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It starts like this, on the morning of their final exams in third year, a sign goes up on the common room bulletin board announcing a sudden change.
Unlikely Pairings Exam
It has come to our attention that some of you are planning to graduate in set partnerships and team ups. Sometimes in the field you will be required to work with whoever else shows up at the time, meaning that occasionally you may find yourselves working with someone who you aren’t comfortable or familiar with, someone whom you may have never worked with before.
Good luck!
“What?!?” Kaminari yelps, having wandered over to the board while half asleep, more out of habit than anything else.
“What?” Jirou echoes, coming up behind him to see what’s got him screaming so early in the morning.
Kaminari can only point in horror.
Pandemonium ensues.
The list of newly assigned partners gets passed around but Sero Hanta doesn’t even bother taking a look at it. Based on the criteria alone, he knows exactly who he’s going to be paired up with. One of the only classmates he isn’t friends with, the only one he doesn’t hang out with.
The only one that he, truth be told, actively avoids.
Todoroki Shouto.
It had started with the sports festival, and Todoroki going overboard to take him out culminating in an entire stadium full of people shouting “nice try!” at him while the entirety of his humiliation had been broadcast on live TV.
Hanta is honestly proud of himself that he didn’t cry. Though that maybe had had more to do with how cold he’d been than anything else. Maybe the tears froze within him just like his tape had.
Either way Hanta had been devastated, absolutely and utterly destroyed. He’d given his all but he’d been totally outclassed and that would have been okay all things considered. But the dark look on Todoroki’s face had been downright menacing, an expression so dark it practically promised violence, and Hanta had found himself wondering if he should be thanking his lucky stars that the match had ended before Todoroki had managed to draw blood.
He hadn’t been able to resist a teeth chattering line about it all being overkill, which had not been his finest move, he’ll admit.
But… Todoroki had been up close and personal just then, his left palm reached out to melt Hanta out of there.
And so Hanta had been privy to a front row seat of the way Todoroki’s head had just dropped. Like he’d suddenly felt ashamed and chastised and now couldn’t bear to even look at what he’d done.
“Sorry,” he’d murmured, tonelessly, emotionlessly, sounding about as empty as Hanta himself had felt. “It wasn’t about you.”
His words and demeanor had been cold. But his palm had been warm, splaying wide against Hanta’s chest.
And…
Well let’s just say that even Hanta isn’t sure if he’s avoided Todoroki ever since because he’s afraid of the way his time in that ice had utterly ruined his quirk… or if he’s afraid of the way his heart had flipped in his chest at that delicious warmth.
Either way Hanta is one hundred percent screwed today.
He stares down into his energy drink, absently listening to the names Iida is reading off the paper.
Tsuyu and Jirou.
Tokoyami and Aoyama.
Hagakure and Bakugou.
Ashido and Iida.
Kirishima and Yaoyorozu.
The further down the list Iida gets the more convinced Hanta is at his initial assumption. The pairings are not just quirks that are mostly incompatible but even the personalities at times are clearly at odds. It’s not about working with someone who isn’t your first choice. It’s about being forced to work with someone you would never choose at all.
Shouji and Uraraka.
Ojiro and Kouda.
Satou and Mineta.
Midoriya and Kaminari.
Todoroki and Sero.
Hanta blows out a slow breath. The satisfaction of being right is outweighed by the impending doom and panic at what is definitely about to come.
Fuck he is so dead.
His head thunks against the table right as a familiar smooth voice says, “there you are Sero, I was looking for you.”
‘F. M. L.’ Hanta thinks, resisting the urge to groan into the table. He pastes a smile on his face before slowly lifting his head. “Oh hey there Todoroki! I guess you heard.”
Todoroki nods and god he must have just gotten up. His hair is all mussed up, the red and whites blending together in the middle in a way that makes Hanta want to run his hands through it.
Hanta freezes at the mere thought, his eyes widening in mild horror. Holy fuck what the shit was that?!
Oblivious to the tangent Hanta’s thoughts decided to take, Todoroki places his palm against the table and leans closer so he can lower his voice.
“Midoriya says that the class is going to be pitted against each other.”
Hanta is so focused on not moving an inch from his current position so he doesn't accidentally touch his cheek to Todoroki’s that he doesn’t think he’s even breathing anymore.
“U-Uh?” he finally manages.
Todoroki nods, seemingly without the issues at brushing against Hanta that Hanta himself is consumed with. His cheek is warm as it skims against Hanta’s and he’s so close that Hanta can practically count every individual eyelash on his face. Dammit why is this boy so pretty?
