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“How are your friends?” his mother asks, pulling her lilac colored shawl closer around herself.
Shouto’s friends are a safe topic. He finds it easier to talk about them, and what they’re doing, than about himself. Maybe she finds it easier too. It helps them avoid the topic of his father, and other things that might be too raw for them both. It’s good.
Also, maybe it’s nice for her to hear that he has friends. If he ever had a child, he would want them to have friends rather than power, status or anything else.
“Iida is improving his recipro burst, we logged a new maximum speed for him yesterday. Midoriya was feeling a bit sick last week, but he’s doing better now. It was just a cold. Sero found a new action manga that he thinks I’ll like but he wants to read through the first three volumes first, to make sure,” Shouto recites.
Given that she asks this question a lot, he usually prepares for it in his head, on the way to the hospital, to make sure he doesn’t miss anything. He hopes that it doesn’t make the effect of him actually saying it too stiff.
It's silly, maybe, wanting to make a good impression on one's own mother. He does though. So, so much and each and every time. Can't help it.
She shivers again, and though Shouto is sitting directly opposite her, he knows he could easily use his left side to warm the air around them.
He’s fairly good at providing warmth now, even good at making it subtle. Midoriya doesn’t mind of course, the sudden heat. But with Bakugou, who appreciates it too (in his own special way) he’s learned to ease into it, inching up the temperature a few degrees at a time. There are often explosive consequences otherwise, and even practically vibrating with cold Bakugou doesn’t take obvious help. Ironically, the compromise, where they both pretend it’s not happening, has actually been quite good for Shouto’s practice over finer control.
With his mother though, he just can’t bring himself to do it. Subtle or not. If he did it, it might be another reminder of who else’s son he is.
He remembers too well the things that she might associate with the fire side of his quirk, recalls hazy images of steam coming off his father’s hand and her, breathing hard, cowering and crying. If he used it, it might make her look at him that way too (again), and he can't have that. Not now, not again, not ever.
“That is kind of Sero,” she smiles. “By the way, the last volume you talked about in your letter, I asked one of the nurses if she would bring me a copy to read too.”
“Did they give it to you?” he wonders. (The nurses around here are very kind and helpful. He appreciates the care they show her.)
“Yes,” she leans down to open the drawer of her bedside dresser, and brings it up to show him, holding it up proudly in her hands. “I didn’t know what was going on at first. Maybe I should have started with volume one! But once I figured it out, I did find it interesting.”
If he had known she was going to read it, he probably would have chosen a series with more care. Something that she would really like. Even though he doesn’t really know what that would be...
The last time they had read stories together, they were all picture books, or children’s folk tales. It seemed, then, that she really loved those stories, and loved holding him in her lap and reading them on the rare days when his father was not home.
He doesn’t even remember what happened in the stories too much, just the feeling of being so closely pressed to her body, and Natsuo and Fuyumi sitting near them too, on occasion. She used to do different voices, especially if there were animals in the story.
Shouto has faint memories of her asking him to identify the animals and the colors in the book. He remembers being told ‘oh, almost’ after a guess that wasn’t quite right, then being cuddled and kissed.
It was probably a too high allotment of praise, he considers now, for pointing at a picture of a sheep and excitedly saying ‘cow’.
(He’s since figured out that adults tend to take interest in these types of things for the children in their life. Mostly because he doubts that Aizawa-sensei has a deep and abiding interest in princesses, and yet can often be found at Eri’s eye-level, sipping imaginary tea and letting her build a ‘castle’ out of sofa cushions and bedsheets in the common areas.)
This series his mother decided to try is unfortunately not even in line with the stories he usually reads, as it’s more of a seasonal thing he got into when he found it on Sero’s bookshelf. A drama with vampires and werewolves going to school with regular humans. That was back around Halloween. It’s nearly the end of November now.
“I usually read more slice-of-life type things,” he admits, feeling suddenly embarrassed now that he remembers that there was a romantic(?) scene in this volume about a vampire bite, not something that one should show one’s mother. “Not really like this.”
“Oh,” she says, sounding almost apologetic. Then she shivers again.
Even if he can’t use his left side to keep her warm, he still has to do something about it.
“I’ll be back as soon as I can,” he explains.
Then he gets up and goes into the hallway to find a nurse. The thermostat in the room is locked, probably to keep patients from making it too hot or too cold for themselves without supervision. There must be a master control for each room somewhere...
And there is!
When he returns he announces, “it should be warmer here now in a moment.”
“That was very thoughtful of you,” she says softly, and it feels nice to hear that his mother thinks that he’s thoughtful. “Normally the cold doesn’t bother me so much. This usually only happens when the seasons change.”
“Do you have...allergies?” Shouto asks. He knows of some good homeopathic remedies for seasonal allergies. He learned them from Fuyumi though, and she probably learned those from...mom.
Maybe that's too circular, just a bit.
She sniffs, and holds her own chin thoughtfully, in a perfect mirror of a gesture he often finds himself making. “Maybe?”
“You should get that checked out if it's a possibility,” he recommends.
“It does happen more often after I take a walk. They’ve been letting me do that more now. Just a round or two in the courtyard in the back. I’ve been asking if they would let me take one with you,” she glances out the window, then back at him. “If that’s something you would have time for.”
Another memory flashes through his mind’s eye, of being little, and clutching her hand tightly in their garden at home. There were fish in the pond then, maybe, or he looked for them anyway, and she would stop and hold him back whenever he reached too far so he wouldn’t slip into the water.
He used to pick some of the flowers by the water’s side too, for her, until she told him not to. Apparently it was better to let them grow, then everyone could see how pretty they were, for longer.
