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When Shouto was fifteen, Jirou and Kirishima took him out shopping.
They weren’t a natural group. He spent a lot of time with Bakugou that year during their remedial courses, and Momo had become a friend he knew he could rely on, but Jirou and Kirishima… He got along with them fine, was even fond of them both, but he didn’t know them as well as some of his other classmates.
But one day, when he’d been contemplating what to do on their afternoon off, Kirishima had turned around in his seat and asked, “Hey, man, d’you wanna come shopping with us?”
Jirou, beside him, had chimed in with, “Kirishima apparently doesn’t own anything except old t-shirts and his hero costume sleeves, so I’m taking him to get some cool stuff. We’ll hit up the mall too because I need to pick up an order from the music shop, but we were thinking we’d hit up some of the smaller places around the side streets first.”
Shouto, blinking a little as he considered his wardrobe, had said, “My sister bought my clothes.”
Jirou and Kirishima had exchanged a look, and that had been that. Half an hour later, they all went out to catch the bus. When they got back, Shouto’s feet were hurting from all the walking, but he had been smiling as Kirishima tugged him into a selfie that Jirou took to send Kaminari—something about making him regret being lazy and missing out on an awesome day with his friends—and his grin had only grown wider when Bakugou caught sight of all the bags Kirishima was carrying when they got back to the dorms.
“Did you buy out the entire fucking store?” Bakugou had demanded, staring incredulously.
“Hey, Jirou and Todoroki bought stuff too!” Kirishima had used as a defence, which – had been kind of effective, actually. The entire class had turned to look at them. Shouto had been self-aware enough to realise it was probably mostly him they were looking at; after all, it wasn’t as if he often purchased items, or even expressed an opinion about material goods.
Jirou had nudged him in the shoulder. “Show them your haul,” she had said, quirking her lips up to the side. “You found some cool stuff, Todoroki.”
You found some cool stuff, Todoroki.
Shouto had shown off his purchases, first a little shyly, and then more comfortably as his friends enthused about them. Even Bakugou showed a glint of interest, peering over Asui’s shoulder to examine the design on one of the shirts he had found, which Kirishima had dubbed manly and Jirou had described as eclectic.
But even showing them all off, he’d had Jirou’s words running through his head, over and over. You found some cool stuff, Todoroki. You, you, you.
Shouto thinks of that day now as he pulls the shirt out from the back of his drawers, where it must have slipped after Kirishima and Sero wrestled next door, banged into the shared wall, and jostled half of Shouto’s belongings. (Momo and Iida had looked at them in disappointment for an entire two minutes, which was about as long as it took for Kirishima to look like a chastised puppy on the verge of howling.) He looks at it, and he thinks about Jirou’s wry grin, thinks about Kirishima’s bright smile, thinks about you found some cool stuff, Todoroki. It’s not the compliment that stuck with him, exactly. It’s more the idea that he did it himself. There aren’t a lot of things Shouto has ever felt belong to him in an uncomplicated way, but this shirt—that day, all of it, friends and adventures and Bakugou’s curious eyes, laughter and sore feet and the 210 yen fee on his bus card, blurry selfies and unfamiliar stores and the bone-deep satisfaction of flopping on his bed that night, tired but content—is one of them.
There’s a knock on the door, rousing him from his nostalgia, and then a familiar voice.
“Shouto?” Momo calls. “Are you still in there?”
“Yes,” he says, folding the shirt. “You can come in. The door’s unlocked.”
He’s placing it into the last of his boxes when she comes in, taping it shut. Momo looks around at his room, marvelling.
“You’ve cleaned it up so fast,” she says, which makes him blink at her.
“Momo,” he says, halfway-gentle with a touch of firmness behind it, like how Kouda and Asui taught him to use on too-curious cats, “we’re leaving tomorrow.”
Her expression goes rueful. “True,” she says, then sighs, sitting down on Shouto’s desk chair. It’s bulky enough that he didn’t pack it in any of his boxes, but it was a close thing. Mostly it came down to Bakugou walking in on Shouto furrowing his brow at his largest box, tapping on the back of his chair thoughtfully, and Bakugou’s immediate scoff. Get real, Icyhot, he’d said exasperatedly. It’s a fucking chair. I don’t care how much of a whiz kid you are at this home renovation shit. I’m putting my foot down, you hear me? Down!
It hadn’t really been his argument that convinced Shouto—largely because Bakugou had not actually offered one—so much as how amusing it had felt. How – how familiar. Exasperation tempered with so much fondness that it felt like habit, like routine, like Shouto could go anywhere in the world or grow countless years older and Bakugou Katsuki would still be ready to saunter into his room and shake his head at whatever Shouto was doing.
