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Fuyumi is a Todoroki. She feels like this is obvious.
She looks like her family. Line her up with her brothers and you’d see that she blends into them. Both of her parents’ hair colors, even their eye colors. Her father’s too-sharp teeth, her mother’s Quirk.
Her brothers say that when she smiles she looks like mom. But when she frowns she looks like their father.
Despite this fact, Fuyumi rarely felt like anyone recognized her as part of the family if she didn’t tell them.
Fuyumi walked back to her classmates. A few of them giggling. She tried to tell herself it was probably just their own joke and not that they were laughing at her. They were only a few days into the school year, but that’s probably enough to have an inside joke, right? The ‘knowing stares’ (though she didn’t understand what they knew) said otherwise.
“What now?” Fuyumi asked.
“You looked pretty cozy with that boy,” one of her classmates said.
“Cozy?” she repeated.
“He’s a good catch though,” another girl said. “Like, of course any one from the Hero Course is a good catch, but did you know his father is a Pro Hero?”
“You say that like it’s any Pro Hero,” the first rolled her eyes. “His father is Endeavor. That boy is going places!”
“Of course I know he’s my-” Fuyumi started.
“I think you’re barking up the wrong tree,” a third classmate said. “Rumor has it he’s not exactly into girls.”
“I think the rumor is just a ‘flaming’ pun,” the first one deadpanned.
Wait. They thought-
“Oh my god I’m going to go throw up now,” Fuyumi said. “Of course I know who his father is because that’s my fucking brother!”
Well. At least they look suitably awkward and embarrassed. Except for the one.
“So…. Does that mean he’s single?”
Fuyumi was either going to walk off and stop existing, or she was going to freeze all of them.
Fuyumi yawned. Looking over the work on her screen. All the words were blurring together.
“Stop that,” Makoto yawned back, flipping off his webcam.
“It’s getting kinda late,” Hitomi agreed.
“I’m getting coffee,” Fuyumi said. “And a snack.”
“If you come back with an iced coffee I swear to god,” Airi threatened.
“What’s wrong with iced coffee?” she asked.
“Fuyumi, it’s the middle of winter,” she said.
“The cold never bothered her anyway!” Makoto sang.
Everyone groaned.
Fuyumi grabbed the tablet and took it with her. Yawning once again as her companions went back to discussing the project at hand.
As she neared the kitchen she could hear noise. There were so few options for who could be in the kitchen anymore. Natsuo was off in High School now. Mom and Toya were…..
She pushed the thought out of her mind. Not surprised to see her father in the kitchen. He seemed a bit surprised to see her, glancing at the clock on the wall.
“Why are you still awake?” Enji asked.
“Group project running late,” Fuyumi answered, gesturing with the tablet. “You know the stereotype of college kids pulling all nighters.”
He started to say something, but glanced at the clock again.
“I’d lecture you about staying up late,” Enji said. “But you’re an adult and I don’t care for being a hypocrite right now.”
Fuyumi smiled, but went about in the kitchen. She could hear Airi’s affectionate complaining as soon as she got out the cold brew. She could also hear her father muttering agreements, and bit her tongue before she pointed out that he took his coffee boiling hot even in the summer, and he said he wasn’t going to be hypocritical tonight.
Though she did not feel like cooking something, she at least went for making a sandwich instead of just grabbing a handful of granola bars. While busying herself in the kitchen, she tried to pay attention to the conversation.
“What’s the chances this group project is just part of a scheme?” Hitomi asked. “Like just. Teacher has her students plan out what a class curriculum should look like and then sends it off to an actual elementary school teacher who didn’t want to figure it out themselves?”
“That sounds like way too much work,” Makoto said. “Too little payoff.”
“You’d be surprised how often people take a harder route to avoid work,” Fuyumi said. “Don’t you remember the lesson on ‘how to catch kids cheating on tests’.”
“Which was, in fact, a scheme,” Airi said. “She said we’d get a passing grade if we managed to successfully cheat. So anyone who did do a bunch of hard work to get around the questions just got added to The List.”
“See it’s all a scheme and….” Makoto’s voice trailed off. “Is that FUCKING ENDEAVOR?!”
Shit.
