Shouto dreamed.

He dreamed of fire, and of ice, though they burned neither hot nor cold.

It was how he knew it was only a dream.

Mother was there, as always, her ice joined together with his to shield them both from Father. Something he hadn't dreamed in a long time, a part of Shouto recognized, but that was just how dreams worked.

Touya was there, too, young and unscarred, hazy in Shouto's memory, except for his eyes, bright blue and years older than they had any right to be.

They were fighting, Father and Touya, and Shouto was crying. It felt different this time, somehow; the tears weren't from fear or pain, or if they were, it was from a different sort than he was used to.

The fight was different, too. The flames were bigger, bolder and angrier than Shouto had ever seen them. More real than dream-fire had any right to be, devoid as they were of any difference in temperature.

He tried to reach out to them, to stand between them, but his feet were held fast by ice. Shouto turned a pleading gaze to Mother, not understanding why the ice wouldn't listen to him, but she only shook her head sadly, mouthing I love you and I'm so sorry before she faded away. The ghostly feeling of her hand threading through his hair remained, and there had been no fear or hatred in her eyes at all, even though his hair was red now.

Shouto's hair was red, and he was held fast behind a wall of ice; he didn't know why, but he didn't question it, either.

It was only a dream.

Izuku and Katsuki came to visit him next, something urgent in their faces as Izuku cried and Katsuki yelled. It was nothing unusual, or too far removed from everyday life, so Shouto remained distracted, watching Touya and Father fight, until the next time he looked for them Katsuki and Izuku were gone.

When he looked back into the fire, someone else was missing, too. Their name was on the tip of Shouto's tongue, but he couldn't remember. He walked aimlessly on a field of ash, fire and ice both gone in the same instant, and he only knew he was searching.

Shouto bent down and raked his right hand through the ash; it came up streaked black. He frowned. The ash was still warm.

This wasn't a dream anymore.

Shouto opened his eyes, and found himself surrounded in white, but the walls were solid and didn't dissolve into ash and crumble away. The warmth in his cool hand remained, and a familiar face swam into focus. A rush of relief came over him; it wasn't her, then.

"Fuyumi nee-san?" he said, and it came out in a dry rustle of dead autumn leaves. "Where's Mom?"

"It's not that hospital, Shou. Not that year. Mom's fine, she'll come visit now that you're awake." Fuyumi's voice put him at ease, released the tension he didn't know he was holding. He would be a hero like that, someday, Shouto thought. For all of them.

Another white head leaned into his field of vision. "Welcome back, kid," said Natsuo. "Despite your best efforts, you did not actually turn into an icicle. Although you were really cool."

Shouto groaned at the terrible pun - he could blame it on the beginnings of pain that were trickling back into his awareness - but his next breath came more easily nonetheless. Fuyumi, Natsuo, Mom, all fine and accounted for. Bakugou and Midoriya were all right, he knew, they would take care of each other, even if that sometimes meant a fight. So who was he still missing?

"Natsu-nii? Where's Father? Where's Touya?"

The world spun a little as he pushed himself up to a seat, to get a better look around the room, but then his view was blocked as Natsuo pulled him into his broad shoulders for a hug, and Fuyumi's grip tightened on his hand.

This was strange. "What's going on?" Shouto asked, muffled a bit in Natsuo's sweater.

"Oh, Shouto…"

Shouto frowned. It was all a little hazy, still, and he knew he wasn't six anymore, but those words sounded too painfully familiar in Fuyumi's voice, older though it was now. The last time she'd sounded like this, Mother hadn't come back home with them.

A prickle of dread formed in the base of Shouto's skull as he asked, once more: "What happened?"

"The aftermath of the death of the Number One hero, Endeavor, is rocking the nation. Only days later, the shining legacy of the Flame Hero is already being tainted with allegations ranging from Quirk marriage and child abuse to filicide…"

Dabi tuned out the voice coming through the tinny phone speakers, eyes going glassy and blurring the picture on the screen.

So this was victory. Everything he'd worked for, suffered for, survived for, for almost a full decade, come into fulfillment.

Then why did he feel so empty?

"… together with the revelations of corruption in the Hero Public Safety Commission itself by former Number Two hero Hawks in a bombshell statement delivered seconds after rejecting the interim title of Number One hero, society as we know it is shaking on its foundations."

