Work Text:
When Touya first started what Dad’s been calling his “rebellious phase”, he could trace the reason directly to not being allowed to train. It hadn’t been on purpose, but that didn’t matter, not when his flames burnt through the fire-resistant materials the training room had been built with and nearly burnt down the rest of the house before Shouto noticed the smoke and rushed to put it out.
Now, it's not as clear-cut.
“You know you can’t keep doing this, Touya,” Eraserhead says, a rough tone to his voice, hair still standing on-end, eyes still glowing.
He never liked Erasure, and no amount of exposure to it is going to change that. The sudden jolt of nothing where the heat of Cremation usually sits just feels – wrong, if he has to choose a word.
He glances behind him, at the tiny flames still licking through the leaves. A light settling of frost over them is all it takes for them to go out.
Shouto doesn’t say anything after that. He never says anything, really, which bothers Touya but not enough for him to do anything about it.
“Touya.”
“What?” he says, looking back to Eraserhead. Cremation is still gone, excuse him for being snappy.
The hero looks over him, still not blinking, and sighs. “Have you been going to your counseling appointments?”
Touya scowls, shaking his head. “They’re fucking stupid.”
“And they’re mandatory. You know this.”
“I don’t care.”
“If we can’t trust you to be on your own, we’ll have to have someone with you at all times. Especially when you have appointments.”
“Go ahead, I don’t care.”
With another sigh, Eraserhead finally blinks, heat rushing back into Touya’s body as Cremation settles back into his skin. His shoulders drop a little, tension falling out of his body.
“Todoroki, go back to the dorms. Touya, come with me.”
Shouto still doesn’t say anything before he leaves, heading in the opposite direction of where Eraserhead is leading Touya.
He shoves his hands into his pockets as they walk, still on-edge even with Cremation back. The way Eraserhead talks to him – he hates it, honestly. Like Touya should be thankful for the counseling they’ve forced him into. A few hours a week where he has to sit down and listen to the stupid counselor reminding him that fire is dangerous, and his Quirk hurts him, and all the bullshit warnings he already knows.
They act like they can make him care. It’s laughable. He doesn’t remember the last time he cared enough about the burns to do more than bandage them so they wouldn’t get infected. And they should be happy he cares enough to not use Cremation inside, anymore.
“Do you understand how much your father had to fight to get you here?” Eraserhead says, after a minute of walking. “He’s not all-powerful. If you don’t show any improvement, we can’t do anything to protect you. You know that, right?”
Touya shrugs. “I didn’t ask for this. I don’t care.”
Eraserhead looks back at him, then grumbles something Touya can’t understand.
The heat under his skin rises, ever so slightly. He knows better than to use it around Eraserhead – he always manages to notice, no matter how small the flame is or how careful he is about it. And whatever he notices, he reacts to with Erasure, and Touya really doesn’t want to deal with that again today.
He’s been to Principal Nedzu’s office a few times since he ended up here, but it doesn’t make the welcoming environment of his waiting room any less uncomfortable. It’s all fake, and Touya can tell, stuck there as Eraserhead steps inside the office alone for a few minutes.
Either he’s going to be called in once they’re done talking, or Principal Nedzu will take Eraserhead’s account without question and send him as the messenger on what Touya’ll be stuck dealing with until they decide he’s learned his lesson.
He leans his head back against the wall, focusing on his breathing as he waits. It’s the only thing the counselor taught him that wasn’t pointless – and, even then, it doesn’t cool Cremation down like they’d said it would. It just makes it easier to ignore, for now.
He’s been out there for probably ten minutes by the time the door opens again, and Eraserhead steps out – messenger, then.
“Nedzu is looking at transferring you to the 1-A dorm,” Aizawa says – which translates directly to, we don’t trust you, so we’re putting you in the same building as a bunch of heroes-in-training that can subdue you if needed, the teacher who can Erase your Quirk, and your twin brother. “You’re still in the teacher’s dorm until he can finalize it.”
“Whatever,” Touya says.
“You’ll have someone to accompany you to your counseling appointments until future notice.”
“Okay, whatever.”
Eraserhead glares at Touya – he’d bet money that, if he was an actual student and not a charity case about to fail, he’d have expelled him by now. He’d bet all of Dad’s money, actually.
Honestly, he wishes he could expel him. It’d be better than dealing with this shit.
—
It doesn’t take long for Nedzu to finalize the dorm shift, and it takes even less time for Touya to move his stuff in.
He paid attention to the names on the doors as he went through, and he’s sure it’s not a coincidence that he’s only two rooms down from Shouto. They probably think he’ll be a good influence or some shit.
Though, to be fair, they probably also think that it’s harder for fire to travel down than up. Shouto being on the top floor, too, is just an added benefit.
Maybe they thought the same thing about his Quirk when they put him up here, part of Touya’s brain provides. He laughs a little at the thought. Shouto’s anything but destructive.
Shouto has a Quirk that balances out perfectly. Touya has a Quirk with the wrong resistance. It makes sense, really, where each of them ended up.
The first few days tell him everything he needs to know about how Class 1-A feels about him: the looks they give him when he passes through the common area to get to the kitchen or the showers, them shifting into the corner of the elevator whenever he’s on the same one, or sticking as far to the other side of the stairs as possible if he takes those.
Shouto’s the only one who doesn’t – some of his friends don’t, either, but their faces betray their discomfort. Either way, no one – including Shouto – talks to him.
(It’s better than how some of the teachers tried to make small talk when he was in the teacher’s dorm. If he hated Present Mic’s radio show before, he despises it now.)