“Midoriya predicted this twist last night while down a rabbit hole,” Todoroki continues, seemingly oblivious to the way the muscles of his bare arm flex and pop as he leans on it to get even closer and whisper directly into Hanta’s ear. “He says based on the way Aizawa-sensei and All Might-sensei were watching us all and taking notes last week the chances are high that you and I will be pitted against Kirishima and Yaoyorozu.”
“O-Oh?” Hanta manages, praying to any being that will listen that his face isn’t a flaming tomato right now. Dammit but why couldn’t Todoroki be leaning against him with his right side instead? That once soothing, comforting heat radiating off his left side is now downright unbearable considering the flush currently creeping up Hanta’s neck. “How… how do you figure?”
His brain is screaming hysterically at him, shouting and wailing about why the fuck he’s prolonging this conversation instead of getting the fuck out of here until Todoroki can learn what personal space is.
“It’s in the wording of the notice,” Todoroki says, easy as you please, cool as a cucumber, because apparently only one of them is a disaster and it sure as fuck isn’t Todoroki. “I heard Midoriya mumbling to himself as he read it. Since it goes out of its way to mention how comfortable working with someone you know can be, he theorized that we’ve not only been paired up with someone unlikely, but that we’ll also be pitted against someone we know very well. It’s a secret challenge about overcoming a villain that knows how you operate and how your quirk works.”
Hanta forces a laugh and slowly leans as far back in his seat as he can without tipping his chair over. “N-Not so secret now huh?” he jokes.
Todoroki finally leans back as well and shrugs. “I am only one of a handful that can decipher Midoriya’s mumblings. I can’t guarantee that I was the only one listening.”
“Of course not,” Hanta agrees, getting to his feet in a manner that he hopes is as casual as he’s aiming for. “Well then, so long as you don’t put me on ice again, we’re gucci. I won’t be much help if you nerf my quirk.”
Todoroki blinks at him and then slowly tilts his head. “What?”
“Oh you know…” Hanta trails off, suddenly feeling awkward about having mentioned it.
Todoroki continues to stare at him, all wide-eyed naive innocence and it slowly dawns on Hanta that Todoroki was less confused about him referencing the sports festival from year one, and more thrown by his use of slang.
“I just meant. Your ice messes with my quirk.”
Todoroki blinks again but this time in understanding. “I see,” he nods, moving his right hand behind his back and angling his left side even closer to Hanta’s. Which would honestly be sweet in any other situation but Hanta is literally dying over here and more fuel to the fire is not helping.
“What about my fire?” he says then and it takes Hanta a second to shake his head out of his panicked spiral and back into the game.
“What about it?”
“Does it also… nerv your quirk?”
Hanta snorts and then covers his mouth in horror.
Todoroki merely continues to stare at him.
“Um, it’s nerf,” Hanta starts, slowly lowering his hand. “And I don’t know. I’d assume so though, since it would obviously melt…”
Todoroki’s eyes widen and then he’s grabbing for Hanta’s wrist so he can practically drag him from the room.
“Whoo! Get it Sero!” Mina crows because she’s an asshole who loves her friends so much that she’s not so secretly obsessed with shipping them.
Man, you lament over Todoroki’s pretty face one time.
Todoroki doesn’t merely drag him from the common room though.
He drags him all the way to his room.
Hanta is officially dying.
It’s made all the worse by Todoroki looking at him in frank concern and laying his cold hand on Hanta’s forehead to apparently check for a fever.
Hanta is far too embarrassed to tell him that he’s just flushed from overexposure to Pretty Boy’s soft elegant fingers holding onto his wrist.
The hysterical screaming in Hanta’s head reaches a fever pitch at that one. Holy cringe, he is taking that thought to the grave.
“What,” he starts but immediately cuts off when his voice cracks. He clears his throat and tries again. “What did you want to tell me?”
Todoroki leans in close again and tells him.
For once Hanta is able to ignore his gay panic to focus instead on the simple yet brilliant plan for the upcoming exam.
And as they reach their battle ground and set the stage for the ultimate trap, Hanta shooting tape literally everywhere and Todoroki blasting high heat, low flame to melt it all into sticky dripping gloop that practically coats every surface of the testing grounds in an unavoidable spider web, Hanta can’t help but hope that he and Todoroki will have more opportunities to work together again in the future.
Though maybe not before he confesses.
He doesn’t think he can handle being around Todoroki any other way.
The shocked ecstatic shriek that Mina lets out when Shouto and Hanta first hold hands in public makes all of his suffering worth it.