And so, his chair is still there, holding three years worth of memories and also, currently, Momo.
“I must seem silly,” Momo admits. “I knew tomorrow was our last day—it would be difficult to miss, considering how many times Yagi-sensei cried this week—but it still…” She looks down at her hands, and bites her lip. “Crept up on me? Oh, that makes no sense.”
“No,” Shouto disagrees. He quirks his lips up at the corner when she glances at him. “I get it.”
She smiles at him, a tremulous thing, and Shouto is fifteen again, remembering the girl she used to be, biting back her own ideas until the moment when she was the last one standing. Midnight—Shouto swallows at the thought, but it is less of a knife wound now, and more a pressing ache on his ribcage; the type it hurts to breathe around, but painful breath is still breath—had said something once, in a class later on in the year: Being a hero doesn’t mean you always get it right, or you always know what to do. It means that you try anyway, and you follow your gut, and once you figure it out, you stick to it. She’d glanced around the class, her gaze catching on a few of his classmates’ faces—Iida, Ashido, Tokoyami, Uraraka, and Momo, most of all. Some of you need to learn to trust others. (Shouto, at the time, had thought her eyes had flickered to him and Bakugou; looking back on it now, he’s sure of it.) But some of you need to learn to trust yourselves.
That one had been meant for Momo. Maybe Iida too. Half the class, really. Kirishima had looked struck by it for the rest of the class period.
But it was for Momo’s ears most of all, he thinks.
And now look at her—Class 3-A’s general, the girl who had to make wartime decisions when she was sixteen and devastated, creator of bicycles and cups of tea and the most resolute sensation of comfort Shouto has ever known. She may be sitting in his room now, wistful about their years here at UA, but come tomorrow, she will stand up proudly and walk out of their graduation ceremony with her chin held high and something brave in the set of her shoulders.
He has faith in her.
“We should go downstairs,” he says, a touch regretfully. Not because he doesn’t want to—he always likes being with his friends, and on this night, most of all—but because this is the latest in a series of lasts. The last time he will descend from his room for a night with his friends. The last time he’ll sit here with Momo, whiling away the hours. The last time he’ll stand and offer her his hand to help her up, and she’ll take it with a grateful smile.
Well, Shouto reflects, smiling back briefly as she lets go of his hand and they walk through his doorway, maybe not the last for that. Just the last time in this specific setting, is all. But Momo is his friend, in that bone-deep way he has learned true friends are, permanent fixtures beneath the skin that you couldn’t dig out even if you tried (and he has no desire to try), and he’s suddenly struck with the thought that this isn’t the last time they’ll do this, not really.
As they head into the elevator, Momo laughs a little. “You know,” she says, “this is why I came by, originally.” She quirks a smile at him, shaking her head a little ruefully. “Trust you to have to remind me,” she says, but it’s a light-hearted thing, with none of the self-deprecation the girl he used to know might have instilled it with.
So he smiles back, and, as the elevator doors open, he says, “Just as you do for me.”
Momo’s shining eyes and pleased smile is not a new sight after all these years, but it’s one he stores in that little pocket of his chest nonetheless, the place where he keeps all his friends and warm things.
He heads into the kitchen, leaving Momo at Ashido’s side with a quick smile. It’s a small thing, this barely-there quirk of his lips, but it’s a lot more frequent now, drawn out by three years of steadfast companionship and affection.
“Ah! Todoroki-kun!”
When Shouto glances to his left upon entering the kitchen, he finds Iida. One of his hands is being used to nurse a cup of tea. The other is wrapped around Uraraka’s ankle, holding her in place as she rummages around on top of the pantry. Given that the last time Uraraka had been floating in the common area, she’d accidentally ended up halfway out a window Kaminari had forgotten to close before Sero caught sight of her and immediately shot out his tape to snag her, Shouto thinks this is a fairly useful thing to occupy the class president’s hand with.
“Iida,” he says in greeting. He tilts his head upwards and to the side to catch sight of Uraraka, and waves. “Hi Uraraka.”
“Oh! Todoroki-kun!” she exclaims, peering down at him. “I’m glad you’re here – I think Tsu-chan was just talking Deku out of coming to get you.” She rolls her eyes fondly. “You know how h—oh! Found it!”
Shouto looks at Iida in askance.
“Kaminari shorted out a light,” he explains. “It hadn’t been his fault—he had the hiccups, and Dark Shadow attempted to cure him by scaring him.” Iida’s brow creases. “We’re not entirely sure if the electrical issue occurred when Dark Shadow jumped out at him or if it was just one of the hiccups that led to it, but either way, Uraraka-san floated up to check the damage.”