(He disagreed then, and he disagrees now. They were better as presents just for her.)
If they took a walk now, he probably wouldn’t hold her hand. Boys his age don’t hold their mother’s hands. Midoriya doesn’t and he probably has the best and closest relationship to his own mother out of everyone Shouto knows. He doesn’t even know, really, why he wants to. If that makes him...weird.
It’s not like he thought when they met again, after all of these years that they would hug. He wasn’t expecting it. He hadn’t even thought of it, as a possibility, until he sat in front of her for the first time, and she didn’t. Didn’t come close to him at all.
Midoriya and his mother hug a lot. She hugs him just about every time she comes to see him. Shouto’s been around for that several times. She cries by his bed, whenever he’s hospitalized, and Shouto’s usually there too, bandaged up in the next bed over. She holds his hand tight and worries over him, and there’s a part of Shouto that feels white-hot jealousy, looking at that.
Because his own mother hasn't even touched him once in the past ten years. Other than when their hands brush against each other when passing things back and forth, these days.
He brought a calendar for the room once and circled all of the dates when he would come, and handed it to her. Likewise, she packed a gift box of snacks and stationary for him to help with his upcoming exams, and handed it to him once. (He was able to share the snacks with his friends, used the stationary for his letters, and kept the box in his room, something precious.)
Maybe it has something to do with the way Midoriya is, as a person. He has a brightness to him, he had it as a kid too. Shouto’s seen the pictures of him in his All Might onesies. The more he thinks about it though, that can’t be it. After all, Bakugou is prickly most of the time, he’s brash and definitely isn’t as...wholesome as Midoriya is. (?)
When they came back from the Kamino rescue though, Shouto remembers standing off to the side, watching Bakugou’s mother run over to him as he was being checked over by paramedics. He kept saying ‘get off me hag’, though something in his voice was different and she wouldn’t let him go. She kept saying ‘you horrible brat, worrying us like that’ but was ruffling his fluffy hair and kissing his head and he was just letting that happen, for a change, instead of exploding. Then Bakugou’s father was hugging them both, reaching around to envelope them two, and all of a sudden Shouto felt like he couldn’t breathe. Like there was something lodged in his throat, heavy and bad.
He’d ended up looking away then, because he couldn’t take any more. Just the watching.
A walk would be a beginning though, and he’d like for them to be somewhere other than this room, maybe get to know each other again. “I’d like to go with you.”
“Maybe they’ll allow it in a few weeks,” she says, voice full of hope and promise. “Before it snows.”
“Mhm,” he says. “Though. It’s not like there’s any risk of the two of us slipping on ice.”
They're two of a kind. Matching ice-quirks and all. He can feel it every time he draws on the cold within his right side. Her power (now his own). Protecting him like she used to. With winter's warmth.
She laughs. “No, I suppose there isn’t much chance of that.”
-*-
Shouto doesn’t typically think about it too much, about his mother and about wanting to be hugged by her. When he’s around his friends, he thinks about them. When he’s training he thinks about that. It’s just when he’s alone.
At night, usually. When he’s lying on the futon in his room, staring at the ceiling. He made this room look like his home as much as possible, but something is missing, will always be missing, and that’s her.
Or the way he used to feel when she was around. They used to share the same room, before she went away. She didn’t usually sleep, maybe she found it hard to, like he does now. He remembers her sitting next to him while he slept soundly, because she was watching, protecting. She would be there whenever he would stir in the night and open his eyes.
Her white hair almost glowed a faint blue, those nights. Sometimes when he touches his own white hair he imagines it’s nearly the same.
Whenever she used to catch him awake she would run her hands through his hair and say ‘not yet, it’s not morning yet, sleep now, my treasure’. Her voice was so soft, but hoarse, always, from the shouting and the crying earlier in the day. If he closes his eyes, sometimes, he can still feel the ghost of that touch, and still knows that it isn’t morning yet and he should sleep now. But he can’t. Because it isn’t that easy...if it ever was, and he isn’t anyone’s treasure. Not anymore.
Fuyumi used to sneak her way in to do the same thing and slept next to him, a few times, after his mother was gone. It wasn’t even Endeavour who asked her to stop. It was Shouto. He’d noticed a pattern in the way he was clinging to her now, and the things she was tasked around the house to do that mom used to.
It was a little different than the old standard of things, after the incident with Touya-nii which Shouto was too young to remember. After it had happened, Shouto was banned from interacting with his siblings, but it seemed now that both mom and Touya were gone, the standard was ever so briefly loosened so that Fuyumi-nee could take a responsibility that should have never been hers. Responsibility for Shouto.
She was the one tasked with changing the bandages on his eye, and washing his hair in the bath and her voice even sort of sounded like mom’s. Just less...tired. Shouto hadn’t been allowed to be close to her before like that. He loved the closeness and he loved her, and that wasn’t a good thing.
Shouto’s love was a poison (and had been shown to be that way). Being close to him would only hurt her.
He was getting attached and that was never good for a person. So he had to tell her he was too old for that, and didn’t need it, and that he could manage himself. Had to make it sound as cold and final as he could manage.
Even if as a result he had too much shampoo in his eyes and it made them sting. Even if he felt more alone than he ever had sleeping by himself in a big, empty room and crying for mom. It was okay. It had to be.
Back then he demanded every day that he be taken to see his mother. That whole first year after she left. Endeavour never said yes. Because ‘it would be bad’ and ‘a distraction’. Even once saying ‘she doesn’t want to see you’, which made him attack his father in such a rage that Endeavour looked proud, saying ‘yes, Shouto, use your real strength’ and he didn’t know what to do anymore. No matter what he did, Endeavour would win.
