Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Sometimes, on the rare days he allows himself to actually look back on his childhood, Shōto feels as if he’s spent years struggling to breathe.

When he lets himself think about the past, about everything that came before, Shōto feels as if he took the world’s longest inhale the moment his mother’s hand touched that tea kettle and then he just … forgot to let it out.

Like he's been stuck with this burning, breaking, breathless sort of pressure building up inside of him since he was six years old and screaming on the kitchen floor.

Or maybe it goes more like this:

Shōto’s been drowning for as long as he can remember, lungs starving, chest heaving, vision greyed out and turning black just around the edges.

A slow and prolonged sort of almost suffocation.

Dry drowning somehow in the middle of a scalding ocean.

Sometimes when the house is quiet and it’s only Shōto still awake with his aches and the dull moonlight shining down on the koi pond outside his window, he sits in his dark room with its bare walls and just … breathes.

In and out.  Rhythmic, comforting, timed to the echoing clap of the shishi-odoshi that sits further out in the garden.

The same one he and his mom used to clap to on quiet days when Endeavor wasn’t home and they could get away with playing the simple little timing game they’d made up together.

But his mother is gone now, locked away out of sight as she has been for years.

Shōto doesn’t clap anymore.

Instead he just breathes.

~~~

Sometimes, on the really bad days when his skin feels both too cold and too hot and his scar aches bad enough to make him want to claw at it, Shōto will do the opposite.

He’ll sit there, right beside his window, and he’ll just stop.

Stop moving.  Stop thinking.

Stop breathing.

He’ll sit there with a hand clamped over his own mouth and nose, unseeing eyes trained on the sky, and he’ll refuse to inhale.

He’ll sit like that, holding his breath, until his vision goes even darker around the edges.

Until his chest burns.

Until that scalding ocean laps just a bit higher, burns just a bit hotter.

Until his body forces him to breathe again.

And then, shuddering and starved for air, he’ll do it all over again.

Shōto loves and hates it, the strange little habit he's developed.

Hates it because it burns and he’s so tired of the heat.

Loves it because it’s his.

It’s a hurt only he can give to himself.

A hurt only he and his own body can take away.

A choice that only he gets to make.

~~~

Shōto can hold his breath for a very long time.

~~~

After a lifetime of private tutors and “specialized training” with Endeavor, Shōto doesn’t feel much of anything about actually attending school when it comes time for him to begin UA.

He’s not interested in friends or bonds or anything other than having somewhere to go every day that isn’t Endeavor’s house or the dojo.

All Shōto’s really interested in is being one step closer to his goal, to earning a hero license that will guarantee he’ll finally be able to leave that house and never be forced to go back.

UA might be the most prestigious hero school in the country but to Shōto it's just another dull, grey place filled with dull, grey people on the road to that goal.

Just another stepping stone along the way.

Shōto will graduate as a hero and he’ll leave and no one he meets in this place will matter.

He lives his life in a state of breathless monotone and hazy monochrome, in short bitten off syllables and shades of foggy, unfeeling grey.

UA will be just more of the same.

~~~

Shōto is wrong.

He just doesn’t know it yet.

But he will.

~~~

Midoriya, Shōto decides on the very first day when he takes a few moments to survey his new classmates, is a nervous wreck.

One part stammering rabbit and one part startled deer.

Shōto doesn’t really give him all that much thought after that initial impression.

Not until the ball throw that is.

Not until that broken finger and the way Midoriya still smiles, shaky and tight but there.

Interesting.

~~~

Shōto decides rather early on that he really does not like Bakugō.

Aizawa's assessment gives birth to the thought while All Might’s first class just reinforces the idea.

He doesn’t like Bakugō or his burnt caramel scented explosions or his loud, vicious boasts.  He especially doesn't like the sneering sort of superiority that Bakugō wears tucked around him like a fiery cloak.

Shōto looks at his fierce classmate, hears his explosions and his curses and his biting insults and all he can see and hear and feel is …

Shōto shakes his head sharply, huffs the scent of smoldering flames out of his nose and chases away the whistling of a tea kettle he knows is not actually there from his ears.

Shōto does not like Bakugō.

~~~

Then there’s the USJ and that thought that had focused on Midoriya, that faint whisper of interesting, just grows.

After that Shōto can’t help but look just a bit where his timid classmate is concerned.

Can’t help but blink and watch and see.

~~~

One of the first things Shōto really and truly notices about his classmate, beyond the muttering and the stuttering of course, is the fact that Midoriya has scars.

Shōto sees them when they’re in the changing room.  They catch his attention despite how hard Midoriya is obviously trying to stay hidden if the way he always tucks himself into a stall or the corner as he changes, a considerable bubble of distance between him and everyone else, is anything to go by.

Shōto is also quick to notice that the locker room is one of the few places where Midoriya is absolutely silent unless spoken to.

No muttering, no shuffling, no unnecessary noise at all.

Midoriya is ghost-like in those moments, present and yet not almost as if he’s trying to go unseen without making it obvious, a feeling that Shōto knows all too well.

It doesn’t matter though because Shōto still sees him, still sees them, still catches glimpses of indents and gashes, of what looks like starbursts and ropey lengths of red skin.

Still sees the marks written out across pale freckled skin that tell stories in a language Shōto is all too fluent in.