He accepts it. It’d be worse if they talked to him. Tried to act all buddy-buddy, like the summer camp never happened.
The teachers keep escorting him to counseling sessions. The counselor keeps reminding him how dangerous Cremation is, to himself and those around him.
He’s glad his dormmates recognize that.
It’s almost peaceful, the first few days: his solo classes, the few he has with the General Education kids, counseling, back to his room. He finds small chances to use Cremation without getting caught, and takes every one.
Then, he gets back to the dorms after counseling and opens his door to find a neatly-folded paper on the ground.
He stops in his doorway for a moment, glancing up and down the hall before he leans down to pick up the paper, shutting the door behind him.
It takes him a minute to read the note he finds once he unfolds it, the script a little shaky, but still legible.
Then he’s grinning. Oh, he knew UA had a traitor, somewhere among the first-years – they wouldn’t have had a way to know the training camp’s location otherwise – but he hadn’t thought about it too hard since he got stuck here. He didn’t interact with the students enough.
The note doesn’t call it a rescue mission, but it offers him a way out. Out of the dorms and the counseling and having to hide Cremation.
He pulls a pen off of his desk, and fills in the blank space at the bottom of the page with the address of his counselor and the time of his next session.
The elevator is empty as he goes down to the second floor and slides it under the door labeled Aoyama.
Blood pumping harder than it has in months, he takes the stairs back up, two steps at a time.
He’s distracted enough from his surroundings that he almost runs into Shouto, when he finally reaches the top floor.
There’s a standstill for a moment, Touya’s feet stopped barely a few feet away from Shouto. There’s something behind Shouto’s eyes that he can’t read.
“Touya,” he starts, stopping before he says anything else.
“You’re talking to me now?” Touya asks, heart still pounding in his chest, body heating up in a warning.
Shouto recoils, shoulders tensing at Touya’s words. “I’m sorry.”
“Sure you are.”
Touya moves to go around him, to get back to his room, but Shouto grabs his arm before he can – as always, with his right hand. There’s a tiny moment between the grab and Shouto’s Quirk channeling through his body, cooling his body temperature enough to be noticeable through Touya’s clothes, telling him clearly that he needs to cool down.
“Can we talk?” Shouto asks, making no verbal comment on Touya’s temperature. “Please?”
Touya glares. They haven’t had a full conversation since the last time Touya ran away. “Now?”
Shouto nods. No comment on how long it’s been. No comment on how many chances he’s had to say something – anything.
Touya scoffs, pulling his arm out of Shouto’s grip. “Fuck off. You don’t get to pretend to give a shit now.”
“What?” The confusion in his eyes is hilarious . “I’m not pretending.”
“Fine, then you don’t get to start giving a shit now, is that better?”
“Touya–”
“When was the last time you talked to me?” Touya asks, body temperature rising higher the longer he goes. “Do you even remember? Did you decide to start ignoring me, or were you just too stuck in your own fucking head to look at me, just like everyone else?”
Shouto is staring, eyes wide, mouth just barely open. Touya waits for a long moment, to see if he’ll say anything, but he doesn’t.
“I thought so,” he mumbles, before turning his back and finally making it into his room.
The only things stopping him from burning the entire building down is his counselor’s stupid breathing exercises and the promise of freedom, if he can just make it a few more days.
—
The League comes through.
He doesn’t say a single word to Aoyama in the days leading up to it, and Aoyama doesn’t say a word to him. If he pays attention when they’re in the common area at the same time, though, he notices how often Aoyama’s eyes follow him.
If Eraserhead notices him seeming less annoyed at having to go to his appointment than usual, he doesn’t say anything.
As they pull onto the correct street, Touya glances around at the other cars parked next to the sidewalk, trying to see if he recognizes any of the vehicles or their occupants. He’s pretty sure on who not to expect – Shigaraki, Spinner, and Kurogiri are all too recognizable – but he’s not sure who to look for, or if he should be expecting a disguise.
Oh. Toga. Yeah, maybe he should be expecting a disguise.
His heart is ready to beat out of his chest as he steps out of the car, trying to be as subtle as he can as he glances up and down the sidewalk. He doesn’t see anyone, but that doesn’t mean anything.
He doesn’t see anyone out of the ordinary inside, either, and his stomach starts to drop at that. He tries not to worry too much about it, but he does – what if he wrote the wrong time, the wrong address, what if they aren’t actually coming?
He sits in his usual spot in the corner of the waiting room, hands on his knees to stop his legs from bouncing, heart still pounding, body temperature slowly but surely rising.
It’s a few minutes before the counselor’s door opens, and they stick their head out, calling Touya’s name with a smile.
He stands on shaky legs, trying, still, not to worry about it, as he follows them into their office.
The door’s barely shut behind them, Touya’s barely made it to the overly-cushioned couch, when their hand wraps around his wrist, their grin widening, twisting, unsettling – and familiar.
“Touya-chan!” Toga says, voice still the counselor’s but tone undeniably hers. “We told you we’d get you!”
The relief that washes over his body is so strong it leaves him wordless, the office’s usual suffocating environment gone, replaced by the freedom he’s been waiting for since he was captured.
“I already texted Tomu-chan,” Toga continues, pulling her phone out of her pocket, still smiling. “So Kurogiri should be picking us up–” as she says it, a familiar purple-and-black swirl opens beside them “–now!”
Cremation is burning hot under his skin. And he has no reason to hold back, anymore.
As soon as Toga steps through the portal, Touya grins, and lets Cremation flicker alive on his skin and light the shitty, stuffy, suffocating office in blue flames.
The feeling of freedom rushing through his body, he follows her through.