Chapter Text
All he wants to do right now is cry and he doesn't know why. It's been an average day, a good day. He'd woken up to the sound of his All Might Alarm, and gotten out of bed full on energy. He did his exercises, he did his hygiene routine, he did everything right. He had breakfast, he had water, he was hydrated and he was alert. He took his notes, he talked with his friends and he did everything right.
So why does he feel so wrong?
Why is he awake, not thinking, not feeling, just existing.
Why does he want to cry so badly.
Heaving a sigh, he gets up and out of his All Might blanket, shivering as the cold air penetrates through his skin and seems to shake his bones. He doesn't bother to turn on the light as he walks around his room aimlessly. Staring at All Might isn't helping his mood, but the thought of leaving makes his skin burn and his heart throb. So he doesn't. Instead he turns on his laptop, going onto HeroTube. HeroTube, different from YouTube, is a video sharing platform that focuses specifically on anything and everything hero related. So of course Izuku has an account.
Clicking onto the website, the first thing he's confronted by is a video of Endeavour with Shouto in the background. It's a video taken during the internships, right after the sports festival. Izuku frowns, recalling what Todoroki told him. About his mother, about his father. It's only now though, that he's thinking about it. About everything. And he's come to a decision, to a realization.
The only Todoroki worth saving is Shouto.
Endeavour is the cause of their pain. He beat and hurt the Todoroki family, isolating them from society.
Rei scarred Shouto, she hurt him in a way Endeavour couldn't. She made Shouto think it was his fault, that he was the problem.
Fuymi's a mess. She didn't do anything about the abuse, didn't try to report it, all she wanted was her family to get along. She wanted to ignore the pain and suffering the Todoroki's went throigh, the pain that Shouto went through. She sees Shouto getting mad at his father, Shouto hating his father, as a bad thing.
To be honest, Izuku doesn't really care for Natsuo, but he has a pretty obvious grudge against Shouto. So that won't do.
Touya is a mystery, Izuku doesn't really care for if he's alive or not.
As Izuku watches the video play out, he tries to remember why he's becoming a hero. He knows that it's to save people, but he's been failing. He's been failing for months now, allowing Shouto to endure abuse. How can he call himself a hero, if he's doing nothing to stop pain. Doing nothing to save a victim. The truth is, he can't.
Izuku Midoriya will save Shouto Todoroki, no matter the cost.
Unbeknownst to him, One For All reacts to this, green lightning flickering in and out as he stares at Endeavour on his screen, his face radiating killing intent. One For All was created to stop an abuser after all, All For One wasn't a very good brother. Izuku stops the video, his mind rushing at maniac speeds. He gets out of his chair and walks to the balcony, needing some fresh air. Inhaling deeply, Izuku lets the air waffle in through his nose and he exhales out through his mouth. Closing his eyes, he activates One For All.
At once the hum he's become accustomed to starts up. 1%, 5%, 10%, 20%, 50%, 75%, 100%. He steadily climbs up the power scale, knowing that this is a bad idea and could kill everyone nearby. He doesn't move, doesn't try to use it. He just lets it sit at 100%, slowly lets BlackWhip out, keeping calm and making this power docile. Next is the only other quirk he knows for certain One For All has. Float. Nana Shimura, All Might's predecessor possessed this quirk. After asking Gran Torino for some advice, he still has no idea what to do. So he goes with his instincts, reaches for something he can't feel. And in that moment, stuck between nothing and everything, not thinking or existing, stuck in the infinity void of the abyss, he lets go. He breaks away from the chains that keep him tethered to either side, breaks away from life and sinks deeper into the void, yet rising above it in the same infinitesimal moment. He lets everything go, everything that keeps him shackled to Earth, to life; being a hero, mum, Eri, Shouto. All of it dissolves as he stops resisting, as he gets consumed by nothing.
And he starts to float.
Breathing in. Breathing out. Breathing in. Breathing out. Izuku opens his eyes. One For All is burning, a fire in his chest and coal is his veins. The air surrounding him is charged, BlackWhip lying moving aimlessly through the air, acting as an eldritch horror. Izuku is floating. Izuku is Floating. A wicked grin plays onto his lips. The Todoroki's are so going down.
It's only 9 hours later when he realizes that he unlocked Float and vowed to himself to stop Endeavour, one way or another. It takes a further hour to realize that One For All agreed with him. Which, he is really lucky that it's a Sunday and he doesn't have any classes, just his usual training. Because he freaks out. Hard. Once he finishes up at about 2pm, he goes back to the dorms. Stopping outside, he texts All Might.
Deku: Need to talk as soon as you're free. It's about OFA.
He can hear yelling inside the dorms, and as much as he loves his classmates, they can get a bit much sometimes. Just as he's about to head in, All Might responds.
All Might: I'm free at 6, come to the teachers lounge.
Deku: K. See you then.
