Chapter Text
Shouto doesn’t remember what time it is.
The sun is out and it is on one side of the sky. He isn’t sure what it means. It is cold, which could be a clue of some sort, but it has been cold since Shouto remembers, since he left.
His forearm burns, the way it used to. But there is no wound there, so it must be a dream? Maybe. Shouto isn’t sure. He isn’t sure of anything, nowadays. Not since he could see and not since could feel.
“Hey, we’ve got work to do.”
Shouto stands, he is still facing the sun. Again, he thinks, he does not know what time of day it is. He doesn’t remember how to tell, even. He remembers his textbooks, something about the west and the east, rising and falling. He doesn’t remember much else.
(He remembers Endeavor, he remembers nothing else.)
A skinny hand grabs his wrist gently, pulling him away from the window. He is leaving the sun, he doesn’t want to leave the sun. He’s been staring at it for hours, waiting for it to leave so he can finally be sure it is nighttime. He closed his eyes a little too long, forgot about watching the sun. He doesn’t know how long he slept, or if he slept at all. The sun could’ve risen and fallen three times over, and Shouto doesn’t know it.
So, Shouto does not know what time of day it is.
It is cold outside , his mind repeats.
But, it has been cold since Shouto can remember feeling anything at all.
“Pay attention, Shouto. This is important.”
Shouto looks at the sun through the cracked, weathered windows of the warehouse, and he abandons the sight in hesitant favor of looking to Dabi. He is angry, just like always. Dabi lets go of Shouto’s wrist, and Shouto sees no burn. He feels the burn, though, stinging and melting on his skin.
“I'm sending you, Toga, Twice, and Shouto,” a raspy voice says. It sounds like whispers in Shouto’s head. Shouto moves his hands up to cover his ears, but Dabi pulls his hands back down to his sides.
Holding them there, blue eyes meet Shouto’s. They are all too familiar, all too demanding. “Stop. You need to listen, Shouto.”
Shouto’s arms fall limp, he does not try to cover his ears again. It is unsafe to do so, now, when he is supposed to be listening.
“Shouto,” the first voice says. Shouto knows his name, knows that Shigaraki is important. Dabi told him so, he said that Shigaraki is the boss of the group and that Shouto always has to listen to him.
“Shouto, all you have to do is defend Dabi and the rest of them, got it?” Shouto nods, he does not feel his head moving, though. “That means doing whatever it takes to get the heroes away from them.“
Dabi groans, “Explain it to him in depth, he won’t understand like that.”
“Are you questioning something, Dabi?”
“Yea, I am.” Dabi goes on to say something, but Shouto looks out the window again, seeing the sun fade. That means that it is night. There is a bright outline of where it is leaving, ducking behind the tall buildings surrounding the warehouse. Shouto turns, as Dabi leaves him to argue with Shigaraki. He faces the sun and steps forward. The resulting light that hits his eyes makes him squint them closed, and he backs away.
Shouto holds his hand out, catching a bit of the sun in his palm. His skin is glowy in the golden lighting, and he squeezes his fist closed. It makes him feel… it makes him feel. Shouto opens his hand back up, and then it is snatched away from him.
A void grows inside of Shouto when Dabi speaks to him, the words enter Shouto’s brain but they don’t resonate with him. He is disappearing again, starting with the wrist that Dabi is holding, all the way down to his knees, and the old torn sneakers Dabi gave him. Shouto looks Dabi in the eye. He is angry. Shouto tenses, and the world dissolves, crumbling away at the edges.
Shouto doesn’t know what time of day it is, again. He knows that two nights ago, Shigaraki and Dabi told him something about a mission. Except, that was yesterday, or maybe it was two weeks ago. Shouto can’t keep track of how fast things are moving. Before, in the dark room, things were slow and still. His life was stagnant and he was okay, then. Even when father hurt him.
“Find it, yet?”
There is a small piece of plastic in his ear, a girl’s voice coming through. Next to him, Dabi groans.
“Ask one more time, and I’ll just burn the whole place down. Hell can have their stupid file.”
“Don’t you know,” she says, voice tilting upward, teasingly. “Fire evaporates blood. Can’t steal off of a bunch of burnt corpses.”
