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It all starts, like most illicit substances do, with a sleepover.
Well, not really, Shouto’s heard most illicit substances actually start at parties people get black out drunk at but every single one of the kids in Class 1A has too much anxiety to deal with alcohol or is too clumsy to smuggle in alcohol and since they all sleep at Heights Alliance even that would be a sleepover. Maybe. Shouto has been invited to parties at the Class 1B dorms, but he’s pretty sure the person who asked him was actually trying to seduce him. He’s pretty sure of this because of the color Midoriya’s face had turned, the way Iida had choked on air so bad Tsuyu had had to use the Heimlich maneuver on him, and the fact that Ururaka had started laughing so hard she had started floating.
He had repeated the person’s exact words to Momo later, and Momo had also turned red and started spluttering, so he assumed he was correct in his initial assumption that the invitation was contingent on his making out with someone. He didn’t want to. That sounded—complicated, and in all probability sticky.
Anyway, he was already busy with the 1A movie night, so he had said as much and walked away.
“We wouldn’t have minded if you went to a party!” Sero told him, as they sat on the couch, watching an anime adaptation of a Shoujo Manga both of them had been reading. Shouto didn’t like the voice actor for one of the main characters—he was reminded a bit too much of a villain he’d dealt with while on work study—so conversation was not an unwelcome distraction, but this conversation he would’ve skipped anyway.
“I didn’t want to go to a party. I don’t know anyone in 1B well.”
“You aren’t required to know everyone at a party! That’s the point of parties. You get to know people.”
“Well, but Monoma would have been there,” Shouto said, which he knew Sero couldn’t argue with.
“You could’ve avoided Monoma!”
“But he would’ve been there! There are some risks not even the bravest man can take.” Shouto said this as solemnly as possible, hoping to divert Sero somehow.
“Fine, we should have a 1A party so that you can go to one without Monoma.”
“Why do we need to have a party?”
“Because you haven’t been to one, Todoroki!”
“How do you know that?”
Sero made an expression of despair. “Too many things to count, Todo, please, let’s not argue about this. Both of us know you’ve never been to a party.”
“And proud of it. I like all of you—I wouldn’t mind a party with you so much—but there are so many of you on top of each other and all at once, so it would still not be my favorite way of socializing.”
“He’s an introvert, Sero, you have to remember how to deal with introverts!” Kaminari had Shinso by the shoulders, and looked like he was trying to convince the poor boy to do something he would rather not have dealt with. Shouto gave Shinso what he hoped was a sympathetic expression. Shinso’s returning look made Shouto suspect he had just unintentionally told Shinso to eat a baby or something. Shouto was starting to believe he needed to retake preschool to figure out how to give proper nonverbal communication a try. “Manipulate them into small socializing before you try to make them do more advanced socialization—like breaking into Aizawa-Sensei’s room!”
“Breaking into whose room?” Midoriya asked innocently, from where he was embroidering a cat on the couch, unnoticed for the course of the conversation. He was surprisingly good at doing that—hiding in corners, unnoticed.
“No one’s! We’d never break any laws.”
Midoriya was trying not to laugh. He was very cute when he was trying not to laugh, the way that small predators are very cute because they are fluffy. “Of course. I’ll tell the police I know what upstanding citizens you are when you get in trouble.”
“Midori! We aren’t going to get into trouble.”
“Yes, we are, if you get your way,” Shinso said, arms crossed.
“Anyway, Todoroki,” Midoriya said. “I thought you might like sleepovers a bit better than parties. Is that true?”
“Sure,” Shouto said, because he could predict where this would be going. “I like them. Lots of—sleeping. And candy, I heard there’s candy?”
“There can be candy,” Midoriya said affably, “and as much or as little sleeping as you want. We could make cookies! And I’m going home this weekend, and if you wanted, I could ask Aizawa-Sensei if you can come too!”
“That would be lovely,” Shouto said, and then, thinking about the problem he’d been confronting for a while. “Could you come see my mom with me on Sunday? Then we could go back to the dorms. Oh, we could get ice cream first. I mean, after visiting my mom, before coming back to Yuei.”
Midoriya had the most adorable excited expression, eyes sparkly, face flushed, nose squished, and Shouto had the overpowering urge to poke his cheek and see if he was actually real and not a Studio Ghibli character. “Oh, really?!”
“Yes,” Shouto said.
“YES!” Midoriya yelled, pumping his fist with excitement. “This is gonna be awesome! I’m going to go tell Aizawa-Sensei! Thanks, Todoroki!” Forehead kiss.
“Don’t I get one?” Sero yelled.
“As soon as I get back I promise!” Midoriya called back.
“Blatant favoritism!” Sero said, shaking his head.
“I know. We have to steal Shinso before the Deku-squad gets him. Their power is growing all the time. Did you see the pixie cut Ururaka got yesterday? She’s downright lethal with that thing. She walks like she’s going to curb-stomp me and I’m going to thank her for it.”
