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They’re huddled under what can hardly be considered a roof — nothing more than a pitifully small sheet of scrap metal that they’ve fashioned into a makeshift covering and attached to the structure they call home — and listening to the aggressive pitter-patter of raindrops slapping the tin. It’s cold, and wet, but they have nowhere else to be.
It’s been exactly two years since Izuku, Shouto, and Hitoshi left everything behind to walk the path of vigilantism. What a nice way to celebrate the anniversary of the reason they ended up here, like this. What a nice way to remember the effects of a too-cruel society, of twisted fate.
“Do you ever regret it?” Hitoshi wonders aloud, and Izuku immediately knows the other boy is thinking of the same thing that he is.
He doesn’t immediately answer, though. Yes, things are certainly hard, even painful at times, but he can’t say he regrets it. They all gave something up to be here, yet they all chose this for a reason.
Shouto’s the first to answer. “I don’t,” he replies quietly. “I’m the last person who would.” After a pause, though, he adds: “For myself, at least. Sometimes I wonder… would you two have been better off if you didn’t choose to follow me in this?”
Izuku turns to him and places a hand on Shouto’s right knee. “Never,” he emphatically says, looking the blue-haired boy (he’d dyed his hair the very week they all ran away together) in the eyes. “It was a choice. Not an obligation. We chose this, of our own free will.”
“Izuku’s right,” Hitoshi speaks up. “Don’t say that. And besides, if you hadn’t given me the thought of leaving– the chance to do so–”
I might have gone rogue long ago.
It scares Hitoshi to think of the future that might have been, had he been defenseless at the mercy of their cruel world for even a little bit longer.
He swallows. It takes effort. “I don’t know where I’d be without you two as the guiding lights in my life.”
Izuku reaches across to grasp Hitoshi’s hand tightly, giving it a reassuring squeeze, as Shouto, usually not one for physical contact, wraps an arm around Hitoshi. They sit like that for a while, simply existing together.
“I’m thankful for the Sports Festival, even with all the pain it brought us afterwards,” Izuku finally starts, breaking the blanket of silence that’s settled over them. Shouto and Hitoshi add nothing, Hitoshi only tilting his head for Izuku to continue. “I’m thankful because it was the first time I really met you two.”
Ironically, the results of the Sports Festival turned out to be good for all three of them once it became clear that they weren’t pursuing heroics in the regular way.
Hitoshi’s embarrassing, uneventful defeat and the fact that Izuku hadn’t made it to the podium either, despite his explosive performance meant less recognition when they ended up as active vigilantes. (Not that any of them had expected that.)
And it was partially the reason why Shouto had dyed his hair. Partially to avoid the recognition as son-of-Endeavor, and partially to avoid recognition as Todoroki Shouto, up-and-coming hero, second-place winner of the UA first-year Sports Festival.
But that day was a whirlwind of emotions that Hitoshi still remembers clearly– he tried to brainwash Izuku, and when he lost the match, he spat even more insults out of pent-up bitterness. Yet Izuku braved the onslaught of harsh words in order to extend a hand, an offer, to Hitoshi.
Later, Izuku lost to Shouto and Shouto won second after losing to Bakugou in the finals. Yet neither finalist was quite content with the outcome of the day.
For Shouto, the moment he stepped off the podium, it was as if he hadn’t won anything. Or he didn’t care. Or if he were grappling internally with something more significant, like the fact that in a moment of passion he’d broken his vow and used his fire for the first time in years.
That was the state Hitoshi found him in afterwards. Initially, he wondered (with no small amount of resentment) why someone gifted with so much power wouldn’t use all of it, but then he eavesdropped on Shouto and Izuku’s conversation.
“I made myself a promise. You made me break it.”
At the time, Hitoshi hadn’t quite understood, but he’d felt a tiny spark, the beginnings of a connection.
And then his transfer to the hero course was unexpectedly, inexplicably terminated.
“We regret to inform you that unfortunately, your performance in the festival was not sufficient to secure you a spot in the hero course. You demonstrated minimal potential and…”
It had felt like his world was falling apart again as everything he’d worked toward crumbled away with a single letter. He’d raged, screamed, sobbed, cursed himself and the heroics students and everyone else — if only he had been better and they had been weaker and he had actually won — yet it made no difference. It didn’t change the fact that they wouldn’t give him a chance to become a hero.
Perhaps that termination was the turning point for all three of them, for not long after Hitoshi shared the news, Shouto and Izuku began formulating their plan to get Shouto away from his father, and then at one point it became a given that Hitoshi and Izuku were going with him.
He thinks of their former classmates, most of whom would be graduating now, holding their Quirk licenses and Hero licenses and ready to become Pro Heroes. And then he thinks of Izuku, who doesn't even have his Quirk anymore.
Truly, Izuku was the one who gave up the most by leaving with them.
“What would you have if we had stayed? Do you ever think…?” Hitoshi begins to ask, and Izuku, who always knows exactly what he means before he says it, shakes his head.
“You saw how Momo’s quirk blossomed with One For All’s effect; she’s so incredibly powerful now,” Izuku answers. “She really is someone who has a sense of justice and righteousness, and she can also make an impact. Besides, we made the decision to choose Momo as the successor together — me, you two, All Might. I trust her. She’s the best choice.”
His words hang in the air as they recall that point of no return, the passing of the legacy, for all of a moment before he continues. “I gave up One For All in exchange for this. I gave it up to be with you guys, because I would never give you up for anything.”
“So…” Shouto starts.
“If we had stayed… we’d just have each other,” Izuku replies easily. “But we still have that today, the way we are right now.”
Hitoshi leans into Shouto’s left side as Izuku leans in from the right.
“You know, I wouldn’t give it up for the world either. We’re in this together.”
The storm has abated, the rains have ceased, and the light of one million stars and a moon shine down upon the sheet of scrap metal that they’d fashioned into a makeshift covering and attached to the structure they call home. As Izuku reaches up to adjust their tin roof, pulling it to one side so that a ray of moonlight can stream through the crack and into the depth of their tiny dwelling, they can’t help but think of the things that could have been, but at the same time, they also think of all the things that they refuse to regret.