being perfectly willing to accept the company of any one of them at this point because he was spiraling. Hard. And he knew himself well enough to know that he couldn’t get himself out of it.

At first he’d been too caught up in the Hawks business, completely unable to get the idea out of his head that he’d apparently been… some Hero’s booty call? Or some Hero had been his booty call? Hawks had been adamant that it hadn’t been love. As if that made this shit any better.

So someone had been someone’s something.

But he didn’t know what thing or who’d been it.

Besides, it wasn’t like it really mattered which way it went, because it was disgusting regardless, and he didn’t want to think about it, so he’d tried burying himself in one of the books or shows to forget about it.

But that hadn’t worked because every single show and book had romance in it. A will-they-won’t-they, or a love triangle, or – God forbid – at fucking enemies to lovers storyline, and every single time, he was pulled back into thinking about Hawks and hating him and hating romance as a whole.

So he’d given up on the stories and tried to think around the Hawks thing. To think of literally anything else.

Only to then immediately be slapped in the face with something far, far worse.

And realize that he had realized it too late to stop it.

And then not be able to stop thinking about this new, worse revelation.

Because of course that was how this was going to go.

Because the fact was that Hawks had been asking about his siblings because he wanted to bring them into this. Into Touya’s life again.

Which would have been nice if it wasn’t for the fact that he really, really didn’t want to know how they’d reacted to him abandoning them and becoming a Villain.

He didn’t want to see how much his siblings were sure to hate him now for what he’d done to them.

He didn’t even want to think about it.

But he couldn’t stop himself because he was spiraling and all alone and he had absolutely no good distractions.

So, the door opening sounded like a reprieve.

Like maybe he could have a moment to focus on someone else. And maybe, if it was Aizawa, he could ask the man to please not drag his sibling into this.

Problem was, it wasn’t Aizawa or Tsukauchi or even a nurse.

No, instead it was a tall, burly, white-haired man who marched in, looked straight at him, and then his face twisted with so many emotions, and Touya didn’t have time to decipher even one of them because this wasn’t at all what he had expected, and he wasn’t prepared for this, and now the man was stalking towards him, fast.

He didn’t even have time to say anything before he was pulled into a large chest and held tight.

Then he reacted.

“Ow-ow-ow!” he yelled, not because it hurt but because he couldn’t think of anything else he could do to make the man let go.

And it worked so ha. And the fact that the man had let go at all made Touya feel a little less like he was about to get murdered in the middle of a hospital. Wearing a very much lived-in hospital gown. Which wasn’t how he wanted to go out.

“Sorry, sorry,” the stranger mumbled as he backed up, moving his hands to scrub at his own face. “Are you okay? I didn’t mean to, like, hurt you or anything, I just couldn’t believe… but it’s really you.” And the man smiled widely, eyes closed in perfect contentment even as they were brimming over with tears.

What was happening?

This strange man was acting like he was supposed to know him, and hugging him, and Touya had no idea why.

At least, not until he looked behind the man and saw a woman with glasses and very familiar red stripes in her very familiar white hair. And he recognized her, of course he did, because her age might be wrong but everything else was just right as she fidgeted nervously by the door.

It wasn’t too much of a leap to realize what was happening after he’d already spent all morning obsessing over the possibility of it. But that didn’t make it any less overwhelming.

Especially because if that was Fuyumi, then the stranger was…

“Natsu,” he breathed, and knew that he was right when the large man smiled impossibly brighter through the tears streaming down his face. How did Natsuo get so big? It didn’t feel like it should be possible for him to be that big all of a sudden.

And why was he crying now?

Why had he hugged him and then cried?

He seemed weirdly happy to see Touya. Happy enough to run up and hug him, but that didn’t make sense when Touya had abandoned him.

Of course he knew how much Natsuo had cared about him before. The before that felt like it should only be a couple of days ago when Natsuo was eleven and was missing three of his canines and couldn’t chew properly and was maybe, possibly, a little taller than Touya, but hadn’t noticed it yet.

Touya couldn’t reconcile that Natsuo with this one who was way taller than him and would definitely notice and had all of his teeth and wouldn’t need Touya to cut up his food beforehand (because if Touya didn’t do it, then Natsuo wouldn’t even bother and that was just too fucking nasty to look at while trying to eat) and who had had to grow up from the Natsuo Touya remembered to this one without Touya there.

Because Touya had abandoned him.

Touya could understand him crying about that. Crying and yelling and blaming him. But then he wouldn’t be here hugging him and smiling, would he?

Would he?

“I’m sorry,” his way too large little brother said again, wetly, “I didn’t actually hurt you, right? You were just surprised, right? Cause I can see why you’d be surprised and all, I just didn’t think about, like, how much I must’ve changed from your perspective, at all, because you – I mean, I kinda remember you being maybe just a little taller but other than that you look exactly the same, and I just –”

“Fuck outta here!” Touya yelled, because he couldn’t think of any other way to stop Natsuo from crying. And also being a little shit like always. And yelling used to work before. That had been eleven-year-old brat Natsuo, though, so he didn’t actually know now. But it was worth a try. “I’m just as tall as I’ve always been, you’re just a fucking sasquatch now.”

And it worked a little bit, at least. Natsuo barked out a laugh and went to hug him again, and this time Touya accepted it without any exclamations of mock pain, because a brother who was hugging him was a brother who didn’t hate his guts. And that felt very nice. If also very confusing.

But the tears were still flowing, and as he looked back towards Fuyumi, she was crying, too. And Aizawa was there, too, he could see. Behind Fuyumi, leaning against the door. But he wasn’t important right now. Touya could always yell at him later for pulling this shit without any warning.

“Would you two quit it with your fucking crying already!” he tried to quell his siblings’ tears again. And no, yelling probably wasn’t the correct pedagogical approach here, but his baby brother was towering over him, and his baby sister looked way too grown up, and for some reason they didn’t hate him, and he hadn’t been ready for this at all, so yelling really was the best he had.

The best he had also included using the distraction of their crying and his yelling to quickly shove his hands under the covers to conceal his wrists, though.

Because he’d always done that before, too. Hiding this weakness of his from the ones who needed him to be stronger than he was. Because it wasn’t their problem that he wasn’t good enough.

“Wow, a little hypocritical there, don’t you think,” Natsuo laughed again, pulling away to look critically at the redness under Touya’s eyes which hadn’t exactly subsided since he woke up in the hospital. There had been a lot for him to cry about and very few reasons to try to hold back, so sue him if he indulged.

But of course Natsuo would zero in on that after all of the times Touya had used the relative shelter of Natsuo’s room to hide and vent.

After all, that was a place Father never bothered to go.

And that in turn meant that it was up to Touya to ensure that Natsuo knew how dangerous Father was to get too close to, since he didn’t see it himself. Which meant that it was maybe okay to share, and talk about how much it hurt. Because maybe it wasn’t just whining. Maybe it was a warning, too.

But it meant that Natsuo now had far too good of a grasp on why Touya’s eyes were always so red.

“Fuck off,” Touya answered calmly, “I never claimed to be reasonable. I’m your big brother, I don’t have to be.”

Natsuo pulled a shit-eating grimace, and Touya mentally prepared himself for whatever the little shit was going to throw at him next.

“Are you really sure you can call yourself my big brother when you are neither bigger nor older than me?”

Touya had not prepared himself sufficiently for this.

“That’s not my fault!” he screeched, and studiously ignored the way his voice broke, and if his siblings knew what was good for them, they would ignore it, too. “And dumbass de-aging Quirk or not, I’m still your fucking big brother, so deal with it!”

Natsuo just hummed like the asshole he was. “I don’t know. I feel like the de-aging kinda nulls the birth order. Especially given how small and cute you are now.”

“I will hurt you,” Touya deadpanned with a hard glare.

And immediately flinched when he remembered that Aizawa was still in the room. Because he really didn’t want to risk the man thinking that he would actually do that, and given his… past? Future? Given the circumstances, it wasn’t necessarily a given that he was joking. He shot a quirk glance the Hero’s way, seeing him seated in one of the chairs, not actively jumping up or in any way reacting to Touya’s words.

Natsuo just laughed again, too, and how could he do that when he knew what Touya had become?

Fuyumi smiled nervously as she came a little closer, too, dabbing uselessly at her own eyes, politely ignoring their little interlude, possibly not even fully understanding what they were talking about. She’d never truly believed that Father was as bad as Touya said, so Touya had stayed clear of her when he’d needed a break. Not being believed was something he had enough of without having to take it from his sister, too.

Did she know what Touya had become?

Did either of them?

They didn’t act like it.

“I’d like to see you try, Shrimp.” Natsuo challenged.

He wasn’t acting like he knew anything was up at all.

So maybe he didn’t know.

Maybe they didn’t know.

But then what?

That smile Natsuo was sporting was just begging to be punched, though, that little shit. He hadn’t even bothered to let go of Touya, either. And that felt safe. Like maybe they were okay right now. And he couldn’t bring himself to ruin that.

“Don’t call me that,” Touya grimaced in disgust that he very much didn’t have to fake as he played along, feeling his stomach roiling at the very thought of those disgusting alien-looking not-fish. “Ugh, don’t even say that word around me.”

This succeeded in getting Fuyumi to chuckle, too. Which was good. She’d been way too quiet so far, and Touya didn’t like it. If he could get her to laugh some more, and maybe come a little closer, too, maybe he could believe that she didn’t hate him either.

That somehow neither of them knew and he could get to pretend like everything was going to be okay for a moment before someone told them and they started hating him like they should.

“But then what do I call you?” Natsuo continued on his quest to make up for years of pent up big brother tormenting (because Touya was still the oldest, de-aging and villainy be damned, thank you very much). “You need a short person nickname, okay? I’m pretty sure that’s the rule.”

Natsuo shot Fuyumi a glance, asking her to join in. And she finally stepped closer.

“I think it is,” she agreed quietly. And Touya was too pleased with her coming forward to be willing to risk glaring at her now. She’d always been really sensitive to that.

So he rolled over instead. Just this once. To keep the peace while he could.

“… fine, you can choose one nickname, but it can’t be Shrimp. Or anything else that I hate, got it?” he growled, glaring up at Natsuo who could take it.

“Sure thing!” his brother smiled blithely, putting on a mock thinking face. But it disappeared before Touya could tell him not to strain himself. “I think Ducky would fit you very well.”

“Of course it’d be a fucking bird reference,” Touya muttered darkly.

“What?” Natsuo leaned in to hear him better.

“Nothing,” Touya said, because he wasn’t about to tell his baby brother about any of that. “It’s nothing. And I guess Ducky is minutely better than Shrimp… If you must torment me like this.” He put on his best long-suffering expression, staring into the middle-distance past Natsuo’s shoulder.

“We really do,” Natsuo agreed, ignoring his agony completely, “thank you for understanding.”

Fuyumi snorted at that and seated herself at the foot end of the bed.

“Are you okay, though?” she asked quietly now that the first awkward insecurity was over and they’d somewhat found each other again. It really was just like her to ruin it with emotional talk. “I know you don’t like talking about feelings and all of that,” she acknowledged, “but this must all be really overwhelming. I mean, from your perspective you’ve basically been uprooted and thrown into the future without any warning, right?” She looked at him with true concern in her eyes.

And Touya, in turn, put on a small smile to appease her without alluding to the big bad thing he didn’t want to talk about until he absolutely had to because this time with the two of them felt so nice and right and almost-normal and he didn’t want it to end. Even if her concerned look made something deep inside of him ache to just tell them and pray that they wouldn’t leave him for good. Even if he deserved it.

“Yeah, it’s… it’s a lot,” he shrugged. And he probably should follow that up with some assurance that he’d be fine, but he really didn’t think he would, and being caught in a lie here would definitely make them start digging. Which would be game over for him.

“That’s an understatement,” Natsuo grinned and shoved him over on the bed to make room to sit down on the edge of it, making it tilt slightly to the side under his weight. Crappy hospital bed. “It’s been a lot for eight whole fucking years for us, and now you’re dealing with all of that shit, like eight years of shit in a few days, right? I don’t think I’d be holding it together half as well as you are if someone had tried to dump all of that shit in my lap at once.”

“That’s not –“ Touya grimaced. He really hadn’t been holding it together as well as they seemed to think. For God’s sake, just yesterday he’d been ready to throw in the towel completely over a miscommunication. And in the years that had been shit for them, he’d been a fucking Villain, which should definitely count against his ability to ‘hold it together’ quite considerably.

This praise didn’t feel earned at all, but he couldn’t tell them why, and that meant he was stuck.

“Not what?” Fuyumi asked, leaning closer to him across the bed.

And he couldn’t handle that.

He couldn’t handle them being so nice and caring when he deserved for them to hate him, and he didn’t deserve their praise either but he couldn’t refuse it without losing them completely and now his eyes stung and his lungs hurt and Natsuo was wrapping his arms back around him and Fuyumi was leaning even closer to put her hand on his knee through the comforter.

To comfort him as if he deserved it.

“I’m not dealing well,” he whispered, ducking his head and curling in on himself as the tears began to brim over.

“No, of course not,” Fuyumi sighed after a brief pause and then he felt the mattress moving as she scooted even further up to rub his shoulder, too. “Natsu just said it wrong, it’s way too much for anyone, and that goes for you, too. He was trying to compliment you but he knows – we know that this is a lot more to deal with than it’s reasonable to expect you to be okay with.”

“It is,” Natsuo agreed as he squeezed Touya even tighter which made it kind of hard to breathe, but there was no way he was going to object to it when it might be the last hug he ever got from his brother. “I’m sorry I made it sound like you were okay when you’re not. I mean, we’ve both been crying basically all morning, so it isn’t fair to expect you not to, right?”

“Definitely,” Fuyumi agreed, “and even if we don’t know everything that happened, we know that whatever happened for you in the last eight years can’t be easy for you to deal with, either.”

“That’s not – that’s not an excuse,” Touya protested around half-choked sobs, because he needed for them to know that he didn’t deserve this from them, he needed to not take advantage of their ignorance just because it benefited him, “I – don’t care – what hap- happened – before… It’s not – it doesn’t – excuse – I became – a Vil- Villain.”

He allowed himself to crumble down just a little more as he gave up on stifling his crying, wishing that he could bring up the comforter, too, but Fuyumi was sitting on it, and he very purposely did not lean any closer into either of them. To give them the space to move away now that the cat was out of the bag.

They didn’t do that, though.

Instead, Natsuo climbed fully onto the bed and practically pulled Touya onto his lap in the process, and Fuyumi put both of her hands on his lower arms, too close to his wrists to not be uncomfortable, but he was far too preoccupied with them not leaving to worry about that right now.

“No. You’re right.” Fuyumi whispered, bowing her head in an attempt at peeking at Touya’s face. An attempt that was mostly foiled by his bangs. Bless them. He was not in a place where eye contact sounded even remotely like an okay thing. “It’s not an excuse. But you’re still our brother regardless. And now, it doesn’t even matter what you became before, because you’re not that now. You’re our Touya like we remember you, and you aren’t a Villain.”

“But I became one!” Touya jerked his head up at the unexpected acceptance, “I can become that – I… it happened once and that…” that meant he could become it again. That he had the capacity for that level of evil.

“Yeah, but, I mean, it wasn’t like Dabi was all bad, either,” Natsuo interjected. And Touya jerked back to stare at him. Because if Natsuo actually knew about Dabi then that meant he’d known all along. And had decided that he didn’t care before he came in here and hugged him in the first place.

“Natsu!” Fuyumi hissed, voicing her displeasure as clearly as she ever did.

“I’m just saying,” Natsu continued, unperturbed, “that dear old Dad having to walk around with that scar on his face makes me happy.” Natsuo smiled conspiratorially. “And knowing that it was one of his own children who put that scar there honestly just feels like karma.”

Touya felt a little like he was shutting down as he processed that.

“I?” he began uncertainly as the tears started drying out. “I put a scar on Endeavor’s face?”

That didn’t sound real.

There was a reason he was a reject despite how strong his Quirk was. He’d never been able to put as much as a scratch on Father before, no matter how hard he’d tried. And to go from that to actually permanently scarring the man didn’t seem possible. Even as it seemed terrifyingly tempting, too.

“No, you didn’t,” Fuyumi dashed his dreams, shooting Natsuo a disapproving glare, “it was one of that Shigaraki’s Noumu things, Natsuo, you can’t blame Touya for that.”

“But it was Dabi who set that thing free and sent it after Endeavor,” Natsuo argued as Touya felt his head get kind of staticky from trying to keep all of this new information straight. What the hell even was a Noumu? “He was the one who came and collected it afterwards, too. And he totally would’ve fought Hawks and Endeavor right then and there if Miruko hadn’t shown up.”

“And thank the Heavens she did!” Fuyumi shot back.

“Wait,” Touya fought to keep up, “fought… Hawks?” But hadn’t Hawks been infiltrating Dabi’s Villain group? Wouldn’t Dabi have thought they were allies? And hadn’t they been… more than that, too? Why would he attack him?

“Oh, sorry,” Fuyumi jumped up a little as she turned back towards him, “you wouldn’t know who Hawks is, he’s very young, but he’s the new Number Two Hero after All Might retired and Dad became –”

“Do you think saying any of that is gonna help Touya be less confused?” Natsuo interrupted snidely, “he missed All Might retiring, too, you know.”

“They told me about that, though,” Touya said quickly, before Fuyumi could get upset at Natsuo’s tone. And to shut down the talk of who Hawks was and whether or not Dabi would have fought his whatever-Hawks-was-to-him, because upon closer consideration he would actually rather not have that conversation. Ever. “I just… can we not talk about that? It kinda feels like my head is gonna explode if you keep going.”

“Of course,” Fuyumi hurried to say, speaking in a soothing tone like she was talking to an upset child, and Touya wanted to argue with that, but his face was still wet with tears that he couldn’t wipe away without bringing his wrists into view, so maybe her tone wasn’t totally unjustified.

“Yeah,” Natsuo agreed easily, “this is already a lot. We don’t need to make it worse right now.”

And with that agreement in place, silence descended upon them as they sat and possibly all thought about what they could talk about other than the thing that was going to make Touya’s head explode and coming up empty.

Touya was the first to crack under the oppressive silence.

“I just… Can you just tell me how you’re so okay with the Villain thing, because I really thought that would’ve been more of an issue for you?”

“Oh! Um…” Fuyumi eloquently began.

“We thought you were dead,” Natsuo continued instead, “and a Villain brother is better than a dead brother, so… low expectations, I guess?”

“Wow, gee thanks,” Touya said dryly, although he didn’t know what he’d expected them to say. This was kind of the best outcome, wasn’t it?

“You’re welcome Ducky,” Natsuo smiled impishly as Touya groaned.

“You know what, maybe death would have been better,” he shot back grumpily.

“Don’t joke about that,” Fuyumi said in a tone that made Touya pay attention to her, because it sounded exactly as brittle as she’d sounded when they were little and she was seconds away from crying. “Please don’t joke about that. We really thought you were dead. We grieved you. I grieved you. It’s not funny to me, okay?”

“Okay,” Touya aquiesced quietly. Because he definitely didn’t want to dredge up uncomfortable memories that he himself had caused.

“Oh, come on, Yumi, it’s not like he meant it,” Natsuo defended him. And Touya really wished he wouldn’t. “He’s just being emo. Like he always is.” Nevermind then, Natsuo wasn’t defending him, but mocking him. Was that any better, though?

“But it’s not funny,” Fuyumi stressed and looked around for support, visibly deflating as she caught sight of Aizawa.

Because Aizawa was very much asleep sitting upright in a hospital chair and would be no help to any of them regardless of what his stance was.

Natsuo snorted loudly. “Well… he did look very tired,” he pointed out, chuckling.

“You know, I really thought Shouto was exaggerating when he talked about how his teacher kept falling asleep in class,” Fuyumi sighed as she shook her head, clearly just happy that the subject had been changed now. And apparently not noticing that she’d just managed to say something even more confusing to Touya than the Noumu shit.

“That’s your own fault for thinking Shouto’s capable of exaggerating,” Natsuo continued laughing quietly.

“Wait, no, you don’t get to laugh at that,” Touya straightened up. And immediately drew both of his siblings’ attention to himself. “Is Aizawa Shouto’s teacher?” Aizawa had already told him that he taught at UA, so if Shouto went there, he was a heroics student, and how on Earth could that be possible after everything Endeavor had put him through?

Fuyumi blinked. “Yes? At UA? Didn’t… didn’t you know?”

“No!” Touya yelled, because now he was mad, “No! Of course I didn’t know because no one bothered to tell me, and I really thought Shouto was above giving Endeavor exactly what he fucking wants!” It felt like betrayal. Like his little brother was scoffing at the hurt Heroes had caused them and joining the enemy for the hell of it.

Because Shouto was the perfect masterpiece who could win Father’s approval so to hell with the rest of them, apparently.

“He just wants to be a Hero,” Fuyumi argued, confused by Touya’s outburst, “there’s nothing wrong with that. And he doesn’t have to avoid chasing his dreams just because of a grudge against Father.”

“A grudge?” Touya repeated, incredulous, “hating Endeavor is just a petty grudge to you?”

“That’s not what I said –” Fuyumi tried to backtrack.

“That’s exactly what you just fucking said!” Touya didn’t let her. All thought of sparing her feelings were forgotten in his rage. “What the fuck is wrong with you that you can –”

There was a flash of red from Aizawa’s corner of the room, and Touya was startled enough to stop talking and turn around to see the previously asleep man glaring at the three of them, eyes glowing red. Which made his glare even more intimidating than before. Why were his eyes glowing like that?

“Unless you’re actively being harmed, there is no acceptable reason to yell at your sister like that,” Aizawa said, voice cold and hard as his glare focused on just Touya for a moment. “What are you arguing about?”

Touya clamped his mouth shut in hurt indignation over being scolded like a fucking child.

And Fuyumi hesitated to explain her side as well.

Which left it up to Natsuo.

“We… It came up that you’re Shouto’s teacher, and then Touya realized that meant he was training to be a Hero which pissed him off because that’s what Endeavor wants, and then Yumi said Shouto didn’t have to give up his dream over a grudge, and then Touya started yelling about Yumi calling it a grudge. And then you woke up,” Natsuo finished sheepishly. Keeping his own opinion out of it, apparently.

“I didn’t mean it like that, though,” Fuyumi added after Natsuo was done. “I just mean that Shouto doesn’t have to feel the same way Touya does.”

Touya kept his mouth shut as he glared down at his lap. Of course Shouto didn’t have to feel the exact same as him, but was it really that much of a stretch to be mad that Endeavor was going to get exactly what he wanted despite everything he’d done?

“You’re right about that,” Aizawa said to Fuyumi. Which meant that Touya was wrong. “Shouto is his own person who gets to choose what he wants to do with his life. And if that means becoming a Hero then so be it. You don’t get to minimize how Touya feels about it, though.” Oh great, so now Touya’s objections were just irrational hurt feelings. Like he’d never heard that one before.

“I’m sorry,” Fuyumi said. Touya didn’t know if it was directed at Aizawa or himself, so he just stayed quiet, glaring even harder at his lap.

And Aizawa sighed. “It’s been a long day for all of you. I have your phone numbers, and you have Tsukauchi’s, so it shouldn’t be a problem to get back in touch when necessary.”

Both of his siblings quickly understood the dismissal and went to leave, Fuyumi simply standing without another word, and Natsuo giving Touya another squeeze before letting him go with a quick, “See you soon, Ducky,” whispered in his ear. And Touya valiantly resisted the urge to shove his annoying little brother off the bed for thinking this was a good time to be infuriating.

And then they were gone.

Just as abruptly as they’d arrived.

And the whole thing left Touya feeling so off-kilter and empty and like it might not even have been real in the first place. He didn’t even know if it had gone well or not with how often and quickly the mood had changed as they’d tried to figure each other out again. He was so overall confused that he ended up just staring at the door that had closed behind them.

Until Aizawa, still looking more exhausted than could possibly be healthy, loudly collapsed into the chair at Touya’s bedside.

“You’re upset,” he stated the obvious.

And Touya wasn’t about to let Aizawa rope him into yet another serious emotional talk after the shit he’d just pulled and fucking scolding him in front of his siblings and taking Fuyumi’s side.

“Yeah, no shit,” he bit out, “you just fucking sprung this whole thing on me with zero warning and you expect me to be okay with it?”

“So you’re upset with me,” Aizawa confirmed calmly. Infuriatingly.

“Of course I fucking am!” Touya yelled, “this is your fault! Of course I’m gonna be pissed at you!”

Touya fully expected to be scolded again now, and be told how he was wrong in blaming Aizawa for something that was obviously his fault.

Aizawa just sighed, though.

“You’re right,” he said quietly, “it’s my fault you weren’t warned before your siblings were here and I’m sorry.”

Touya felt all of his anger dissipating as Aizawa actually took responsibility for this whole thing. And even apologized for it.

He could feel himself curling up under the new wave of relief and emotion that he wasn’t going to somehow be blamed for this.

“You said I’m just mad at Endeavor,” he muttered, trying and failing to keep from whining. Because he’d really thought Aizawa understood why Father was terrible, but apparently he’d just been humoring Touya.

“What?” Aizawa blinked heavily at him and straightened up a little in the chair as if he was trying to keep himself from falling asleep again.

“You said Fuyumi was right but that she just shouldn’t call it a grudge because it’d hurt my feelings,” Touya pulled the comforter up so it nearly covered him. Because he couldn’t keep the hurt out of his voice, but he could shield himself a little from whatever Aizawa was going to say next.

“That’s not what I meant,” the man said slowly, blinking hard as he looked Touya in the eye, “I was talking about Shouto becoming a Hero. That you were allowed to be upset with his decision, but that doesn’t mean he has to give it up.” He was talking very slowly, as if every word was draining at the last of his energy.

“But what about Endeavor? Why does he get to have everything he wanted?” Touya pleaded for understanding.

“He doesn’t,” Aizawa disagreed, and Touya was about to point out how he was wrong when the man frowned and corrected himself, “he shouldn’t. But his punishment shouldn’t come at the cost of his children. Shouto should get to do whatever he wants. And Endeavor should be arrested for what he did, stripped of his title, and then spend the rest of his life in prison, surrounded by Villains who hate his guts.” Aizawa paused to yawn. “I don’t get to punch him in his stupid face, but I’ll be damned if I’m not there to see the look on that stupid face when his actions finally catch up to him.”

Aizawa was clearly more asleep than awake at this point, but he seemed so earnest in his exhausted wish to punch Endeavor in the face that Touya had to believe him.

And then he couldn’t stop himself from smiling as he realized that Aizawa did understand where he was coming from, that he did want to help, and that Touya genuinely wasn’t fighting alone anymore.

Aizawa was on his side. A Hero was on his side.

And his siblings didn’t hate his guts at least. Even if Fuyumi still wasn’t… still didn’t get it.

But he could live with that because Aizawa got it, and Natsuo got it, and maybe, just maybe, he could start trusting that this could work.

That, as terrifying as the thought of what he’d become was, he might have been doing it to get some semblance of justice for himself and his family, throwing everything he had at Endeavor in the hopes that something would finally work.

And maybe, if he had help, he might not have to do it again.

He might not have to become a Villain.

Maybe he could really start to believe.

Chapter Text

They weren’t moving.

They weren’t moving and it was his fault.

It was his fault because even though he’d already been thoroughly convinced by way of Eraserhead that the Commission wasn’t in the right here (even if he still didn’t really know what the alternatives were), he still hadn’t bothered to fucking warn anyone about which channels would now be compromised, which people could become dangerous, which orders could be issued without any of them knowing because they weren’t in the know about the secret backways of Hero Society that Hawks was.

It was his fault because he’d been too caught up in his own moral dilemmas and subsequent hurt feelings to fucking remember to see past his own needs and not just wallow in self-pity during his self-induced, well-deserved misery.

Because if all it took to knock him off balance so completely was one fucking bad conversation with an actual teenager, then he really needed to reconsider this heroism kick he’d been on. But that wasn’t important now. It hadn’t been important when he was wallowing in it. He needed to get the fuck over himself now, was what he needed to do because there were much bigger issues to deal with than his weird, bad, confusing feelings.

The Commission knew now.

He didn’t know exactly how they knew, but they knew.

They knew about Dabi being brought into custody, which wasn’t surprising. If anything it was strange that it had taken them this long to find that out.

But the fact that Dabi was Todoroki Touya… Hawks was almost positive that that hadn’t been in any official or unofficial reports yet. Unless of course someone on Eraser’s team had submitted something, but he was pretty sure they hadn’t.

So how the fuck did the Commission know that?

Not that it was really important, that particular secret wasn’t going to be able to remain secret for long regardless, but it would have been nice to have just a bit of a heads up before the Commission began to do exactly what Hawks had expected.

Really, he was lucky to have snatched up this feeble heads up from the communications channels he was tuned into, because Eraser’s team wouldn’t have had a fighting chance if he hadn’t.

And it would still be far too generous to call this a head start, but it was something, and he had to use it now or lose any chance at all of possibly making up for what he’d done wrong with Touya. Or just figure out what exactly he’d done wrong and maybe get to a place where he could finally stop getting his feelings hurt over the Dabi shit when Dabi didn’t even exist anymore and he needed to accept that and not get hung up over every little similarity between Touya and Dabi like those meant something.

His own hurt feelings be damned. Those were his own fault, not Touya’s. And that wasn’t even important right now.

What was important was that the Commission were working to take over custody of Touya to send him God knows where and do God knows what to ensure that his truth remained secret, and Hawks couldn’t let that happen, so he had to warn Eraserhead and get them all moving because if they didn’t, they would lose.

They had to move.

And Hawks had to make them.

Because it was his fault they weren’t already moving.

But he also had to minimize the risk of the Commission finding out that he was working against them because, if anything, this tiny warning he’d managed to squeeze out of the system proved the need for an inside man, and guess who was already in and had training in infiltration, and maybe also really needed to have something good to offer to make up for how badly he’d fucked shit up?

So he had to keep this mission on the down low, not use any traceable modes of transportation or communication.

Luckily everything had happened in person so far, so the only loose thread was his appearances at the hospital. In uniform, no less.

But there really wasn’t anything he could do about that, so he’d just have to cross his fingers and hope no one reported any strange sightings and then use disguises moving forward.

Like right now, as he moved through barely familiar hallways, wings redistributed and uncomfortably stuffed into an oversized hoodie, the hood pulled up over his hair, and a jean jacket over the hoodie for extra bulk that would hopefully conceal the weird feather bump on his back.

No sunglasses, though. Sunglasses in the middle of the night were sus as fuck and would just make people pay more attention to him. Which was very much not the point of a disguise.

Instead, he kept his head down and walked fast, but not too fast, keeping his stride casual but busy as he made his way toward the office-room-thing and hoped and prayed that someone would be there because he needed them to move now, and he didn’t have time for a hospital wide goose hunt. Or city wide, God forbid.

And for once he was in luck.

If you could call scaring the fuck out of All Might by storming into the room looking nothing like himself lucky.

He immediately pulled the hood back and released a volley of feathers to sweep for bugs as All Might rose hurriedly, flexing like he was readying to jump into a fight.

“Might wanna figure out a stronger defense,” Hawks smiled teasingly, “one person won’t stop much considering what you’re up against.”

“Up against?” All Might had relaxed minutely as he recognized Hawks, but tensed up again as he processed the thinly veiled warning.

“Yup,” Hawks finished his sweep and hid his feathers again, hating being constrained like this, but not having a choice right now. “Could you call Eraserhead in? This is an all hands on deck situation. Is Touya okay?”

He would have gone and checked himself, but that hadn’t seemed like a good idea considering the circumstances he’d left under last time. And also his weird, bad feelings about that last time. And also the time constraints. Those were probably more important right now, actually. Yeah, he hadn’t checked on Touya because of the time constraints. Good.

“Touya? Yes, he’s fine, I think,” All Might fished out his phone while talking, “I believe Aizawa went to talk to his siblings this morning, but I don’t know how it went. I’ve been trying to contact Tsukauchi for updates, but he hasn’t been available, so I came here to find him.”

“But no dice?” Hawks asked, immediately concerned about the timing of this apparent disappearing act. Not a good sign, no, no.

“No dice,” All Might sighed and pressed call on his phone, ending their conversation as he held it up to his ear.

There was a long pause then.

Too long.

All Might removed the phone from his ear and ended the call.

“Voicemail?” Hawks tried not to sound as frazzled as he was. Because one random disappearance could maybe be explained away, but two was a pattern. A very, very bad pattern.

“No, it just rang out,” All Might answered, brows drawing tight.

“Try again,” Hawks needed Eraserhead to be okay and not have been disappeared because they needed help here. Not more missing Heroes.

All Might nodded and gave him a concerned look as he pressed call again, bringing the phone back up to his ear.

And waited.

No, this couldn’t be happening. This couldn’t be how it ended, could it? He needed help here, he couldn’t do it alone, and as nice as All Might was, he’d really been counting on Eraser to be the brains behind this operation, and if he wasn’t, then Hawks didn’t know –

He nearly jumped when he heard a faint, tinny voice come through the phone, far too distant for Hawks to hear anything other than that someone had answered, and his stomach jumped with hope.

“Young Touya?” All Might furrowed his brows in confusion and Hawks’ stomach sank back down. Why did Touya have Eraserhead’s phone?

Hawks quickly caught his attention by flailing his arms over his head and mouthed ‘speaker phone’ because he needed to figure this out fast. Time was passing by quickly, and they needed to move.

“Why do you have Aizawa’s phone?” All Might asked as he moved the phone down in front of himself and set it to speaker.

“Because he fell asleep in my room and I wasn’t gonna wake him up because he looks like death, and then the phone started ringing and I let it ring out the first time, but then it rang again and it was annoying,” Touya’s voice snapped, full of defensive anger.

“All right, that was very kind of you,” All Might answered calmly, and if Touya’s sudden silence on the other end was any indication, Hawks needed to be taking notes. “But now I need you to wake him up, please, it’s important.”

“…okay,” Touya acquiesced. And Hawks really needed to be taking notes because that was an amazing level of de-escalation right there that Hawks would very much like to be able to replicate.

There was rustling on the other end and then the tell-tale snort-gasp of someone waking up from a deep sleep.

“Your phone,” Touya’s voice said, sounding like it was further away from the speaker, “it’s important.”

“Wha – oh,” Eraser’s voice answered, muffled by distance, and then became clearer as it spoke directly into the phone, “What’s happening?”

“I’m not entirely sure, but please come to the conference room as fast as you can,” All Might said, and Hawks nodded to him. “It looks like there’s something we need to discuss.”

“Alright,” Eraser muttered on the other end and presumably stood up, judging by the rustling, “be right there.”

“What’s going on?” Touya’s voice complained faintly in the background.

“I don’t know,” Eraser answered him, voice moving away from the speaker, “I’ll tell you when I know.” And then the connection was cut off.

There was a beat of silence before All Might drew himself up again with a cough.

“I have to ask,” he began, “why are you wearing that… jacket?”

“It’s a disguise,” Hawks smiled easily, “I mean it when I say we’re in deep shit.”

“Oh…” All Might paused, “it is because of Young Touya, right?”

“Yep,” Hawks agreed readily, “you weren’t expecting the Commission to just roll over, were you?”

All Might looked uncomfortable at that, which, hard agree, Hawks hated this, too, but then Eraserhead was bursting into the room, looking like he had just slept either one hour or twelve and couldn’t decide if he was well rested or not.

“What is happening,” he demanded, looking directly at Hawks’ disguise, a certain level of disdain in his eyes. Which was uncalled for. But Hawks was far too relieved at having backup to really be annoyed about it.

“Remember that conversation we had about the greater good?” Hawks opened, hoping to shorten this conversation as much as possible. And not talk about whatever issues Eraser apparently had with his disguise.

Eraserhead narrowed his eyes, “what about it?”

“Say every argument I made was actually the Commission’s stance on all of this and I was trying to find out if you’d agree with them or not?” Hawks continued dutifully. And cringed internally at the glare being leveled at him.

“I would wonder why you didn’t bother telling me so during that conversation,” Eraser answered tersely.

“Fair,” Hawks agreed, but he didn’t have time to explain why right now (because that would require figuring out why for himself first), so he moved on instead, “But anyway, I’m guessing that Tsukauchi just submitted some sort of report to them or something, because they are all over this case now and issuing orders to take control of it. And of Touya. And if we don’t want them to do that, then we need to move Touya to a safe location, like, right now.”

There was a short moment where both Eraserhead and All Might just stared at him.

And then Eraserhead jumped into action, swiftly moving to gather up papers and other such material from around the small room.

“Move him where, exactly?” he demanded, even as he was already packing down. And maybe Hawks had been expecting more pushback against the idea of working against the Hero Public Safety Commission. But he wasn’t going to worry about the lack of trust in the government right now when it was working in his favor.

“I don’t know!” Hawks protested, “I don’t have access to any place that isn’t known by the Commission. Unless you wanna reach out to the League of Villains.” And yes, he was taunting now, but this couldn’t all fall on his shoulders.

“The League –” All Might began, looking shocked.

“I was infiltrating them, okay?” Hawks cut him off, “still am. Or trying to. So keep it to yourself.”

All Might looked a little surprised at the outburst, and Eraser paused, too, to look at Hawks.

“I’m having a bad day, alright?” He bit out and sunk into his hoodie. He probably shouldn’t have snapped at All Might like that, but his world was crumbling around him and he just didn’t have it in him to pretend to be happy right now.

“We’ll call the League our last option,” Eraser chose to ignore the outburst. Which felt a lot like mercy. “But other than UA, I don’t think I have any safe options, either. And I’m not sure bringing Touya there would be advisable.”

“Why not?” All Might asked, “it’s a place for teenagers, isn’t it? And after the dorms were built it has all of the necessary amenities.”

“And those dorms house the current 1A and 1B students who have been directly attacked by Dabi, and while I don’t believe Touya should be held accountable for any of that, those kids were still traumatized. And they are children. Those don’t always have the mental stability to take in something like this and act appropriately.” Eraserhead snapped out.

“And I can appreciate that,” All Might conceded, “but we might not have any other option.”

“Wait, how can the former Number One Hero not have some pull somewhere that you can use now?” Hawks interjected. Because power came with perks, whether it should or not. That was just a fact.

“Well, I never really worked in the shadows like that,” All Might bowed in on himself slightly, “that’s the point of being the Symbol of Peace: The people could see me work for them, always in the spotlight, and I never felt the need to do anything that couldn’t be broadcasted.”

And here was the downside to being too earnest, then. No secret power. That sucked.

Eraser heaved one of his deep sighs again.

“So UA really is our only option?” he asked rhetorically, voice glum.

“It would appear so, I’m afraid,” All Might agreed. Not noticing the rhetorical part of the question at all.

This apparently necessitated another deep sigh before Eraserhead could move on.

“Moving Touya there is going to have consequences. Legally, socially, I don’t even want to think about the paperwork,” he said.

“I think you should be more worried about a jail sentence or being disappeared than paperwork,” Hawks pointed out. To get everyone’s priorities straight.

Eraser just stared at him blankly for a moment.

“Death is preferable to paperwork. And I can sleep in jail.”

Okay, maybe he shouldn’t try to get Eraserhead’s priorities straight because that felt like it was just a little bit out of his paygrade. Or maybe it was a joke. He couldn’t tell.

“O-kay,” he deflected, “but anyway, a lot of that can be avoided if you just don’t tell them where you put him.” And he had everyone’s attention. “Like, the Commission is gonna want to fly under the radar on this one, which means no public official channels, probably not even the police network. They want him to disappear, which isn’t legal, so they can’t go through legal channels to do it.” He felt like he wasn’t explaining this well.

“And that will help us because?” Eraserhead prodded. Because he wasn’t explaining this well.

“They can’t illegally take him if they don’t know where he is, and they can’t legally find out and take him without bringing legal attention to themselves. So if we can make sure they don’t know where he is, they’ll be stuck.” Hawks tried again. More successfully if Eraser’s approving look was anything to go by. And boy did that feel good.