(It only made his decisions easier to rationalize.)
Fuyumi-nee couldn’t be close to him too, or Endeavour would hurt her. That was the decision. Maybe he made it too quickly, and maybe(?) he was wrong about the potential correlation but he still couldn’t take the risk of being right.
He’d already seen what his father could do to his own children before, the abuse and the neglect, and Fuyumi-nee shouldn’t have to bear more of it than she already did.
Of course, at the time, she looked hurt. Shouto would honestly rather have stayed with her than excuse himself after meals to go and be alone.
He was exhausted and drained, in more ways than one, with the focus on training, right side only, to silence his father the only way that would feel good.
Every. Day.
Using his body as the tool it was, again, and again, until he could build up big walls and sharp splinters, furiously fast and unerringly rigid. But. It was okay.
It was the correct thing to do. So he did it. (No one else would have to hurt, trying to protect him.)
Eventually, it became easier. To close himself off. Set the wall, the distance. Then practically, it was a habit.
-*-
When he wakes up in the hospital, he doesn’t quite remember how he got there. This is pretty typical of whenever he gets hurt.
The first time he ended up in the hospital was for the burn scar on his eye, and he doesn’t remember that trip either. He remembers being cradled by his mother, her trying to ice the burn, which just made it hurt more.
Then Endeavour came on the scene and tried to separate them. Shouto remembers fighting that, because even right after what she had done, she was still the one who protected him. The next thing he knew he was in a hospital bed, and Endeavour was telling the nurses about how the accident had happened.
In the years to come, he figures that he either passed out, or was forcibly sedated. That part has always mattered less. Mom was gone though, and he never got to say goodbye. He hates his father for a lot of things. But especially for that.
This time, probably, relief crews came in after the villains must have fled. That’s the only likely explanation. He opens his eyes only for a second, notices the ceiling (interesting light placement), then promptly passes out again.
He’s in and out of consciousness for a while, and throughout has the feeling that the battle is still going on. Except his limbs won’t move and his quirk won’t activate and he feels like he’s floating in jello. He has to get people to safety and keep fighting, but it’s looking like he can’t. They may already be safe or something feels like it may be over, for the time being, and his brain is tired. So he stops. Then one observation stands out.
Touya-nii hugged him, didn’t he? He was on fire at the time, and Shouto was too. It hurt like hell, yes. It felt like hell, definitely. He was yelling for his father to snap out of it and he was still trying to wrap his head around how Touya could have cared so little about Natsuo-nii’s life. After all, Natsu was the brother Touya actually liked, and knew.
It’s much easier, in Shouto’s head, to understand that Touya-nii couldn’t care less about Shouto living or dying. (Actually, would probably prefer Shouto dead.) But Natsu-nii? That doesn’t make sense.
He was thinking about all of that, about his friends and the trouble they’re in. He was burning up, past what his normal threshold allows, and trying to fight. That’s why it took Shouto until now, lying in this bed, to realize that in burning Shouto alive, Touya-nii was attempting to do it with an embrace.
It's a little bit funny.
He’s always had strange off-hand thoughts like this whenever he wakes up in the hospital. Like speculations about whether there is some sort of curse around him getting involved in a fight, and his friends hands getting crushed.
He remembers waking up once and being glad that he still had toes, since he was in and out of dreams where he felt they might be missing. Then he woke up to discover they were simply still frozen in place and the nurses were attempting to thaw them with hairdryers. A blessing.
Thinking of Touya-nii embracing him in the middle of the fight is sort of like that. A weird thought that just bugs him and won’t go away. It’s not that Shouto’s confusing it for any form of familial affection, especially considering Touya-nii’s intent was clear. The closeness was strategic.
Shouto does it too, when he attacks with his flames, bringing his opponent as close as possible to the source of the heat to make it as effective as possible.
Being that close to Touya-nii made it impossible to use his ice as a relief. His throat feels inflamed even now, and it’s definitely high on the list of the most uncomfortable Shouto’s ever felt. There’s not an inch of his body that feels okay right now. It’s so painful, really, that it’s almost not.
Like the pain is so complete and all encompassing that he’s practically numb. But underneath it all, discounting the manic ranting that his older brother was also doing, the obvious pain in his eyes, what Touya-nii actually did...it was...
It’s probably really, really fucked up, that he feels this way. He won’t talk about it to anyone else then, as it would raise some alarms about whether he’s feeling okay enough to fight, and he needs to fight as soon as he can. But that was a real hug. People don’t hug Shouto that often...so it’s a big deal. It’s not like it felt good, or anything, but it made him feel something other than just the pain. Like him and Touya-nii were the same inside, in some way. Like that made it Shouto’s job to make this right.
His mother has never come to visit him in the hospital before. She comes, later, when he’s in his father’s room (his father who is crying(?!)). At first, when he looks at her, he thinks maybe she is there to see him, forgetting, for the briefest second, about Touya-nii and the entire mess.
He’s never seen her outside the hospital before, not in years. They never did get to take that walk.
It would probably hurt, if she were to be close to him now, but that would be nothing compared to the things he’s felt before. It would hurt, if she put her arms around him, pressing up against the burns and bruises all over his body, but he would be alright with that.
She says all of these kind and surprising things. That he’s being a hero for their family. Shouto doesn’t know, exactly, what to make of it.
Of course, he’s still thinking about Touya-nii, and about his friends. And about whether his father will be strong enough to do what has to be done. It’s just. He can’t help but think about her. About what Midoriya or Bakugou’s mothers would do, seeing their sons in the state that he’s in. He’s seen it, after all, so, so many times. What makes him different? What makes him...wrong?
