Class 3-A hadn't been completely counting on Bashira's company for dinner, but that didn't stop the girls from preparing a more elaborate meal than usual – and Sato from going a little overboard with desserts.
When Shoto showed up with his wife in tow everyone had seemed some level of surprised to see her. Thankfully they all controlled themselves and gave her a warm, not-totally-overwhelming welcome.
He wasn't sure if it helped or not, but Shoto stayed by Bashira's side as everyone took their turns introducing themselves. Bashira kept up her smile throughout the process but she seemed fidgety, one of her hands reaching back to twirl the ends of her hair, which she'd tied up into a ponytail.
"I'm Bashira Kobayashi," she said once the rest of the room had finished. "Obviously you all know who I am."
Amid the second round of waves and a chorused "nice to meet you" Kaminari's voice stuck out.
"It's 'Bashira Todoroki' now, isn't it?" the blonde grinned. Despite it being teasing on his part, Bashira's fingers stilled in their twirling and her face blanched. Some of Shoto's classmates noticed the change.
"Actually, adopting the male's surname is getting a little archaic these days, kero,"Asui supplied.
Jiro crossed her arms, unimpressed. "Yeah, it's pretty chauvinist to assume the girl is just going to change her name right away to conform to old school traditions."
Kaminari retreated under a dark cloud. "I didn't mean anything by it," he cried, holding his arms up in defense, "that's just the way it usually works!"
"No biggy," Bashira said, putting on another smile. "Besides, my own name has a better ring to it, doesn't it?"
To Bashira, Shoto's class was a bunch of characters. Almost all of them were affable from the get-go; their openness amongst each other and towards Bashira did more than she could have hoped to settle her nerves. The girls were the most out-going, but at the same time their friendliness was glaringly genuine. Bashira regretted guessing that they must have been maniacal shrews.
There weren't many mutation type quirks where Bashira was from so a few of the students – like Shoji and Ashido – put her more on edge than the others. Ashido quickly proved to be as bubbly as her skin, though, and Shoji (as well as Tokoyami and Koda, for that matter) mostly kept to themselves. By the time they all became acquainted the most intimidating person had become Bakugo, who'd been dragged out of his room by Kirishima and Sero. Bashira had no idea how no one else seemed bothered by the fact that Bakugo was both shaking and steaming in rage.
"C'mon," Sero had laughed, his tape cocooning Bakugo's body while Kirishima used his brawn to carry the incapacitated boy, "it's a 'Class A Family Dinner'. You can't skip it."
"'The hell do I care about whatever bitch that Icy-Hot bastard is bringing over?! I HAVE BETTER THINGS TO DO!"
Bashira felt a pang at the insult, but Shoto only sighed softly from beside her. That kid's attitude must not have been anything new.
The pink-cheeked girl, Uraraka, bounced up to Bashira. "Don't mind him. Bakugo's always like that. Maybe you'll remember him from our first Sports Festival? He's the one who had to be chained up during the award ceremony."
The food was done by then. Shoji used his extra arms to plate everything while Yaoyorozu and Jiro worked on passing out the full dishes. There was only one six-person table in the room so people found spots where they could, settling on couches and chairs or spare spaces on the floor. Bashira ended up sinking down at the table opposite Uraraka, with Shoto maintaining his place beside her.
"Uh, no, not really," Bashira admitted, sending a look of thanks to Yaoyorozu when she was handed her bowl. "I don't think I've seen much of any Sports Festival, actually."
Yaoyorozu, who'd sat at the head of the table beside Bashira, gasped daintily.
"You've never watched any of them?" the Everything Hero asked, pressing her fingertips to the center of her chest.
Bashira started twisting her hair again and shook her head. "No. The Sports Festivals aren't too popular where I'm from."
"Kobayashi-san," Midoriya started. He was seated on Uraraka's right and directly diagonal from Bashira. "Where are you from anyway?"
"Ashoro," Bashira answered. Seeing no reaction from anyone she broadened the scope. "Eastern Hokkaido."
Midoriya awed, and the rest of the room seemed to share his sentiment.
"That's quite a ways away," Iida commented. He was heading the table opposite Yaoyorozu. "The Shizuoka Prefecture must be a culture shock to you."