“Good idea,” he said briefly, and Hawks preened under the sparse praise, “but then we’ll need to move Touya some way that isn’t traceable. Which means no service cars, or personal cars, that would be too risky now, too, no public transportation, obviously. What do we have left, then?”

“Hawks can fly,” All Might said.

And oh no, flying someone somewhere meant lots of physical touching and being close together for longer periods of time, and Touya had freaked out over a pat on the back, and this would really throw a wrench in the avoiding Touya at all costs secret plan, too. Not good. Deflect, deflect, deflect.

“Oh, well, gee, thanks for noticing,” he grinned. And kept grinning as Eraserhead glared at him.

“You can fly Touya to UA,” he stated. And he wasn’t wrong, but Hawks needed this to not happen, so.

“Technically, yes, you would be correct,” Hawks conceded, “but I’m not exactly stealthy. Everyone knows my red wings, I mean, I’m the Number Two Hero, that comes with clout, yeah?”

Eraserhead was not impressed, “don’t tell me you managed to become the Number Two Hero without methods for flying under the radar.” That pun probably wasn’t intended, considering who Eraserhead was as a person, but that honestly just made it funnier to Hawks as he teetered on the edge of hysteria.

“I- yeah,” he conceded again, “but I really only have two methods, and one of them won’t work with a passenger.” Because it involved making himself as small as possible, flying in quick spurts, and sticking to the shadows. It wasn’t exactly fast, either. It had taken him far too long to get to this hospital in the first place because of the need to hide himself as he flew.

“And the other?” Eraserhead pressed.

“Is really uncomfortable. For everyone involved,” Hawks stressed, “I’d have to go above the clouds which is cold, like really cold, and wet in the clouds, and the air is really thin, which makes breathing kinda hard.” Not for Hawks, but for normal people with non-semi-avian lungs. “And it really hurts the eyes, too.” Not Hawks’, but other people’s.

“But unless you have another suggestion it might be our only option,” Eraser pointed out, “and the clock is ticking.” And that was so true it wasn’t even funny.

They really had to move.

So he gave in.

Surely Touya could understand that this was a life or death situation. Even if he’d probably still be mad about it. And be way too close for Hawks to not be uncomfortable. But his comfort definitely shouldn’t factor into the decision making. It never was.

“Okay,” he sighed, and adjusted to figuring out how to make it work, ignoring his own feelings, because that was what he did best. Through years of practice. “I can’t fly him from here, though, that’d be way too obvious, but if you drive him to…” Hawks went to find his phone to pull up a map before stopping himself. That was definitely traceable. “Do you have a paper map or something?”

“Why can’t you use your phone?” Eraser asked, but he was already pulling out a paper thing he’d previously packed anyway.

“Oh, my search history is definitely not safe right now,” Hawks said easily as he accepted the map and started searching.

“… You think the Commission is going to tap your phone?” All Might asked. A weird level of concern in his voice.

“Duh,” he agreed breezily. And paused when he saw how the others were looking at him. “Secret agent, remember?” he added quickly. Because apparently the Commission tapping his phone was weird, which meant he needed to minimize and find a good excuse.

And they bought it, too. Or at least they moved on.

“Do you think they could be listening in?” Eraser asked, concerned for a different reason now. Which was good. Less focus on Hawks.

“Nah, we’re all good, I wrapped it in tinfoil before I got here,” he reassured them, “turns out that shit is good for other things than just those alien hats.” And then he quickly redirected their attention to the map. “Could you get him to this field here? It doesn’t matter if it’s traceable, cause it’s in the wrong direction, and there’s a couple of crossroads, too, to confuse anyone tracking your car.”

Eraser nodded approvingly again, and Hawks smiled at the map.

“Definitely. Now?”

“Now,” Hawks agreed, “I’ll go get my flight suit on and fly around some to meet you there, you get Touya ready and out as fast as you can, okay?”

“It’s a plan,” Eraser nodded.

And then Hawks was out the door.

They were doing this.

Holy shit, they were doing this.

And they just might actually get away with it, too.

He rushed as much as he could without drawing attention to himself, out of the hospital, back to where he’d stashed his flight suit, once again covering in the shadows the whole way there, taking too much time, but he had to be careful, into the flight suit, and then he was off, taking a couple of covert detours to throw off any unseen spectators before going up above the cloud cover.

And it really was freezing up here. Even while wearing his flight suit.

Hopefully it wouldn’t be too bad for Touya.

But it was their only option, so they’d have to make do.

He landed in the forest edge he’d directed Eraserhead to, sat down, stared at the road, and very much didn’t spend the wait catastrophizing and considering every way this could have gone wrong already. Or what the Commission would do to Touya if they got to him.

No, of course not. That would be ridiculous.

But he did breathe a sigh of relief when a car came into view, with All Might behind the steering wheel.

And even more so when the car actually stopped and let out Eraserhead and Touya, too.

So far so good, then.

Except for the part where Touya was hanging back behind All Might and Eraserhead like he was using them as a human shield. And looking absolutely ridiculous in a way too big bright pink hoodie, which Hawks couldn’t even laugh at because he needed Touya to not hate him enough to refuse his help.

There was a bigger issue with the hoodie, too. Which was probably the better issue to focus on.

“Please tell me you’re wearing thermal underwear or something because a hoodie is so not enough protection against the cold up there,” he stressed.

Touya just scoffed derisively. Which wasn’t a good sign as far as cooperation went.

“He was adamant that he didn’t need anything else,” Eraser sighed, “and he only accepted the hoodie because it wasn’t Hero merch. The hospital didn’t have a lot of options in that direction. But I packed a jacket.” He reached into the car and pulled out a Fat Gum styled coat. Complete with extra stuffing to create that huggable teddy bear look the Hero was known for. And the extra stuffing would make it warmer, too.

Touya, however, rolled his eyes and shook his head, arms crossed in refusal.

“So you’re choosing hypothermia over sucking it up and wearing some merch for a moment when no one other than the three of us are gonna see anyway?” Hawks asked. Not even trying to keep the disbelief out of his voice because that was a truly self-destructive level of spite.

He would have expected that from Dabi, but even as he kept doing things that reminded Hawks of the Villain he’d lost, Touya had also seemed far softer in so many different ways so far, and he would have hoped that compromising on style in order to not freeze to death was something the kid could be convinced of.

Although God knew Dabi wouldn’t have.

“No, I’m choosing not to humor you by wearing something I don’t need,” Touya argued with a scowl. Which only deepened as he took in the disapproving looks he was receiving. “Seriously? Did my older self just never use his Quirk or what?” He finally added, clearly pissed that he even had to point this out.

Probably because it actually was a little embarrassing that they’d all apparently forgotten. Or maybe they’d just all been so busy trying to divorce Touya from Dabi, with varying levels of success, that they’d missed some of the physical things the two would have in common.

Like the fact that he had a fire Quirk.

“Huh,” Hawks smiled sheepishly, not above admitting that he’d forgotten if it could raise the mood a little. “I guess that would help you keep warm. And it makes sense with how Dabi could be so comfortable in T-shirts all year round, too, I guess.”

“…yeah,” Touya agreed hesitantly, the hostility draining out of him as soon as Hawks agreed with him. “Temperatures just don’t bother me.”

Honestly, these mood swings were going to take a while to get used to. But at least it was fairly easy to read when the kid was upset. Unlike Dabi’s near-constant ironic smirks that could really mean anything.

“So then there won’t be an issue flying in just the hoodie, right?” All Might asked.

And wasn’t answered beyond a quick glance from Touya as Eraserhead challenged Touya’s statement instead.

“You do react to extreme temperatures, though,” he said, “if you didn’t, you wouldn’t be able to get burned. Is it possible you just don’t feel temperature changes, even as they affect you physically?”

“I don’t…” Touya frowned, looking uncertain, “I do feel it when it hurts me, though. Like extreme heat. I feel that. It fucking hurts. But I don’t feel temperature other than that.”

“And what about extreme cold?” Eraser questioned, looking intently at Touya.

“No,” Touya shook his head, “Fath- Endeavor used to say that it was a shame that I inherited my mom’s constitution and his Quirk, because I’m pretty much impervious to the cold, like, my sister used to freeze sheets of ice over my arms and stuff when we were little, and neither of us realized that ice is supposed to be uncomfortable until she tried to do it to Natsu and he screamed.”

“Oh, that’s not good,” All Might frowned, which was probably a more appropriate reaction than laughing. So Hawks bit his tongue. “He was all right I hope?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Touya waved off the concern, “just cold. Which Yumi and I just don’t feel, and neither did Mom, so we didn’t know it was a thing before that. We learned, though. And stopped putting ice on Natsu… Mom still had to tell us when it was too cold for him to go outside without a coat, though.”

“But you feel heat?” Eraser clarified. And maybe Hawks should be a little more eager for them to get going, but honestly, they were all within his sights, and the Commission wasn’t around, and this calm, civil conversation just felt too nice to disrupt. Especially because Touya was being more open and talkative than he’d ever seen Dabi be, and it was fascinating.

And Eraser was too practical to not have a reason for asking questions anyway.

“Obviously,” Touya snorted and pulled the neck of his hoodie to the side a little to show off a half-healed burn, “you said so yourself. My Quirk isn’t suited for my body or whatever. It fucking sucks, but it’s not like I can do anything about it.” He pulled a grimace. “It has to be hot enough to burn, though, or I won’t really feel it. Which is probably a good thing because I’ve been told my body temperature does weird things sometimes, too.”

And Eraser nodded, eyes lighting up with insight, like he’d just been given a puzzle piece he’d been missing.

“It does,” he agreed, “and this means you don’t need any more clothes to fly, right?”

Touya shot Hawks a half-panicked look for a moment before tamping down on his expression.

“I mean,” he drawled out slowly, “I’d almost gotten used to just wearing that weird gown-shirt thing, so this actually feels like a lot of clothes after that. But I’m finally wearing pants again, so I guess I can’t complain.”

He was stalling, Hawks realized. He was stalling by chatting away at the adults in a way Hawks had never seen him do before. And he would have called him out on it if it weren’t for the fact that the thing Touya was stalling for was moving closer to Hawks. Which he deserved. But that didn’t mean it didn’t hurt.

“Good,” Eraser said simply, “then we should get moving.” And then he reached out an arm to gently push Touya forward, which clearly conveyed that Eraser had known that Touya didn’t want to get closer to Hawks, might have even already known that the talking was an attempted distraction and simply taken advantage of it to get some answers for himself.

Touya seemed to realize that his reprieve was over, too, as he sighed but didn’t try to fight the hand still persistently moving him forward.

Hawks put on his best professional customer service smile, determined to not make this any worse than it had to be.

“Alright, then,” he began, doing his best to emulate a peppy flight-attendant, “this is a one-way, one passenger flight going over the lovely cloud cover we have tonight. Due to the spotty nature of our clouds, we’ll have to adjust our course as we go to stay above them and invisible, but luckily our pilot was born to fly.” Crickets. Ouch.

“Even if temperature isn’t an issue for you, this might still hurt your eyes and ears,” Hawks adjusted back into a more natural way of speaking, “for your ears you’ll just need to align the pressure by chewing, yawning, or holding your nose shut and then trying to blow through it.” He paused briefly to ensure that Touya was taking it in, but all he got was a petulant half-glare. Sigh. “For your eyes, it’s best if you just keep them shut and face away from the wind. That’ll help you breathe, too.”

“Breathe?” Touya parroted, a panicked note to his voice as his eyes widened minutely.

“Yep,” Hawks agreed, “That high up, at the speeds we’ll be going, breathing is gonna be a bit more challenging. Not enough to be dangerous, but it might be uncomfortable.”

Touya frowned and folded his arms in front of his chest, hunching over as he nodded.

This was not the behavior of someone who would be doing this if he had a choice, that was for damn sure.

Eraser and All Might both looked uncomfortable with the way that this was going, too, but honestly, they could join the fucking club and get over it.

“I’ll have to carry you, but I can do that two ways,” Hawks tried to give Touya a choice here. Like that would make it any better. “It can either be hug style or princess carry.” Trapeze was out of the question when they were going that high, sadly.

“Princess?” Touya enunciated like the word was offending him. And Hawks wasn’t above being a little relieved that Touya at least wasn’t stressed enough to forget his sarcastic disposition.

“Hey, don’t blame me, that’s just what it’s called,” Hawks held up his hands in mock surrender. “And it’s probably the better option, too.” He ignored Touya’s glare as he explained. “It’ll keep your hands mostly free and make it easier to keep your face turned away from the wind. It’s less physical contact than a full-on hug, too, and I’ve been told it feels more secure and less like you could slip out of my grasp at any moment.”

“And exactly how often do you drop people?” Touya asked, face and phrasing deadpan enough to sound almost joking, sarcastic, but it was easy to read the very real nervousness behind it.

“I don’t,” Hawks let his face get serious for a moment, to reassure, “but it can feel like I might to nervous passengers.”

Touya stood silently after that.

And Hawks wanted to give him the time to get over whatever was holding him back, but the clock was ticking, and he had no idea how long it’d be before the Commission caught up with them.

Luckily, he was saved from being the bad guy as Eraserhead stepped back up and put a hand on Touya’s shoulder.

“We have to start moving soon,” he said, “I wouldn’t make you do this if I had another option.”

Touya took a deep breath and nodded, like he was being reminded of some past conversation that Hawks wasn’t privy to and understood why this had to happen.

“Fine,” he said, not sounding thrilled, but at least he was agreeing to this. And then he crossed the last bit of distance between himself and Hawks.

“I’m dropping him off in the woods behind the school, but I can’t stick around too long or I might be missed, and the last thing we want is for someone to sound the alarm,” Hawks said.

“And we’ll get there as soon as we’ve cleared this with Nezu,” Eraserhead answered him with a nod, though his eyes were fixed on Touya.

“Did you decide how you wanna fly?” Hawks asked him.

Touya just shrugged. “Whatever you think is best,” he muttered noncommittally.

“Princess carry it is, then,” Hawks automatically tried to lift the mood with a breezy confident voice. But it was so oppressive he shouldn’t have bothered.

He sighed and gingerly picked Touya up, internally cringing at the way the teen stiffened even if he didn’t try to move away. This wasn’t going to be a fun flight.

“See ya sometime,” he called and took off, not seeing any reason to delay any longer.

Touya gasped at the sudden upwards momentum and threw his arms around Hawks’ shoulders in a panic.

Hawks wasn’t going to complain as long as the kid refrained from actually cutting off his airflow.

As it stood, he picked up speed and pierced through the cloud cover before redirecting to flying horizontally towards UA. And squeezed Touya a little closer to his chest as he felt the kid shaking, hoping that it was just adrenaline and that Touya hadn’t been lying about his insensitivity to cold.

Because if he had, there really wasn’t anything Hawks could do about it now anyway.

So he focused on getting to their destination instead, keeping tabs on Touya’s reactions to make sure nothing dangerous was happening, but otherwise ignoring them because pausing to consider the shaking and the gasping and the frantic clinging when there was nothing he could do to help wasn’t conducive to keeping a level head.

And when UA finally came into view as he dived toward the forest behind the main building, relief flooded through him.

He touched down as gently as he could and went to set Touya down, but when he tried to let go and give Touya some space, the other’s legs buckled under him and Hawks had to quickly pull him in again to keep him from falling.

And now that breathing wasn’t a concern anymore, Touya’s gasping evolved into heaving and panicked sobbing.

And Hawks finally let himself put the puzzle pieces together and realize that Touya was terrified of flying.

Which meant that Dabi probably had been, too, which recontextualized the Villain’s angry outbursts whenever Hawks dragged him up and around to get a reaction in a very unpleasant way that he didn’t want to think about.

So he wouldn’t think about that, but instead focus on helping Touya now.

In that spirit, he slowly moved to sit Touya down against a tree and directed the teen to put his head between his knees.

“I’m sorry,” he muttered, and didn’t know if he was actually saying it to Touya or Dabi because fuck, he really hadn’t needed the added guilt of learning that he’d basically been playing with Dabi’s phobias for shits and gigs without even knowing it, and how was he supposed to ignore that now? How was he supposed to apologize to someone who didn’t really exist anymore?

Maybe there was something to it when the other called him a dumb birdbrain.

He stayed beside Touya for a much longer time than he probably should, listening as the panic subsided and Touya regulated his breathing back into normalcy.

And finally lifted his head to look directly at Hawks.

“Didn’t you say you had to go?” he asked quietly, voice still shaking a little.

“Well yeah,” Hawks said with a small apologetic smile, “but I wasn’t about to leave you alone in the woods before I was sure you were okay.”

“I’m fine,” Touya bit out, resting his head on his knees.

And Hawks knew he was lying, but calling that out right now wouldn’t be helpful.

And realistically, Hawks was probably the last person the kid wanted to help him now, so he should probably just get going.

“So…” he drawled instead, “scared of flying?”

“Fuck off,” Touya shot him a brief glare before hunching down over his knees some more.

“Will do,” Hawks agreed, voice breezy as he kicked himself for not just fucking leaving in the first place. Why did he always have to keep talking when it never helped? Stupid birdbrain. “I’m sure it won’t be long before Eraserhead gets here.”

It was meant as a reassurance, but Touya just rolled his eyes.

“Whatever,” he sighed.

And Hawks stood to leave, shaking out his wings and shooting straight up for a moment before changing his mind and redirecting his course towards the 1A dorms.

This was probably going to be his only chance to get into contact with Tsukuyomi for a long time, and if he had any level of sway over that kid, he was going to use it to hopefully get Touya an ally at UA.

He didn’t know what Eraser’s plan was to do with Touya now that he was here, but a friend in 1A couldn’t possibly hurt.

A friend who wasn’t Hawks and therefore not automatically hated couldn’t hurt.

Couldn’t hurt anyone but Hawks, and that didn’t matter.

Chapter Text

It had taken a long while for the adrenaline to fully subside after the nightmare flight.

Touya had spent this time alternating between being mad at himself for making Hawks leave when the other had offered to stay (because even annoying but friendly birds were better than being alone), and being mad at Aizawa for not being here yet to replace the stupid bird with the big red wings that had wrapped themselves around him where he’d been sitting, unconsciously shielding him in a way that almost felt like a hug.

Almost made him feel safe.

It was harder to calm down when he didn’t have something like that.

But eventually, he managed. And then the lateness of the hour, the stress of the day, as well as the post panic attack fatigue had all set in at once as his body made it painfully clear that bedtime could be postponed no longer, lack of proper sleeping arrangements be damned, unless Touya took drastic measures.

And it wasn’t like any of those were available to him on the forest floor.

So he had fallen asleep.

Not that it really felt like he’d gotten any rest before he was woken up again by Aizawa, crouching in front of where he was laying and gently shaking his shoulder.

It did take him a moment to reorient himself after that, too.

Mainly because the scenery seemed to have shifted somehow.

It looked different in a way Touya didn’t recognize right away as he slowly sat up and looked around.

Until he looked up and saw the sunrise.

The scenery hadn’t changed. It was just light enough now for him to distinguish features that had been washed out by shadows when he’d fallen asleep. Looking up, he could even see the UA building over the trees now, whereas it had been completely invisible before.

He could have sworn that it had been the middle of the night when he got here, though.

But that would mean that he’d spent hours alone in the woods before Aizawa came to get him.

And that didn’t make sense.

Aizawa had promised he’d be there as soon as possible, so it couldn’t have been hours.

But as low as it was in the sky, that was the sun. It had been hours.

He quickly rose to his feet and scrubbed at his face. Half to remove any traces of his woodland nap from his features, half to hide his face for a moment as he reigned in his emotions. Just because it had taken hours for Aizawa to show up didn’t have to mean that the man didn’t care or something. But deep in his chest this felt an awful lot like abandonment.

Even if the man was technically standing in front of him right now.

He hadn’t been there when he promised he would be.

“Did you forget about me or something?” he asked, going for a casual tone because he didn’t want to sound like a whiny brat first thing in the morning. Didn’t want to risk being brushed off for being overly emotional about this. Aizawa hadn’t done that before, but he also hadn’t broken a promise like this before, and now Touya wasn’t sure where he had the man.

Aizawa quickly shook his head, “No. But there were a lot more issues with this move and the Commission than I had anticipated, and I ended up being trapped in multiple meetings about problems that had to be resolved immediately before I could come get you. It took far longer than I thought it would. Sorry.” Aizawa bowed his head in contrition, and in the process the bags under his eyes were cast into stark relief.

Which made it obvious that Aizawa had spent the night in much more uncomfortable circumstances than Touya had.

Really, other than his borrowed clothes feeling kind of grossly damp from lying on the ground, it wasn’t like he’d suffered in the wait. He hadn’t even noticed that the time had passed at all before Aizawa was already there.

It was stupid to be mad about it.

“Guess that comes with the territory when you’re trying to overthrow the government,” Touya commented dryly. Because he didn’t know how else to let the man know that he wasn’t going to be mad. Apology accepted or whatever.

“We’re not going to overthrow the government,” Aizawa said, voice so carefully blank that Touya was pretty sure the man was being insincere on some level.

“Just the Hero Commission, then?” he asked innocently. Testing the waters in a way that could easily just be a joke. But could also be something more.

“Just the Hero Commission,” Aizawa agreed, businesslike, before tilting his head in mock consideration, “and the Number One Hero.”

“Oh yeah, can’t forget about that part,” Touya grinned and stepped closer to the man, a warm happiness dissolving the lingering feelings of abandonment in his chest at the verbal confirmation that Aizawa was still on his side. Still actually willing to fight for him.

They were okay.

“But before that, we need to work out your living arrangements,” Aizawa ruffled his hair briefly before turning around and walking slowly towards the UA building that towered over the trees. Touya followed quickly to walk beside him. “Which ended up being a good deal harder than we had expected. In the end, the principal decided that it would be best to room you with the Heroics class I’m teaching.” Aizawa frowned at the ground as he walked. Clearly disagreeing with the principal.

“Okay?” Touya pried, because he needed to know what Aizawa’s problem was. Because maybe they were not okay?

“There are two issues with that, and we’ll have to deal with them both this morning before classes start,” Aizawa elaborated, already sounding exhausted by the prospect. Or maybe he was just tired from staying up all night. For Touya’s sake. “But it can wait until we’ve found a conference room to talk in. And gotten you some breakfast.”

It felt odd for Aizawa to put emphasis on Touya’s breakfast when there were clearly bigger things to deal with. Not to mention that the threat of ‘issues’ didn’t exactly prime his appetite. Then again, it wasn’t like he could just not eat until things calmed down because with the way his life was going, he’d likely end up starving to death if he tried.

Walking through UA this early in the morning felt almost surreal enough for him to forget about Aizawa’s issues, though.

The only people around at this time were the teachers who were all also Heroes. Like Aizawa.

But unlike in Touya’s own time, the vast majority of these Heroes were completely unknown to him, likely too young to really have amassed much popularity eight years ago.

It felt almost safe, not having to face any Heroes he recognized, let alone any he might have met before, because those only brought up bad memories of being brushed off or ignored when he asked for help.

He couldn’t trust any of those to be on his side and he knew it.

These new teachers were unknown enough that he didn’t know that they’d brush him off.

He still stayed as close to Aizawa’s side as he could, though. Not trying to be clingy, but also not being willing to risk losing contact around untrustworthy strangers.

And the walk wasn’t a long one anyway, so Aizawa probably didn’t even notice. And when he opened a door to a people-free conference room, Touya gladly walked through it with him.

It was a cozy little room, not fit for more than maybe a dozen people at most, with a table in the middle and some couches pushed into one corner.

There was already a pot of coffee and some sort of breakfast buns on the table, too, like they’d been set out especially for the two of them. A sort of quiet welcome, maybe. Touya didn’t hate it.

Aizawa gestured for Touya to take one of the buns while he poured a large cup of coffee for himself. Touya obliged, picking at what was apparently his promised breakfast as he waited for Aizawa to get into the issues.

He didn’t have to wait for long.

“We haven’t talked about what Dabi did to get labeled as a Villain,” Aizawa began, jumping right into it after almost draining his cup in one go, “because it wasn’t relevant to you before. Because you are not Dabi.” Aizawa shot him a long look before continuing. Daring him to disagree. Touya resisted the urge to stick out his tongue at the man’s tone. “But since you’re going to be living with class 1A now, it’s necessary for me to tell you that they have a history with Dabi.”

That didn’t sound good.

Obviously, he’d known that Dabi had to have done some terrible things to be labeled a Villain. That kind of went without saying.

But there was a huge difference between knowing that on a theoretical, unemotional level and being confronted with specifics. Being confronted with the names and faces of people who had a ‘history’ with Dabi.

His only example of specifics so far was Natsuo’s cheerful tale of giving Endeavor a much-deserved makeover. And that wasn’t exactly something Touya was going to lose sleep over.

Whatever story these high schoolers had, though, was likely going to be of a much different caliber. And Touya could feel his shoulders tightening as a budding feeling of panic washed through him.

Aizawa looked like he’d rather be doing anything other than this, too, as he reached for the coffee pot again.

“First of all, it’s important that you understand that this year’s class 1A has been targeted by Villains since they started here. And we’ve had to ramp up our security measures quite significantly as a result. The dorms you’ll be staying in included.” Aizawa was explaining this very much like he was giving a lecture, keeping any possible emotions out of it.

He was probably just trying to get it over with, really.

He was clearly very tired and reluctant to do this, but he was doing it for Touya’s sake.

“That didn’t come first, though,” he continued, “the first attack isn’t actually important for you beyond the fact that it was the same Villain group doing it that Dabi later joined. His first public appearance was on their side during the second attack on UA at a summer training camp.”

Aizawa looked at Touya like he expected a reaction of some sort even as he worked to stay perfectly level himself.

But Touya was doing his best just to take this in quietly. To not make this more difficult than it had to be.

It didn’t have to cause another breakdown, he didn’t have to act all dramatic when he’d already been the reason Aizawa had had to stay up all night, so he would just stay calm and listen.

And not visibly react beyond what was necessary. He could go a full conversation with Aizawa without crying when the man was already so tired. He could.

“What’s the group called? What did they want?” he asked. To convey a calmness he didn’t feel.

And to maybe, hopefully keep unwanted emotions at bay by being more logically focused.

“They call themselves the League of Villains,” Aizawa eyed him suspiciously. Like he didn’t trust Touya’s calmness. It was completely false, so that assessment was fair. “And they seem to be working broadly to take down what they consider to be false Heroes.”

“But then why are they attacking high schoolers?” Touya continued the logical façade. Pretending to care about the goals of the Villains when really, all he wanted was for Aizawa to please tell him that Dabi hadn’t done anything too heinous.

Besides, he already pretty much knew that Dabi’s goal was probably something to do with ruining Endeavor’s life. Take justice into his own hands when the Heroes had refused to do anything or something like that. So the goals thing really wasn’t an interest to him.

Aizawa heaved a heavily put-upon sigh as he explained it anyway.

“The first time was a terribly executed attempt at assassinating All Might before he retired. And the second time was a less poorly executed, but very poorly thought through recruitment attempt. And after that I’m fairly sure their leader has fixated too much on the kids to stop.” There was nothing but unimpressed contempt in Aizawa’s voice as he tore down the League of Villains’ attacks on his students.

Which almost could have been funny if it weren’t for the fact that Dabi was part of that group.

And the idea of Aizawa’s contempt being directed at him very much wasn’t funny.

“But what did Dabi do?” He really didn’t want to ask, didn’t want to know, wanted to pretend that nothing worse than the Endeavor thing had happened. But Aizawa needed to tell him so that this plan could continue. So he would just have to get over it.

“The goal of the attack on the training camp, as I understand it, was to kidnap a student that the leader of the League falsely believed to have potential as a Villain. Dabi appears to have led the attack, setting the forest on fire and trapping students and teachers until their intended victim had been captured.”

Touya felt his tentative self-control slipping as the severity of Dabi’s actions registered.

Because arson and kidnapping were actually a pretty fucking big deal and Touya could only hope that no one had been outright killed in that forest fire because he didn’t know how he could ever learn to be okay with that. Never mind whatever other as yet unmentioned horrors Dabi was responsible for.

Aizawa apparently noticed the panic that was beginning to shine through, too, as he quickly continued. To cut Touya off before he really started spiraling.

“There were no deaths,” he said. And then paused briefly before continuing with the actual ramifications of Dabi’s actions. “But one student was kidnapped and others were hospitalized.”

And, yeah, that was better than death, but kidnapping still wasn’t something he could just brush off.

Because regardless of what Dabi’s end goal was, kidnapping a whole ass human being didn’t feel like something that could be explained away. Or forgiven.

“Was the kidnapped one okay?” he asked nervously. Because there was a difference between not dead and not still in the claws of Villains.

“We got him back,” Aizawa nodded, and Touya took a breath of relief. “But you shouldn’t be surprised that he, and many of his classmates, hold a grudge against Dabi for his involvement in this. And they might not be willing to separate Dabi’s actions from you.”

Which was something Touya would have to deal with directly if he was going to live with them.

And he couldn’t deny that some part of him still felt like he deserved the blame for what Dabi had done. Even if Aizawa disagreed.

Why did they think having him live with Dabi’s victims was a good idea?

“Shouto is one of those classmates, too,” Aizawa continued before Touya could pull himself together enough to ask. And Touya already knew that. Fuyumi had told him. But that didn’t mean it wasn’t horrifying to think of in this new context. “And that’s the second issue.” The word ‘issue’ was quickly going to become his least favorite.

“What about it?” Touya asked. Unsure. Because Aizawa had been talking about solving these issues, but everything he’d brought up so far seemed pretty fucking unsolvable from where Touya was sitting.

“I believe Shouto should be told separately, before the rest of his class, and given a chance to talk to you alone,” Aizawa elaborated slowly. Possibly sensing that Touya wasn’t really following anymore. “Which means it has to happen before homeroom. Which is in just under an hour. I’m sorry, but this is all the warning I can give you.”

It made sense that he would need to meet Shouto now if he was going to be living the same place as him.

And with everything that was going on, he couldn’t resent Aizawa for not having infinite time to warn him. Or, at least it would be illogical for him to resent Aizawa for it. That didn’t mean he didn’t feel irritation bubbling up in his gut.

And he still couldn’t understand how Aizawa or the principal or whoever made this decision could possibly think it was a good idea to house Touya with a bunch of Hero students his older Villain self had attacked and/or kidnapped.

And aside from that, he was already so done with new revelations for the day, and he’d only just re-met his other siblings yesterday, and he still wasn’t sure how he should feel about Shouto choosing to become a Hero after everything they’d been through.

Then again, Shouto probably wouldn’t know how to feel about Touya apparently having chosen to become a Villain and then attacking his own brother, so maybe they were even there.

Or maybe Shouto had a hell of a lot more to hate Touya for than Touya had to resent Shouto for.

“Touya,” Aizawa broke into his reverie, “can you handle meeting Shouto within the hour?”

Probably not, if he was being honest.

His already very limited energy was fading fast, and he was feeling irritated and overwhelmed. And confused. And angry with the people who thought this was okay. Angry with himself and Dabi for being the reason this mess even existed.

But he didn’t really have any other choice than to go along with what they wanted now. Since they were the ones he was supposed to be trusting to help him.

So he’d do it.

If that was what Aizawa wanted from him.

“Do you really think this is a good idea?” he asked, looking Aizawa in the eye.

“I… think it’s our best option,” Aizawa hedged. “We don’t have a lot of different options here, and none of them are ideal. But if we can figure out a way for Shouto and the rest of 1A to accept your presence… I do believe that would be for the best.”

He’d just have to suck it up, then.

“Okay,” he said, looking down at the all but forgotten breakfast bun in his hand. Or rather, the scattered crumbs of what used to be a breakfast bun that he had apparently torn to shreds over the course of this conversation. “I’ll talk to Shouto… if – if he wants to talk to me.”

He’d already gotten so lucky with Fuyumi and Natsuo. It felt ungrateful to not expect at least one of his siblings to hate his guts.

Aizawa nodded, although he still had that look in his eyes like he didn’t trust Touya’s cooperativeness. “I’ll have to find Shouto and tell him separately first. Can you stay here while I do that?”

Touya returned the nod and gently swept the crumbs to one side of the table, mentally preparing for the wait.

And whatever would come after.

“Make sure to eat while I’m gone,” Aizawa ordered as he rose, “today’s going to be a long day and you’ll need the energy.”

Touya slumped over the table and picked up another bun with a groan.

He didn’t want to be reminded that the day wasn’t over yet.

“Yesterday was a long day, too,” he complained childishly. So much for not acting like a brat. But he just couldn’t be bothered with that right now. “And the day before that, and the day before that, and the –”

“I’m fully aware,” Aizawa cut him off, although his expression had softened under Touya’s cranky griping, “hopefully things will slow down sometime soon.” He didn’t look particularly hopeful as he said it, even as he purposefully leaned over to ruffle Touya’s hair again. So he probably didn’t actually believe it.

Which made Touya feel even worse about his future prospects.

But for now, he had an indeterminate amount of time to himself, the only obligations being eating the bun in his hand and not losing his shit before the day had even properly started. Both of those seemed insurmountably difficult as he rested his head against the table and let go of the stupid bun again.

Why did this have to be so hard?

Why did his stupid, evil older self have to fuck everything up without even having anything to show for it beyond one stupid scar on the old bastard’s ugly face? That was nothing compared to the horrifying scars adorning his older evil self.

Why did his older self have to be evil in the first place?

Why couldn’t have just gone through life as a generally unremarkable disappointment to his father and blemish on the Todoroki family name through inaction instead of illegality?

Why did he have to go nuclear?

What had happened that had forced him to do that?

And how did he get strong enough to pose a threat at all when he could barely throw a fireball without taking himself out of the fight completely as it stood now?

Why couldn’t he stop haunting himself with these stupid questions when he was supposed to be centering himself before having to meet his youngest brother who probably, definitely hated him?

He didn’t want to be thinking about any of this, he didn’t want to be here, he didn’t think this was a good idea, and he was spiraling, and now the door was opening again, and he could hear yelling move towards him, and he wasn’t ready for this.

“ – Because you’re wrong!” the voice moving into the room yelled. “I don’t care what evidence you think you have, there’s no way Touya –”

It was Shouto.

It was Shouto with the heterochromatic eyes and dual-toned hair, and the scar that always made Touya’s stomach cramp with guilt.

Except this Shouto was the same age as himself, and his face, which Touya had spent so many mornings and late evenings trying to draw out of the impassiveness it seemed to default to, had been contorted in anger as he yelled at Aizawa, the man trailing closely behind him, his own face softened in concern. And now Shouto’s expression melted into disbelief as he looked Touya in the eye.

As he realized that what Aizawa had been telling him was the truth, no matter how badly they both might want it to just be a bad dream that they could wake up from and forget.

Because Touya was seeing Shouto looking nothing like the seven-year-old he’d left behind, standing tall, definitely taller than Touya, and wearing a UA uniform as naturally as if it was his birthright. Which it was. And Touya had been working so hard to protect his Shouto, too hard to not be mad that Endeavor had clearly managed to sink his claws into his little brother and mold him into the Hero their father wanted him to be.

And Shouto was seeing something far worse.

Shouto was seeing his older brother, looking exactly the same as he probably remembered, but now he knew that the big brother who’d been the only one who truly understood what he was going through when they were younger, the big brother he’d run to for help, or just for comfort when they both knew that nothing could really be done, the big brother he’d lost when he needed him, that big brother hadn’t actually been dead or something similarly permanent in removing someone from your life.

No, he’d just left.

And become a Villain.

The diametrical opposite to the Hero Shouto was working to become now.

And now he had to accept that the brother who’d protected him, or at least tried to, was the same person as the Villain who’d attacked him and his classmates.

Yeah. As much as Touya hated what he was seeing, there was no way Shouto didn’t hate him more.

“You recognize him,” Aizawa stated as Shouto continued staring. “Do you still think I’m wrong?”

Shouto visibly took control of his expression again, his face going stone hard and blank. It wasn’t the impassiveness of his younger self. This was deliberate.

A mask he’d clearly learned to put on to protect himself.

And now he was wearing it to protect himself from Touya.

“You’re Dabi?” he asked. Although he likely didn’t want to hear the answer.

“Apparently,” Touya told him anyway, curling up in his chair.

“How could you –” Shouto began, a cold accusation on the tip of his tongue.

“He doesn’t remember anything past this age,” Aizawa interrupted, “he can’t answer that question.”

Shouto finally looked away from Touya to fix his gaze on Aizawa instead. And Touya slumped down further.

“He attacked my friends,” Shouto rephrased his accusation and delivered it to Aizawa instead, “Midoriya broke his arms.”

That wasn’t exactly a glowing recommendation, and while he hadn’t expected anything less than loathing from his brother, he wasn’t prepared to be told the specifics of all the ways he’d hurt the people his brother cared about.

“Dabi attacked your class,” Aizawa corrected mildly, and didn’t look the least bit surprised when Shouto took the separation of Touya and Dabi about as well as Touya had at first, “and Midoriya broke his own arms in his fight with Muscular because he doesn’t know how to ask for help before throwing himself head first into danger.”

And now Touya was wary of meeting Shouto’s classmates, not only because his evil older self had attacked them, but also because at least one of them was apparently the type of person to break his own arms in order to win a fight, and if Aizawa’s exasperation was anything to go by, it wasn’t even all that baffling to the man that a teenager was willing to go to those lengths.

“But Touya is Dabi. You said so,” Shouto argued, still mirroring Touya’s earlier apprehension, but apparently not disagreeing with the part where his friend broke his own arms and why was Touya the only one who was hung up on that. Maybe he was just latching onto anything that wasn’t his little brother rejecting him.

“Touya became Dabi, but due to the de-aging Quirk I told you about, he is back at a point prior to that shift. He hasn’t made any of the decisions that made him Dabi, and, in case you forgot from Hero Ethics, that matters. Touya, at this point, is not a Villain because he hasn’t made any decisions or taken any actions that would make him one.” Aizawa lectured, looking for all in the world like a regular teacher who was annoyed with having to repeat an important lesson.

Shouto just looked frustrated at the explanation, though, the mask apparently having fallen away now that he was dealing with Aizawa instead of Touya, but he didn’t open his mouth to argue again, opting instead to cross his arms and glare at both Aizawa and Touya.

“But why is he here?” he asked.

“Because UA is going to build a case against the Hero Public Safety Commission and Number One Hero Endeavor for child abuse and conspiracy to conceal a crime, and Touya is our main witness,” Aizawa answered, making it clear in his voice that he would not be contradicted. “At some point, we’re going to have to sit down and talk about how your father treated you, as well.”

Shouto froze, his face going from frustrated to shocked as he took in what Aizawa had just revealed to him.

And Touya kind of wanted to reach out and offer his brother some sort of comfort, but he didn’t think Shouto would accept that from someone he clearly still viewed as a Villain.

So instead, he stayed where he was, and didn’t break the silence even as it grew deeply uncomfortable.

“Can you accept that Touya will be living here for the foreseeable future, or do you need to talk about it with me alone? Or someone else?” Aizawa finally broke the silence, fixing Shouto with a concerned look that had become very familiar to Touya over the past half week.

Although he wasn’t used to seeing it directed at anyone other than himself.

“We already have to talk about Endeavor anyway,” Shouto said, going back to his stony blankness, wearing it like a shield over his actual feelings about this. Touya supposed he could respect the strength in that. Even if he hated that his little brother had had to learn to protect himself like that at all.

“Alright,” Aizawa accepted Shouto’s answer easily, although Touya wasn’t actually sure exactly what the answer had meant as far as this situation went. “And we’ll talk about how much you’d like to tell your classmates about your family situation later, too.” That part might have been directed at both of them, or just Shouto. Touya couldn’t tell anymore.

“What are you going to tell the class, then?” Shouto asked, “if you’re not telling them that he’s my brother right away, how are you going to explain that he has to be here?”

Aizawa sighed deeply.