Is it something in him? In his face, or in the person that he is. Under his skin.
He looks at her, as she does talk to him. As she asks the nurses about his condition and about his burnt throat. She doesn’t touch him though. She’s careful, and considerate. Completely unlike Bakugou’s mother, who he can hear, even from across the hall. He can hear from Bakugou’s gruff protests, she’s ‘smothering’ him and apparently Bakugou is finding it ‘fucking embarrassing’.
A part of Shouto wants to take out his frustration by going over there and yelling at Bakugou. How could it be embarrassing, when your own mother wants to be close to you and show you how much she loves you? He wants that. He would take that in a heartbeat.
It’s just, he knows that it’s not Bakugou’s fault. It’s Shouto’s fault, that he doesn’t get to have that.
“You don’t have to stay,” he assures his mom, in case seeing him like this, and having to be here is straining on her.
It is her first time outside of that hospital in years. It might be. It might be a strain. They should also get her to a different place, away from him and his father. A safer place.
“Oh,” she says. “If that’s what you want.”
“I want you to be safe,” he says, and he’s glad he looks like this, all bandaged up and unable to properly cry.
She turns away, so he can’t see her face. “Alright.”
-*-
Even when she’s gone, the thought lingers. It stays with Shouto, for hours and hours. Along with the thoughts about Touya-nii. About what he has to do. He thinks about the way Touya-nii danced in that rubble, not caring if he was going to live or die. He thinks about the way his mother looked, when she turned and left when he told her to.
Shouto thinks about other times when he was hurt. The very beginning ones. Sitting in her lap, rocked from side to side, until he felt better. The little cabinet of first aid things. Bright colored band-aids and small sweets he got to have after he was all fixed up.
It all feels so far away now. Unreachable.
He’s not sure if he’s just nostalgic, or tired or sad, when he asks Yaoyorozu-san about it. She’s the only one lingering in his room, sitting in a white wire chair with the same concerned expression she’s had four hours now.
His friends have been in and out of the room all day. Kirishima was here for most of the day, and would have stayed the night too, if Shouto hadn’t told him to sleep in his own bed. Bakugou checked in on him once or twice, despite his own injuries. There’s many things and people to worry about, but he isn’t being left uncared for, despite everything.
Yaoyorozu is the one that’s most consistently been by his side though. There’s something heavy in her eyes, and she looks like she could cry any moment but won’t. She reminds him a lot of Fuyumi-nee, when she looks like that.
“You don’t have to worry about me,” he tells her several times. “It’s okay. I’ll get stronger.”
She doesn’t listen though, when he tells her to go. "I do have to worry though, Todoroki-san, I wouldn’t be much of a friend if I didn’t.”
He thought she might say that. She’s very stubbornly caring, also like his sister.
“As a friend then, can I ask you something personal?” he wonders, with some caution.
“Yes, always,” she says, and then she comes closer. She’s making a very focused expression and her attention is fully on him.
"I've been thinking…” he hesitates, and he knows his voice still sounds rough, so much slipping through the cracks. “Does your mother ever hug you?”
It might be a more polite way to lead into his question. Of course, he’s never actually even met Yaoyorozu-san’s parents. It would be nice to meet them someday. She doesn’t talk about them that much. He only knows their names, what they do for work, and that Yaoyorozu-san video calls with them once every two weeks. They’re usually overseas.
Her mouth falls open at his question and she just says, “Oh.”
She looks nervous, and so much has already happened today, so he brushes his own question off. “It's fine. You don’t have to answer if you don’t want to.”
“No!” she says quickly. “I just had to think about it. I guess my mother and I haven’t, in a while. I should call her more often, to let her know I’m alright.”
Then she reaches out her hand and puts it on his, patting it once, gently and then resting it back, completely covering his bandaged one. “But was that what you really wanted to ask me?”
She’s giving him an out. Not demanding his answer.
“I was thinking about why my mother doesn’t want to,” he admits, not meeting her eyes.
“Did she tell you that, Todoroki-san?” she asks, voice quiet.
“Everything that was broadcast about my family is true,” he explains. “Endeavour used to hit and bully her. This burn mark on my face...was made by her throwing boiling water on my face. She had a breakdown because of him.”
“Ah,” he remarks, as he remembers that most of his face is bandaged, with only his eyes really peeking out. “I guess you can’t really see it right now.”
Shouto tends to keep the secret close, mostly because he’s protective of his mother. Of what people might think about her.
He told Midoriya at the Sports Festival to make it clear to the other boy how serious he was about getting through with a win. He hasn’t really told anyone else. His family knows because they were there. Bakugou knows, because he was eavesdropping. Hawks knows now, because his mother told him she was the one responsible for it.
This is really his first time being open about it, otherwise. It’s an interesting feeling, just saying it.
There’s even more thoughts, on his mind, after he gets the first few words out. Like the first drop before a flood. He feels them on the tip of his tongue. (Treasure. I used to be her treasure, her Shouto, and we used to be so close, and he made her not love me as much. Because he’s a part of me, even though I wish he wasn’t. He hurt her, and he ruined it all, and I hate him for it. But I still need him to be strong for our family, or whatever we have left of one. And it hurts. It hurts that she doesn’t want me to be her son like she used to).
None of it comes out. He struggles in the quiet, and so does Yaoyorozu-san. He hasn’t thought about it from an outside perspective, maybe it’s a bit too much.
“It wasn’t her fault,” he says, finally, a little defensive, in case Yaoyorozu-san assumes otherwise. She wouldn't, he trusts her. She wouldn’t assume, but he still has to say it.
