Chapter Text
Todoroki didn't sleep well last night, or at all really.
You might be thinking "oh! He just broke up with his boyfriend, he must be a wreck!" That's not it at all, in fact, quite the opposite.
Shouto was pretty over the whole thing already and felt really guilty how fast he came to terms with it. That was a big part of his dilemma.
He sauntered down to the living room where Yaomomo and Jirou (Iida probably had morning patrol that day) were there waiting.
"Shouto," Yaomomo greeted kindly. "You said you were going through something correct?"
Straight to the point. Todoroki sighed and plopped down on an armchair adjacent to the loveseat the other two were sitting on.
"What was so crisis inducing that you had to keep me up all night?" Jirou grumbled, leaning heavily in her girlfriend's arm.
"Yes, you could phrase it like that," Yaomomo said cautiously, gently rubbing Jirou's shoulder. "I am curious as to why you were listening to that one song in particular,"
Todoroki groaned, leaning back in his chair, throwing his head back, and looking at the ceiling. "I'm having a crisis," he said flatly.
"Uh huh, yeah, we gathered that much," Jirou grouched, nodding mockingly.
"Kyoka, I know your tired but be nice, we still don't know what's going on," Yaomomo soothed.
"Hm," Jirou hummed in compliance and buried her face into her girlfriend's side.
"Now, you were saying, Shouto?"
Todoroki sighed again and tore his eyes away from the ceiling to look back at her. "I shouldn't be moving on from Izuku as quickly as I am," he said plainly, deciding not to dwell
"Oh?" Yaoyorozu questioned and even Jirou looked up at him for this, surprised. "Why do you say that?"
"We dated for a pretty long time and I just feel like I should still be attached, y'know?" Todoroki said, sighing and dropping his head
"You two are still friends though aren't you? I'm sure it's completely normal to feel that way-" Yaoyorozu was cut off.
"Why do you- sorry babe- why do you think you're moving on too quickly?" Jirou asked.
Todoroki shifted uncomfortably in his seat. "I kind of... met someone the other day," he said quietly, avoiding their gaze.
When the silence went on for a beat too long, he decided to look at them again and the two girls were sort of just staring at him in shock.
"That is pretty quick," Yaomomo muttered to herself before looking horrified my her own words and quickly trying to remedy it. "Not that there's anything wrong with that! It's better to move on quickly then to never move on at all,"
"Yeah, I guess you're right," Todoroki agreed, nodding his head slightly.
"That doesn't explain the blasting of the same song for 5 hours+ you did last night," Jirou said. "What was that about?"
"Oh, well, I sorta barely know the guy so it made me feel even more guilty, I tried to drown out my sorrows with music but that one song came on and it reminded me ove him so I just played it over and over," Todoroki said, uncharacteristically bashful.
"Wh-"
"Ah!" Yaoyorozu put a hand over Jirou's mouth to keep her from saying anything insensitive. "How did you meet?"
"On my mission yesterday," Todoroki said simply. Yaoyorozu and Jirou looked at him expectantly for him to elaborate but he opted not to. "That's all you're getting,"
"Awe, Todowoki has a wittle crush," Jirou teased. "I didn't know you could do that,"
"Shut up," Todoroki grumbled, trying to suppress a blush.
~
Kaminari was spending one of his rare days off going out on a date, or that's what was originally planned. In the end, he was stood up, so his day wasn't exactly going the greatest to start. On top of that, as Kaminari stopped at as coffee shop, a villain burst in and started gathering people to act as hostages.
Perfect.
Of course, Kaminari wasn't caught up in that since he was leaving just as the villain came in, but the resulting chaos caused by the villains arrival made him spill his drink. Now throughly annoyed by the entire day at that point, Kaminari decided that some hero work and kicking badguy ass would be a good stress reliever. Of course, as dumb as Kaminari was, he wasn't going to just charge in there and flailing around so he opted to wait a moment and assess the situation.
The villain appeared to have been chased by a couple of heros that were now calling for back up and/or coaxing with the crowd. Kaminari walked over to the closest hero, a man with half and half hair and a blue outfit, and tapped him on the shoulder.