“I’m not going to tell them that it has to do with Endeavor until I have both of your permission to do so. Because it’s your story to tell, and you’re both going to have to live with your classmates after they’re told. But I do have to explain that Touya needs protection from powerful people who want to silence him. The entire Hero Commission included.”

“But nothing else?” Shouto looked relieved under his mask of indifference.

Relieved that he wouldn’t have to claim any sort of connection to Touya.

“Nothing else that would lead back to you,” Aizawa agreed. “Can you accept that?”

“…Fine,” Shouto finally agreed. And then immediately turned for the door. “Can I go now?”

Aizawa paused for a moment, like he was unsure what to do with Shouto’s eagerness to get away.

“Yes,” he said, “but please refrain from telling your classmates anything about this. I’d like to be there when they find out. And I want to tell Bakugou in private as well.”

Shouto just shrugged as he went for the door, not looking back once.

There was a long moment of silence after the door slammed shut. Aizawa looked displeased and concerned, and Touya was too busy trying to convince himself that the itchy feeling in his nose and eyes was from some unknown allergy to something in the breakfast buns he hadn’t eaten.

In the end, it drew out too long for Touya to be able to handle it.

“Well,” he drawled out slowly, almost managing to keep his voice from wobbling. “Two out of three isn’t a bad score as far as having siblings that don’t hate my guts goes. It’s actually a lot better than I had anticipated.”

Aizawa raised one eyebrow as he looked at Touya. “It’s to be expected that it might take him a while to take this in and accept it. But I think it’s too early to decide that he hates you.”

Touya shrugged, looking down and silently conceding to Aizawa’s strange display of… optimism? Buy only because he didn’t want to argue right now. There was no was Shouto didn’t loathe him.

“Should I be on standby for the Bakugou guy, too, or…?” he asked as he rubbed angrily at his nose to stop himself from sniffling. He’d fucking promised himself that he wouldn’t be difficult for Aizawa today.

“No, I… No,” Aizawa shook his head as he moved closer, “Bakugou is the student Dabi kidnapped. I don’t think he’ll want to talk to you one on one any time soon.”

That seemed fair.

“Then what?” Touya couldn’t imagine that Aizawa didn’t have more in store for him today, and everything was already too much and now Aizawa was hugging him so he hadn’t even managed to not visibly lose his shit, and he just wanted to curl up against the soft black fabric and pretend the world didn’t exist for a while. But he couldn’t. “You said there were two issues. Have we dealt with both of them yet?”

“Shouto and Bakugou,” Aizawa’s voice rumbled deep in his chest, “we’ve dealt with your part of it for now. I need to go talk to Bakugou, and then I’ll have to tell the class. And then teach for the rest of the school day.” Touya could feel the man deflating as he listed his tasks and hummed lowly in sympathy, which earned him another hair ruffle. “But I think you’re done for the time being, so I’m going to…” he trailed off momentarily and when Touya looked up to see why, the man’s eyes were fixed on the conference table. “Nevermind, you’re not done.”

Touya furrowed his brows and tilted his head for Aizawa to clarify what he meant. And pushed in a little closer against the safe warmth, away from whatever else would happen now.

“You still haven’t eaten that breakfast bun.” He pointed to the partially crumbled bun that still lay in front of Touya on the table.

Touya half-groaned and rolled his eyes as he moved to pick it back up, annoyed at Aizawa’s unnecessary dramatics over a breakfast bun, but relieved that it wasn’t anything more than that, and then immediately pressed back into Aizawa again.

Aizawa hugged him a little closer for a moment, too, before starting to untangle himself, much to Touya’s dismay.

“Sadly, just because you’re done for now doesn’t mean I am. I have work to do, but…” Aizawa frowned, “you can stay here if you’d like. Or go to the teachers’ lounge. Either way, All Might is gonna be there, and you can take some time to relax until school ends.”

“And All Might has time to just sit around and babysit?” Touya asked, arching one eyebrow in disbelief. Because that was preferable to whining again when he knew Aizawa was busy.

“He would be spending the day doing paperwork regardless,” Aizawa smiled, although it wasn’t a particularly kind smile. “He’s behind on documentation. Among other things. So I’m sure he’ll welcome any excuse to do something other than paperwork. Might as well give him that by letting him sit with you. If I were you, though, I’d make it a point to take a good long nap. That way he can’t weasel his way out of his work by claiming that you were distracting him.”

“So the nap is a cover?” Touya returned the smile.

“Yes,” Aizawa nodded and ruffled his hair, “now, will you complete your mission of eating breakfast and taking a nap to force All Might to do his paperwork here, or in the teachers’ lounge?”

“There’s a couch here,” Touya said.

Aizawa nodded. “I’ll send All Might your way, then.”

And with a final hair ruffle, Aizawa turned and left the room.

Spending the day with All Might doing paperwork didn’t exactly sound riveting, but that was probably a good thing considering what was likely in store for him afterwards if Aizawa’s hinting that his break would only last until school ended was anything to go by.

That nap was probably a good idea, then.

And he had promised Aizawa.

Chapter Text

As a general rule of thumb, Shouta was ambivalent about Mondays.

It wasn’t that he liked them, but at the same time he didn’t hate them like so many other people seemed to.

He was also fully aware that most people’s hatred of Mondays had nothing to do with the day holding more ill luck and bad potential and everything to do with being the start of the work week where people in general had to look forward to another five days of working a job they hated before being given another weekend of reprieve.

That wasn’t the case for him as he worked just as hard, if not harder, over the weekend as a Hero. Case in point, this very weekend that had just ended.

Really, in order for his work week to start, he’d have to have a break first, and he never did, so Monday held no special power in that regard. Or any other. Mondays just didn’t bother him.

This Monday, though.

This Monday was cursed.

For one thing, it had started far too early as he was woken up by Touya shortly after midnight, having apparently slept over half a day away in the kid’s hospital room. Which wasn’t all that surprising when one took into account that it was the first time Shouta had more than an hour of sleep since being pulled on to this case in the first place.

Although, the fact that Touya had so clearly chosen to respect Shouta’s need for sleep was… not surprising. He wasn’t surprised that Touya had enough sympathy to care that Shouta got his rest, but it was… confirming to see the kid acting on it. To see a glimpse of the person he could become if given the chance to choose kindness instead of revenge.

It had been a nice thing to wake up to, actually.

Of course, then everything had immediately gone to shit as Hawks had finally deigned to let them know that they weren’t just going up against Endeavor but the entire Hero Public Safety Commission, too. And that said Commission was actively working to freeze them out of this case. To remove Touya from his custody.

Which wasn’t going to happen.

He was more than willing to give Touya up to anyone he believed would do a better job caring for the kid than he could.

But as it stood, there was not a single person alive that he had such high thoughts of.

So then, a good part of the night had gone with getting Touya moved to a safe location away from the long claws of the Commission, with UA apparently being the only acceptable option available to them.

The first part of the move, the actual physical act of moving Touya there had already been enough work for one night with the constant looking over his shoulder for signs that the Commission was catching up, and covering their tracks while also having to focus on convincing a surprisingly contrary Touya that flying with Hawks truly was the only way to get this done.

Not to mention, the sheer amount of work the kid had put into trying to get out of that one flight had been setting off alarm bells in the back of Shouta’s head that steadily became more and more difficult to ignore.

Because it clearly had to do with more than just a fear of heights and speed.

As a matter of fact, in the short time he’d spent observing Hawks and Touya interact prior to takeoff, not to mention how reluctant Touya had been to going near the young Hero, it had become immensely clear to Shouta that he’d underestimated just how poorly the previous conversation between those two must have gone.

And that Shouta would need to figure out exactly what had gone wrong.

If it hadn’t been for the fact that Hawks had clearly been just as uncomfortable as Touya, Shouta might have been tempted to suspect the young Hero who’d been keeping his cards too close to his chest and was a little too close with the Commission of foul play. But as it stood, Shouta felt that he could trust Hawks to not intentionally hurt Touya.

Which still begged the question of what he’d done to unintentionally hurt Touya.

Truly, that amount of physical and mental work alone would have been enough for one night.

But of course it didn’t end there.

The second they’d arrived at UA, before Shouta had even stopped looking over his shoulder for signs they were being followed, Nezu had decided to make himself known in the worst possible way.

Because of course the principal was more than ready to have long philosophical debates at three in the morning, completely ignoring the way Shouta had kept eyeing the clock worrying about the teenager who’d been dropped off in the woods with a promise that Shouta would be right there.

A promise that Shouta hadn’t been able to keep.

Because the talk with Nezu had taken so long, not due to any adversity to fighting the government on the principal’s side, but because when it came to where Touya should be placed at UA, Shouta and the principal had had quite a difference of opinion.

Shouta had been of the opinion that the children involved, especially the mentally vulnerable child who had never signed up to being at UA in the first place, should be shielded as much as circumstances permitted, even going so far as to offer to open his own home on campus to the kid to ensure that all went well, and Nezu had decided that the best thing to do was house Touya with 1A.

Which was a bad idea.

For the reasons listed above as well as the fact that the attack on the training camp was the most traumatic experience in many of these kids’ lives, and forcing them to cohabitate with someone they could conceivably connect to that experience when their dorm was supposed to be their safe place, their home away from the homes that they’d been forced to leave specifically because of the attack on the training camp was counterproductive to their healing.

And a bad idea.

But Nezu was convinced that placing Touya with exactly the children Dabi had hurt the most was an opportunity to show to the world that Dabi’s victims didn’t consider Touya to be responsible for Dabi’s actions, thus strengthening their case considerably.

Which was technically true, but it also presupposed said children’s reactions and opinions to a dangerous degree.

In the end, Shouta had been the one who folded. With the one provision that if his students took the news poorly enough, Nezu would reconsider. And Shouta would be ready for round two when that happened.

When he didn’t have a kid waiting for him.

And it wasn’t that he didn’t want this to work out. If it did, that would be incredible. Not only for the case, but for Touya, who’d have the opportunity to truly leave Dabi behind, not to mention that having company around his own age group would unequivocally be a good thing for his development, too.

His students could learn a lot from the experience as well. It wasn’t every day one was faced with the opportunity to learn about the consequences of someone slipping through the cracks of Hero society by example.

So he’d agreed to try.

Knowing that there was a 99% chance it would end in disaster.

And then he’d stormed off towards to forest, only to be stopped by a phone call from an unusually loud and fast-talking Tsukauchi, who’d had some deeply concerning things to say.

Things that needed to not be recorded and were therefore not safe to say over the phone.

So he’d been forced to turn back around to get Tsukauchi to shut up and come meet him somewhere that wasn’t UA.

And then he’d had yet another conversation that would have been enough work for the day in itself.

He’d tried to force the rumpled and frantic Tsukauchi to keep it brief, but still, the detective had gone on for quite a while about the unethical interrogation techniques of the Hero Public Safety Commission, not to mention their not so subtle attempts to threaten, and their far too extensive knowledge about Touya that they definitely hadn’t gotten from Tsukauchi.

The detective had been livid, and Shouta hadn’t been far behind him, so when he’d suggested getting other possibly sympathetic top Heroes involved, secretly for now, of course, Shouta had immediately given the go ahead, trusting Tsukauchi’s judgment.

After all, if even half of what Tsukauchi and Hawks had been implying was true, they’d need all the help they could get.

And then the sun had started to rise as Shouta finally got to the forest.

Finally got to start setting Nezu’s terrible, doomed to fail plan into action.

And it had immediately started going poorly, just like he’d expected it to.

Really, it was almost nice to be right about it.

First Shouto, whom Shouta had considered relatively safe after his conversations with the other Todoroki siblings as well as what he knew about the boy’s own fairly easygoing temper. But the boy had lost that temper more spectacularly than Shouta had ever seen from him before, and completely refused to even acknowledge Touya as his brother.

Which had been even worse than he’d expected.

He’d known Shouto wouldn’t be as stormfully exuberant in rediscovering his brother as his siblings, but Shouta had hoped that the kid would be willing to talk about it at least. But no such luck.

And then, when he’d only just gotten over the disappointment at Shouto’s reaction (the reaction, not the boy, obviously. Shouto couldn’t be blamed for his emotions, even when they were unexpected and highly inconvenient), he’d tried again with Bakugou.

This time he’d been fully prepared for the yelling.

Only for it to not come.

Instead, Bakugou had scowled and interrupted him before he’d gotten more than half a sentence out to tell him in no uncertain terms that he wouldn’t accept being singled out about Dabi, and whatever Shouta had to say, he could say “to the whole damn class at the same time and quit treating me like I’m fucking fragile or some shit,” and stomped away in a huff, refusing to hear Shouta out.

Shouta would have forced the kid to listen to him if he’d thought he’d get anything out of it. But Bakugou was about as bullheaded as they come, so he decided to let the kid dictate the circumstances under which he was told, even if Shouta disagreed with his choice.

And now, Shouta was finally faced with his entire class.

The day had only just begun.

And he was so tired.

He allowed himself a quiet rest against his desk as he waited for everyone to quiet down and find their seats.

He heard the hush come over the class when they were done getting situated.

And then he couldn’t find it in himself to actually straighten up and start explaining all of this again.

“Sensei?” he heard Kirishima ask quietly, nervously.

And that motivated him to straighten up.

Making his students nervous right now would be a distinctly bad thing to do.

Looking out across his class, he saw beginning apprehension in some of their faces, curiosity in others’, and at the back of the room, Todoroki Shouto had reverted back to the cold, impassive attitude he’d had at the beginning of the school year.

This day was cursed.

“Yes, Kirishima,” he acknowledged.

The boy fidgeted briefly in his seat. “I – well, I – I just wanted to make sure you were okay. ‘Cause you kinda weren’t moving.” Several students around the boy nodded in agreement.

“I’m fine,” he’d better get into this before they started filling in blanks on their own, then.

“You’re aware that I’ve been working on a case for the past week?” It was a rhetorical question, but it still warmed him when his kids nodded, making it clear that they had noticed his absence.

“What was it about?” Kaminari piped up. “Are you gonna tell us?”

“If I’m not interrupted,” he said dryly, satisfied when several of his students, Kaminari included, knitted their lips together. They wanted to know. “It has to do with Dabi. Last week, he was –”

“You caught him! Oh, thank God, that guy gave me the creeps!” Ashido interrupted. And sank deep into her seat when she realized what she’d done.

“… Unfortunately, it’s not that simple,” Shouta chose to continue. Really, if he had to stop to correct the kids every time they got overeager they’d never get anywhere. “He was hit by a permanent de-aging Quirk, resetting his age to sixteen.” He paused for a moment as his students processed. And decided to head off their questions by making them come up with some of these answers themselves. “Can anyone tell me why it’s problematic to arrest this sixteen-year-old?”

There was a long beat of silence. They might have been bursting at the seams with questions, but none of them were ready to come up with answers. Even Iida looked completely lost, probably at a loss for what concrete laws or precedents to look to for answers.

“Because he’s a minor?” Yaoyorozu tried meekly.

“That’s certainly part of it,” Shouta nodded. “But not the main reason.”

“Is it – is he the victim of a crime because of the de-aging?” Uraraka tried.

“That doesn’t fucking matter,” Bakugou scoffed, ignoring Uraraka’s affronted glare, “Just ‘cause he got hurt doesn’t mean he’s not a criminal anymore.”

“You’re half-right, Bakugou,” Shouta said, “you can be a victim and a perpetrator at the same time. In the case of perpetrators, you’ll find they’ve often been victims in the past themselves. That doesn’t excuse their own actions.” Bakugou nodded and leaned back, pleased. “But is this sixteen-year-old a criminal?”

That was a leading question.

And it immediately got a result as Midoriya jumped in.

“Does he still remember being Dabi?” he asked, practically vibrating in his seat. And Shouta had barely started shaking his head before Midoriya continued, “Then he isn’t, is he? Because he hasn’t done any of the – or is he still, because it was still done? Obviously there’s gonna be an issue proving intent when he’s younger than he was when he chose to do the things, but intent isn’t everything, and the things still happened, so is he responsible for those but without intent? Like murder vs. manslaughter? Or – Oh! Maybe he could plead insanity because he wasn’t in his right mind, or the same mind, or he isn’t now, or –”

“Shut the fuck up, Deku!” Bakugou roared, turning in his chair to glare at Midoriya. Who immediately stopped babbling, ducking his head with a sheepish smile.

“He’s has the right of it, though,” Shouta said calmly.

“Right of what? He didn’t have a straight answer for anything,” Bakugou scowled.

“Exactly,” Shouta said, to the deep frustration of more students than just Bakugou, though he certainly fumed the loudest. “There is no clear cut answer when it comes to this situation. Legally, at least.”

“But you have an opinion, don’t you, Sensei?” Asui asked, head cocked to the side.

Shouta nodded. He did. But he needed them to come to the same conclusion independently of him if he wanted this to work.

Which he did.

Or, at the very least, he owed it to everyone involved to try his best.

“What if it were the other way around?” he asked. “What if we had traveled back in time to when he was sixteen? Would we have the right to arrest him then?”

“Only if we had concrete proof that he was planning to do it,” Iida’s answer was immediate. Because there very much were laws to be cited when it came to making arrests before a crime had been carried out.

“Exactly,” Shouta nodded, “do you think, at sixteen, that the kid was already planning out in detail what crimes he would commit almost a decade later?”

Silence.

Clearly the whole class had just realized what Shouta’s opinion was.

“… No?” Jirou said uncertainly.

“No,” Shouta agreed.

“So you’re just gonna let him go? That’s not – that can’t be –” Kaminari looked distraught, looking wildly around to hide how his eyes were being drawn towards where Bakugou had stilled in his seat, eyes wide.

“We’re not going to let him go, no,” Shouta countered.

“But you just said – why not?” Kaminari frowned in confusion

“Because he is a minor. Because he’s been the victim of a crime. Because he needs help, and I am a Hero,” Shouta answered firmly.

“He needs help because of the de-aging?” Tokoyami asked, looking straight at Shouta, clearly expecting a no.

…Clearly aware that something more was going on here.

Shouta would have to question him as to how, but he was already suspecting a certain Number Two Hero who’d been on the premises just last night and might very well be the type of person to seek out his former intern and run his mouth. Likely under the illusion that such actions would be helpful.

Shouta was going to throttle that hare-brained brat masquerading as a functioning adult.

“That is what brought this all to light, but no,” Shouta pulled himself back into the present, “as I said previously, many Villains were victims first. That’s true for Dabi, too. We’ve already agreed that he isn’t a Villain now,” Bakugou’s face twisted into a somewhat helpless frown at those words, “but that doesn’t change the fact that he is a victim.”

“A victim of what?” Uraraka was the first to ask.

“That is his own story to tell,” Shouta said firmly, “and it wouldn’t be okay for me to divulge it to you without his consent. What I will tell you, though, is that the perpetrator is someone very powerful who appears to have connections within the Hero Commission as well as other Heroes.”

“Why does that matter?” Yaoyorozu frowned deeply with concern. “As far as seeking justice goes, someone’s social standing shouldn’t be a factor, should it?”

Shouta hated to burst the kid’s bubble.

“It shouldn’t. But it is. People slip through the cracks all of the time. Mostly, I’d like to believe it’s due to ignorance or sheer bad luck, but sometimes someone with enough power can force the system to work in their favor.”

“But what do we do if the system doesn’t work?” Asui asked calmly.

“We fight back,” Shouta answered, just as calmly.

“But how do you propose we do that now?” Tokoyami helpfully asked to steer the conversation towards what the kid definitely already knew.

“We expose the corruption,” Shouta accepted the help, “we build a case that can’t be ignored and fight to ensure it doesn’t get buried. We make sure we’re heard so that we can force change to happen. The biggest part of that is ensuring that our main witness isn’t conveniently disappeared.” Now was the moment. “Which is why UA is shielding him.”

There was a beat of silence followed by a cacophony of voices.

“What do you mean ‘shielding’?”

“He’s here? Right now?”

“That can’t be right –”

“Why can’t he be somewhere else?”

“This isn’t right.”

“Shut up!” Bakugou’s voice cut through and forced a silence. “He’s not actually here.” It sounded almost like a threat as Bakugou turned to look Shouta in the eye. “You put him somewhere we don’t gotta go. Right?”

Might as well get it over with.

“The current plan is to place him in the 1A dorms, which means you’d be seeing him every day,” Shouta shook his head. He was tempted to apologize, but as it stood, that would be counterproductive.

“What the fuck.” Sero whispered as Bakugou sank down in his chair, frowning deeply to disguise how upset he was.

“You’re not serious, Sensei,” Kirishima pleaded.

“I am,” Shouta disagreed.

“Why?” Todoroki spoke up for the first time, cold eyes fixed on the blackboard.

Shouta could give a lot of different answers to that question. Many of them true. As it stood, he would say what he thought was the best way to shape their view of this experience. What he hoped they would learn from it.

“Because you’re training to be Heroes,” he said quietly, knowing that they were listening. “You’re training to become the ones who save people. Stop them from becoming victims or ensure that they get some semblance of justice after the fact.” He paused for a moment. “You’re not going to be able to save everyone. At some point, someone is going to slip through the cracks because you weren’t fast enough, or strong enough, or because you just didn’t know they needed saving. These people, the ones you didn’t save, they are the ones who just might decide to take justice into their own hands, or maybe just hurt back the world that hurt them. They are the ones who become Villains.”

He wished All Might was here, lending some of his optimism to this lesson.

All he could do was continue it.

“No one is born a Villain. Those are created. And in turn, they create more. The only thing we as Heroes can do is save everyone we can, stop the Villains once they’ve crossed the line, stop them from creating more hurt.” Shouta took a deep breath. Because he was going to be asking a lot of these kids. “I’ve been given the opportunity here to turn back the clock and stop another Villain from being created. Save him and let him become something other than a Villain. It’s my job as a Hero to at the very least try. And I’m asking you to help me do that. But I’ll understand if you can’t.”

He couldn’t deny these kids the right to say no.

To let him know that this was too much.

As much as he hoped they would rise to the challenge, they were still just kids. And he was asking something of them that many adults wouldn’t do.

There was another silence.

This one was significantly longer than the previous ones and was not broken by any of the angry outbursts he’d expected.

Bakugou was staying silent, slumping over his desk, face turned away from the class. Away from Shouta.

His friends were watching him. Waiting for him to take a stance. And when he didn’t, neither did they.

Shouto kept his mouth closed, too, simply staring off into space.

Midoriya, the eternal optimist with a savior complex, was watching Bakugou, too. Conflicted.

In the end, Tokoyami was the one who spoke up first.

“It would appear to be our duty to assist you, then,” he offered.

And although Bakugou flinched almost imperceptibly, no one disagreed with him.

Shouta really hadn’t expected this. He had been so sure that the kids would disagree, would make it clear that he was asking too much. Because he really was. But they weren’t. Which meant that he was stuck in this plan that he’d only agreed to because he hadn’t had the time to argue more strongly against it.

Of course, he was fully prepared for this to just create an even larger blowup later in the day. Anything else would be foolish on a cursed day such as this one.

Damn these kids and their heroic dispositions.

Chapter Text

Spending the day with All Might was about as boring as he had expected.

On the plus side, that meant he’d been able to spend hours either sleeping or just calmly, exhaustedly, pretending to sleep.

On the other side, when he was awake the only entertainment had been watching All Might sit hunched over stacks of paper, sighing heavily and glancing around the room for distractions. Which weren’t there.

Which had served as a great incentive to stay asleep.

And for most of the morning he’d been fine because he was tired enough that the time he spent awake in between naps was too short for the anxiety to take hold. Which was nice for as long as it lasted.

But as time had inevitably marched on and the natural consequence of sleep came in the form of well-rested lucidity, reality made its unwanted return to Touya’s far too conscious mind. And he was bombarded with all of the worries of the day, like what was going to happen after school ended and how exactly he was supposed to work around Shouto’s justified ire.

The mental picture of Shouto, all grown up and angry in a way Touya had never expected of his little brother in particular filled his mind, mixed with the knowledge that Shouto was following directly in their father’s oh-so-heroic footsteps, and was then distorted and turned into a far too familiar picture of Endeavor, always angry and disappointed and wanting nothing more than to ignore Touya’s existence completely.

And that was the point where he gave up on resting and sat up.

All Might had only been all too happy about the excuse to stop working through his paper piles.

That happiness had been short lived as Touya had been practically bouncing off the walls looking for distractions from his treasonous mind, and all the retired Hero had had to offer was boring stories about heroics or tangential topics that did nothing to capture Touya’s attention and stop his mind from racing.

Eventually, All Might had evidently had enough of Touya’s anxious claustrophobia, too, and decided it was time to relocate to somewhere with more space for Touya to bounce off the walls.

That place was the 1A dorms.

Because, as All Might pointed out, it wouldn’t be long before classes ended, and they might as well be ready to meet the students when the time came.

And Touya had grasped at the opportunity to escape the tiny boring conference room without a second thought.

Only to find that an empty dorm building wasn’t exactly riveting in and of itself either.

Instead, it just heightened his anxiety, knowing that the class Dabi had attacked might walk through the doors at any moment.

He obviously couldn’t be sure that All Might’s eventual decision to leave had been due to annoyance at his erratic behavior, but it didn’t seem improbable.

Okay, that might be a bit unfair.

All Might did leave for a legitimate reason.

That reason being a call from Aizawa about how one of the students had managed to slip out and leave in the chaos that had erupted when classes officially ended. Apparently there had been costumes and changing rooms involved? Touya wasn’t sure. All Might hadn’t been very succinct as he stumbled through an excuse and then promptly left.

And wasn’t that just lovely?

Left all alone in a strange place with the knowledge that at least one of the inhabitants of this very place hated him enough to run away from Aizawa in an attempt to escape having to meet him.

It wasn’t exactly the sort of thing that helped keep Touya calm and collected. Especially not when he was already so far from calm that he’d managed to annoy All Might into leaving.

And he didn’t even have anything else to focus on until someone showed up here. Whoever ended up showing up first. Which was a source of anxiety in itself.

So of course, as always when he was stressed or anxious (or both, how fun) and there was nothing else to distract him from the constant barrage of thoughts and feelings and fears, he started fantasizing about finding something sharp and use pain as a distraction. That always did calm him down.

He tried pacing instead, knowing that it was a habit many others engaged in when stressed, but he must be doing it wrong because the mindless repetition just made him more anxious, which was surely not the point. It did bring him to the kitchen, though.

The kitchen. Where the knives were.

Or maybe also some food or something, anything else that wasn’t so messy and obvious and would probably make Aizawa mad when he didn’t need Aizawa to be mad, he needed… he needed a distraction.

So while he absolutely was not hungry, rummaging through cabinets to check out what was available and maybe find himself a soda was preferable to pacing. Or anything else he might do.

The raiding took a good amount of time and concentration, too, once he’d gotten started.

He hadn’t been aware that heroics students could have snacks.

But, oh boy, could they ever.

He was tempted to conclude that there was more junk food in the cabinets and fridge than actual healthy food, but that might just be because junk food tended to keep longer so it was easier to stock up on, which didn’t necessarily make for a true reflection of the students’ eating habits.

Still, the shock of how lax the food rules apparently were here almost made him forget where he was as he dug through chocolates and chips and protein bars of questionable quality. And found raspberry soda. He didn’t think he’d ever had that before. He hadn’t ever had a lot of what was in the cabinets. So he took (possibly stole, he didn’t know if anyone owned these) a bottle.

It was good.

The fizziness was weird and kind of uncomfortable, so he left the cap off as he went back to rummaging around.

He was standing on his knees on the counter digging through a wall cabinet full of colorful and sugary cereals when the kitchen door opened. And he froze.

“ – just saying, maybe if we can prove that he can get to his room without being spotted or something, he’ll stop avoiding all of – oh! Hello?” A teen who had definitely used some heavy duty sort of product to style his bright red hair up in horn-like spikes had walked in, and stopped dead when he saw Touya.

More teens filed in behind him, too. A blond with a possibly dyed lightning bolt in his hair, A pink girl with actual horns, and a black-haired guy with weird elbows.

And they were all staring directly at Touya as he perched stupidly on the counter, looking more than a little suspect, he was sure, as he had both hands still inside the cabinet that was serving as a proverbial cookie jar.

Need for distraction aside, maybe putting himself in such an exposed position had been a bad idea.

He slowly sat down on the counter and closed the cabinet door in the vain hopes that they might be willing to overlook his snooping.

“Hi,” he murmured quietly, way too late to be an appropriate response to the redhead.

None of the newcomers called him out on it, though. They didn’t even comment on his presence in their kitchen. Instead, there was an awkward silence as they all seemed to size him up, shooting each other disbelieving looks that he didn’t know how to decipher. Almost like they were communicating. Which meant they must be close.

And he was the outsider.

He reached for his soda, mainly because he wanted to hold something. Now that he was suddenly face to face with these teenagers, he also desperately wanted to not be wearing a way too big bright pink hoodie that was more than a little ratty after having been worn through two long naps, one of which had happened on the forest floor. But that was not to be.

“Okay wait, are you Dabi?” the blond boy finally broke the silence. And was immediately elbowed in the side by the pink girl. “Ow! What was that – oh, right – um, you wouldn’t be Dabi anymore anyway. Or you wouldn’t be him yet? How am I supposed to ask… Were you, or did you become, Dabi? …Does that make sense?” he looked to his friends, eyebrows furrowed with doubt.

The girl shook her head with a small humorous smile, and the kid with the weird elbows patted the blond on the back. “To be fair, time travel really does mess up your grammar,” he said with a smirk.

“Tell me about it,” Touya grouched at his soda bottle. Because this confusion was his life now and he deserved the right to grouch about it.

“So you are? Dabi, I mean,” the redhead asked.

“I’ve been told so,” Touya shrugged, figuring that it was better to be up front about it. And he then studiously pretended not to notice as they shot each other another round of disbelieving, somehow communicative looks.

“But you don’t remember any of it, right?” the blond kid stepped forward a little. Clearly a little wary, but not afraid. Which was probably a good thing.

“Last thing I remember I was at home. And then I woke up handcuffed to a hospital bed,” he shrugged again.

“Oh, ouch. That doesn’t sound like a good time,” the black-haired boy said, grimacing a little awkwardly in apparent sympathy.

Which Touya had not expected.

So he just shrugged again. What else could he really do?

He wasn’t exactly what he had expected – perhaps as a natural consequence of his bullheaded efforts to avoid thinking about it – but it was definitely more along the lines of yelling and accusations, not a group of teens awkwardly trying to word their questions about his murderous older self in the most polite way possible.

It was… nice. Definitely weird, but nice.

“Why are you cute, though?” the pink girl asked, successfully making Touya forget all previous discomfort and worry in favor of this new, worse discomfort.

Compared to this, he almost wished they were afraid of him. Or angry and yelling. Or trying to run away to not have to meet him. Any of that would be better than this.

“Mina!” the redhead chided, scandalized, “that’s not –”

“What? Come on, he’s totally adorable! His hair’s all big and fluffy and his eyes are big and round and blue and his cheeks are, like, even rounder than Ocha’s!” the pink girl, Mina, defended herself. “It’s just surprising ‘cause Dabi was all doom and gloom and way too many piercings, y’know? Nothing cute about him.” She turned back towards Touya, looking at him expectantly. Like she was expecting him to say something.

Sadly for her, Touya knew better than to engage with her obvious mockery of his appearance.

So much for their apparent kindness.

It was clever, really, going this route. Unlike with any direct attacks, verbal or physical that they might have lobbed at him, this came with easy deniability if he tried to tell Aizawa about it. If they knew how to spin it, they could easily make it look like Touya was the bad guy for not accepting their “friendly compliments”, or just make him look crazy.

Yeah, she was good at this.

Good enough to hit the nail on the fucking head when it came to vulnerabilities.

Good enough that even though he’d resolved not to react, not to give her any more ammunition, he couldn’t quite manage.

“Wait, are you blushing?” the blond kid smiled, eyes wide with mock surprise and glee. “God, if I’d known it was that easy to make Dabi blush I would’ve had a real hard time being scared of him.”

“That’s what I’m saying!” Mina exclaimed, overjoyed to have found a comrade in making Touya their laughing stock.

The two looked about ready to pounce on this vulnerability Touya had been stupid enough to let slip in his initial confusion about their behavior, and he needed to cut them off before they really got started. He just couldn’t handle that right now.

“Were you here for something, or did you come specifically to ruin my day?” he snarled angrily, trying to force them to either change the topic or, more likely, make it obvious what they were doing when they kept digging despite his protest.

The pink girl just blinked at him, though. As if she was taken aback by his anger. As if she hadn’t expected him to see through her bullshit and know she was mocking him.

Honestly, the gall she had.

“Oh yeah,” the redhead cut in, covering for his friends’ sudden silence, “we wanted to prove to Bakugou that he doesn’t need to hide, you know? That he could just come back here and avoid - erm, avoid this whole thing, uh, that way instead of going… wherever he is, but, I mean…” he bit his lip self-consciously, shooting Touya a nervous glance as if he was just now realizing who he was talking to.

Touya understood the issue anyway, though.

After all, it would be kind of difficult for them to prove that Bakugou could avoid this whole thing by coming to the dorms when this whole thing was Touya and Touya was right here.

“No offense, though,” the blond kid jumped in, a tinge of worry in his voice. Like he genuinely didn’t want to hurt Touya’s feelings. Which was bullshit. They’d already established as much. “We’re not saying you are Dabi or anything, but Bakugou just, you know, needs some time to process and all.”

His friends all nodded in silent agreement. The redhead did not stop biting his lip and shooting Touya nervous, almost apologetic glances as he agreed.

And Touya realized that he might owe the redhead a bit of good will even if his friends were all assholes.

Because even if he’d accidentally brought up a clearly very sore subject in talking about Bakugou’s desire to avoid Touya, he’d done so to change the subject the way Touya had wanted. And the rest of them had dropped it with the mockery, too.

So he should find a way to help the redhead out now in return. Not to mention, there was really no reason to stay openly angry. It would only prove that they had gotten to him.

“It’s not like I’m all that interested in seeing him either, you know,” Touya furrowed his brow and actively worked to keep the angry edge out of his voice, addressing the redhead alone as he tentatively offered a solution. Because he would actually quite like to not have to talk to Bakugou either. Especially since Bakugou was evidently the kid who’d been mad enough about this thing to just leave. “I mean, look, I don’t know where all the doors are or anything, but can’t you just tell him that I’m in the kitchen? And that I’m staying in here? And then he only has to avoid that one room, right?”

The four teens looked at each other for a moment, surprise bleeding into their expressions again. Like they hadn’t expected Touya to be willing to help them out. Which just proved that they knew that they’d been acting like assholes, didn’t it?

They seemed willing to take what he was offering, though.

“Yeah. Thanks, dude,” the blond kid smiled, a bit of relief bleeding into his tone, after they’d finished their silent conference, “Kiri, do ya think you can make Bakugou stop hiding now, or…?”

“It’s not like it’s up to me,” the redhead who apparently answered to Kiri said, “if he doesn’t wanna, he’s not gonna. Doesn’t matter what I say.”

“If anyone can, it’s you, though,” Mina stated confidently, although there was something mischievous in the smile she was shooting him.

Kiri just sighed and nodded, though, smiling as he pulled up his phone.

“Wait, do you even know who Bakugou is?” the blond kid asked loudly in a moment of apparent epiphany.

His three friends all looked up, too, sharing in his curiosity. Or maybe just scared that they’d said too much.

“Aizawa told me this morning,” Touya answered quietly.

“Just this morning?” the black-haired kid asked, “I kinda would’ve thought someone would have told you sooner than that.”

“Well, my week’s been kinda busy with other shit, and it’s not like anyone knew I was gonna need to know until they decided to move me here, and that didn’t happen until last night!” Touya defended angrily.

“Okay, chill, I was just asking,” the black-haired kid raised his hands in surrender, looking surprised again, “not like it was your choice anyway.”

“No, it was Aizawa’s,” Touya scowled.

“Oh yeah, he told us you were, like, his mission. Because of the de-aging and stuff,” the blond kid nodded along, a disarming smile on his face.

“He was really tough on questions and stuff when he told us about it, too,” Mina added, “but hey! It’s not like he told us a long time before or anything, either, so it’s probably –”

She was cut off by the sound of the front door opening and someone storming into the common area.

“D’ya think that’s Bakugou?” the blond asked Kiri in a hushed whisper.

The redhead glanced at his phone and shook his head.

And then Aizawa turned the corner into the kitchen. Looking very angry for a moment before he saw who was there and schooled his features into a wary calmness.

“Dude, do you have, like summoning powers or something?” the blond kid asked Touya. Completely ignoring the aura of aggravation surrounding Aizawa.

“Why would I have…?” Touya trailed off as Aizawa came closer. He didn’t know what had the man acting this way and it was very much not helping him calm down.

“Because you said his name and now he’s here, duh,” the blond smiled awkwardly, “Anyway, what’s up Sensei?”

Aizawa straightened up with a sigh.

A tired but not angry sigh.

“I was under the impression that you were still in the conference room,” he told Touya. “If I’d known that you were already in the dorms I wouldn’t have let All Might leave you here alone.”

He looked apologetic. Which meant that he definitely wasn’t mad at Touya, but rather at All Might. Which was a relief.

Although the notion that he needed a babysitter wasn’t exactly welcome, either. Nor was the fact that Aizawa had just said so, out loud, in front of the students who had already displayed a propensity for teasing him.

“Why not?” Mina asked. And Touya was torn between gratitude that she didn’t immediately pounce on this new detail and annoyance that she was asking questions that could lead to the sort of answers that might strengthen her resolve to classify him as cute, harmless, and helpless even more.

“Because I was fully aware of the possibility that any of you could walk in here at any moment,” Aizawa answered with an exasperated sigh, “Even if All Might apparently wasn’t.”

“But why is that a bad thing?” the blond kid looked more affronted at the apparent lack of faith in them than gleeful about Aizawa’s displayed belief that Touya needed to be protected from actual teenagers, “it’s not like we would do anything. Even Kacchan, I mean, he just talks a big game, but he wouldn’t actually hurt anyone just ‘cause.”

Who was Kacchan?

Was… was Bakugou Kacchan?

The more Touya learned about that guy, the more confused he got. He’d been prepared for the kind of kid whom Villains took one look at and decided he belonged on their team. But a guy like that wouldn’t run away or let people call him Kacchan. Would he? Did Touya even want to know?

“I can assure you it’s not that I thought you would deliberately try to sabotage this,” Aizawa reassured, calmer now, “but experience has taught me that it’s better not to let potentially emotionally charged conversations happen without supervision.” And there was the exasperation again. “Besides, you’re teenagers. I know better than to trust you not to find a way to accidentally do something incredibly stupid.”

Mina and the blond kid both looked incredibly affronted at that.

“That’s fair,” Kiri muttered as he looked down at his phone again.

“Are you in contact with Bakugou?” Aizawa asked.

Kiri shook his head. “I kinda was earlier. But he just said he wasn’t hiding and… I didn’t really know what to do with that. And then he stopped answering me.” The redhead shrugged, but his mouth pulled down into a frown that made it clear he was upset by Bakugou’s behavior.

“That’s what Midoriya said, too,” Aizawa nodded, “he found Bakugou at the weight gym, working out as usual and claiming that he was just going about business as normal. All Might is with him now, and the search has been called off. So the rest of your classmates should be here soon.” A quick glance at Touya. “How is this going?”

The question was thrown out to all of them, but Aizawa had been looking at Touya, so he probably wanted an answer from him specifically.

“Well, no one’s outright accused me of villainy yet, so I’d say things are going great,” Touya said dryly, a definite bitter note to his tone that he didn’t bother censoring.

The other teens all looked some level of upset at his words. Or maybe at his tone. And Aizawa didn’t exactly look pleased either.

“… I thought we were doing okay,” the blond kid countered, “I mean, you’re definitely kinda moody and I don’t really know what’s setting you off, but we’ve been talking fine, haven’t we?”

Moody?

Was that their angle?

Characterizing him as unstable?

