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Toshinori wakes to a heavy weight around his neck, smooth cool metal pressed against the thin skin of his neck. He cracks his eyes open barely, years of hero experience kicking in to keep him staying quiet and still. His body stays loose aside from the momentary tenseness he experienced upon waking.
The room is dim and the last thing Toshinori remembers is taking a stroll with young Midoriya and Bakugou. A sweet smell. Then nothing.
A form of knockout gas, then?
But that would mean-
He scans the room, trying to suppress the panic rising. A glance to the right dashes his hopes like water on flame.
Young Midoriya sits before him, face slack, head tilted to the side in sleep. Young Bakugou sits to the left of the other, but his head is tilted back and expression unable to be seen by Toshinori. Both of them have large metallic collars, the seams smooth.
Both of them are in chairs that have heavy steel restraints at the end, young Midoriya strapped down much more heavily than either of the other two.
With his students here adrenaline courses through him and he lurches upward, scowl on his skeletal face. There’s no one else around. The room looks like it’s part of a warehouse. The only point of entrance are the windows and a large door past the boys.
“Young Midoriya, Bakugou,” He tries to speak as loudly as he can without it echoing. Trying to scoot forward fails, as the chairs are nailed down.
The two take a few minutes to come to themselves, and Toshinori can’t help but to notice Bakugou’s tensing and pale face. The boy has already been through this, and Toshinori’s heart aches at not being able to stop this.
“My boys-” He tries to say, but the door slams open.
A woman, trailed by two large men, comes through the door before anyone can move.
“Fabulous! Everyone is awake!” She pulls out a large remote and smirks, “And I wouldn’t do anything if I were you, those collars around your necks? Bombs. A press of this and all three of you are going sky high!”
“What do you want?” Toshinori asks, ignoring the way his heart rabbits. Both of the boys are tense, teeth gritted. There’s a chance Midoriya could break through, but not enough to risk the collars going off.
The woman stops, lips smiling but eyes cold.
“I want revenge,” she says, “Three years ago my brother was arrested by you, only to die days later in prison because of ‘medical complications’.” She sneers, fingers tight around the detonator.
“I’m sorry,” says Toshinori, sincerely. He can’t say whether he didn’t pull back his strength enough or if something else happened in that prison that day, but he is sorry for whatever it is. The man deserved to go to trial and serve his sentence, not die before then.
Her sneer twists harder and she barks a laugh out, “That’s well and good, but sorry won’t satisfy me. That’s why I’m going to have you choose.”
A smile returns and she steps forward, heels clicking on the concrete.
“Which little brat do you want to live? Blondie or Greenie? Pick and I’ll kill them, letting the two of you go.”
“You can’t expect him to choose that!” Midoriya yells, interrupting with tears pricking at the corner of his eyes, “He’s All Might-”
“Shut him up.” She says, rolling her eyes.
His yelling is muffled by the hand that slaps across his mouth. Toshinori winces, glaring up at the woman.
“That wasn’t necessary.”
“Ah, I think it was! I don’t want the pipsqueaks to influence you, after all.” She smiles, and it could almost be called soft and charming. Toshinori growls at the pit of his throat, nails scraping against the wooden chair.
“Just pick me,” Toshinori says, “It’s me you want, right? I’m the one that put your brother in prison where he died, so pick me.”
“Oh?” Says the woman, “I never said you were an option. You hurt someone close to me, I hurt someone close to you, that’s the deal.”
“I would never-”
She scowls, interrupting him, “If it’s neither then it’s all.” She taps the remote in her hand, a smile curling back on her face, “If you want all three of you to die so badly, I certainly don’t mind…”
Toshinori licks his dry lips.
“He ain’t gonna do that,” young Bakugou says, steel in his tone.
The woman laughs.
“So says you,” she motions to the other burly man, “But I don’t recall giving you permission to talk either.”
The man covers young Bakugou’s mouth, much like the other had done to young Midoriya earlier.
The woman flips the remote in her hands.
Up and down.
Up and down.
Up and down.
Her thumb hovers over the button.
“You have to choose,” she says again, “Or I’ll choose all of you.”
The decision is an impossible one. Young Midoriya, who he sees as a son, who has become so self-assured, who has the potential to be even greater than him.
The child that saved him, at the sludge villain, at Kamino, who makes him want to live.
Young Bakugou, whose growth has been phenomenal, who is smart and caring under the layers of his gruff and bitter exterior.
Who he tried to save, who he wants to reassure that his retirement was never his fault, that he takes too many burdens upon himself, that he can trust adults to do the right thing.
Toshinori can’t choose.
Young Bakugou stares at him with determined dark scarlet eyes.
Young Midoriya stares with wet, terrified light emerald ones.
Between the two children, he cannot.
But between the two quirks...
Hopefully…
Hopefully Toshinori is reading the two right.
Because what matters here is less than any one person and more of a concept.
Midoriya won’t understand, or rather, he will but he won’t want to, won’t accept it. Toshinori is ready to bear the brunt of that. If he could choose himself he’d do it over and over again. But the woman isn’t giving them an option. It’s one of the students or all of them.
He closes his eyes.
He opens his mouth.
And prepares to destroy everything.