"Hey man, what's-" Kaminari was cut off when the man grabbed him and gently, yet very quickly, pushed him back into the crowd
"Sir, you should stay behind this point," the man said, pointing to a faint line on the ground before walking away. Kaminari stood there and blinked for afew second, shocked, before realizing why that had happened.
He wasn't in his costume. Nothing like that had ever happened to him because he was in costume and they were aware he was supposed to be there, is this scenario, neither were true.
Kaminari quickly ran after him after gaining his composure & was a little more prepared. "Hey wait!" He called and the half and half guy turned and looked rather annoyed.
"Sir," he said, putting his hands up. "It'd be better for us if everyone could cooperate, please step away and keep a safe distance,"
"No no! I get that, but I'm a hero too," Kaminari explained quickly and desperately. Half and half looked at him skeptically, surveying him up and down with and only looking more skeptical when he was done. "Okay yeah, I know I don't look it," Denki said, self consciously wrapping his jacket around himself to hide the recent coffee stains. "But swear I am, I'm just off duty,"
"Fine do you have your license with you?" Half and half asked stiffly.
"My hero license?" He asked dumbly.
"No, your driver's lic- yes your hero license!" Half and half said exasperatedly, starting to walk away, this time with more conviction.
"No! Ok, wait," Kaminari called again but this time half and half didn't stop. Denki ran up to walk side by side with the man as he talked. "I know I don't look professional but I promise you I am, can you just give me a quick run down on the situation and if I don't see anyway I can help then I'll leave, kay?"
Half and half gave him an unimpressed look and they stated at eachother for a long moment before sighing exasperatedly. "You sure are persistent aren't you?" He mused.
"Yeah, I try," Kaminari shrugged, smiling widely at the other man.
"You do know that it's illegal to do hero work without a license right?" Half and half asked.
"Yep, and I'm not worried about it cause I'm actually a hero and the fact you don't believe me is starting to sting," Kaminari responded.
"I don't have time for this. Fine, listen, I'm only gonna say this once so keep up, got it?" He said, unnecessarily forceful.
"Yes sir," Kaminari stood up straight, saluting.
"Right... so ingenium, myself, and a few others have been pursuing this guy for about an hour," he began. "We've gathered that physical attacks don't effect him and he only gets more powerful each time he's attacked but gets weaker each time he attacks for himself so we believe he's taking the power behind the attacks administered and using them as an energy source,"
"Hmm," Kaminari hummed thoughtfully. "Anything else?" He asked.
Half and half have him another skeptical look before continuing. "It's more than likely that he can't expel energy at the same time he's gathering or else he will hurt himself and so far he's been trying his hardest not to be hurt in any way so I assume it wouldn't take a lot to take him out if our attacks actually did something,"
Kaminari nodded along with him before stumbling across a thought. "Do you think he has a limit?" He asked. "Like, how much energy and power he can store in in his body until theres no more room for it all?"
Half and half kept his gaze skeptical."I mean, probably, most people have limits, why?"
"We'll just have over power him won't we?" Kaminari chuckled, grinning widely and wiping his nose unnecessarily.
Half and half narrowed his eyes at him. "That's easier said than done, no one here is equipped to do that sort of thing without taking breaks and a break would give ample time to expel whatever energy and then you're back to square one," he said bitterly.
"That's what you think, but I'm here so don't worry, I'll handle it," Kaminari said confidently and sauntered his way over to the cafe's entrance.
"H-hey wait!" Half and half reached out to him as he walked away but Kaminari was already through the door.
~
Shit.
As soon as the blonde passed through the doors, Iida came up to Shouto with questions
"Who was that," he demanded.
"Oh, hi iid- I mean, Ingenium," Todoroki shook his head. "Sorry, I have no idea who that was"
"You don't know?" Iida asked incredulously. "Was he a hero at least?"
"Maybe, he said he was but I don't think I believed him," Todoroki shrugged.
"You didn't think he was a hero and you let him run into an active crime scene?" Iida asked, almost sounding horrified.
"What was I supposed to do?" Todoroki retorted. "He wasn't exactly a reasonable kind of guy," he defended.
"Maybe go after him so a civilian doesn't die while we're on duty?" Iida said exasperatedly.
Todoroki paused a moment, blinking dumbly before guilty nodding his head. "That's a good idea," he said and made his way to the door himself.
"Wait, Todoroki! Don't go in there, he might already-" but he wasn't listening, Shouto was already through the door and surveying the situation on the inside.
