Work Text:
Todoroki Shoto was five years old when his face was left irreparably scarred by his mother, but that wasn’t the worst thing that happened that day. No it had been when she also poured the water onto his soulmark on his wrist. The skin was left severely marred and the mark completely distorted and destroyed. He hadn’t realized what it meant at the time, he was more concerned with his mother and the sudden intense pain, but growing up he would quickly learn.
Having no mark meant it was like he never had a soulmate. And that was made clear one night when Endeavor was talking over dinner how Shoto was better off for it’s loss. He would find someone to make a prosperous match with and wouldn’t be held back by some mark on his flesh. His parents weren’t soulmates, they’d gotten married before either of them ever met theirs and then proceeded to no longer look for theirs.
When he asked his mother if she ever met hers she would get a wistful look in her eyes and talk about running into a young woman in the park once when she had taken Toya there. The woman had been running and had her wrists uncovered and her mother had seen the flower that matched the one covered by her sleeves. She left that day without revealing her own mark to the woman and never even caught her name. She’d gone back to the park again, day after day, but never saw the woman again.
So Shoto came to terms at a young age that he would never be able to find the other half of his soul. And that meant he had to grow up a very lonely child and couldn’t even be comforted by the idea he would one day meet someone who would take him away from this place. He was always going to be alone.
He’d mostly come to terms with it by the time he started UA. He wore wrist coverings even though it wasn’t a required part of their uniform. It made it easier then having to answer questions if anyone would see and ask about the lack of a mark. Besides it wasn't like they weren’t worn by a decent portion of the population.
And he was suddenly thrown into an environment where he was surrounded by people his age and they did ask all sorts of questions about him, though never about his soulmark. Talking to his cohort was strange but somewhat nice, even if it was a bit of a process for them to overcome his own inexperience and tendency to be off-putting. Slowly, he let his walls come down a bit and allowed himself to socialize amongst his peers and even made some friends. The biggest one of all being Midoriya who was a metaphorical ray of sunshine that Todoroki could spend hours experiencing the light of his smile.
Shame he had such an off-putting soulmate. Okay, sure, Midoriya and Bakugou had never officially stated they were soulmates but they so obviously were. They were constantly in each other’s space like they had an open invitation, even when it was them bickering or yelling at each other. They were always aware of each other and kept devolving into these constant competitions with each other. It was always a race in gym, always a fight over who got a better score on a test, always a constant little fight they couldn’t resist. They even wore matching All Might themed wrist covers, though Bakugou would swear that they were a common thing that anyone could buy at a hero gear store.
Shoto had never heard of soulmates like them. Of ones who bickered and tried to shove each other’s face into the ground. Then again what did he know, he was sheltered.
They ended up not fessing up to it till third year, by then everyone had already long figured it out and even openly teased them about. It was the day they announced they’d gotten together when they’d come down to breakfast naked at the wrist. It had taken a moment for everyone to realize what they were seeing before the yell of congratulations and screams to see their matching marks broke out. Everyone decided it would be easier to crowd around Midoriya after Bakugou nearly sent off the sprinklers with Ashido grabbing his wrist.
Shoto wasn’t going to turn down a look for himself and found Midoriya later and asked if he could see. It looked like an exploding star, with tendrils of other effects coming off of it, presumably Midoriya’s lighting.
Shoto wished he could remember what his mark had once looked like.
Of course by third year he also counted both Midoriya and Bakugou as close friends and had even shared with them the story of his own soulmark and shown both of them his burned wrist. Bakugou had reacted with swearing and asking how he could stand to see his mother after what she’d done. Shoto had explained that it wasn’t his mother whom he blamed but his father. Midoriya’s eyes welled up and offered his condolences about how terrible it must have been. But they had both offered to punch his dad the next time they met, and he wasn’t sure if they were being serious or not. Or if he would take them up on the offer.
Shoto shrugged and pulled his own wrist covering up back over his wrist. It was what it was.
It wasn’t till a few months after they had gotten together that Shoto realized something had recently changed. He didn’t notice it right away, the gradual increase in spending time together, but suddenly one day he realized that every day this past week he’d spent with either Midoriya or Bakugou, or more frequently both.
