Work Text:
"Touya."
Natsuo's voice cut through the morning silence and Touya groans, shoving his head under the pillow.
A huff. "I know you're awake."
"No m'not."
"Yes, you are! Don't make me jump on you."
Touya squeezes his hands over the pillow tighter, hoping his brother would take the hint for once. It turns out he has no such luck, as the wind is knocked out of him in a wheeze as Natsuo makes good on his promise.
Once he regains his composure, he tries to flip Natsuo off him, but his brother is sturdier than Touya, even at 13. Instead, Touya kicks his legs to dislodge him.
"Get off of me, brat!"
He hears Natsuo's laughter as he sits up, staring at him where he's perched himself at the foot of Touya's bed without a care in the world.
Younger siblings, man.
"I'm up. Happy?"
Natsuo smirks. "Nice bedhead."
Touya glares and musses the back of his head to hopefully move it into something closer to tousled than messy. "What do you want?"
Natsuo rocks excitedly, grin remaining planted on his face. "It's Sports Festival Day!"
Glancing at the calendar on his wall where he's circled the date in red, Touya grins. "It is." He looks past Natsuo towards the door. "Dad up yet?"
Natsuo's smile falters. "Yeah. He's with Shouto though."
Of course he was. He'd probably been there since sunrise, getting as much training in as they could before Shouto had school, which started later than it did for the three rejects.
Touya pushes his legs over the edge of the bed to stand, Natsuo scrambling to follow.
"No time to waste then, right? Big day today."
Natsuo's smile returns in full force as he follows Touya downstairs, to where Fuyumi was already setting out breakfast at the table. Normally, Touya would just grab some toast and maybe some rice or broth in the morning, but it seemed his sister had other ideas.
"Whoa!" Natsuo exclaims, almost slamming into Fuyumi in his excitement.
"Hey!" she says, setting down a plate of tamagoyaki. "Watch it!"
"What's all this?" Touya asks through a bite, dodging out of the way of her hands as he grabs another piece of toast off a plate.
She glares up at him with her hands on her hips. "It's your big day, so I was trying to be nice and make sure you had a full breakfast before school. Not that you two can appreciate it."
Touya softens just a little. "Thank you, Yumi." He pauses. "They let you watch at school, right?"
Thankfully, her anger evaporates as quickly as it had appeared. "Of course! We all gather in the main hall and they play it on the projector for us, just like every year."
He knows that, he does. It's been this way since his first year. He just needs the reassurance that someone was rooting for him, even if they never let him get to the top.
She smiles a little, reaching up on her toes to ruffle his hair. He's grateful she isn't taller than him at least. "I'm just glad you woke up with enough time to fix your bedhead."
"Hey!" he yells, not that it can be heard over his younger siblings' joined laughter.
The rest of breakfast passes quietly, with Touya eating a little more quickly than was probably good. But he needed to be at school a little early to get ready, and he wanted to be out the door before Dad came down from training. He didn't want whatever he would have to say ringing in his ears before his last chance to prove himself.
It would be different this time. He had spent the past six months working in secret with the support course on some items to help with his flames. Compression gear, cuffs to help focus them away from his body. He'd stayed after school for it, pretending that he was just getting ahead on college entrance exams. But Touya didn't need college. He could be useful, even if he wasn't a pro.
Touya would show him that he could make him proud, even if he wasn't in the hero course.
—
Touya steps into the meeting room, feeling once more like he's five years old and about to get scolded.
It wasn't fair. He had done everything right. The first round was a maze, and he hadn't used his quirk once, relying on his old training and instincts to keep himself in the top group of challengers. Then, in the relay race, he only had to be fast enough to dodge any quirks hurled at him. The one advantage of being smaller than the other kids was that he could slip around them, passing the baton to his last team member easily to secure them their place in the finals.
But here he was again, for the third year in a row, about to be told that despite his effort and his talent, his stupid quirk meant he needed to withdraw.
His father had joined them, because of course, of course he would show up not for Touya's triumph but for his misery. To share yet another "I told you so".
Moriyama-sensei was the first to step forward, regarding him with sympathy that stung. "Todoroki-kun," he says, both out of kindness and to avoid addressing Endeavor, "Everyone here knows how hard you've worked. Making it this far in the general studies track is a wonderful accomplishment. It is not only heroes recruiters are seeking here. You have so many incredible opportunities, without putting your health at risk."
"I won't put myself at risk," he protests, though his voice sounds wobbly even to him. "I've gotten so much better at controlling it."