Familiar verses written out across his classmate's skin in an ink that Shōto knows all too well.

Shōto keeps his silence as he always does. He looks and he sees and then he gets dressed and goes to class.

But all the while his eye aches.

~~~

Shōto sees All Might in and, on a rare occasion, out of class.

What’s more is the fact that Shōto sees the way Midoriya turns towards the man automatically no matter where they are or what’s going on as if he just knows he’s there even before All Might announces himself.

He sees the way All Might pays such close attention to his classmate, at least some portion of his attention always focused on Midoriya.

Shōto sees how similar their quirks are, remembers the desperate, frantic thing that had peeked out from beneath Midoriya’s skin during their first battle training and at the USJ, and all he can think is …

Oh.

~~~

Shōto has one towering inferno of a monster in his life.

But when he looks at Midoriya, when he thinks about his scars and the way he flinches at the smallest of things but not at broken bones and seeping burns, Shout thinks he might not be the only one.

When he looks at All Might and sees the way the hero seems to hover just a bit over his classmate, when he looks at Bakugō with his sneers and his snarls and his threats and the constant pop crackle pop of his quirk being aimed, inevitably, at Midoriya …

Well Shōto thinks that Midoriya might have more than one monster in his life.

He thinks he and Midoriya might have more in common than Shōto would have every thought possible.

~~~

And then …

Then there’s the Sports Festival.

And everything changes.

~~~

When they're standing across from each other in the arena, the truth that Shōto had felt compelled to share hanging heavy between them, Midoriya is no longer timid.

Instead he's fierce and brutal and, above all else, mesmerizing.

Shōto can’t look away.

Doesn’t even want to.

“It’s your quirk, Todoroki,” Midoriya, all black bruises, green curls, and pale skin, practically howls at him, bones snapping like the echoing thunk of the shishi-odoshi in the garden, his power swelling around him like a rising electric tide. “It’s always been yours. It’s your power, not his.”

The words hit him like a blow, slam into him like a fist, shatter him apart like the walls of ice Midoriya has refused to allow Shōto to put between them.

And, for what feels like the first time in almost a decade, Shōto breathes.

Inhales oxygen and exhales flames, his left side igniting like an inferno.

Flames that belong to him.

Flames that belong to Shōto alone and not Endeavour.

Because Midoriya is right.  Just like Shōto’s mother was always right back before something inside of her broke too deeply to pretend otherwise anymore.

It is his quirk.

It’s his and Shōto wants to be a hero for a million and one reasons that do and do not involve Todoroki Enji.

Across from him, wreathed in jade lightning, Midoriya smiles.

And then the world around them explodes.

~~~

Shoto is declared winner of the match but, standing there bloody and bruised and gasping, he feels like, somehow, Midoriya is the one who got what he wanted in the end.

~~~

After that Shōto can’t bring himself to look away from Midoriya, can't bring himself to settle back into the smoke tinted haze that's pressed against his senses for so long now.

Instead Shōto breathes and with every breath he’s drawn closer, pulled further into Midoriya’s space like the ocean to the shore.

And Midoriya, with his scarred hand and twisted fingers, with the wounds he gave himself for Shōto, just looks up at him, smiles, and invites him even closer still.

~~~

Being around Midoriya, being drawn so deeply into his orbit, makes Shōto feel things he’s never felt before.

It’s like waking up, limbs aching and skin tingling, after spending far too long asleep.

It’s like, after all these years, he’s managed to finally claw his way up towards the surface of that scalding ocean that’s been so intent on dragging him further and further down.

Like his head has finally managed to break through to the surface for a few glorious gasping seconds.

It’s like breathing deep and free again for the first time in a decade.

And for the first time in longer than Shōto can remember the air tastes sweet.

~~~

Shōto has spent so long drowning that he’d given up hope of being rescued years ago, had never really had all that much hope to begin with if he’s being honest.

After losing a mother and a brother he only half remembers Shōto had stopped pretending that there was someone out there who would swoop in and save what’s left of his family.

But, in a lot of ways, that is exactly what Midoriya does.

With an outstretched hand, a wide smile, and a wider heart Midoriya saves him.

Like a hero.

And then he keeps on saving Shōto, every single day they’re together, over and over again in a million different little ways.

Draining bits and pieces of that scalding ocean out and away from Shōto until he thinks that, one day, his feet might touch solid ground again and his lungs might find absolutely nothing but the free air.

Shōto can’t wait for that to happen.

He’s willing to put the work in, willing to bleed and fight and push until it becomes a reality.

And what makes it all the sweeter is the fact that he knows, even without outright asking, that Midoriya is willing to be there every step of the way with him.

~~~

And when Midoriya puts out a call while Hosu is aflame and under siege of course Shōto goes.

Of course he does.

He goes and he fights and he bleeds and he never, not even for a second, hesitates or regrets any of it.

Because Midoriya called.

So of course Shōto answered.

There was never any other choice he was going to make.

~~~

This is what Midoriya becomes for Shōto:

A guiding star.

An inspiration.

A friend.

A pounding heart and a brilliant smile.

An outstretched hand and a breathless sort of high that doesn’t hurt.