"A little," Bashira admitted, picking up her chop sticks. "Ashoro is mostly just farms and forests."
("She came all the way here for that guy?" Sero, despite being on the other end of the room, jabbed his thumb towards Shoto.)
"Everything there is pretty quiet," Bashira continued, either not hearing or ignoring Sero. "There aren't any big cities, or fancy schools or anything. It's simple. Basically like going back in time."
"Wow," Uraraka said, "I've never really thought about that before. That must mean there aren't really any Pro Heroes where you grew up then, are there?"
Bashira swallowed the bite of food she had taken, blinking up at Uraraka. She was impressed that the other girl, who'd seemed a tad air-headed at first, had connected the dots so quickly. "No. We run on more of an honor system, you could say. There's not really much more than petty crimes around there anyway, so the people with licenses take care of anything the police can't. It's not so glamorous that anyone calls themselves a Hero and makes it their career."
Bashira became suddenly, acutely aware that every eye in the room was on her. And every one of those eyes belonged to a person who was dedicating their life to become a Pro Hero.
"No offense," Bashira added lamely. "There is a Hero Academy near Sapporo, but that's still a little far from where I lived."
("It's like she's an alien or something," Ashido muttered from across the room.
Asui, who was cross-legged on the floor near Ashido's feet, remarked dryly, "Isn't that a little too ironic, coming from you?")
"You don't look like a country girl," a nasally voice cut in. Bashira wasn't sure where it came from at first, but a movement to her right brought her eyes down to the grape-vine boy, Mineta – had he been hiding under the table the entire time?
"With those tinted lips," Mineta went on, edging closer, "the winged eyeliner, edgy piercings…"
Mineta continued to inch in, and just as Bashira became uncomfortable enough to want to swat at him someone else did it for her.
"Sorry about him," Ojiro said with a genial simper. He's used his thick tail to knock Mineta over the head and consequently (also accidentally) unconscious. "You've probably noticed by now that our class is pretty weird."
'An understatement,' Bashira thought.
"I have to say I agree, though," Ojiro went on. "If we'd heard more about you ahead of time I would have expected something… different."
Bashira mulled his point over but could only shrug. "It's not like I was sheltered from everything. I had access to all the regular media." She stopped touching her hair and fiddled with the steel bar across her ear instead. "My grandparents never let me pierce my ears as a kid, so when I turned sixteen I got an industrial instead. It was an act of rebellion, I guess."
A few chimed in their opinions, but ultimately the direct conversation slowed enough for Bashira to get through more of her meal of rice and beef. It wasn't anything spectacular, but considering how bad her diet had been lately any kind of home-cooked meal tasted like gourmet.
Midoriya eventually redirected the exchange. "If you don't mind me asking, Kobayashi-san, what is your Quirk?"
Bashira's expression was a deadpan. Midoriya felt like he'd overstepped and withered under her gaze.
"It's called Zeitnot," Bashira replied. She didn't seem as willing to discuss her ability as she had been any other topic. "Essentially, it's time control."
"Interesting," Iida hummed. "Does your control over time work each way?"
"Sort of," Bashira said. "I can do both, but speeding up time isn't very useful. It means that everything around me moves faster but I'm more or less catatonic in the meantime. It makes more sense for me to slow things down so that I seem like I'm moving at light speed to everyone else." While the rest of the room digested the information, Bashira added an anecdote. "Really, the only time I ever speed things up is when I want to skip out on being lectured, or want class to end quicker."
Some of the students snickered and expressed their jealousy over that particular skill, but Midoriya placed his chin in his palm, looking off in all seriousness.
"I see," the seaweed-hair murmured. "So you control the particles around you, but your own existence isn't altered?" Midoriya's voice grew more muffled and frantic as he continued. "That makes sense, then. If you can halt the passage of time within a certain radius, then Todoroki's limited ability to control his body temperature becomes almost irrelevant. It's no wonder why Endeavor wanted to combine your Quirks. If by chance you two produce an offspring that inherits all of your powers at once they'd be theoretically invincible if they trained to not solely rely on their abilities while slacking on overall stamina and tactical judgements…"
The food was forgotten to Bashira. She watched Midoriya, first through wide eyes and then a narrow stare. The boy clearly knew that her arrangement with Shoto was. Did everyone? Were Quirk Marriages really something wannabe Heroes didn't even bat an eye towards?