The hostages were all huddled in a corner, the villain in the middle of the room with his eyes on them and... the blonde was no where to be seen. He wasn't anywhere lining the room, he wasn't in the mix of hostages, he obviously wasn't engaging the villain, and he wasn't crawling across the ceiling beams like an odd kind of monkey either-
Wait a moment...
Nope, yeah, that's exactly what he was doing. He was roughly above the villain when he spotted Shouto and waived at him excitedly.
'What are you doing?" Todoroki mouthed angrily, pointing downward as if beckoning him to come down but not really doing much
'I...' the blonde mouthed back, pointing forcefully at himself. "Am going to jump on his shoulders' he continued, gesturing wildly.
Shouto stared at him in shock and almost yelled out 'are you crazy?!' but thankfully controlled himself enough to simply mouth it back at him.
The idiot- I mean, the blonde nodded enthusiastically with a thumbs up.
'Yup!' He mouthed again. 'Can you distract him for me?' He looked down expectantly.
Todoroki cursed under his breath and went back to surveying the situation. The hostages were far enough away from the villain that whatever the stranger had planned shouldn't reach them, all Shouto had to do was assist in whatever plan that was and hope he isn't completely useless. Todoroki looked back at the idiot hanging from the ceiling and gave him a thumbs up as a sign of agreement to the plan and stood up.
Shouto's movement immediately drew the attention of both the villain and the hostages "Good" Todoroki thought to himself. "The more focus on me the less likely the other guy will be spotted, let's just hope this works"
"Oh look, it's the guy from earlier," the villain announced, sounding bored. "Did you not learn from earlier? Nothing you'll do is gonna stop me, it'll make me stronger,"
"Yes," Shouto nodded, buying time for whatever the blonde had in store. "I wanted to ask you about that by the way,"
"Tch, why would I answer any of your pathetic questions," he growled.
"Just cause I'm curious," Todoroki said, shrugging. "Do you have a limit in there?"
"Hah? Limit? What kind of question is that?" The villain scoffed. "Everyone has a limit, why? You going getting me there pretty boy?"
"No, I wouldn't do that," Shouto said honestly. "Just wanna know how much you can handle,"
"Oh really?" The villain snarled menacingly. "Why should I tell you that, huh? You planning something against me runt?"
"Of course not, I just want to know exactly how much better you are then me," Shouto lied, slowly growing annoyed at how long it was taking for the idiot to act.
"Admitting I'm better now, are we?" The villain laughed. "Alright fine, I'd say about as much energy as it takes to power a house, I use to short circuit my childhood home all the time but that's about it, you think you can over power a house?"
"Oh no, I probably-"
"A house huh?"
Everyone's attention was drawn up to the blonde, dangling from the ceiling and grinning. "That's what you said right?" He asked, almost giggly.
"Who are you short stack?" The villain growled. "What of it-"
"All I've gotta do is hit you with more power then a house," the blonde laughed. "Yeah, I think I can manage that, don't you?"
'What is he doing?' Todoroki hissed in his mind, glaring up at the blonde.
"What are you on about, Crazy?" The villain asked, scoffing again. "Why are you up there and how'd you even get on the ceiling-" he was cut off by the idiot falling onto his shoulders and wrapping his arms around the villains head and covering the man's eyes.
"Hey halfy! Back up a bit why doncha?" The blonde yelled and he struggled against the villain blindly thrashing about.
Todoroki backed himself against a far wall, thinking better then to make a run for the hostages and deciding to wait until the villain was down to see what he could do for them. He waited a moment to see what the other would do in the meantime. Normally, Shouto knows who he's working with and buy extension, their quirk and how they usually use it, the stranger was a complete mystery (and still possibly a civilian) and extremely reckless. Just as Todoroki started running though the posible scenarios in his head, (would the man try and pin the villain to the ground?) A bright light snapped his attention back to the villain and the quite literally glowing man atop his shoulders.
Todoroki squinted at the scene, barely able to see the two men surrounded by what he assumed was crackling electricity. The villain yelled and continued to thrash around, not in any pain as he was just absorbing almost all of the energy but knew that he wouldn't be able to to keep it up for long. The blonde held on for dear life, nearly getting bucked off but holding out. Once the villain reached the capacity of how much his body could contain, the idiot's quirk started to actually work effectively and it didn't take long for the bad guy to get overwhelmed and pass out.