A pressure valve bleeding off the excess and helping Shōto keep his head above the water.

~~~

Which is why Shōto’s dislike for Bakugō just seems to grow deeper and darker and thicker every single day.

Which is why when the student pairings are announced Shōto knows that the final exams are going to be a disaster.

And if the displeased set of Asui’s shoulders and the worried looks on Iida and Uraraka’s faces are anything to go by then he’s not the only one.

But all of that pales to the absolutely sick look on Midoriya’s face as he tries and fails to convince Aizawa to change his assigned partner.

Shōto hates the way Midoriya seems to fold in on himself, going quiet and small in a way that goes beyond the physical as he slinks back across the room to stand beside Shōto again.

A part of him wants to grab Midoriya by the shoulders, wants to pull him close until they're breathing the same air, wants to protect him.  Or he wants to at least shelter Midoriya until he's able to expand back out to fill the space he normally does at Shōto's side again with that shining presence Shōto has become so addicted to.

But, with a helplessness that he can’t help but despise welling up inside of him, all Shōto does is brush his shoulder against Midoriya’s in a silent sort of comfort.

It’s not enough, not nearly enough, but here in the middle of their classmates, trapped with so many teachers far too close to them, it’s all Shōto knows how to safely give at the moment.

Later, when it’s finally Midoriya’s time to go, Shōto watches his friend walk away, shoulders slumped, hands curled in the fabric of his costume and a certain kind of defeat already rounding his spine.

And, left behind and loathing every burning, breathless second of it, all Shōto can do is clench his fists at his sides and seethe.

Chapter Text

The Midoriya that comes out of the exam isn't the same one that went in.

Shōto knows it as soon as his friend walks back into the viewing room, blood on his face, shoulders an uneven line, and bruises already beginning to darken on his pale skin.

Bakugō rants and raves, pops his quirk off in Midoriya’s face like he always seems to do without any real consequences ever falling down on his shoulders.

And all the while Midoriya just stands there, expression set in a calm sort of blankness that makes the hair on the back of Shōto’s neck rise.

He knows that look.  Knows that grey edged, rising water sort of expression because he’s worn it so many times over the years himself.  Had seen it on his mother’s face in some of his earliest memories.

He hates seeing it on Midoriya’s face now.  Hates the way it clouds over that brilliance that is such a part of who Midoriya is at his core.

Hates how none of the teachers seem to notice, waving the entire situation aside and moving on as if everything that’s just happened is perfectly acceptable.

But Shōto’s options are, as they always seem to be, limited.  And, in the end, all he can do is stand there at Midoriya’s side and offer all he has at the moment.

A silent but steady sort of support.

~~~

The bus ride back to the main campus is quiet.

Uraraka, Iida, and Asui all talk quietly amongst themselves while the rest of the class carries on like normal.  The others are all obviously tired with the way they’re chattering at about half their normal volume but they’re all in relatively good spirits otherwise.

Everyone, that is, except for Midoriya.

He sits quietly the entire time.  There’s no low but steady mumbling or quiet but enthusiastic conversation to be heard from him.  There’s not even the rhythmic and almost soothing sound of him scratching away at one of his ever present notebooks.

Instead he just sits there, uneven shoulders slumped and face pale, as he almost huddles down between Shōto and the wall in the back corner of the bus.

Shōto spends the entire ride looking at his friend, cataloguing his features and picking out details that he wishes he could just erase. 

The livid looking bruises on Midoriya’s face make Shōto’s hands clench tightly in his lap.  The slowly weeping burn on his jaw makes Shōto taste blood, thick and sickly, on the back of his tongue.

But it’s the dullness of Midoriya’s normally vibrant eyes that makes something inside of Shōto ache.  Makes his quirk writhe and twist angrily in his chest, desperate for an outlet.

Midoriya shouldn’t look like that.  So faded around the edges, folded down into a fraction of the space he normally occupies without even trying.

Diminished.

Shōto hates it.

But he doesn’t know what, if anything he can do.

~~~

He sits there on the bus with Midoriya long after the rest of the class has left.

Uraraka and Iida had been easy enough to wave away.  They’re … soft in ways that Shōto has a hard time understanding sometimes.  Even Iida who had proven himself far more reckless than anyone might have ever imagined.

Still, Shōto’s almost grateful that, no matter what hardships they’ve had to face in life so far, neither Iida nor Uraraka have been forced to learn about monsters in the intimate sort of way that Shōto and Midoriya both have.

For her part, Asui, always so blunt and observant, had simply stared at him for a long moment before she’d nodded and padded off, seemingly content to leave Midoriya in his care.

The entire time Midoriya just sits there, silent and still with his eyes trained directly ahead, breathing so quiet his chest barely moves.

A part of Shōto wants to reach out, wants to touch, wants to pull Midoriya against his side and just hold him there.

Wants to keep him from floating away, stolen by a current Shōto doesn’t know how to fight against.

He doesn’t though.  Doesn’t reach out and touch, doesn’t pull Midoriya close and hold on tight.

Instead Shōto just sits.

~~~

He leaves the bus a few hours later.

Leaves Midoriya there in the waning afternoon sun.

Walking away is harder than Shōto had ever thought it could be.

~~~

Not all of Midoriya walks off of that bus.

Shōto sees it when he finally ghosts back into the dorms, shoulders straight and burns gone but bruises still painting livid streaks of twilight across his skin.  Recovery Girl's work no doubt even if it is, in Shōto's opinion, only half done.

Shōto sees it in the days that follow where Midoriya is less a person and more a collection of actions pretending to be alive.

Shōto sees it where everyone else seems to be selectively blind.

Shōto sees and he seethes.

