Archive of Our Own ^beta

“Oi, Half ‘n’ Half, open up!”

The day his world changes for the nth time, Shouto wakes up to banging on his door, Bakugou Katsuki’s voice, and a yet-unnoticed letter slipped onto tatami floor.

“Bakugou?” Shouto manages, padding his way to the door. He opens it. “What—”

Bakugou barges in.

Which isn’t surprising, considering his personality, but is surprising, considering that this isn’t a public display of menacery. This is Shouto’s room, a space which Bakugou has often come to the edge of, but never tried to enter.

Never tried to breach.

But here he is.

Here they are.

“Did you get one?” Bakugou demands. His eyes flick to Shouto’s messy futon. Miraculously, they return to Shouto with barely a grimace, as if whatever has him bearing down on Shouto’s door at—Shouto squints at his clock, then blanches, appalled he’s been awoken before seven am on a day they don’t even have class—is more important than scorning Shouto for his lack of appropriate life skills, as deemed necessary by Bakugou Katsuki.

Actually, that makes sense. For all that they’ve been through—including Bakugou waking up in the hospital the second time to a bandaged Shouto at his bedside, one he didn’t even tell to fuck off, just stared at right back—he can’t imagine Bakugou acting like this if it wasn’t important. So.

Bakugou’s eye twitches. “God, you’re useless in the morning,” he mutters. Shouto frowns, but Bakugou ignores this, scanning the floor.

Shouto desperately hopes he put away his ointments. He’s not embarrassed, exactly, that he’s less strict on himself than Bakugou—who isn’t, after all, save maybe Iida?—and he doubts that even Bakugou at the height of his annoyance would tell him off for leaving the creams out, considering how angry he got at the hospital when he noticed the full extent of Shouto’s burns, but. Still.

Part of him doesn’t want Bakugou’s first entry into his room to be a source of disappointment.

It’s only a small part, though. The rest of him is still waking up, torn somewhere between exasperated and worried.

Exasperated, because Bakugou Katsuki is an exasperating creature, even though he is also loyal and ferocious and wonderful, in that way Shouto finds impossible to articulate but holds as an irrefutable truth within his chest. Worried, because they lost the battle, and they still don’t know how to make sure they don’t lose the war, and every day there is something new to chip away at them.

Bakugou does not tell him off for his ointments, which turn out to be tucked under his desk—out of immediate vicinity of feet, but definitely not up to Bakugou’s usual standards of cleanliness.

“There,” Bakugou says instead, and he strides across the room, snatching something up from the floor. He thrusts it at Shouto.

A letter.

“I knew you’d get one,” Bakugou says, but he doesn’t sound as triumphant as he normally would when saying something like that. Knowledge is an area of self-assured victory for Bakugou, a self-fulfilling prophecy, but he’s not rubbing whatever this is in Shouto’s face. Not really. Not how he should be.

“What is it?” Shouto asks. He takes it.

“You tell me,” Bakugou says grimly. He looks… on edge. Shouto wouldn’t call himself fluent in Bakugou Katsuki—he’s not even sure you can learn someone in their entirety, although judging from Midoriya’s endless supply of notebooks about everyone he’s ever admired, he’s giving it a pretty good shot—but he knows him well enough to frown slightly at the words. Normally, Bakugou would throw him a withering look, maybe even a tch. Casually explosive, easy as breathing, reactive without once missing a beat.

Shouto does not know what to do with this Bakugou, who seems taut like a wire. Ready to snap.

The letter in his hands suddenly feels very heavy.

But Bakugou told him to tell him, so Shouto slides his finger beneath the crease in the page, and unfolds it.

Todoroki-kun, it begins, in a handwriting that Shouto would recognise anywhere.

He feels dizzy.

Shouto takes a breath, and continues reading, his gaze flicking from word to word, faster and faster. Thank you – reveal my secret – unique power – Shigaraki and All For One are now coming after me –

The weight of Bakugou’s gaze on him is heavy, but not unwelcome. It grounds Shouto, anchoring him as he tries to parse the words he’s read.

“Half ‘n’ Half?” Bakugou says. Shouto remembers to breathe.

“Is that it?” Shouto asks. His voice sounds odd to his own ears. It does not match the ice creeping through his veins, the turmoil burning under his skin. Not for the first time, he wishes he knew how to let loose with any emotion other than rage.

“Is that—” Bakugou begins, hotly, before he cocks his head. He’s searching Shouto’s face for something. Shouto cannot imagine what he’ll find. The bandages are gone, at least, but he’s not sure that’ll make much difference. For all the confusion he feels—the creeping sense of hurt, snaking its way into the divots of his rib cage—his face feels blank, a slight furrow to his brow being the only mark of consternation. As if Midoriya has just mildly inconvenienced Shouto, not left him.

Not lied to him.

Bakugou’s face clears. “You need to learn fucking inflection,” he mutters. “‘Is that it?’ Fuck, I thought you didn’t care for a second.”

Shouto frowns. No, that’s not right. He had meant… he had meant is that it, as in is that all, as in did Midoriya think this was enough to – to –

Shouto doesn’t know.

“No,” he says. “I just…” He pauses, unsure how to explain.

Bakugou waves him off. “No, I know, I got what you meant,” he says. “Dunno when the fuck I became a goddamn Icyhot whisperer,” he grumbles, “but apparently I fucking am.”

Something expands in Shouto’s chest, just a little, at that.

Bakugou is still looking at him. There’s something a little strange about his gaze. It’s searching—demanding—but that’s not new; Bakugou Katsuki has always looked at him like Shouto still has more to give.

No, there’s a touch of something else there. Hesitation, maybe. It’s hard to tell. Shouto has never really seen it on Bakugou’s face before. He saw something like it, once, at their remedial classes. Bakugou had been pitching suggestions for how to handle that young class they’d had to deal with—something about identifying the leader and then putting him in his place—but Shouto had objected. I think there’s a better way.

And Bakugou—loud, intensely volatile Bakugou, who believes he’s the best at everything and has never once taken anything back, not in all the time Shouto has known him—had paused halfway to biting back, and looked at him. Considered Shouto, with the kind of complicated look in his eyes that Shouto hadn’t known how to decipher, and still doesn’t. And then he’d said then let’s see this better way.

He’d ground it out, like it annoyed him to even say, and he’d grimaced the whole time he did it.

But he still said it.

Shouto has never forgotten.

There’s something about the way Bakugou is looking at him now that reminds him of that moment.

