An explosion rocked the building, causing Todoroki to slam on the brakes of his car in surprise. He was stopped just outside of the building, his eyes raking over the seemingly undamaged building and trying to find where the damage he heard and saw was. The handsome brick building didn't seem to be damaged, but there was no way such a loud, bright display hadn't caused any damage.

He got his answer when two people raced out from the sides of the building. One of them, female he thought, had a firearm in hand, shooting over her shoulder and holding a large sack perched on the opposite shoulder. The other seemed to be creating the explosions that caught Todoroki's attention in the first place in the palm of his hands. He was carrying his own bag, much more careless than his accomplice, which is what allowed Todoroki to notice the bills that seemed to spilling from the bag.

Todoroki looked back at the building, then studied the two again. They were both wearing mask, both attention getting in their own way. The man was dressed in mostly black, but his mask and clothes were reminiscent of an explosion, and the girl was dressed immodestly in bright red. This was a bank robbery. Todoroki let out a sigh of relief when he figured that out. It was less likely people had gotten hurt if that's all it was. No, he reminded himself, that he could do anything about it if people were getting hurt. Not that he should have stopped in the first place.

A crash to his side made him turn his head to the passenger side of his car and he froze as the barrel of a canon was suddenly in his face. "Sorry, we need to borrow this."

Todoroki had never had a gun pointed at him before, especially not one that was essentially the size of his head. So, if he was frozen in place for a moment, he didn't think anyone would blame him.

The man reached inside the broken window, beneath the large thing being pointed at Todoroki, to unlock the car doors. "Leave the fucker, faster to let him drive. We gotta go."

The girl turned her head slightly, giving her partner a surprised look as he pulled the bag from her hand and tossed in the back beside his own. "Are you sure?"

The man growled. "We don't have time for you to question me." The man pointed toward the building where a lot of people, cops Todoroki assumed, were spilling out of the building. He unleashed an explosion low to the ground and caused a lot of debris to go flying. The girl took the opportunity to ditch the larger gun and switch placed with her partner, diving in the back seat and letting him take the passenger side. The man growled again and turned to Todoroki. "Drive, fucker!"

There was a click and something hard was pressed to the back of his head. Another gun, he assumed. "Please hurry up now."

Todoroki did as he was told.

The thing about having two criminals in his car was being unable to tell just how bad of a criminal they were. Yeah, they had threatened him with firearms not once, but twice, but that could have been a bluff just as easily as not. Yeah, the man had a powerful quirk, but that didn't mean he was willing to kill with it. Todoroki hadn't seen the girl shoot at any of the cops and the guy hadn't hurt any of them as far Todoroki had seen. So, they could be excellent bluffers or hardened murders and there really wasn't much of a way for Todoroki to check which it was.

He wasn't certain that he could swiftly extract himself from this situation either. He had two weapons pointed at him, the man in the passenger seat with him palm casually resting on Todoroki's shoulder, a very worrying threat that made Todoroki want to squirm beneath the unfamiliar touch, and the gun that he could see still pointed at him from the backseat despite no longer touching his head. He was at less of an advantage now that the gun wasn't touching him. If it was, he was confident that he could have frozen her hand before she could get off a shot, but between them both, he wasn't so sure. He also didn't know what kind of quirk the girl had.

Todoroki cursed himself for being so taken off guard earlier. No, he cursed himself for stopping in the first place. That was stupid of him. He knew that he couldn't afford to stop.

"Get off the main roads," The man ordered gruffly.

"Oh, sure." Todoroki said. That was something he should have been doing anyway. He was too shaken for his own good and having these two add to it probably wasn't for the best.

"And slow down, you're driving too fast. You'll attract attention," The girl said.

Again, he did as he was told. Honestly, these two were so calm, maybe it wasn't so bad that they were telling him what to do. He needed someone with a cool head and it wasn't him right now. He wasn't thinking rationally.

"Think we lost him, Ponytail?" The guy peered over his shoulder to look in the backseat.