“Yeah,” Mina agreed, looking uncharacteristically thoughtful, “I thought we were good because you offered to help with Bakugou and all of that even after you got mad, and before… I guess it kinda makes sense that you don’t like being called cute when Dabi was so… goth, I guess?” She squeezed her lips together for a moment, like she was considering her words carefully. “And I’m sorry if I, like, made you uncomfortable? I just – it just popped into my head and I didn’t think you’d mind, ‘cause you’re not Dabi, but you still… that doesn’t mean you’re, like, the opposite of him now, you know. And I was just wrong and I’m sorry.”

She looked so sincere. And it wasn’t like her reasoning didn’t make sense. She’d tried to treat him exactly opposite to how she would have treated Dabi because… because she wanted to show that she didn’t think they were the same.

That actually made perfect sense if it weren’t for the niggling doubt in the back of his head screaming that it was far too nice of a gesture to actually be sincere and he’d already clocked her game as something she would deny if it were brought up.

But she was the one who’d brought it up and she wasn’t denying it happening or that Touya could take it poorly.

It really seemed so straight forward now, but Touya couldn’t really believe it.

And so silence stretched between them as he studied his soda bottle and pretended to not notice the way every other person in the room was studying him. Especially Aizawa, whom Touya could see moving closer out of the corner of his eye.

When the scrutiny got to be too much he tried to shrug it off with an indifferent “whatever” and took a long sip of the soda.

But that evidently wasn’t enough for anyone else as the heavy silence continued and Touya could feel Aizawa gearing up to do something.

Luckily, he was saved from whatever that something was as a phone chimed a text tone.

Everyone automatically looked towards Kiri whose phone was still in his hand, but the redhead quickly shook his head and pointed to the blond. Who in turn fished his phone out of his pocket.

“Jirou’s asking where we are,” he said quietly as he immediately started texting an answer.

“Sounds like they’re closing in,” the black-haired boy put in. Apparently tired of the silent waiting game they’d been playing.

“Like piranhas smelling blood,” Touya muttered as he took a sip of his soda, trying to fill up the silence but not intending to be heard all the same.

“They really aren’t bad,” Mina objected, “I swear we’re all trying to be nice and I’m sorry it doesn’t feel like it, I really am!”

Why did she have to reignite this issue right as it’d finally felt like they were moving on? He didn’t want to fucking talk about this.

And then the front door opened again, letting in what sounded like a rather large, and thus thankfully distracting, group of people, with one voice cutting over the noise.

“I can assure you that I wasn’t aware people had already begun entering the dorm building! I was under the distinct impression that Aizawa wanted us to wait outside for all of us to gather as he has instructed us to do before!”

There was a general murmur of voices following the loud decree, but Touya couldn’t make out any general opinions in the noise.

“It was a good idea, Iida,” Aizawa called out, then, causing silence to fall over the group in the other room, “when you don’t know what sort of situation you might be walking into, it’s better to wait for an authority if you can.” What sage advice.

The silence was short-lived as murmurs of voices slowly rose again, and many footsteps sounded, moving in the direction of the kitchen.

Touya very abruptly became aware that crowds were not his things as a dozen odd more teenagers bundled into the limited space in the kitchen, pressing close to each other and talking. None of them were raising their voices or speaking particularly loudly, but all together they were deafening.

Somehow, though, the loudest thing was the conspicuous absence of Shouto, whose two-toned hair and eyes were nowhere in sight.

Which Touya couldn’t focus on right now.

Aizawa’s presence next to him was his saving grace as the newcomers kept a respectful distance to their Sensei, which in turn meant Touya wasn’t being drowned among them, and the man provided a bit of shelter as well, like a reliable wall of defense between Touya and the teenagers.

Except, of course, for Mina and her comrades who still stood far too close and were being far too confusing for his liking.

And as people found a place to stand and noticed Touya, they stopped talking and looked between him and Aizawa. Like they were looking for instructions.

In the aftermath of all that chattering, the silence was oppressive.

Especially as it was paired with more silent scrutiny. More than one person even tried to lean to look around Aizawa to get a closer look at Touya, apparently completely devoid of subtlety.

It was a relief when Aizawa finally deigned to speak up again, bringing the attention back on himself.

“We’ve already discussed why Touya is here,” he said slowly, “and you all agreed to help this mission run smoothly, so there shouldn’t be anything for us to do here other than run introductions. Am I correct?”

There was nodding and muttering that sounded like agreement.

Touya leaned a little closer to Aizawa, but chose to speak loud enough for everyone to hear him. “Do you seriously expect me to remember everyone’s names if you introduce them all at once?”

He wasn’t trying to be a brat, but that was unrealistic.

Aizawa shook his head, too, “no, but I’m confident you’ll only forget their names so many times before they stick. Might as well let this be the first of the introductions you’ll forget.”

Well, at least there was no pressure.

“Good thing we got here early, eh?” the blond kid smiled, “so you can remember our names first.”

“I have no idea what any of your names are,” Touya disagreed, deadpan.

The blond looked offended, and almost hurt, but only for a moment before the black-haired kid knocked him on the back.

“We never told him our names, genius,” he rolled his eyes.

“Oh,” the blond muttered, looking down as giggles erupted around the room. He was dejected for all of two seconds before the smile returned to his face at full volume. “Better fix that now, then! I’m Kaminari Denki, possessor of a super cool, powerful and effective electricity Quirk!” he brought his hands together and let electricity spark all around him for a moment.

Again, Touya couldn’t decide if this was meant as friendly conversation or if it was, in fact, a subtle threat wrapped in bragging.

“And everyone’s favorite source entertainment when he short-circuits,” a girl with a crooked purple bob put in with a sarcastic smirk, “I’m Jirou, by the way. Ear jacks.” She illustrated her last words by twirling her extremely long earlobe with a jackstick embedded in it around her finger.

The kindergarten-like name round went on, names and Quirks spouted and forgotten in seconds, although Kaminari ended up being right about Touya remembering their group’s names first.

The pink girl was Ashido Mina, acid Quirk, the red-haired guy’s name was Kirishima, which made sense, and he had a… hardening Quirk? Touya couldn’t decide if the guy’s quips about manliness were deliberate or not, but he resolved not to laugh regardless. And the guy with the weird elbows could shoot tape from said elbows. And his name was Sero something.

Other than that, the stand-outs were a girl with extraordinarily round cheeks whose name was Uraraka Ochako and the guy whose voice seemed permanently loud, Iida Ten-something.

And the guy with the bird-head who looked at Touya like he knew more than he should. Tokoyami Fumikage. Hopefully the knowing stare was part of his emo act and not something more worrying.

They’d just barely finished the name round, Aizawa calling attention back to himself, when the front door opened again, this time with a resounding boom.

“I don’t give a fuck what you think! I wasn’t fucking hiding, I just don’t need to waste my precious fucking time trying to act nice to – nobody’s even here anyway, you fucker!” The angry words were accentuated by near-constant popping, like small explosions.

“Young Bakugou, I can assure you that we were all going to meet here, and –” All Might’s voice tried to explain, but he was cut off by Aizawa, yelling to the newcomers.

“Kitchen!” He then immediately resumed talking in a normal speaking voice, “like I was going to say, there are three students you haven’t officially greeted yet. Two of them are coming here now.”

The first of the two to come into view was an angry-looking blond guy with a pinched face, who was in fact emitting explosions from his hands as he walked, and Touya would bet money that was Bakugou, because the other one was a green-haired babyfaced boy who looked like he was on the verge of tears trailing after the blond and eyeing him warily. Not exactly Villain material that one.

“What the fuck do you want from me?” The blond kid growled at Aizawa, using his explosions to emphasize his words.

“Introduce yourself,” Aizawa replied, completely unphased by the words and the explosions, “then you can leave.”

The blond’s eyes drifted over to Touya. And he took a visibly deep breath, letting out two loud explosions at the same time.

“Bakugou Katsuki,” he grumbled, a clear challenge in his glare, “I’m gonna be the Number One Hero, and there’s nothing you can do to stop me.”

“Far be it from me,” Touya desperately wanted to roll his eyes at the arrogance, but he had a feeling that might get him punched. And he was keen to avoid that if at all possible.

Judging by the blond’s sneer, it might not be possible.

“You think I can’t do it,” he stated angrily.

Touya blinked. “I never said that.”

“You think I can’t fucking tell?” Bakugou spat, letting out even more explosions and crowding into Touya’s space even as Aizawa was edging to put himself between them.

And Touya wanted to tell him that clearly, he could not but Bakugou’s hot temper and Aizawa’s wariness both had him on edge as cold fear began to pool in his gut.

More than anything, he didn’t want to be hurt again. Not like that. Not when he couldn’t control it.

He didn’t let it show.

Showing weakness never helped.

His silence also very obviously wasn’t helping.

“Fucking try me, you bug-eyed freak!” Bakugou moved sideways as Aizawa tried to cut him off and force him to move back a little. “My workout was cut short because of your bullshit, so fucking fight me to make up for it and we’ll see who comes out on top!”

His challenge delivered, he finally allowed Aizawa to push him back, crossing his arms and glaring as his friends, mainly Kirishima, moved up to flank him and pull him a little farther away from where Touya sat.

“No.”

That probably wasn’t the most diplomatic way to phrase his refusal, but with the newly created distance and Aizawa between them, Touya was starting to feel just a little resentful at Bakugou’s attempts to cow him. He’d had worse and he wouldn’t let it phase him.

“No?” Bakugou fumed, letting out another pair of loud explosions. “Where the fuck do you get off –”

“Bakugou.” Aizawa interrupted. “He said no. Respect that.”

Bakugou did not look like he was going to respect it. He looked about ready to explode, actually.

He seemed to decide against further antagonism for now, though, as he grabbed the arm of the redhead standing next to him instead.

“Shitty Hair,” he ground out. And Touya couldn’t help but agree with that nickname. “I’m gonna hit you with my Howitzer.”

That sounded distinctly like a threat.

Kirishima just smiled blithely. “For sure, dude. But I’m pretty sure Aizawa’s got something to say, and I wanna hear it. You can go ahead, though. I’ll catch up.”

Bakugou grumbled but stayed put, letting his friends pull him back a little farther even as he kept his eyes trained on Touya, tensed up and ready for a fight.

“The other student you haven’t met is Midoriya,” Aizawa had evidently chosen to ignore Bakugou’s power trip in favor of expediency.

It worked to distract Touya, as well, as he took in the news that the small, sweet-looking green-haired boy was the Midoriya he’d heard about.

Shouto’s friend.

Not that he could say that when Shouto had so firmly made it clear that he didn’t want to be associated with Touya.

“You’re the one who broke his own arms,” he heard himself say. Which was perhaps another thing he shouldn’t say out loud, but it was a little too late to realize that now.

And as far as he could tell, no one minded. Midoriya blushed and smiled sheepishly as his classmates chuckled and Bakugou in particular barked out a derisive laugh.

“He’s got you pegged, huh, Deku,” the explosive blond smirked cruelly. And he didn’t even bother to look over at the kid he’d just mocked, still keeping his glare on Touya.

Midoriya’s blush deepened, but he didn’t protest the cruel nickname. Nor did anyone else.

“So,” Touya felt like he ought to stay out of whatever this was, but it was providing a distraction from how Shouto wasn’t even here and… and Touya didn’t want to think about why he wasn’t. Better to focus on Midoriya’s weird, cruel nickname. “No one’s gonna comment on the fact that Midoriya just got called useless? That doesn’t seem very heroic to me.”

He looked over at Aizawa. Because he really would have thought that the man would’ve had something to say about something like that.

Aizawa just shook his head, though, looking down, his whole posture screaming exasperation.

The class wasn’t doing much better. Bakugou was scowling and glaring perhaps a bit harder, which made sense given that Touya had just called him unheroic, which was maybe a bad move, and Midoriya just stuttered out an excuse about how it wasn’t like that, or something.

Touya frowned.

Not like that?

“Please tell me you name isn’t actually Deku,” he said warily. Because it was one thing if this was a nickname. But if it wasn’t… that came with a whole lot of terrible implications that Touya really hoped he wouldn’t have to deal with. He had enough in his own terrible home life, he didn’t need to be around someone whose parents had thought it was a good idea to name their child fucking Deku.

“Oh no, no that’s not it either – or, well, not exactly? It’s more – um,” Midoriya floundered, waving his arms around, “ um, it’s… it’s my Hero name?” He flushed, another sheepish smile on his face.

“That is… so much worse,” Touya shook his head. He named himself Deku? What the hell had happened to him that he decided calling himself useless in public and inviting other people to do so was a good idea?

Actually, Touya didn’t want to know. This was supposed to be a nice distraction, not a study in Midoriya’s messed up mental state.

“You know what, never mind,” he said to stop Midoriya’s excuses in their tracks, “never mind, I don’t wanna know, I’m terribly sorry for asking in the first place, can we just… move on?”

“I’d greatly appreciate if we could finish this up some time today, as well,” Aizawa thankfully answered his plea, “The sooner we get this over with, the sooner I can get back to my actual work.”

“So fucking get it over with,” Bakugou grumbled, “I don’t wanna be stuck here either.”

Aizawa sighed deeply. “Alright. The last student you haven’t been introduced to is Todoroki Shouto. He checked in with me and asked to be excused, so –”

“We could do that?” Bakugou looked somewhere between murderous and embarrassed that it was that easy.

“Of course you could,” Aizawa sighed again, “I am fully aware that this is a lot to ask. Of all of you. So if you tell me that you need to tap out for a moment or take some time to yourselves, I’m going to do my best to accommodate that. The trick here is that you need to tell me. Not just go running off without a word of warning.” He punctuated his words with a pointed glare at Bakugou, who responded, predictably, with more sullen glaring.

“Shots fired,” Kaminari mumbled and was ignored.

“Anyway,” Aizawa straightened up and moved his eyes away from Bakugou, “I’ll figure out a way to introduce you to Todoroki later, okay?” That was definitely code for having a talk at some point, which Touya couldn’t really protest. “Beside that there’s only the question of where exactly Touya will be sleeping.” A whisper of unease rose among the students who might have agreed to this whole sharing a dorm thing, but that apparently didn’t mean that they were okay with actually sleeping around him. Figured. “The boys’ dorms are almost entirely full, and I don’t think it’s a good idea to place you all in such close quarters regardless of good intentions.”

Obviously.

But what other options were there?

“There is, however, an entire empty floor on the girls’ side,” Aizawa said calmly, as if that wasn’t controversial at all, “which I think would be the best solution for all parties.”

All parties except Touya’s pride.

But he would just have to swallow that.

Especially given that no one else was speaking up, and making a big deal out of it would just prove to them that he was bothered by it. And he wasn’t about to hand them any more ammunition than they already had.

Especially when he didn’t even know what they would do with the ammunition they had.

“If there’s anything else you need, or want to talk about, i want you to come find me, but for now we’re going to table this and take a break,” Aizawa finished up, “Touya, you can come with me now and we’ll get you settled.”

This wasn’t the welcome he’d expected.

And as he slid down from the counter and followed Aizawa out of the kitchen, noise erupting behind him as he left, he wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing.

Chapter Text

Maybe Shouto was remembering Touya wrong.

He’d always thought he’d known who his brother was before he died, despite how young he’d been when he’d lost him.

Always thought that his memories of kindness and softness and understanding were the real ones, the important ones, the ones that showed who Touya really was.

The same way his good memories of Mom were the important ones. Not the one time she’d been driven too far and hurt him, but the ones of her holding him and comforting him and showing him that there was a way to be a Hero that didn’t include becoming his father.

So he’d been content to remember Touya for the good things like the way he snuck into Shouto’s room at night when everyone else was asleep and just sat with him quietly for a little while, shushing him when he tried to talk because the walls were thin and Father would definitely know if they got loud and he’d definitely blame Touya if he found out, but Touya came anyway despite the risk.

Those memories were the ones he’d clung to for a long time after Touya died, spending every night logically knowing and grieving that it wouldn’t ever happen again, but still finding solace in the knowledge that it had happened before.

Or, how after Mom was taken away, Touya had shown Shouto his own burns and promised that it would stop hurting after a while, and maybe it would even fade away like some of Touya’s oldest burns that were barely there at all anymore.

And he was wrong about the scar fading, but the pain did slowly go away like he said it would.

Or how he’d somehow always known when it was all getting to be too much for Shouto with the training and the expectations after Mom wasn’t there to make Father give him a break, and then Touya would show up and beg for Father’s attention and more training.

At the time, Shouto hadn’t really understood that Touya was doing that for him, but after Touya wasn’t there anymore he’d realized how much those short breaks had mattered and how much harder it was to keep going without them.

Without Touya.

But that Touya, the one he remembered. The quiet, thoughtful Touya who’d sat with him in silent solidarity and bought him an hour of reprieve by taking his place when he really needed it. That Touya couldn’t have become Dabi.

He had to be remembering it wrong.

Remembering the wrong things.

But he didn’t remember anything else and he didn’t know why.

He could remember Touya being angry, too.

Remember him yelling at Father when begging didn’t work and then getting brutally punished for his insolence.

Those memories were few and fuzzy. Probably because he’d never really wanted to remember those things, never wanted to see them at all, always content with keeping only the happy memories.

But even so, he did remember.

And it wasn’t enough.

Just being angry at Father when he couldn’t get his way wasn’t enough for Touya to end up being what he was.

Shouto had to be missing something.

Forgetting something.

And he felt… betrayed.

Cheated.

Lied to.

That he’d somehow been convinced to spend so long remembering the wrong things and apparently forgetting the important ones, the ones that showed what Touya was capable of. What he could, and did, become.

It felt like his own brain, his own memories, had lied to him.

Because there had to have been some indication, something he was missing, that, if he’d just remembered it, would have made it clear how Touya could have become Dabi.

And he’d spent all day wracking his brain for answers, missing memories and new connections, and coming up with nothing. And he just… he couldn’t face Touya before he found out what he was missing.

He just knew that he wouldn’t know how to deal with this until he could remember the real Touya, not the kind older brother of his traitorous memories.

The one he’d missed so badly.

The one he wished was still here.

If he’d ever been here at all and not just some sick figment of Shouto’s lonely mind wishing for someone who understood him.

So he’d told Aizawa in no uncertain terms that he wouldn’t see Touya again that day, and Aizawa had let him off.

Which was unexpected.

He hadn’t actually thought Aizawa would listen. But he did.

And let Shouto be alone like he wanted.

And then the rest of the afternoon and the evening had gone by with him doing nothing but try to wrap his head around his Touya and Dabi somehow being the same person, trying to find some way to reconcile the two.

But he couldn’t.

There was nothing in Dabi’s sneering taunts that reminded him of Touya’s soft shushing, nothing in the coldly self-assured, murderous challenger stood across from Endeavor that looked anything like Touya begging the same man for his attention, knowing what that attention would look like and doing it anyway because Shouto needed a break.

He kept trying, though.

Because Touya was Dabi, and the only way for his Touya to be real, then, was if he could become Dabi, too.

So either Shouto was remembering Touya wrong entirely, or he was missing the thing that changed him.

And he honestly didn’t know which option was worse.

But he had to know which was true.

He stayed silent through Aizawa’s visit later in the afternoon, and the man let him be alone again after a while without forcing him to talk.

He ignored Midoriya, too, when he came and knocked, asking if everything was okay.

Because maybe Midoriya could have helped him sort this out.

Maybe Aizawa could, too.

But this all felt too personal and painful and confusing to share yet.

He didn’t want to let Midoriya or Aizawa fix it before he knew what needed fixing.

What he was missing.

And he couldn’t figure it out, so he stayed quiet, stayed in his room, didn’t go down for dinner, didn’t talk to anyone, just lay on his bed as darkness fell, trying to remember who Touya had been, trying to figure out how he could have missed his own brother becoming a Villain.

-

It was dark.

It was dark and then there were flames.

They were orange and then they were blue and then they were orange again.

They were all bad.

He hated them.

He hated them and he was scared of them.

That stayed the same.

In the darkness and with the flames he was scared. All of the time he was scared.

When they weren’t there he knew they’d come back and when they did he knew they’d hurt him.

His face hurt.

And he felt… loss.

He was losing something and his face hurt and he was scared and grieving and the orange fire was everywhere.

Just then, when the blue fire came, it didn’t feel scary.

It almost made him less scared of the orange fire, too.

But there wasn’t very much of it and the orange fire kept overshadowing it, smothering it.

And then the blue fire disappeared completely, swallowed up by orange.

And he felt loss again.

He was grieving and alone with just the orange fire that scared him so badly. And it stayed like that for what felt like forever.

And he missed the blue fire that felt so much safer and quieter and kinder.

But then there was a new blue fire, clashing with the orange in a way the old one never had.

It was angry and scary and loud.

And he was scared.

He was scared as he watched the new blue fire grow and challenge the orange fire.

The orange fire that had been the only fire for so long that he couldn’t imagine it ever going away. The only thing that had stayed around when he lost everything else.

He didn’t want to know it he’d grieve if it went away.

He didn’t want to lose any more. Didn’t want to grieve any more. Didn’t want to be scared.

But he was.

He was so scared and so alone and he missed… he missed.

-

He woke up drenched in sweat, heart pumping so hard it hurt, his lungs aching as he struggled for breath, struggled to remember what he’d dreamt that made his feel like this, but it was already fading and all he felt was scared.

And alone.

In the dark.

And he didn’t want to be alone. Or in the dark. Not anymore.

He didn’t want to feel like he was grieving.

Especially Touya.

Touya was very much alive, and he might’ve never been worth grieving over to begin with.

But his heart wouldn’t calm down and the feeling of grieving and being alone wouldn’t go away even as he stood up and turned on the light and started pacing.

It wouldn’t leave and he felt like he was choking, the image of fire on his mind, his lungs still aching and his heart still thrumming and he needed… he needed to see Touya.

He needed to prove to his stupid heart that Touya was fine and alive and still there even though he hadn’t seen him since he practically disowned him this morning.

Because all his heart was telling was that he hadn’t seen Touya for eight years before that and what was to stop him from disappearing again?

How could Shouto know that he wouldn’t do it again when he didn’t even know why he’d done it the first time.

Especially when Shouto hadn’t given him any reason to stay.

So he had to look, had to check, had to make sure.

Had to, had to, had to.

And so he left his room, a vague memory of Aizawa telling him that Touya wasn’t in the boys’ dorms steering him towards the girls’ side. Wasn’t there an empty floor there? He was pretty sure there was, so he’d check there first.

It took him a little while because he didn’t actually remember which floor was the empty one, but he found it in the end, so it was fine.

And then he just needed to figure out which room Touya was in.

If he was in any of them at all.

If he hadn’t already left.

He started knocking on all of the doors in turn. Not loudly, it was the middle of the night and he didn’t particularly want anyone else to know he was here, but hopefully loud enough for Touya to hear and come out so Shouto could see him and see that he was here and he was fine and he hadn’t left again.

It worked, too.

Touya opened the door farthest from the elevator just as Shouto had turned around to go back and start knocking on the first door again.

He looked tired and wary and more than a little surprised to see Shouto, still wearing the same pink hoodie he’d had on in the morning, but sans pants this time.

“Do you need something?” his brother asked quietly after a moment of staring, no anger or resentment in his voice despite the fact that Shouto had clearly just woken him up. Because he’d had a nightmare.

It was so stupid.

And now he’d seen Touya like he wanted anyway, so he should just turn around and walk away. Go back to his own room and his own bed and go to sleep already.

But there was no one else in his room and he didn’t want to be alone and Touya was right there and he looked exactly the same as he used to when he’d sat on Shouto’s bed with him on nights like this one.

And he couldn’t turn his back on that.

Touya didn’t react beyond simply taking a step back as Shouto walked past him into the mostly bare dorm room he was sleeping in. The only real evidence that someone was living there now were the rumpled sheets on the bed and the jeans slung haphazardly over the desk chair.

It looked nothing like his room. Or any of the rooms in their father’s house.

Touya rubbed the end of his sleeve against his eyes as he closed the door and slowly, almost nervously, walked a little closer to Shouto.

“Are you okay?” he whispered, as if he, too, was remembering the long gone need to be quiet at night so Father wouldn’t hear them.

Shouto didn’t answer. He just sat down on the bed and curled up, resting his head on his knees.

Touya looked uncertain for a moment before he sat down, too, pulling the covers over his bare legs and slumping forward, facing Shouto like he was expecting him to do something.

“We used to sit like this,” Shouto whispered, “before. Remember that?”

Recognition immediately sparked in Touya’s eyes and he nodded decisively.

“Yeah,” he answered, “I remember.”

“Why did you do that?” Shouto asked, not sure what he expected the answer to be. Or what he wanted it to be.

Touya took a moment before answering, shifting slightly.

“Because I figured you were lonely,” he whispered, low enough that Shouto almost couldn’t make out his words, “I always was when it was me. I figured my company was better than nothing.”

Shouto nodded.

“It was.”

And it was like all the worry just disappeared as the reality of this situation truly registered.

Touya was here and he was the same as Shouto remembered.

Still just as quiet and kind and understanding him in a way no one else ever did.

Still willing to just sit with him at night.

His memories hadn’t betrayed him.

They couldn’t have when they all felt exactly like this, too.

And this was real.

Touya was here.

He couldn’t pretend to know about Dabi or what had happened there, how his Touya had become that, but it wasn’t that his Touya had never existed. It was something else that had changed him.

And Shouto could deal with that tomorrow.

Because even if he had no idea what had happened, it hadn’t happened for this Touya yet, so he was safe. He was okay for now. And if Shouto could find a way to keep his Touya he would.

But for now, it was just okay.

And with that certainty, with the distant but familiar memory of sitting together with Touya, small and quiet and tired, the desire to go to sleep here where he was safe almost overwhelmed him.

He felt himself slowly slumping over and decided to take matters into his own hands while he still could, before he just fell over, and lay down on Touya’s bed, making himself comfortable as the calmness washed over him and he closed his eyes.

He felt Touya shuffling around and batted an arm out to stop him.

“Don’t leave,” he mumbled, but it was difficult to form the words as sleep slowly took over.

Touya still paused, though.

“You’re in my room, genius,” he whispered, “I’m not leaving, I just have to get comfortable, which is pretty difficult considering the fact that you’re taking up all the space and laying on my comforter.”

Touya had never talked that much at night before, and it felt a little odd now, but it also sparked a feeling of safety as he realized that they didn’t have to worry about Father hearing them anymore. And then the talking felt right. Like it should have always been there.

Still, Shouto was very comfortable right now and not willing to give that up for the sake of trying out this new ability to have actual conversations with each other.

“Shhh,” he batted harmlessly at his brother until he lay down, too, back against Shouto’s side, and only briefly tried to push back and make Shouto give up some of his comfortable space before resigning with a soft sigh and settling down completely.

“Good night,” he whispered.

“Night,” Shouto answered. Content. Happy.

Chapter Text

Touya wasn’t going to pretend to understand what was going through Shouto’s head.

He’d really thought his brother hated him. And as much as that hurt he’d tried to accept it because he got it.

He understood not wanting to associate with the brother who’d attacked you and your friends, causing God knows how much damage.

And that was clearly how Shouto had seen him last morning.

What he didn’t understand was what the hell had changed since then that had prompted Shouto to seek him out in the middle of the night.

He was of course eternally grateful that it had as of yet not turned out to be a plot to attack him when he was most vulnerable, but at the same time, he would have understood that.

And gratitude didn’t take away his confusion.

If anything, it only served to magnify it. Because what reason could Shouto possibly have to be kind to him?

As it stood, it kind of felt like it had been a test of some sort, Shouto coming in and sitting on his bed, asking if he remembered how they used to sit together at night.

Which, of course he remembered that. For him it only felt like a little over a week since he’d done that last, albeit with a much smaller version of Shouto.

Really, given how much time it had actually been, he was surprised that Shouto remembered it well enough, and with enough fondness, to want to do it again.

Or, well, the sleepover part was new. It had always been too risky to stay for too long before, but Shouto had been very sleepily adamant about it. And it wasn’t like Touya could really go sleep anywhere else.

Especially when Shouto had asked him not to leave.

Which had hurt.

To be so bluntly reminded that Shouto couldn’t trust him to stick around because he had left before.

Obviously, he wasn’t going to leave after that, even if he still reserved the right to be salty about just how much space Shouto was taking up. The snark also covered up that unwelcome feeling of loss, knowing that he’d never really get his Shouto back.

And Shouto was still taking up that space now, fast asleep next to him as the morning sun was just starting to peek in through the blinds.

And Touya still couldn’t leave.

It would be wrong.

But he also had some notion that it might be a school day, and if so, Shouto probably needed to get up some time soon, too.

But he didn’t want to wake him up.

Because as nice as this was, he didn’t understand what it was about, what Shouto was trying to do, and it felt safer to just let him sleep rather than have to wake him up and face whatever Shouto decided to do next.

Whatever it was.

Touya really had no idea.

But Shouto was going to wake up eventually, regardless of Touya’s wishes, and at that point, having let him oversleep might be a point in favor of forgetting whatever goodwill had brought Shouto to his room to begin with and have his brother go back to hating and ignoring him.

That might be what Shouto decided to do regardless of when he woke up, but at least if Touya woke him up now whatever happened wouldn’t happen because Touya was a coward who couldn’t even look his own brother in the eye for fear of rejection.

So he reached out and tentatively shook Shouto’s shoulder.

… And maybe he’d expected it to be a little more difficult to wake his brother up, but Shouto’s eyes shot open at once and he immediately started scanning his surroundings for threats until his gaze fell on Touya and he… calmed down.

“Are you cold?” he mumbled as he stretched.

“…No?” Touya didn’t get cold. Why would Shouto even be asking in the first place? “Are you?”

Shouto shook his head, “You just feel cold,” he explained.

“Because I’m touching your left side, genius,” Touya sat up.

“Oh,” Shouto said impassively and sat up, too, “that makes sense.”

Touya gave a nod of agreement and the two fell into a short silence.

It wasn’t necessarily uncomfortable. Just quiet. Like they used to be.

“Why did you wake me up?” Shouto asked after a while.

“Don’t you have school today?” Touya shrugged, “wouldn’t want you to be late.”

Shouto furrowed his brow and looked around the room for a moment.

“I think it’s still really early,” he said.

“How am I supposed to know what time your school starts?” Touya quietly defended himself, “I don’t even have a clock to check the time in here.”

Shouto just shrugged, unaffected.

And now the silence was uncomfortable. Slowly filling with the knowledge that they had more important things to talk about than school and time and temperature.

As much as he didn’t want to talk about it, it was hanging in the air between them and while it had been possible to mostly ignore it last night in the tired confusion of it all, they were both far too awake and aware now to continue that.

“Why did you come here?” Touya took the plunge. He wasn’t sure he was going to understand it even if Shouto explained himself, but it was a placed to start.

Shouto looked thoughtful for a moment.

“Because I missed you,” he admitted quietly.

Leaving Touya in awe at his ability to actually say that, let alone mean it, out loud to the brother he hadn’t seen for eight years, the brother who’d become a Villain, the brother he’d refused to even acknowledge less than twenty four hours ago.

No, Touya didn’t understand him at all.

“I don’t –” Shouto continued, which was a relief because Touya was at a complete loss for words, “I don’t understand how you became Dabi. And I felt like I needed to before I could face you again. So I could know how to face you. But I couldn’t figure it out because you’re nothing like Dabi, and in my mind it’s like you’re still two different people.”

Shouto paused and looked intently at Touya. Like he was willing him to understand.

Touya just nodded.

“And last night… I had a nightmare,” Shouto admitted quietly. And Touya wanted to offer some sort of comfort like he would have when Shouto was little, but he still didn’t know if that was his place with this grown up Shouto, so he stayed put. “And I just wanted to see you. Because… I don’t know. I just missed you. And I still don’t understand the Dabi thing, but I don’t want to avoid you, I guess.”

That was… nice.

More than Touya had expected at any rate.

And he couldn’t deny that hearing Shouto say the same thing Aizawa had about him somehow not actually being Dabi felt good. Like maybe there was something to it.

“Aizawa said it was obvious that something big happened between now – like, my now – and when I became Dabi. You know, with all the scars and that,” he said. Not necessarily because he wanted to convince Shouto of the distinction between the two but because he wanted to convince himself.

Shouto nodded, although his brows were furrowed. “Maybe that’s what I’m missing.”

And of course, now that Shouto was agreeing with him, Touya felt the stupid urge to argue against himself, make Shouto less inclined to believe that he wasn’t Dabi even though that was what he wanted. As if it was wrong for Shouto to just agree and let him off the hook.

“It’s not like I don’t have anything in common with Dabi, though,” he said, stupidly.

“Like what?” The wrinkle between Shouto’s brows deepened.

And he was in too deep to stop now, so he might as well just come out and say it.

“I mean, I kinda do want to see Endeavor suffer,” he admitted, and hurried to qualify his statement before Shouto called for a teacher or something, “but I don’t think I’d actually be able to do anything about it myself.”

Shouto just nodded in understanding, though.

So much for Shouto blindly following in their father’s footsteps, huh?

Maybe he needed to revise his view of Shouto as well, if this was how his brother reacted to the idea of wanting bad things to happen to Endeavor.

“Aizawa said it was because you weren’t saved,” Shouto said slowly, thoughtfully. “That you became Dabi because you were a victim and no one saved you.”

“That doesn’t sound right,” Touya immediately disagreed, his stomach roiling in discomfort at being called a victim. That wasn’t a word he wanted put on him. And in some way, he didn’t want it to not be his choice. Because if it hadn’t been his choice before, he couldn’t choose to do differently this time around. “I mean, it’s not like everyone who – it’s not like you became a Villain and we literally have the same father, so it can’t just –”

“But you just said that it was the trauma that did it, so if someone had saved you from that so it didn’t happen, wouldn’t that mean you wouldn’t become Dabi?” Shouto interrupted him, looking keen to find an answer that Touya couldn’t give him.

“I don’t know!” Touya raised his voice a little in aggravation. “I don’t know. I don’t remember. I wasn’t… I wasn’t there, I don’t know what happened, or what didn’t happen, or what might have happened if someone had stepped in, or if I’d had a – a choice or whatever. I just don’t know, okay?”

Shouto gave a quick nod and looked away, clearly put off by Touya’s outburst.

But he’d just kept pushing and Touya didn’t have an answer for him.

He didn’t know how fate worked.

He still shouldn’t have yelled, though, and the guilt of that just made everything worse.

The silence that followed this was the longest and the most uncomfortable of the morning. And neither of them moved to break it.

Touya because he didn’t know how, even as he ached to say something, and Shouto because… well, it wasn’t like Touya understood why Shouto was doing anything else this morning anyway.

It wasn’t even like he didn’t have anything to say.

He had a lot of things to say, but none of it was a full, coherent explanation like Shouto wanted.

Because he wanted to believe that things could have been different if just one of the Heroes he’d begged for help had bothered to listen. And now that he had Aizawa he really couldn’t imagine doing anything like what Dabi was doing. But could he imagine it before Aizawa said he was on Touya’s side? was that really the path he’d been on before? How was he supposed to know?

How was he supposed to know if he’d had any other choice? Or had a choice at all?

How was he supposed to know any of this?

In the end, the quiet didn’t end until there was a knock on Touya’s door.

And Touya was anxious enough for the discomfort to end that he almost forgot to put his pants back on as he jumped up to answer it.

But it was one thing to be in his boxers around his brother who’d showed up at his door in the middle of the night and quite another, far more embarrassing thing, if he managed to practically flash one of the other students.

Although, in the end it turned out to just be Aizawa. Who’d already seen him in a far worse state than simply pantsless, so he needn’t have bothered.

Then again, with the way Aizawa was looking between him and Shouto it actually felt quite nice to have an extra layer of protection against the scrutiny.

“You’re talking things out?” Aizawa almost managed to keep the wariness out of his tone. But only almost.

Touya looked to Shouto to see what his brother would say, but Shouto still wasn’t looking at him. Or Aizawa.

Aizawa noticed, too, and walked over to sit down on the bed next to him, leaving Touya alone to shut the door.

“What happened?” Aizawa’s voice was soft as he leaned to put himself in Shouto’s field of vision.

Touya leaned back against the door, feeling like it might have been a good idea for him to leave and let Shouto have this conversation alone but not having anywhere else to go.

Shouto just shrugged defensively, pulling in on himself.

“Todo-” Aizawa cut himself off, “Shouto. I can’t help you if you don’t talk to me. I need to know what’s going on, or I won’t know what to do about it.”

“It’s fine,” Shouto sighed, “we were just talking.”

There was a beat of silence after that, but Aizawa luckily seemed to know better than to try to wait it out with Shouto.

“About what?” he prodded. And shot a glance at where Touya was still pushed back against the door, doing his best to become one with the wall.

“Why he became Dabi,” Shouto answered dully. “He doesn’t know.”

“Of course he doesn’t,” Aizawa furrowed his brows and looked between Touya and Shouto again, “he doesn’t remember it.”

“But how am I supposed to understand it if I don’t know what happened?” Shouto finally looked up at Aizawa.

“Are you supposed to understand it?” Aizawa asked a little too innocently.

And Shouto took the bait.

“What else am I supposed to do?” he straightened up to glare at Aizawa, quickly raising his voice, “my own brother became a Villain and I didn’t even know it! How am I supposed to believe it won’t happen again if I don’t even know why it happened the first time? How am I supposed to know he won’t just leave and do it again?”

Touya felt that familiar twist of guilt again. The one that hadn’t really left him since he woke up in the hospital. The one that had been insisting on him going back before he even knew what was going on. Because he knew he couldn’t leave his siblings when they needed him. Knew that they would be worse off without him.

But he had left.

When he wasn’t much older than this.

To go and become a Villain.

Of course Shouto couldn’t trust him to not do it again.

Aizawa’s face cleared up with understanding, too, as he looked over at Touya again.

And then his mouth drew tight with determination.

“Touya,” he called, “come sit on the bed with us.”

He didn’t want to. Whatever Aizawa would say next couldn’t be good. Because there was nothing good to say in this situation.

But he walked over and sat down next to the man anyway.

Aizawa saw his reluctance, too, and reached out and squeezed his shoulder for a moment.

And then he sighed. The way he seemed to always do before he gave a longer speech or lecture.

“Dabi is gone,” he stated, his tone not allowing for any disagreement, “so we’ll likely never know exactly what his reasons were, or what pushed him all the way to villainy. All we can do is speculate on the facts we do have and extrapolate from there.” He turned to Shouto, a new sternness to his features. “It’s not fair of you to expect Touya to have all the answers. He’s sixteen. Not that much older than you. And you certainly don’t have this figured out, either.”

“But he’s –” Shouto tried.

“No,” Aizawa cut him off, “he’s not Dabi, he never knew Dabi, he’s as far removed from everything Dabi did as you are. As far as we know, you might one day find yourself in a situation where you’ve made yourself the Villain just as much as Dabi did.”

Shouto looked deeply affronted at that.

“I’ve never –” he tried to argue.

“Touya,” Aizawa turned his back on Shouto, and startling Touya who really hadn’t expected to be pulled into this, “have you ever killed anyone? Or even genuinely considered doing so?”

Had he?

No. He actually hadn’t. It had never been an option.

He shook his head.

“But Dabi did,” Shouto pointed out, grinding his teeth in frustration. “And that’s what I don’t understand! How did he go from Touya to Dabi? It doesn’t make any sense.”

“Why doesn’t it make sense?” Aizawa questioned.

“Because Touya’s not like that! He’s nice. And quiet. And he sits with me when I have a nightmare. Dabi wouldn’t do that. So how can they be the same?” Shouto was busy staring Aizawa down, daring the man to give him an answer, which gave Touya space to silently marvel at his younger brother having good things to say about him even after everything.

“They’re not,” Aizawa answered easily, “that’s what I’ve been telling you all along.”

“But Touya became Dabi,” Shouto didn’t accept Aizawa’s reasoning.

“Over the course of eight years with God knows which other factors in play,” Aizawa continued, “Do you think you would be the same person if you hadn’t been raised by your father?”

That was actually a good question.