Shinso said, “You realize I’m right here.”
“And I’m right here,” Shouto said.
“But you’re honorary Baku-squad,” said Sero.
“So is Midoriya!”
“Blatant favoritism, that’s what I’ve been saying this entire time!” Sero said, as though this was simply more evidence of his point. What his point was Shouto had no idea.
“Ok,” Shouto said, using the sympathetic tone of voice he had used when Kota had been crying because Eri had said she was going to marry Midoriya so he couldn’t. “All right.”
“You think I’m crazy but there’s a conspiracy here!”
“Oh,” said Shouto, with curiosity and interest. “There is never a conspiracy I think is too crazy to exist. Explain it to me.”
And Sero would have perhaps, except that at that time the fire alarms started going off, smoke pouring from the dorm two buildings over, for once an alarm in the school that had nothing to do with them. Shouto and Sero and Kaminari and Shinso and everyone else had the strangely normal experience of being herded outside, lined up by homeroom teacher, and accounted for. Of course, they were on red rather than green because Midoriya was missing. He was found escorting Recovery Girl out of a building and given a very stern talking-to about leaving those kinds of things to proper emergency workers. The fire was extinguished, 1B’s alcohol from their party was discovered, everything was charmingly normal, a lot of yelling occurred, and Shouto went inside and hid because people.
On the weekend, he and Midoriya packed their bags and took the bus to the Midoriyas’ apartment, shepherded along by someone from class 3A that Shouto had met before. He was relieved as usual that Midoriya’s constant stream of questions and excitement prevented him from needing to make any effort of his own in small talk. The student from 3A was just as enthralled with Midoriya by the end of the conversation as everyone else in the entire school. Shouto gave her a sympathetic look. “It doesn’t get better.”
She looked at him, then laughed, ruffled his hair until the red and white made not exactly pink, and said, “You are such an adorable kid. I don’t have any idea why people think you’re cool, you’re a dork, and I love that for you. Go with God, Todorki!”
Shouto decided he loved the destruction of his name so much that he got on discord and immediately changed his username to Todorki, typed out, “this is me now, I’m sorry,” into the 1A general chat, and then turned off his phone to let the chaos mount because that would be fun to come back to later.
Midoriya checked his phone, looked at Shouto, and then lay down on the couch laughing so hard he made no sound at all. Shouto had not been trained in tactics by Aizawa and Endeavor for nothing. He walked over, bent down, and tickled Midoriya without mercy. Some opportunities are too good to pass up.
Midoriya lit up bright green, started flying, all while laughing so hard he couldn’t breathe. “Todoroki, stop!”
“Never, until you acknowledge my true nature,” Shouto said, dramatically, the way he would have if he’d been playing heroes and villains with Eri. “I am Todorki, the dark one.”
“Nohohohho!”
“Then I shall never desist! I shall be victorious—”
“Todoroki—I—kick—when—I’m—”
Kick when he was laughing Midoriya indeed did. Involuntarily. Man, what a kick that kick had. Shouto landed thankfully on the couch, and lay staring up at the ceiling.
“Midoriya, did you paint a tiny All Might in the corner?”
Midoriya lay down beside Shouto and looked where he was pointing. He frowned. “I don’t think so. I mean—I could’ve. I sleepwalk sometimes. More when I was younger, but sometimes when I’m stressed I do things while I’m asleep. That makes it sound like I do criminal things. I actually do acts of service, apparently? Like, dishes for my mom? Cookies for my sick neighbor? But I do break and enter while I’m sleepwalking, so I guess it’s a crime?”
“Crimes of service,” Shouto intoned solemnly.
So it went. There was a pillow fight, and lemonade, lying on a balcony and starwatching, falling asleep on each other because both of them were used to bedtime before 10:30, and pancakes for breakfast. Then there was Saturday. Midoriya-San was home, and very open to playing games with them, cooking with them, and giving Shouto hugs. She was lovely, and motherly, and not really at all like his mother but exactly like her at the same time. Shouto loved her immediately.
Shouto got many cuddles, and wondered if it would be weird to broach the topic of not knowing how to ask his mother for cuddles.
But then it was Sunday and too late for all that.
“Hello Todoroki-san!” Midoriya was almost shaking with nervous excitement.
“Mother, this is Midoriya Izuku. Midoriya, this is my mother, Todoroki Rei.”
“Call me Rei, darling, I prefer it. I’ve heard so much about you, I feel like I already know you. Oh, how sweet!” This last part was because Midoriya and Shouto, over the course of the weekend, while discussing gifts, had made her two dozen cookies, three get well cards, a bouquet of paper roses, bought her three succulents, and a tiny pangolin stuffie. All this they had precariously stacked into two bags labelled From Midoriya and Shouto with Love, for Todoroki-San, neither of them having any idea if it was the proper way to address Rei, but trying hard all the same. If Midoriya-san had known better what to do she hadn’t said a word, only stood there laughing with tears in her eyes.
