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Izuku rests his head on Shouto’s shoulder as they wait for their breakfast, okonomiyaki with a side of miso soup, to be brought to them by their server. As decided is best for avoiding too much notice from the people who would care about two teenagers regularly eating most of their meals out, they have found another hole in the wall place with just a few booths and settled in next to each other, though the latter part is simply out of a desire to be close together — they cycle several often enough that most don’t see them more than once a week.
Every so often a few people look over at them, whispering and pointing. One man even approaches them and asks for their autographs — Shouto declines for the both of them almost immediately before Izuku can even react, telling the man they don’t even have hero names yet, and so they can’t sign anything. The man seems appeased by this, and once the server arrives with the food, the surrounding people are polite enough to at least let them eat in peace.
The train ride is less peaceful. Every time they manage to get people calmed down, new people get on. Fortunately, it’s only three stops, and then just a short walk to the gates of UA.
“Maybe we should cover our hair with beanies the next time we ride the train,” Izuku muses aloud as they walk. “It’ll probably be a bit before things die down.”
Shouto hums. “We can grab some on our way to catch the train tonight. Did you find a good place to rest last night?”
Izuku has just taken to patrolling every night for the most part. He doesn’t like the thought of sleeping in the dark streets of Musutafu, alone and unprotected. He knows that it’d be safer to sleep during the day — the forums keep him well informed — but that’s not an option when he has school, has schoolwork, has training. He shrugs and tells a half truth. “I haven’t found a great place yet. Got a couple hours of nap on a rooftop, though. It’s hard to adjust.”
He hasn’t found a place because he’s not looking at all. He doesn’t... he has no hopes that he’ll find anything that would feel safe enough for him, too paranoid and anxious to settle down. But the rest of it? All truth. He knows better than to completely forgo sleep, however much he’d prefer to not sleep at all on the streets, and rooftops feel safer than anywhere else he could choose to rest. Crime doesn’t usually happen up there, and there are usually nooks and crannies he can tuck himself into — but he’s used to the comfort of a bed, the safety of an apartment.
He might get some sleep, but it is not good sleep, and it’s really starting to show.
“I’m sorry I can’t do more,” Shouto murmurs, expression downcast.
Izuku stops suddenly, a hand shooting out to wrap around Shouto’s wrist as he does. Shouto turns to face Izuku, and Izuku speaks with a touch more force than necessary. “Don’t apologize. You’ve given me so much, promised me so much more, and I don’t know if I could do this without you at my side. So stop feeling guilty. It’s going to be hard, but without you it’d be impossible.”
Shouto stares at Izuku’s tired face for a minute.
“Okay,” he says, and then he uses the hand not held hostage by Izuku to pull him in close. They’re standing nearly chest to chest and when Shouto speaks next, it sounds like a promise of something big. “We’ll get you through this. We’re going to be heroes together, and one day it’ll be me, and you, and Hitoshi, in an apartment together, no more rooftops, no more of my old man. No one will ever take anything from us ever again.”
Butterflies erupt in Izuku’s chest as he flushes bright red. It’s a promise for the future. When Shouto thinks of the future, he thinks of Izuku and Hitoshi. Izuku thinks that knowledge will carry him through the rest of the day. Probably the rest of the week.
“Okay. It’s a promise.” Izuku whispers, smiling brightly.
Shouto starts walking towards UA again, but he keeps holding one of Izuku’s hands, a small smile on his face. Izuku doesn’t let go of Shouto’s hand either. Izuku’s smile doesn’t fade for the rest of the walk, even when they’re accosted three more times by people who recognize them from the sports festival.
———
“Today’s class will be on Hero Informatics,” Aizawa-sensei tells the class as he walks into the room.
Most of the class groans, and some of them panic, wondering if there’s a test. Izuku perks up a bit despite his exhaustion. This is the kind of thing that’s right up his alley, something he enjoys studying and actively pays attention to. He can do well in this lesson — and of course, it’d be a lesson. (He still has his highlighters, right? Surely he kept those; they’re important...) Why would there be a test? They haven’t done anything yet to test.
“You’ll be choosing your hero names today.”
Before Aizawa-sensei can continue, most of the class has burst out of their seats, cheering. Even Iida, who’s supposed to be a stickler for rules, is out of his seat, shouting at the top of his lungs as he tries to get the class to quiet down instead of remaining quiet. Izuku and Hitoshi share a nervous glance at all the noise, Hitoshi having to turn slightly back to do so, (Aizawa having quickly switched the two’s seats when it became clear Izuku and Bakugou knew each other and had some bad history, based on Bakugou’s constant ‘Deku, Deku, Deku’ which had earned him quite a lot of detentions...) and Aizawa-sensei glares at the class with his Quirk, finally getting the class to calm down.
