Chapter Text
“WELL DONE YOUNG TODOROKI!” All Might practically bellows directly into Touya’s ears. He flinches (having heard this line often enough to know what happens next), and throws himself forward into a roll, avoiding the almighty smack that usually lands right between his shoulder blades.
The old man calls it a congratulations. Touya calls it a snapped spine waiting to happen.
All Might grins down at him in his crouched position, blue eyes twinkling in a way that lets Touya know that All Might knows exactly why Touya is pulling tumbling moves in the middle of the street. As teenagers are wont to do, Touya glares at him.
“I like my vertebrae where they are,” he deadpans, standing from the dust-covered ground and patting at his black knee pads. All Might barks a laugh.
“You’ll get used to them getting rearranged eventually!” he says in that breezily terrifying way he has. Touya stares after him, agog, as the number one hero proceeds onward to the police line, where the civilians were being held back from the fight.
Any other hero saying that, I’d think they were just teasing me, he thinks, squinting as All Might throws out a blinding smile and a peace sign to the rattled civilians, booming his affirmations that the villains have been caught. The cheers and sighs of relief that follow showcase just how trusted the hero’s word is. As if he could never tell even an unintentional lie.
Touya’s eyes narrow further. Has he had his spine rearranged? Is that even possible?
Shaking his head to dismiss the disturbing imagery, Touya takes the moment away from his mentor to look around at the destruction. Or the lack thereof.
It’s surprising, given All Might’s quirk - and his own - that there isn’t more wreckage. But aside from a couple shattered windows in the jewelry store that was being robbed, along with a couple minor craters in the street where All Might had kicked off, there’s not much damage.
Not even burn marks.
Amazing what the difference between the number one and number two is, he thinks to himself, glancing down at the bracers that wrap around his wrists and forearms. With the help of David Shield-patented support equipment, Touya has never found it easier to use - and control - his quirk.
There’s still a voice in the back of his head that calls him weak, but he’s getting better at ignoring it. Years of conditioning against support equipment and the negative language associated with those who needed support equipment wasn’t easy to get over, but with All Might - and his teachers at UA - helping him, he’s heading in the right direction. Toward the very top, in fact.
(He’s gonna become the number one hero no matter what it takes. It’s the only way that he’ll ever get him to notice -)
“Ahh, Endeavor-san! I didn’t know you were in the area!”
Touya jolts at All Might’s booming voice, his heart leaping inside his chest. Whipping around, Touya sees his father glaring at All Might.
Did he see? Did he see me capture those villains -?
“American,” Endeavor greets coolly, flames thrashing around his face as he enters the cordoned-off scene. All Might trails alongside him, grinning his deceptively goofy grin. Only Touya notices him flicking his finger at the flames left behind in Endeavor’s tread, snuffing them out almost subconsciously.
Further behind the two, Touya catches a glimpse of a small shadow that’s ninety percent red feather. He almost smiles, but his father catches his attention, and Touya forces himself to adopt a cool posture, crossing his arms and lifting a pierced eyebrow.
“You’re a little late if you were hoping to catch the bad guys,” he points out, jerking his chin to where the police are escorting a handful of hog-tied ne’er-do-wells into the back of a police van. “But I’ll give you an A for effort.”
Endeavor grimaces down at him, but seems unwilling to cause a scene. Not that he hadn’t already done so multiple times at home, ever since Touya had announced he’d be interning with All Might.
“Touya,” Endeavor grumbles, nodding at his eldest. “We were in the area when we received the message that you had engaged in a fight.”
“So you thought you’d come check up on me?” Touya muses. “I’m a third-year now, you know. With a full provisional license. Don’t exactly need babysitting.”
“Give your old man a break, young Todoroki,” All Might laughs. “It’s instinct to want to check in on your loved ones, you know.”
“Mmmhmm,” Touya hums doubtfully, crossed arms tightening over his chest. His braces clink against each other, the soft silver metal shining in the sunlight. Endeavor’s eyes narrow when he sees them, and Touya’s stomach tightens once more.
“Those braces are -”
“Is this your intern, Endeavor-san?” All Might interrupts before father and son can get into it. Having bought the support equipment that allowed Touya to use his quirk without harming himself, All Might was uncomfortably aware of how much Endeavor hadn’t liked the idea of relying on technology to become a hero.
“Ah, yes.” Endeavor gestures at the boy trailing behind him. “This is Hawks.”
Takami Keigo steps forward, nodding at All Might briefly before his gold eyes fall on Touya.
It’s like a ten-pound dumbbell dropping into Touya’s stomach, having the full weight of those sharp eyes focused on him. Or like being pinned to a wall. Absolutely thrilling, and equally terrifying.
“We’re acquainted,” Takami says softly, eyes flicking up to Endeavor before resettling on Touya. Another dumbbell joins the first and someone turns off the spit faucet in Touya’s mouth. He swallows, and it feels like he’s eating sawdust.