Because the answer could only be no, couldn’t it? There was no way he would be the same. There was no way any of them would be the same if Endeavor hadn’t been around to break them.

Shouto seemed to think so, too, as he nodded after only a brief pause.

“I’m not saying absolutely everyone has the capacity to commit atrocities,” Aizawa explained slowly, “but I would wager that given the correct set of circumstances, a disturbing number of people would. The problem is that what those circumstances are is different for everyone. Some people really only need the barest of pushes to decide that they have the right to take their issues out on others. Other people would probably need very specific and terrible circumstances to get there. And if those circumstances aren’t present, they don’t become the sort of people who are capable of committing atrocities.”

“So it’s trauma,” Touya summed up dryly.

“Pretty much,” Aizawa agreed, “very specific trauma that fundamentally changes a person’s worldview, and how they interact with said world.”

“And trauma happens when you’re a victim and you aren’t saved?” Shouto asked, drawing the conversation right back to where it had been, and where it had stalled, before Aizawa showed up.

“Trauma happens regardless of whether or not you’re saved,” Aizawa disagreed, “being victimized in any way is traumatizing. But if no one helps you, no one takes action to stop or prevent what happened, then it’s easy to decide that you need to take action yourself. To get yourself out of the place the trauma put you. And if no one cared when you were the victim, then why should you care when other people are? Even if they’re your victims.”

Shouto nodded at that.

“But you can prevent it by saving the victims?” he asked.

“Yes. If we can prevent it at all,” Aizawa agreed somberly. “That’s all we can do.”

Shouto turned his gaze on Touya, scrutinizing him. Touya, in return, did his best to not squirm under the look that seemed to see right through him.

“It’s Endeavor who did it first, right?” Shouto said coldly, calculating. And Touya felt the familiar anger swirling in his gut at the mention of that sham of a Hero. Along with a new shock of warmth at being… seen. By his own brother. “So that’s what we need to fix?” He turned his face back towards Aizawa.

Who nodded. While Touya tried to figure out if Shouto really meant what he thought he meant.

“It looks like it,” he said. “Dabi certainly had it in for Endeavor, and given what Touya has told me, it was for a good reason. So the first trauma that started the process from Touya to Dabi was probably the actions of Todoroki Enji. Do you think I’m wrong?”

Aizawa turned to Touya, asking him specifically.

And Touya could only agree. After all, he’d been pretty much convinced from the start that the only motivation Dabi could have possibly had was taking down Endeavor when no one else did.

“After everything he did, seeing him walk away scot free – seeing him get everything he wanted, when I…” Touya swallowed around his anger, “that might be the correct set of circumstances to make me to some terrible things.”

“And we fix that by taking down Endeavor. Right?” Shouto sounded so calm, and Touya could kiss him for it.

“If we make sure justice is done, then I don’t see how Dabi could need to exist at all,” Aizawa agreed.

Shouto nodded.

“Then we do that.”

Touya hadn’t been planning on crying in front of his little brother this morning, but those few words took away any choice he had in the matter.

He pulled up his legs and buried his face in his arms, effectively putting himself in an upright fetal position and did his best to keep it at tears only.

And felt Aizawa sling an arm around him and pull him into a hug.

There was a beat of silence before Aizawa spoke up.

“Sometimes people cry out of happiness,” he said, “or relief.”

Touya looked up, brows raised, because that didn’t seem like something that needed saying.

But Aizawa was looking at Shouto, who in turn bore a look of sudden understanding.

And Touya tried to stifle the maybe slightly hysterical desire to laugh, which only resulted in a rather unattractive sounding snort as he rubbed his sleeves over his face. Half to wipe away the tears and half to help cover the noise.

Aizawa squeezed him a little closer, almost jovially, as if he was quietly joining in Touya’s amusement.

Shouto didn’t seem to notice at all, though, as a look of contemplation came over his face.

“You’re relieved?” he muttered, “Because you didn’t think I’d want to help?” He looked hurt. Which Touya didn’t want.

“I told Heroes and they didn’t help,” he offered, “no one ever cared before so I just kind of expect it now.”

And just like that the atmosphere changed as Aizawa sat up a little straighter and Shouto continued to look hurt.

“When? Which Heroes?” Aizawa asked tersely at the same time as Shouto said, “That makes it worse.”

Touya pulled back in surprise. He’d only meant it as a comfort for Shouto. He definitely hadn’t expected for his explanation about why he didn’t expect to be believed to be met with such scrutiny from the Hero who’d never doubted him before.

“I don’t know all of their names or anything, but – I mean, obviously I tried to get help, why are you so surprised?” he tried to defend himself against the unexpected interrogation.

“… I suppose I really shouldn’t be,” Aizawa dragged a hand through his hair, “It’s probably just something I didn’t want to be true, but that’s the case for all of this. And I know it is true. You haven’t lied to me before. I don’t believe you are now. So I want to know which Heroes neglected their duties so I can see about getting them corrected. I’m sorry if I made it sound like I didn’t believe you.”

And then he pulled Touya into another hug. Which Touya wasn’t going to refuse.

“There are a lot of Heroes who didn’t deserve that title, huh?” Shouto muttered.

“That better not be your Villain origin story, kid,” Aizawa groused as he pulled Shouto into the hug, too. And Shouto followed even if he looked a little surprised to be included.

“It won’t be if you fix it,” Shouto stated blandly.

This time Touya didn’t try to hold back his laughter.

Aizawa took it goodnaturedly, too.

“I guess I don’t really have a choice, then,” he muttered into Touya’s hair.

They stayed like that for a moment. In the most comfortable silence of the morning.

It ended when Shouto put something together that probably should have occurred to Touya as well.

“Why are you here?” he muttered into Aizawa’s shirt.

“Hm?” Aizawa shifted to hear Shouto.

“Why are you here?” he repeated, “why did you come here?”

“Your room?” Aizawa asked to clarify.

“This is Touya’s room,” Shouto disagreed, “but yes. Why are you here?”

“It’s not nearly as interesting as what you two have been up to,” Aizawa said slowly, “I was just here to check on Touya and let him know what he’s going to be doing today.”

“And that is?” Touya tried very hard to not feel dread at Aizawa’s words. The man had never done anything to warrant Touya being wary about his intentions. But it was a hard habit to break.

“Present Mic has decided that he wants to take you shopping for clothes,” Aizawa said, voice too level, “online, of course.”

Maybe Touya’s wariness was warranted this time.

“I have follow up questions,” he leaned back to look Aizawa in the eye, “one, who is Present Mic? Two – no I’m asking all of my questions first before I forget them,” he stopped Aizawa from interrupting him. “– two, why does he want to shop with me? And three, why is this something you felt the need to warn me about?”

Aizawa looked vaguely amused.

So did Shouto.

“One,” Aizawa drawled, almost teasingly, “Present Mic is a fellow Hero and teacher here and an old friend of mine. I trust him with my life. Two, someone might have mentioned to him that you’ve been wearing the same outfit for over twenty four hours now because you don’t have any other clothes and as he considers himself the resident fashion expert, he has taken it upon himself to help you out. And three, he is not a fashion expert.”

“Then why are you letting him do this?” Touya questioned, fairly certain that he wouldn’t like the answer he got.

“Because you do need clothes, and supervision from a Hero, which Mic is, since you are a key witness in what we can assume will quickly become a very high profile case. And I have classes to teach, so someone else will have to do it.” Aizawa laid out.

And, no, Touya didn’t like the answer. Or the explicit promise that he would have a babysitter for the foreseeable future.

But it made sense, so he couldn’t argue it either.

Or, he could, but he didn’t feel like being contrary for the hell of it right now.

“And you trust Present Mic to do it,” Touya stated dryly.

“His fashion sense and his skills as a Hero have nothing to do with each other,” Aizawa looked down at himself, “if that were the case I’d be out of a job.”

Touya nearly choked at the unexpected self-deprecation, but quickly righted himself as Aizawa stood up.

“Now, as I have rudely been reminded,” Aizawa said, physically deflating a little with every word, “I have work to do. Classes to teach. Shouto, you need to get ready as well.”

“What if I need today off, too?” Shouto asked, although he looked like he’d already resigned himself to his fate.

“Then your classmates would wonder why you’re reacting so strongly to Touya being here,” Aizawa pointed out calmly, “and knowing that will very quickly lead to them finding out why. Do you want that?” The question sounded genuine, like he fully expected Shouto to have reconsidered since last morning.

Shouto had not.

“No, I don’t,” he immediately said, looking over at Touya, an apology in his eyes, “not yet.”

Touya shrugged. It wasn’t that it didn’t hurt, but he got it. They still had a long way to go, and telling people before they’d had a chance to really start ironing things out probably wasn’t a good idea.

Aizawa nodded in understanding. “Then get going.”

“I’m going to tell Midoriya, though,” Shouto said as he stood and went for the door. “He’s always good at making things make sense for me. He can help.”

Touya was hesitant to take Shouto’s word for Midoriya’s helpfulness. The kid had broken his own arms and chosen ‘Deku’ as his Hero name for God’s sake.

Shouto seemed awfully fixated on him, though.

“Do you actually think he can help, or do you just think he’s cute?” Touya realized that he might have crossed a line when Shouto whipped around, eyes wide and mouth pulled into a line.

“No judgment, just wondering. Not like it’s any of my business anyway.” He quickly capitulated.

“… I do think he can help,” Shouto muttered and stepped down as he turned and pulled open the door. Conspicuously not addressing the second part of Touya’s question, though the flush that had started slowly creeping up his next pretty much did it for him.

“And here I was, wondering when the sibling love-hate relationship I’ve read so much about would come into play,” Aizawa drawled.

Shouto shot him a confused look.

“Right now, obviously,” Touya answered Aizawa as he smiled impishly at Shouto. Who seemed to relax fully at that and returned the smile.

It died on his lips as he slipped through the door and realized they weren’t alone, though.

The boy with the bird head and the goth aesthetic – Tokoyami? – was leaned against the opposite wall. Clearly waiting for something.

“Do you need anything?” Aizawa’s voice assumed a steely undertone.

Tokoyami shook his head.

“I simply wished to let Touya know under four eyes that I am aware of his true heritage,” he said. Which totally didn’t sound threatening at all.

“Because Hawks told you,” Aizawa stated simply. Like he already knew.

Maybe it was common knowledge that the birds were communicating. That was good to know.

“He believed I could be of some assistance,” Tokoyami nodded. And almost didn’t flinch when Aizawa let out an exhausted sigh.

“I need to talk to you about that, too,” he said, sounding almost resigned as he looked over at Touya and Shouto. “So, if you hurry up and deliver your speech, we can do that right now. Present Mic should be waiting in the common room by now anyway.”

Tokoyami looked put off for a moment by Aizawa’s blunt directions before he collected himself and turned to Touya.

“It isn’t much, but I would like for you to know that I am willing to listen if you need someone to talk to. Or if you require assistance, please don’t hesitate to reach out. Hawks and Aizawa are both vouching for you and I trust their judgment, so I will be on your side.” Tokoyami promised solemnly.

“…Thanks,” Touya muttered, not sure how else to react to this stilted, overly formal goth kid who knew his secrets and was choosing to keep them to himself despite not knowing him. Out of respect for Aizawa, which he understood, and Hawks, which he absolutely did not understand.

Tokoyami simply nodded, unphased by Touya’s briefness.

“Now that Sensei is here, I also believe this would be the best opportunity to introduce you to Dark Shadow, my Quirk,” he continued, “he is not fond of Dabi, and doesn’t function on logic, so it seemed unwise to do so yesterday. I hope you understand.”

“Yeah, sure,” Touya absolutely did not understand, but Aizawa was nodding, so he would go along with it.

And then a bird-shaped shadow moved out from behind Tokoyami, seemingly of its own accord.

Dark Shadow.

Aptly named.

Which abruptly made the part about the shadow not liking Dabi and maybe not seeing a difference between Dabi and Touya make sense, too. And Touya was suddenly grateful that Aizawa was still there.

Shouto took a step closer as well, observing the slowly approaching shadow carefully.

There was a moment of tense silence, then, as Dark Shadow stared at him, seemingly judging his entire existence.

It then let out a quiet cooing sound that might have been a hello. But he wasn’t sure.

Just to be on the safe side and lower the risk of angering the possibly quite powerful shadow creature he nodded a silent greeting in return.

That appeared to be the correct course of action as the shadow nodded happily and moved back to Tokoyami again.

Aizawa seemed satisfied as he stepped forward again.

“I’m sure you two can find your way on your own,” he said by way of dismissal, and Shouto nodded and turned for the stairs. Touya wasn’t slow to follow him, curious as he was about Aizawa and Tokoyami’s conversation.

He understood when he wasn’t welcome.

They quickly made their way down to the common room in what Touya hoped was a companionable silence before Shouto silently and without warning sped up and walked away from him just before the other students came into view and moved across the room to the entrance to the boys’ dorms, leaving Touya alone.

Although he wasn’t alone for long before he was noticed by the students who were milling around between the common room and the kitchen.

“Hey, Touya, good morning!” Ashido jumped up and neatly vaulted over a couch before skidding to a halt in front of him, energetic enough that he almost missed Kirishima herding Bakugou away behind her. “Did you sleep well? Are you gonna come with us to class today? Or are you doing something else? What else is there? Wait, wasn’t that what you were wearing yesterday?”

Touya did his best to not look as taken aback by her overly friendly behavior as he felt, but he still couldn’t quite manage anything other than a non-committal shrug at her questions.

“And that’s where I come in,” a strange voice broke in, and Touya turned to see who it belonged to.

It was a grown man, dressed in something that was part Hero costume, part Rockstar from a bygone era, and part cockatoo.

His entire getup screamed loud and obnoxious.

“Hi there, my newest little listener,” he smiled widely, probably going for friendly but coming across just slightly threatening, “I am Present Mic, and I’m gonna be your buddy for the day.”

Buddy?

Touya already hated the guy just for his demeanor, which was so over the top that it could only be fake. Regardless of what Aizawa thought of this guy, Touya absolutely did not want to be his buddy.

Or shop for clothes with him, dear God with that multicolored getup of his.

“Ooh, you’re really lucky,” Ashido put in, “Mic is super fun, right Jirou!”

The girl with the asymmetrical bangs startled at the sudden address, but quickly nodded before turning back to the quiet contemplation of her mug.

“What are you gonna do?” Ashido continued, and then furrowed her brows, “I mean, if I can know about it. If it’s personal that’s totally fine.” She smiled disarmingly and Touya got the distinct impression that she was trying to be friendly by giving him his boundaries.

Maybe he ought to reconsider his animosity towards her. Beyond that one, possibly just wildly misguided, comment, she’d really only been kind to him. And she was clearly trying to befriend him. Much more aggressively than any of her classmates. Except maybe Shouto who did show up at his door in the middle of the night and all that.

“We’re gonna fix the issue of me wearing the same clothes all the time,” he offered. Trying to repay her kindness but not willing to actually say out loud that he was going shopping with Present Mic, overenthusiastic Hero and walking fashion disaster.

The message was received regardless.

“You’re going shopping!” She squealed excitedly, “I’m so jealous!”

“I’d happily trade you,” Touya grouched.

“Aw, don’t be like that, little listener!” Present Mic smiled again, “I’m sure we can have some fun.”

“You think so? Because from where I’m standing, this feels an awful lot like a punishment.” Touya said. “Can we just get it over with?”

“Wow, you sure know how to be a buzzkill,” Present Mic finally dropped the smile to pout dramatically instead.

“You know it,” Touya showed his teeth as he let Present Mic lead him out of the dorms and back towards the main UA building, presumably to set up in another conference room for the day.

This had the potential to become really tedious really fast, actually.

Well, at least there was something to be said for the worst thing happening in his life at this very moment being an unwanted but much needed shopping trip as opposed to whatever else he could have been dealing with.

And he was sure it was going to end sooner rather than later anyway.

Chapter Text

In hindsight, he really should have realized that it was a trap.

His only real defense was that he’d had a terrible week.

And he was maybe a little too sleep deprived.

Like, more so than usual.

Because after dropping Touya off and realizing that there wasn’t really anything more for him to do until someone contacted him, it was like his brain had decided that sitting idly by and, God forbid, maybe taking a bit of a break from all of the craziness that had happened and just fucking breathe for a moment, was a crime against the very laws of nature.

So, in an effort to avoid this terrible, horrible, not allowed break, his mind had gone into overdrive dragging up all of the shit he’d learned from everything that had happened with Touya and Eraserhead and society as a whole and start to untangle what that meant for him. Because that totally wasn’t going to be a bad time.

And it meant no sleep.

Because Endeavor, his childhood Hero, was a terrible person.

Which at first impact had only really hit him in the Hero worship.

Which sucked, sure, but it really didn’t cut too deep.

It wasn’t like he’d never been disillusioned before. And while, yes, having to tear down a pedestal he’d put up in his early childhood, the very last pedestal he’d had left, hurt… it had hurt to realize that his parents were shitty people who didn’t deserve a pedestal, too, and he’d gotten over that, so he could get over this just as well.

But oh boy, did this one come back for more now that he wasn’t running anymore and had time to sit with it.

Because Endeavor had been more than just a Hero he looked up to. He’d been the thing that taught Hawks that Heroes existed in the real world at all and set him on the path to be discovered by the Hero Commission and becoming a Hero himself.

And he’d already realized that the Commission was bad and wrong and far too willing to let bad things slide and allow bad people to get away with their actions in favor of preserving the status quo. Willing to ruin an innocent child’s life, or maybe even kill him if they got their hands on him, just so their precious Number One Hero’s reputation wouldn’t be tarnished.

Because they were willing to deal in children, and that was the whole reason Hawks had needed to betray them and align himself with Eraserhead instead.

And the more Hawks thought about it the more vile they became to him, and they were the ones who’d taught him how to be a Hero, so what guarantee did he have that they hadn’t taught him wrong and led him onto a path that was just as vile as they were?

And he had only just started detangling that web which his crazed, unwilling to ever slow down, mind had thrown at him once he’d been at risk of taking just a bit of a breather, just barely scratched the surface trying to figure out which parts of what they’d taught him might be wrong by measuring it up against other Heroes when he realized…

He couldn’t use Endeavor as an example of what a good Hero was and did.

Because he wasn’t one.

And that should have been self-explanatory after the whole pedestal thing, but it still sent him reeling.

Realizing that both the entity that trained him and the Hero he’d trained to be like were horrible meant that not only had he lost his footing in a way that meant he needed to reevaluate everything he’d learned in order to ensure he was on the right path despite who had put him there, but he had lost sight of the path entirely.

Because Endeavor was the Hero in Hawks’ life.

He was what a Hero was.

And if he was bad, what proof did Hawks have that all Heroes, and the whole system weren’t bad?

Especially when he knew the governing body, the Commission, wasn’t doing anything to truly regulate Heroes either.

How many more Endeavors were there, then?

And he didn’t want to become disillusioned, didn’t want to lose his faith in Heroes entirely, but at this point, what did he have left to convince him otherwise?

Nothing.

He had nothing to convince him that Heroes were a force for good.

Because the man who was the epitome of heroics, the one who’d saved Hawks from his abusive father had gone home and abused his own children in turn.

At that point, what was the difference between Hawks’ Villain father, and Touya’s Hero father?

What was the difference between Villains and Heroes at all besides what their day jobs were?

Because it certainly wasn’t whether or not they were good people.

Really, the only difference Hawks could see was whether or not they worked to uphold the status quo.

Which, working to uphold the status quo, the way society worked, could have been a good thing, keeping people safe by enforcing the laws that governed them for their own sake, the greater good and all that.

But the status quo was bad!

The status quo was the Hero Commission and Endeavor and letting bad people get away with abusing their kids and turning them into Villains as long as they were powerful enough to be beneficial to the system.

Which made Heroes bad.

All of them.

Hawks included.

That one didn’t really strike Hawks as hard as it maybe should have, because he had already pretty much accepted that he must be bad.

To look up to Endeavor and do the Commission’s bidding and never realize that they were bad. That wasn’t something a good person did.

So Hawks knew he was bad.

He knew he was a fuck up who didn’t deserve the pedestal he’d been put on.

But he didn’t know how to fix it when everything else was bad, too.

How could he even begin to figure out how to fix an issue that ran so deep into the fabric of society? Especially when he, himself, had been such a huge part of the issue for so long in his misguided belief that he was working for the greater good?

Was villainy the answer?

Because if the status quo was bad, wouldn’t overthrowing it be a good thing?

It probably was, but it wasn’t like every Villain actually cared about that stuff.

The vast majority of them were just out for money and power, which probably wasn’t all that different from most Heroes; and then there were the ones who wanted revenge against the unjust system.

Like Dabi.

Dabi, who’d probably been doing everything he did just for a chance at killing his father.

Which was fair, honestly.

Someone should take down Endeavor, and if his own son wanted to do it, why not let him after everything he’d done.

But Dabi had done so much other shit and killed so many other people who… probably didn’t deserve to die, and at that point, Dabi really deserved to be taken down alongside Endeavor.

Because how was he any different?

They were both hurting innocent people for their own selfish goals and that couldn’t be okay, regardless of whether or not the status quo allowed them to get away with it.

And sure, there were some Villains who had the express goal of changing or taking down Hero society. Like Stain and Shigaraki.

But Stain had killed indiscriminately based on an idea of a perfect Hero, like All Might, and Hawks had nothing against All Might, but wasn’t he just upholding the same status quo as all of the other Heroes? What made him any better than them?

And was the fault with the Heroes, or with the Commission?

Because just killing Heroes wasn’t going to do anything to change the Commission. They’d just continue churning out new Heroes to join the slaughter for the sake of upholding the status quo.

But Stain hadn’t actually cared about the system, he just wanted the enforcers of the system to live up to his ideals.

And at that point, was he even trying to change the system at all?

Which left Shigaraki.

Who just wanted to see the world burn.

And how was that any better?

The status quo was bad because it hurt innocent people, so how was removing it just to implement a system of destruction where everyone could get away with anything because there was no one there to stop them any better?

And wouldn’t that just be a new status quo that managed to be even worse for the people living under it?

Because that was the thing about the status quo. It was just how things were. Which meant there was always going to be a status quo, but the question was, how did you challenge a bad one, and was there any way to build up a good one if you took down the bad one?

And Hawks didn’t know the answer to that.

Which meant he had no answers at all.

He didn’t know what made a Hero, he didn’t know if Heroes were good at all, he didn’t know if there was any better option, he didn’t know, he didn’t know, he didn’t know.

All he knew was that he’d definitely been doing shit wrong up until this point and he had no idea what to do to make it right.

So maybe he latched onto Touya’s case a little too tightly, because that was the only thing that he felt made sense right now: protect the kid from the abusive system. He could do that.

And that meant he could still be helpful even though his Hero work likely wasn’t helpful because it was just what the Commission wanted which meant it was probably bad because they were bad and his Hero work only upheld their status quo.

So he’d decided to focus on doing whatever he could to help with Touya’s case so as to not be completely useless and also to maybe, hopefully make up for some of the shit he’d done wrong with Touya when he had no idea how to make up for what he’d done wrong for society as a whole.

Because how could he make up for any of it when he didn’t even know what exactly, of the shit he’d done in the name of heroics and the greater good, was bad and what was maybe okay.

But obviously now that he’d latched on to trying to do right by Touya by keeping his in with the Commission so he could be a warning system for the people who knew better than him and maybe knew how to start moving in the right direction, he couldn’t do that right either.

Because all he’d needed to do was keep an eye on the Commission to make sure they weren’t trying to pull any shady shit, be at the ready in case Eraserhead and his team contacted him for anything, and avoid rousing suspicion that he wasn’t fully under the Commission’s control anymore.

And he’d honestly kind of forgotten about the League of Villains in all of his existential confusion.

They just didn’t seem all that important anymore, because while he didn’t think Shigaraki’s mission had any merit long term, he couldn’t fault any of them for wanting to overthrow the government anymore because so did he.

So he kind of just let it slip his mind.

But then he’d gotten a call from Mr. Compress who’d probably gotten his number from Dabi some time before the craziness, and he knew there was no way to brush that contact off which wouldn’t raise questions from the Commission, so he’d just mindlessly agreed to a meet up with some of the most dangerous Villains of their time.

And his only excuse was a single sleepless night and a mental breakdown that had somehow fucked his mind up so completely that he’d forgotten that these Villains wouldn’t have any qualms about killing him on sight. Because so would the Commission if they found out what he was doing, and that fact was taking priority in his mind right now.

It was an inexcusable oversight, and honestly, he kind of deserved the ambush he’d walked into because he’d walked right into it!

And once he was in it, the only factor that confused him was the fact that only about half of the League were here.

Which was kind of insulting.

Did they really think so little of the Number Two Hero’s fighting prowess?

Or were the rest of them busy somewhere else?

It was almost a relief to have such straightforward issues to deal with, though.

And a nice, if slightly frightening fight to focus on instead of the moral and ethical questions that had been tearing him apart inside before Toga had thrown the first knife and the external mayhem had begun and silenced the one going on within him.

He couldn’t fault her for throwing the knife, either.

Because it was so simple for her.

She wanted to know where Dabi was, she believed Hawks knew, she didn’t believe him when he said he didn’t know and talked in circles around the issue, so she tried to kill him.

It was so refreshingly straightforward and he couldn’t help but envy her, even as he pinned her with his feathers, dodged around Spinner’s knives, heard Mr. Compress mutter something about how he wished his team mates would keep their tempers in check before the magician joined the fray as well.

It was so simple for them.

And in the middle of the fight, it became simple for Hawks, too.

Just use his body and his Quirk and his skills to survive and get away.

If he succeeded, he lived, if he didn’t, he would probably be tortured for information and then killed when they decided he was useless to them.

Life or death.

Simple.

In the end, he managed to escape with nothing more than a couple of scrapes and a minor stab wound on him, the latter thanks to Toga’s unforeseen ability to get out of his feathers without triggering him to react.

But he’d gotten away.

Because this was what he was good at. This was what he’d spent his entire childhood training for. This, he knew how to do.

But then it was over and reality set in again.

As he was escaping, as he bandaged his wounds, as the calm and simplicity of the battle faded away, the chaos of real life set in. And he was back to facing the very real issues that he had not been trained for, that he was not prepared for, that he didn’t know how to deal with.

Along with the realization that he had just ruined everything.

Because of course he had.

Of course he would manage to fuck up the one thing he’d still had to cling to, the one thing he could have maybe tried to do well enough to make up for some of the rest, without even meaning to.

Because this fight was very obviously his proverbial pink slip from the League of Villains. It was very obviously not workable, or even salvageable. His in was just gone now.

And just like that, his entire mission was over.

And there was no way the Commission would forgive him for that.

Dabi’s disappearance had been one thing. It wasn’t really his fault, so as long as he lay low, he could have gotten around the Commission’s suspicions and tided them over with promises of keeping his eyes open in case the League tried to contact him again.

They would have still punished him, of course, but it would have been something manageable: more hours, worse patrol routes, the usual.

He could have dealt with that.

But this was an unequivocal failure on his part, and they would be sure to make him pay for it.

They were going to restrict his freedoms, because those were privileges that he obviously didn’t deserve now. They were going to reprimand and retrain him, because clearly he’d lost his touch if such a simple infiltration mission had tripped him up. And they were going to punish him.

They were going to frame it as training, because they always did, but he knew the truth. And they knew that he knew.

Certain types of training always came after a failure, and they were sure to pop up this time as well.

The blindfolded exercises that he could barely perform without crumbling into a useless, breathless, panicking heap.

The behavioral training to keep the undesirable parts of his Quirk in check, complete with constant lectures about how inhuman and disgusting these parts of him were, and how he should be working harder to suppress them when he was already trying so hard and he was sorry but they didn’t care because it wasn’t good enough. Nothing ever was when it was him.

And then the torture resistance training.

Especially torture resistance training.

And that. That was the issue now.

Because they were going to restrict his freedoms, which meant no more sneaking off to work against them. And maybe they would find some of the breadcrumbs he’d accidentally left behind before he realized just how dangerous this situation was.

And regardless of whether or not they found something, once they had him in the hot seat, in that room he wanted so badly to forget, they would know everything.

Because they’d had him for so long, almost his entire life.

They knew how he worked, what made him tick, what made him talk, which triggers they’d put into him that he wouldn’t be able to stay silent when they put him through it again.

And they would do it.

Because he’d failed.

And he would talk.

Because he was a failure.

And then they would know.

And he couldn’t let that happen. He couldn’t let himself go into a situation where he rolled over on Eraser and Touya. After everything he’d already done, after how badly he’d already failed them, he couldn’t do that, too.

Which meant that he needed to sever his connection with the Commission now.

No more check-ins, no more missions, no more patrols.

No more being a Hero.

Who had he been kidding with that charade anyway?

And now that the decision was made, there wasn’t even really anything for him to do to set it in motion.

It wasn’t like he could tender his resignation or anything like that. On the contrary, if he tried to do something as stupid as quitting in person, they would have him.

And then it would happen.

So this ending, as Earth-shattering and life-changing as it was to him. For him to finally admit to himself that he wasn’t a fucking Hero and give it up already. There was no one to notice. No one to tell. No big fanfare.

Just him.

Alone.

Sitting on the floor of the apartment that had never truly been his so it didn’t hurt to know that he would be leaving it behind now, pressing his hand against the shallow stab-wound in his shoulder. The last injury he’d incurred as a Hero. Although it was hardly the last injury he would incur going forward now that he was about to become the Commission’s number one prey to be hunted down.

Really, the only thing he physically did that kind of felt like a signifier of the ending was when he dug out that ragged old Endeavor plushie, threw it into his bathtub along with some rubbing alcohol he had laying around and a lit matchstick and watched it burn.

It felt fitting.

And then the fire alarm went off.

Which was probably fitting, too.

And then he left the apartment and everything in it and everything it stood for.

And he hoped to God that he would never have to return.

Now all that was left to do was find Eraserhead and let him know that he couldn’t count on Hawks anymore. Not that he ever really could, but at least now he would know it.

Know that he didn’t have an inside man with the Commission because Hawks had failed and burned that bridge and he couldn’t, couldn’t, couldn’t return without compromising himself even more.

He definitely needed to apologize, too.

For sticking his nose where it didn’t belong and fucking everything up.

For believing that he could have ever managed to do this well.

For just existing near them, honestly.

He’d give Eraser the news the man needed to know and then stop trying to help when he knew it would only make things worse.

Maybe then the rest of the team would actually start making some progress now that he wasn’t going to be weighing them down anymore with his stupid questions and inappropriately timed jokes and special ability to ruin everything he touched through his own ineptitude.

Maybe once he got out of everyone’s way, they would be able to get shit done.

So that was what he’d do.

Apologize for getting in the way and then stop being in the way.

And quit trying to pretend he could do something good.

He promised himself that he’d go without a fuss after that, just as he landed in the clearing behind UA where he’d dropped Touya off not even two days ago.

God, he really was a failure, wasn’t he?

Chapter Text

Despite how terrible yesterday had been, how terrible the past week had been, really, Shouta was having a surprisingly okay time today.

There was a lot of work to do, of course, but it was the kind of tasks that clearly achieved something, or moved towards a tangible goal. As opposed to much of this week which had been reactive by default as new issues kept popping up that needed to be dealt with immediately, never truly getting to take a step back, evaluate, chart a course, and then move forward.

Sure, some of what was happening today was reactionary, too. Like discovering that Shouto had found Touya on his own some time during the night or early morning. But even then, the brothers had somehow actually managed to bridge the chasm between them and share a hug only a day into Touya’s stay at UA.

Which meant that Shouta couldn’t find it in himself to be mad about the midnight excursion that had obviously occurred without his counsel.

How could he be mad when this had so quickly solved one of his biggest headaches?

Touya being here had also created another positive in that it significantly cut back Shouta’s commuting time to get to Touya while simultaneously allowing him to finally get back to his teaching duties without risking Touya’s case being neglected.

And to top it all off, because Hizashi and Nemuri were the kindest, most loving people in his world, he didn’t even have a mountain of paperwork to catch up on. Because they had done it for him.

Granted, he knew that it was only a matter of time before they went back to being horrible gremlins who ruined everything, but at least for today he was content to just be happy with the people who were closest to him.

And because of the lack of work, he’d even managed to sleep for a solid six hours in his own bed last night, and he was feeling more rested and put together today than he had in a long time.

Maybe Nezu actually knew exactly what he was doing when he decided to place Touya with 1A because now that Shouto had confronted his issues about his brother and Shouta had gotten Tokoyami to tell him exactly what Hawks had said and when, the only student left who seemed to have a significant issue with Touya was Bakugou.

And, yes, that was sure to be a beast to deal with. Any of Bakugou’s issues always were. But Shouta was well-rested and on top of his shit, so barring any unexpected complications, he should be able to corner Bakugou and at least figure out what exactly the issue was by the end of this afternoon.

Especially because he already had a pretty strong idea what was going on.

He really just needed confirmation before taking action.

And then he would be free to focus on gathering evidence and support to bring Endeavor to justice.

So he was just going to make sure to find his student to question him after afternoon classes with All Might were over.

That wasn’t for another couple of hours, though, so for right now he was going to go relieve Hizashi of guard duty so he could see to his own afternoon classes after missing the morning. It wasn’t ideal to have to force the teachers to take half days off to watch after Touya, but it wasn’t like they had much of a choice.

So they would make it work.

And part of making it work was taking over now, since he was sure both Hizashi and Touya could use a break from each other.

At least if Hizashi’s increasingly frustrated check-in texts were anything to go by.

So he gathered up his things from the teachers’ lounge as he prepared to leave, picking up some grading that needed to be done, because he might as well make sure he stayed on track with his paperwork while watching over Touya.

It was a good plan.

But it did not take into account the sudden appearance of a frazzled-looking Number Two Hero.

Paradoxically, Hawks himself didn’t look like he was entirely there as he stood in the doorway leading into the lounge, looking around with eyes that were just a tad wider than usual. And of course, when those eyes zeroed in on Shouta, it became even more apparent that something was wrong.

Because Hawks seemed to not even be blinking. Just staring.

Shouta quickly made his way over to the oddly-behaved Hero, papers and phone still in hand, because even though it threw a wrench in his perfectly planned day, Hawks clearly needed some sort of help right now.

Shouta just hoped it wasn’t another setback.

But he also knew that was unlikely given how unbothered Hawks usually was by whatever happened around him, which only made it more apparent how concerning he was acting now.

“Are you alright, Hawks?” he asked quietly as he came to a halt right in front of the doorway the Number Two Hero was blocking.

And Hawks took a beat too long to blink and put a smile on his face.

And it would have looked perfectly genuine if his eyes weren’t still just a tad too wide and harried.

Or maybe they were actually normal, too, and Shouta just wished there was some sign on the young Hero’s face of the distress he’d shown just a moment earlier.

“Nope,” the young Hero sounded almost breathless as he popped his lips, “got some bad news, actually – um – if you – if – could we maybe, maybe talk in private? Just –”

“Alright,” Shouta cut him off, because he was pretty sure all he would get out of letting him continue was getting more worried. It wasn’t like Hawks to lose track of his words like this. So even if he’d managed to pull a far too convincing mask over his face, there was still some proof that he wasn’t okay. “We can go to my office, that should be –”

He had been reaching out his hand to gently bump Hawks’ shoulder and hopefully get them both moving, but Hawks stopped him before he had even touched him, grabbing Shouta’s wrist in a blindingly tight grasp, forcefully enough that it sent his phone flying into the wall, a shattering sound making it clear that the phone had not survived the tumble.

There was also the sound of several chairs skidding backwards as the other teachers in the lounge reacted to their colleague being grabbed.

“… Okay,” Shouta said as calmly as he could manage, to hopefully deescalate whatever situation he’d just accidentally created. “No touching, got it.” He tried to pull his arm back but found himself trapped in a painful vice grip. “Could you let go of my arm?”

“No.” Hawks answered.

And Shouta had half a moment to fear that he might have seriously misjudged whose side the other Hero was on before he took in the tone of that single word as well as the expression on Hawks’ face.

Panic.

Quiet but pure, unbridled panic as the young Hero stared unblinking at his own hand, breathing quickly and shallowly.

“Okay,” Shouta said again, calmer now that he knew this wasn’t a betrayal but just an unfortunate stress reaction of some sort. Now was not the time to get into why Hawks was reacting to stress by clasping on to Shouta and refusing to let go, though. “Can you walk with me to my office?”

Hawks nodded, keeping his eyes trained on his hand, panic receding just enough that Shouta could see mortification underneath it.

Hawks was ashamed of how he was reacting right now.

And Shouta would actually really like to know why. But that would have to wait until later.

“Alright, then we’ll go there now and figure this out,” he reassured, “Nemuri can you take my phone? I’m fairly certain I’ll need a new one regardless,” he called over his shoulder, looking away from Hawks long enough to see her nod, concern drawn clearly on her face even as she stood on the far opposite side of the room.

And then he turned back to the panicked Hero, using the wrist Hawks had already grabbed to begin steering the both of them out and towards his office. And it was quiet enough that he wasn’t sure, but he faintly registered Hawks mumbling something that might have been a sorry.

It felt so wrong to see Hawks like this.

As much as it had gotten on his nerves, he had already learned to associate the young Hero with snark and a sometimes slightly frantic peppiness, and now both of those were gone and it felt imperative to figure out why that was. As quickly as possible.

So he brought the two of them to his office. It was small, mostly unused and therefore not very well-furnished, but it was a place he knew people wouldn’t enter without knocking, so it would have to do for now.

Hawks didn’t even look around as he followed Shouta in.

Didn’t protest or question it when Shouta got him to sit on the edge of the desk next to the pile of papers Shouta slowly set down, knowing now that it would be a while before he would actually get to check in with Touya.

He would have offered Hawks the chair, but he had a feeling the back of it wouldn’t work very well with Hawks’ very large, currently very stiff-looking wings. So the desk would have to do.

Hawks seemed too upset to notice his slightly undignified position, anyway.

So Shouta let it be and placed himself in front of Hawks and took a deep, obvious breath. Hoping that if he telegraphed slow, deep breathing, Hawks might subconsciously copy him.

“Can you tell me what’s happening?” he asked gently.

Again, Hawks seemed to try to put on a carefree mask, taking a moment too long to smile, and still not quite managing to make it look genuine as his eyes were still downcast, still shone with fear and shame.

“Yeah,” he breathed out shallowly, “yeah, I – well, I’m really just here to…” Hawks’ eyes shifted self-consciously as he tugged gently on Shouta’s arm for a moment before a look of dismay and mortification flitted across his face. “I was just gonna apologize because I… I fucked up and –”

Hawks cut himself off again, face scrunching up like he was trying not to cry.

And Shouta would have probably had more sympathy to show him if it weren’t for the fact that Hawks had yet to tell Shouta what he’d done that warranted apologizing, warranted this level of upset, because if Hawks had managed to clue in the Commission as to Touya’s whereabouts, even accidentally, then Shouta didn’t have any time to waste on this right now.

This was important, lives could even be at stake depending on what Hawks had done, and there might not be time for apologies.

“Does the Commission know Touya is here?” he asked, voice cold enough that Hawks flinched back from his tone alone.

Which he regretted.

No matter what Hawks had done, scolding him when he was already in obvious distress wasn’t going to help.

“No?” Hawks answered uncertainly after a moment. “No, I don’t – I haven’t heard anything like – and I haven’t told them, I promise I would tell you if I had,” he shot Shouta an imploring look, just for a moment before casting his eyes down again.

“Then what happened if you didn’t compromise us?” Shouta asked. What happened to make you act like this he wanted, needed to know.

“I did,” Hawks shook his head, brows furrowed, which wasn’t reassuring, “just not yet – or, I mean.” Hawks shook himself out, almost violently so, throwing his head back with a frustrated noise. “This is pathetic, I’m sorry, I’m just a little – no excuses, just give me a moment.”

Shouta stayed quiet as requested, looking on with no small amount of concern as Hawks finally seemed to pull on the mask he’d been struggling with.