“Icyhot,” Bakugou says, his voice so quiet that for a moment Shouto doesn’t recognise it, “what did—”

A sharp rap on the door interrupts him. He tenses, on high alert. Shouto just glances over to his door. He recognises that sound.

“Iida?” he calls out.

“Todoroki-kun!” his friend says, sounding a little startled. Shouto frowns. Who else did he expect to find when knocking on Shouto’s door? “You’re awake!”

Bakugou snorts. Shouto’s frown relaxes. That’s fair.

Then Iida is speaking again, urgent and concerned. “Todoroki-kun, do you have—” He pauses, then regroups. “Have you heard from Midoriya-kun?”

His voice is as strong as ever, but there’s a note to it that makes Shouto’s fingers clench, the letter creasing in his grip. He sounds worried, like he did when Midoriya was hiding things from them, when he was telling Midoriya that if he needed, he could talk to them.

Before Shouto can think of what to say, Bakugou strides to the door and yanks it open. Iida stumbles a little, but catches himself. His eyes widen at the sight of Bakugou.

“Bakugou-kun, I didn’t realise—” he begins, before Bakugou cuts him off.

“You got a letter too?” he demands.

Iida shuts his mouth. Then he nods.

“Uraraka?” Shouto asks.

“I’m not sure,” Iida answers. He glances over at Shouto, eyes running over him and stopping to rest on the crumpled letter in his hands. Iida’s face twists. “I came here first.”

Shouto gives Bakugou a look.

“I don’t fucking know,” he answers, exasperated. “I came straight here too, didn’t I? Not like I stopped to check in with every extra on my way.”

Oh. Shouto blinks. So Bakugou woke up, and his first instinct was… that Shouto had a letter? Not Iida, not Uraraka—who lives on the same floor as Bakugou, now that Shouto thinks about it, whereas Shouto’s bedroom is directly above Bakugou’s—but Shouto.

“Don’t make that face,” Bakugou says immediately. Shouto’s brow furrows.

“What face am I making?” he wants to know.

“A dumb one,” Bakugou says shortly, scowling. He mutters something under his breath, looking crossly at Shouto—who tries to fix his face, though it’s difficult when he doesn’t know what it’s doing that could be so offensive—before turning to Iida. “D’you know if anyone else got one? Like, when you were rushing over, didja see—”

“Oh,” Shouto interrupts, ignoring the way Bakugou whips his head over to glare daggers at him. “My letter said that Midoriya is revealing his secret to everyone in class A. So.” He frowns down at the paper in his hand.

When he looks back up, Bakugou is studying him carefully. Upon meeting his gaze, he bristles a little, but holds it.

From the corridor, Shouto can hear commotion. A crash, and then some swearing that sounds like Sero. Asui’s kero is next, coming closer, like she’s going to check on Sero.

“Sounds like people are waking up,” Bakugou remarks.

Iida sighs heavily. “We should go to the common room,” he says. “Everyone will make their way there eventually.”

There is an unspoken promise in his words: that they’ll talk about it, that there will be questions asked, that there may not be any answers to be had.

Shouto’s gaze flicks back to Bakugou. After a long moment, Bakugou nods.

“Let’s go,” he says, gruff as anything, and Shouto follows them both.

Thinks he’d follow them anywhere.

Thinks the same is true of Midoriya, if he’d have let him.

•

“I can’t believe he left,” Ashido says. Her hands are wrapped around a cup of tea, courtesy of Yaoyorozu, and she’s sitting sideways on the couch, leaning with her back against Shouji’s side. Her legs are propped up on Hagakure’s lap, with Hagakure’s hoodie sleeves resting on them.

Shouto is sitting cross-legged on the floor next to Jirou, both their backs against the low table opposite the couch. Sero has pulled over a chair and is sitting on it backwards, his arms tucked over its back.

“I can,” Shouji says.

Sero twists to look at him. “Really?”

Shouji nods. “I didn’t expect it, but I’m not surprised,” he says. “In the forest, back at training camp, he was so determined to help Tokoyami and save Bakugou. He couldn’t even walk properly—I was carrying him, and still, he was refusing to go to safety or focus on just one thing. Being willing to go alone to protect people seems… characteristic.”

Shouto absorbs this. Shouji isn’t wrong, he thinks, and that’s maybe the worst part. There is a difference between being willing to go alone, and having to do so.

One of them—Shouto or Midoriya—is blinded by sentiment, unwilling to consider the other option because of an emotional response. He just can’t tell who.

“That’s still…” Jirou says, trailing off. She swallows. “He shouldn’t be alone,” she says, looking down at her hands. Shouto watches as her earjacks move in small, aborted movements, like they can’t decide what to do. Uncertainty in motion.

“I don’t even know what to think,” Hagakure confesses, and Sero nods.

“Me either,” he says. “Like, I can’t even begin to react. I know those letters were short, but he really managed to give us a lot to process, huh?”

His tone is light-hearted, but it’s not really a joke.

“Yeah,” Shouto says quietly, and everyone snaps their heads to look at him.

“Todoroki…” Hagakure starts, sounding concerned.

“You really didn’t know?” Ashido asks. She doesn’t sound disbelieving, which is the only reason Shouto doesn’t bolt right then. Just a little like she’s still trying to wrap her head around it.

Still, even that stings a little. “No,” he says, shaking his head, voice even. “I didn’t.”

Did he feel he couldn’t tell me? Shouto wonders. Or Iida? Or Uraraka?

It’s not that Shouto feels offended, exactly, that Midoriya did not tell him. He understands secrets, and he understands that not everyone is as forthcoming as Shouto has been with some of the tragedies and cruelties that have made him into who he is today.

It’s that Shouto was so close sometimes, he thinks. Just to the left of the truth. And each time, Midoriya had lied to him. Badly, mostly, Shouto can see that now, but he had taken him at his word, because it was Midoriya saying it. Because Midoriya was someone he trusted.

Someone he trusts. He does not want that thought to be in past tense.

“Sorry,” Jirou says.

He blinks, looking at her.

She looks a little uncomfortable under his gaze, but she makes a half-shrugging movement, bumping the points of her earjacks together. “That sucks, is all.”

Shouto considers this. He snorts, despite himself. Just a small sound, but there.

“Yeah,” he says, heart heavy. “I guess it does.”

•

“Have you ever been in his room?” Bakugou asks. He’s stomping down the stairs, citing something about needing not to be in a death trap box when Shouto had moved towards the elevator. Shouto thinks that Bakugou just can’t stand the idea of being so still right now, all his movements at the mercy of someone or something else. Can’t stand the idea of more things being out of his control.