The video cut to a clip that had gone viral, making people ask the questions Dabi had been struggling with for what felt like a lifetime. What had been a lifetime - two lifetimes, in fact.

In it, Hawks stood among his audience instead of soaring above them, looking haggard and bruised, yet also proud. He started out with an apology Dabi had never asked for, expressing regret for his part in it all, for not being a true hero. "For being part of a system that tears families apart, where children are bred and built for singular purpose, where heroes as much as villains are defined at birth based on their Quirk rather than what they choose to do with it."

The next words came from someone who Dabi never thought he'd see in public - a man who probably never thought to be allowed to show himself so unguardedly to any one person, much less a nation. The face was still Hawks', but the voice was Takami Keigo's.

"Endeavor was a great hero. He was also a deeply flawed person. For better or for worse… I've followed in his footsteps. I've done a lot of things I'm not proud of, and not taken responsibility when I should have. I told myself that it was out of my control, that it was how I'd been made, but in doing so I never truly allowed myself to become anyone at all. Much less a hero. So I can't be your Number One; all I can do now is atone."

Responsibility; atonement. Isn't that what they'd all avoided for so long, Dabi, Hawks, Endeavor? And oh how they'd paid for it - and not only them, but everyone else around them.

"One thing is for sure, the Pro Hero ranking system as it is must be reformed, along with perhaps even the very concept of heroes themselves," the analyst announced after the clip had played out. "And that's a terrifying thought. What happens when what has been a pillar of society up till now takes on a different form or is abolished entirely?"

Dabi's thoughts tumbled one over another in a landslide of what-ifs and could-have-beens, until a flash of white hair on the screen caught his attention.

"The older children of Todoroki Enji were reached out to for a possible answer to the question on everybody's lips: is the villain known as Dabi a Todoroki?" The reporter continued to speculate, based on spotty footage of the cataclysmic fight, while the video transitioned to the image of Natsuo and Fuyumi cornered between their car and a herd of microphones and cameras. Fuyumi had a hand curled tightly around Natsuo's bicep, holding him back as he yelled at the reporters. "Don't tell me this bullshit is why you're ambushing us on our way between a fucking funeral home and two hospitals? You -"

Hospital. Dabi had glimpsed Shouto through a frozen surface, face broken into jagged edges by fractures in the ice, blood flowing between the cracks.

He'd done that. Just like Endeavor had said.

Just like he'd done to Endeavor.

And in the smoky, shining, victorious aftermath, the shards had revealed an ugly truth. Dabi had spent so long watching Endeavor stare back at him through the mirror that he'd forgotten. His reflection had only ever been himself.

Dabi had been the one to put his baby brother in the hospital, and although he'd never wanted to hurt him, there were a lot of things Dabi did despite not wanting to. Had putting Endeavor in a grave been one of them? No, no, it couldn't be, he'd wanted that, for himself, for all of them…

He'd had a choice, though, and he'd made it.

Dabi was starting to think that it might have been the wrong one.

He came back to the moment as the cameras gratefully zoomed in on Fuyumi when she interrupted her brother's rant with an even tone. "Children, if you're watching, cover your ears now."

Fuyumi's authoritative stare left the camera to hone in on the person who'd asked the initial question. "I'm only going to say this once, and I do so with the utmost respect to all our avian-Quirked citizenry. No fucking comment, you vultures."

Dabi couldn't help but bite back a startled laugh, watching her shove Natsuo into the car, before calmly stepping in and slamming door shut. They were strong, these siblings of his, so beautifully strong, forged from fires they never should have had to walk through.

Including his own.

I won, Dabi thought, and the sound rang hollow.

I did this, he tried, and he could only regret.

Or not only, Dabi realized, hearing echoes of Keigo's words, Shouto's declaration of forgiveness.

His father's challenge. What will you do?

Responsibility. Atonement for his sins. I'll suffer to make each of them right. To become a person worthy of accepting forgiveness. Dabi didn't think he could do it, not the way he was now.

And yet… he hadn't always been this way. And if Dabi couldn't do it… could someone else?

Some days later, he took out the letter, opened the paper that had started to wear at the creases one last time, and signed his name.