“Sorry, I’ve had a bit of a day,” the young Hero smiled, looking Shouta directly in the eye, looking far too genuine now that Shouta knew this was an act. And then Hawks gave another small tug on Shouta’s arm that he still hadn’t let go of, and another expression of dismay flitted across his face before he put his breezy smile back in place.

Shouta looked down at the hand that was trapping his wrist painfully enough that he never stopped being aware of its presence, then looked up at Hawks. Wanting to ask what this was about, but knowing somehow that Hawks wouldn’t want him to.

Was mortified by his inexplicable inability to just let go.

Hawks proved him right when, the moment he looked back up, Hawks’ smile quivered and he started speaking, clearly trying to distract him from the grip.

“So, report time,” his voice was still a little shaky, and Shouta resolved to keep up his own deep breathing exercises. Because he just knew that Hawks was going to lose this mask at some point.

Or maybe Shouta just hoped he would.

“I was going to keep up appearances with the Commission to make sure they didn’t suspect anything. So I could still function as an inside man for you, you know,” Hawks explained, voice a little too fast-paced, “and part of that was keeping up with the infiltration of the League of Villains, because dropping that mission would have been suspicious, and the Commission would definitely…”

He trailed off again for a moment, and Shouta didn’t like the fact that Hawks clearly didn’t want to be open about what the Commission would do.

“So I had to keep up that mission, and I thought –” Hawks’ voice broke and he shook his head aggressively before forging ahead, not acknowledging his emotions as they bubbled up. “I thought I could do that. Didn’t really think there’d be much to do, you know? I’d lost my in, and they’d probably be wary of me while trying to mine me for information. That’s what I thought anyway.”

“But it’s not what happened?” Shouta pressed gently when Hawks fell into a silence.

Hawks reacted by drawing himself up again and smiling that fake smile that Shouta couldn’t believe had ever fooled him.

“No, I think I underestimated how much they cared about Dabi, because they called me in for a meeting and about half of them were there, and we’d barely even started the usual song and dance, you know, me pretending I didn’t know what had happened and them not believing me and pushing for information and me not giving them –”

“Breathe,” Shouta interrupted the breathless stream of words, putting the hand Hawks still had in his grip down on Hawks’ knee to push him into taking a break.

Hawks took a breath. Too fast and too shallow, but at least he was breathing again.

“Yeah, sorry, so,” Hawks started speaking again, but slower now. Shouta couldn’t decide if this was a sign of a crisis averted, or if Hawks was just slowing down to act fine when he so clearly wasn’t. “We’d barely even gotten started but then Toga started throwing knives and yelling at me, which is honestly pretty fair because I was lying, you know, but then everyone else joined the fray and there was just no way that was going to end well if I stayed, so I escaped, but that was definitely the end of that mission. There’s just no way to salvage that kind of blowup without basically giving them Dabi and I’m definitely not doing that, so it’s over. And that means the Commission is gonna be on me about it, and they – they know how to get information out of people, even if you don’t want to, or if you try –”

“I am aware of their enhanced interrogation techniques,” Shouta interrupted Hawks’ attempt at breaking the news of the Commission’s unethical actions gently.

He’d already heard more than enough from Tsukauchi to know that they weren’t above coercion, or intimidation, or even deprivation of sleep and sustenance.

Hawks looked shocked for a moment before he schooled his expression again.

He clearly hadn’t expected Shouta to be informed already.

Shouta was really more concerned that Hawks had known but apparently chosen to not inform anyone before it affected him personally.

“And I’m glad that you came to me if you suspect that they might try to interrogate you now,” he added.

“Yeah…” Hawks replied slowly, clearly still reeling, “yeah, they definitely would if they got a hold of me now, so I can’t really – um – I kinda have to stop… working now?” Hawks shot Shouta another uncertain look, as if he was asking for permission.

Shouta tilted his head to get Hawks to explain his reasoning.

“Because I can’t go to the Commission now, or they’ll definitely find a way to get to me, and if I can’t go to them, then that means no more missions and no more patrols because they know when I’m patrolling and they’d just come get me there, or – no, they probably wouldn’t want to make a spectacle like that but they’d definitely not just let me keep going without consequences, and they’d find a way to make sure I can’t – they…” Hawks stopped himself, looking pensive, shooting Shouta a look that was more vulnerable than he had expected to see.

“But I also just, I just don’t think I can – I don’t want to be a Hero anymore,” Hawks bit his lip, fake smile nowhere in sight as he waited for Shouta’s response.

“You don’t want to be a Hero?” Shouta tried to stop his own mind from reeling. It wasn’t that Heroes never retired, but for Hawks the Number Two Hero, the Commission’s golden boy… Actually, no. It made perfect sense for him to want to distance himself from that now.

“I just don’t,” Hawks pulled a grimace that was somehow both stubborn and uncertain at the same time, “I don’t know if – what’s right, or wrong here, you know? Because the Commission controls so much of this shit, and they’re bad and Endeavor is the Number One Hero and he’s fucking awful,” Hawks looked very vulnerable as he said that, and Shouta had to ask himself if perhaps Hawks had looked up to Endeavor before this as something more than just an example to strive for. “And if both of them are bad, who’s to say all of it isn’t? Who’s to say I’m not?”

That certainly sounded like Hawks had been shaken to the core by these new revelations, and that was as good a reason as any for him to take a step back.

But Shouta didn’t like the unspoken belief Hawks seemed to hold that it had to be all or nothing in heroics and if he didn’t fully trust the Commission then he couldn’t do anything at all. Because it didn’t sound like Hawks was considering fighting as an option anymore.

As if for him, it was the Commission or nothing.

And that simply wasn’t true.

“The governing agencies aren’t everything,” he said slowly, “I agree with you that we shouldn’t be working with the Commission anymore now that we know what they stand for, but that doesn’t mean we give up. It means we stand up against them, fight for a better system, whether that be through reform or complete abolishment. We can know what’s right on our own and fight for that. It’s what we’re doing right now, isn’t it?”

“You are,” Hawks disagreed almost petulantly, “You know what’s right, and you’re fighting for it, but I’m just – I’m just getting in your way. It’s not that I don’t wanna help but I can’t when I don’t know how and I’m fucking everything up anyway, so –”

“Okay,” Shouta interrupted gently, because he should have known better than try to discuss this rationally when Hawks was already being perfectly honest about the breakdown he was having. At the very least, Hawks needed a break to find himself again. Maybe they could restart this conversation sometime later, but it wasn’t right now. “Okay, I hear you. If this is how you’re feeling, you shouldn’t be in heroics.”

Hawks deflated. It was as if he’d been holding on to so much stress and uncertainty, tensing up in preparation for something, and now that Shouta was agreeing with him – giving him permission? – it was like he was finally letting go of it.

“Yeah,” Hawks said, so quietly it was almost a whisper, “I’m sorry I couldn’t help more, though.” He looked forlorn.

Alright, so maybe Hawks hadn’t let go of everything that was burdening him yet.

“I’m sure you can still find ways to be helpful without putting yourself on the frontline,” Shouta tried to reassure, even though he wasn’t sure he felt comfortable asking anything of Hawks when he was still expecting a breakdown any moment. “And besides, the way you’re feeling right now… making yourself work when you don’t know what you’re working for, what you’re fighting for, it wouldn’t do anyone any good. Without a solid moral basis, how can you even be a Hero? If you can’t determine right from wrong on your own and always have to rely on others to tell you what to do, that wouldn’t make you a Hero so much as a glorified attack dog.”

He’d only been saying that to illustrate that he believed Hawks was making the right decision in stepping back now that he’d lost his moral footing, but he must have hit a nerve, because that was what finally did it.

Hawks crumbled completely, the hand around Shouta’s wrist squeezing so tightly that it felt like
Shouta’s bones were being ground against each other as the young Hero’s shoulders began to shake.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered brokenly, voice thick as he was undoubtedly only moments away from tears falling from his eyes. “I’m so-”

“Kid,” Shouta sighed and moved closer, ignoring the pain and telegraphing his movements as much as possible.

He wasn’t sure if physical contact was the correct approach here, would have been convinced that it wasn’t after how Hawks had reacted to Shouta reaching out earlier, but his wrist had been trapped in Hawks’ hand ever since then and he didn’t know how to interpret that other than an apparently subconscious attempt at reaching out for comfort. Even if it hurt.

So he tried to offer that.

And Hawks startled for a moment as Shouta’s free arm curled around his shoulder and guided his head down against Shouta’s collarbone, but then he went with it, still stiff and confused, sniffing forlornly into Shouta’s shirt for a moment, as if he didn’t know how he was supposed to react to a hug.

Shouta let his hand run up through Hawks’ hair, and that seemed to be the magic ticket as Hawks moved his own free hand to clutch Shouta’s shirt and then he started really crying.

-

It wasn’t necessarily what he’d expected to spend his afternoon doing, but he wasn’t about to cut Hawks short when he’d already seen just how susceptible the kid was to putting on a mask and acting like he was fine when he wasn’t.

Shouta was more than willing to spend an afternoon ensuring that Hawks knew that he didn’t have to put on a mask with him. That his feelings weren’t an inconvenience to be buried.

Because that was the sort of behavior that got people hurt.

Hiding a breakdown until the last possible moment, or just not reaching out when one was in agony. It wasn’t healthy, and if it got bad enough, it just might end up costing a vulnerable person their life.

So he let Hawks cry this out in his own time, not rushing him to get over it or moving away from the embrace Hawks had now accepted and was actively leaning in to.

And the crying slowly petered out.

Went from constant body-heaving sobs to unrestrained crying to quiet gasping as only the aftertremors remained.

And when Hawks was ready, he pulled away on his own.

“Sorry,” he muttered once again, wiping his face in the sleeve of his free arm and then tugging on his other hand again, but this time he actually let go, revealing a circle of redness on Shouta’s wrist that he could tell from just a glance would probably end up bruising, “Shit, sorry.”

Hawks was looking down at Shouta’s wrist as well and looked about ready to start crying again, contrition clear on his face.

“Don’t worry about it,” Shouta dismissed easily, “it didn’t seem like something you could control, so it would be illogical to blame yourself for it.”

Hawks nodded hesitantly, expression dubious.

“I try, though,” he muttered, “and I haven’t done that in years, I swear, I don’t know what’s going on with me right now. I really thought I’d learned to not do that.”

And during his monologue, his expression morphed into exactly the mortification and self-blame that Shouta had told him not to bother with.

“So it’s a recurring issue?” he chose not to point out Hawks’ negative emotions, because he was really asking just as much to distract from those as he was to satiate his own curiosity.

Because pushing him on them would likely only result in him suppressing them, and Shouta would rather know what he was feeling that be lulled into a false sense of security by the kid’s eerily good acting abilities.

Hawks nodded, “used to be. When I was stressed or scared or… you know, stuff like that. But I had to learn to not do it because Heroes can’t just grab onto other people in the field. That’s a safety risk.”

“It is,” Shouta agreed, “but you’re not in the field right now, so no harm done.”

Hawks shot the red circle on Shouta’s wrist another doubtful look, but he didn’t argue any further, which was probably the best Shouta could hope for here.

“So you’re stepping back from heroics,” Shouta stated after a brief silence, to ensure that the things Hawks had said during his breakdown still held true. Hawks nodded in agreement, so that was a relief. “And you’ll need some level of protection from the Commission to ensure that they don’t get intel through you.”

Hawks’ wings puffed up briefly in agitation before he nodded sheepishly.

“That’s probably a good idea,” he agreed, though he seemed unhappy about it, “to make sure I don’t – yeah.”

“So it’s probably best that you stay at UA for now,” Shouta said, “since it’s the place where the Commission has the least amount of influence. And we’re already gearing up to fight them anyway, so it’s not like you’d be compromising us further.”

Once again, Hawks looked like he might disagree for a moment before folding and agreeing.

“If you have a different idea, I would like to hear it,” Shouta said, because he would like to have something of an open dialogue whenever possible, and Hawks was supposed to be an adult who should therefore have a say in what happened with him.

“I don’t,” Hawks shook his head, “I just – it wasn’t what I had in mind, but this is probably better anyway.”

Shouta didn’t trust that statement, and he wanted to challenge it, would have, if Hizashi hadn’t chosen that exact moment to burst in.

“Shou, please tell me you’ve seen – oh, Hawks, hi,” Hizashi stopped short for a moment, looking intently at Hawks, who in turn seemed to realize that he was, in fact, sitting on Shouta’s desk like a child, face puffy and eyes still red and irritated from crying.

“Hi,” Hawks smiled sweetly, and completely falsely, wings surreptitiously wrapping around his torso as if he was trying to hide himself. Not that that would work out for him with how starkly red his wings were.

Shouta decided to take pity on him and bring Hizashi’s attention back onto himself. He was the one Hizashi had come to find, after all.

“Is something wrong?” he asked, “Who did you leave Touya with?”

“That’s the problem!” Hizashi turned from staring at Hawks, immediately becoming frantic after his short bout of surprised stupor. “Touya’s gone! I don’t know where he went, and Nezu’s already checking security cameras, but I thought he might have gone to find you ‘cause he was really getting sick of me, and I tried calling you but you weren’t picking up, so –”

“When did you last see him?” Shouta interrupted, feeling his heartrate pick up at the knowledge that Touya was unaccounted for. That kid was not safe to be left on his own.

Hawks seemed to agree as he immediately straightened up, sitting at full attention.

“I – he went to the bathroom, or at least that’s what he said, and he’d already been there a couple of times, so I figured it’d be fine and he – I thought he could use a moment alone ‘cause he was getting really agitated, and that’s not good, so – ”

Shouta didn’t have time to listen to Hizashi’s rationalizations right now.

“Keep looking in the main building, will you?” He stopped Hizashi, and then he turned to Hawks, not wanting to put work on him when he’d just quit but also knowing that he was close to unrivaled when it came to search and rescue missions. “Can you help him? Maybe go find Nezu so he can help guide your feathers around the halls.”

Hawks nodded eagerly as he stood, game face already plastered on as he began detaching his feathers and sending them out. It was too convincing and Shouta didn’t like it.

“Try to keep the students from noticing, we don’t need a panic right now,” he continued, because students running in the halls would only make this harder if there actually was an emergency.

“And what are you gonna do?” Hawks asked.

“If he left on his own, which we should assume until we have evidence to the contrary, he’ll probably seek out safe territory, so I’m going to check the dorms first,” Shouta was already halfway out the door. “I don’t have my cell phone right now, so I’m not going to be of much use on a search anyway.”

And with those words he was off.

Hoping desperately that Touya had just gotten tired of waiting around and made the – reckless, inconsiderate, teenaged - decision to go home without telling anyone.

Because he didn’t even want to think about the alternatives.

Chapter Text

Touya knew he shouldn’t have left like that.

He knew Present Mic had trusted him to come back. Because the annoying cockatoo had outright told him so before he’d let him go to the bathroom alone.

But once he’d been out of that godforsaken conference room and away from the unnecessarily loud and cheery shadow that had been following him all day, making comments that didn’t need to be said, giving opinions that didn’t need to be given, smiling at him when he didn’t fucking want to be smiled at, and yes, he knew it was unfair to be mad about someone smiling at him, but it was just so grating… he just didn’t want to go back.

So he hadn’t.

Instead, he’d turned in the direction he knew the dorms were, figuring that it’d be easy enough to find him there once Present Mic realized that he wasn’t coming back. So, really, there wasn’t much harm done, was there?

And it’d send a pretty clear message that he was done being nice for today.

It wasn’t even like they were doing anything productive anymore. The clothes shopping could have, should have, been done in less than an hour if it weren’t for Present Mic’s unnecessary, unwanted and completely unwarranted input on Touya’s choices.

Because he was fully aware that an all black wardrobe wasn’t going to be allowed. It never had been before and certainly wouldn’t be now with the shadow of Dabi looming over him, and he’d taken that into account when making his choices.

Or tried to, anyway.

He stayed well clear of the reds and oranges for obvious reasons. But he’d figured that the rest of the color wheel would make for plenty variation so it should be fine.

But Present Mic had gotten in his way every. Single. Time.

Like when he found some nice dark blue shirts and Present Mic just had to make a big deal about how those would bring out the blue in his eyes, which he didn’t fucking want. So he didn’t get them.

Or anything else that was blue.

And so he’d tried again and found some green stuff that looked okay only for Present Mic to pipe up that green was a good choice to make his red hair stand out. Which Touya didn’t want.

So that was a no for greens as well.

Next was yellow, which was a color he didn’t like, but he knew it looked like shit on him, so there was no way it was going to bring out his eyes or his hair or anything like that.

And he’d really thought it would work.

He found a hideously yellow pair of pants and was about to put them in the little cart, not getting any comments about it flattering him when Present Mic decided to turn the script around and say that he was flattered that Touya apparently thought yellow looked good when Present Mic was wearing it.

Touya had exited out of the entire window before the Hero could even finish his sentence.

And then all that was left were pinks and purples. And maybe Present Mic was finally fucking catching on that his advice was unwanted because he’d only made a single comment about how maybe pastels weren’t the best for Touya’s complexion.

And he’d probably noticed that everything Touya considered after that were pastels.

Because fuck anything that annoying bastard had to say about Touya’s appearance.

And that was just the color issue.

There had also been issues over cuts, sizes, amounts, fucking sleeve length.

In the end, it had almost been noon before they were finally done, and Touya didn’t even get to sigh in relief at that because he still had to spend God knows how much longer being pestered by the Hero who seemed determined to find some activity to force Touya into and just wouldn’t quit it no matter how curt Touya got with him.

All things considered, they really ought to be grateful that Touya was choosing to just walk away instead of making a scene.

Because he could have.

Could have chosen to take all the anger and annoyance he was feeling and throw it right in Present Mic’s stupid, smiling face.

Touya was good at being annoying.

He could be downright insufferable if he wanted to.

And he was even better at keeping it up despite whatever consequences the adults decided to throw at him.

Walking away was the better solution for everyone involved.

Or at least that was what he told himself as he lay in his bed, staring up at the ceiling and knowing that Aizawa wasn’t going to see it that way.

He didn’t want Aizawa to be angry with him.

But that had been less important in the moment than just getting the fuck away from everything to do with Present Mic.

And if he’d known where Aizawa was, he might have gone there instead of walking all the way back to his boring, empty dorm room. It wasn’t like he really wanted to be here, either. But he didn’t know where else to go. Because no one had told him where anyone or anything else was.

So Aizawa could have prevented this.

But he hadn’t.

And it wasn’t like he hadn’t know that Present Mic was going to be insufferable, either. He’d even gone out of his way to warn Touya about him.

So he should have known to give Touya some way to escape when it became too much instead of just sticking him in a room with the overgrown cockatoo for hours on end without so much as checking in to make sure Touya didn’t fucking lose it and decide to burn the school down with everyone in it.

Yeah.

Aizawa really shouldn’t get to be mad at him.

Not when this was basically Aizawa’s fault and Touya wasn’t even doing anything bad.

He’d just gone back to his room to be alone.

And he wasn’t even doing anything now that he was here. Just waiting for someone to notice that he was gone and come find him to yell at him for leaving.

… If anyone cared enough to actually go look for him, that was.

The moment he’d formulated the thought, he knew that idea didn’t really make sense. They would care. If nothing else then because he was their key witness or whatever.

But he still couldn’t dismiss the idea because he was never in charge of where his mind went, and now was no exception and he wished he could have just stayed worrying about how mad Aizawa was going to be instead of worrying about whether he was going to be mad at all.

Whether he was going to care at all.

When the door opened, he had a moment of genuine relief that someone had cared to find him. And had done so before he completely lost his mind.

And then he was back to worrying about how mad Aizawa was going to be.

Because he was mad. That much was clear from just looking at the man’s face as he stalked over to where Touya had quickly sat up on his bed.

“What exactly do you think you’re doing? Do you think we’ve put up all these safety features for fun? For a bit of a challenge for you to weasel your way out of? Do you have any idea how dangerous this could have been for you?” Aizawa demanded, his voice almost a growl as he towered over Touya.

And Touya tried not to flinch back, but it was hard when Aizawa was looking at him like that.

And he didn’t succeed at hiding his reaction if the way Aizawa’s face softened was any indication.

As much as he didn’t particularly want Aizawa pitying him either, he couldn’t help but be relieved when the man sighed and scrubbed both hands over his face as he sat down on the bed next to Touya.

He supposed he could survive a bit of pity if it saved him from whatever Aizawa would have done otherwise.

Because Touya had never seen Aizawa mad at him like that before, and just one look had been more than enough to convince him that he didn’t actually want to find out how Aizawa acted when he was angry.

“Do you have any idea how much you just scared me?” Aizawa sighed tiredly.

And it really was impressive just how quickly the man could get Touya to go back to wanting Aizawa to be mad because this guilt that was now coiling in his stomach was no doubt worse than whatever punishment an angry Aizawa would have put him through.

And if that punishment was what was necessary to get the guilt to go away then it would be more than worth it, too.

So Touya made the totally not stupid decision to make sure that Aizawa stayed angry.

Because he would rather deal with that.

He knew how to deal with that.

“Well, maybe if you hadn’t forced me to spend all day with that annoying dickhead you call a friend I wouldn’t have had to leave,” he spat contemptuously. Purposely knocking down someone’s friend usually worked to rile them up.

Aizawa straightened up a little where he was sitting, too, shooting Touya a tired look. So it was working at least a little bit, even if the man wasn’t glaring yet.

So Touya would just have to keep going.

“I don’t get how you can stand him,” he continued, “he’s awful, and loud, and so fucking sure he has the right to be in my business. It’s insufferable, and you should be glad I just walked away instead of giving him a taste of his own medicine. Pompous dick.”

“No,” Aizawa said simply, eyes sharper now but he still wasn’t actually glaring, “you walking away actively put the entire teaching staff on red alert on your behalf, Hizashi included. So I’m sure even he would rather just have to deal with a grumpy brat trying to annoy the adults in order to get his way.”

Okay, so that kind of stung. Actually, it stung a lot.

But Touya wasn’t going to let that stop him.

After all, an angry Aizawa yelling at him for being an inconvenience was what he wanted. It was what he knew.

“In that case, I guess I’m terribly sorry for not reacting the way you want me to when you put me in an unreasonable situation,” there shift the blame to Aizawa, Adults hated when he did that. “And in case you didn’t notice, I put up with that shit for hours before I quit trying to play nice.”

“As far as I could tell from Hizashi’s texts you weren’t playing particularly nice, though,” Aizawa calmly disagreed.

And Touya was confused.

Why was Aizawa still not mad at him?

And what did he mean Hizashi’s texts? Hizashi was obviously Present Mic’s civilian name, but had he really been texting Aizawa about how annoying Touya was being all day?

“Then why did he keep going?” Touya argued, “if he knew I didn’t fucking like him, why didn’t he just cut his losses and stop bothering me?”

“I’m not going to argue with you about this when all Hizashi did was try to be nice to you,” and there was the glare Touya had been angling for. It didn’t feel like a victory, though. “Which is more than I seem to be able to say about you. If even half of what Hizashi texted me is true you were being downright nasty to him, ignoring every attempt he made to connect with you and purposely going against his advice, which would have been fine if it weren’t for the fact that you seemed to just be doing it to spite him.”

“Fine, so I was fucking awful, too!” Touya yelled angrily to conceal the tears he shouldn’t be crying over a fucking scolding. Who cared if Aizawa thought he was a contrarian brat? He was, so who cared that Aizawa now knew it, too? “Can you just punish me for it so I can get over it already?”

And then Aizawa scrubbed his hands over his face again, slumping down tiredly.

“I’m not going to punish you, Touya,” he said. “I never was.”

And Touya didn’t know what to think about that.

Some of his confusion must have been evident on his face because Aizawa reached out to squeeze his shoulder for a brief moment before dropping his hand down to his side. And it wasn’t a hug, but it also wasn’t rejection so Touya didn’t know what to do with that, either.

“And that isn’t going to change no matter how much you try to annoy me into changing my mind,” Aizawa continued, casually calling out Touya for what he’d been doing and making it clear that Aizawa had known the whole time.

Which was fucking embarrassing. And that was another feeling Touya didn’t want to be feeling right now. Or ever.

“That’s not –” Touya started arguing before he knew what to say, because anger was easier to deal with, “you were fucking pissed when you came in here, so don’t think you can convince me that you’re just fine with this.”

“You’re right,” Aizawa answered his accusation calmly. Like the asshole he was. “I was acting very angrily. And I yelled at you before giving you a chance to defend yourself. And I’m sure I don’t need to explain to you that we sometimes bury unpleasant feelings underneath a layer of anger because that’s easier to deal with?”

And there he was, casually calling out exactly what Touya was doing again, and it wasn’t fucking appreciated.

Touya wasn’t going to admit to it, though. Or dignify it with a response.

So he fixed a scowl on his face instead and kept his mouth shut.

And he didn’t appreciate the way Aizawa’s mouth quirked in amusement now, either.

A beat of silence passed like that. And Touya knew Aizawa wasn’t going to break it unless he actively wanted to say something. So when the silence became too much with the way the man was still smirking at him, he bit back again to get some sort of reaction.

“So you’re just gonna let me get away with it?” He challenged, “I might just keep doing it, then.”

“Are you getting away with it?” Aizawa asked in that too-innocent tone that just might have worked to goad Touya into arguing if it weren’t for the fact that he’d already seen it play out with Shouto, and he knew something was coming. The real question was: what?

“… You said you weren’t going to punish me,” he said slowly. Not arguing because that would be giving Aizawa what he wanted. And Touya wasn’t going to do that right now. “So how am I not getting away with it?”

“Punishment and consequences are two very different things,” Aizawa pulled out what was apparently his trump card. Though Touya still didn’t see exactly what the man thought he had.

“So what are my consequences going to be?” Touya asked, rolling his eyes in annoyance. Because consequences might just be the preferred funny pseudonym for punishment here.

“Well, I doubt Hizashi is going to trust you to go to the bathroom alone again after this,” Aizawa stated. As if it was a great loss. And Touya would have sneered something about not needing Hizashi to trust him to do anything, but Aizawa continued talking which effectively cut him off. “And you’ve definitely lost some of my trust as well.”

That shouldn’t feel as much like a punch to the gut as it did.

But it did, and Touya could already feel the sting of tears welling up in his eyes.

And Aizawa had already called him out on using anger to conceal other emotions, so the man could damn well deal with it now, too.

“That’s not fair,” Touya very much didn’t whine. Because he didn’t want Aizawa to know that his ploy was working. “It was only one time, it’s not fair for you to hold that over my head forever like that.”

“Who says I’m holding it over your head forever?” Aizawa sounded mildly confused as he looked Touya in the eye, something like concern in his gaze which wasn’t fair.

“You just did!” Touya tried to pull up some anger he didn’t feel so he could wrap it around himself, but he could tell that it wasn’t working. “You said I’ve lost your trust and it’s not fair when it was just one time I did it and I wouldn’t have even had to come back here if I’d known where you were, but you didn’t tell me!”

The concern in Aizawa’s eyes morphed into something softer then, something Touya didn’t know what to call.

And then the man was reaching out again, but this time he was actually pulling Touya into a loose hug that totally wasn’t what he’d been missing.

“You would have come find me if you’d known where to look?” Aizawa asked gently into his hair.

As if that wasn’t exactly what Touya had just said.

And he didn’t like the tone the man was using now. It made him feel like he’d just said something childish. Or cute. Which was embarrassing, and more than enough reason to not answer as he turned his head into Aizawa’s shoulder so the man couldn’t see him blush.

And this time Aizawa at least didn’t let the silence fester when Touya refused to play along.

“You could have told Hizashi to reach out to me, you know,” he said, “I’m sure he would have been more than happy to pass the buck to me.”

“I didn’t know that,” Touya whined. Yes, whined, because he was tired of pretending now.

“And that’s the problem,” Aizawa squeezed him a little tighter, the gesture at odds with the steely undertone of his words. “How am I supposed to trust you to handle yourself when your idea of a reasonable response to being stuck with a person you don’t like is to run away? It’s not acceptable, Touya, and while I’ll do my best to not put you in that kind of situations, sometimes I’ll have to. And I now know that I can’t trust you to be rational when it inevitably happens again.”

This was awful.

It was awful and Touya hated it and he wanted it to stop.

The hug didn’t even feel nice anymore now that he knew Aizawa was still kind of mad at him, even if it wasn’t the angry kind of mad.

So he pulled back, pushing against Aizawa’s arm until the man let go of him, and then he let himself fall backwards onto his pillow, studiously ignoring the stinging in his eyes that had never gone away completely but was worse now.

“Whatever,” he muttered darkly. “You can leave now. Message received, consequences understood, or whatever.”

“It really isn’t a punishment,” Aizawa protested, but he still stood up.

“Just like having to spend the day with fucking Present Mic wasn’t,” Touya shot back, turning to face the wall so he didn’t have to see how Aizawa reacted.

“Okay,” the man sighed, “you’re angry with me. I understand that. I’ll leave you alone for a while now, okay?”

“Whatever,” Touya repeated. And didn’t look back as Aizawa’s footsteps sounded, moving away from Touya and out the door.

And then Touya was alone to feel how much Aizawa’s not-punishment fucking hurt.

-

He didn’t know how long he spent laying around, falling apart and then putting himself back together again.

But it ended when someone knocked on his door.

And he got up to open it because he was certain it must be either Aizawa, whom he didn’t particularly want to see, or Shouto, who probably wouldn’t like being ignored. And Touya wasn’t going to take that risk when his brother was barely tolerating him to begin with.

An maybe he didn’t particularly want to be alone anymore.

He didn’t know how to react when the door opened to reveal Mina and Tokoyami, though.

Luckily, Mina seemed to notice his surprise because she immediately handed him a bottle of something as if to dispel the awkward silence that was threatening to take over.

He took it automatically and then looked down to see what he’d just been handed.

“It’s that raspberry soda you were drinking yesterday,” Mina said, “I figured you liked them since you were drinking it, and they’re actually Jirou’s but she said to tell you that you can just go ahead and take some if you want.”

It was raspberry soda.

And when Touya went to twist it open, it was still sealed, so they couldn’t have really tampered with it either. Not that he expected them to. Mina had been too straightforward and friendly so far for him to really expect that sort of underhanded hostility from her.

Not that he knew what he did expect from her.

“And Tokoyami said you might be okay if we visited you, so that why we’re here,” she continued, “but we can go again if you wanna be alone.”

She appeared to still be trying to respect his boundaries the way she had this morning, and it felt surprisingly nice and genuine. Like maybe she was just trying to befriend him.

And it wasn’t like he had any prior experiences to tell him if this was how it was normally done, or if she was being weird, so for now he would just have to go with it. Wait and see what happened next.

So Touya looked over at Tokoyami to see why the other had decided that they should come visit him, if maybe he had an ulterior motive or something, and Tokoyami immediately cleared his throat to oblige him.

“I heard from Aizawa that you haven’t had a very good day, so I thought you might want to talk about it. At the very least I wanted to offer my company. Ashido overheard me asking Jirou for a raspberry soda, and she divined my intentions as it is well known that I am not particularly fond of that brand of beverage. I saw no reason to deny her when she offered to come along.”

That… made sense. Aside from the fact that they were acting way too nice, of course.

But that might be normal for them.

So even as he knew perfectly well that there was usually a flip side to too-kind offers, he was actually kind of okay with them coming to check on him.

“So do you want us to leave or can we come in?” Mina asked, making it very clear in her tone and expression that she really wanted to stay. But if her actions so far were any indication she probably also would leave if he told her to.

So why not indulge this strange kindness they were showing him?

It wasn’t like he had anything better to do anyway.

He rolled his shoulders in a half-shrug and stepped back, silently inviting them into his space. And they went in. Tokoyami quietly and solemnly, Mina with a huge smile on her face as if she’d just been given a great gift.

It only took a moment of silent shuffling for Tokoyami to arrange himself against the wall opposite the bed, leaning back casually, the picture of calm.

Mina stood in the middle of the room, looking like she had been making for his bed but stopped short and was now looking between Touya, the bed, the desk chair, and the floor by Tokoyami. As if she couldn’t figure out exactly where she would be welcome and was scared to overstep.

And Touya didn’t know why that made him want to be nicer to her, but it did.

So he went with it and walked over to sit on his bed like he had before they arrived and jerked his head for Mina to join him.

And once again her face broke into a massive grin as she sat at the foot of his bed, wriggling happily for a moment as she settled.

There was no silence once Mina was comfortable. She immediately fixed Touya with a curious look and started speaking.

“How did shopping go?” she asked, and then added in an almost conspiratorial tone, “is that what went wrong? ‘Cause Toko says you had a bad day. Did Mic try to give you fashion advice?”

Fashion advice. That was one way of putting it.

“Yep,” Touya answered, “and I ignored all of it.” Purposely. Rudely. Like a grumpy brat, as Aizawa had scolded him for.

Mina just laughed.

“He’s way more colorful than you, right,” she smiled, “did he try to make you get clothes that weren’t black?”

“A heinous crime if he did,” Tokoyami broke in. Making Mina giggle.

“No, I was gonna get that anyway,” Touya disagreed.

“Really?” Mina looked genuinely surprised by that. “No, wait, that makes sense. Just because Dabi was all doom and gloom doesn’t mean – and you’ve been wearing pink, like, all the time, so obviously you like colors.”

“I’ve been wearing pink because this is my only shirt right now,” Touya clarified. Though it wouldn’t be true for much longer. Thank God for next day delivery.

“Okay, yeah,” Mina conceded, “but what colors did you get, then?”

“… Pink,” Touya mumbled. And it actually felt okay when Mina laughed at that. Even if she was laughing at him, it still didn’t feel malicious.

“That is also all right,” Tokoyami said quietly. Touya turned to look at him, not sure what he meant. “If you like pink. It can be quite a nice color.” He clarified.

“Aw, thanks,” Mina smiled, putting on a conceited air at the same time as Touya pulled a face and said: “Maybe if you said it with a little more conviction I’d believe that wasn’t just empty flattery.”

And then it was Mina’s turn to pull a face.

“Pink is a nice color,” she protested.

“Better than the alternatives anyway,” Touya agreed easily.

“But you didn’t like Present Mic’s opinions on your choices?” Tokoyami asked, clearly done talking about the merits of the color pink. Or probably any color, really.

“No,” Touya answered flatly. And both of his guests looked ready to grill him on why, which Touya wasn’t going to stand for. Because there was no way in hell he was elaborating on his reasoning behind color choices, or why he was so vehemently against short sleeves. So maybe now was the time to test if Mina really would drop it when asked. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

There. He’d laid down his preference, so now it was up to them to either respect it or prove that they cared less about Touya’s boundaries than they would like to pretend.

“Okay,” Mina said breezily, “wanna hear about my day?”

… Touya hadn’t actually expected it to be this easy.

“Is it any interesting?” he hedged. Waiting for the other shoe to drop, but getting no indication that it would. Mina looked perfectly content to just move on, and Tokoyami was silently acquiescing, following Mina’s lead.

“Obviously,” she grinned, “I’m an interesting person, so everything that happens to me is automatically interesting, too.”

“Just by virtue of being about you,” Touya let himself smile a little at her antics, which earned him an even bigger smile in return.

“Yep,” she popped her lips, “so… you wanna hear?”

Touya still wasn’t sure he fully trusted this level of kindness from anyone, but for now it couldn’t hurt to indulge her. So he nodded and leaned back as she began weaving an intricate tale about all of the things that had happened in the span of just one single day.

And relaxed even further when Tokoyami periodically piped up to correct Mina’s tall tales with much more grounded realities, much to Mina’s dismay and consternation.

This was… nice.

He liked this.

Chapter Text

For the life of him, Hawks couldn’t figure out how he’d ended up here.

Like, he knew all the individual steps he’d taken, but he still didn’t understand how this was where they’d brought him.

He’d gone to UA to let Eraserhead know that he couldn’t be counted on, and then the plan had actually been to get the hell out of the way.

He didn’t know where he would have gone.

But he’d planned on leaving, was the point.

But then Eraserhead had been so kind and understanding about the whole thing, even when Hawks had stress gripped him.

Hadn’t even demanded that Hawks tell him what he was doing.

No, he’d just accepted it and moved on.

Hadn’t even shown that it was hurting him until Hawks had finally let go and the forming bruises were put on full display.

And even then he’d refused to blame Hawks for any of it.

Even though it was his fault for letting his bad instincts take over like that.

His fault for not stopping himself.

His fault for not working harder to do better, to be better.

Really, it was just another nail in the coffin of Hawks’ Hero career.

Because when over a decade of training and conditioning hadn’t been able to teach him to suppress these bad instincts it was clear that he was just unteachable.

Sure, he’d had a good run. He’d gone years without stress gripping anyone because he’d stayed on top of his training and stayed aware of the consequences of a slip up.

And he’d figured out how to delay the bad reactions some so he could make sure he was only stress gripping himself.

Or in the privacy of his own apartment maybe an inanimate object.

Like his Endeavor plush.

He’d stress gripped that thing so many times when he’d been upset over training or a mission or his life in general.

But it was gone now. And so were the Commission trainers who’d held him responsible for his bad actions. And with those apparently also the rest of his training.

He didn’t get why Eraser didn’t blame him. Why he forgave him without pause. Why he… let Hawks cry on his shoulder like a child after being stress gripped and bruised by someone who should have done better.

Hawks was used to being treated like a child by older Heroes, but it had never been in a good way.

It had always been a way for them to cut him down, dismiss him, belittle him.

It had never been… It had never been someone calling him kid in a way that didn’t sound like an insult so much as a statement of fact and hugging him and letting him cry as if his feelings were okay to have and not just an inconvenience he had to learn to suppress.

He didn’t know what to make of it.

He just knew that it was this unplanned breakdown that had started moving him away from his plan of getting the hell out of the way.

Even more so when Eraserhead had immediately been more than ready to take responsibility for Hawks and offer him a place to stay. To stay safe, even when Hawks had already made it clear that he wasn’t going to be of much use.

And while it did kind of make sense to keep him here as a form of containment, to make sure the weak link didn’t blab, it hadn’t… felt like that was the reason.

And that made no sense.

And he didn’t know what he would have done next when Eraser actually asked him for his input, as if he could still care about Hawks’ opinions after everything he’d done wrong.

Didn’t know what would have happened next if Present Mic hadn’t barged in, and Hawks hadn’t known whether to thank him or curse him or sink into the floor in mortification that yet another person was seeing him like this.

And while he shouldn’t have been grateful for Touya’s disappearing act, he was kind of glad that it provided ample distraction for everyone involved so that he and his issues were no longer the center of attention.

In the end, it hadn’t actually been an emergency anyway, as Nezu had already basically located the runaway by the time Hawks had found his office to ask for instructions and offer his help.

Because search and rescue was easy.

Easy and uncomplicated and all he had to do was use his training, not wonder if maybe finding the lost child was somehow wrong, actually.

And then he’d been in the principal’s office with no direction as he called his feathers back to him now that it was known that Touya had just gone back to the dorms and Eraser was already on his way there, so he would intercept the kid shortly.

It wasn’t like there was anyone else who was better suited for the job.

So then Hawks had nothing to do and nowhere to be as the principal finished his sweep of the cameras and turned to fix Hawks with a smile that looked so friendly and felt so predatory that it had all of his feathers puffing up in response.

And then he’d had to explain to the principal why he was here, but thankfully with less crying this time, and the offer for Hawks to stay at UA had been repeated.

Although this time it had felt more like an order.

And he’d already pretty much agreed to it when Eraser had offered, because it wasn’t like he had any better ideas, but he had still been beyond confused as to why they wanted him here so badly.

At least Nezu had offered him a job to do.

And he had been very direct about it, too, though Hawks couldn’t help but feel, even through his exhausted confusion, that there might be something more to this, some underlying reasoning that Nezu wasn’t telling him.

Because, sure, the principal of a prestigious school wanting to free up the teachers to actually, you know, teach made perfect sense on its own, but it still felt like there was something more to it that Hawks just wasn’t getting.

But regardless, Nezu wanted Hawks to play bodyguard for Touya.