That’s okay. Shouto relates, a little. So he’d just shrugged, allowing Bakugou to pull him into the stairwell as they made their way from the fifth floor to the second.

“Once,” Shouto says. “During that room decoration competition.”

Bakugou scoffs. “Bet it’s edgy as shit,” he mutters.

Shouto’s brow furrows. “It was very… dark,” he ventures.

“Fuckin’ predictable,” Bakugou says.

They pass the fourth floor. Shouto glimpses Kirishima leaning against his doorframe, talking to Uraraka and Iida in the corridor. The sight makes something ache in his chest, though he doesn’t know what.

“I can hear your brain buffering from here,” Bakugou calls over his shoulder, taking the steps two at a time. Shouto, using the stairs normally, increases his pace slightly to keep up. “What’re you thinking about?”

Shouto doesn’t know how to explain, so he doesn’t bother to try. Instead, he says, “You were going to ask me something. In my room, before Iida knocked.”

It’s not a question. Bakugou doesn’t tell him off for his poor conversational skills, though, just treats it as one anyway.

“Yeah,” he says. He does not turn his head this time, just keeps it trained on the wall in front of them. “It’s whatever.”

Shouto frowns at that. At the muscles of Bakugou’s back, shifting under his shirt as he hunches his shoulders – at the quietness of it, the lack of explosive honesty that stains everything else about Bakugou – at the way he will not look at Shouto, even though he’s always met his gaze before. Searing and utterly unflinching. Uncontainable in its ferocity.

He quickens his pace, falling into step alongside Bakugou. Their shoulders immediately brush, and Bakugou whips his head over, probably to yell at him. Shouto doesn’t give him the chance.

“Yours didn’t say that he was going to tell everyone,” Shouto says, thinking aloud. He hides a smile as Bakugou’s face visibly contorts, undoubtedly outraged at Shouto’s audacity to talk when he had been about to. Bakugou makes such evocative facial expressions, Shouto thinks. So different from Shouto’s own. Drawing them out is one of his great joys in life. “Which means it was different from mine.”

“You’re a real fuckin’ genius, Icyhot,” Bakugou mutters, shoving his hands into his pockets. It presses his arm against Shouto’s—his cold side. He wonders, for a moment, if Bakugou would rather be on the other side.

He dismisses the thought. Bakugou would probably rather not be pressed against him at all, Shouto reminds himself.

Still. Shouto can’t say he minds.

“So what did yours say instead?” he asks.

Their proximity means he can feel it when Bakugou stiffens. The way his muscles lock together, ending up flush against Shouto’s arm.

Shouto swallows.

“Sorry,” he says, after a half-beat. He can hear Yaoyorozu in his head, gently reminding him that some things are personal – private. Iida too, but a memory this time: reminding the class to give their friends some space after the Hassaikai Incident. Let them rest their weary spirits.

Bakugou has known Midoriya longer than anyone else in the class, after all. It hasn’t always been a good relationship, to Shouto’s understanding, but—

Shouto thinks about the fear he’d felt, watching his father go against the High-End Noumu. The overwhelming rush of relief when he had stood up, had raised his fist.

If he could feel like that, for a man he still did not know how to forgive, for the person his father was all those months ago—if he could feel like that, what might Bakugou be feeling now, for someone who had never been the aggressor? For someone who…

Their relationship is complicated, Shouto thinks, and he doesn’t know that he could ever understand it, as close as his proximity is to them both, but he thinks they get along now, no matter how much Bakugou would protest the description. At the very least, they can work as a team, and the words Bakugou snarls at Midoriya have lost their serrated edges.

“I didn’t mean to push,” he says. “I didn’t think that you might not want…”

To share? To tell Shouto specifically?

Bakugou shoots him a sidelong glance, sharp as ice.

“It’s not like that,” he says abruptly. He scowls. “It was just a shitty thank you.”

Shouto doesn’t know what to do with the way his voice sounds. He finds Bakugou easier to talk to than most, because he’s so expressive, so honest, that even when the words he’s saying aren’t true, they normally manage to share a truth anyway. Even to someone like Shouto, who does not know how to decipher most people.

Or maybe especially to someone like Shouto, who doesn’t understand many jokes, but understands anger and kindness at their core, and knows how to find one hiding in the other when Bakugou speaks.

But the way he sounds right now… Shouto is frustrated, because he doesn’t know how to pull this thread to unravel what he means. All he knows is that there’s more to what his voice is saying, but he doesn’t know what.

So he decides to focus on what he does say instead.

“A thank you,” he says slowly. Bakugou grunts. “Not an explanation.”

There’s a beat. Two. They pass the third floor. Jirou and Kaminari are sitting cross-legged on the floor outside Kouda’s room, Kouda’s rabbit on Kaminari’s lap. Kouda himself seems to be sitting in the doorway.

“No,” Bakugou says finally. “Not an explanation.” This tone, this one Shouto can identify, at least mostly. Resignation, he thinks. Maybe a little bitterness, or something like it.

He’s seen it twist at Bakugou’s mouth before, but not like this. He doesn’t know if it’s because of what Bakugou’s saying—what he’s confessing, Shouto supposes, something inside him twisting at the thought—or because there had been no further explanation offered, just an absence and a farewell.

“Oh,” Shouto says softly.

It makes sense. He’d said it on instinct, but it had been solidifying in his mind ever since. Bakugou had only confirmed it. Everything that had seemed a little out-of-nowhere with Bakugou and Midoriya—the fight, which hadn’t necessarily been surprising, but the fact that they ended it mostly intact had been; the way they started to co-exist; the way they looked at each other sometimes, or at All Might, like they were hearing more things in a conversation than were being said; the fact that they both would spar sometimes, when before nothing on earth could have made Bakugou give Midoriya the time of day; the way they had both run off during the battle – Midoriya first, Bakugou catching up, both of them leaving Shouto to follow them—makes sudden sense now.

Shouto thinks of what happened in Hosu City, of the bond he shares with Iida and Midoriya because of it. A shared secret is a powerful thing.

Then he thinks of the battle. The one he was at, where Midoriya battled Shigaraki in the skies; where Iida did his best to hold down the fort on the ground once he arrived, following Shouto and Midoriya the way Shouto had followed Bakugou and Midoriya; where his father had almost perished, where his brother had turned up from the dead, where Lemillion and Nejire-chan stood with Best Jeanist to save everyone, where Aizawa-sensei lost a leg and almost his life.