"I wouldn't bet on it yet," She said. "But if they catch us," she grinned as she held up a second weapon, "I'm ready."

The guy grinned. "Course you are." The smile slid off of his face as he looked at Todoroki. "What the fuck happened to your face?"

"King! It's rude to be so blunt!" The girl chastised.

"And it's not rude to point a gun to his head?"

The woman flushed and looked away from her partner to meet Todoroki's gaze in the review mirror. "You don't have to answer that if you don't want to," She told him. Her gaze went back to the guy as she added, "It's none of our business if you don't want it to be."

"The fuck it's not! Did you even see his face?" The guy, King he supposed, questioned her fiercely. "Half his face is burned and it looks fresh."

"It's not... that fresh." Todoroki cursed himself for tripping on the lie and ending up with a truth instead. That wasn't likely to stop this line of questioning anytime soon.

"Is that supposed to make it better?" King demanded. "Some fucker burns your face off, but it's fine because it happened a week ago and not yesterday?"

"You're being too harsh, King." The girl put her hand on Todoroki's other shoulder, making him jump at first, but the feeling of them both with a hand on each shoulder felt grounding somehow. "If you need someplace safe, you don't have to go back."

"What?" Todoroki's eyes widened in surprise.

"Whoever did that to you, you don't have to be afraid of them," She said kindly. "You never have to see them again."

At Todoroki's silence, King added, "She's saying you can come with us, dumb ass."

Todoroki took his eyes off the road long enough to give a startled look to them both, but quickly refocused. "I can't..."

"Yeah, you can." King insisted. "In case you didn't fucking notice, we just came into a lot of fucking money. Once we get someplace out of sight, we can dump you at a hotel or something if you want. You give me a name, I can go pay the fucker a visit."

"Why would you?" Todoroki asked in confusion. The idea that his scar concerned these strangers, criminals at that, boggled his mind.

The girl smiled. "King has a soft spot for things that need protection nowadays."

"Shut up, Creati!"

She laughed.

He grumbled.

Todoroki felt... lost and oddly soothed. His hands tightened on the wheel. "You don't need to do anything," he told them. "I already... I burned down his house. I found a way to return the favor. So there's... nothing needs to be..." The confession left him feeling just as shaken as when he'd left the house not hours ago, wondering when he'd made the decision to confide in criminals.

"Good," King said. "Fuckers got what he deserved."

"You aren't... going to ask why?"

"The reason doesn't matter," Creati insisted. "No one has a right to do such a thing. And once we stop for the day, I'm going to be looking that injury over. You need to take care of it properly."

"I..." Todoroki didn't think that he could feel more lost. These strangers were showing more concern for him than his own family and it left him constantly unbalanced. He focused on driving and remained as silent as possible.

Sometime during the trip, Todoroki wasn't sure how or why, Creati had transferred the sacks of money into briefcases. He had no idea where she's gotten them from, had she had them with her somehow, but by the time they pulled into a hotel parking lot, his backseat looked just as it had before he'd picked up. No loose bills and no empty sacks.

"Here, change into these." She offered them both a folded pile of clothing.

"What's this for?" Todoroki asked.

"Our cover," She told him. "It would seem a little odd to carry a brief case and not look the part." She smiled as she placed a pair of black rimmed glasses over her face. "Please turn around."

"Huh?"

"Don't look at her, dumb ass!" King yelled as he forced Todoroki to turn his head, slamming a hand over his eyes. "She has to change, idiot!"

"Oh... Sorry."

"You're fucking hopeless, aren't you?"

The situation didn't causing him to blush, but the sound of rustling clothing and her strained sounds as she maneuvered in and out of a new outfit did. He tried to keep his thoughts off of her as much as possible, but found that it was impossible.

King was suddenly leaning very far into his space, uncovering Todoroki's eyes so that he could meet his gaze. "What's got you so red, huh?"

"N...nothing," He answered, trying to avoid the man's gaze.

"Oh? You calling my girl nothing, now?"

"That... That's not what I meant."