Which…

Bodyguarding wasn’t a difficult job.

Just keep the appointed person safe from threats.

And he could do that.

It was also fairly safe from a moral standpoint because protecting Touya was pretty much the only thing he knew would be good. Because Touya was just a kid who didn’t deserve to be used and abused in the name of keeping Endeavor on top of the pedestal he didn’t deserve.

It put Hawks in Eraser’s camp, too.

Which had to be good, because the more he got to know the man the more convinced he was that if anyone knew what was right, it was Eraserhead.

So that part was good, too.

But.

But it would mean being around Touya when that was still so painful and raw and confusing because he’d liked the kid when they had just talked, he’d been funny and sarcastic and blunt and Hawks couldn’t help but feel friendly feelings towards him.

And then he’d do something that reminded Hawks so violently of Dabi and it was like been doused in ice cold water as he was reminded that Dabi was gone.

For good.

Forever.

And he liked Touya the way he liked Tsukuyomi but that had nothing on how he’d liked Dabi even though he knew he shouldn’t.

And it felt like the perfect cosmic punishment that he would lose Dabi before he ever knew if he could have him and be left with a shadow of the Villain to forever remind him of what could have been. What never should have been if he hadn’t been an idiot who did things he shouldn’t and got hurt when it inevitably came back to bite him.

And he deserved that.

So he said yes.

And was only mildly surprised and maybe kind of sad when Eraser came back from dealing with Touya and took issue with Hawks being near the kid.

Because obviously Hawks should have realized that he wasn’t a person Eraser would trust to actually watch out for Touya.

Not after he’d broken down so completely in front of the older Hero.

Those weren’t the words the Eraserhead had used, but they were more than implied in his argument about how Hawks needed to not be working for a while. So he could ‘slow down and figure himself out’.

Because he was an untrustworthy mess.

Which he knew, but it still hurt to know that Eraser fully agreed with him on it.

And then Nezu had smiled that predatory smile and asked if, perhaps, Eraser was discounting what part Touya would play in Hawks ‘getting out’.

Which was a phrasing Hawks didn’t understand, because he was already here, wasn’t he? Where was he supposed to go? What was he supposed to get out of?

Eraser had looked just as confused as himself, though, so there was no help to find from him.

And Nezu had been completely unwilling to discuss it, whatever it was, in front of Hawks. So he, still smiling, told Eraser to walk Hawks over to his new room ‘on Touya’s floor’ before they could resume their conversation in the principal’s office.

And there had been a staring contest, but eventually Eraserhead folded and turned to leave, giving Hawks a brief look to let him know he was supposed to follow.

He’d be lying if he denied considering dropping a few feathers to eavesdrop.

But Eraser already knew how his feathers worked well enough that he would be on the lookout, and Nezu was scary smart, and getting caught would be a supremely bad look right now.

So he didn’t.

Even though it killed him a little to not be in the know.

And he followed Eraser to the dorm building he’d snuck into just two nights earlier to find Tsukuyomi. Not that he was going to tell Eraser about that.

His new room, he was told, was indeed on the same hallway as Touya’s.

And if he knew what was good for him, Hawks wouldn’t go near the kid’s room unless there was an emergency.

Or so Eraser warned with a glare rather than words as he pointed out Touya’s door.

And then, when that had been done, Eraser had seemed to shift gears and shot him a complicated look and asked him if he wanted to be called something other than Hawks now.

Which was a question that had the potential to drive him absolutely insane.

Did he?

And what then?

There went any chance of sleeping that night.

Not that he let it show, just shaking his head with a smile and a “Hawks is fine. That’s what everyone knows me by anyway.”

And Eraser had looked ready to say something, so Hawks(?) had faked a yawn and wished him a good night before darting through the door and barricading himself in his new room.

It was just as empty of personality as every room he’d had since he was six.

It felt almost safe.

Which left his mind free to wonder how something that was definitely meant to be kind could mess him up so thoroughly?

And how had he even ended up here in the first place.

-

“Is this going to be a thing now?” one of the students, the tall, black-haired one who’d been frozen into an ice block during the Sports festival, said. And when Eraser turned to look at the kid, a clear warning in his eyes, he continued unabashedly, “you know, bringing in surprise guests to live here every other day? Because I’m pretty sure there isn’t that much room on the girls’ side.”

The kid didn’t seem like he was being serious.

Judging by the looks on the faces of the students closest to him, he was probably joking.

Which was comforting, in a weird way.

That the first reaction to the Number Two Hero seeking refuge was to joke about how often this was going to be happening.

It made it clear that these kids didn’t truly grasp the seriousness of what was going on here.

Which was a refreshing sort of innocence that Hawks very much enjoyed experiencing second hand.

It made him want to preserve that innocence. So that they could get to keep it as long as possible.

Because he knew very well that once it was lost, it would never return.

Eraser didn’t seem to be enjoying it, though, if the look on his face was an indicator. Then again, the kid had also interrupted his explanation of why Hawks was staying here.

Or the reason the students were given, anyway.

Which skipped elegantly over any moral dilemmas or breakdowns and condensed the whole thing down to Hawks being on UA’s side and there being an increased need for security.

And that was obviously a time where an instructor expected silence.

Still, Hawks didn’t want to see the kid punished, so he broke in before Eraser even opened his mouth to admonish.

“I’m sleeping on the girls’ side?” he smiled disarmingly, putting up his carefree Hero façade before remembering that he wasn’t a Hero anymore. But it was what he had and was used to, so he kept it up. “My, my, what will their parents say?”

Eraserhead shot him a tired glare, which did nothing good for Hawks’ already upset stomach, but the attention was off the kid, so it was worth it.

“You’re sleeping on an entirely different floor,” he deadpanned, “and the separation by gender is outdated and unnecessary anyway.”

Hawks shrugged easily, not actually in this to debate gender separation.

He did, though, decide to keep up this façade, because the kids didn’t know he wasn’t a Hero anymore.

And they didn’t need to, either.

The only problem with it was that it didn’t feel like the correct way to act around Eraserhead, who already knew that it was all fake.

Who had seen him break down and still deigned to take time out of his schedule to show up outside his door this morning to let him know that Nezu had gotten his way and Hawks would be bodyguarding Touya.

And there hadn’t even been nearly as many threats involved as Hawks would have expected as Eraser had then laid out the ground rules of no unnecessary interaction with the kid, and absolutely no talk about heavy subjects, and to call him if there were any issues. No matter how small.

Which Hawks had obviously agreed to.

Because this sounded like exactly the kind of mindless task he should be trusted with, and clearly Eraser knew it, too.

So he certainly wasn’t insulted.

Or hurt.

That the older Hero didn’t have more faith in him.

Really, he was surprised and relieved to still have this much of the man’s trust.

Because Hawks had proven himself to be unstable and unreliable and nothing like the Hero he portrayed to the world.

So he knew this façade wouldn’t fool the man.

But he didn’t know what to do, how to behave otherwise.

So it would have to do.

And it was working fine for now at least, as Eraser seemed to have forgotten about the first interruption as he turned back to looking at the class as a whole, scattered around the common room of the dorm building.

“Regardless,” he said, “this meeting was just to make you aware that Hawks will be staying here, and that his presence should be considered a secret among yourselves and the staff just like Touya’s. If you have any issues, you can come to me. Otherwise, there’s thirty minutes until classes start and I expect you all to be on time.”

With that he turned around to go do whatever teachers did before class, completely ignoring the chorus of groans sounding behind him.

“Are you gonna be part of class or something, too?” a blond kid with a lightning bolt in his hair had immediately gotten up to ask, looking at Hawks with excited sparks in his eyes.

“Probably not,” he smiled, “no one’s told me so, at least.”

“Aw, bummer,” a redhead said goodnaturedly, nudging at the grumpy blond, Bakugou, the kid who got kidnapped, who was sitting next to him. “That could have been fun, huh?”

Bakugou grumbled something unintelligible, and it looked like that would be it for the morning as the students all gradually started moving around, probably to get ready for the day, and one green-haired kid who seemed to be vibrating with excitement slowly moved closer to Hawks in a way he probably thought was inconspicuous. But Hawks knew a fan when he saw one.

And he was ready, silently gearing himself up to dealing with it. Because that was also something he could do. He already had the façade up and everything.

But then Bakugou stiffened, his mouth twisting into a silent growl.

And most of the students didn’t seem to notice anything but the redhead certainly did as he immediately began herding the blond away from the thing he was staring down.

And when Hawks turned to see what it was, it was Touya.

Still in that pink hoodie from the night he’d left the hospital.

Yeah, okay.

He could see why there might be a bit of tension between him and Bakugou.

Although, Touya seemed preoccupied with staring at Hawks rather than Bakugou.

He didn’t look pleased.

Which wasn’t ideal considering he was here to look out for Touya.

That would be easier to do if Touya was on board with the plan and not jumping at the first opportunity to escape.

So he made his way over just to make sure there was no mutiny actively being planned, shooting the green-haired kid an apologetic look. Which just made the kid blush, so maybe he shouldn’t have acknowledged that he’d noticed the kid.

“Look who finally decided to grace us with his presence,” Hawks said quietly enough that only Touya and the kids closest to him could hear. “You good?”

“Fine,” Touya grumbled dismissively.

“Did you already know that Hawks is gonna live here now?” the pink girl who’d placed herself next to Touya asked, smiling. She seemed nice. “Do you know what it’s really about? ‘Cause Aizawa just said it was something about security.”

Touya glanced between the girl and Hawks, an eyebrow raised in a way that reminded Hawks of Dabi which was a punch to the gut he hadn’t wanted. As if there wasn’t enough shit for him to deal with already this morning.

“Security?” Touya asked, looking almost haughty. Which was a game Hawks knew how to play.

So he nodded, pasting on a teasing smirk so no one saw the hurt underneath. This what the façade was for, after all. “Can’t have our key witnesses running off now, can we?”

Touya looked beyond dismayed at the mild teasing, so maybe Hawks shouldn’t have gone there.

Maybe he was playing the wrong game.

“I would’ve thought you’d be a little more embarrassed to be demoted to a glorified watchdog,” he enunciated every word like they offended him. “What, heroics not going too well for you?”

They were not.

Touya didn’t need to know that.

So Hawks simply smiled blithely until Touya realized that he wasn’t going to get an answer.

“Whatever, I guess,” he muttered, turning to the pink girl again, “did you have breakfast already?”

She shook her head, elated at the attention. “Not yet! Wanna eat together? I was just gonna get something small –”

The two of them were thankfully already walking away as Hawks was forcefully reminded of what he should have thought of earlier but hadn’t because he was an idiot.

Not that it really would have helped anything to think of it sooner because what even was there to do about the fact that he’d just cut himself off from the Commission with their nutritionists who knew about Hawks’ issues and knew how to plan meals to get him what he needed without him having to resort to something as nasty as eating raw meat the way he had when he was little.

Oh no.

Oh no, this was not an issue that had a good solution because no one here knew how to plan meals that got him everything he needed so the cravings weren’t as strong, and they wouldn’t know without him telling them, and even then, there had been so many issues with the Commission’s nutritionists over the years, especially in the beginning, and they had special education in heteromorphic Quirks and their effects on dietary needs.

There was no way UA had the same access, and if they did he’d still have to tell them and if he told them they’d know and that was the point of telling them but it was also exactly what he didn’t want.

But the only other option was to swallow his pride and eat raw meat which would also almost certainly be discovered because he was living in a dorm building filled with nosy teenagers and that was even worse than figuring out if UA even had nutritionists but both options were bad and he didn’t want to, and now that the flood gates had so cruelly been opened he was quickly becoming aware of more and more sensitive issues that he didn’t know how to deal with secretly while living in a dorm building full of nosy teenagers.

And some of them would have been fine if he’d just used his brain for half a second and taken his claw filing kit with him from his old apartment instead of spending the time dramatically burning a fucking plushie, what was he? Twelve?

“–re you okay?”

“Huh?” Hawks shook himself out as he realized he was being addressed and turned to see who had spoken, coming face to face with the green-haired kid and the Todoroki kid… the other Todoroki kid. Shouto? Was that his name?

“Um, it’s just that you went really still and I didn’t know if that was normal for you or not, so I thought, but I didn’t mean to interrupt if you were in the middle of something or –” the green kid stammered. Actually, wasn’t he the one who’d broken his fingers? What was it he was called?

“I’m fine,” Hawks reassured, putting his best fake smile back on his face. Now was not the time to lose it. Again. “Just got lost in thought. Was there anything you wanted?”

“Oh, um, I don’t really – maybe not right now, because we have class soon, but I was wondering if you – and it’s totally up to you – but maybe if you were willing and – and had time, of course – maybe I could ask you some questions just about, like, how your Quirk works, and –”

“Yeah, of course,” Hawks smiled affably. He had been right. The kid was a total fanboy. He knew how to deal with those. It was safe. “Maybe in the afternoon? What was your name again?”

“Midoriya!” the kid smiled big. God, he was adorable.

And he looked like he might want to say something more, but he was interrupted by Shouto – Hawks was pretty sure that was his name.

“Midoriya, we still have to eat breakfast before class starts,” he said. And Midoriya immediately turned and started nodding along. And then Hawks was the focus of Shouto’s attention. “Hawks is probably hungry, too.”

Oh yeah, food. Because he hadn’t obsessed enough over it today.

He still had to actually eat.

Come to think of it, at least some of the tension in his stomach was probably just hunger because he definitely hadn’t eaten last night, either. Did he have lunch? He didn’t remember.

“Don’t worry about me,” he smiled, “just go ahead, I have all day to figure it out.”

And he wasn’t sure that would be enough.

Because, sure, eating was necessary and he must be hungry, but he was also beyond used to starving himself for a while if there wasn’t time to swing around the Commission or his apartment to get his food.

So he could probably afford to take some time yet before deciding what to do.

But how long?

“Oh, but I’m sure everyone would be happy to share whatever you’d want,” Midoriya offered kindly. As if that was the issue. “And there are communal shelves, too, if you don’t want to take something without asking, so there’s definitely something for you.”

And actually, curse these kids’ innocence because now it was increasingly clear that Midoriya wouldn’t rest before he was sure that Hawks had been adequately fed. Which was a nice sentiment and completely unwanted.

But he didn’t think he’d be able to argue without making this into a big deal, which was exactly what he wanted to avoid.

So he nodded and followed the two students into the kitchen.

And because of his luck today, Touya was sitting on the counter eating some kind of fruit bar, the pink girl on one side of him, Tsukuyomi on the other – so they were friendly. Which felt a little like victory. A small victory, but still, he’d take what he could get – and Eraser in front of him, having a mumbled conversation that was not for Hawks to hear.

That much was clear as Eraser stopped talking when Touya looked up at him.

Hawks would just turn his back and ignore that and ignore his flaring curiosity and find something quick to eat that wouldn’t mess up his stomach too much but would get Midoriya off his back.

Maybe some fruit.

He liked fruit sometimes.

Midoriya was already rummaging through the fridge and narrating the options, pulling out a drawer that was definitely meant for vegetables and stopping short for a moment.

Because the drawer was full of chilis.

“Looks like Bakugou is planning on cooking something soon,” Shouto commented dryly as Midoriya chuckled and went to close the drawer again.

“Hey, you wanna see something cool,” Hawks stopped him as he got a brilliant idea.

Because he fucking loved chilis.

They were so sweet and fruity, and his handlers never liked him having them because normal people reacted to the capsaicin and thought it was ‘spicy’.

But there were plenty of normal people who still liked chilis. Case in point with Bakugou, so he could definitely get away with this just by claiming a high tolerance for pain.

He’d done it before when his handlers didn’t have eyes on him.

So he reached past Midoriya and grabbed a small, juicy-looking one and ate it in one bite before Midoriya had managed to stutter through the first word of his frantic protest.

Delicious.

And when he smiled at Midoriya he got the reaction he wanted, too. Big eyes wide with awe.

“Whoa, that’s so cool!” the pink girl exclaimed behind him, “isn’t that, like, way spicy?”

Hawks nodded and was going to say something about pain tolerance, but Tsukuyomi beat him to it.

“Birds are immune to the effects of capsaicin,” the bird-headed kid said, garnering the attention of everyone in the kitchen.

Yeah, Hawks should have realized that his intern would know what was up.

So much for brilliant ideas.

Eraserhead looked at him as well, eyes narrowed as he appeared to search Hawks for some sort of answers.

Answers that Hawks didn’t want to give.

Not to him and certainly not to the students who would be sure to spread the word to all of their classmates, and he didn’t want them to know so he had to deflect. Now.

“Oh man,” he put on an awed look of his own, “does that mean you’re about to dunk on us normies who can still feel it?”

Don’t question me he silently begged as Eraser continued to stare at him as if he knew he was missing something. The other students were looking between them, clearly not sure what was going on, and even Tsukuyomi looked mildly confused.

“No, it was just an observation,” the bird kid said quietly.

Eraser luckily seemed to have had enough, though, as he straightened out and dropped his staring.

“There’s not much time left before class, so fill up now,” he addressed the students, then turned to Hawks, “you should eat something other than chili, too. And Touya,” he turned to look at the kid, something between fondness and exasperation in his eyes, “try eating something that isn’t prepackaged. And I expect you two to have a nice, calm day without any big revelations or escape attempts. Is that understood?”

And there was the glare.

“Crystal,” Hawks smiled pleasantly, not sure what else he could do.

Touya on the other hand seemed peeved.

“I said I wouldn’t do it again,” he muttered waspishly, “so why won’t you stop bringing it up?”

That was not a promising start to their day.

Eraser didn’t seem to think so, either, as he turned his considering look back to Touya.

“You can come find me anytime if you need to,” he said softly, which didn’t really seem to fit what Touya had said, but what did Hawks know. Touya didn’t seem to like what he was saying, either, ducking his head and scowling, “or you can go to your room to be alone.”

“Whatever,” Touya scoffed and slid off the counter.

He quickly made for the stairs, and Hawks sent a few feathers after him just make sure he was really going to his room.

It would be easy to just mildly surveil the hallway and maybe outside his windows to make sure Touya didn’t slip away. And it was an easy way to make sure they kept their distance from each other. An easy way to make sure nothing uncomfortable was dredged up.

“Make sure you both eat,” Eraserhead sighed tiredly, “but other than that just let him be.”

That was the plan. And now it even had Eraser’s blessing.

That was lovely.

Gave Hawks more time to figure out just how deep this hole he’d dug for himself was.

Chapter Text

This had to be the most boring day of Touya’s entire existence.

Nothing was happening and he hated it.

He hated it so much that it made him want to go find Hawks and start shit just so he could feel something other than soul-sucking boredom.

And he knew that would be a bad idea.

That he really should be more grateful than he was that Hawks at least was smart enough to give him space and leave him alone because actually having to spend time around each other was just a horrible idea no matter how bad the alternative of boredom felt.

Because as much as Hawks seemed genuine about his desire to help, he still managed to make Touya deeply uncomfortable to the point of anger whenever they were in the same room for too long.

He wasn’t sure it could be any other way right now, considering the past.

And beyond just the past there was also that plastic-y fakeness that Hawks seemed to just exude and Touya always sensed it but he never quite understood it, which was frustrating.

Touya didn’t like not understanding things and there had been too much confusion in his life recently for him to be willing to put up with anything that would cause more of it.

And because being around Hawks was a bad idea, he couldn’t even spend his time doing anything meaningful to figure out the enigma that was Hawks. So instead that lack of understanding simply became annoying background buzz whenever he was around the dumb, fake bird.

And if he really wanted to pile on reasons that it would be bad to seek Hawks out right now, there was also the flying incident, of course.

Except Touya had quickly and confusingly found that he wasn’t actually upset about that, much as he felt like it would be easier if he was. Easier to understand, at any rate.

But Hawks had been so genuinely apologetic about it, maybe even more so than he should have been considering the fact that Touya hadn’t done anything to warn him. Or had any other option than flying with him, so it had to be done. No matter how uncomfortable it was.

None of that was Hawks’ fault.

And the Number Two Hero taking the time to just sit next to him and make sure he was okay when the previous Number Two would have just called him weak and thrown out a barb about not having time for irrational children was… Touya didn’t know what it was, but he’d had a hard time truly hating Hawks since it’d happened.

It had made him, on a perhaps more logical level, reconsider his view of the rest of Hawks’ crimes against him, too.

Made him think that maybe, maybe he shouldn’t be blaming Hawks quite as much as he had been for the Dabi thing. Much as he didn’t want to think about it, Dabi had clearly been a different person, a meaner person, and he found it hard to reconcile that fact with the feeling he had now of being… vulnerable.

Vulnerable to being used by a Hero.

Hell, for all he knew, Dabi could have been using Hawks and the Hero had been the one being strung along.

Had been the vulnerable one.

Touya didn’t know.

So maybe he shouldn’t be judging the Hero quite so harshly, even if he still didn’t want him anywhere close to himself right now.

Maybe with time this was something he could learn to let go of.

And the fakeness was just a mask. Something Hawks was putting on. Touya knew how those worked. He just didn’t know what was underneath Hawks’, or why he was wearing it.

And maybe he didn’t need to know why.

Maybe he needed to learn to just let Hawks be a stranger.

Except for the part where he did want to know what was underneath, felt like he might have seen glances. In the woods after the nightmare flight, and in the hospital room when Hawks accidentally told him the truth.

And what he’d seen had been equal parts interesting, in the way things that didn’t make sense were interesting, and infuriating because he didn’t know how to figure Hawks out. Especially considering his aforementioned aversion to being near the Hero which made gathering information an absolute no go if he had any sense at all.

It was all just a weird and confusing amalgamation of feelings, and he didn’t know how to deal with any of it.

All he knew was that Hawks’ avoidance of him was a good call because he genuinely didn’t know what he would do, how he would react to the Hero being near him right now.

Because logically, Touya thought that he might eventually be able to get past all of the baggage, but in this moment right now, it all just still felt wrong and uncomfortable and like he wanted to forget it all but also like he wanted to know more.

Which were all contradictory feelings that couldn’t all be resolved.

So just letting it be and not doing anything at all was probably for the best.

But just because it was the right call didn’t mean it wasn’t also so boring.

And Touya didn’t know why boredom in a dorm room hit so much harder than boredom in a hospital bed, but it did.

Maybe it was the fact that he no longer felt the need to constantly be on edge about being found out, or someone calling his father, or turning back into the Villain he’d apparently become.

Maybe that lack of constant fear was what had opened up for his mind to start wandering towards boredom instead of panic. It probably was.

But regardless of the reason, he hated it.

He hated it enough that when Present Mic showed up around lunchtime with packages full of black and pink clothes and three individually packaged lunches, he’d actually sat down and eaten with him and Hawks.

And he’d stayed even after Present Mic had thrown out barbs about how ‘Shouta’ – which was Aizawa’s given name, he knew now – didn’t trust them to feed themselves.

Whatever.

He didn’t have it in himself to react and make a scene again so soon after Aizawa had scolded him for being childish.

Hawks hadn’t bristled at it, either.

Even though he did spend a good long moment staring at his food, something like dismay marking his features, before finally digging in with clear reluctance.

Which was just another puzzle piece for Touya to ruminate over without any answers and he hated it and he hated that he was trying to be mature and therefore couldn’t ask Hawks why he kept pushing his food around like it had offended him.

But he did manage to not do that and instead just stayed quiet as he ate.

And regardless of his weird behavior with the food, Hawks was still doing the chatterbox thing and so was Present Mic and they were both overly enthusiastic, fake acting Heroes so obviously they’d get along.

And since listening to their jabber was more amusing than sitting alone in his room and he felt sufficiently out of the danger zone with the both of them there to distract each other instead of throwing their focus and fakeness on him, he decided to stay put even after his food was gone.

But as soon as Present Mic left, saying something about afternoon classes, Touya left as well, knowing himself well enough to know that if he didn’t, he’d end up doing something he’d regret.

Like ask Hawks what was up with how little he’d eaten because it didn’t make sense for someone as physically active as a fucking Hero to eat that little.

He didn’t do that.

Instead, he brought the packages of clothes up to his room and spent far too much time looking through it all and unpacking it and putting it away and then rearranging it and then deciding that it was time to wear something other than the hoodie and throwing on a different, much cleaner pink hoodie over clean pants and feeling like a brand new person who could handle being alone without fantasizing about antagonizing an overgrown bird.

Okay, maybe the change wasn’t actually that drastic, but he felt like he could resist the temptation for another while, at least.

And one look in the mirror confirmed that this hoodie didn’t match his hair any better than the old one. In fact it clashed even more horribly, and he was ecstatic.

Sure, it would have been nice to not look like he’d gotten dressed in the dark, but he wasn’t about to accentuate the red hair that he wished he didn’t have, so there wasn’t much he could do about it right now.

Not when Dabi had already dyed it black.

There was no way Touya was doing the same thing as him.

-

He knew school had ended when his misery was abruptly ended by the sound of exuberant knocking on his door. He was proven very much correct when Mina burst through the door the moment he spoke up telling her to let herself in.

She looked elated to see him and the feeling was very much mutual as he couldn’t imagine being bored around Mina.

“Ooh, new clothes,” she cooed the moment she saw him and closed the space between them to inspect it. “You meant for it to be oversized?” she asked, and smiled when he nodded, “it’s really cute, the way the sleeves are kinda puffy and it’s so long. I like it.”

It was such a simple thing. And yet he couldn’t help but smile at her continued efforts to find something to compliment him on that he would accept.

“Still trying to call me cute, are you?” he teased, and regretted it a bit when she pouted.

“I said the clothes were cute,” she defended, eyes big and cheeks puffed out in offense, “but I won’t if you don’t like it.”

Touya shrugged, “is Tokoyami busy?” he changed the subject.

And she smiled.

“I think Hawks caught him,” she whispered unnecessarily, something almost conspiratorial in her tone, “I heard him wailing about how lonely he’d been all day, so I don’t know if he’s gonna let him go. Or when, I guess. Did you not talk to him today or something?”

“Nope,” Touya said shortly.

“Ooh, I sense drama,” she looked far too excited, “come on, you can tell me. I promise I won’t tell anyone else.”

“Tell what?” a voice asked from the hallway before Touya had time to consider whether or not he would be willing to tell her anything about his complicated feelings towards Hawks, even in the service of keeping her around to stave off the terrible boredom.

“Jirou!” Mina whirled around and bounded out the still-open door without a second thought, “are you coming to visit us, too?”

Us?

Touya moved to the door so he could see Jirou and another girl, the tall one, Touya had no clue what her name was. And Mina in front of them, head slightly tilted as she waited for an answer.

“I guess,” Jirou looked a little uncomfortable, glancing over at Touya. Which made him think they were here for Mina and Touya was just an obstacle to their goal. A from their perspective potentially villainous obstacle. Which didn’t feel like a great thing to be in their eyes, actually. “We were looking for you,” there it was, “and we thought you might be here. But…”

“It’s not a big thing,” the tall girl took over when Jirou faltered, “just that I’ve had to move our study session from Thursday to Friday instead. I knew you were planning on coming and wanted to make sure you knew, but we didn’t want to intrude when you were with Touya.” She looked up and directly at Touya, then. “We know this move has been overwhelming for you, and invading your safe space is the last thing we would want to do.”

Oh.

So maybe Touya had only been half right about them seeing him as an obstacle. But then, how was he supposed to expect concern from these strangers as opposed to the disdain he’d been expecting since he got here and had yet to get from anyone other than Bakugou.

“It’s fine,” he mumbled, feeling himself slouch a bit under her too-empathetic eyes.

Neither Jirou nor the tall girl seemed to know what to do next, but as always, Mina was more than ready to pounce and jabber away. It was a quality he was quickly coming to appreciate about her.

“But now that you’re here you can totally stay and hang out for a bit,” she smiled winningly, “we were gonna go through all of the clothes Touya got today and do a fashion show.”

“We were?” Touya furrowed his brows. He didn’t recall making any such promises. Not yesterday, and certainly not today.

“I was gonna force Touya to show me all his new clothes,” Mina amended with a smile aimed directly at him that simultaneously looked so impish but also had an edge to it that made him certain that if he said no she would listen. Touya rolled his eyes. “And that’s way more fun with a bigger audience, so will you? Please?”

The other girls hesitated.

“If you would like for us to see,” the tall girl said hesitantly, looking over at Touya again. “I really wouldn’t want to intrude, and it is your room.”

She was asking for permission. Asking where the line was so she could mind it. Touya was quickly learning how much he liked that. And these girls didn’t seem half bad, either. Jirou was even the one whose soda he’d maybe-stolen, and she was just cool with it.

And more people lowered the risk of boredom further, even if it had already been pretty low with Mina alone here.

“Sure,” he shrugged, “it’s not like clothes are that interesting to me, so maybe if you’re here, she’ll jabber at you instead of me.” It was a strategy that had worked for him before.

Mina made an insulted face, puffing out her cheeks again to accentuate the pout that she had painted on.

His words had their intended effects on the two new girls, too. The tall girl politely tried to hide a smile as she nodded, and Jirou smirked openly without a trace of remorse.

And when Touya made to step back into his room, all three of them followed.

And he had to admit that it felt nice to have not one, but three people who at least trusted him enough to enter his room. And who all had enough… respect? Empathy? - for him that it really felt like they wouldn’t have come in if he hadn’t let them.

It felt good and it felt odd and he liked it all the same.

He liked it maybe a little bit less when Mina tried to follow through on her threats of a fashion show, and there was a brief moment when he said no and she really looked like she wasn’t going to accept it.

But then she remembered herself, pouted some more, and let it go.

So they just rummaged through his immaculately sorted and folded clothes as Mina gave a running commentary on the pieces and the tall girl, whom Jirou had in passing referred to as Momo, so he luckily wouldn’t have to suffer through the embarrassment of asking her what her name was again, smiled politely enough that Touya couldn’t tell if she was genuinely interested or not.

And Jirou gave a silent commentary with her eyes alone, conveying varying levels of sarcastic disagreement with Mina even as she continued listening and accepting whatever clothing was handed to her to inspect.

And as they sorted through his immaculately folded piles, pulling it apart and completely ruining the order, it was only Momo who looked even remotely sorry about this fact.

She was, however clearly very sorry and Touya had to physically stop her from trying to fold it up nicely again with a small smile that hopefully conveyed that it was fine. He liked sorting it alone just fine. It was almost like having a puzzle to solve. At the very least it gave him the same satisfied feeling when it looked right.

And they were going to leave him at some point and then he’d be alone again.

Might as well make sure he had something to do when they did.

And preferably not admit that he was saving folding up clothes as an activity for later. Because he was fully aware that it was a little sad.

“You have a lot more pink stuff than I thought you would,” Jirou remarked after a while of indulging Mina’s chattering about stuff that sounded vaguely fashion-y, and like maybe they would have been compliments if he knew what they meant. At the very least she’d been saying them with a sweet look on her face.

“Yeah,” Touya agreed easily, “it’s more pink than I thought I’d get, too.”

Mina furrowed her brows, looking up from the greyish winter shirt she’d been sizing up against her own chest.

“I thought you liked pink,” she said, confused.

“I like it just fine,” Touya agreed, “but it’s not like it’s my favorite color or anything.” He was actually pretty sure he didn’t have a favorite color anymore. He used to be partial to black, but…

“Then why did you get so much of it?” Jirou joined Mina in her confusion.

“Because Present Mic didn’t want me to,” he admitted to the partial truth with what he hoped was an impish grin.

It just earned him even more confused looks from the girls around him.

“He said it would wash me out,” he tried to explain, “because of my hair.”

“So you got pink clothes,” Jirou sounded truly puzzled, “because it doesn’t fit your hair color. And Mic tried to talk you out of it. So you got even more?”

“Pretty much, yeah,” Touya did his best to sound breezy, because he didn’t like how closely they were scrutinizing him over this.

“It fits your complexion very well, though,” Momo tilted her head to the side in consideration. And that was a nice enough sentiment, and distraction from the talk about his hair that Touya was more than happy to take it. “And I believe it would make your eyes stand out rather nicely, too, if you pulled your hair back.” Never mind, this was not nice and Momo was dead to him.

“Gee, thanks, that’s exactly what I wanted,” he huffed a moment before remembering that admitting to hating his eyes as well was probably the wrong thing to do.

Because the girls definitely didn’t look even remotely interested in ignoring his sudden vitriol.

“Do you… not like your eyes?” Momo asked hesitantly. Like she didn’t know if she was crossing a boundary but still felt the need to say something.

And Touya didn’t know if she was crossing a boundary because she was only following up on something he’d said himself, and that was his fault, not hers.

“Not really, no,” he tried to go for casual, but he was fully aware that he missed. By a lot. Oh well, in for a penny. “Or my hair. Which is why I wasn’t going to buy any clothes that looked good with my hair.”

There was a beat of silence after that.

Likely, the girls didn’t know what to say next. If they were allowed to ask why.

Touya offered no help.

He didn’t know if they were allowed to ask, either.

He did know that it had suddenly become very difficult to look up from his lap.

“You could dye your hair,” Jirou suggested calmly.

As if it was no big deal.

“Yeah, and what color?” Touya demanded, angered by her indifference. Because this was a big deal to him. “I can’t dye it black because Dabi already did that, and I need to not look like him, which is why I had to get colorful clothes in the first place. And if I do a different color it can’t be white, either because – because I don’t like that. And blue would just make my eyes more blue, and green is a hideous color. And so is yellow.”

He was ranting and he knew it and he needed to stop because he needed them to not leave which they definitely would if he stayed mad. They were already clearly indulging him by staying. Or indulging Mina who just wanted to talk about clothes.

There was no room for angry outbursts here and he needed to put a lid on it even if he did want to argue and was mad about how simple this apparently was in their eyes. Because that wasn’t their problem. Really, he should probably apologize for what he’d said already, much as he didn’t want to. Much as he felt justified. He didn’t want them to leave and that felt more important.

“You could go pink,” Mina smiled almost hopefully, unperturbed in the face of his sudden ire. “I mean, you like it well enough to wear it.”

“Clothes are one thing, though,” Touya protested before he could stop himself. He was supposed to be nicer than this so they’d stay. But he wasn’t actually willing to sacrifice his hair color for that goal which hampered him some. And Mina seemed like she might actually be willing to talk it through, giving suggestions and all. “I can take those off if get sick of them. Can’t do that with my hair.”

“You can always redye it,” Jirou shrugged, “and you already said you don’t like it red, so why not at least try it?”

“hmm,” he hummed, still not convinced. Which was what he wanted, he realized. He wanted them to convince him to dye his hair pink. Because it was better than red. Or any other color. But it also wasn’t a color he felt any specific connection to, so it felt weird to so completely shroud himself in it the way he was starting to do.

And then he could do what they wanted, too, without feeling like he was sacrificing something.

Mina was opening her mouth to say something more, something hopefully convincing, something that would prove that she saw some value in having this conversation and wouldn’t leave even if he was being difficult at the moment.

But then there was a knock at the door, which ruined that opportunity as Mina didn’t even hesitate to get up and open it.

Revealing Tokoyami on the other side. Which wasn’t unwelcome. Just a little untimely.

“I humbly request sanctuary,” he murmured quietly, casting a look around at the girls in the room.

“Hawks driving you on the run?” Mina asked sweetly as she stepped aside for him to move past her.

“He appears to be extremely bored, and I am afraid that I can only provide entertainment for so long before it becomes… grating,” Tokoyami explained.

“Well, I’m sorry to have to tell you this, but I’m not sure you haven’t just jumped out of the pan and into the fire,” Touya warned, “they’re trying to convince me to dye my hair pink.”

Tokoyami shot him a confused look before sitting down next to him, keeping clear of the now-large pile of clothes on the floor between the girls.

“Would you want to?” he asked.

And Touya shrugged. “Anything’s better than red, I guess. But I’m not sure that’s good enough reason to go through with it.”

“And no other color will do?”

“Nope,” Mina broke in. “Because he doesn’t like green or yellow or blue or white, and Dabi’s hair was black, so he doesn’t wanna do that, either.”

“I don’t know that staunchly avoiding a color is necessary simply because Dabi did it before,” Tokoyami mused. “We all know that you are not him.”

“It’s still not a good look to make the same decisions as him,” Touya disagreed. And continued when Tokoyami wasn’t mollified. “And I don’t want to look like him, either.”

Tokoyami and the girls all nodded sagely at that.

“Which brings us back to pink,” Mina smiled knowingly, as if she’d already caught onto Touya’s desire for her to convince him.

“What’s holding you back?” Momo asked earnestly, “even if you end up not liking it, it’s just a color, and can be easily altered if you change your mind.”

“I don’t know,” Touya shrugged, “I guess it’s just… weird to dye my hair a certain color when it’s not about liking that color.”

“But it is about changing something you don’t like,” Momo said comtemplatively.

And Touya nodded. They had covered this already.

“Yeah,” Jirou drawled slowly, “that is a little weird, I guess. Or, well, not like it’s a bad thing, but I guess people do usually just change their hair ‘cause they think they’ll like the result.”

And that was the problem.

“When it comes to degrees of affinity, however, wouldn’t you say that liking the result because you prefer it to the original is virtually indistinguishably from liking it for its own sake?” Tokoyami offered.

“Huh?” Mina blurted out.

Echoing Touya’s thoughts fairly closely.

“Say that again,” he said, “but with different words.”

Tokoyami did not. Instead just looking put out at their confusion.

“I believe,” Momo smiled apologetically at Tokoyami, “that he was saying that it doesn’t matter if you like it for itself or just because it’s better than red. Because either way, you’ll still like it better?”

Liking pink just as a replacement of something worse?

Well, it wasn’t like it was that different from what he’d been doing with his clothes, after all.

And maybe it didn’t need to be. Maybe he could just do it because he wanted his hair to look different in a way that didn’t tie him to Dabi. And so he would stop seeing his father whenever he chanced a look in the mirror.

Maybe it didn’t need to be any more complicated than clothes just because it was slightly more permanent.

Maybe pink was actually perfect exactly because he had no connection to it.

“Okay,” Touya decided.

“Wow, it was that easy?” Mina looked like she was stuck somewhere between joy that it had really happened and maybe a bit of consternation that she wasn’t the one who’d said the magic words.

“Clearly,” Momo smiled. Which apparently left Mina incapable of staying mad as she smiled back.

“But how is it actually gonna work?” Touya asked, relieved now that the decision had been made, and made out loud so he couldn’t just take it back, but also aware that he didn’t actually know what the next step was. And when his question earned him nothing other than the confused looks of the other inhabitants of his room, he went on. “Like, actually dying it. Because I’ve never done that before so I don’t know. Do I have to bleach it, too, to get it light enough? And how do I do that? How do I even get the products to do it? And what products do I need?”

“The products should be easy enough,” Momo said, “all I need is a bit of time to look up ingredients and recipes and then I’d be happy to make you some.”

That had to be a Quirk thing. Touya didn’t remember what her Quirk was, so he’d just choose to believe that this was a thing she could do with it.

“Oh yay! And then we can do it now!” Mina bounced happily at the idea.

And Touya wasn’t going to protest if it kept them all occupied here.

“I thought you didn’t want to make things for people like that,” Jirou mused. And Momo blushed just a little.

“Well, just this once I think it would be alright,” she reasoned, “and if you like it, you can buy the dye somewhere else going forward.”

Jirou narrowed her eyes. “Is that really it or are you just excited to try dying someone’s hair?”

Momo blushed even harder at that but she didn’t have to respond as Mina immediately jumped to her defence.

“And what’s wrong with that? I think it’s a perfectly good reason. And we can make it like a girls’ night.” She looked ecstatic at that idea, too.

Touya didn’t agree with that, and he could see Tokoyami out of the corner of his eye making a grimace that felt like it conveyed something akin to chagrin.

Mina had already moved on, though, so it didn’t seem worth it to stop her and disagree over what they were calling this. Oh well, at least they could silently commiserate over it.

“And then we just need to figure out how to put it all on but there should be tutorials for that online, so – and I could ask –” she stopped herself, “um, well, maybe I could go… check something while you guys look it up?”