Where Bakugou had dived in front of Midoriya, taken stab wounds for him, and fallen out of the sky. Where Shouto had raced desperately to save him, dragging his father with him as he darted through the air, reaching reaching reaching until he closed his fingers around Bakugou.

Until he could save him, this time.

A shared secret is a powerful thing. Shouto thinks shared trauma might be even harder to unbind.

“Don’t say it like that,” Bakugou says. He looks at Shouto. His eyes are serious. “It wasn’t personal.”

Shouto’s throat feels tight. “I understand,” he says.

Bakugou’s face changes. He looks frustrated now. “No, like—” he cuts himself off. “All Might lied to me,” he says abruptly. “After – after Kamino Ward, when he came to my house with Aizawa-sensei, I asked him. I knew there was something up with him and the nerd, and I asked him, and he lied to me.” Bakugou stares at the wall again, never missing a step. “I always wished he’d just told me he couldn’t say,” he says. “Or that he didn’t want to. Instead of lying. Treating me like I was fuckin’ stupid. Anyone could have seen there was somethin’ up – you did.”

Second floor. Bakugou doesn’t move from the stairwell, so neither does Shouto. He just looks at him.

Shouto isn’t offended they didn’t tell him. That’s not it, exactly. It’s just – after Iida and Midoriya, Bakugou is his best friend. Even though Bakugou says they’re not friends, that’s the truth of it. He likes Asui and Yaoyorozu a lot, trusts Kirishima more than most, and enjoys Kaminari and Sero’s presence. Jirou is easy to talk to, and while he’s not as well-suited a personality to Uraraka as he is to Asui, they spend a lot of time together and he considers her his friend. Yoarashi and Utsushimi are people he enjoys talking to. He loves his siblings, even if he is still learning them.

But Bakugou is his best friend, after those two who were his first friends, even if he doesn’t realise it.

It’s not that Bakugou is that excellent of a friend, though he is to Shouto – so expressive that even Shouto understands him, too annoyed at incompetence in his vicinity to leave Shouto in the lurch if he needs something explained, perceptive about when something’s on Shouto’s mind, always having his back in a fight, honest where it counts. These are all things Shouto values. But it’s not about that.

It’s just that Shouto has never had anyone else. He doesn’t trust anyone the way he trusts those three.

He doesn’t know what to do with that right now.

“Are you going to say that wasn't personal?” he asks in the end, tilting his head.

Bakugou makes a noise somewhere between a scoff and a snort. “No,” he says. “Well, I mean, yeah, it wasn’t personal. But.” He pauses, then looks Shouto in the eyes. “It still fucking sucked that he lied.”

Shouto’s breath hitches.

Bakugou’s gaze remains steady on his.

“Maybe he didn’t think of it as lying,” Shouto says quietly. He doesn’t know if he’s talking about All Might now or not. He doesn’t know if he believes what he’s saying either.

A second passes. Then a snort. “Yeah, probably not,” Bakugou allows. “But it still was.”

Shouto doesn’t know if he should hear an apology in Bakugou’s words. Doesn’t know if Bakugou thinks he owes him one. Doesn’t even know if he thinks Bakugou owes him one, or what he’d do with one.

“But it still was,” he agrees softly. Bakugou keeps their eyes locked for another moment, then he nods to himself.

“All right,” he says, stepping into the corridor. He puts his hands on his hips as he frowns at the doors. “Now which one is Birdbrain’s?”

•

Uraraka Ochako is a force to be reckoned with.

Shouto had known that, distantly, before this moment. After all, it would be impossible to know Uraraka—to have seen the way she waged fierce battle against Bakugou at the Sports Festival when almost everyone underestimated her, to have been around her after the Hassaikai Incident and the weight it put on her shoulders, to have watched as she recruited Shinsou and worked to save Midoriya from his own quirk—and not know how strong she is.

It is one thing to know something is true in the back of your head. It is another thing entirely to see it happen before your eyes, especially when it manifests in marching to your principal—when the entire school has been transformed into a bunker to defend against war knocking on its door—to demand an audience for the purpose of tricking your own father.

And yet, Uraraka Ochako does, dragging Iida with her. Bakugou and Shouto follow. Most of the class want to come, but Iida shakes his head.

“We should work under the assumption that we need to find Midoriya,” he says. “A better use of resources would be to think of containment methods.” He turns to Yaoyorozu, who nods.

“Yes,” she says, determined. “We can begin strategising immediately.”

Shouto looks at her, and thinks that so much has changed since their final exams at the end of first term. He thinks of Midnight-sensei, and his chest feels heavy.

But Yaoyorozu Momo is a strategist and commander anyone would be foolish to underestimate. Shouto has always believed in her, even if he didn’t know how to have full faith in anyone else until Aizawa-sensei had caught him, and Midnight-sensei did too.

“What if Nezu says no?” Kaminari asks, not unreasonably.

“It makes no difference,” Iida says. All eyes snap to him. “The law is important, but Midoriya is our friend. We must work under the assumption that we will find him, regardless of method. Especially with what Bakugou-kun, Todoroki-kun and Tokoyami-kun theorised.”

“Rule-breaking?” Sero asks, raising an eyebrow. He looks a little impressed. “Didn’t know you had it in you.”

Iida huffs. “Yes, well, it’s something I would rather avoid,” he says, adjusting his glasses. His eyes find Shouto in the crowd. Shouto reads a question in them, so he tilts his head. Whatever Iida is asking, he trusts him. “And… well, as you all know, sometimes we have broken rules where deemed necessary,” Iida says. He looks at Bakugou, who scowls and flips him off, hunching his shoulders.

“Yeah, but that was mostly Kirishima and Todoroki,” Kaminari points out. “Like, didn’t you just go to make sure they didn’t do anything stupid and get themselves or Kacchan killed?”

Bakugou stiffens ever so slightly at Shouto’s side, but he relaxes almost immediately.

“Yes,” Iida says, after a long moment. “But sometimes rules have been broken when unnecessary. And sometimes others have been the ones to prevent foolish actions, or to try protect their friends.”

Oh. Shouto understands. He nods at Iida.

“Well, yeah—” Kaminari begins, but Asui is looking at Iida, and interrupts.

“Is this about Hosu City?” she asks.

Iida nods. Everyone looks at him in rapt attention. “While we are sharing secrets…” he says slowly, avoiding the fact that the person who kickstarted the secret-sharing is absent, “…the events of the Hosu City Incident are not exactly as were reported.”

“You went after him,” Bakugou says suddenly. His tone is unreadable, but there’s something a little bright in his gaze. Awed, maybe. “The Hero Killer. The fucker that attacked your brother.”