"King, please," Creati said from the back seat. "Don't tease him."

King grinned, a look of pride almost on his face. "What? It's not my fault the bastard's finally rattled at something. He's been an ice cube this whole time, you can't take this from me."

"Just get dressed," She said. "I'll get a room separate from the two of you. Wait ten minutes before coming in after me and we'll meet in your room." She didn't stand long enough for them to disagreed, getting out and taking a brief case and overnight bag with her, leaving another briefcase and a suitcase behind."

"Why are you splitting up?" Todoroki found himself asking. He shouldn't ask, shouldn't be curious, shouldn't be involved any further than he was, but he found that he couldn't help himself. There was something about these people that he found... appealing. Comforting even. Maybe it was just the way they treated him... normal. No falling over themselves to impress him or trying to mold him into something he wasn't. They just asserted their desires and, to some extent, even expressed concern about his own. Todoroki wasn't used to that kind of consideration and he found it appealing.

"Because of of us needs to keep an eye on you," King explained. "Now listen, I'll do the talking. You just keep checking your watch or phone and look impatient until we get to the room."

The check in with smoothly. He wasn't allowed to touch either the suitcase or briefcase, was standing far away from the front desk that he couldn't tell what he told the woman behind the counter, and they were up in their rooms in no time at all. King put away their luggage, sat him on the bed, and before too long Creati was sitting in front of him and probing the area around his eye.

"It looks like it's sweeling," She told him. "You haven't been taking proper care of it."

"I've been busy," He answered simply.

"Busy running from the cops?" King asked. Todoroki met his gaze, ignoring the protesting sound Creati made, and the man raised an eyebrow at him. "What? You don't burn down a house and get away free. You're either a missing person, a suspect, or you escaped custody. Either way, not really conducive to taking care of yourself, now is it."

"I'll be fine."

"That's no good," She told him. "You can't neglect your health this way." Frowning, she said to her partner, "Go get some ice please."

King looked at him a long moment before deciding it was okay to leave him with the girl and storming out of the room. Todoroki was surprised that he didn't slam the door, King seemed like the type, but that would probably draw too much attention.

"Have you decided what you want to do?" Creati asked him. Her name suddenly made more sense when he saw her creating a roll of bandage tape from her skin. "We can leave you in this room with enough start up to get a rental car and be back on the road by morning. Or you can decide to come with us."

"Why would you want me with you?" Todoroki asked. "You don't even know me."

She smiled. "We like you. We may not seem like it, but we can both be very caring people when motivated to be. You need to get on your feet and we want to help you. And..." She blushed and looked away from him for a moment. "And I won't deny some amount of attraction. If you did want to come with us, having an attractive get away driver wouldn't be the worst thing in the world."

"And if nothing else," King said, announcing his presence as he stepped into the room and closed the door behind him. "We know that you're attracted to her."

Todoroki found himself blushing. "I..."

"And don't fucking lie about it! I hate liars," He growled.

Todoroki swallowed down his words.

"This isn't an all or nothing deal," King told him. "We're not saying you have to sleep with or anything. If you want we can leave you in this hotel room with the startup we promised, leave this hotel, and find someplace else. If you want, you can come with us and be our partner." He tossed the ice on the bed beside them and leaned against the wall. The grinned returned to his face, fierce and just on the side of being vicious. "Of course, if you want to sleep with us in either scenario, we are a package deal."

"Always so forward," Creati said, a soft smile on her face as she watched her partner.

"We don't all have time to tip toe around shit," He answered.

"Do you two do this a lot?" Todoroki asked.

"Do what a lot?" She asked. "Invite attractive people to our bed?"

"Or do you mean taking in strays?" King asked. "Because I can tell you we never take strays. You may not be the first person we've offered a room and car to get away from their problems, but we don't invite people to come with us."

Creati took his hands in hers. "King and I, we know what we like. We don't have problems taking people we both want to bed, but only together. It's not right otherwise."

"This is a lot to think about," Todoroki admitted.