There was about three seconds of heavy silence after the blonde stopped using his quirk as the roughly 12 ft tall villain hung there before leaning and free falling. The idiot that what still sitting upon the mans shoulders shrieked as he teetered backwards off the villain as they both fell.
Shouto knew that he couldn't catch the villain, also how it was unnecessary, but he could catch the idiotic man he had followed in the first place. So that's exactly what he did. Shouto ran, faster then he ever remembers running before, and caught the guy before he hit the ground.
The blonde, disoriented, immediately wrapped his arms around Todoroki's neck. They hung there for a moment, regaining their composure, before looking at one another at the same time, eyes locking together.
This was the first good look Shouto got of the man and boy was it something. Of course, he had a vague impression before, he was blonde, dumb and reckless, and not the most built man he's seen. Up close, not much changed.
With the man in Todoroki's arms, he could feel how he wasn't particularly muscly, nor did he weigh very much. He didn't have many defining features except a black lighting bolt in his hair that Shouto had previously assumed was just the shadow of his hair but nope, very prominent. His face wasn't too remarkable either. An okay jawline, not too sharp and not too soft, an average nose and lips but his eyes-
Oh God the eyes.
Todoroki had been ready to just write him off, put him down, go about the rest of the work and clean up that needed to be done but he was caught. Golden eyes stared up at him and he stared back. They weren't overly wide like his friend's Midoriya, Uraraka, and Tsuyu, but they weren't squinting and scowling like Bakugou's or his father's were. They fit him quite nicely actually.
His eyes were very confusing for Shouto which only made him stare more. There appeared to be a flicker of electricity that danced around his iris making them almost glow. They looked confused and knowing and everything all at once but more then anything, the blonde just appeared to be dazed.
They were both snapped out of whatever trance they were in when those beautiful golden eyes suddenly blinked. His face before looked like he hasn't comprehending anything (was he drooling?) but he then blinked a couple times and smiled widely.
'Damn, that smile was alluring too,' Shouto cursed in the back of his head.
"That was pretty good, huh?" The blonde giggled, nearly falling out of secure arms.
"You're a fool," Todoroki grumbled, placing the man down and doing his best to hide a blush.
"Hah, you're just mad I beat you to the punch-" the blonde joked around but stumbled and Todoroki reached out to keep him from falling.
"Are you alright?" Shouto asked, worried.
"Ah," the idiot hummed, leaning heavily into him. "Yeah, I'm alright, it's just been a while since I've had to expel that much energy, I just need a moment to recover,"
Todoroki looked over at the former hostages and adressed as he held onto the blonde's shoulders to keep him steady. "If you all could calmly and quietly exit the building, there are other heroes outside who can assist you,"
Once all the civilians were out of the building, that just left Shouto, the idiot blonde, and an unconscious villain.
"Are you alright?" Shouto asked again, hesitantly taking his hands off the other's shoulders to test if he could actually stay up on his own.
"I'm good," the man chuckled. "What're we doing with this lug?" He asked, lightly kicking the villain in the side of the head.
"Turn him into the police?" Todoroki said obviously. "I thought you said you were a hero, you should know this stuff,"
"Okay, yeah, right, sorry," the blonde rambled. "Sorry, my brain's a little fried right now, I don't know, let's just go," he said, making his way to follow the hostages out the door.
Todoroki quickly followed him out but the moment he breached outside, he was bombarded by press looking for the story, civilians looking for autographs, and the hostages looking to thank him. By the time he was out of their way, the blonde idiot was seemingly gone. He scanned the area at least five times and was about to give up when he saw a glimpse of yellow hair at the outskirts if the crowd.
"H-hey," he called out to him, almost tripping over a few people as he made his over.
The blonde turned around looking stunned, his mind clearly still not in it's peak cognitive shape. When Shouto came up in front of him, he remembered something, he had virtually no people skills. He nearly simply blurted out "you're hot" when staring into his eyes earlier and he really didn't want something like that coming out by accident.