Fuyumi glanced to the side to see that her father had walked past the camera. Of course he also stopped and glanced over hearing his name.
“You didn’t tell your friends about-?” Enji started.
“Hasn’t come up yet!” Fuyumi said, hastily grabbing the tablet and balancing her plate and drink. “Anyway! Going back to the project! Goodnight! I promise I’ll get some sleep!”
She tried not to sprint out of the kitchen. If only because she knew the sound of running would wake Shoto up, and he’d get worried.
Setting the drink on her desk and moving the plate off the tablet, she really hoped they were going to magically forget what just happened. As she propped the tablet back up, she realized that was not happening today.
“Fuyumi,” Airi said. “Dear. Darling. Sweetheart. Why on earth is the #2 Hero in your house?!”
“Please tell me we didn’t just get caught up in some shit,” Hitomi said. “I swear if you’re part of some sting operation we just ruined...
“You need to work on your paranoia,” Makoto said. “However, since you seem to be hanging out with a Pro Hero, is he down for a sugar daddy situation? Because my student loans are-”
“Oh my god!” Fuyumi tried not to scream that. “He is not going to be your sugar daddy! For many reasons! Biggest of which being that he is still married to my mother!”
“Hey, Sayori,” Fuyumi grinned. “So….. you know how I promised you a ride until your car got fixed?”
“Oh no,” Sayori groaned. “Please don’t bail on me.”
“Don’t worry, I’m not bailing,” she assured. “I already got a situation figured out, it just won’t be my car because mine got absolutely wrecked.”
“Oh my god are you okay?” she asked, grabbing Fuyumi’s face and checking her over.
“I’m fine I wasn’t in the car,” she said, gently waving her away. “Just got a Hero thrown through the windshield.”
She neglected to mention that the Hero in question was her father. But he was fine too! Just a few cuts and a minor concussion.
“Since my car’s out of commission,” Fuyumi redirected the subject. “I got my brother to give us a ride instead!”
“There’s that at least,” she sighed. “I suppose he’s going to be as stubborn as you are when it comes to me offering to at least pay for the gas to get there?”
“Stubbornness does run in the family,” she said.
Several hours later, Fuyumi walked out of the building with Sayori by her side. She looked out at the parking lot, glad to be able to see over most of the heads in front of her. Ah. She could see Natsuo waiting by the car.
“That’s your brother?” Sayori said, following Fuyumi’s gaze.
“Little brother,” Fuyumi clarified, hearing the tone in her friend’s voice. “Just about to graduate high school, actually.”
“Okay thank you for making me feel creepy,” she said. “But I refuse to refer to him as your ‘little’ brother. He is too fucking tall! What have you been feeding him?!”
“Another thing that runs in the family,” she said. “Dad’s side, at least.”
Fuyumi waved to get his attention, and Natsuo waved back. While he and Sayori introduced themselves, Fuyumi put their stuff in the trunk. When she got back, she found Sayori staring up at Natsuo with a thoughtful frown.
“You look familiar,” Sayori said.
“I don’t think we’ve met before,” Natsuo said.
“Nothing I’m aware of,” Fuyumi said. “Maybe you’re just thinking of something I posted online.”
“Hm, maybe,” Sayori mused.
There was another pause, and Fuyumi was getting ready to herd her into the car. Then she saw her eyes widen with recognition. Oh no.
“I got it!” Sayori said. “If you dyed your hair you’d look just like Endeavor!”
Fuyumi sighed. Natsuo looked about to cry. Sayori was entirely confused about the complicated emotion gutpunch she just unleashed.
Fuyumi woke up to the smells of breakfast. Not something that happened often, as it was usually her job. Doubly so when it was now just her and her father in the house, and he often just grabbed something from the kitchen to go without making a proper sit-down meal.
But she hadn’t exactly spent the night at home. Certainly not in her own bed. So at the enticing smell, she pulled herself out of bed and grabbed her clothes off the floor and her glasses off the nightstand.
Wandering into the kitchen, she found her girlfriend at the stove. As romantic as it might seem to come up behind her, Fuyumi knew better than to sneak up on someone holding any kind of kitchen appliance.
“Hey,” Fuyumi said, the word coming out more like a yawn.