"You have until morning to decide," She told him. She began to wrap the bandage around his head, pressing a cold compress to his eye. "We'll be leaving at dawn. If you want to come with us, meet us in the lobby. If you don't, just stay here."

Todoroki's eyes widened as he turned his head to King. "You're not staying here?"

King snorted, but there was a hint of fondness in his face. "There's a reason we got separate rooms. If you decide not to come with us, we don't you to be able to compromise our room. We might trust you enough to come with us, but that's different than tempting you to put a knife in our backs while we sleep next to an amount of money that would tempt almost anyone."

It was good point, but Todoroki found that he wasn't tempted by the money in the couldn't say the same about these two dangerous strangers, however.

The two began to leave and without meaning to he reached out and grabbed Creati's hand to stop her. She smiled softly at him, bending down to press a kiss to the uncovered half of his face. "You know what to do if you want to see us," She told him.

She slipped out of his hold and then he was alone. It was only after they left that he realized he hadn't seen King take the money, had noticed their luggage being opened, but it was all gone except for a small stack that sat on the nightstand.

He had some thinking to do.

In the end, he didn't take very long to consider his decision. He went out before it was too late to get a rental car, leaving a bit extra as a tip since he knew they wouldn't be getting the car back and feeling bad about it, then he parked it in the lobby as far from their arrival car as possible. He scrubbed his car clean of all his possession and identifying marks, drove it a few blocks away, and used his quirk to torch it. It seemed that he had a habit of leaving his old life in flames, there was no reason to quit now. It seemed fitting honestly, that he would use his fire to escape his life when it had been oppressing him so long. Liberating almost. He didn't let the fire continue to burn long. He dosed the flames in his ice and left the wreckage where it was, satisfied that nothing was left for him there.

Once he was back at the hotel, he set alarms. He sat an alarm on his phone, He set the hotel alarm clock, and he called the front desk and asked for a wake up. He was not going to a chance that he would miss his new life. He didn't know what he would make of it yet, but he was already attached to these two. They made him feel something other than the hot rage and cold numbness that he was used to and he wasn't prepared to lose than when he'd just found it.

He was sitting in the lobby waiting for them when they stepped off the elevator, dressed in new, sharp looking suits and seeming as normal and inconspicuous as any power couple might.

"You decided to join us," Creati said happily.

"Yeah, I did." Todoroki smiled at them. It felt strange after so long to have an honest smile on his face, like his muscle might have forgotten how to do it right, but he managed and the action was able to get a return smile from them both. "I got us a new rental."

"That was very sweet of you," Creati said. She laid a hand on his arm and began to steer him out of the building, allowing for him to seamless began guiding them to where he'd left the car.

"I torched the other," He told them.

"You make a habit of that?" King asked him.

"It seems that I have."

"My kind of guy," King responded, making Creati laughed behind her hand.

"You'll get along famously," She said.

Once they reached the car, King held his hand out for the keys. "I know you're going to be our driver, but let's wait until that burn heals a bit better."

Todoroki handed over the keys without protest and slipped into the backseat while Creati put the luggage in the trunk. Once they were all buckled in and on the road, Creati turned to face him. "My name is Momo," she said. "And that's Katsuki. It's very nice to meet you."

Katsuki groaned. "You and fucking manners."

Todoroki found himself smiling. "I'm Shouto."

"I look forward to working with you," Momo said.

Katsuki grunted. "I give it a month tops before we get him to bed."

"Katsuki!" She scolded.

"What? Don't act like you don't want it now."

"You could have a bit more decorum," She told him.

"The fuck would I want that shit?"

Shouto found himself laughing, honest to god laughter pouring out of him at the exchange. "This might be the best decision I've ever made," He told them.

"You damn straight it is," Katsuki said.

"We'll take good care of you, you'll see," Momo added.

Looking between them both, Shouto found himself quietly agreeing with Katsuki's assessment of a month. He wasn't sure he would be able to resist them if they could find ways to make him feel as happy and free as he did in this moment.