Hawks was grounded. No feathers, no flight, no escape; he would have to stand and face the fallout like any other person.

It was exhilarating.

His phone lit up, the name displayed one of his most recently added contacts. Hawks meant to ignore it, but the preview caught his eye with a simple question: was it worth it?

It could mean anything, Hawks knew, coming as it was from Bakugou Katsuki. From a hero checking in on someone he'd saved, or from a boy waiting at a hospital bedside, equally eager and reluctant for their loved one to wake up into a world that was just that much worse because of everything Hawks had done.

Was what worth it? Surviving? Watching as someone as broken as himself, with the same hurts as himself, tore down his false idol? Rejecting the path of heroism, that he'd never been worthy of in the first place? Taking the first baby steps towards bearing his own burdens instead of blaming them on someone else?

Hawks couldn't hope to sum that all up in a text, so he sent back a simple inquiry.

Hawks: What?

The answer came almost instantly.

Bakugou: Falling in love with a Todoroki

Oh.

He'd gone and done that too, hadn't he? Somewhere along the way, without even noticing, he'd forgotten to put the could have in between I and loved him. Stopped running away from that, too, hoping the open air would whisk it far, far away from him.

Did that make him a better person, he wondered, now that he'd stopped lying to himself? Because it was true: Keigo was done lying.

And love was a choice, like forgiveness was a choice, and atonement was a choice. It was still new to him, but Keigo was free to make his own choices now. Free to experience their consequences, in all their painful, wonderful, terrible glory.

He typed out a single word, and sent the message.

Shouto tapped his phone screen on again, open to the same message it had been displaying since the time he had received it almost a week ago. The words glowed up at him, a reassurance almost as much as Bakugou's casual lean against his shoulder, Midoriya's fingers tapping out a nervous rhythm on his thigh, Uraraka and Asui sprawled over all their legs and feet as they laid claim to Momo's giant bed.

"More tea, anyone?" asked Momo, from where she'd been looking over Jirou's shoulder as the other girl curated the relaxing, slightly poppy playlist.

"Dude. Please and thank you," called Kirishima from where he was wrestling Kaminari and Ashido for claim to one of Sero's tape hammocks. "Anticipating others' needs is so manly. Er, womanly. Human-ly?"

"Personable," supplied Ashido. "Although I, personally" - Kaminari high-fived her for what he probably thought was a pun - "would say queenly."

"Mina," exclaimed Momo, blushing slightly at the flattery before collecting herself. "It's just common courtesy. Tea for anyone else? Shouto?"

"No thanks," Shouto murmured, reading over the message again. He wondered where Dabi was. Missing, said the news outlets, with injuries of unknown extent sustained. Presumed dead (hoped dead by so many, Shouto knew). He's alive, said the single text from Hawks, and Shouto didn't know how to feel about that, that Dabi would tell Hawks before him. Perhaps it was need-to-know Pro Hero information, but they were family. Weren't they? Even after everything?

His phone lit up at his side, the screen showing a new message from an unknown number. Heart suddenly hammering, Shouto opened it with unsteady fingers.

Unknown: Hey Shouto

Unknown: You were right. I'm sorry.

Unknown: I got everything that I wanted, and it wasn't anything like I thought it'd be. It wasn't worth tearing our family apart for.

Unknown: So I'm going to do the right thing, for once.

Unknown: I understand if you're mad, if you never want to see me again

Unknown: It probably won't make things right. Maybe nothing ever will. But I'm going to face the music.

"Is something wrong, Shouto?" asked Momo, her perceptive gaze picking up his nervousness.

No, no, absolutely not. He was angry, of course, mad at his older brother in a way that hurt more than the unexpected grief. Upset that he'd never have a chance to know exactly what it meant, to forgive someone like his father, to know if their relationship could be repaired or not; sure, it sounded exhausting and tedious and not at all enjoyable, but that didn't mean Shouto didn't want the chance. He knew how Fuyumi felt, he thought, left to wonder if their last words to the man had meant anything, and how Natsuo felt, a little, angry at how their father demanded so much of their emotional energy when he probably didn't even deserve it.