With that sorted, he open the door and walks inside to manageable chaos. Kirishima, Mina and Kacchan are all in the kitchen, Kacchan is trying to cook with the others but it's not going great.
"IT'S NOT THAT FUCKING HARD RACCOON EYES, STOP FUCKING AROUND! I SEE YOU WEIRD HAIR, YA THINK YOU CAN BE A HERO WITHOUT KNOWING HOW TO COOK?! HUH?!!" Kacchan grabbed Kirishima's shirt and shoved him against the wall, snarling, face twisted into a glare. "YOU MOVE, YOU DIE!" He shouts at Mina, who was trying to creep away with Kacchan distracted.
Kaminari, Shouji, Tokoyami and Koda are all heading upstairs and Izuku can just catch the tail end of their conversation; "-Darkness, my friends. We have much work to do." They're an interesting quadruplet, that's for sure.
The self proclaimed girl squad, currently without Mina, are hanging on the couches. Yaoyorozu, Hagakure, Jiro, Uraraka and Tsyu. As Izuku walks over to the stairs, he hears a snippet of the conversation going on.
"Momo. Deku said something interesting the other day," Izuku blinks as red rushes to his cheeks, "I think it was that you can basically copy most emitter quirks. Like most of 1-A's."
Tsyu puts a finger to her cheek, "I guess that's true, kero. You are pretty powerful and terrifying, objectively speaking kero." Momo's red by this point, but Izuku can't hear her answer.
He passes Aoyama on the way to Shouto's room and waves hello. "Hey Aoyama, tried any new cheese lately?" Izuku asks, mainly out of politeness but also because he wants to hear his friend speak and respond to him. It's still pretty odd to have friends, so he's savoring the experience.
"Ahh, Deku! I have not, but I recently got some exported from France. We'll have to have some together later!" He sparkles, eyes holding him to a nonverbal promise.
"Of course!" With that, the two separate and Izuku continues on his journey to Shouto's room. He knows that Sero, Sato, Ojiro and Iida are all together, doing a studying/training thing outside. He'd passed by earlier, waving at the odd scene. Fighting and studying is a weird mix, but it fits Iida perfectly. Finally, he arrives at Shouto's room. Swallowing his nerves, he hesitantly knocks on the door.
All Izuku hears is "I'd like to be alone right now. Sorry." Which is decidedly not good. "It's Midoriya." The words fall from his lips, his tone soft and voice quiet. Izuku waits a moment, then hears feet shuffling closer towards the door. It opens a crack and the feet shuffle away. Swallowing hard, Izuku takes the invitation for what it is and goes inside, closing the door behind him.
Inside the tension is palpable, the atmosphere stifling. Izuku doesn't think Shouto is using the fire aspect of his quirk though, not right now. It's worse then when he and his mum have genuine arguments, which is really saying something. Shouto is laying back against a cabinet, curled into a half ball with his face in his lap and arms around his legs. Izuku..... doesn't know what to do. He's never had to deal with this. He knows how to save someone, but talking? A whole different story. Still, he'll try. So Izuku gets onto his butt and scoots towards Shouto, he stops a little away.
"Y'know, a couple days ago I saw this guy in the street who had claws. And it got me thinking about you. Have you tried to made specific things with your ice? Like weapons or claws?" He starts rambling, not really knowing what to say. Fighting probably isn't a good topic though so how about.... "Have you ever tried to make snow?" Mot waiting for an answer, he plows ahead; "Cause I think you could with enough practice and delicacy, and stuff. It'd be really fun I bet, speaking of fun, how do you think our class would react to a ice rink. We could all go ice skating!" That gets a reaction out of Shouto, who looks up with an amused, shattered kind of huff.
"That would go terribly, a lot of things would break." His voice is hoarse and raw, and Izuku can see his body shaking. Still, it seemed to make him happier.
"Oh yeah, totally. It's be halirious though, especially when Aizawa comes to cuss us out. Could you imagine? We could even recruit Eri, she could probably convince him." Shouto smiles a dopey, broken kind of smile. One that makes his heart throb.
"And we could use you to convince All Might, seeing as your his son and all." Izuku lets out a laugh, even though it isn't really funny.
"If I'm All Might's secret love child, then Shinso is Aizawa's secret love child." That gets a full on laugh out of Shouto, and it's worth it. He'd kill to protect this smile. "In fact, we could make a whole party out of it. Get Uraraka to make some human balloons, Koda could do a petting Zoo, ride Dark Shadow, pin the tail on Kacchan. Class 1-A; the party masters." At this point Shouto is mostly out of his funk, grinning at Izuku full on, making his heart ache. Time to finish him off. "And you can't have a party without a clown, and would you look at that? I happen to be absolutely hilarious! I'd just put on some makeup, wear a red nose and I'd fit the part just fine!" Todoroki is giggling with mirth at this point, bad mood dispelled. Mission complete
Standing up, he offers Shouto his hand; "Wanna hang for the next couple hours?" Still smiling, Shouto takes his hand.