~~~

UA was supposed to be different.  Was supposed to be better.

And it is.  In so many ways it is.

It’s done so much more for him than Shōto had ever thought possible, more than he’d ever dared to hope for.

UA had given Shōto what he’d wanted more than anything at the time; an escape from that house and a starting line for his future.

But, more importantly than anything else ended up being, UA had given Shōto Midoriya.

So it’s good.

And yet when Shōto looks at Midoriya, when he looks at the bruises and the burns and those too dull eyes, when he looks at All Might and Aizawa and Bakugō, all Shōto can think is that, in some ways, in the worst of ways, it’s just …

More of the same.

~~~

Shōto wants to help.

He wants to do for Midoriya what Midoriya had done for him.

Wants to be the one holding his friend’s head above the water in this moment when he so obviously needs it.  Wants to be the pressure valve letting off the excess, ensuring that Midoriya doesn’t drown beneath whatever depths seem determined to drag him down.

He just doesn’t know how.  Doesn’t know what to offer beyond his silent sort of companionship.

Doesn't know what, if anything, Midoriya might need from him.

~~~

But then, as if in answer to the prayers he never lets himself make, he does.

Understanding crashes over Shōto like a wave only a few days later.

And this time he almost welcomes the undertow.

Because now he knows.

~~~

They’re in the locker room one day after training when Shōto finally feels the pieces come together for him.

Midoriya is getting dressed, sitting quietly on a bench in the far corner of the locker room.  That alone is proof that something’s just not right with him as far as Shōto’s concerned.

Normally Midoriya is mouse quiet and twice as skittish in the locker rooms even after all this time, preferring to tuck himself away out of sight into a stall.  But this dull eyed, faded edged version of him sits on a bench in full view, scars on display for anyone who might care to look.

Shōto has taken to stepping in front of him when the time to change comes around each day.  Midoriya is … off right now and so Shōto will do what he can to help him keep the secrets he normally carries so close to his chest.

He lingers now, staying back as the others file out, hovering at Midoriya’s side.

For a long moment they just stare at each other.

“I don’t know how to help you,” Shōto finally tells him, confessing the sin he doesn't know how to shed.  “Not like how you helped me.”

“I’m fine,” Midoriya replies, tone some strange sort of hollow.

Shōto knows it for the lie that it is.

“You’re not,” Shōto disagrees softly because he knows the truth.  Knows it intimately.  “The others might not see it but I can.  That look in your eyes …”

The statement hangs there in the air between them, heavy and full of meaning.

“The world’s really … grey, isn’t it Todoroki-kun?”  Midoriya finally asks almost absently even as he reaches down to pick up his uniform shirt.

Shōto can’t stop himself then.  Can’t stop himself from doing what he’s wanted to do for months now.

Unable to hold back any longer he finally reaches out and allows himself to touch.

He traces his fingertips over the collection of starbursts that litter the slope of Midoriya’s shoulder, spilling down and over his collarbone like a painful sort of sky.

When Shōto pulls his hand back he clenches it tightly at his side.  If he lets himself he can almost pretend he can tuck the sense memory of Midoriya’s skin into his palm and keep it there forever.

“Mine used to be,” Shōto murmurs after a long, quiet moment.  A truth he’s not ashamed to admit here in this moment.

“How’d you fix it?” Midoriya asks the question softly, eyes dull but looking at him head on for once.

For a split second Shōto almost wants to laugh at the absurdity of the question.

Because in that moment Shōto finally understands that Midoriya has no idea of the full extent of what he’s done.  Not really.  He has no idea just how deeply and completely he’s touched and changed Shōto with his words and actions.

By being himself and welcoming Shōto into his life and his space.

By being brave enough to reach out and fight a battle that Shōto hadn’t been willing to admit needed to be fought.

“I didn’t,” Shōto tells him, the softest, realest truth he’s ever spoken.

It is, Shōto realizes in that moment, time for him to return the favor.

~~~

Midoriya follows him back to the dorm and takes the seat in the corner Shōto ushers him into without a protest.

Shōto sits down directly beside him, their shoulders and thighs pressed together despite there being plenty of room for both of them.

Shōto tunes out Uraraka, Iida, and Asui’s quiet chatter with ease, safe in the knowledge that they’re no threat to either himself or Midoriya.

Instead his attention splits itself between the quiet rhythm of Midoriya’s breathing as he stares out the window, notebook in hand, and Bakugō who is settled across the room.

‘I see you.’ Shōto thinks as he stares at Bakugō, his hands flexing against his thighs.  ‘I see you, Bakugō. I see what you are. I see what you’ll become if left unchecked.  I see how you hurt him and how you’ll keep on hurting him if no one else stops it.  I won’t let you break him like you want to.’

It only takes seconds for everything to happen.

The common room’s quiet and calm for the most part and then Kaminari’s bray of laughter rings out across the room.

The familiar pop crackle pop of Bakugō’s quirk activating cuts through the air.

Pressed against his side as he is, Shōto feels it when Midoriya flinches.

Shōto's moving almost before he decides his course of action, body flowing up off of the couch and ice answering his call with a breathless sort of ease.