“And then spotted all this garbage,” Uraraka calls out. She pops her head back over to look at Shouto, wrinkling her nose. “How does anything even get stuck up here?” she complains. “Even Shouji can’t reach this.”
She disappears back into her little enclave above the pantry, and Iida gives Shouto a look like, what can you do?
Shouto has a feeling that this is not a situation most would apply such an expression toward, but he shrugs in response. It seems fair enough to him.
“And Midoriya?” he asks.
“He just wanted to see you,” Uraraka says, finally easing herself backwards from the pantry enclosure. Tucked under one arm is a basket, filled with the kind of things Jirou might raise her eyebrows at in one of her favourite thrift shops and Bakugou would not hesitate to call junk. She begins to float down, and Iida puts down his tea to help guide her descent.
“Tsuyu-chan-kun—” Shouto swallows a smile; all these years later, and Iida still hasn’t broken the habit, “—told him you’d come down when you were ready.”
“Let people do things at their own pace,” Uraraka recalls, now perched on the bench top. She grins. “I think they’re in the common room with Kirishima and Hagakure—last I heard, Aoyama was trying to teach them all a trading card game.”
“That seems dangerous to teach Midoriya and Kirishima,” Shouto observes, and Iida grimaces.
“I did have the same concern,” he admits, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose. “But, well—they’re under no obligation to adhere to any advice from me anymore, I suppose.” He gives Shouto a half-smile, something both fond and bittersweet. “No more class, no more class president.”
Shouto shakes his head at that. Uraraka is less restrained about it, and elbows Iida in the stomach.
“Oh, please,” Uraraka scoffs. “They’ll listen to you until the day they die. Like, Bakugou’s one thing, but those two? You’re going to be the boss-man to them for the rest of time.”
“You’ll always be our class president,” Shouto adds softly.
Iida looks flummoxed, then abruptly misty-eyed. He pushes at his glasses again, which does absolutely nothing to hide it; Shouto and Uraraka, exchanging a glance, choose not to comment.
One thing Shouto has learned over the years is that some truths are not equally evident to everyone. The first time he’d learned it had been with Midoriya’s assistance—it’s your power it’s your power IT’S YOUR POWER, TODOROKI—but the second had been about Iida. Shouto had looked at his classmate and seen the desire for vengeance consuming him where everyone else had seen shadowed grief. It’s not that they were wrong, Shouto thinks; it’s just that they didn’t see all there was.
Shouto, though. He’d looked at Iida and seen a mirror of the boy he’d been.
In some ways, it’s hard to believe Iida was once that boy in Hosu City, desperate and furious enough to go up against Stain by himself. But in others, it’s unforgettable. Not that he still acts that way, or that anyone talks about it, but -- it’s the way Iida moves now, Shouto thinks. His devotion to his friends, and to trying to do the right thing. He’s a walking study of the aftermath, of a boy who came back from the brink with the help of his friends, and now will always do what he can to save them in return.
So it’s not that Iida is still that same boy who chased a murderer into an alleyway; it’s that he’s grown into something that always remembers its roots, and has learned to take what matters from the soil.
You’ve been listening to Tokoyami and Kaminari too much again, complains the Bakugou who exists in the back of his head. Shouto imagines him scowling at the metaphor, and quirks his lips to the side. Actually, where is Bakugou?
“There, there,” Uraraka is saying when Shouto cranes his neck, glancing around for a shock of blond hair. “Iida-kun, you’re going to get your shirt wet—at least let me get you a handkerchief!”
With a light press to Iida’s shoulder as an attempt at comfort and farewell, Shouto slips away.
He weaves between his classmates, fondness swelling within him with each one he passes. They’re all such markers of comfort to him, such integral pieces of his landscape of the last three years, that it’s impossible to imagine what it’ll be like after tomorrow, not having all of them on-hand. Tomorrow is the first time that he’ll leave Heights Alliance without knowing he’s going to come back.
Shouto knows what it’s like when the world ends. He’s lived through it enough times that it hurts to count, first as a child but increasingly more during his years at UA. The fundamental truth he’s learned about it is this: you wake up the next morning and keep going anyway. The world ends, whether it’s your mother being taken away, or your classmate being snatched just out of reach, or your brother setting fire to himself and the heavens just to make sure he takes the rest of the world with him. The world ends, and you wake up the next day and keep fighting.
Aizawa warned them once that this was what it meant to be a hero, but Shouto thinks of his mother, his sister, the brother he trusts, and thinks it’s probably just what it means to be human.
There’s something similar between that feeling and this, even though tonight is not a tragedy. There’s nobody to save, nobody to fight, nothing to defeat: it’s just the passage of time, and the slow, creeping knowledge of inevitable change.