“Morning,” Rumi said, looking over her shoulder for just a moment. “Hope you like fried eggs because I’m not patient enough for pancakes.”
Now was the time to do the hug her from behind thing. Fuyumi was tall enough to drop her head on top of Rumi’s, the fur of the woman’s ears tickling her face. Rumi still jumped when Fuyumi put her hands around her waist.
“Damn you’re cold,” Rumi muttered.
Fuyumi just hummed in response. Watching over her girlfriend’s head as she attempted to flip an egg.
“A bit more scrambled than fried,” Fuyumi said.
“Hush,” Rumi said.
While the first egg was pretty scrambled, she did manage to get the second one flipped. Didn’t take long for them to cook, and she slid them off the pan and started on more.
“Hey, I was thinking,” Rumi began. “At what point in a relationship do you do a ‘meet the parents’ night? Because my mom’s been bothering me about meeting you.”
“Family dinners in my house always end in chaos,” Fuyumi mused. “Usually the fights are just verbal, but I think my dad would love the excuse to spar with you. Don’t know how he’d feel about seeing you as a potential-daughter-in-law rather than just a coworker.”
“A coworker?” she repeated. “Your dad’s a Hero? You never mentioned that.”
Fuyumi was suddenly wide awake. Rolling that statement over in her head. She knew her temperature must have dropped, as Rumi wriggled in her grip.
The eggs were slid onto the plate, stove turned off and pan set on a back burner. Rumi spun around, not taking Fuyumi’s hands off her waist, but pushing them both a step away from the hot stove.
“Are you okay?” Rumi asked.
“Rumi,” Fuyumi began, the tone of her voice not helping. “Please. Please tell me that last sentence was sarcasm? And that we haven’t been dating this many months without you connecting the dots on who my dad is?!”
She did not like the way her voice raised in pitch on that question, but she couldn’t help it.
“I am tempted to lie and say it was sarcasm,” Rumi admitted. “But with that reaction I think I’d rather get an answer now…”
“Oh my god,” Fuyumi groaned, bringing a hand up to rub at her face. “You didn’t connect it through ‘Todoroki’? I know his Quirk’s literally the opposite but surely you saw some family resemblence, right?”
Ah. The gears were turning and the connection is clicking.
“The FUCK do you mean Endeavor is your dad?!”
Fuyumi walked into the meeting and immediately dropped her head on the table. Her coworkers paused their chatting, and she barely lifted her head up to meet their stares.
“You good?” Mori aksed.
“Ugh,” Fuyumi groaned. “My dad’s been….”
“An ass?” Fujisawa offered.
“He’s been really nice actually,” she said. “Working on things. Occasional rockiness as everything gets unpacked but family dinner didn’t end in a fight! And I decided to ask if he could come help out with the school fundraiser.He said it was a bit short notice so he didn’t have time, so he’d just write a check to donate!”
“And that’s…. bad?” Mori asked.
Fuyumi sighed again, getting up long enough to pull her purse on to the table before slumping back down. She took out the check her dad had given her, and slid it across the table to Kobayashi, who was the treasurer for school fundraisers anyway.
The woman picked it up, brow furrowed as she read it. Then did a double take. Then her eyes went comically wide she comprehended it.
“Fuyumi,” Kobayashi said. “Why- why am I holding a check for the entire amount of our fundraising goal???”
Fuyumi was mildly familiar with what to do in a hostage situation. At least, she’d been told what to do. Actually being in one was a whole different wheelhouse.
But as a group of four masked villains had interrupted the class field trip to the museum, she’d have to make do with what she remembered. Seriously who robs a museum on a Thursday afternoon?
Most of what she’d been told was ‘don’t do something stupid’. Which was to say that she was not given advice on how to ‘pull badass skills out of nowhere and take down everyone’. She was told how to keep herself and others safe. Keep everyone calm. Keep others from trying to ‘play Hero’ and attack their captors. Keep their captors from getting stressed and harming someone in a panic.
Still though. Fuyumi might keep from instigating things, but she would do her best to mitigate damages if things went south. She put herself at the front of the group. If any of them wanted to get to her students, they’d have to get through her first. And she kept her Quirk ready, just in case she had to quickly put a wall of ice between them. Even though it lowered the temperature, hopefully no one noticed.