Everyone in the room was looking at him, but they were looking at his scars, he knew, not at him. All they could see was a liability, a failure, and despite his words, he could feel his flames starting to lick at his hands, at his wrists, as desperation flooded him.
"Touya, stop this," Dad says and Touya turns to him, frantic as he wrestles with his bag.
"Look," he says, pulling the compression gear out. He watches his father take it in, before turning it to his teachers. "I've been working with this all year, and it's helped. I haven't burned myself once!"
"You are not well, Touya," Dad says, with such cold finality that it takes the breath out of him. "This is reckless and I will not indulge in it."
It's mortifying as Touya's flames grow, proving Dad right, while they all just stare and feel sorry for him and his eyes sting and his chest tightens until it all- evaporates.
It's a little like getting plunged into ice, and for a second, he's elated. Did he stop it? Did his ice quirk actually kick in? But he looks up to see his Dad's reaction and instead of looking at Touya, everyone is looking toward the back of the room.
Everyone knew there was a new teacher in the hero course this year, but no one knew much about him. There were whispers and jokes about how perpetually tired he looked, and about how a couple of Touya's classmates had seen him sleeping in the teacher's lounge, but this was different.
His hair and that weird scarf he wore were floating, his eyes wide and red. All at once, he watches the effect evaporate, everything falling and his face settling back into neutrality.
"You stopped it," Touya breathes.
"I stopped it." He walks over to Touya, looking him over before turning to face the rest of the room. "You are right. This is reckless."
Touya opens his mouth to reply, but the teacher glances back at him with a look that has him snapping it shut.
"I can't help but wonder, though, how allowing a student who cannot control his quirk to graduate is less reckless."
Touya lets out a startled gasp at that. They can't kick him out, can they? In his third year, what the fuck, he couldn't go anywhere else now!
"What do you suggest, Aizawa-kun?" Principal Nezu asks, the first words he's spoken during this exchange.
Aizawa-sensei turns to Touya again, regarding him carefully. "You will not be allowed into the hero course. It is too late and your quirk is too unreliable."
Touya goes to reply again, but the teacher holds his hand up.
"I am not saying this to be cruel. I am saying it because I need to know that you understand."
Touya presses his lips together but nods mutely.
"Good," Aizawa-sensei continues. He turns slightly so he can address both the room and Touya. "I am willing to be the teacher on the sidelines should the match need to be stopped. If it goes too far, I can cancel his quirk."
Nezu, Endeavor, and Touya all begin speaking at the same time, but Aizawa's glare silences the latter two.
"You know I trust your abilities, Aizawa-kun. However, since he is a minor, we still need Endeavor-san's permission."
Touya looks over at his dad, pleading with his eyes for him to say yes, just this once, please, please-
"Touya is a child. I cannot support this recklessness."
Touya wilts.
Aizawa steps forward again. "With respect, Endeavor-san, your son is seventeen. We allow students at this age with provisional licenses to work as heroes, in more perilous conditions than this." Aizawa looks at Nezu before continuing. The principal tilts his head, allowing it. "At least here, we can assess his progress, in a safe and controlled environment. Hero or not, he will have this quirk— it is not rational to allow it to go unchecked when we have the resources to correct it. I have no doubt that you have your son's best interests at heart, but I ask you to trust in our abilities as teachers, and as fellow pro heroes."
Touya is pretty sure he doesn't breathe for the entirety of Aizawa-sensei's speech. His dad looks pissed, but he isn't arguing, so maybe if he says yes, it will be worth whatever comes after.
After a long pause, Dad nods and Touya has to fight not to launch himself across the room with joy. But he knows that will win him no favors, so he stays still.
Mostly. He can't help that his foot taps a little in excitement.
His father sends him a long look before leaving the room, while Moriyama-sensei pats him on the shoulder and wishes him good luck. Eventually, it's just him and Aizawa left in the room. Before he can leave, Touya calls out, "Why are you helping me?"
Aizawa pauses at the doorway. "Because no one else is." He turns, leaning against the door. "And because you have potential. But this isn't charity. Don't make me look foolish."
"I won't!"
Aizawa stares at him for a moment before answering. "If you can control your quirk, I will consider helping you train after the festival. But only if you can keep a lid on it. Fair?"
Touya nods. He'd never wanted anyone but his dad to train him, but if this was what it took to let him try, how could he refuse it?
"Good." A slightly unsettling grin splits across Aizawa's face. "Don't lose."
—
Touya gets third.