Blunted spikes rush across the common room floor and, taken off guard, Bakugō goes tumbling backwards from where he’d been hovering over Kaminari.  He hits the ground and rolls back up and onto his feet, face twisted into a snarl even as he turns towards Shōto and surges forwards to retaliate with barely a pause.

Unphased, Shōto steps forwards and meets him halfway.

And this time, unlike at the Sports Festival, he does it with both his ice and his fire in hand.

There’s no hesitance this time, no confused and reeling emotions churning inside of him that make a fight the least of his concerns.

Instead there’s only a quiet sort of resolve and a fierce desire to protect.

This time Shōto will do what he should have done the first time he’d faced off against Bakugō, will do what he would have done if only he’d known then what he knows now.

The window behind Bakugō shatters but Shōto doesn’t let up.  Instead he doubles down, a swath of flame bubbling the paint on the wall as ice surges forwards again and sends Bakugō flying through the air.

Someone in the common room behind him screams.

Outside the dorm, standing panting on the grass and covered in frost and bits of glass, Bakugō roars.

Shōto just smiles, a barely there upturn of the lips, and goes after him.

~~~

“What in the hell were you two thinking?” Aizawa’s there moments later, hair raised, eyes burning, and so obviously seething.

Bakugō, nose bloody and clothes destroyed, screams obscenities and struggles against the full body wrap of Aizawa's capture scarf.

Shōto on the other hand is fully content to stand with a single loop wrapped around his waist as he stares back into the dorm at a Midoriya who looks more alive than he has in days.

He’s done what he intended to do for the moment.

When Aizawa finally decides to drag the both of them away, all Shōto can do is look back at Midoriya and smile.

~~~

The punishment he gets is well worth it in Shōto’s opinion.

And even Aizawa’s obvious frustration and curiosity isn’t enough to make him break his silence as to why he’d attacked Bakugō unprovoked.

Besides, it wasn’t unprovoked as far as Shōto’s concerned.  Bakugō’s been asking for a fight the entire year and Shōto had simply finally decided to give it to him. 

And he’s fully prepared to do it again.

~~~

Shōto has been one part punching bag and one part project his entire life.

He thinks he rather enjoys the idea of being a shield instead.

~~~

Sometimes when it’s quiet and dark outside Midoriya likes to wander the small courtyard behind the dorms.

Shōto likes to sit out on his balcony and watch him on those nights.  Likes to let Midoriya know that someone is there for him, watching over him silently.

Even when his house arrest goes into effect Shōto still sits out on the balcony on those nights.

And sometimes Midoriya will hop up to sit on the railing beside him, their shoulders pressed together and hands just brushing.

Shōto likes those nights best of all.

~~~

“If I didn’t go to UA anymore,” Midoriya asks one night when the stars and his eyes are both clear and bright and everyone but the two of them have all long since gone to sleep, “if I went to a different school, would you still be my friend?”

“I’d probably just transfer with you,” Shōto tells him easily enough, shoulders shifting with a small, unconcerned shrug.

Truth, pure and simple.

Beside him Midoriya goes still.

“What?” Midoriya whispers the question, tone tight and almost breathy.

“Shiketsu is a good school," Shōto offers easily enough.  "It's prestigious in its own right, and they’d take you in on scholarship after your showing in the Sports Festival if All Might doesn’t want to pay for your transfer."

Midoriya stares up at him, eyes wide and lips parted.

Shōto’s hand curls in on itself, the sense memory of Midoriya’s skins against his fingertips roaring back to life inside of him for a split second.

And in that moment he makes another decision.

“We’re going to be heroes no matter what, Izuku,” Shōto tells him because it’s obvious, it’s a universal law.  The rush of saying Midoriya’s first name tastes sweet on his tongue, tastes like free air and jade lightning.  “UA isn’t the only place to do that and if you change schools then I’d rather be there with you than here without you.  Besides, even if Endeavor won’t pay for tuition if I transfer then I’ll apply for their scholarship too.  They’d probably jump at the chance to steal the son of the Number Two Hero from UA.”

It’s nothing that hasn’t been floating around in the back of Shōto’s head for some time now but this is the first time he’s felt the need to say it aloud.  The first time he’s actually thought Izuku might be ready and willing to hear it.

There’s a moment of silence and then the sigh Izuku gives out is shaky at best

“Yeah,” Izuku murmurs, voice sounding just a bit dazed and familiar tears glinting in the corners of his eyes.  “I-I’d rather be with you too, S-Shōto.”

Izuku slides his hand across the railing, closing the distance between them one slow bit at a time.  The fingertips that he presses gently against the back of Shōto’s hand shake.

Heart pounding, lungs filled fit to burst, Shōto just shifts his hand until their fingers are tangled together.

It feels like dry land beneath his feet and like clear skies above his head.

Shōto turns his face up towards the moon.

Breathes.

Chapter Text

Shōto watches as Izuku surfaces bit by bit in the days that follow.

Watches as he swims higher through the miserable grey water that had pulled him so far down with each day that goes by.

It’s a relief for Shōto, seeing Izuku slowly begin to shine once more, seeing him carefully unfold back into vibrancy.

Shōto stays by his side the entire time, determined to help whenever and wherever he can.

Determined to make sure that nothing and no one can come along and destroy the progress that’s been painstakingly made.

So, determined to do all that he can, Shōto reaches out to Izuku in all the ways he knows how.  In all of the small ways Izuku himself had taught him back in the beginning and a million and one other ways Shōto had only really dreamed about.

When they sit together at lunch Shōto makes sure to press their knees together beneath the table, a silent sort of reassurance that he’s there.  When they’re assigned paired classwork or during assisted training blocks, Shōto makes sure to partner up with Izuku at every given opportunity.

He moves so fast to claim the spot beside Izuku that eventually, much to Shōto’s quiet sort of smug satisfaction, the others stop bothering to ask about pairing up with Izuku.  The deadeye stare he gives anyone who looks like they might even be thinking about protesting them teaming up yet again might also have something to do with it.

And maybe it’s selfish of him, the way he’s been hoarding Izuku to himself, the way he’s been cutting off the rest of their classmates whenever they get too close.  Maybe it’s the wrong thing to do, the wrong approach to take to this entire situation they’ve found themselves in.

But all Shōto can think about is the way Izuku still flinches just a bit whenever Bakugō pops off his quirk outside of training.  About the way the teachers seem determined to pair the two off whenever and wherever they can find the opportunity.

Shōto refuses to let that happen again, not now and not in the future if he can help it.

And the truly telling point is, in Shōto’s opinion, the fact that Izuku never protests.  He never complains or tries to pull away from Shōto’s hovering, never even hints at wanting space or a different partner or anything of that nature.

Instead Izuku goes willingly wherever Shōto pulls him, scarred fingers wrapped around Shōto’s trustingly and zero hesitation in his steps.

If anything it seems to be helping, seems to be just what Izuku needs if the slow return of bright awareness Shōto’s been seeing is anything to go by.

So Shōto stays firm as he presses the both of them into the corner of the classroom or whatever training yard or gym they’re currently using.  He keeps on doing his best to find ways to tuck the both of them as far from the others as possible.

If this is what Izuku needs to feel safe, to take those final clawing strokes to find himself breaking through to the surface once again, then Shōto will do everything in his power to make sure he gets it.