“Are you? Same class at UA?” All Might asks lightly, apparently sensing the odd tension. Touya nods dumbly and Endeavor wrinkles his nose.
“Hawks is the top of their class,” he grumbles, clearly torn between being proud that his intern is better than All Might’s and disappointed that Hawks is better than his son. How it must irritate him.
Wrenching his eyes away from Takami’s, Touya smirks up at his father. “For now,” he goads. “We’ll see how the summer goes, won’t we?”
Again, that wrinkled nose. Privately, Touya gives himself two points toward making his dad age faster. Maybe then the girls in his class will stop thirsting over him.
“That we will,” Endeavor says stiffly. “I’ll see you at home.”
“Don’t make it sound like a threat, dad.”
Flames leap across Endeavor’s shoulders, but Touya is already turning to All Might. “Time for reports?”
All Might coughs into his hand, which Touya has learned is his way of hiding his expression when he’s trying not to laugh. He lifts an expectant eyebrow and the number one hero caves.
“Yes, yes, it’s time for reports - geez, I’ve never had an intern excited for paperwork.”
He waves a massive hand toward Endeavor while dropping the other onto Touya’s shoulder, almost buckling his knees. “See you later, Endeavor! Nice to meet you young Hawks!”
Touya smiles at his dad, giving All Might a point for the deep frown he sees carved into his old man’s face. Then his eyes flick to Takami, and away again just as quickly.
His classmate hadn’t stopped staring at him through the whole interaction.
----
Takami Keigo watches All Might steering his intern away, laughing and patting him on the back as he congratulates him on a job well done. Even at a distance, he can hear the number one hero loudly proclaiming that Todoroki has earned himself ‘those dumplings you’re always raving about!’ while Todoroki complains just as loudly that if All Might keeps ‘congratulating’ him, he’s gonna need a chiropractor before he’s twenty.
It’s a very different picture from the stoic silence between Endeavor and himself. Almost painfully so.
“Are we still going to finish our patrol, Endeavor-san?” he asks quietly, glancing up at his mentor. Endeavor doesn’t answer immediately, his eyes trained on the backs of his son and All Might even as they disappear into the crowd.
“... Let’s go,” Endeavor grunts, nodding his head toward the direction they’d rushed from earlier.
Privately, Keigo wonders why they’d come at all. It was All Might and - loathe as he is to admit it - Todoroki. They could more than handle themselves in just about any fight.
The walk back to the blocks they’d been patrolling is quiet, with relatively little in the way of action. Keigo helps a little old lady with her groceries and directs a foreigner toward which train they’re supposed to be boarding to get to Asakusa. Endeavor watches these exchanges with a stony face, and Keigo can’t tell if the pro hero is mad at him or proud of his initiative.
I’ll give All Might credit - at least you never have to wonder how he feels about you, Keigo thinks wryly, waving at the foreigner who keeps bowing to him in an extremely exaggerated fashion. Embarrassing. Also… kind of rewarding, though.
Keigo’s never had much in the way of praise. From his extremely rough childhood, onto the foster system, and then through the hyper-competitive scholarship program that finally landed him at UA, Keigo has never actually associated his goal of ‘becoming a hero’ with ‘appreciation’.
Which is at least half the reason he doesn’t understand his classmates, who only want to get into the hero business for the fame and glory, as if that’s some kind of given. As if that’s even the point of being a hero. Even Todoroki, for all that he seems self-sacrificial with how hard he pushes himself, has made it clear that his only goal is to become the number one hero.
It’s a shame he’s so shallow, Keigo thinks absently while fetching a cat from a tree. He’d be a good hero if he weren’t so vain. And annoying.
Always studying so hard and practicing until his arms were smoking and burnt, but never seeming to give a damn. Always criticizing hero society in class, saying that so many heroes were fake, while hypocritically declaring that he was going to become the best of them. Like a man saying ‘eat the rich’ from the comfort of his mansion.
Keigo knows the hero system isn’t perfect, but he’d worked his ass off to even get to the starting line - training on his own with his quirk, studying until the early hours of the morning after helping out with the younger children in the home. He’d broken his back to get where he was, while Todoroki had grown up with the number two hero, and all the training, equipment, and resources he could ever want.
He’d even turned down an invitation to intern with his father, which was the only reason Keigo had been accepted. And hadn’t that stung - to have higher qualifications in every field, but be the second choice because someone else was born into the right family.
Todoroki had tried to explain that his father had been trying to keep him on a leash with the offer. Had tried to explain that even if he hadn’t, Endeavor was notorious for seeking out fire quirks first, even over more qualified hero-hopefuls. It hadn’t made Keigo feel any better.
It had made him feel better to completely destroy Todoroki in training the next day. When he’d finally gotten the idiot pinned to the floor beneath him, all of his limbs bound up in capture tape, with a feather stuffed into his mouth, Keigo had felt an entirely unheroic surge of triumph. Especially when Todoroki stared up at him with eyes wide and his face flushed from their workout.