Besides eating lunch with them every day, they’d invited him for an extra sparring session on Monday, they’d rented out one of the workout grounds so it could be a private practice and yes they had had to keep it to only quirkless brawling but it had been an intense workout. Then on Tuesday and Thursday they had gone over their homework answers together, they were all good students and so when they came across a disagreement about a solution they got two more people to bounce it off of. Wednesday he’d come down to dinner to find a bowl shoved in his face by Bakugou who growled out that he was late, Midoriya quickly waving him over to the empty chair he’d been saving. On Friday when everyone had wanted to watch a movie, they’d invited him to sit with them on the loveseat, which he’d only agreed to because it would keep him off the floor before realizing just how tight a space it was for teenage boys and spent the entire movie with arms around him and legs brushing his own.
They’d spent their off campus passes at going to an amusement park on Saturday and had spent all day there, coming home with Izuku carrying a large All Might plushie he’d won at test-your-strength booth at the carnival and absolutely did not have room for in his dorm. Sunday they’d done a private movie marathon where Midoriya had picked out some old hero movies, before All Might and even made before the invention of the hero system, so they were old and fascinating to watch.
Looking back now he’d realized just how much time it must have been. He hadn’t seen how much it added up, he was just thinking each day that it was nice spending the time with them.
He shouldn’t impose on his friends like that. Especially when said friends happened to be dating soulmates who probably wanted some private time to themselves and not having him third-wheeling the entire time. They probably had been wanting time to themselves and had just been putting up with Shoto’s presence.
It didn’t matter that he might have liked to continue spending time with them. Might have liked it if he was able to reach over and kiss them like they could kiss each other. It didn’t matter because that was something reserved for each other.
He made it a priority to turn them down next week. He was busy on homework night, he was eating dinner in his rooms at night, he had to visit his mother that weekend. He nearly caved when he saw Midoriya’s disappointed face when he’d turned them down by Thursday. But stayed strong when he remembered that he was only turning Midoriya out so he could go be with his soulmate instead.
He nearly was wrenched out of his skin when Momo one day asked why he’d stopped his study dates with Midoriya and Bakugou. Oh no. He hadn’t realized he’d been that obvious when he took up their time. That meant he needed to withdraw even further to make up for his own shortcomings and hope they forgave him. Momo hadn’t been so sure and asked if he was sure the dates weren’t intentional on their part and Shoto couldn’t answer her.
Because it was completely ridiculous. Why would Midoriya or Bakugou want to date him? Shoto didn’t even have a soulmate who would want him, much less these two amazing boys who had an already perfect relationship together.
Eventually Midoriya cornered him, tearful and asking what it was that he’d done that made Shoto avoid him, and Shoto had realized he was being selfish. Midoriya and Bakugou didn’t know how much he had been thinking about them, why he’d needed to stay away. They’d only seen him as a friend who had been withdrawing from them suddenly.
So he agreed to their tickets to a movie on the weekend and sat next to Midoriya again at lunch and their study dates were back on. Minus the date.
Granted that theory went out the window during their next study session. He’d just helped Midoriya with a bit of English conjugation, leaning over his shoulder as Midoriya sat at the desk, showing him where he’d messed up.
“So it’s ‘I will be kissing’ not ‘I have kissed.’ you confused the future with-” Shoto was cut off when Midoriya had suddenly leaned forward a bit more and pressed their mouths together. In Shoto’s shock he froze up and only pushed Midoriya away when he had started to work his tongue into his mouth.
“What are you doing! Bakugou is right here.” He looked over to the bed where Bakugou was reading Midoriya and Shoto’s history papers, annotating his suggested corrections with very colorful commentary. Bakugou had looked over at the startled sound Shoto had made when Midoriya first kissed and there was no way to hide from him that Shoto had just been kissing his soulmate.
“Yeah Deku!” Bakugou sat up, angry and Shoto prepared to face the wrath of a jealous Bakugou. “What are you doing! What happened to the plan!”
“What plan?” Asked Shoto but was ignored.
“I’m sorry Kacchan, I just got too excited, hearing Shoto-kun talking about will be kissing , it was too much for me. So I just had to!” Midoriya said in a tone that was not nearly apologetic enough to be the one used you were explaining to your boyfriend why he’d kissed another man. Shoto looked over to see him shuffling his hands but then when he looked up to see Midoriya wearing a sharp smile as he looked over Bakugou. Smiling like he’d won another one of their little challenges they still sometimes gave each other.
Shoto liked that smile and was a little scared of it. What was Midoriya playing at?