“Shut up, would you? I’m looking now,” he opens another drawer, digging through orange paper folders before slamming it shut and yelling. Shouto takes a step back, waiting for Dabi to hurt him.
Something bangs against the door and Shouto flinches. Dabi wears a slightly panicked look, mostly he looks angry. “Shouto, freeze the door.”
His quirk reacts before he does, sending ice to reinforce the barrier between whatever is on the other side of the door, and them. He wonders what kind of monster it is, maybe it’s father, all fire and intimidation. Shouto can’t imagine anything more terrifying or comforting than that.
“Make sure they don’t come in here,” Dabi says, and he continues digging through drawers. He is still angry, eyes practically glowing with unreleased flame. He is scared. Shouto can feel too much and he can’t feel anything at all and he doesn’t know which he wants more. He doesn’t know why Dabi had to take him, or why Dabi is letting him see and hear and feel. Shouto is only supposed to feel when father lets him. And feeling has never been this pleasant, not since the white haired woman from before was with him.
His ice breaks, and he sends more out to keep the monsters out. They are banging on the door and the wall, and there is yelling and shouting. Someone is swearing at him, and he can hear them too loudly. He can feel the temperature of the air and it’s cold, numbingly so. He pulls his hands up to his ears, and his palms hardly muffle the sounds of Dabi’s cursing and the monsters outside of the door. Shouto presses with a force that pains him, but eventually, the noise is blocked out.
He closes his eyes, imagining that he is in the dark room again. He feels tears escape his eyes and soak into the chapped skin of his lips. He feels the apprehension in his own muscles, the way he’s shaking and trembling like a child. Maybe this is a dream, and he really is a kid again. He feels too much, the crumbling of reality, of his existence.
“More ice, Shouto!”
It races to the door from where he’s standing. Despite the way he’s muffling the world behind his hands, Dabi’s words ring out loud and clear, as if he’d entered Shouto’s weak brain and input instructions to carry out. The door solidifies with ice, but something on the other side is slamming against it. The frozen wall is cracking, cracking in big lines running up to the ceiling. Dabi swears again and grabs Shouto by his wrist, tearing his hand from his ear and allowing for reality to seep into Shouto’s brain.
Dabi doesn’t bother with the window, instead pushing Shouto underneath the desk and then sitting next to him, blue flames dancing in his open palms. “You stay the hell here and wait for directions, got it?”
Shouto lets his lungs fill with smoky air, nodding. Dabi stays sat next to him, muttering about Shouto. About how he is weak, and useless, and how he lost his worth a long time ago. How he can do nothing and he is nothing.
Except Dabi’s mouth is not moving, and the voice isn’t his.
(His eyes look like father’s.)
“God, Shouto. Wish you could think for yourself sometimes,” Dabi peeks past the side of the desk, at the monsters who have entered the room. Shouto is too scared to look. “Having you is the same as having one of those braindead Nomu,” he whispers, and Shouto grasps at his hair, pulling it out and letting the pain bring him back down from the empty space inside of him.
“Sorry. I’m sorry-"
Dabi moves quickly, slapping his hand over Shouto’s mouth. “Shut up, idiot!” He hisses, burning his hand hot. It feels real, Shouto can’t be sure though, because he isn’t even real, and he doesn’t know if Dabi is real, or the monsters behind the desk.
“Wouldn’t be in this mess if you could use that stupid brain of yours!”
“Under the desk!” A voice screeches to life, nails on a chalkboard to Shouto’s ears. It sends his heart dropping to his stomach- the monsters know they’re here.
“I should’ve left you in that fucking house, should’ve let that asshole keep you in that dark ass room and keep rotting your brain,” he says, removing his hand from Shouto’s mouth and positioning himself to sit on his heels. The footsteps behind them are getting closer, quieter. They’re coming. They’re coming and Shouto can’t look. Dabi wraps his arm around Shouto’s waist, fisting his already torn shirt in his hand and tugging him close. Shouto can’t breathe.
“Yea,” he continues, listening hard to the monsters behind them. “I should’ve never let you exist outside of that place. You’re just more work.”