“Yes,” Iida says, nodding. “I found him. I was blinded by thoughts of vengeance—consumed by it—and I almost died. Even more gravely, I almost let someone else die in my rage.” He inhales deeply, then looks at Shouto. “Two dear friends came to my rescue. They did not only save my life, but they brought me back from the worst of myself, even at the cost of breaking the law.”

The room is silent for a moment. Then, an explosion of noise.

“What the fuck?”

“Why didn’t anyone know about this?”

“Hold up, didn’t the news say Endeavour—”

“Oh my god, you went full vigilante justi—”

“Dude, not the time—”

“So Midoriya-kun was your watchman once,” Yaoyorozu says, her voice cutting through the clamour. Her eyes flick to Shouto. “Todoroki-kun too.”

Iida tilts his head in acknowledgment. “So, you see, no matter what the teachers and pro heroes say, I cannot abandon this endeavour. Midoriya-kun saved me from myself, even when I did not want to be saved.” He looks at Shouto again. “You both did.” He turns to the class. “So now that Midoriya-kun is the one who finds himself at the brink, standing alone against something so overwhelming… how can I do anything but try to hold out a hand, and save him in return?”

“Holy shit, bro,” Kirishima says. Shouto is startled to see genuine tears in his eyes. Beside him, Bakugou is clucking in exasperation, though Shouto suspects it’s affectionate. “That is so fucking manly.”

Kaminari and—surprisingly, to Shouto at least—Tokoyami are nodding along with Kirishima’s words. Uraraka is looking at Iida, her hand over her mouth. Her gaze flicks to Shouto. He meets it levelly.

“Okay,” Bakugou says, clapping his hands once to get everyone’s attention. Or maybe just to smack something. It could really go either way with Bakugou. “Unless anyone wants to share any other attempted murders or what the fuck ever, can we get on with it?”

Uraraka’s eyes light up.

“Round Cheeks, that was not an invitation,” Bakugou immediately groans. Then he frowns. “And what the fuck skeletons could you even have? You’ve never had a fuckin’ detention.” Then he looks indignantly at Shouto. “Neither have you! How the fuck—I didn’t break the law, I just tried to throw Deku, what the shit…” he grumbles, getting quieter as he trails off until he’s just muttering to himself.

“No, I don’t have anything to add to the secret-sharing, but…” Uraraka says, tone thoughtful. “Iida-kun, have you ever told Deku that?”

Iida frowns, tilting his head. He looks at Shouto.

“I think he knows,” Shouto says. He looks at his hands. “During that time when you were all sworn to secrecy about the Hassaikai mission, Midoriya was… troubled. Iida reassured him then.”

“But maybe hearing that more explicitly will move him,” Uraraka says.

“It would move me,” Kirishima agrees seriously.

“So do photos of baby cows,” Bakugou says impatiently. “Round Cheeks, you wanna sentimentalise him back here?”

“No,” she says. “But I bet we all have things we want to say to him. Maybe if we say enough of them, he’ll start to listen.”

Bakugou goes quiet.

“If anything, it’ll be a good distraction,” Satou offers. “Hard to think with nineteen different people all talking at you.”

“Especially if they’re using their quirks,” Yaoyorozu murmurs.

Uraraka’s eyes are still on Bakugou. Shouto thinks they look like a challenge.

“Yeah,” Bakugou says eventually. “Guess I got shit to say too.”

•

“Shouto,” his father says, and Shouto pauses on his way out of the office. Bakugou, at his side, stops as well.

Iida casts Shouto a curious look, and Yaoyorozu looks concerned, but he shakes his head at them both. It’s fine. They should get back to the dorms with Sero and the others, to get started on using the GPS function and figuring out their next moves.

Bakugou stays, though.

Shouto does not ask him to leave. He just turns to face his father.

Endeavour looks tired. He does not even question Bakugou’s presence.

Or maybe that’s Enji, who walked down the corridor to leave the hospital, and watched his son sit at Bakugou Katsuki’s bedside, chin tucked over his hunched knees, waiting for his friend to wake up again.

Shouto looks at his father, and doesn’t know if he can tell the difference anymore. If there’s even any difference left.

He always hated Endeavour, until he didn’t. Until the fight against the High-End Noumu, where Endeavour rose from the ground with a fist raised and a battered body, and Shouto watched him give Japan hope. Felt it himself, a little.

He remembers standing up in his family home after Natsuo stormed out, and the way he had looked his father calmly and told him that he thought Endeavour had been amazing, but he wanted to see what kind of dad he would be. He had looked at his father and, for the first time, drawn a line in the sand between Endeavour and Enji.

Looking at him now—exhausted, with two sons he almost watched die at the behest of the son he thought was dead, and the weight of his promise to the world (WATCH ME, he says on the hospital television; Shouto numb as he pauses the screen, Bakugou’s eyes heavy on his face) on his shoulders—Shouto doesn’t know if he can figure out anymore where one ends and the other begins.

Shouto is tired too.

Angry, as well. Mostly that his father has been ignoring him. He doesn’t know if he’s angry at anything else yet. He’s too hurt to tell. Worried, too.

“What?” he asks.

His father swallows. Bakugou moves closer to Shouto’s side.

“I do want us to… address Touya together,” his father finally says.

“You could start by picking up my calls,” Shouto says sharply.

His father exhales. “Yes,” he admits. “I thought—” He stops. “Will you all be going?” he asks.

“Yes,” Shouto says. “And when I’m back, I will be ready and waiting for any news about Touya.”

“Me too,” Bakugou says. Shouto is startled that he’s decided to speak, but he does not show it, instead looking coolly at his father. “I told Icyhot I’d help.”

His father looks like he wants to say something, but he visibly bites his tongue. Then: “He’s dangerous.”

It’s a warning. It’s an admission of guilt.

Bakugou raises his chin against both.

“So am I,” he says. It’s arrogant and unflinching. Shouto’s heart swells with affection. “He won’t get the drop on me again.”

His father frowns. Then he nods, if grudging.

“Shouto,” he says, and he looks at Shouto with something more hesitant in his eyes.

Shouto does not move for a moment, but then he nudges Bakugou in the shoulder. Bakugou looks at him sharply, but Shouto just tilts his head, letting his hair fall into his eyes. He’ll be okay.

Bakugou grumbles, but he turns to his father. “You’re still a jerk,” he says. “But we need you. So don’t fuck it up.”

Shouto snorts. Bakugou smirks a little at the sound. His father just nods, a quick thing, after a moment of thought.