Class 1-A is... something else, and Izuku doesn’t mean this as a compliment, currently. The lack of sleep is giving him a headache, and this class tends to try to make it a migraine, however inadvertent that may be. For a hero course, they sure are not well-behaved, and Izuku doesn’t mean to be disrespectful but he had been under the impression that Aizawa-sensei was supposed to be more of a disciplinarian than Yamada-sensei, but Class 1-C was much more well-behaved than this.
“With the Sports Festival having come to a conclusion, this is relevant since internships are coming up. Some of you have received many offers, and some... not so much. This is common as first years.” Aizawa presses a button on a remote, revealing the offers the class has.
Shouto is at the top of the list with thousands of offers, outclassing anyone else by far. Many others in the class have received hundreds of offers, like Kaminari, Yaoyorozu, and Kirishima — Even Bakugou has over three hundred, despite losing in the first round. Hitoshi has only a handful at eighteen, though he came in second place. Izuku has only two.
Izuku is surprised he even got one.
The pro heroes reaching out to UA to sponsor him would have surely had to have been informed of his Quirk status, and once they learned he was Quirkless, he was sure everyone would reject him. He only hoped that whoever wanted to sponsor him wasn’t a Quirkist. He’d have to check with the forums if he didn’t know off the top of his head.
“Why does Todoroki have so many more than the rest of us? He didn’t even win!” Jirou points out. “Shouldn’t Midoriya or Shinsou be on the top?”
For a moment, Izuku thinks about explaining to her about the Quirkism that Quirkless people face, but... that just sounds exhausting. He’s already so tired. Isn’t it obvious why he barely received any sponsors? Isn’t it obvious why Shinsou, with his ‘villainous Quirk’ received barely any offers?
Yaoyorozu congratulates Shouto, and he takes that graciously, but he looks unhappy. “This is mostly because of my old man.”
“If you didn’t receive offers, or don’t wish to intern with the heroes that offered internships to you, UA has a roster of heroes they are contracted with and you will all be provided with that list as well.” Aizawa informs the class. “But we will move on from this for now. I cannot stress on you enough how important the name you choose now is. You can change your name — this is true. However, many times, your career ends up too tied to whatever you have chosen, and you may find it’s too late to change.”
And right at that moment, Midnight waltzes into the room, a wide grin on her face.
“Great, you can take over from here,” Aizawa’s already crawling into his yellow sleeping bag — Izuku’s frankly quite envious.
"Alright, kiddies,” Midnight looks over the room, licking her lips, “I get final approval over the names you choose, and I’m hard to please.” She hands out small whiteboards to everyone. “You’ll be presenting to everyone, as... added incentive.”
Hitoshi turns back to look at Izuku, and Izuku looks between him and Shouto. They’ve all discussed hero names already, wanting to have something of a theme but nothing too... blatant, nothing too flashy since they were all considering going Underground. Hitoshi and Shouto nod, and Izuku smiles, and that’s settled. They’re all still in agreement, then, and Izuku is quietly relieved. The idea of having to come up with something new on the spot is exhausting, and he’s not sure he can do it, honestly.
He’s just so tired.
A handful of their classmates go first, and then Hitoshi is the first of their trio to stand up at the front of the class. He carries his board at his side, appearing unworried about anyone catching a glimpse of his name. When he gets to the front, he doesn’t hesitate to hold up his board, smirking.
The Loom Hero: Pressurize.
“I’ve chosen this name as a reference to my Quirk, and the way it feels when it’s active,” Hitoshi gives the barest of explanations. It leaves most of the class with more questions than answers.
(Izuku remembers the day they picked their names together, laid out on the floor of Hitoshi’s room and everyone agreed: Quirk-related names. Toshi hadn’t wanted anything too telling, though. Things like Persuasion and Hypnos were thrown out for this reason, even though Persuasion had been especially well-liked by all three of them. Finally, Hitoshi had settled on Pressurize, and Loom — for the way his Quirk felt. Everything about his hero name was about the way his Quirk felt; they talked often enough about the way his Quirk felt like weaving threads, and they’d been experimenting more and more with him controlling both Izuku and Shouto at once and Hitoshi had remained adamant that it was like pulling strings and weaving them together, that it felt like pulling tight on those strings, putting pressure.
It was a subtle choice. Few, if any, would catch on to the meaning behind his name without an explanation. It was perfect, and the three of them unanimously agreed on that.)
Despite the bare bones explanation, Midnight has no reason to deny his pick, and approves it with some praise for having thought of a name beforehand and choosing something practical.