Oh no. One of the four may have noticed. A blue-haired woman was staring at her. Her mask only covered the lower half of her face, so Fuyumi could see her confused expression. Then her very, very concerned expression. The woman walked forward, and Fuyumi prepared to either be grabbed or put up a fight.
“You,” the woman said. “You’re a… fuck what’s the name?”
“You said a bad word!” one of the students whispered, absolutely scandalized.
“They’re villains they’re gonna break the rules!” another one hissed, trying to get her friend to shut up.
Fuyumi put an arm out in front of them, both quieting down.
“Todoroki,” the villain said, snapping her fingers as she recalled. “That’s the- your hair’s like them.”
Fuyumi was genuinely startled that the woman connected that fact. No one ever recognized her like that? Even with all the family resemblances.
She should probably lie. While she was already a hostage she didn’t want to make herself more of a target. But the woman had already recognized her. Not to mention the students would lecture her for lying, unaware of the potential danger.
However, she didn’t get a chance to lie or not before the villain began panicking. The woman stepped back and grabbed the arm of one of the other villains.
“Boss!” the woman said. “We’ve gotta abandon this plan right the hell now!”
“No way!” the boss replied. “We’re already half-way through! Just follow the plan and-”
“The plan means jack when your luck comes back to bite us!” she hissed back. “Does the name ‘Todoroki’ mean anything to you?!”
The man didn’t seem to understand that at all. Though the woman had gestured at Fuyumi, and the man followed her gaze, it wasn’t clicking. The other two villains were paying attention, looking at her now as well. But for them it still didn’t sink in.
“Can’t say it does?” the man said. “Is it recognizable as a good hostage? Could get extra ransom-”
“Or a death sentence!” the woman said, very much trying not to smack her boss upside the head. “Fine, don’t recognize ‘Todoroki’? How about ‘Endeavor’, ‘Phoenix’ and ‘Hailfire’?!”
The boss did, in fact, recognize those names. So did the children behind her. All whispering about Heroes. Now she could see the fear in the boss’s eyes. The smallest villain behind him was actually shaking so hard they nearly dropped their weapon.
Afraid. Of her? Perhaps. He didn’t know what all she may be capable of. Was he willing to find out? But even if he thought she was weak, he was still afraid. Because he was beginning to realize that he may be in over his head.
Now, what Fuyumi should do is stay quiet. Make sure he felt…. Not exactly ‘safe’, but safe enough that he didn’t do anything stupid either. Especially as the boss and the woman started bickering in hushed voices.
However.
Fuyumi was a Todoroki. And the Todorokis are dramatic bastards who have a very hard time refraining from telling someone exactly how absolutely fucked they are.
“You’re forgetting Burnin,” Fuyumi said, watching the villains jump. “She adopted herself into the family a few years ago.”
They looked at her. Contemplating that.
“Also,” Fuyumi said. “Technically it’s now Todoroki-Usagiyama.”
“Usagiyama, as in ‘rabbit’?” asked the fourth villain, a big one with sharp tusks that had ripped through his mask.
“As in Mirko?!” the small one squeaked.
“I love my wife very much,” Fuyumi smiled. “Speaking of spouses, I’m sure you're aware of Phoenix’s husband as well. Though I think Hailfire’s spouses are bigger names nowadays.”
Fuyumi didn’t like using their Hero Names. It felt too impersonal, too detached, to use for people she loved. But those names carried weight.
“Kinda funny we’re having this discussion,” Fuyumi kept talking. “Because we were just going on a tangent last week about that. Deku keeps going on about how ‘well techncially through several adoptions and marriages, we could probably consider the entire Chaos Crew Agency and half of UA’s staff as ‘family’!’. Of course everyone else just thinks that’s a headache, but it sure does make holiday parties quite interesting! It's gotten to the point that so many people beg me for recipies, I've debated about making a cookbook to gift them all next year!”
Fuyumi grinned wide, showing off her too-sharp teeth. She focused her Quirk, dropping the temperature even lower to where their breath hung in the air.
She was a Todoroki. And by god she was never going to let anyone forget it.