Satisfied, Bakugou steps back, waiting for Shouto in the doorway. Shouto turns back to his father.

“Yes?” he asks.

“I am sorry,” his father says, and Shouto blinks. He still does not know what to do with those words in his father’s mouth—if he should believe them or discard them, if he should hold them close or not put faith in anything that bloomed from scorched earth, if it’s even enough if he does believe them—and he does not know what to say.

“Don't do it again,” he says, because he has nothing else. His sharp flare of anger has subsided into a steady heat pooling beneath his skin – still there, but no longer the weapon it had been. Something harder to wield.

He is still angry, but everything else is so heavy too.

He thinks again of what he had said – about how actions mean more to him than words, about how unsteadying it was that Midoriya would leave and think the words he gave were enough.

His father is nothing like Midoriya, but perhaps he took it as a more pointed thing than a mere expression of Shouto’s truth.

“For… for hiding from you as well,” Enji says. He looks at his hands. “Deku insisted,” Endeavour says, “and All Might backed him up.”

Shouto looks into bright blue eyes he’s hated most of his life—ones he sees every time he looks into the mirror, ones he once watched set into a smirk in a forest, ones that burned with a searing glee as they watched Shouto be consumed by flames—and doesn’t feel anything.

Or maybe he feels too much, and he doesn’t know how to make sense of it.

Midoriya would have a theory, he thinks, and he feels that dull ache of sadness thud once more in his chest.

“But I am sorry that you were hurt,” his father continues.

“Fine,” Shouto says. “I’ll see you when we get him. I assume.”

His father nods, eyes fraught with something. Shouto does not know what it is. He has only ever recognised anger in those eyes, and disappointment. He’s learning what relief looks like in them, and sorrow. He does not know what this is.

Shouto pauses, half-turned from his father. “Thank you for the GPS,” he says quietly. He sees his father nod from the corner of his eye. Then Shouto steps forward to where Bakugou is waiting, and leaves his father behind.

“You good?” Bakugou asks eventually. They’re halfway to the dorms.

“Did you spend the entire walk thinking to come up with that?” Shouto wants to know. He’s genuinely curious.

Well. A little. Maybe he also wants to see Bakugou’s expression contort.

Sure enough, he’s looking indignant.

“Mouthy bastard,” Bakugou grumbles. He shoves his shoulder against Shouto’s, somewhere between a comforting touch and a mark of aggression. It reminds Shouto of how Bakugou had moved so easily during the confrontation in Nezu’s office, stepping forward and squeezing Shouto’s shoulder.

Shouto had been furious. Everything had been rising in him, and his father was right there, and he was not the only one who had hidden from Shouto, who had hidden things from Shouto, but he was right there, and Shouto was angry.

Bakugou’s hand had been an anchor. A searing point of warmth against his cooler side, something grounding when Shouto had not known what to do, his father standing there silently as Shouto asked him—no, demanded from him—the one thing they all had assembled to know.

“Hey,” he says, ignoring Bakugou’s muttered grumbling about stupid fuckin’ half ‘n’ half bastards, what’s the point in talking to disrespectful little shits. He pauses, and catches Bakugou’s hand. “Thank you,” he says.

Bakugou is staring at their hands. “For what?”

“In there,” Shouto says simply.

It’s enough.

Bakugou swallows, still looking at their hands, then he flicks his gaze up to Shouto’s face. “Yeah, whatever,” he mutters, pulling away his hand. His cheeks are pink. He bumps Shouto with his shoulder again before he can miss the warmth of Bakugou’s palm against his too much. “Next time I’m leaving you to it.”

Shouto smiles. “Okay,” he says agreeably. He knows Bakugou is lying.

From the furrowed brow on Bakugou’s face, he does too.

•

If Midoriya could see them now, Shouto thinks, he’d be proud.

If Midoriya could see them now, though, they wouldn’t need to do any of this, so he supposes it’s a moot point.

Still, they’ve done more research collectively since Midoriya left than some of them had done the entire school year. Iida and Yaoyorozu had been vaguely scandalised when Ashido had commented it earlier—Bakugou had just been disgusted—but Shouto thinks, looking at the way Sero and Aoyama are crouched over a drone prototype from Hatsume, she had probably been right.

Jirou, Shouji and Yaoyorozu are huddled on one end of the longest couch, quietly discussing what they can use to get the drop on Midoriya. Ojiro, wandering past, ducks down to chime in with a thought.

On the other end of the couch, Kirishima, Ashido, Uraraka and Iida are having an intense conversation that seems to involve a lot of miming. Shouto watches in interest for a moment. Bakugou vaults himself over the back of the couch, coming from the kitchen where he and Satou had been testing some of Hatsume’s more volatile inventions, and leans over Kirishima’s shoulder, pointing at something on Iida’s clipboard.

“Hey, Todoroki,” Hagakure says thoughtfully. “Have you got a handle on that fancy move you used against 1-B? You used it against Midoriya once.”

Shouto looks over at her. Well, at her hoodie. He is sitting at the table with Kaminari, Asui and Hagakure. Everyone else is in the teacher’s lounge with Mic-sensei, compiling possible contacts they can tap, except for Tokoyami, who is on the phone with Hawks in the corner of the room.

“It could be more stable,” he says, after consideration. “But I can use it effectively.”

“Hm,” she says. “Cool, thanks!”

She hops out of her chair and rushes over to Ashido’s group. Shouto watches for a second as Kirishima and Iida turn their heads to look up at her. Predictably, Bakugou does not bother, instead pointing at something on the notepad Ashido and Uraraka are scribbling on, having stolen Iida’s clipboard to lean it against.

“Wonder what that’s about,” Kaminari says, watching after them. He turns back to Shouto. “It’s a sick move, though.”

“Thanks,” Shouto says, slightly amused. He always finds Kaminari enjoyable to talk to. Confusing, sometimes, but warm.

“How is your lightning sword coming along, Kaminari-chan?” Asui asks, looking up from the tablet she was cross-referencing coordinates with.

Kaminari sighs gustily. “Haven’t managed it yet,” he says mournfully. “Bakugou says it’ll take me ten years.”

“Bakugou-chan exaggerates sometimes,” Asui says. Kaminari perks up. “He is very intuitive with quirks, though,” she adds, and Kaminari deflates.

“Yaoyorozu may be able to make you a frame of some sort,” Shouto suggests. “To help you get used to shaping the lightning.”

“Jirou will probably tell me I shouldn’t use Yaomomo as a production factory,” Kaminari says, sinking in his seat.

“She’s right,” Asui says.