Fire burns behind them, Dabi holds Shouto’s head down, hiding his face as they burst through the glass pane of the window. Someone shouts. Dabi’s flames cease. Shouto looks down. They’re falling. They’re falling and Shouto can’t breathe and Dabi lets go of his head.
“Catch us, dumbass!”
Shouto flicks his wrist out, frost playing at the edges of his fingertips and spreading up his arm, to his neck. He creates a ramp so big it touches them in midair. They slide down and Dabi releases him. There are more people. Watching. Looking. They’re monsters.
“You look just like him, like that monster.”
“That left side of his is so unsightly…”
He looks around, he’s in an intersection somewhere. Dabi is… gone? His fire is not, it’s overtaking the buildings to Shouto’s right. The blue flames rise and consume all in their path. They take and take and take and Shouto can’t see Dabi. He looks to his left, now. He sees the sun.
It’s setting. Just like the last time he remembers being present in the body. The sun rises in the east, sets in the west, to be general. Shouto looks at the clouds surrounding it. His skin trembles with the heat from cerulean fire, like he’s cold, but it’s too hot. Sweat drips down the side of his face and he’s alone, he realizes. He’s alone and father isn’t here, Shouto left him. He shouldn’t have left, he didn’t want to. Dabi took him, he never wanted to leave the dark room and its safety.
“Put your hands up! Lay down on the ground, now!”
Shouto whips his head around, breathing erratic and shoulders tense. He raises his hands above his head and brings his chest to the ground. The guns pointing at him are steady and sure, unforgiving. Someone in a spandex suit approaches him. He touches Shouto’s wrists and it hurts. It hurts and fight Shouto, never stop fighting he doesn’t like it. He wants it to stop fight! Win if you want to live! he doesn’t like to be touched.
When both cuffs are locked around his wrists, the monster (hero?) brings him to stand. His guard is down and fightfightfightfight Shouto is at an advantage. But the guns are still surrounding him and he can’t see an opening.
And then, for a brief second, clarity comes to him. The monster (hero, these are heroes, like father) flinches at a blast of flame from Dabi. Shouto tenses and ice surrounds them. The hero is unaffected, he seems to phase out of Shouto’s attack. The police surrounding them are frozen to the ground. Useless. Shouto rips himself away from the hero. Fire shoots out from his palm and the hero doesn’t dodge, just… takes it? He continues on unscathed. Shouto is weak. His fire is weak. His ice is weak, too. It’s melting. Dabi father is much more powerful.
A lack of strategy not working out for him, he takes the defensive, blocking hits from the hero. When there’s a split second where the hero is tired and moves back, Shouto throws a wall up between them, and silence ensues.
He’s freezing. His limbs are locking and he’s got frost sticking to his skin. To the bruises from before, and the scars that have been there since Shouto can remember. It’s building up and creating ice, cold and unforgiving. He shivers. He does not use his left side. Fire burns him, he doesn’t want to use his left side.
“Hey! Showed off some skills back there, huh?” The hero is here, in Shouto’s ice. Shouto doesn’t understand it, he grasps his hair, tangling his fingers through the strands until they’re creating knots. “Next time, loosen up a bit!” His smile is big, genuine(?) Shouto shakes his head, trying to grasp what could be happening.
The cuffs are tight against his skin, putting pressure on his bones and they’re sure to bruise, later. Shouto has always bruised easily.
The hero lunges at him again, but when Shouto throws his hands up to block, the hero phases through him, too. Then, Shouto is sent forward by a fist to his back. He stumbles, falling onto his knees roughly. The fabric of his sweatpants rips, his skin tears. Ice sprouts from his right side, jutting out in spikes even bigger than the buildings around them. The hero doesn’t step back, just continues advancing toward Shouto, evading every attack. Shouto falls onto his rear, trying to keep generating ice around them, until there’s ring after ring of icy spikes. It’s just him and the hero. Just him and the monster.
Shaky with fear, his body continues to freeze. Faster, now. Thick ice spreads from his right leg to his left, up his body, and enclosing around his chest. Deep breaths become labored, the ice constricting all movement and keeping him rooted to the ground get up get up useless! Heroes don’t give up!