"Sure." And Izuku continues his day with Shouto, showing him movies and tv and studying and just doing whatever until 5:10.
"I'll be back soon hopefully, you can stay in here while I'm gone!" They had moved to Izuku's room pretty quickly after all. It makes him blush slightly, leaving Shouto alone in him room. He goes onto the balcony and jumps, using BlackWhip as a sort of stilts to break his fall. Waving goodbye to Shouto, he activates One For All at 10% and starts tearing up the ground (not literally tho) in his run towards the main U.A building. He deactivates One For All once he's inside and stops running, making it to the teachers lounge at 6 on the dot.
Knocking reveals Midnight in surprisingly normal clothes. "Ahh, a student. Here, on a Sunday? Did you come for me?" She alluringly teases, fluttering her eyes.
"Uhm-" Izuku coughs, "No I uh, I'm here for All Might." As if called by Izuku saying his name, All Might appears behind Midnight.
"Young Midoriya and I must be going now! Bye Nemuri, have a wonderful night." All Might calls over his shoulder as he leads Izuku away to a different room.
"He's too nice to be mad at, always stealing my fun," Midnight mumbles as they leave.
They arrive in the room. All Might pulls up a chair for them both. "So, how are you, my boy?" He asks, which is a loaded question if Izuku were to answer honestly. Which he won't.
"Ahh, All Might, I've been really good! I've been doing really well in my training lately, I think I need to start doing more to be honest. It's starting to get kind of easy." He scratches the back of his neck, feeling awkward. Is this too much? Is Izuku bragging?
All Might just blinks, "Of course, my boy, you never stop, do you?" It's said endearingly, causing Izuku to duck his head and mumble something wit ha red face. "You'll get to 100% in no time with that attitude!"
"Before we get to what I messaged you about, how are you All Might? I haven't seen you around as much lately." The worry is obvious in Izuku's voice, showing the care he holds for the older hero.
"Uhem, I have not been doing that well. Ever since the final fight with All For One, I just feel. Useless, I guess. It's like, when I took out All For One, he took some of me in the process." Realizing he was spilling his truth to his successor, he apolgized, "I'm sorry Young Midoriya, I really shouldn't be telling you this. You don't need the burden of my problems on your shoulders as well." His tone became sadder and more tired the longer he talked. All Might lowered his head, he's a disgrace to heroes everywhere.
"All Might." All Might looked up to see his successor staring at him. "You're quirkless now. Everyone's going to treat you like porcelain. Don't let them, because no matter if you have One For All or not, you'll always be All Might. You'll always be the smiling savior. Nobody can take that away from you." Izuku's voice was strong, not quivering, he wouldn't let All Might think bad about himself, dammit. "In my eyes, in my classes eyes, you'll always be a hero."
Tears were sparkling in All Might's eyes, "Its my job to comfort you dammit."
All Izuku could say in response was, "even heroes need to be saved sometimes." Before anything else can happen, he blurts out he called All Might here. "I unlocked Float!"
All Might's jaw drops, and he coughs up blood. "You did? That's fantastic, my boy! How did you do it?"
Izuku doesn't really know how to answer. "I dunno, I guess I just. Let everything go, y'know?" He shrugs, not really knowing how to explain it. "I just had to tell you. Do you wanna see?" The excitement is clear in his voice. Not waiting for an answer, he activates One For All, letting the power seep into his body, holding it like last night. It's easy to fall into the feeling this time, not infinite voids or abysses made of nothing, just the feeling of letting unshackling his chains to the ground. He feels himself lift into the air, his body floating off the ground.
All Might's jaw drops for a second time as he see's Young Midoriya use Float. "Holy shit!" He looks so much like Nana that it hurts. "You can stop now, Young Midoriya. Thank you." With those words Izuku drops One For All, becoming chained to Earth once again. They smile at each other, and all is well.
It is 10 minutes later, at 7pm that Izuku arrives at his room. Instead of going up through the steps, he simply calls Float and flies up to his balcony. "Hey" he says softly, seeing Shouto stare at him. "I got another aspect." Shouto blinks, then simply nods. They'll talk about it later, when Shouto is having a less eventful day. He also apparently decided to share what upset him so badly.
"My father wants to properly apologize to my entire family. He says he wants us to be an actual family again. Like there was ever a first time." Covering his mouth, Shouto collapses to his knees as sobs consume him. "Why? Why can't he just leave me alone!?" He manages to get out, as Izuku holds him.
Izuku reaffirms and changes his promise to himself, making One For All reacts inside him. Endeavour is so dead. Fuck society, if it can't survive without an abusive trash bag, then it can burn.
(Somewhere deep in Tartarus, a man laughs.)