“If it’s just one thing, Yaoyorozu probably won’t mind,” Shouto says. “Especially if it’s for practice.”

“That’s true,” Asui says. “Kyouka-chan is only on guard because Sero-chan asked for a bicycle, and Momo-chan is not good at saying no.”

“What would Sero even do with a bicycle?” Shouto wonders. “He’s faster with his tape than any bicycle.”

“Maybe he just likes having things,” Kaminari says airily. His nose scrunches. “Though, Sero’s usually got a reason for things. Maybe he likes bicycles?”

They all ponder this for a moment.

The tablet beeps, and Asui returns to her task.

“Do you think we’ll find him?” Kaminari asks. It seems out of nowhere to Shouto, but he knows he’s not the best at following conversational markers.

“Yes,” Shouto says. He looks over at Bakugou and Iida, now listening intently to Hagakure. Kirishima seems to have taken over the note-taking.

Kaminari follows his gaze.

“They can be pretty formidable together, can’t they?” he says.

Shouto nods. “You are too,” he says, honest as ever. Kaminari looks at him in surprise, and Shouto tilts his head. “You’re our best hope at slowing him down,” he says. “You know that, right?”

Kaminari’s expression changes, lips widening into a smile. “D’you reckon all his crazy quirks will help him withstand two million volts?” he asks thoughtfully.

Shouto shrugs, exchanging a glance with Asui. “I’m not sure if any of his quirks have an effect on that,” he says.

“Oi, Bakugou!” Kaminari calls out, interrupting Hagakure.

“Fucking what, Sparky?” Bakugou yells back.

“Do any of One For All’s quirks help Midoriya handle being hit with two million volts?”

The room is silent for a moment.

“I’m going to kill him,” Bakugou announces.

Then it erupts into noise.

•

He needs tea.

Jirou, Kirishima and Sero are all lying on the table as he pads past, Kouda sitting on the chair nearest their heads. They seem to be discussing the kinds of things they could say to Midoriya—not so much practicing words, just talking to each other about what he means to them—so Shouto merely raises a hand in a wave as he goes past, not wanting to disturb their thoughts.

Ashido and Asui are fast asleep on the couch, and Shouji is pulling a blanket over them. On the floor nearby, Aoyama is curled up, using a sweater for a pillow. Shouto is fairly sure it’s Bakugou’s. He can’t decide if he wants to see the fallout of that, or if he’d rather be nowhere nearby.

Shouto heads into the kitchen, and pauses when he finds it occupied.

It’s only Iida; he has a cup of tea in his hands, held close to his chest.

“Todoroki-kun,” he says in greeting. His voice is quieter, as if it has been softened by the late hour.

“Iida,” Shouto says, dipping his head in response. “Chamomile?”

“Ah, yes,” Iida says. “Yaoyorozu was kind enough to make me some. There is still hot water, I think.”

Shouto hums, moving to grab his tea bowl of choice. “Are you okay?” he asks. He supposes there are subtler ways to ask. He doesn’t know them, though.

Iida looks at him in surprise. “Me? I’m… as well as I can be, I suppose,” he says, brow furrowing in thought.

“If it ever gets to be too much and you need to talk,” Shouto says quietly, “just say something. I’m your friend.”

Iida stills. He smiles, but it’s sad.

“Midoriya told me that,” he says.

Shouto swallows. “I know,” he says honestly. “You said that, when I heard you tell him that.” He blinks. “I just wanted to tell you that too. I know I’m not… Midoriya, and I’m not very good with some things, but—”

“Todoroki-kun,” Iida says, putting down his tea. He closes his hands around Shouto’s. “You wish to be a hero who is reassuring. You have always been that to me.” He smiles, a gentle thing, and it reminds Shouto of the way he’d looked in the infirmary after their battle against Class 1-B. “There is no caveat needed. I know I can talk to you. Thank you.”

Shouto’s chest is warm in the face of such bare-faced sincerity.

“And same to you,” Iida continues. “I meant what I said about Midoriya to the class, and I meant it for you. I am always here if you need to talk, or for anything else.”

“I know,” Shouto reassures him. He looks at his hands, still clad in Iida’s. “I know I can trust you.”

“I’m glad,” Iida says, looking proud. Then his expression softens. “Though, Todoroki-kun… I am honoured you know you can trust me, but I hope you know… everyone in this class would say the same thing that I did. We are all here for you.”

Shouto takes a moment to absorb this. He thinks about everything he has seen over the past few weeks – everything he has seen over the past year, really.

He smiles. “I know,” he says, and he means it.

•

“So, I reckon we’re gonna have a hard time catching him,” Bakugou says.

Shouto frowns. “Even with Yaoyorozu’s devices?”

Bakugou nods grimly. “You know how he gets.”

Shouto thinks about this, then grimaces lightly. “Okay. So what were you thinking?”

“How’d you know I was thinking something?” Bakugou demands.

Shouto rolls his eyes. “You’ve never asked me for help before without looking like you hated every second of it. Seeing as you look only mildly grumpy, I assume you have an idea.”

Bakugou stares at him, open-mouthed. “I’ll show you mildly grumpy,” he says in the end, furrowing his brow.

Shouto resists the urge to smooth out the little dip it makes in his forehead.

“Anyway, yeah, I do have an idea, because I’m the fuckin’ best, not because I’m predictable,” Bakugou says. “Hagakure said you’re feeling decent about your stupid flashy move you won’t use on me. True?”

Shouto ignores the blatant dig, focusing instead on his use of Hagakure’s name. “I’m surprised you used her name,” he says.

Bakugou catches on immediately. “Everything else is longer to say,” he dismisses. “There’s not really a lot to do with someone you can’t see, anyway.”

“You give me plenty of long ones,” Shouto points out.

Bakugou smirks. “You just compel me to call you a bastard,” he says. “Anyway. Your stupid move. Yes or no?”

“Oh,” Shouto says. “Yes. Why?”

Bakugou drums his fingers on the table. “I think we can use it as a flying start.”

Shouto frowns. “For what?”

“We’ll need to catch Deku,” he explains. “He’s got a fuck ton of quirks now, and they stack each other’s power. So we’re gonna need more than one quirk to catch up.”

Shouto nods, and Bakugou pulls out a paper and pen. He starts sketching a ramp, and draws some dots.

“Okay, so, if you can make this ice ramp… though we’ll still need force other than your blast for maximum height…” Bakugou says, thinking aloud, brow furrowing again.

This time, Shouto does not resist.

He smooths it out. Bakugou stills beneath his touch.