“It wasn’t your fault either, Todoroki-san. You were a kid. You couldn’t have done more to protect her from what he did,” she says, and her tone suggests she’s not to be argued with.
Shouto’s speechless, the first time he hears it, then even more, when he plays it back in his head. No one’s ever...said that to him, before.
It feels soothing, healing, like a salve, before the instinct to argue comes up, the nag in his head that’s never left him alone. He doesn’t deserve to hear something like that.
Because he could have done more. Should have. Being a kid was not an excuse. There is no excuse.
“Please believe me,” she says, gently, then repeats. “Please. I don’t know what she’s thinking, I can’t even imagine what she, what you went through. But I do know that you seem to care about each other a lot. I know you visit her, and write letters. You should talk to her, if you want to be closer.”
Then she takes a deep breath. “I-I feel silly even mentioning this, to you. But for a long time I didn’t feel close to my mom. She was always working on important things, and I felt like I was bothering her if I texted her too much. When I finally told her that, I was fourteen. She told me she liked hearing from me and that she always assumed that I was busy.”
“Are you two...closer now?”
“Yes, we are.”
Shouto nods. It’s good that talking had a positive outcome for Yaoyorozu-san. It’s just that he can’t see himself asking his mother about this. They have too much to lose, and he just got her back in his life. With all that’s going on with Touya-nii, asking her might just upset her more.
He looks at Yaoyorozu-san, to thank her for listening, and telling him all of this, but when he sees her face he sees her tear stained cheeks, and apologizes instead.
He hadn’t even realized she was crying, it was so quiet. “I'm sorry. I didn't mean to make you cry.”
It makes him feel guilty, worrying her like this.
“You didn’t!” she says, wiping off her face with her free hand. “It’s just been. A long day. You know. You’re very hurt. And...you’re one of my favorite people, Todoroki-san.”
“I feel that way too,” he tries hard to work the sincerity into his tone, Yaoyorozu-san is definitely one of his closest friends.
“That’s great,” she smiles in a way that seems a bit forced, as she wipes off a bit more moisture in her eyes. Shouto wonders if she is in fact fully okay.
(Then again, is anyone?)
She did mention that it’s been a long day. In many ways, and for everyone. It’s no wonder that she’s overwhelmed. “Don’t worry. I am going to be fine. Recovery Girl was here to see me a few hours ago, remember? She said I would make a full recovery.”
“You'd better!” she scolds. “Who’s going to help me keep the class in line, otherwise?”
“Iida, probably,” he answers, as it’s Iida who does that usually even now, then pauses. “That was one of those questions that didn't require an actual answer, wasn’t it?”
He tends to miss those.
Yaoyorozu-san smiles all the way up to her eyes, and nods. (He really is very lucky to have her. Both in his life. And in this room.)
-*-
The advice she gave sticks in his head, even if he’s already decided against taking it.
He knows that there’s a chance it could work. Asking his mother outright, if he did something wrong. If there’s something he could still fix. Maybe it could be related to the fact that he doesn’t initiate things. Maybe that’s making it off-putting to hug him.
He’s noticed he doesn’t initiate being affectionate with pretty much anyone. Maybe if he trained on it, or practiced, it would be easier for him.
It wasn’t always the case.
He remembers going up to his mother fairly often and reaching his arms up so she would pick him up. He has memories of shopping trips like that, of insisting on being carried. People have told him, once or twice, that he has youngest-child tendencies, maybe that’s what they mean.
She would balance him on her waist, holding him securely on her arm while they picked out fruit. He was not quite a baby, and could already walk, but whenever he asked she would always carry him. It couldn’t have been easy, holding him with a basket on her other arm. She always did it anyway.
In the years since, he noted that most of their groceries were brought in for them. What his father lacked in compassion he made up for in money, clearly. So the fruit, or whatever things they had used to pick out together was just extra. A treat.
Of course, once he had quirk training to do, those outings became less and less frequent. His mother started being fearful every time they left the house of Endeavour suddenly coming home and finding that they weren’t there. She’d already taught him, by that point, that any time they spent together like that was a secret. Telling him ‘just for you and me’ and he would say back ‘you and me’ and get kissed once on each cheek. He was a good secret keeper. Or at least, he tried to be.
They would go to the market, and she would hold up the fruits for him to inspect. She would ask ‘how many do we need?’
He’d often answer ‘four, one for Fuyumi-nee, Natsu-nii, Touya-nii, and mom’. Then she’d always correct him, her voice so soft, ‘no, five, we need one for Shouto’. His eyes would get wide, realizing that he’d been skipped and he would nod. Knowing then, that she was wise, and always knew best.
He doesn’t even remember where the market was, or what it looked like, or what kind of fruits they brought home but he does remember her gentle chiding ‘don’t ever forget my Shouto when you do your count’. How safe it felt, to be out with her, and away from everything, just the two of them.
Shouto still gets a weird feeling at fruit markets now. He just can’t help it.
He used to ask her for more affection, then. Whenever Endeavour had his back turned he would bring her his scrapes and bruises and burns. She would patch them up and give him feather light kisses and tell him he was ‘so brave’. That he was doing ‘so good’. Even on the days when she looked very tired, and his father had argued with her a lot, dropping in the name Touya every few words, she would still do it.
Shouto honestly didn’t even notice her looking at him any differently, in the weeks before it happened. All he remembered was her getting more tired, more haggard. Loud footsteps and pots and pans clanging in the kitchen would make her jump. There were pinch marks and bruise marks on her skin that seemed bigger and more new.
He was still hers though, in his mind. Her child. Her treasure. Her Shouto. Even when he had gone looking for her in the kitchen, that last night, he wanted her to kiss him goodnight and cuddle him to sleep. Before she turned around, Shouto fully expected her to do so.