~~~

Sometimes in the quiet morning hours as he lays on his futon, Shōto will close his eyes and let that moment from the Sports Festival play out across his mind again.

“It’s your quirk, Todoroki,” Midoriya, all black bruises, green curls, and pale skin, practically howls at him, bones snapping like the echoing thunk of the shishi-odoshi in the garden, his power swelling around him like a rising electric tide. “It’s always been yours. It’s your power, not his.”

The memory never fails to take his breath away, never fails to make his heart clench and his quirk twist beneath his skin.

Because Izuku was the one who gave him that first taste of air, of freedom, in over a decade.  Who pulled his head up above the boiling sea that’s been drowning him for what feels like his entire life now.

Who’d made Shōto realize once and for all that he is, and always has been, more than his mother’s ice, more than Endeavor’s fire.

The first one who made him feel as if maybe, just maybe, just being Shōto could be enough.

Izuku, who is like no one Shōto has ever met before, had given him all of that and so much more.

~~~

It hits Shōto a day or so later during one of those quiet moments when it’s just him and Izuku working side by side, that he’s finally discovered exactly what kind of hero he wants to be.

And once again, as it far too often seems to be, it’s all thanks to Izuku.

Whether he knows it or not, Izuku’s helped Shōto find his heroic resolve, has helped him determine just who and what he wants to be as they move forward together.

Because, no matter what may come, it will be together if Shōto has anything to say about it.

Because there’s no other place he wants to be than right by Izuku’s side, watching his back and protecting his vulnerable spots as they grow and change.

Shielding that too big heart that had reached right out and saved Shōto without a second thought.

And that means that Shōto needs to cast off the last of his doubt, needs to finally erase any lingering hesitation he might be holding onto.

He needs to finally become what he was always meant to be instead of what others have tried to force him to become.

‘Yes,’ Shōto decides to himself as he turns the thought over in his mind, a mental image forming as he goes. ‘That’s what I’ll be.’

Unbreakable ice and unquenchable flame working hand in hand.

An impenetrable blizzard and an inextinguishable inferno.

The immovable object partnered to Izuku’s unstoppable force.

An unbreakable shield turning back all who dare to cause harm.

‘Yes,’ Shōto thinks to himself again as he looks down at the small, barely there whisper of a smile that has finally started to blossom back into existence at the corners of Izuku’s mouth. ‘That’s exactly what I’ll be.’

~~~

Which, of course, means that it’s the perfect time for things to once again align against Shōto and Izuku both.

Shōto sees it coming before it happens, sees it coming when the pairs start being assigned, sees it coming the moment he is paired up against Kirishima for this exercise.

He sees it coming well ahead of time but he still probably doesn’t see it as fast as Izuku inevitably did.

“Final match up for the day will be young Midoriya and young Bakugō,” All Might announces cheerfully, smile bright and hands resting on his hips.

Ignoring everyone else around them, Shōto just stares down at Izuku, stares down into wide green eyes as something sharp and vicious once more yawns to life inside of him.

Izuku’s been doing so much better, has been coming back to himself in bits and pieces, and now they’re right back where they started.

Right back where it feels as if everything and everyone in this place except for Izuku and Shōto himself wants Izuku to be.

Facing off against Bakugō.