A few more of their classmates announce their names, receiving approval from Midnight, among them Yaoyorozu, choosing the name ‘Everything Hero: Creati’, which Izuku thinks is a good pick; she’ll have an easy time branding herself with that and it fits her nicely. Bakugou shouts that his name will be ‘King Explosion Murder’, which Midnight immediately shoots down as too violent.
Shouto stands next when no one is eager to rush to the front for a moment, and he’s so calm and relaxed about it. Izuku is relieved he’s not the one that has to go next. He’s not sure why he’s so nervous to present his but he is dreading it.
Perhaps it’s because he hasn’t missed the way some of the class looks at him like he’s both a bug and something fragile. He knows there are a few in this class that think he doesn’t belong here, that think he’s weak, that because he’s Quirkless he should not be a hero. He knows some of them are well-meaning, just people who have been raised to think these things. But he knows some of them would use name-calling at best, slurs at worst if they thought they could get away with it and he knows there’s at least one person who’s been waiting for the opportunity to rain hell down on him physically for daring to come into this class as a Quirkless person.
(Kacchan — Bakugou... he’ll never let go. He’ll never stop insisting that Izuku is looking down on him. Izuku only wants to follow his dream. Izuku wants to save people. Izuku wants to help people who are hurting. He wants to make a difference. It was never about Bakugou. It was never even about Izuku. But Bakugou doesn’t understand him, doesn’t want to understand him. Izuku wishes it could have been different, but it was not to be. Izuku knew better now than to hope for idle dreams. It was better to focus on what was actually in reach.)
Shouto flips his board around with an uninterested expression on his face, but Izuku knows Shouto cares. He put a lot of thought into this name, careful to choose a name that embraced both sides of his Quirk. He’d talked so much about how his father wanted him to take a name that ‘carried on the family legacy’ or related to his fire side, and how all his instincts told him to do the opposite and choose a name relating only to his ice side, but he wanted to embrace himself as a whole. Izuku knew how much this name meant to him, and how he was afraid it would be turned away, or judged. Izuku thought he’d be safe.
The Balanced Hero: Duality
“My Quirk is perfectly balanced, and now that I have accepted all of it, so am I.” Shouto says quietly. Izuku has to strain to hear him.
“Approved! Consider changing your costume to play a bit more into the concept of your name,” Midnight suggests, then moves her attention on to the next student as Shouto moves to go back to his desk.
A lot of their classmates share surprised looks, like they hadn’t expected Todoroki Shouto to be so thoughtful when choosing his name, like they hadn’t expected him to be so thoughtful at all, really. Some of Class 1-A seemed to think that because Shouto didn’t want to be best buddies with everyone in the class, that he was cold, impersonal, that he didn’t think about emotions much — Izuku was so annoyed by it. It was mean — he didn’t think they realized it, that they were being unkind when they thought these things of him, but it was mean.
And of course... Izuku knew it was untrue.
As Shouto passes by him, Izuku brushes his fingers against his and offers up a tired smile. Shouto smiles back, and Izuku feels more at ease. Izuku is Shouto’s, just as Shouto is Izuku’s, is Hitoshi’s. They still have not put any labels on it, and Izuku knows he holds the blame for that, but they are each others’, and that knowledge never ceases to put Izuku at ease.
Everyone else can think whatever they want of Izuku, of Shouto, of Hitoshi, and they will, but the three of them will always have each other, will have the little safe space they’ve carved out in each other. Even if the whole world turns against them, that would be fine. They would still have each other. They would never be alone again, not like they used to be.
So Izuku stands up with his board and he stands tall as he walks to the front of the class. He reminds himself that he’s proud of this name, that he chose this name because he’s not ashamed and he shouldn’t have to be. Maybe some of his classmates think he should be. Maybe Kacchan — Bakugou, now, he reminds himself — thinks he should be. Maybe his mother, and his father, and every teacher he’s had before now thinks he should be.
But why should he be ashamed for being born without a Quirk?
He did not make himself this way, and what was so shameful about his lack of Quirk, anyhow? Was it the toe joint? Was it the way he couldn’t make anything sparkle or shine, or the way he had to work harder and smarter to make his body keep up if he wanted to fight on the same playing field? In some ways, Izuku was proud of that. Everything he did was earned. It wasn’t given to him just because he got lucky in the genetic lottery. He wasn’t born with stardust burning in his veins and he wasn’t the golden child with an explosive heart.
He’d had to fight for the very right to exist some days; he’d had to fight for his seat here.
With that thought in mind, he turns his board around and smiles a smile that’s more akin to baring his teeth, daring anyone to say anything to him.