His rival hadn’t spoken to him for almost a week afterward, apparently too embarrassed at being thrashed to come near him without looking flustered and irritated. It’d sated an innate need for dominance that Keigo hadn’t even known he possessed.
Only now that school is out for the summer and they’re both working hard at their internships, Keigo can’t help but wonder if maybe Todoroki is winning in their unspoken competition. After all, he’d never seen the flame user come out of a fight without burns before, but Todoroki had seemed completely fine after the earlier fight.
Not that Keigo hopes for anyone to be injured using their quirk, even someone as obnoxious as Todoroki, but still. It means that his rival is improving while Keigo is…
… rescuing cats.
“Will we be able to train together sometime this week?” he finally asks Endeavor while they walk back to the agency. Flames roil along the pro’s shoulders as he turns his head to look down at Keigo.
“Maybe on Wednesday,” Endeavor rumbles. “You’ll have to check with my secretary to see what time slots are available. But it will be hand-to-hand only.”
Keigo hides his grimace with ease. Of course it would be hand-to-hand. Endeavor refused to use his flames around Keigo, despite the fact that learning to outsmart and outmaneuver his one big weakness was more than half the reason Keigo had applied to the Endeavor agency.
“Could we try long-range fighting, too?” he ventures. “You know I’m pretty fast - you read my reports. We could try -”
“No,” Endeavor says firmly. “Your quirk is a bad matchup against mine. If you want quirk training, work out a schedule with one of my sidekicks. Maybe Aguya or Matrix.”
The only two sidekicks you have that don’t have fire quirks, Keigo notes grimly.
He doesn’t pursue the matter further as they enter the agency. What’s the point in trying to change the number two hero’s mind? It’s not like Keigo hasn’t asked half a dozen times in half a dozen ways already.
Sighing, Keigo heads over to the secretary’s desk to ask about sidekick schedules. Maybe he could get the newest one, Burnin’, to work with him. She had a flame quirk, but she also had incredible control.
The secretary looks up at his approach, smiling with his razor teeth.
“Heya Hawks! How did the patrol go? Is Endeavor with you?”
Keigo plasters on a practiced smile. “Not bad, Kato. And no, I think he headed on up to his office. He sent me over to get the sidekick schedules.”
“Alright, I can grab those for you!” Kato says easily, before turning to pull out a green folder from his desk drawer, which he holds out to Keigo. “While you’re here, I’ve got something for you and the boss man, actually. Take a look while I get those schedules for ya!”
Keigo accepts the folder curiously, flipping it open to see what looks like a mission directive. It has the HPSC seal at the top and everything, along with a mission title and a summary of the case.
From: The Hero Public Safety Commission
ATTN: Endeavor, of the Endeavor Agency, Hawks, of the Endeavor Agency (intern)
RE: Investigation into the “Second Pompeii” Plot (see full dossier enclosed)
The Hero Public Safety Commission requests both Endeavor and Hawks of the Endeavor Agency to be present at the HPSC Tokyo branch office for a mission briefing this Thursday, June 5th, at 0800. No further details will be given at this time, as the information to be discussed will be highly sensitive. Please direct intern Hawks to acquire fireproof and/or fire-resistant hero gear, according to whichever will allow him to retain the most maneuverability.
Other teams assigned to this mission, who will be working in coordination with Endeavor and Hawks, include: All Might, of the All Might Agency, and Todoroki Touya, of the All Might Agency (intern).
All four are requested to be in attendance at the meeting on June 5th.
Thank you,
President of the HPSC
Keigo stares at the cover letter, mind whirling at the sudden shift in plans and heart racing at the prospect of an actual mission. A real one, with a real team, against real danger! Where he’s apparently going to get his wish of training against fire like he’d wanted!
He eyes the ‘Second Pompeii’ and feels his eyebrows rising against his will. Maybe this will involve more fire than he wants.
Not the only thing involved I’m iffy about, he thinks, letting his eyes trail down to the final note. A team-up with All Might and Todoroki. Of all the people - of all the heroes. Why did it have to be Todoroki? He’d just end up distracting Endeavor.
Biting the inside of his cheek, Keigo distractedly accepts the printouts of sidekick schedules he no longer needs, and heads to the elevator, wondering just what sort of mission could require the two highest-ranked heroes and their two most junior subordinates.
One thing I know for sure, he thinks, jabbing the button for the top floor, wings flexing at his back. I’m not going to be the reason this mission fails.
The elevator dings, and Keigo smiles grimly to himself.
And I’m not going to lose to Todoroki Touya.
-----
Touya looks at his copy of the assignment, butterflies practically battering his stomach. All Might looks at him from across the dumpling-covered table, grinning wide.
“Finally a chance to show your old man what you can do, huh?”
Touya blinks, staring down at the two names at the bottom of the page. Catching on one.
“Yeah…” he says shakily, thinking about gold eyes and red feathers, both sharp enough to kill. “Right, my old man. Of course.”
A mission with my mentor, my dad, and my big fat crush who hates my guts, Touya thinks faintly. Yeah, this can only end in tears.