“Well now you better keep explaining before Halfie’s entire brain freezes over.”
“I don’t understand,” Shoto began and paused but didn’t know how to follow it up. He just did not understand.
“Kacchan and I would both like to kiss you Shoto-kun, and Kacchan is mad that I got to do it first.”
“I didn’t want him freaking out on me like he just did with you!” Bakugou got up from the bed and walked over while Shoto continued to sit at the desk.
“So it was another one of your contests. To see who would kiss me first?” It made a bit of sense, Bakugou and Midoriya still got competitive with each other but he’d thought they had mostly put that aside since they got together. He just didn’t see why the competition would be over who got his first kiss. And he didn’t like how much he felt his heart constrict.
“No! Not like that!” Midoriya said hurriedly when he saw Shoto’s face, “We’ve been wanting to kiss you for a while Shoto-kun, but we thought we should at least try dating you a bit first.”
“Those were dates?”
“Told you we needed to be more obvious,” Bakugou grumbled. “Yes they were fucking dates. Now give us an answer, you in or you out?”
“Of?” Surely Bakugou wasn’t referring to what Shoto thought, it just didn’t make any sense.
“Of a fucking relationship with us!” Bakugou balled his fists. “How dense are you IcyHot?”
So he hadn’t been imagining what Bakugou was getting at. But then again that didn’t change the answer. There was no way Shoto was going to get involved and inevitably cause the break up of a soulmate relationship between his close friends.
“I don’t want to come between you.”
“Are you sure about that? Because that’s exactly where we’d like you to will be coming. ” Bakugou jeered and put a hand on Shoto’s shoulder at the same time Midoriya grabbed for his hands and got down on his knees to be closer at eye level.
“We like you Shoto-kun,” Midoriya said. “And we understand if you don’t feel the same way but we’d like it if you at least agreed to go on a date with us. An official one. And at least try if you’d consider continuing to date us.”
Shoto had stared at them, unsure what he was missing. Were they not aware that they were the ones who were soulmates and Shoto was just someone who couldn’t have what any soulmate ever had. He couldn’t have them so it was completely pointless how much he felt the impulsive thrum of his heart telling him to just say yes.
And so he agreed and found it very hard to turn down the next date or the one after, and he didn’t turn down Bakugou when he asked for his kiss on their third date, still grumbling about Midoriya having gone first. And soon that opened the floodgates because they kept kissing more.
It had been hard to contain it strictly to their dorm rooms so of course someone saw when Shoto kissed Bakugou in the kitchen, and their picture was shown to Izuku who had to explain why he was okay with it. The class at first expressed confusion that two soulmates would decide to date a third party that wasn’t matched to them but then accepted it fast enough. People had to change their jokes from being about the Idiot Duo to the Big Three Idiots which Shoto felt was a little unfair.
They kept spending time together, the three of them but now everyone teased them about their study dates and asked how much studying was really getting done. Especially because they’d taken to spending the nights in each other’s rooms now. But it was worth the jeers because it meant spending the night with them in the same bed.
One night when they're all lying on the futon in Todoroki's room, Izuku spoke from the middle"Shoto, do you even remember what your soul mark looked like?"
"No, I've forgotten it,” Shoto confessed, looking up at the ceiling. He’d felt guilty of it for years after but hadn’t been feeling that guilt lately.
"Well maybe it did match mine and Kacchan's and it's meant to be the three of us together," Izuku said defiantly, like he was expecting a challenge to the assertion and was going to fight about it. “If you don’t remember your mark, who's to say we’re wrong.”
"You don't have to say this Izuku. I'm aware I'm the odd one out. I accept that you and Katsuku are soulmates and I am not." Sure it was a nice fantasy, that secretly he’d been meant for the both of them this whole time, that he was finally somehow complete and with his soulmates.
“Ignore the nonsense Deku is spouting, it doesn’t matter what was ever on your wrist Icyhot.” Bakugou says, and sits up and reaches over so he’s grabbing Todoroki’s hand and making him look him in the eyes. “We picked you and we want to date you. We want it to be the three of us, who gives a fuck about the soulmate business.”
“We choose you Shoto,” Izuku agrees.
Oh.
Maybe that was what Shoto needed to hear more than anything. He didn’t need a soulmate, he had two amazing, perfect, boys, who he was painfully in love with, saying they wanted him regardless.