The irony of having that thought in mind when he finally spots Bakugou is not lost on Shouto.
During media training a few months ago, Mt. Lady had made them all play various ‘interview games’. Something about them being a popular segment for talk shows -- Shouto hadn’t paid much attention to the reasoning, too focused on the whispered debate about Crimson Riot’s greatest victory that Midoriya and Kirishima were having beside him.
When it was his turn, Mt. Lady had asked him to associate whatever words she gave him with people he knew. He couldn’t understand why anyone would find this entertaining to listen to, but he obliged. Animals? Kouda. Food? Fuyumi-nee. Protection? Aizawa-sensei. Energy? Monoma.
And so on, and so forth, until, finally: Fighting?
Bakugou.
There was never going to be any other answer. Shouto grew up with fists and strength and a father whose career was built on overpowering any villain he found, and yet the person who absolutely mapped himself onto Shouto’s synapses as fighting is Bakugou Katsuki. Shouto doesn’t even think it’s that Bakugou fights more than anyone else he knows, or that he’s the best at it; it’s just that he’s the first person to throw a gauntlet down at Shouto’s feet without wanting anything else from him.
You gave your declaration of war to the wrong person!
“Are you just going to stand there?” Bakugou asks impatiently, eighteen years old now as he draws Shouto out of his memory. Shouto blinks at him. Bakugou is leaning against the railing, his elbows propped on the ledge. From his angle, he could look at anything—the stars, their dorms, even other areas of the school if he craned his neck—and still, he is looking at Shouto.
“I was looking for you,” Shouto says, approaching him.
Bakugou scoffs. “Could’ve fooled me with how you just stood there like a space cadet,” he says, rolling his eyes. “Anyway. Congratulations. You found me. Now what?”
Shouto shrugs. “I wasn’t looking for you for anything specific,” he says, resting his arms on the railing. Unlike Bakugou, he’s facing out towards the grounds, but he shifts his head to keep Bakugou in his line of vision. “I just wanted to see you.”
Bakugou bristles—what an unnecessary reaction, Shouto thinks with a swelling fondness—but instead of snapping, he grumbles quietly. “Aggravating,” he mumbles. “Ridiculous, infuriating, pretty fuckin’—” before cutting himself off and huffing lightly.
“Remember in first year, when we’d have to take the train on days none of the teachers could come with us?” Shouto asks, catching sight of the bus stop they’d wait at for the transit to the train station.
“What, for remedial classes?”
Shouto nods. That was the sum of them before those classes: declarations of war and boys who knew how to win, but only by themselves. Now look at them, in the aftermath of Inasa and Camie, of wars and brothers and traumas both shared and separate, of sacrifice and loss and so much fighting, recontextualised in Shouto’s brain as something you can do with people instead of only against them: it’s the last night they’ll ever be at UA, and here they are beneath the stars, ready to go out into the world.
“‘Course I do,” Bakugou says after a moment. “How could I forget?”
A slow warmth unfurls itself in Shouto’s chest at that. At the confirmation of permanence.
Bakugou must see it on his face, because his lips twist. “You can’t have thought I’d forget,” he says.
Shouto shrugs. It’s hard to explain. It’s not that he worried Bakugou would forget so much as it is that he cherishes the idea of him not being able to.
Bakugou tchs. “Quit it with the doom and gloom,” he says, responding to all the things Shouto doesn’t say, as always. “C’mon, Icyhot, as if you’re ever gonna get rid of any of these fuckers. You’re stuck with us until your bones turn to dust.”
And that’s it, isn’t it? Bakugou cuts straight to the quick with him, just as he always has. Shouto hadn’t even realised that was what he was truly aching about until Bakugou said it, and now that he has… It’s a little easier to believe it, coming out of a mouth as sure as Bakugou’s.
“Okay,” Shouto agrees.
Bakugou looks incredulous. “Okay?” he repeats. “That’s it? You’re good now, just like that?”
Shouto shrugs, a smile playing at his lips. “What can I say? You’re very persuasive,” he says dryly.
Bakugou scowls at him, always with a sharp radar for when anyone’s teasing him (or, as he called it once when it was Kaminari being shifty in his vicinity, jackassery is afoot), but it softens a moment later as he bumps his shoulder against Shouto’s.
“Dick,” he murmurs, but he leaves his shoulder pressed there.
Shouto doesn’t mind. It’s an anchoring, comforting warmth. And maybe it’s the last time he’ll ever feel that here, but that’s okay.
There will be other railings to lean against. There will be other nights.
The thing about endings, after all, is that you get up the next day and begin again.