It was hard, after that, to have such blind faith in anything. Ever.
-*-
Midoriya came close.
When it came to faith, at least. Shouto trusted him, almost more than anyone.
He hadn’t been back at the dorms too long, since regaining consciousness at the hospital and being released. Maybe three days at most. No one was supposed to know Midoriya was here, or at least that’s what they’d been told, just not the reason why.
They hadn’t really had a chance to talk. About what was actually going on with Midoriya underneath the surface, or about Shouto’s family situation. Both maybe a little afraid to broach the subject with the other.
Shouto believed in him though. He believed in what Midoriya had done and would do. The way Midoriya had risked himself at the Sports Festival had firmly imprinted itself into Shouto’s mind. The way he looked at Shouto, like he was something great, and wonderful, that stuck in Shouto’s mind too. He believed in Midoriya as a person, and as a hero, and as a friend.
When they meet outside, right around sunset, Shouto thinks it’s an invitation to talk about all the things they haven’t talked about. But it isn’t.
It is, however, simple. Midoriya texted him to meet him here, so Shouto shows up, the way he always tries to whenever Midoriya needs him (no matter how vague the instructions are), and always will.
They don’t talk about any of the heavy things that have happened though. It’s somewhat of a relief. Shouto prefers just being with him, to talking about it. What’s there to say that he hasn’t already. What’s there to say that Midoriya doesn’t already know.
Midoriya brings them a popsicle he’d taken from the fridge, and he cracks one down the middle. He shyly gives the green side to Shouto and keeps the blue side for himself. Shouto has no idea what flavors the colors signify, and even less idea once he actually has a taste, but that doesn’t seem to be the point of this.
If there is one at all.
“I’m gonna miss you a lot,” Midoriya tells him, and he says it very fast, with barely a space between the words.
“Are you going somewhere?” Shouto asks, concerned and confused.
“I mean-I, we-we’re all going to leave U.A. someday right?” Midoriya sighs.
That’s true. “Yes.”
“I’m going to miss seeing you all the time, when that happens...I like seeing you all the time, the way things are now. I’ve never, well. I don’t know if you know this but I didn’t have a lot of friends before I came here. Then I met Uraraka-san, and Iida-kun, and I met you, and a lot of our other classmates. But I’m really glad I met you, specifically, Todoroki-kun,” Midoriya says, and it looks like he’s holding something back, but Shouto has no idea what it could be.
“You seem like the kind of person who should have a lot of friends no matter where they are,” Shouto confesses. It doesn’t make sense to him, really, how Midoriya wouldn’t.
“You’re easy to talk to,” Shouto explains more. “You always see the best parts of people, like you did with me, and you’re very persistent.”
What’s not to like?
“There aren’t any bad parts to you, Todoroki-kun. You’re good all over,” Midoriya says, then slaps his hand over his mouth. “I didn’t mean that in a weird way!”
“I didn’t think that you did,” Shouto assures, slightly confused. Then, thinking about all the times in the past when Midoriya has said something like that, adds. “I don’t think you’re weird. Even if you were, I don’t think it would really matter. I would still want to be your friend.”
They’re both done with the popsicles now. Though Shouto is still awkwardly holding onto the bare popsicle stick in his hand.
Midoriya fixes him with this blazing, determined look, and then his eyes go completely glassy, and he throws his arms around Shouto so hard it hurts in a good way. Shouto lets out a breath he didn’t know he was holding and nestles his head on Midoriya’s shoulder and holds him back, ever so gently. It’s so close, so warm. This hug. Midoriya seems to squeeze tighter by the second. Shouto can smell his hair. Fresh cucumber. His shirt. Clean linen.
Midoriya’s body is all firm, hard muscle, Shouto knows that. But the hug is soft too, inexplicable.
“I want you to know something, okay?” Midoriya says, his voice close to Shouto’s ear and his arms holding Shouto steady. “I want you to know that you’re amazing. You’re really funny, and you’re kind, and you’re smart. I love just talking to you, in person, or...on the phone. You have this amazing voice. I love hearing it. Every moment I’m with you just feels really special. I-I treasure each and every one! And I always will.”
Treasure. The word sticks in Shouto’s mind and so many threads of thoughts catch onto it. He could be Midoriya’s treasure. He could be. Wants to be.
His heart’s never beat this fast in his chest, maybe ever. As if it might explode soon. Shouto had sort of forgotten the mechanics of hugs like this. How secure it feels. How safe. The way two people can fit together like puzzle pieces. The way he and Midoriya fit. It’s so much of a good feeling, spread from every point of contact between them all the way out to his hands and his feet.
But Midoriya just keeps going. “You said it’s okay to be weird, so, this might be. I don’t really know...I’ve never said something like this to someone. But you’re probably the most beautiful person I’ve ever met?! I have to stop myself from staring, all-all the time, and I thought that about you before I even really knew you that well. Then it just got worse...I like the way you share your food with me when you think I’ve had a bad day. I like your eyes, and not just the heterochromia thing, that too, definitely, it’s really interesting, but I think I can sort of see your kindness, in your eyes. You have a really-you have a really pretty smile. I think about it sometimes, when I think about why I’m doing all of this, and what I’m fighting for. I mean, there’s a lot of things, you know, like my mom, and All Might, and Aizawa-sensei, and Kacchan, and Iida-kun and, well-but I think about you all the time.”
Shouto wishes he could tell him. Safe in his arms, right here, just tell Midoriya everything he’s ever felt. About the training with his father and how much it hurt and how even if it was him getting hurt it still felt like it was his own fault. About how he watched his siblings playing some game in the courtyard that he doesn’t even remember and still doesn’t know the rules of. About asking if he could join them one time, just one time and not being allowed to.