Well, that wasn’t suspicious at all.

But once again Mina gave them no time to question her as she was already on the move and out of the door.

It was beginning to feel a little like she was moving and talking so fast on purpose.

It would make sense if it was because it did make it far easier for everyone else to just go with the flow instead of trying to swim against the rapid current that was Mina.

And now that she was gone, Momo and Jirou appeared to be willingly doing exactly what she’d suggested, too, both pulling out their phones and moving to sit closer against each other so they could see both screens.

Touya couldn’t exactly join them, seeing as he had no phone, but he didn’t think he needed to feel bad about that as Tokoyami was simply sitting back as well. Likely accepting that this wasn’t his ball game and being content to just watch as everything unfolded.

And that made him free to entertain Touya now, too.

“So, how did you manage to get away from Hawks?” he asked, “he doesn’t seem like the type to let people go easily.”

Tokoyami looked pensive for a moment before answering.

“I believe you’re right about that,” he said, “and I don’t know that I would have been able to leave if it weren’t for Bakugou.”

“He helped you?” Touya asked, confused. Because maybe he was blinded by his own bias but Bakugou just didn’t seem like the type of person to notice that someone was stuck in an awkward social situation and offer them an out.

“In a way,” Tokoyami said slowly, “I don’t believe it had anything to do with my situation, but his sudden angry outburst did offer an excellent distraction. Hawks is a Hero, after all. Obviously he would go investigate the source of explosions of that caliber even if they rest of us are too used to it to remember to bother.”

Yeah, that seemed more in line with the Bakugou Touya had met.

So much so that he couldn’t help but snort in amusement as he tried to stifle the laughter bubbling up. Tokoyami didn’t seem to mind his words being taken as a joke, though, which was good.

It made it easy to drum up a casual conversation that he didn’t have to think too much about as the girls occupied themselves, all of them waiting for Mina to come back and resume dictating how this was going to go.

And when the door opened again, Mina walking through it looking accomplished, they all paused too see if she would now deem to tell them what she’d left for.

“Wow, Baku is mad right now,” she whispered as if she was afraid he’d somehow overhear her.

But while what she was saying was probably true, it didn’t really have anything to do with what they were doing here.

“Did you find what you needed, though?” Momo asked before anyone else had the chance to.

“Oh yeah, we’re totally good on that,” she answered, “if you know how to make the dye now?”

Momo nodded, “All I need to know is what shade of pink you want.”

And then she looked at Touya.

Because this was his hair they were dying. But that didn’t mean he knew how to differentiate between different shades of the same color.

So he just gestured at the hoodie he was wearing, hoping that would be good enough.

“Ooh, pastel!” Mina gushed, excited, “it’s gonna look so cute, I just know it.” She paused for a moment. “Or not, if you don’t want it to.”

It seemed to hurt her to say that which just made Touya want to laugh.

“Alright then,” Momo looked between them for a moment, as if unsure what to make of what Mina had just said. And then she shook her head and lifted her shirt to reveal her stomach.

And if it hadn’t been glowing, Touya would have probably reacted pretty poorly to that. Just because of how unexpected it was.

“We’ll need gloves, brushes, and bowls as well,” Jirou said quietly.

“I’m making it all, don’t worry,” Momo answered her. And pushed two fully formed packages of hairdye out of her stomach.

Which was actually really cool. And useful.

No wonder she was at UA with a Quirk like that.

Wow, that was not a thought he wanted to ruminate on.

“Okay, we have to do the bleach first,” Mina immediately started dictating, gathering up supplies as Momo made them. “And we can use the sink in your bathroom to wash it out, so we won’t even have to leave the room.”

Well, wherever she’d gone that they couldn’t know about, it seemed to have taught her a lot as she continued moving confidently through the steps of bleaching his hair, which felt weird, both because of the stuff caked in his hair and because he suddenly had people in his space, touching him.

And they’d tried to convince him to take the hoodie off, too, so as to not stain it, but there was no way in hell he was doing that.

Even though he did kind of wish he could find a way to change into the old hoodie that wouldn’t show off the wide expanses of scars on his arms.

But that wasn’t happening either, so he made his peace with ruining his new hoodie and made sure none of the rest of them questioned this decision. Which took a bit of snapping, but they left it alone after that.

Not the most inconspicuous solution, but better than the alternatives.

And since he’d already taken the fight with the bleach, there wasn’t one about the dye, just Jirou dryly remarking that it probably didn’t matter if they got pink dye on the pink hoodie anyway.

And then Mina stopped letting him look in the mirror.

So it could be a surprise.

And it wasn’t like he could really change how things were going, anyway, so he just went with it.

Accepted the odd angles he had to bend as they washed the dye out again after Momo said it had been long enough. As well as the discomfort of having his hair blow dried because it was getting late and Mina wanted him to see what it looked like dry before they all had to leave.

He even let her put her hands over his eyes as they placed him in front of the mirror to finally see what they’d done to his hair.

And he repeated to himself that whatever it looked like, at least it wasn’t red anymore.

And when Mina took away her hands with a flourish and a “Ta-daa!” he saw that it really wasn’t.

As a matter of fact, his hair looked nothing like anyone he didn’t like. Including himself.

It was just as fluffy as it had always been, if not more so, but now it was such a light pastel pink that it almost looked a little like cotton candy.

It matched the hoodie, too.

And when he looked closely, it felt like it made his eyes look different, too.

Softer, almost. Not so sharp.

And he liked it.

He actually really liked it.

And Mina was looking at him expectantly over his shoulder, eyes wide and hopeful.

“Okay,” he said, “now you can call me cute.”

Chapter Text

Shouto wasn’t sure how he felt about today.

As a rule of thumb, he didn’t much care to assign feelings to each day he’d lived, content to just let the days meld together with no more feeling attached to them than maybe general satisfaction if studying and training had gone well or disappointment if it hadn’t.

There were exceptions when it came to big days.

Like the Sports Festival, which had been a good day because that was the day he and Midoriya had become friends, or the day he visited his mother at the hospital for the first time, which had left him with a feeling of clarity now that he knew for a fact that Mom wouldn’t hate him if he found a way to use his fire.

He spent less time ruminating on bad days because that would only make his current day worse. But still, the day he’d started training had been bad because he hated training with his father; the day Mom had burned him was bad because he’d lost her; and the day Touya died had been bad because he’d lost his brother.

At least, he’d lost his brother for eight years before suddenly getting him back along with the new knowledge that Touya had never actually died, had become a Villain, and had hurt Shouto’s new-found friends.

That was what happened yesterday, and he would have categorized that as a bad day if it hadn’t ended with sleeping in Touya’s bed, feeling safe and happy in a way he wasn’t sure he ever had before.

And today was even harder to figure out.

Because even though the talk with Touya and Aizawa in the morning hadn’t been entirely pleasant, he’d gotten to know his brother better and come to a firm resolution when it came to his father. Which was good.

And the school day had been fine, not much out of the ordinary except for the increased gossiping from the other students, almost exclusively concerning his brother. But Shouto didn’t have to get involved in that so it was also fine.

And during lunch Natsuo had texted, which he did sometimes, but this time he’d kept talking about ducks and if maybe Shouto had seen a small red duck on campus and that he’d definitely recognize it.

Which had made no sense at all to Shouto, but he was glad that Natsuo had texted him nonetheless.

But then after school, Aizawa had pulled him aside to talk about his childhood, which he hadn’t liked.

He’d done it because Aizawa wanted him to, and because it might help Touya, but having to recount what a normal day of training had looked like when he was five, how many times he’d seen his father hit Mom or Touya, how extensive his own bruising usually was after an especially harsh session.

He didn’t like it.

He didn’t want to remember it, let alone say it out loud.

This was only his second time ever doing so, and he honestly didn’t know if he would have done it the first time, either, if he hadn’t somehow felt like Midoriya would understand.

And it wasn’t that he didn’t think Aizawa would understand, but he knew that by telling Aizawa, he was starting something.

Something that would definitely mean having to tell even more people, or having Aizawa tell more people, no longer getting to choose for himself who knew what about him.

Something that would probably, definitely get back to his father at some point.

And that was different.

And he didn’t like it.

But he did it.

And while it was awful and enough on its own to designate this as a day day, it also felt relieving to have told someone. Someone like Aizawa who would do something about it. Who also tried to be respectful of Shouto’s lack of desire to talk even as he kept asking questions.

And after he was done. After he’d asked every question he possibly could have. Aizawa hugged him.

Hugged him and thanked him for trusting him with this.

The questions had been difficult to get through but more because he didn’t want to remember than due to any overwhelming emotions.

This, though.

This was almost enough to break him.

So he’d broken off the hug and left.

And gone straight back to his dorm room to be alone.

Until he felt like his feelings were under his control again.

Until he remembered that he’d also been planning on telling Midoriya about Touya today.

And decided that he would do that now.

He liked talking to Midoriya and he never felt drained afterwards the way he did with other people. So he wasn’t worried about being too tired for that talk. With Midoriya that wasn’t an issue. Maybe it would even be nice to talk about this with Midoriya.

The only thing stopping him was hearing his brother’s voice asking if he thought Midoriya was cute. Which made no sense. Of course Midoriya was cute. And nice and a good friend. Shouto had no reason to react so strongly to his brother knowing that, too. It was stupid.

So he got up and went to Midoriya’s room. Hoping that he was there and not out training.

And the door opened almost immediately once he’d knocked.

“Todoroki!” Midoriya looked startled, like he hadn’t expected Shouto to show up. Which was odd. They were friends. Shouto often came to his room.

“Are you busy?” he asked.

“What? No? Did you – do you wanna talk?” Midoriya was acting flustered. But he did that sometimes, so Shouto felt like he should probably just ignore it the way he usually did. Even though he had the distinct feeling that Midoriya was acting this way now because of Shouto. Though he couldn’t think of why that would be.

“Yes, that’s why I’m here,” he said.

“O – okay, then,” Midoriya moved back from the doorway, “Um, then you should come in. So we can talk. Um. And I’m – I’ve been wanting to talk to you, too, so this is good.”

“You have?” Shouto asked as he walked in and sat down on the floor the way he usually did when they did homework together.

“Yeah,” Midoriya closed the door and joined him so they were sitting across from each other. “Yeah, I’ve been noticing – well, it’s just that I’ve been worried about you since, um, since yesterday when – when Touya – it – you just seen to have taken it pretty hard, you know, and yesterday I tried to talk to you and you – well, maybe you just weren’t in your room and I’m sorry for assuming, but it just made me worried that maybe you didn’t want to talk to me, specifically, for some reason, and that – um, that didn’t feel great, I guess? Which isn’t what’s important, I’m sorry, what’s important is that I was worried about you and I just want to make sure that you’re – you know –”

Shouto blinked.

He hadn’t realized that Midoriya would take it to heart that he didn’t want to talk to him yesterday.

“I’m sorry,” he said, “I didn’t think you’d mind. And I needed some time to myself, I think. Because Touya is my brother.”

Midoriya startled.

Which wasn’t unexpected. Shouto hadn’t reacted particularly well to the news at first, either.

“I – what?” Midoriya spluttered, “Touya – the Touya who is here? Who is – or, um, was, or – became – that Touya?! He’s your brother? Wait – no, that can’t, but how – how long have you known that?”

“Aizawa told me yesterday morning before class,” Shouto answered, hoping that the truth would help Midoriya calm down a little.

“Oh. Oh!” it seemed to have done something, at least, “Oh, so you didn’t - oh! Until yesterday, and then you had to act like nothing was – and then I had to go and make it all about how you didn’t wanna talk to me – Todoroki, I’m so sorry, this isn’t about me and it shouldn’t have ever been and I’m –”

“It’s fine,” Shouto interrupted, because he didn’t want Midoriya’s apologies. “You didn’t know.”

“No, I really didn’t” Midoriya agreed, “but, wow. That’s… that’s a lot. No wonder you needed some time. I – wow, I’m surprised you didn’t need more. I mean, you acted pretty much normally today, except maybe you were a bit more quiet, but I don’t think anyone else would have noticed – um, but anyway – you acted fine all day and that’s – that’s really impressive, Todoroki, I mean after all –”

“Could you not call me that anymore?” Shouto interrupted again.

“Huh?” Midoriya faltered, “call you… Oh, you don’t want me to call – but then what do I – and why? Touya isn’t going by – and he can’t without everyone knowing, anyway, so…”

“I don’t want to share a name with my father anymore,” Shouto said curtly, because he didn’t, “and you can just call me by my given name. Friends can do that, right?”

“I,” Midoriya looked a little pale for a moment, “um, yeah. Yeah, f-friends can call each other by their – their given name. Um. And – and in that case – if it’s. If you don’t mind, I mean, um, you could call me by my given name, too? Just so it’s equal, you know!” he waved his hands about almost frantically as he quickly spat out the last sentence.

“Of course,” Shouto agreed easily, feeling very content with this development.

Midoriya seemed to be calming down, too, at his agreement, even giving Shouto a small smile.

But then he tensed up again.

“Oh my God! Endeavor!” he almost yelled, and Shouto pulled back just a little from the outburst. “Dabi was Endeavor’s – oh but that makes perfect sense, why didn’t anyone – but that’s, wow, that’s awful, that’s – no wonder you don’t wanna be a Todoroki when that – wait, do you – um – do you think Endeavor – you father – Endeavor, do you think he’s the reason Dabi , um –”

“I do,” Shouto said, “and so does Aizawa. He’s opening a case against Endeavor for child abuse, and against the Commission for covering it up. That’s why Touya is here now.”

“Oh. Oh wow.” Midoriya deflated, “that’s, well, I mean it’s good that something is happening now, but… Todo- Shouto, I’m sorry you have to go through this.”

Shouto shrugged.

“I’m happy to have my brother back,” he said. Because it was true.

Midoriya looked surprised for a moment before smiling. And nodding.

“I’m happy for you that something good is coming out of this, even if it’s all kind of awful,” he said.

And that made Shouto smile.

He liked how Midoriya could make things make sense for him.

Today was a bad day because something had happened that he didn’t like, but it was also a good day because he was getting something good out of it.

Kind of like the Sports festival.

It had actually felt like a pretty bad day when it happened, because he’d lost and his father had not been happy with him when he came home. But now he thought it had been a good day because he’d gotten Midoriya’s friendship out of it.

This day was like that.

-

After that initial talk, they fell back into their usual rhythm, talking through the day. That was to say that Midoriya talked while Shouto made occasional comments when he felt he had something to add.

It was nice.

Shouto liked spending time with Midoriya like this.

Which meant that he wasn’t surprised when Midoriya suddenly stopped in the middle of telling a story that Shouto was almost certain he’d already been told three times before.

“Oh, wow, it’s getting really late,” he said.

“Hm,” Shouto acknowledged as he looked at the alarm clock on Midoriya’s desk and saw that he was right, “we should go down for dinner.”

Aizawa would know if they didn’t eat, and he was never pleased when that happened.

Midoriya knew this far more intimately than Shouto because of the number of times he’d gotten too absorbed in a workout or chasing a theory, so he nodded eagerly and got up quickly so they could go down to the kitchen.

And when they got to the kitchen, Aizawa was already there, and he didn’t look pleased.

“We were just gonna grab something to eat now,” Midoriya’s voice cracked a little when Aizawa looked over at him.

“That’s good,” Aizawa said, but he looked distracted, “have either of you seen Hawks?”

“Um, no, I don’t think,” Midoriya hesitated, “we’ve just been in my room, so I don’t think –”

Aizawa’s gaze sharpened then, looking from Midoriya to Shouto and back again before nodding, as if to himself.

“That’s fine,” he said, “I’m sure you’ve been busy with other things. I’ll go look somewhere else.”

Midoriya spluttered a bit as Aizawa left.

Shouto didn’t know why. Obviously Aizawa had realized that Shouto had told Midoriya about Touya. He’d told their teacher he would do just that this morning. And Midoriya was smart enough that he definitely knew that Aizawa was in the know about this as well.

“Do you want cold soba?” Shouto asked as Midoriya looked in the direction Aizawa had left.

“What? Oh – yes, that’s, that would be fine,” he answered.

Shouto hummed happily.

He liked cold soba.

He liked preparing it slightly less, but if Midoriya was sharing with him then they could make it together.

And so they did.

Until Ashido came running in and started rummaging through the fridge.

“Are you looking for something?” Shouto asked after a moment when she started sighing impatiently.

She backed away from the fridge slightly to look him in the eye.

“Nah, I just need something to eat, and I don’t know what Touya likes so I’m looking around so I can tell him what we can make,” she smiled, “without touching Baku’s stuff ‘cause I think he might actually explode the next person who does that.”

“Oh yeah, he came running at me in the common room last night yelling about what he’d do if I was the one who took them,” Midoriya chuckled lightly, “he never told me what ‘them’ were, though, and I think he realized I didn’t do it, either, because he started yelling at Kaminari after that.”

Ashido laughed.

“Exactly!” she exclaimed, “So I’m staying away from his stuff. At least for a little while.”

Midoriya was opening his mouth to say something, probably agree with her, but again someone else entered the kitchen. It wasn’t surprising since they were nearing the end of dinnertime, and Aizawa was probably hunting down whoever hadn’t already eaten.

This time it was Hawks.

“Eraser really isn’t kidding about the eating thing, huh?” he was talking before he was visible around the bend of the hallway, “I mean, it makes sense but still, there’s really no need for him to do that to – oh, pink!”

Shouto turned around to see what Hawks was surprised by.

And saw Hawks staring at someone with pink hair who was standing against the wall opposite the fridge.

It took a moment before he realized that the someone was Touya. Who had presumably been standing there since Ashido came down and just not said anything.

“Your hair looks like cotton candy,” Shouto said.

Touya stopped glaring at Hawks to look over at him, something odd like confusion in his eyes.

“I can’t tell if you meant that as a compliment or an insult,” he said.

Shouto took a moment to consider that.

And remember that if he wanted to keep the fact that they were brothers a secret then he needed to not talk too much to him while other people were around. Midoriya and Hawks were fine since they definitely knew, but Ashido was here, too.

“A compliment,” he said briefly before turning back around to focus on making his soba. He could see Midoriya shooting him a look out of the corner of his eye, but he didn’t know what it meant.

“Yeah, see!” Ashido sounded happy, “it looks good! Right Hawks? You think it looks cute, too, right?”

“M-hm,” Hawks answered hesitantly, “I mean, it’s a little surprising, but it doesn’t look bad, but anyway, I was here to eat something and that’s what I’m gonna – yep, that’s…” Shouto could hear Hawks moving through the kitchen as he talked. As if he was in a rush, which Shouto didn’t understand.

“Okay, then,” Touya said, “I’m going to go somewhere else now.”

“But you have to have dinner!” Ashido complained.

“I’ll just have something easy,” Touya yelled, sounding like he was already in the hallway, “like cereal, or one of those weird protein bars, or maybe just – oh come on! Why does this have to happen all at once?”

That last part sounded almost like a wail, Shouto forgot about his resolution to ignore Touya and turned quickly to move into the hallway himself and see what was happening.

It didn’t have to be odd for him to do that as every other occupant of the kitchen moved with him.

And it wasn’t anything bad that was happening, either.

Just Aizawa.

Looking at Touya’s hair.

There was a moment of silence that Shouto didn’t want to break.

And then Aizawa reached his hand out to pat Touya on the head.

“I don’t know what that outburst was about,” their teacher said, ruffling Touya’s hair as he spoke, “but keep it down. And eat something fresh.”

Touya looked unhappy while Aizawa patted his hair.

But he looked even more unhappy when Aizawa stopped and turned around and walked away again.

Shouto didn’t know what he should do next.

He probably wouldn’t have done anything if Ashido hadn’t addressed him.

“Well, that settles that,” she said as she turned to him and Midoriya, smiling, “what are you two making, and can we have some if we help?”

“Um,” Midoriya paused. Shouto knew he wanted to offer them to join. But right now he was looking at Shouto, as if silently asking if it was okay.

“We’re making soba,” Shouto took over, because he wanted them to join, too, and it wasn’t weird if they were all doing it. And he ignored the way Ashido giggled and Touya snorted at his answer. He liked soba. “And you can have some.” He turned to Hawks, “do you want some, too?”

Hawks startled a little, like he didn’t expect to be asked.

“Ah, no thanks, not for me,” he said, “I had a lot for lunch, so I was just gonna have an apple or something. I don’t really eat a lot usually, so…”

Shouto felt like he was being lied to. But he didn’t want to confront Hawks about it when he didn’t have any proof.

Touya didn’t look happy, either, staring at Hawks like he was offended by what the Hero had said.

But he didn’t say anything. Just huffed and walked back to the kitchen, staying close to Ashido.

And then they cooked dinner together.

It was weird, but not in a bad way.

Touya actually turned out to be pretty good at staying on top of multiple tasks, although he was hesitant around the knives, looking uncomfortable enough that Ashido stepped in and asked him if he wanted to make the sauce instead.

Which he did. And it was pretty good.

And even though Shouto hadn’t expected to end up making dinner for four people, his brother included, it was almost fun. And it didn’t take very long, either, with the four of them working together.

And when Ashido suggested that they eat together as well, Shouto said yes. And so did Midoriya, so it wasn’t odd for him to do so.

Everything had been going well until Bakugou showed up, scowling, with Kirishima behind him, smiling apologetically.

Shouto tuned in to Bakugou’s yelling just long enough to figure out that whatever dinner he’d made for himself and the redhead hadn’t been enough and Kirishima was still hungry. Which Bakugou was going to fix by cooking something more, but he was probably also going to be yelling at Kirishima the whole time.

Shouto didn’t understand how Bakugou worked, but he didn’t think he needed to keep listening to the yelling, so he tuned it back out as he poured a portion of soba into a bowl for himself and left the kitchen along with Midoriya to go eat at the dining table.

Ashido and Touya were staying behind because Ashido wanted hot sauce on her portion, but she wanted the brand Bakugou had and she had apparently decided that as long as she asked for permission, it would probably be fine.

Shouto still wasn’t listening to individual words, but he was pretty sure he could hear Bakugou’s tone shift as he started yelling at Ashido instead of Kirishima.

She sounded happy, though, so she must have gotten permission.

And then she came bouncing out of the kitchen with her own bowl and the bottle of hot sauce and Bakugou came marching after her, still yelling and grabbing the bottle from her, and she just smiled at him.

And then things changed.

Shouto distantly registered that Touya had been walking out behind Bakugou with another bowl in his hands, watching the exchange between Bakugou and Ashido with a wary expression on his face and keeping a distance from then.

And then he’d opened his mouth and begun to say something, but Shouto didn’t have time to tune in and find out what he was saying before all sound was cut off by a flurry of explosions, filling the air with too much unexpected noise and light for Shouto to be able to keep track of what was happening.

Once that initial assault on the senses was over, Shouto could just barely make out Bakugou and Touya’s figures against the back wall, standing very close together in a way that looked hostile.

But again his mind had only just registered that Bakugou’s hand was curled around Touya’s throat and that Touya’s eyes were much wider than usual when everything shifted and Shouto’s field of vision was blocked again.

This time by a wall of red feathers.

And then Bakugou had been thrown back and Hawks was standing in front of Touya, obscuring him so completely with his wings that if it weren’t for the panicked gasping as his brother tried to catch his breath, Shouto wouldn’t have known he was there at all.

Shouto was pretty sure that he’d never seen Hawks looking more fierce than now as he stared Bakugou down, hissing a steady stream of words too low for Shouto to distinguish from his place the table. And even though he had apparently stood up some time during the explosions, he didn’t think it would be wise for him to move closer right now.

Bakugou looked like he was on the verge of another outburst, arms shaking with adrenaline, setting off small pops of light without any clear intent as he met Hawks’ glare with his own and growled. Though Shouto was pretty sure that there were no actual words in Bakugou’s growling.

And then Shouto stopped paying attention to the blond because Touya had moved past the wings and into his field of vision again.

His hands were around his throat, but between his fingers Shouto was fairly sure he saw the redness of fresh burns.

And then Touya was moving across the dining room and up the stairs to the girls’ dorms, not acknowledging a single person as he moved past them. Even Ashido, whom he’d seemed to like was dismissed without a word when she tried to reach out to him as he walked past and he sidestepped the attempt and kept walking.

Shouto wanted to follow him.

Wanted to help him somehow, but when he went to move again, there was a hand around his wrist holding him back.

He turned to see who was stopping him, to shake them off. But it was Midoriya, and he looked very serious as he shook his head and tilted it to the side towards Hawks who had stopped hissing at Bakugou and was now using his feathers to propel himself across the room after Touya.

When Shouto looked back at Midoriya, the boy smiled gently and leaned close to him to whisper.

“Hawks is taking care of it,” he said, “I think it’s better if we leave it to him. And maybe go find Aizawa.”

That was probably true when Midoriya was saying it but Shouto was finding that he didn’t care about whether anyone else could handle it right now.

He wanted to follow his brother and make sure he was okay.

“There’s a lot going on right now,” Midoriya was leaning closer again, hand still clamped on Shouto’s wrist to keep him here, “I think it’s better if we go somewhere quiet and then you can go check on him later.”

Shouto hesitated for a moment.

Midoriya wasn’t usually this forward in dictating what he wanted others to do unless he had a very good reason.

And Shouto trusted Midoriya’s reasoning, so he took a deep breath, and even though it wasn’t what he wanted, he nodded.

Midoriya smiled at him then and started moving in the direction of the stairs to the boys’ rooms, keeping his hand on Shouto’s wrist and leading him along.

“Watch your step,” he whispered, “there’s shards everywhere.”

Shouto looked around to see what he meant.

And realized that it was the bowl Touya had been carrying, and the hot sauce bottle Bakugou had just taken from Ashido, both shattered completely, glass and porcelain and hot sauce and soba strewn everywhere in one big mess.

As he looked around, he also noticed Bakugou, still standing where Hawks had pushed him, arms still shaking and explosions still going off, even though they were smaller now. And both Kirishima and Ashido were right by him, Kirishima with a hand on his arm, whispering something that was probably meant to be calming.

And then Midoriya led him out of sight of the dining room.

Chapter Text

It was his own fault.

He knew that, he understood it, he didn’t grow up with a father like Endeavor without learning exactly what it looked like when someone’s temper was pushed too far.

And yet he’d gotten so complacent after just a couple of days away, just a couple of days with a weird adult like Aizawa who hadn’t lost his temper yet and with kids like Mina and Tokoyami who were way too nice, that he’d just gone and forgotten the consequences of doing something as stupid as walking up behind someone who was screaming and start antagonizing them.

Even if he’d felt that Mina didn’t deserve to be yelled at like that, he should’ve known what the consequences would be.

He should’ve known, he told himself as his feet automatically steered him toward his room, towards somewhere safe to lick his wounds, hands around the tender skin on his throat where Bakugou had burned him.

He knew, he knew, he knew that burns were what happened when he got too annoying, got in the way, and he didn’t get to play this up and act surprised, because he knew and it was his own fault.

It was his own fault that he was hurt now and the shaking and the gasping and the tears were just pathetic and he needed to cut it out, or at the very least make sure he wasn’t caught crying over something he’d done to himself.

The second option was more doable. He always was a crybaby. So he shoved his door closed behind himself and crumbled to the floor and let the panic and the hurt wash over him, gulping in painful breaths in between sobs all the while berating himself for his inability to accept this as the natural consequence of his actions.

God, he was pathetic.

Really, it was obvious that his new so-called friends were actually just being nice to him because they were afraid he’d turn villain if they gave him any reason to.

Because who would ever see someone like Touya and actually want to be friends with him just for him?

And, after all, that was what Aizawa had meant about how he could change his path now, if he was saved or whatever. So part of that would be friends who were only there because they were training to be Heroes and this was part of that job for them and not real and nothing to do with him as a person divorced from Dabi, or Endeavor even if they didn’t know about that yet.

And he’d fallen for it and felt safe and had been too casual about how close he got to people, including the kid who had literally threatened to fight him and that had resulted in getting jumped on and choked and burned.

And it was his own goddamn fault.

He knew from years of antagonizing his own father exactly what the result of being too close when he was angry was going to be, and he didn’t get to be surprised now.

He didn’t.

And now he didn’t even have the time to get over that the way he needed to before his door was opening again and his first response was to curl up to protect himself in case it was Bakugou who had followed him to make sure this lesson in boundaries was learned and learned well.

“Okay,” he heard a voice say, and he recognized the voice but it still took him a moment to realize it was Hawks, “okay, we’re okay, it’s gonna be fine, I just need to make sure you aren’t seriously hurt and then I can go find Aizawa for you, I know I’m not the person you wanna see, but I just gotta –”

Hawks wasn’t going to hurt him.

He was talking quietly, soothingly, and moving closer, and there was something in his tone that only made Touya want to cry harder even though he wasn’t scared.

So he did.

And kept his head down even though he knew Hawks needed to see his neck. He didn’t want to move.

“Okay,” Hawks repeated himself, “I know this is – I get it, okay? But I really need to see, I can’t leave before I know that you’ll be okay, it’s not personal, it’s just… I have to.”

Touya felt a body crowding into his space and flinched away, and then there was a hand on his back, and then another one on his shoulder and he wished this was Aizawa so he could just lean into it and let himself be held for a little while.

He didn’t fight it when Hawks pulled him to sit just a little more upright, wings curling around them and buffeting slightly with nervous energy before opening wide to let light in as Hawks slowly pulled at the hands Touya still had clasped around his throat.

And he missed the wings that had closed so safely around him but the hands were gentle and cool as they ghosted over the skin on his hands and then his face, taking a moment to almost absentmindedly rub a thumb over the tear tracks on his cheek.

“Okay,” Hawks said for a third time, hands cupping Touya’s face and moving it so his throat was exposed to the light, “it doesn’t look that bad, just a little red, especially on this side, and you’ll probably have some bruising, too, but I think it’ll fade quickly enough. Does it – is there anywhere in particular that hurts?”

“It doesn’t,” Touya rasped, forcing himself to swallow the crying and answer, because it really wasn’t bad, just some redness and bruising. He’d had worse, and he was just making a big deal out of nothing right now and he needed to suck it up and get over it.

Hawks didn’t look convinced.

“You have a burn on your throat,” he said, slowly, as if trying to soften the blow of his words, but his words weren’t all that impactful to begin with. “It’s only first degree, and I don’t even think it’ll really scar, but it’s still a burn, and those hurt. I know they do.” His wings started buffeting again, and moving closer around them as if Hawks was subconsciously trying to protect Touya the same way he had been in the forest.

Why did Hawks have to act all caring right now when all Touya wanted was for someone to care?

Why did he have to argue that Touya could be allowed to feel like this when it felt so good to be told so?

Touya failed to swallow another sob as it wracked through his body and he curled in on himself within the little cocoon that Hawks’ wings were describing as his body shook and tears flowed down his face and stung once they reached the burn on his neck.

“Right, yeah, so,” Hawks said after a moment, “I’m not the right person for this, I know, so I’m just gonna go find –”

Touya couldn’t stop the whine that left his mouth when the hands on his face disappeared and the wings surrounding him moved again, letting in the harsh light that he didn’t want to see.

And Hawks stopped.

And closed his wings tighter again.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered, “do you – if you don’t want me to leave, I… I can stay if –”

Touya let himself fall forward so he could headbutt Hawks in the chest. He just wanted to stay here in the warm cocoon with the person who wasn’t scolding him for being irrational and that was all he could care about right now.

“Okay,” Hawks moved his arms tentatively around Touya’s sides before slowly closing them around him in a loose hug, “okay, I’m just gonna stay here for now, I think.”

And Touya just cried.

-

It was surprisingly okay. Just being here, resting his head against a warm chest while his breathing slowly returned to normal. He didn’t feel like he was in a rush to get himself back under control, or like he was being judged.

It was as if everything had just slowed down to allow him all the time he needed. As if nothing at all existed outside of the red wings around him.

He probably could stay here for hours, just being calm.

If it weren’t for the fact that Hawks was still obnoxious and as soon as Touya stopped with the hiccupping gasping that always came after crying, he was there to ruin the mood.

“So, I take it you don’t hate me anymore?” Hawks asked, obnoxiously and unnecessarily.

And Touya leaned back, Hawks’ arms immediately falling away from him, the wings folding back and away, clearly marking the end of Touya’s moment of peace.

And Touya hated that.

Hated that Hawks couldn’t have just kept his stupid mouth shut for a little while longer.

So he kissed his teeth and got up from the floor, aiming a loose swing at Hawks’ shoulder just to let him know that his talking wasn’t appreciated.

And Hawks hissed in pain at the impact.

And Touya paused, a momentary flutter of anxiety in his stomach that was quickly replaced with anger because there was no way that actually hurt.

“Is that your idea of a joke?” he asked, feeling his face pinch into a frown. “Because I don’t think it’s very funny to pretend like I’m hurting you right after I got slammed into a wall and –”

“No, no!” Hawks interrupted him, getting up to face him and waving a hand as if to literally wave away Touya’s anger, “you’re right, that’s not funny and it’s not what I’m doing, I swear, I just – well, I kinda got stabbed there a couple of days ago and I just wasn’t prepared for you to hit it dead on like that. But I’m fine, really, nothing to worry about, it’s fine.”

He smiled sunnily, as if getting stabbed was no big deal.

And that just made Touya angrier.

He’d thought Hawks meant it as a general thing when he’d said that Touya could still be hurting and showing it even if his burn was only first degree, but now it was sounding more like Hawks just expected Touya to have a lower pain tolerance because he was, well, Touya.

“What do you mean it’s nothing to worry about?” he hissed, “You literally got stabbed but it’s just fine? Why, ‘cause you can handle it? And I can’t and that’s why I’m crying and you’re not? That’s not – that’s fucked up, and you literally just said that I was allowed to still be hurt, so why aren’t you? Why do you have different rules than me?”

“I – no, that’s not – I didn’t mean it like that, it’s just, you know…” Hawks trailed off for a moment, thinking.

“No, I don’t,” Touya pressed, “it’s just what? That you’re stronger than me?”

“I didn’t say that,” Hawks bit back, wings fluffing up in aggravation, “I just – my wound is older, you know? I mean, how do you know that I didn’t crumble for a little while after I got stabbed, huh?”

“Did you?” Touya asked.

“Well, now, that’s just unfair,” Hawks huffed in faux indignation.

And Touya almost laughed.

Except, he couldn’t because he wasn’t letting go of this and laughing would make the dumb bird think he was, so he stayed quiet and just stared the Hero down, waiting for a real answer.

“Okay, this really is unfair,” Hawks huffed again, as if the result would be different the second time around. And was visibly disappointed when it wasn’t. “But yes. I did. Cried on Eraserhead’s shoulder and everything.”

Somehow, Touya doubted that.

“So, if I ask Aizawa, he’ll agree that you cried on his shoulder after getting stabbed?” he tested. He was pretty sure that Aizawa wouldn’t actually tell him anything about Hawks’ issues, even if he asked, but maybe Hawks was less sure of that.

And Hawks wilted. Just a little bit, and only for a moment, but Touya knew that he had seen his wings droop.

“I – well, maybe he…” Hawks stalled, “maybe he doesn’t know about the stabbing thing, but the – the other part he was literally there for, so.” He quirked his head to the side decisively. As if what he’d just said made any kind of sense.

“But why does he think you cried if it wasn’t getting stabbed?” Touya pointed out, still frowning, because Hawks was actually admitting to crying but his admission didn’t make sense, and that didn’t feel right.

Because Touya could see why he would be lying if he saw this as an opening to get Touya to be less hostile towards him. Except there were far more elegant lies he could be telling, and Touya had already been letting go of the hostility before this spiel, so it wasn’t necessary, and Hawks was absolutely smart enough that he knew that.

And it didn’t feel like he was lying. Or like he was putting on an act.

But that would mean he was telling the truth, and Touya just couldn’t reconcile Hawks with the type of person who cried in front of Aizawa because he got hurt. That was something Touya did, not Hawks.

It just didn’t make sense.

“A lot of different things, honestly. It’s pretty complicated,” Hawks sighed, looking awkward now, like he would prefer to drop this.

But Touya didn’t want to drop it.

“Try me,” he crossed his arms.

And Hawks heaved a heavy breath.

But he didn’t tell Touya no.

“Just – a mission went wrong and I was feeling like shit about it, okay?” he admitted quietly, “That’s where I got stabbed, too, but I didn’t tell Aizawa about that because I wasn’t there to complain, I was just supposed to report and then leave, except I wasn’t doing well and he… caught on.” He was doing the wing drooping thing again. It made him look smaller.

And Touya believed him.

All the posturing Hawks had ever done had been… shiny. Like a glamour.

Not vulnerable like this.

It just didn’t feel like the sort of thing Hawks would lie to him about.

But Touya didn’t know how to deal with honesty.

Didn’t know how to deal with a Hawks who wasn’t actively doing things that made Touya hate him.

Because this Hawks, the one who was quieter, almost protective while also somehow vulnerable and unsure of himself… Touya liked him.

And that felt weird, given their history, or what could have been their history.

Like Touya shouldn’t be able to like him because of those things.

But in the face of this Hawks, he could feel himself letting go of it. Because this Hawks wasn’t a predator. He wasn’t trying to catch Touya out or use him for his own gain.

This Hawks, the one Touya could feel was being honest with him seemed far too much like a lost soul who needed help. Who cried on Aizawa’s shoulder.

“Just,” Touya started, trying to bridge the gap between them, “can we just… pretend like we’re strangers?” Because the past was what it was, but maybe they could move past it if they both tried.

Hawks blinked and leaned back slightly for a moment, caught off guard by the non sequitur, no doubt. And then he plastered that god damned obnoxious plastic smile back onto his face.

“Hey, I’m Hawks,” he chirped, all fake cheer, reaching out his hand as if going for a handshake.

“Nevermind, I already hate you again,” Touya grimaced, pointedly ignoring Hawks’ outstretched hand.

“What?” Hawks’ voice was barely audible over the sudden agitated ruffling of his wings, “why? What did I do now? I thought we were starting over.”

“We were,” Touya answered, “slate completely clean or whatever. And then you did that and now I hate you as a fake plastic-y stranger.”

That seemed to give Hawks pause. He frowned, eyes clouding over in apparent deep thought.

“I’m not sure I know how to be anything else with you,” he said quietly. Apologetically.
A small frown on his face still as if he was still trying to figure out how to make Touya not hate him.

And that made Touya feel bad. Because he didn’t want Hawks to figure out what Touya wanted and then be that. He didn’t want fakeness, no matter what it looked like, but he didn’t know how to get Hawks to understand that.

“It’s fine,” he said, trying to get Hawks to stop frowning like that, a real, upset frown, “it’s not like…” He crossed his arms and hunched over slightly, because he was about to get way too honest for his own comfort. But that was only fair if he was going to ask for the same in return. “I know you’re not, like… I believe you’re a good person, okay? It’s just hard when there’s so much baggage that I don’t know how to deal with, but even without it you’re still just a shiny Hero and I don’t like those. So I don’t know how to make it better.”

Hawks’ wings dropped in something Touya wanted to call shock somewhere in the beginning of his little speech, which didn’t make the unwanted vulnerability of admitting that he didn’t know what to do feel any better.

Neither did the prolonged silence that followed it, Hawks staring at him with wide, unblinking eyes.

And Touya didn’t like silence to begin with.

“Could you just say you heard me or something?” he snapped once his patience ran out.

And Hawks immediately snapped to attention, wings rising up to their normal position again.

“Sorry,” he blurted out, and there was a moment where it seemed like they could move on from this, before his face got soft again, “but… thank you.”

And Touya didn’t know exactly what he was being thanked for but it definitely had something to do with the vulnerability thing which made it a little harder to regret saying it.

And then there was another silence, but it felt like this one wasn’t his to end, so he stayed quiet.

Thankfully, Hawks didn’t waste too much time before realizing he should say something.

“So…” he already looked more like himself again, “we pretend the baggage isn’t there and I… try to be less of a shiny Hero? Is that the game plan?”

“I think it is,” Touya agreed.