And they both already know that there’s nothing either of them will be able to say that will get Izuku out of this.

Nothing except, perhaps, something Shōto is more than willing to do.

“I can stop it,” Shōto offers quietly, his hand wrapping around Izuku’s, uncaring of who might see them.  By this point he might actually be more surprised if anyone bothered to look at all.  “Say the word and I’ll break him.”

Shōto means it too.

Means it just as much if not more than he’d meant it that day in the common room when he’d sent Bakugō through the window.

He’ll make sure this fight, teacher sanctioned or not, never happens if that’s what Izuku wants him to do.

Shōto is willing to do everything in his power to make sure that Bakugō never gets the chance to lay hands on Izuku again as he’s so obviously been itching to do since that disastrous final.

All Izuku has to do is agree and Shōto will take care of the issue, no matter the consequences.

All Izuku has to do is agree and Shōto will draw a line in the sand right here and right now and dare anyone around them to cross it.

A wall, a shield, to all that has become precious to him.

Because he wants to.

Because Izuku shouldn’t have to keep doing this, shouldn’t have to keep bleeding and hurting all for the sake of lessons that Bakugō so obviously doesn’t want to learn.

Because there’s no situation that Shōto can imagine where Izuku’s pain is an acceptable sacrifice on the altar that this place seems to have erected for the sake of Bakugō’s growth.

“No,” Izuku answers him softly, scared fingers squeezing around Shouto’s for just a moment.  The smile he tries to give him is a brittle edged and jagged thing that makes Shōto want to lash out all the more. “It’s okay.”

Except it’s not okay, they both know it’s not.

It never has been.

But, ice sharp on his tongue and fire writhing in his lungs, all Shōto can do is let Izuku go.

All he can do is watch.

And seethe.

~~~

Later, once it’s done and training is over, Shōto watches as everyone else walks off laughing and groaning and so obviously happy.

Shōto watches and he does his best to reign in his temper and his quirk.

To keep the temperature from dropping any further than it had the moment Izuku had peeled off his jumpsuit top in their little corner.

To keep from stepping away from Izuku and their bench so he can go and hunt Bakugō down again.

He stands there just in front of Izuku and watches their classmates trickle out of the locker room with only a few scrapes and light bruises to show for the day with a strange sort of resentment bubbling up in his chest.

Because behind him on the bench, eyes clear and actually aware, is an Izuku who is once again covered in bruises.

“You should see Recovery Girl,” Shōto finally murmurs as the last of the class trickles out and he’s clear to turn towards Izuku instead of watching both of their backs.

The already precarious hold he has on his temper goes gossamer thin as he once again stares at the quickly darkening blacks and purples that are spreading out across Izuku’s ribs like a hateful sort of twilight.  As he takes in the scars that have quickly become as familiar to him as his own and the new addition of a small burn that brushes over the arc of Izuku’s left cheek.

Tributes to the restraint that Bakugō has never been pressed to learn.

Not really.  Not in the ways that matter.

“I can’t,” Izuku tells him quietly.

“Okay.” Shōto agrees easily enough as he settles down on the bench beside Izuku, body tilted in his direction.

If Izuku doesn’t want to go to Recovery Girl for whatever reason then Shōto’s not going to press him about it.  Not when he knows all too well that nurses and doctors aren’t any more trustworthy than teachers are, than heroes are.

So Shōto does what he’d always done when the bruises he’d earned under Endeavor’s fists and feet ached so bad he wanted nothing more than to crawl out of his skin, to sink beneath the waves and never resurface.

He reaches out and lays a careful hand against Izuku’s bruised ribs, delicate frost spiraling out across fever hot skin.

It’s not a fix, he knows that, but it’ll almost certainly be some sort of relief.

Even if only for a few moments.

Izuku lets out a hitching sigh and sways just a bit further into Shōto’s space, his temple coming to rest against the line of his shoulder.

Shōto doesn’t say anything.

Instead he just shifts a bit closer until Izuku’s settled that much more firmly against him and splays his hand just a bit wider on Izuku’s side.

It’s all he knows how to give in this moment.

He hopes it’s enough.

He knows it’s not.

In the end they sit there together in silence for the longest time.

~~~

The walk back to the dorms is quiet.

A lot of their time together is these days, the mumbling Izuku has long been known for only coming rarely now.

Shōto finds that he misses it, the soothing flow of information and speculation that is so much a part of who Izuku is, but there’s also a certain sort of comfort in this balance of sorts that they’ve found together.

In this ability to just be that Shōto has never experienced with or around anyone but Izuku.

But even this quiet, even the feel of Izuku’s hand clasped firmly in his own, isn’t enough to erase the words that have been sitting honey thick and sea-salt heavy to the flat of his tongue.

“You always get hurt,” Shōto finds himself saying once they’ve reached Izuku’s dorm room.  The words come tumbling out even as he steps further into Izuku’s space, pressing him back just a bit against the door itself.  “Worse than any of us.”

“It’s not so bad,” Izuku tells him, that sad sort of acceptance in his eyes that Shōto’s not even sure he knows is there, peaking out for all the world to see if they just bothered to look.

It’s an old sort of resignation that Shōto knows and hates first hand.

He hates seeing it exist there where Izuku’s smile should be instead.  Hates seeing it on Izuku’s face even more than he’s always hated feeling it living inside of himself.

