"Where have you been," is spit in his face the moment he opens the door. He doesn't react to the venom in the voice, just fixes his gaze on the mats in the entrance.
"Answer me."
"With friends." Crack.
"You will not let friends hinder your training," the man says, snarling the word friends only a little more than the other words in the sentence. I get enough training in class, don't I?
Neither Todoroki moves for a solid minute. If Father's waiting for a response, he won't be getting one. He seems to be in a merciful mood, however, when he casts his arm in the direction of Shouto's bedroom as a clear cue to leave. It isn't lost on him. He makes his way down the hallway, lifting his head the smallest bit and feeling his sore cheek from the previous slap. He could hear his father following him. Ha ha, he must be getting protective with the curfew broken. Not like there ever was one.
Shouto is fully prepared to keep his back to his father as he recedes into his room, but he only makes it halfway through the door before he's knocked flat on his face and pinned to the ground with a searing, sharp elbow wedged between his shoulder blades. He wants to laugh at the fact that it hardly feels like the elbow can fit between the blades. What a size difference. "What did I do?" He manages to croak into the tatami mats.
"You've disobeyed me," wow, what an epiphany, good going, flame fucker, "for the last time."
Shouto wonders if this means that something's actually going to happen this time around. It isn't the first time he's said that, but whatever restriction or punishment he says he'll deal out after the initial you-did-wrong training session, he usually doesn't go through with because he isn't at the house often enough to cement his wishes. Like banning him from talking to his siblings, which was funny, because he hardly did that anyways, or giving him a barebones diet that he totally followed at 5 am on a saturday morning with essential free reign of the kitchen, or illegalizing his little self-field trips.
His shirt is yanked up his back. He has time to think, Shit, again? before there's a strong pinch below his left ribcage and the feeling of something being shoved under the skin. He clenches his fist, because damn, that's uncomfortable.
His father jabs his elbow into Shouto's spine with a sense of finality, and leaves him sprawled in his doorway with no small amount of stomping. Shouto waits until he's across the house before lifting himself with his arms and pulling himself into his room, his sore back twinging like he imagined an old man's would when it tries to support his weight at the wrong angle. He props himself up against the wall and closes his door, taking a deep breath through his nose. His chin feels like it'll bruise from that fall. Father's getting careless with these face shots.
He feels his back and his fingers come away with quite a bit of blood. He's probably getting some on the floor. Bummer. For the time being, he decided to ignore the fact that his father literally chipped him like some sort of dog.
He didn't know why he was waiting, but the telltale father-has-a-job noise sequence spurs him into action. He has homework, and still wants to cook with Fuyumi- especially if Father is gone. They usually eat late, anyways. So he gets up, wincing, and changes his shirt before venturing out to the kitchen. Homework can wait.
"What did he do?" Fuyumi asks when he enters. It's a formality, at this point.
"Stuck a tracker in my back." He replies. "What do you have in mind for dinner?"
"Mac n' cheese, if you're up to it," she looks over at him. "You planning on doing something about that? I'll help if you ask."
"Can't find it in me to care just yet. Cupboard?"
"Yeah."
The rest of the night is spent in silence.
"Hey? Todoroki? Are you planning on sparring with me again today?" Midoriya asks him before class.
"No," Shouto shifts in his seat. "Not for the the next few days. You'd be better off asking Uraraka or Ojirou."
Midoriya looked at him with worry. "Oh… is something going on?"
Shouto huffs snidely. "Nothing more than usual." He sees Midoriya looking at the floor out of the corner of his eye and feels a little bad. "I'm sorry, Midoriya. I'll be able to spar again with you by next week."
Midoriya looks back up and searches his eyes with an intense gaze. His skin crawls with nerves. "If you're sure," He says finally, his response nearly getting lost in the morning chatter of the desks farther up front.
If I was sure about anything, I'd be halfway across the country by now, Shouto thinks. Maybe wearing a wig and going by a different name. But here we are, aren't we?
"Yes."
On his way home, Shouto witnesses a robbery. Two women decked out in all black and what look like shock absorption vests are causing a ruckus from some convenience store, so he walks on in to 'buy a chocolate bar' but really possibly stop some petty crime. When he opens the door a strong gust of wind comes from behind him and he flinches at the déjà vu from last night. He has time to catch himself on the metal doorframe and lifts his right hand, thinking shit, this is one of the robber's quirks, but it harmlessly blows past him into the store before he can try and freeze literal oxygen. For a split second he attempts to reassess the wind as inanimate, but the robber holding a gun(who uses guns anymore?) is thrown against a display by an unseen force before he can convince himself. What looks like sand whirls out of the air to form a person standing in front of the register.
Two more people bust in the door after him. He steps aside, noting them as heroes. One of them is decked out in yellow and blue skin suit, and the other in a bubbly costume of light green and silver. They're panting, but are grinning under their visor and half-mask respectively. Shouto turns away from the door to find the snack aisle. Might as well get that chocolate bar for real.
He should've left with the other civilians. They didn't get held behind by the police and press for questions.
He arrives back at his house when it's nearing dark. Again, the same question is hurled at him from the door.
"Where have you been?" Shouldn't you know?
"I was at a crime scene." Shouto responds.
His father takes in his appearance. The bruise on his chin from yesterday is joined by one on his right cheekbone, the entire left side of his flannel shirt only looks recently dried from being soaked, and he has a gash on the inside of his arm that his father can't see since his sleeve is pulled down.
Don't mess with a sand person and their elemental friends when they're trying to do their job. Even standing far off to the side can get you damaged.
"Did you defeat the villain?" His father asks gruffly. Those weren't even villains. They were petty robbers.
"I don't have my provisional license," He replies, voice quiet. "That would be illegal."
Endeavor closes his fist around Shouto's sliced arm and yanks him into the house. He's flaring up on his shoulders and yelling something about disappointment after disappointment. Shouto wrestles off his bag and leaves it on the floor in the mud room. No reason to get his homework burnt with the rest of him.
He dresses his wounds in his room with his brother's supplies that he's long since borrowed. There are quite a few, and the ones from the convenience store really aren't helping him either. He takes a look at the clock and figures Wow, if I don't start working on that essay soon, Aizawa-sensei's going to give me an even worse week.
He goes to bed without dinner or leaving his room. He has a nightmare.
His mom. She's not sick.
She's living with their happier family.
The doorway.
White hair. Bloody fists.
Oh. That's not how those two usually go together.
Everything hurts again and again.
She's cradling his face and apologizing, but her eyes are gone.
Her. Her
Mom?
Her fist.
Don't leave me, Shouto.
Blood. Into his back again.
The voice is so, so wrong.
I don't want to lose you.
Mom ?
He doesn't wake up in sweat, or tears, or with a start. He wakes up like it's a sleepy saturday when he was three and only needed to get up if he wanted to watch cartoons with his siblings or go to the store with Mom. His limbs and brain are tired and he doesn't notice he's even awake until he hears stomping. It's far away, but there's never a way to know how long that'll last.
He sits up and gathers the hem of his blanket in his fists, staring at his white knuckles and folds in the fabric with unwarranted concentration. Calm down.
After a while, he gets up and changes into his school uniform, listening carefully as he does so. One last day of school, then sweet, sweet home suffering time. At one point, struggling to put his socks on standing up, he acknowledges that he's ignoring things. The nightmare is nothing, the tracker is nothing.
He wonders if he shouldn't be.