He wishes he could tell Midoriya about how his mother won’t hug him and how he wants to. About how they used to go to the fruit market together and read books together and how he thought she would always be there. Then she wasn’t. How nothing’s ever been right ever since.
Midoriya would listen, he would, and maybe he would keep holding him close, just like this. Letting the way it feels imprint itself onto Shouto’s body, and his heart and his soul.
Shouto can’t though. Can’t tell him. Too risky, too much. If he did, he wouldn’t be spreading anything but his own hurt. So he doesn’t. He just lets himself be held and taken care of, just for a while. Even that feels good, so, so good.
Midoriya leaves U.A. the next morning.
Just a day back, he didn’t think he could take another loss. But he’s been wrong before. Obviously, he could.
-*-
It’s all explained in a letter. About how the villains are going to be after Midoriya now, and the secret of his quirk. One For All, passed to him by All Might.
Maybe if Shouto was smarter, he would have figured that out. Maybe, he could have known.
It feels...empty. Just empty.
Last night was a goodbye. He can see that now. He wonders if the others got one like his. If that was the reason Midoriya came back for so short of time, to say his goodbyes.
He thinks about that hug, and how he wishes he could have lived his whole life in it. How it’s just a memory now, like everything else.
The first thing they do is meet in the common areas, to compare notes. Shouto can still move and operate the way he usually does. He doesn’t miss a beat, ever, not even when he’s cracked and spliced open. Midoriya’s safety is a priority over the way Shouto feels. There’s work that has to be done.
He, Bakugou, and Tokoyami try to contact the top three heroes. Their mentors, his father.
They try for a long time, and Shouto even calls his sister and Natsuo to ask them to get in touch with his father on his behalf. There’s no answer from Endeavour.
The media is announcing a team-up of the top three, but All Might is still missing. Bakugou seems to think Midoriya is with him, and that seems to be a good theory. Shouto concurs.
There’s some brief discussion but once Uraraka-san decides that the best way to move forward is through Principal Nezu though, Shouto’s usefulness comes to a grinding halt. Uraraka-san will schedule a meeting, and they will hear back through the right channels in a few days. In the meantime, there is nothing he can do but wait.
Any motive he had for keeping it together is gone, so he figures he can go back into his room, and linger more.
Shouto’s making his way there when Bakugou thrusts an arm out to stop him. “Did he say anything special to you?!”
It’s kind of rude. Even if he wasn’t in the worst mood.
“If he had, you don’t think I would have already shared it?” he asks, offended.
“No, you would have, I didn’t mean about where he is and all that. Did he say some mushy shit to you before he left that made it sound like he was okay with going out there and dying for all of us and all that?” Bakugou clarifies.
The vote of confidence, at least, is appreciated. As is the fact that they’re in this together, and Bakugou is...cooperating.
“Mushy?” Shouto asks.
“Forget it!”
“He hugged me,” Shouto offers. After today, last night and what happened feels like a different lifetime. “Is that what you wanted to hear?”
“What?” Bakugou narrows his eyes.
“He hugged me! He hugged me and then he left.”
“I knew it! He’s fucked in the head,” Bakugou sighs, and squeezes the bridge of his nose. “He’s gonna take this to another level and he’s gonna try and do it himself. That’s why he left here with no regrets.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Shouto says, a bit defensive.
“You do, I know you do. You’re the only one that might know him as well as I do. It’s always been us three getting into shit and he left, so you’re sure as hell not gonna go playing dumb on me!”
“I’m not trying to.”
“Don’t think you have to face all of this alone either,” Bakugou grumbles.
“What?” he asks. Maybe he has some earwax buildup.
“Don’t do anything stupid, I know that’s real tempting for you people, but just try to resist. Okay?”
“Bakugou, are you...worried about me?” he wonders, mouth slightly agape.
“I-who wouldn’t be?! Your dad is a dick, ignoring you right now when he said he was gonna level with you, and your whole situation is kind of a clusterfuck of issues,” Bakugou justifies quickly. “Last thing I need is your ass up and leaving to go after your homicidal brother and pulling something idiotic.”
He hadn’t thought of leaving here to go after Touya-nii. Not on his own, and right at the moment.
But...it’s nice, after all this time, to know that Bakugou really, truly cares about him. Somehow, with Midoriya gone, it makes all the difference. “Don’t worry. I’m not going to go anywhere.”
“Don’t mope yourself to death either, come down here later so I can make sure you’re still alive,” Bakugou says, not making eye contact.
It’s amazing, Bakugou didn’t even deny it and say ‘I’m not worried about you’ or anything like that. Is this...character development?
“Will you make soba?” Shouto asks, wondering if he can push his luck. He’s still empty inside, but soba might fill him.
“Fucking imbecile, is that the only thing you think about?! I’m not doing shit for you.”
Shouto takes that as a yes.
-*-
Bakugou’s soba gives him the ammunition he needs to figure out what to do next.
He decides to go see his mother.
It’s not easy, getting permission to go, and actually going in the dead of night. It’s not easy waiting inside the hospital until morning. There are way too many people looking at their family right now. There’s even security by her door.
It feels almost as hard as the first time he came to see her. He just has to. Needs to, and is drawn here, because if anything’s going to be different, he knows he has to change.
“Shouto,” she stands when he arrives. She forces a smile that quickly crumbles, and she sighs. “I’m so sorry, Shouto.”
She doesn’t even specify what it is she’s sorry for.
“We never got to take that walk,” he says, his hands at his sides. They never got to have a lot of things.