A nudge to her side caused Bashira to draw her attention to Shoto. Her husband never once looked to her, but the prod couldn't have come from anyone else.
What did that mean? "Stop glaring" for one, and most obviously. But why? Did Shoto not want to draw attention to Midoriya's analysis? Did he not want Bashira to question that kid's insight? Or maybe Shoto only wanted to forget the reality of what the two of them were, too. He could have been telling her to drop it.
Bashira debated for a few seconds, but then returned to eating without another word or look.
She didn't understand anything that went on in Shoto's head. She didn't know how much his friends knew or what they thought of her and Shoto's arrangement. But she was willing to play nice for now.
She could be the obedient, modest wife for at least a little while.
At the end of the night, Shoto and Bashira bid Class 3-A goodnight and headed back to their apartment.
Shoto was eased by how well everything had gone, but the comfort also made him wonder about potential trouble on the horizon.
Bashira had seemed to tense up with some questions, despite being remarkably amicable all around. She was slick with picking up on others' intentions and tones, Shoto realized; more so to the point that she seemed to over-analyze. He couldn't blame her, really, given that she'd been throw to the wolves with that class dinner.
Yet apart than that, Shoto had never heard Bashira express herself so much. In the beginning her smiles had been plastic, but once she got familiar with his friends the gestures became more natural. Bashira hadn't ever been so transparent when it was just the two of them. He'd learned a lot about her just acting as a witness.
It was normal, Shoto realized, for Bashira to be more guarded with him. He wasn't particularly bothered by the fact that they didn't share warm, joyous, stereotypical moments together. But as they walked that night, Bashira maintaining her distance a few steps ahead of him, Shoto wondered if they would get to that point one day.
Fuyumi had always tried to arrange special occasions for all of the Todoroki siblings (and Endeavor) to meet up and eat together. It rarely worked out for everyone (meaning Endeavor almost never showed) but when Shoto thought about it the meals were always memorable, fondly so. When their father wasn't around to ruin things, the Todoroki children were like-minded and bonded in their own ways. Shoto wished he would have, and could have, spent more time with them.
The subject had only been vaguely bridged by Midoriya's mumbling, but Shoto had been reminded that Bashira coming into his life had little to do with their relationship as a couple, and more to do with the Quirks they would produce together.
It still hadn't completely hit Shoto yet. He hadn't had any desire or felt any filial need to touch Bashira. Still, the reality stood that the two were paired together with that obligation in mind. One day, Bashira would need to be the mother of his children... whether their children were prodigies or not.
Shoto didn't have the slightest interest in being a father. He couldn't imagine it at all in his future. Still, if it did happen, he knew that he wouldn't be anything like Endeavor. Neither he nor Bashira were so twisted. If they did have to go through with that aspect of their arrangement, Shoto resolved that he would do it well. If Shoto had a family in the future, it would be the family that his mother had deserved, and that his sister still continued to strive for. He would change the stigma attached to the Todoroki name.
"Hey," Bashira's voice broke into Shoto's thoughts. He glanced ahead and noticed they were almost at the apartment. Bashira had seemed hesitant though, like she wasn't sure if she should talk to him or even knew how to address him. "Are you okay?"
Shoto regarded Bashira blandly. She was pretty enough, but that didn't mean much of anything to him. After meeting with his class and observing their interactions, Shoto learned that Bashira had an independent spirit. She's been raised traditionally but had enough spunk to try to explore the world and make decisions for herself. So far it didn't seem like she'd done anything too wild, though. She was unconventional but still respectable.
Shoto was almost relieved. If a Quirk Marriage had to happen, he couldn't complain about Bashira. They would get along fine.
"Yeah," Shoto responded, brushing past the girl as he made for their front door. "Just tired."
He unlocked the door and moved aside to let Bashira in before him. She entered, and Shoto followed suit. Once inside, they went their separate ways.
Shoto had to be glad that, of all people, he'd been paired with Bashira.