Rei gathered up Midoriya into a hug, and kissed his forehead, and Shouto’s heart clenched. She released Midoriya and ruffled his hair. “Your mother must be very proud of you, Midoriya. What a sweet smile you have!”
“E—excuse me, Todor—Rei-san, aren’t you going to hug Todoroki?”
Rei turned to him, her face surprised but very kind. “Of course! I thought—I’m sorry, sweetheart, oh, I didn’t mean to leave you out. You just never initiated one and I didn’t know how to ask—” And to find that he has this in common with his mother is no burden. He flings his arms around his mother—harder than he should, probably, but she squeezes him just as tight—and feels his chest expand with helium so high and light and floating he may never come down.
She kisses his forehead. He hums with happiness.
Midoriya whispers, clearly trying to be heard by Rei and not by Shouto, “Todoroki only hums when he’s really happy. He likes hugs a lot. You should give him hugs all the time, Rei-san.”
Rei reaches an arm around Midoriya, who lets out a little noise of surprise, and pulls him into the hug too, and Shouto wiggles a little because this is truly the loveliest moment. And then, because of course they can’t have a nice Sunday, the roof tears off. Water pours in, soaking cookies, succulents, get well cards, and of course the hug pile too. Above them, a villain is screaming, “And no one understands me!”
And Midoriya, with the righteous rage of sheer exhaustion in having to deal with villain attacks every fifteen minutes, leaptup into the air, smacked him across the jaw into insensibility, tied him up with handcuffs from nowhere, put him into Hawks’ hands with the most terrifying “HERE,” that Shouto had ever heard, and arrived back down in Rei’s room in exactly 119 seconds with a towel to dry her off and big puffy eyes to cry over the fact that her new succulents are probably dead and the cookies are ruined.
Rei mouthed something Shouto read as “What the duck,” but then mentally translated into something slightly more inappropriate and more scandalous to hear from one’s mother’s mouth, but then she never has seen Midoriya in action.
“Midoriya,” Shouto said, to forestall the tears. “You have saved my mother’s life. How can I ever repay you.”
Midoriya blinked at him.
“I shall make you the inheritor of all the things which I possess,” he said, very solemnly, nodding to himself.
“Todoroki, I—”
“And I, Todorki the handcrusher, shall retire from herodom forever, having been outshone so young by—”
And Midoriya got at last that Todoroki was joking and laughed just as hard as he had been crying. Rei had no idea what was happening, probably, but was smiling and stroking Midoriya’s back soothingly and not complaining about her youngest child’s insanity.
Rei gave Todoroki another hug, and he relaxed into it. He was so glad he’d skipped the party. Mom hugs were better than drugs, he decided, and less mentally compromising. She kissed his forehead. “Have a nice week, sweetheart, and bring back your friend. No, sweethearts, the cookies aren’t ruined, see? You bagged them up so nicely. It’s waterproof packaging. No, my room will be repaired soon enough I’m fine. Goodnight.”
On the way back to the dorms, Shouto said, “By the way, you don’t have to call me Todorki. We can still be friends if you don’t.”
Midoriya smiled till his eyes crinkled. “You don’t have to call me Midoriya either. You can call me Izuku.” He looked, then, just the slightest bit hesitant.
Shouto pulled one arm around him, kissed Izuku’s forehead, and said, “You can call me Shouto. Hey, want to legally change my name to Todorki next weekend? It would be so funny to see my old man’s face!”
“Imagine how your mom will react!”
“‘Shouto, I could never be disappointed in you, but what does dork mean?’ She would enjoy it just as much as I would.”
Aizawa-sensei landed in front of them on the street. “If I ever let you out of the dorms again it will be too soon.”
“Sensei, we graduate in—”
“No.”
“Sensei, Hound Dog has been telling me in therapy about this little thing called separation anxiety—”
“I will never give you head pats again if you try to psychoanalyze me.”
Shouto knows a false threat when he hears one, but discretion is the better part of valor. Arm in arm with Izuku and the newfound drug of motherly love and approval, Shouto strolls back into Heights Alliance, and promptly finds out that while his phone was off, his insane 1A classmates made a Twitter called Todorki and posted all of his worst pictures on it. (There are some really bad ones on there too.) The worst part is that they got it verified. Izuku valiantly yells that they should give it back to Todoroki, that impersonating a minor is a criminal offense, and ruins it all by accidentally calling him Shortoroki in the middle because he’s the shortest Todoroki sibling.
Izuku may or may not be Shouto’s favorite person because only he could end an argument with, “And if you don’t I’ll take your All Might privileges away for a month!” and make it sound actually threatening.