“Icyhot,” he says, “the fuck are you doing?”

Shouto pauses. “I’m… smoothing your face,” he says, for lack of any other explanation.

“Why?” Bakugou asks. His voice is still unnaturally calm.

“I just… wanted to,” Shouto says. It’s all he has.

Bakugou stares at him incredulously. There’s something else twitching in his eyes, though. Shouto doesn’t know what it is, but it makes his face feel hot.

“Hey, Todoroki, have you seen—oh!” Uraraka says, stumbling in on them.

“Heard of knocking?” Bakugou demands. It’s a fair question, Shouto thinks, given they’re in Shouto’s room. Bakugou’s still looking at him, though, which Shouto suspects undermines the directness of his question.

“It was open,” Uraraka says, rolling her eyes. “Anyway, I was looking for you.”

Bakugou twitches. Shouto realises his hands are still on Bakugou’s forehead, and removes them.

“What for?” Bakugou asks, after a few seconds of staring at Shouto with an unreadable expression.

“Jirou said you were looking for me,” Uraraka explains.

That snaps Bakugou out of it.

“Oh, yeah. You seen the prez? Need him too,” he says.

“I can find him,” Shouto volunteers. His face is still warm. His hands tingle where they were touching Bakugou’s skin.

Bakugou shoots him a look, but Shouto is already clambering up. “I’ll be fast,” he says.

Uraraka looks gleeful. Bakugou seems to be scowling at her.

“Fuckin’ fine,” he says. “You better be. I’ll kick your ass if you make me wait.”

“Okay,” Shouto says blandly, turning to the door so Bakugou can’t catch his smile.

“Asshole,” he heard Bakugou mutter. It’s a little fond, Shouto thinks.

Shouto hopes.

“Anyway, I was thinkin’, if Icyhot and I can stick together long enough to blast him high…” is the last thing he hears as he heads into the corridor, hoping being out of there will help cool his head as he finds his friend.

•

“Well, we knew he wasn’t going to come with us easily,” Iida says, panting a little.

Ashido covers him in a thin layer of acid. Bakugou glowers at the sky.

“Never makes it easy for us,” he mutters, but something in his voice cracks. It makes something ache in Shouto’s chest.

It has been a while since he heard Bakugou so desperate. He understands, though. He relates.

They all do.

Bakugou has the most to say, maybe. Or – Shouto isn’t sure if that’s true. Nobody has ever accused Iida of being concise, after all, and Shouto has seen enough of the fire in Uraraka’s eyes to know she has a lot to say to Midoriya. It bleeds out of every inch of her.

Shouto is not talkative the way Kaminari and Sero are, not easily open with his feelings like Kirishima and Asui.

But he has things to say to Midoriya Izuku too. He got to say some earlier—he and Asui, reminding Midoriya their hands are always open to him, that no burden is so big that it can’t be shared—but he still has more.

He thinks of what Midoriya said to him that first day, so many months ago, almost a lifetime, when he’d told Shouto that his power was his own.

Your power is your own too, he thinks. It’s up to you what you do with it. How you use it. Who you fight alongside.

Bakugou had called out Midoriya for not being able to smile – for not being All Might, because he isn’t. He doesn’t have to be. He can be a hero who leans on others. Not everyone is the Symbol of Peace.

Maybe Midoriya will be greater.

Shouto wants to tell him he doesn’t have to save everyone. Sometimes, he can let other people help him save the world too. The first time Shouto had come to Midoriya’s aid, it was because Midoriya knew he couldn’t save Iida alone.

Shouto hopes he remembers that.

“You guys ready?” Satou yells.

Bakugou looks at Shouto.

Shouto looks back.

“Ready!” Bakugou yells back, then grabs onto Iida’s waist. “You ready, prez?”

“Yes!” Iida affirms.

“You ready, Icyhot?” Bakugou asks, looking at Shouto.

Shouto steps close in answer, pressing his back as firmly against Bakugou’s as he can. “Waiting on you,” he says, just to be a dick.

Bakugou’s wild laugh in his ears makes it worth it. “Fuck you,” he says. “Make it a big one.”

“Of course,” Shouto says, and then he nods at Satou and Shouji. They, along with Dark Shadow and a handful of their other classmates, push them all up the ramp.

“Steady…” Bakugou murmurs. The wind whips past so fast that Shouto can barely hear him.

“NOW!” Bakugou yells. Shouto is already doing it. He sees Uraraka floating nearby, and then Bakugou and Iida are rocketing up through the sky, riding the force of Shouto’s Flash Freeze Heat Wave.

Uraraka catches Shouto, passing him towards Sero.

A final blast from the sky attracts Shouto’s attention, and he watches Bakugou falling back towards them, having sent Iida off.

Iida zooms through the sky, catching up to Midoriya.

Bakugou finally sets off another blast, slowing his descent.

“Big enough for you?” Shouto calls out when Sero sets him down.

In answer, Bakugou flips him off, but he’s grinning. He looks up at the sky, his smile fading and turning into anticipation. Then—

“He caught him,” Shouji reports, and Bakugou’s expression collapses in relief.

“That’s only half the battle,” Tokoyami reminds them.

“Yeah,” Bakugou says grimly. “But we’ll get there. I’ve got shit to say to that nerd, and I’m not leavin’ ‘til he fuckin’ listens.”

Shouto looks at Bakugou’s hand, and sees it tremble. He tilts his head to the side.

Bakugou did not need to be caught this time, but Shouto finds himself reaching out anyway.

When their hands touch, Bakugou flinches. He stares down at their hands for a moment.

“Scared, Icyhot?” he whispers.

Shouto isn’t—not in any way he’s felt fear before, because this is more like desperate hope—but he wants to hold onto Bakugou anyway.

“Okay,” he says, because it’s easier for him to take this loss than it is for Bakugou.

Bakugou snorts. He retrains his eyes on the sky, on Iida and Midoriya, on all their hopes.

But he brushes his hand against Shouto’s anyway, their littlest fingers hooking together.

They still have half the battle to go, and even if they get Midoriya to come home, there is so much to do – so much to talk about, so much to uncover, so much to prepare for. Shouto does not think he will get to talk to Midoriya for a long time, even though he misses him desperately; there are just too many people with things to say, things that are burning out of their mouths. Like the boy beside him.

It’s going to be a lot. Some would say impossible.

But as Shouto stands there, brushing up against Bakugou, their entire class assembled as they watch Iida and Deku hold onto each other, he thinks of that first gift Midoriya Izuku ever gave him.

Hope.