The Free Hero: Void
“All my life, everyone has told me that I’m missing something, that fundamentally I’m lacking and I should feel empty and sad. I don’t feel empty and sad. I don’t feel like I’m missing something, or lacking something. I feel perfectly free and I’m taking it back. There is no void, nothing missing, nothing lacking.” Izuku looks out over the room, and some of the class won’t meet his eyes.
He looks to Bakugou, and smiles. “I’m just as complete as everyone else, and so I’m making my name the thing they always said I had.”
Bakugou grinds his teeth together visibly, looking ready to burst in rage at Izuku’s blatant challenge, but there’s nothing he can do but seethe, and Izuku revels in it. How many times did Bakugou corner him in the mornings or in the middle of the day at Aldera and spew hatred at Izuku that Izuku could only sit there and take? There had been no other option for him back then. He’d had to take everything everyone said to him and hold back the way it made him feel constantly — he could not scream or cry or even let his expression change if he didn’t want it to be worse.
So if Bakugou has to take a class period of living with the knowledge that Izuku doesn’t hate himself and that upsets him?
Well, that’s just too bad for Bakugou.
Izuku thinks it's deserved. Let him stew. Midnight approves his choice with gusto, and Izuku walks past Bakugou to return to his desk with his head held high.
———
When Aizawa-sensei passes out the paperwork for their internships, Shouto is given a small mountain of papers to go through, while Izuku and Hitoshi have just one page each. They’re all supposed to be looking through their offers and thinking about who they’d like to go with, but Izuku can’t bring himself to turn over that piece of paper.
What if the internship was offered to him by someone who only wanted an offer to make the Quirkless kid quit — or worse?
He didn’t think it was beyond some heroes. He’d met a lot of hateful people in his life. He knew the statistics and the stories — he wasn’t one to trust so blindly, and with good reason.
So instead of staring fearfully at the back of his paper or laying down his head and going to sleep — he turns to Hitoshi and Shouto with a smile to hide his anxiety.
“What are you guys thinking about with your offers? Does anything seem like a good fit to you?”
Hitoshi shrugs. “I’ve got a couple of great offers — Yamada-sensei gave me one, which is nice, but I’m not sure I want to go with him since all of our training has been under him so far. I think it might be better to branch out. Ms. Joke gave me an offer; I think she might be a good pick, since you know, she’s Underground and has a voice activated Quirk.”
“Oh yeah! Ms. Joke would probably be awesome for you,” Izuku bounces a little in his seat with delight at the thought of such nice offers for Toshi. He turns to look at Shouto now, smile much more real now that he’s distracted. “Is anyone sticking out to you so far, Shou?”
“Well, definitely not Endeavor,” Shouto laughs, and both Izuku and Hitoshi join him in their amusement. “I’m sure he’ll be furious about that, but I just can’t deal with him for a week by myself. Present Mic made me an offer too, and I’m — right now, he’s at the top of my list, actually. But I’m really hoping to find a good Underground hero to intern under, so I can get a better look at Underground heroics first hand.”
Izuku nods. “Yamada-sensei knows a lot about Underground heroics, so if you don’t find someone that fits what you need, he’s a good pick and could probably answer your questions, but it would be better if you could actually see it. But your list is so long; it’s going to take ages to really look through it.”
Shouto shrugs, appearing not too bothered by it all. “Learning under Present Mic is actually nice, so I definitely could do worse. What were your two offers, Izuku?”
Izuku looks back to his paper, still face-down on his desk. How bad can it be, really? If they’re both awful, he can always ask Aizawa-sensei for the default list — surely, that would be permitted. Quickly, he flips it over before he can change his mind and reads from the bottom up.
Present Mic, his mentor, who he can trust — he breathes a sigh of relief at knowing that he can always go to someone who won’t let him down. And —
“Holy shit...” He mutters, looking at the first name on his list.
“What? Is it good or bad?” Hitoshi asks, leaning over to peek.
Izuku just points at the top name on the list — Miruko. Miruko, who’s known for not being a fan of teaming up, who’s Number Seven on the charts right now and considered a real rising star, and for some reason, she’s put out an offer to Izuku.
There’s nothing about her on the forum, and Izuku doesn’t know if she’s safe or not... but Izuku finds himself thinking about picking her all the same, wondering what he could learn from a top-ranking hero with a fight style so reliant on her legs, wondering if he could get away with coming back from the internship and using that as an excuse to switch into Grey Hat’s fighting style —
“I don’t know,” he finally says, and that’s the truth.
Is this an offer made out of genuine interest or malice? Izuku doesn’t know... but he almost wants to throw caution to the wind and find out.