He tries to create fire, but the small flame he manages dies out within a second. His ice covers his palm, panicky, terror-filled ice. The hero is coming, lurking in the hall outside of the dark room, a belt in hand. Shouto rolls over from his position, hiding his face and chest and showcasing his back, because that’s where it hurts the least and Shouto doesn’t want to get burned again and he his white boots gently stepping onto the ground. He’s been smiling this entire time, but not now? What changed? What did Shouto do?
“Hey there. You’re not hurt, are you?”
Shouto scrambles away from him, and he sees the hero go transparent for just a moment, before returning to his regular form. Shouto, with wide eyes and a frown set deep in his features, tries for his fire again. Where his quirk should be, there is nothing. His ice, too. Where they are supposed to be, he finds fear.
Damn, he’s gonna die.
“I’ve never seen you in our reports, before,” the hero starts again, looking behind him and past the arena of ice to his comrades. “Sir’s never messed up a report, so you must be new.” Shouto looks to where he is- to where Dabi is stepping through a portal, not looking back. Is he leaving Shouto? He can’t place what he did wrong. He only listened, he doesn’t want Dabi to leave. Dabi took him how could you let this happen and gave him food he, he took him from father you’re supposed to be strong! and Shouto wants to go back already.
“Ah, Shouto,” another voice says, lazy and cool. “It’s about time we met.”
Both the hero and Shouto whip their heads up to the sky, to where another hero is flapping two giant red wings. Hand in his pocket while the other wields a radio of some sort. Shouto does his best to move away, but the first hero grabs his leg to keep him from moving, red gloves unbothered by the ice.
“Woah, a bit chilly down here, huh?” The hero lands several feet in front of them, stuffing the radio into his pocket and crossing his arms to shiver. “I would’ve brought a better jacket if I’d known you could do all this,” he gestures to the ice, towering above them.
The hero steps forward, not fully smiling but if he looks close enough there’s a smirk playing at his lips, chapped and dry from the cold. “Nice to finally meet you, Shouto,” the man kneels down in front of him, extending his hand out. Shouto flinches away, but the hero just chuckles. “I’m Hawks, if you haven’t already heard of me.”
Shouto stares at the hand, he can tell it’s meant as a friendly gesture, but it could be a trick (?) Shouto doesn’t like to be touched.
Hawks nods knowingly before turning back to the mess Shouto made. “Gotta say, you’re more impressive when it’s an equal fight. That little dojo does you no justice,” he laughs, small and teasing.
The first hero, “Hawks, you know this guy?”
Hawks looks over to him, “Oh! Kid from UA, didn’t notice you!” Shouto saw him look at the both of them, though.
“It’s Lemillion, sir!” The hero announces his name, Shouto takes note of it.
Hawks stands and stretches his hand out to Shouto, “Anyways, to answer your question: I’ve known about him for a while now, he doesn’t know about me, though.” A hint of a frown sparks in his nonchalant act. He wiggles his fingers a bit, urging Shouto to take his hand. “Doesn’t know much of anything that isn’t from a textbook. But that’s okay! New beginnings and all. I’ve got an assignment surrounding Shouto here, so I’ll take him in, now.”
Instead of waiting for Shouto even longer, Hawks grabs his wrist he hates being touched from him, and he, too, is wearing gloves. His hands hardly slip on the ice. Shouto is brought to his feet, frost starting to thaw off of the body. His legs tremble under his weight, which is usually so easy to support. Hawks holds his wrist the entire time that he leads Shouto past the police, to a black van. He opens the double doors on the back and gestures to the inside.
It’s illuminated by a bright led light on the left side of the cabin. There’s a mesh net separating the main cabin from the back, and benches on either side of the back. “Get comfortable. It’s a thirty-minute drive, I’ll meet you there.” Hawks looks down at Shouto’s still cuffed hands. “We’ll leave those on you, for now, yea? Sounds good.” He throws up a peace sign, smirk sly and cunning, “See ya!”
And he’s gone, red wings lifting him farther and farther away. Despite the tingling feeling of being touched, Shouto misses the warmth, and the feeling that he is real.