But it wasn't a matter of deserving, Shouto realized, feeling Bakugou sag sleepily into his side, looking around the room at so many kind and determined faces. So he could be happy, and at the same time mad and a little bit sad, because everything was right, for once, and yet… yet…

It wasn't anything like Shouto thought it would be.

"Just family," Shouto choked out. At his side, Bakugou stiffened to alertness, before forcibly relaxing his posture.

"Hey Zero G," Bakugou called loudly to Uraraka, although he hardly needed to; she was right there. "What do you think of that Pink Dark Boy spinoff, eh? The art style's gone to shit! Mangaka must be off his rocker."

"Kishibe-sensei is a genius!" Uraraka yelled back. "True artists can't box themselves into a single art form!"

"It's called a signature style for a reason!"

"Ochako's got an excellent point, Bakugou-kun. Consider the greats of the twentieth century. Not only did they -"

"If we're talking old art, can we at least discuss Mexican muralism? 'Cuz that shit slaps."

"Please don't add your contributions to the genre on my walls with your acid stains, Mina."

Shouto felt the eyes leaving him as the argument gained momentum, and ever so slowly it was getting easier to breathe. This was his family too, after all, his noisy, loud, boisterous family who were so unlike his birth family, and yet took care of him in their strange ways all the same.

And made stupid-ass decisions all the time.

Shouto's fingers flew across the keyboard, texting back with sudden desperation.

Shouto: You have terrible taste in music.

Shouto: Don't do that.

Shouto: Please

Unknown: Shouto-outo.

Shouto frowned. His brother hadn't called him that since they were kids, so many years ago.

Unknown: I'd be lying if I said I'm doing this for you, or for our family.

Unknown: I'm doing this for me.

Unknown: Do me one favor?

Shouto's heart hurt, and he didn't know why. He thought of the envelope containing a single syringe that he'd sent to the address Twice had given him, calling in his own owed favor.

Shouto: I'll do anything.

He knew it to be true.

Unknown: Call me Touya.

Pride, perhaps that was what was making Shouto's heart swell, although how it was also making the corner of his eyes tense with dread was beyond him. To want something so badly to be true, and yet not at the same time…

"Turn on the TV," Shouto whispered frantically to Bakugou, who relayed it in a louder voice to Momo.

Frowning, she did, the news channel popping up first thing. The picture showed a crowd of reporters, a large banner scrolling underneath with the header: Breaking News. Cameras zoomed in hopefully on a figure standing in the shadows, surrounded by policemen. Underneath, text started rolling across the screen: Criminal Dabi turns himself in.

The door burst open as Iida skidded to a stop in its frame, engines smoking. "Turn off -"

"It's okay, Iida," Shouto interrupted, though still slightly sickened from the sudden drop his stomach had taken. "It's going to be okay."

Aizawa's voice sounded in the stairwell behind Iida, and Shouto raised his voice in order to be heard. "It's for the best. I'm proud of him."

On the TV, a crowd of reporters was shouting questions, all revolving around a single theme: Dabi-san, what is your relationship to the family of the late Todoroki Enji? What do you say to the speculations that you're Endeavor's son? Dabi-san, are you a Todoroki?

Dabi stepped into the sunlight. "My name is Touya."

Shouto's breath caught in a sob. His brother's hair was red, his eyes their same startling blue, but despite the resemblance still he looked nothing like their father. Finding his hand drawn to his fire side, his scar, Shouto wondered.

But no. They weren't the same either, although Shouto would always be a part of Touya. Touya had his own scars; he was his own person, finally taking charge of his own destiny, holding his past and future together in his own two hands.

It was clear in the set of his shoulders, sorrow and pride entwined underneath the trademark self-assured quirk of his lips as he spoke. "And I am definitely a Todoroki."

A/N: Text formatting looks much nicer on AO3, link is on my profile page. Links to an unofficial epilogue inspired by a review from Fwgaltx, as well as extensive meta about my choices for the ending, and a list of spinoffs that will probably appear one day are also there.

Thank you so much to all of you who've made it this far, I had a lot of fun along the way and I hope you did too! I'd love to hear from you - there's close to 200 of you who care enough about this fic to get an email about it, and it makes me sad that I only know what 8% of you think of it. So if you can find it in yourself to leave a review I'd really appreciate it.

Until next time!