At first, he panics, thinking that Aizawa-sensei will take back his promise, that Dad is going to tell him he was right to ignore him, that he was pulling him out of UA. But Aizawa sends him a thumbs up after he's eliminated, and while Dad doesn't look enthused when he shows him the bronze medal, he still lets them go out for soba that night for dinner.
Natsuo talks his ear off about how cool it was when he beat his first opponent by getting them out of bounds without even using his quirk. Even Fuyumi, who doesn't really care about the Sports Festival, talks about how it's the furthest anyone in General Studies has made it in a long time.
The oddest thing, besides Dad being nice, was that Shouto was allowed to come out with them. Touya didn't think he'd spent more than two minutes in his presence…ever, really. A little part of him is worried that he's going to take all of the attention, a thought he knows he's too old to feel, but old hurts die hard.
Fuck, Shouto was probably going to win the Sports Festival one day, and won't Dad be proud then?
But he's quiet, just taking in everything around him with his round, too big for his face eyes. Despite how hard he works to not feel anything about Shouto, sympathy rises unbidden in his chest. He's looking around like all of this is new and the kid has to have been out to dinner once in nine years, right?
The fact that he hasn't, and it's Touya's fault curdles the joy in his stomach.
Reaching for some dormant brotherly instinct inside him, he looks over at Shouto. "You like soba, huh?"
Shouto jumps— like actually flinches— and Touya regrets saying anything, especially when Dad shoots him a look like he's about to send Touya away. But Shouto settles down after a second and says, "It's my favorite."
Touya smiles. "Mine too." He reaches a hand out and hesitates when he sees Shouto freeze, before ruffling his hair a little.
Shouto's mouth opens in a surprised "oh", before turning back to his soba. Touya looks at Natsuo and Fuyumi and the three of them manage to keep it together for a few seconds before dissolving into giggles.
"What?" Shouto says, looking at the three of them as a furrow appears between his brows.
"Nothing," Touya says and Shouto continues to look sour, until Fuyumi distracts him with some video on her phone.
Later, when they're walking back to the car, Shouto makes a point to walk nearer to Touya. He glances down, not sure what the kid wants.
"Touya-nii," he says, in that incredibly flat tone he's spoken with all night. It makes him sound older than nine, even as the way he stumbles through the world makes him seem younger.
Touya's never actually felt like much of an older brother. Fuyumi and Natsuo are younger, but they've always been more mature than him, more trustworthy. Dad doesn't have to watch them like they're going to break. So looking at Shouto, it's hard to imagine that he's even something resembling that to Shouto.
"Yeah, kid?"
"Did you have fun?"
Touya's brow furrows. "Tonight? Sure, it was fun."
Shouto shakes his head. "No. The Sports Festival. We watched it at school. Was it fun?"
He doesn't immediately know how to answer. It wasn't about having fun, it was about proving that he could do it, that his quirk wasn't a waste. To show Dad that sending him to UA wasn't a mistake. But Shouto wouldn't understand any of that. He was already perfect, would never know what it was like to not be good enough.
"...I dunno. It was pretty cool winning those first two matches."
Shouto puzzles over that. "I don't think that's the same thing."
Touya knows, without looking, that Dad is watching the two of them. He feels his gaze on the back of his neck. Even now, he doesn't trust that Touya isn't going to try and hurt Shouto.
"What did it look like to you?" he asks. "Are you excited for when it's your turn?"
Shouto shrugs. "It looked okay."
There's so much Touya feels like he should say, but they're a few steps away from the car and none of it sounds right, so he settles for patting Shouto on the shoulder.
"You're gonna be even better than me, so I'm sure you'll have fun." He tries to keep the bitter edges out of his voice, even when he knows seeing Shouto out there one day will kill him.
Shouto frowns and nods, squeezing into the backseat while Touya follows in after and tries not to think for a while.
—
They get home and there's the usual fanfare surrounding bedtime, with Shouto being ushered quickly upstairs while Fuyumi and Natsuo argue in the kitchen about packing lunches for the next day.
Instead of heading to his room, Touya makes his way to where Dad has retreated to his office. He's not always here overnight, especially now that Touya and Fuyumi are both in high school, but he stays once a week or so. Touya usually avoids him like the plague, but something about the way they had almost been a normal family tonight had him feeling sentimental.
He knocks. "Dad?"
"Come in."
Touya steps into the office, feeling out of place among its structure. Minimalist would be an understatement— the large desk is the only piece that keeps it from being a blank canvas of a room. He supposes there isn't really a need for decoration in a room he barely visits, but it's still a little eerie to behold.