“I’m sorry about that, too,” she says, her mouth a thin line.
It comes naturally, to some people, he’s heard, going to their parents for their problems. His father’s never been reliable for that of course. As the last few days can prove. He used to go to his mother for everything he ever needed. He used to think maybe that he leaned on her too much. That it was part of what made her break inside. Having to take care of them both.
But he wants to have a mother again. Now that Midoriya’s gone, he wants to have someone close. He wants to at least tell her about it. Just talking to her used to help so much, before.
“Midoriya left, and I don’t know what to do,” Shouto explains. “I don’t know where he is. I don’t know what might happen.”
“I will do what I can to help,” she offers.
“No,” he says. “I’ve already... I’ve already reached out to him. He won’t answer.”
“Of course he won’t,” she bristles. “He’s being a coward, all over again. After he promised to help you. I’ll...talk to him.”
He didn’t come here to use her to contact Endeavour. “Don’t. We have a plan.”
Then he continues, the words heavy on his tongue. “I came here because I feel better when I’m with you.”
He wants to feel better.
Maybe he deserves to.
His mother looks startled, and her eyes are wide, and grey, and Shouto remembers when he used to see the whole world reflected back in them. She looks surprised, and her voice is hopeful when she asks. “Still?”
Shouto nods.
She reaches her hand up, like she’s about to touch his face, and then drops it. Oh. He sees it now. He gets it now.
That look in her eyes, he’s seen it before. It’s haunted him for years. He knows. He knows. He knows. She’s afraid. Just. This time. Not of him, but of herself, and what her touch might do to him.
It’s almost funny.
(If only she knew.)
He takes her hand in his, cold hand in cold, and brings it up hesitantly to the scar on his left side.
Her fingers touch there, like they haven’t in years and she says ‘I’m sorry’ then ‘I’m so sorry’ and then finally ‘I never meant to hurt you.’
Her hand falls lower, she cups his face and sighs, the corners of her mouth turning up into a slight smile. “You got so big. You really became a hero, didn’t you?”
“You said it was okay if I was as long as I’m the kind of hero that I want to be,” he explains, and then with his face in her hand, he remembers.
All the other times. My treasure. My Shouto. Holding her hand in the garden, the fruit market stalls.
Then the flood he’s been holding back all this time comes out. “I missed you, mom.”
His voice falters, getting quieter, but she hangs onto every word, as she holds his face. “I didn’t come, for years, because I thought you wouldn’t want to see me. I thought that maybe you didn’t-that I did something wrong.”
He blinks and his eyes are wet, and she’s still looking at him and he feels raw when he asks. “Is it true?”
“No!” she says fiercely. “No, Shouto. No, that isn’t. That isn’t true at all.”
She’s just about crying too.
“You didn’t do anything wrong! I wasn’t okay,” her voice strains, and he feels like a child again, just listening to her with wide eyes that half match his own. “I-I should have made sure you knew that. I thought about you, and Natsu, and Fuyumi, and about my Touya every day that I was here without you. Then when you came back to me, I didn’t know how much I could ask for. I didn’t know if you would let me be your mother again.”
“You always were,” he insists. I never forgot.
“I understand if you...if you think after all of this time, you are too old. But ever since you first came to see me, after all these years, all I wanted to do was hold you close,” she says, hesitant, though her eyes are glassy, every emotion clear on her face and he wonders how he could have ever mistaken the way she looks at him as anything but love.
Like any other mother looks at her son.
(He’s not sure who reaches forward first.)
At first, he’s scared because it’s not like what he remembered. Shouto’s taller than her now. The last time, the last time he was so much smaller. This time he’s holding her more than the other way around. It takes a moment, while it all feels clumsy and then the feeling starts to be familiar. Holding onto her, just like this, as a child.
He must have done it so many times. So why, at first, is he shaking? He doesn’t even mean to be, but the way she’s saying ‘it’s okay’, ‘it’s okay’ reminds him of so many times he came to her crying. It still makes it better.
“I want to be there for you,” she says. “I know I haven’t been able to.”
He nods into her shoulder. (Wants to be there for her too.)
They both exhale, their breaths evening out together. She puts her arms around him more securely and rubs up and down on his back. Rhythmic, like she used to when putting him to sleep. Soft and slow, and good.
She laughs lightly, and he lets out a ‘hm?’
“You were always my warm and cold baby, I had almost forgotten...whenever I used to carry you around, both sides were different. It’s still the same,” she explains, in a choked up yet amused sort of tone.
“I usually can bring both sides to some equilibrium,” he offers.
“You don’t need to,” she says. “You’ve already done so much. You’ve been so good.”
“Then I won't,” he mumbles, feeling just a bit sleepy in this hug. Like his body remembers.
“My treasure, my baby,” she whispers, falling back into a remembered and blissful pattern. “You know, I am so proud of you.”
Still holding him close, she starts to shift her weight slightly from side-to-side, resembling a rocking sort of motion. Shouto rests his head more firmly on her shoulder, and closes his eyes as she holds him tight. He can’t help but smile. He has her again and she loves him. She loves him and she’s here and she loves him. She’s holding him close and she loves him.
He doesn’t know what the future will bring. Doesn’t know if tomorrow they’ll hear from his father and set things right. He doesn’t know what they’ll do about Touya-nii, and their broken family.
Things are more alright than they were though. Rocking side to side. His mother’s voice in his head. Feeling like he’s going to be safe, just for a moment, because she’s here, and she can do anything. Protect him from the world, and it’s hate, and it’s fire.
She’s holding him close, and no matter what he has to do, and he will do, it’s okay.
He's finally home.
It's safe.