Todoroki just stood awkwardly in front of the man trying to figure out what to say. A few moments too long into the silence between them, Todoroki thought of something. He and Jirou had been practicing a look in the mirror that, Jirou claims, will work on almost anyone paired with the right words and a wink. Shouto personally never saw flirting as a useful tool in his arsenal but social skills weren't in there either so he might as well give it a try.
Of course, Jirou specializes in flirting with women so obviously that's what she was teaching him, he did have a little issue with flirting with the same sex as most of the time, men don't want to be woo-ed with things like "you're deserving of heavens throne"
Shouto put on his best, kindest smile he could muster and talked to the blonde. "Next time we meet, I hope it's under better circumstances, or at least when you have your license," he said, with a slightly out of place wink before walking away.
Todoroki knew that whatever reaction the man would have was going to be delayed, he would need to work extra hard to understand it since his brain wasn't top tier at the moment, but he didn't want to look. Shouto did, however, catch another glimpse of him as he was leaving and seeing the idiot redfaced and even more disoriented made Todoroki's heart swell uncontrollably and he wouldn't have been able to suppress the satisfied smirk that grew on his face even if he tried.
And then he tried really hard not to think about it.
Like, he really tried, and he had succeeded for the rest of the day, it wasn't until he was sitting in his room and listening through yet another playlist Jirou had suggested to him that he heard it. A song that made his heart race and imagine the strange idiot he met that afternoon, so fitting and revealing of all the emotions he refused to let surface until hours later and coming to terms with that maybe Shouto felt a little too proud then to be normal when he saw that he made the blonde blush.
-
"So yeah, that's basically what happened yesterday," Shouto explained to the girls, blushing hard at the fact he was explaining so much and delving into his feelings. "What do you two think?" He asked tentatively, silently begging for answers to all the things he knew almost nothing about himself and the young man he just met.
"Wow," Jirou whistled. "You know what I think?"
"What?" Todoroki asked hopefully.
"You're... GAY! Oh my God how you're gay!" She cackled making Shouto deflate slightly. "You fell in love with his eyes!? Christ, what kind of romance novel are you living in?"
"Kyoka," Yaomomo said disapprovingly. "He's not use to this stuff, leave him alone,"
"I..." Todoroki mumbled, getting the girl's attention back on him. "I never felt that way before... not even with Midoriya..."
The two girls shared a look that he didn't quite understand before Momo reached out and squeezed his knee comfortingly. "Hey... that's completely okay, experiencing new things, especialky good things, is part of life,"
"Right..." Todoroki accepted softly.
"Whelp," Jirou huffed, clapping her hands together, standing up, and stretching out her back. "Oof- it's been fun, but I've gotta go and get some Googling done," she said, making her way to leave.
"Googling?" Shouto blinked, confused.
"Well yeah," she said, as if it were obvious. "I'm gonna look for all the heroes that have electrical quirks and find your celebrity run in,"
"Oh, thank you Jirou," Todoroki nodded nicely "You do realise I'm probably more if a celebrity then he is though, right? I've never even heard of him before today,"
"Does that make you any less infatuated with him?" Jirou grinned mischievously.
Shouto's face burned with a blush and he turned away from her, muttering a pitiful "no"
"That's what I thought!" Jirou laughed and she left the room.
That just left him and Yaomomo. Yaoyorozu had watched her girlfriend leave and once gone, she stands up too. Instead of going to leave though, she takes a few small steps to bridge the gap between herself and Shouto, wrapping her arms around him and gently pushing his head down to rest in the crook of her neck.
"It's okay too feel things," Momo said comfortingly rubbing circles into Shouto's back. "And it's okay not to understand them, I need to go to work but you should get some rest, I can tell you didn't sleep last night," she said softly before slowly pulling away to look him in the eyes.
"Yeah, okay, thank you," Todoroki smiled weakly, but not honestly, at her. "What would I do without you?" He asked jokingly.
"Arson probably," Yaoyorozu joked back, causing them both to chuckle.
"Maybe," Shouto said thoughtfully. "I'll see you later Yaomomo,"
"I'll bring you home some soba, is that okay?" She asked as she paused at the door.
His heart swelled, this time friendly fondness "That would be perfect, thank you so much,"
"It's no problem-"
"For everything," Shouto added shyly, yet incredibly sincerely.
Momo blinked in shock for a moment before melting into a kind smile. "Anytime ♡"