"Touya," his father says simply.
He fights to not fidget, knowing how upset he gets when Touya gets too animated. It's not his fault— it probably reminds him of the time before the accident, when Touya was always stomping his foot and tearing at his hair. He manages to keep it mostly under wraps now that he's older. "I'm sorry I didn't get first. I didn't—" I didn't mean to embarrass you.
His father doesn't answer for a long moment, so long Touya almost regrets coming up here. Eventually, he takes a deep breath and says, "I am trying to help you understand your limitations, Touya. You have never been able to see them clearly yourself."
It's not the answer he expected, but it doesn't sting any less. No one knows Touya's limitations better than him. But the idea of stopping is worse, so what else can he do?
"Aizawa-sensei said he could help me control my quirk. That he would teach me."
"Are you asking permission?"
No.
"Will you be angry if I train with him?"
"He is a teacher. I trust UA to instruct you in the manner they see best."
He would never be so cavalier about Shouto's training. But Touya wasn't his Dad's problem anymore, so it didn't matter.
"Do you-" he swallows around the pit in his throat. "Do you think I could visit Mom and show her my medal?"
It wasn't that Mom wasn't allowed visitors. Fuyumi and Natsuo went occasionally, but Touya has only been a handful of times in the last few years. The doctors said that his scars upset her, and on some level, he knows that even without them she is scared of him.
"If the doctors say that she is having a good day, I don't see why not."
Touya nods again. Not knowing what to say, he starts to leave, half expecting his father to already have forgotten he was there.
"Touya."
He turns. "Yeah?"
It's still jarring whenever his father looks at him, really looks. Like pressing on a bruise. He knows he shouldn't relish it, but it's a clean, simple hurt, compared to everything else that rattles around in Touya's brain.
"Your instincts are good. Focus on your close range skills."
Touya's hand slips a little on the door. "Sure. Thanks."
Another nod and Dad turns back into Endeavor, solid and unmoving as he returned to his papers.
—
The next school day, Touya practically runs to the training field where Aizawa said to meet. He doesn't want to exhaust himself before he even gets there, but this was his chance. Even if he couldn't get into the hero course, this would make it so he wasn't worthless. He could make something of himself.
Aizawa-sensei is waiting in between the trees, face neutral as the last time as he takes in Touya. "You can put away your gear. You won't be needing it today."
Touya falters where he was putting the wrist guards on. "My quirk-"
"We won't be working with your quirk."
"You said you would help me control it." Was he going back on his word already? Had he spent the weekend thinking about it and decided that he wasn't worth the effort after all?
"I said I would help you train. But I almost meant what I said about your quirk. It is too unreliable to be useful." He places a hand on Touya's shoulder as he looks down. Normally taller people make him think of Dad, but the way Aizawa is looking at him is stern but not unkind. "No one with any sense relies on just one trick. Sometimes the smartest move is ending things before a fight starts. That's how you won the first two battles."
"I thought that was luck," Touya days.
"No such thing," Aizawa says, stepping away. "Now— today we're focusing on dodging. I want to see where you're at."
Touya grinned and got into battle stance. This was going to be so easy—
—
Ten minutes later, Touya groans as he lands on his back, already dreading how sore he was going to be in the morning. Lolling his head to the side, he sweara Aizawa is laughing at him where he stands wrapping his demon scarf around his neck.
"What is that thing?" he asks, wincing as he uses his elbows to sit up.
"It's a metal alloy," Aizawa says, patting it down like a beloved cat instead of a deadly weapon. "Doesn't look like much, but it's handy."
He walks over and squats down next to Touya, resting his arms on his knees. "My quirk is useful, but once I use it, I lose the element of surprise. I needed to build up my strength in other ways. I couldn't rely on it the way others could with their quirks."
Touya pauses as he takes that in. Dad had always trained him on more than just his quirk, but there was always the assumption that his fire was the most important thing. It was powerful because it could end fights quickly. If he used it right, he should never have gotten close enough to need anything else.
"And that works?"
Aizawa shrugs. "I'm alive so far." He offers Touya a hand and they stand. "You focus on the enemy in front of you." He pokes Touya in the forehead. "You're too busy fighting whatever's in here. Don't try and fight a battle on two fronts. You'll lose."
Touya nods. "You'll keep training me though? Even though I couldn't beat you today?"
Aizawa chuckles. "Yeah. I'll train you. But remind yourself that you wanted this when you wake up tomorrow."
Touya grins. That sounded like a challenge. And he was more than capable of rising to it.