“It is,” Shōto presses, unwilling to let that statement stand.  “You just can’t see it like you should.”

There’s a moment of silence as they stand there together.

“I was serious,” Shōto finally says.  “About leaving, about Shiketsu.  About all of it.  I’ll go with you.  We can do this Izuku.  We can be heroes, together, somewhere else.  Somewhere safer for you.”

Because he was serious, and he very much still is.  Shōto is willing to follow Izuku right out of this place with zero hesitation.

Shōto has found his resolve, has picked his path, and he has no intention of faltering.

Just like he’d told Izuku before, they’re going to be heroes.  Together.  And nothing is going to change that fact.

UA doesn’t have to be a part of that journey, not if it doesn’t deserve to be, not if they don’t want it to be.

“S-Shōto,” Izuku whispers, voice small and just a bit shaken.

Shōto bites down a small twist of frustration because it’s not Izuku’s fault and he knows that.  He’s more frustrated by the situation than at Izuku’s reluctance to consider this option they have before them on a deeper level.

He just wishes he had some way to make Izuku understand, to truly see things as Shōto is and has been seeing them.  Wishes he had some way to make Izuku take a step back and analy-.

Wait.

Shōto’s mind abruptly locks onto that thought.

Because if there’s one thing Shōto thinks he’s learned about Izuku by now it’s that he’ll protect the entire world before he’ll think to protect himself.

So if he can’t see what Shōto’s been trying to tell him clearly, if he can’t let that last bit of hesitation go, then maybe all Shōto really needs to do is reframe the scenario.

Turn it into something he knows Izuku will never be able to ignore.

“How would you feel if it was Iida or Uraraka getting hurt all of the time?” Shōto finally asks him, pieces slotting into place.  “If it was me ?”

Izuku’s entire body goes stiff against him.

“How did you feel when you found out about Endeavour and everything else?” Shōto presses, voice dropping to just above a whisper.  “How do you think it feels for me to see you like this, over and over again because no one else seems to see the problem?”

He can’t stop himself from leaning down a bit further, close enough to press their foreheads together, close enough that they’re breathing each other’s air.

It still doesn’t feel close enough somehow.

“We’re not heroes yet Izuku,” Shōto tells him, chest gone tight and hands flexing as he shuffles just a bit closer.  Always just a bit closer.  “And even with the villain attacks it’s not … it’s not supposed to be like this.  UA was supposed to be different.”

There’s a wealth of unspoken information in that statement, nuance and layers that they’re both aware of but don’t have to actually speak about at the moment.

A hundred and one tear filled and bruise streaked secrets they don’t have to air out yet again.

UA was supposed to be different for both of them in a lot of ways.

And it has been, Shōto knows it has, and yet …

Izuku sighs and tilts forward even further into Shōto’s space then, shoulders slumping just a bit and free hand sliding up to tangle in the fabric of Shōto’s shirt.

Shōto doesn’t say anything else, doesn’t keep pressing on the topic.

Instead he wraps his free arm around Izuku’s waist, turns his face into soft green curls, and takes a moment to just …

Breathe.

~~~

They break apart again eventually, reluctantly.

Izuku slips into his room with a soft ‘goodnight’ and Shōto finds himself standing there in the hall, hands flexing at his sides, as he stares at the now closed door.

For a moment Shōto debates on reaching out and knocking on that door, on calling Izuku back out just so he can pull him right back into his space.

But he doesn’t.

Instead Shōto forces himself to take another deep breath, turn on his heel, and walk away.

Somehow it never feels any easier, walking away from Izuku.

Maybe, hopefully, it’ll stop being necessary some day.

~~~

Shōto drifts his way downstairs and into the common room early the next morning.

He spends half an hour lingering by one of the windows and ignoring the slowly growing noise levels that signal the rest of the dorm is waking up and getting ready for the day.  At around the forty-five minute mark he ghosts his way back upstairs and towards Izuku’s dorm as has become their routine these past few weeks.

He only has to wait for a handful of minutes before Izuku’s pulling the door open and stepping out to meet him. 

“Hey,” Izuku says softly as he steps up to Shōto’s side.  There’s a thick folder tucked neatly beneath his arm and another being held out in Shōto’s direction.  “Did some research last night, i-if you’re still serious?”

Intrigued, Shōto just reaches out and takes the folder from him, flipping it open to see what’s inside.

Shōto feels himself go absolutely still as soon as he realizes what’s inside.

Transfer papers, scholarship applications, permission slips.  All of that and a host of other forms that Shōto knows they’ll need to fill out and turn in if they’re really going to be doing what this implies they’re going to be doing.

“Absolutely,” Shōto agrees immediately, no hesitation in any part of him.

Instead he can’t help but smile just a bit as he closes the folder and reaches out to grab Izuku’s free hand in his own.  There’s something a lot like glee, a lot like relief and joy, bubbling to life inside of him.

“Okay,” Izuku nods up at him, eyes bright and shining with that familiar resolve Shōto knows will one day change the world, as he twines his battered fingers with Shōto’s own.  “Let’s get started.”

“Heroes,” Shōto says as he steps just a bit closer to Izuku, the smile he can’t seem to fight down growing just a bit more.  “You and me, no matter what.”

“Heroes,” Izuku agrees firmly. “Together.”