Izuku's hands gripped the binder tightly as he waited in Nezu's office with Makoto next to him. Nerves twisted his stomach in knots. This would end well - it had to.
When the door opened he was sure he was going to have a heart attack right then and there. Nezu strolled in with a cold Todoroki in tow. It hurt Izuku to see the guarded look back in his eyes, but when the boy saw Izuku, the look flickered from wariness to confusion. "Midoriya? What are you doing here?"
"If you'll all follow me, there's a private conference room that may be a more appropriate setting for this discussion," Nezu said pleasantly. The group wordlessly followed, staying silent until the principal left.
"So what's going on, Midoriya? Who's this?"
"This is Tsukauchi Makoto, she's a friend," Izuku said quickly. "I brought you here because… because you don't deserve to suffer anymore, Todoroki. And I have a way out for you."
"A way out?" His voice was flat, like he couldn't bring himself to consider, to hope.
"Do you know what emancipation is? Basically you are able to be your own guardian, make your own decisions. If you were emancipated, you would get to choose how involved your father is in your life. U.A. offers scholarships for exemplary students, and you would be able to live in the dorms. We're already having an officer monitor the treatment of your mother, and your older siblings are adults and they have the means to protect themselves," Izuku said. Nerves were eating at him as the heterochromatic boy just stared at Izuku. He'd kept some semblance of calm until this point, but the words seemed to catch on one another when he said, "And if you needed or wanted, you could come live with me and my mom. We have extra rooms…"
He couldn't help but shift uncomfortably in his chair as Todoroki just stared at him, face frozen in an emotionless mask. He didn't know what more to say, but Makoto stepped in.
"This is a lot to deal with all at once, isn't it?" She spoke more gently than Izuku had ever heard, eyes less intense than usual. "If you'd like, we'll explain the whole procedure to you, and answer any questions you might have. This is going to go whatever way you decide. If you want us to, we'll destroy this evidence and pretend today never happened."
Todoroki intently listened to every word that they spoke, hints of emotions flickering through his eyes. Once they finished explaining, he stared at the table for a few tense moments before raising his eyes to stare down Izuku. "You're sure this will work?"
"Not a hundred percent, but I really believe it's the best chance we've got. You deserve to be free, Todoroki."
He stared at Izuku with those mismatched eyes just a moment longer before saying, "I'm trusting you, Midoriya. If we go down, we go down together."
Hearing this, Izuku smiled impossibly brightly. "No, you mean we're on our way to a healthier, happier life. I didn't know how messed up my life was until I escaped it, so now it's your turn."
Makoto narrowed her eyes. The longer she spent around Little Midoriya, the more questions she had. Someone had hurt him, and one day she would get answers one way or another. Heaven help the fool that hurt that child - but that was if the knowledge was revealed to Naomasa and the rest of the station. Makoto was going to find out, and she was going to subtly and systematically destroy whatever public persona those people possessed. Once she was finished with Endeavor, naturally.
At that very moment, Nezu popped into the room. "Endeavor is on his way over to discuss his son's schooling. Up to this point he didn't allow young Todoroki to live in the dorms, so I insinuated that I wished to discuss the issue with him in person. Prepare yourselves."
"I thought you only told Makoto," Todoroki said, somewhere between panicking and accusing.
"I did! I just asked Nezu if I could see you, and he was the one that did all of this. I actually wasn't sure how I was going to contact Endeavor, I was maybe going to visit his agency tomorrow," Izuku said, holding his hands up. "No matter what I do, there are some things that Nezu just knows."
"And I am more unsettled than ever," Makoto said brightly. "Midoriya, please never get on the principal's bad side. Naomasa would be devastated if you disappeared one day."
They heard the man before they saw him, footsteps heavy with the sense of importance that came with being a top hero. He appeared in the doorway in all of his blazing glory. As a child, Izuku would have been thrilled beyond words, but now he thought that the hero's whole appearance was harsh and overdone. Endeavor searched the room, his face twisting into an expression of annoyance when he noticed Izuku.
"What are you doing here, child?"
He had to steel himself, but Izuku met the man's gaze, refusing to waver. "I'm here to intervene on behalf of your son."
Moments earlier, Endeavor's eyes had dismissed Todoroki, but now his eyes narrowed at his son. "Shoto, explain this nonsense."
Todoroki straightened, face impassive despite the panic that simmered under the surface. Before he could say anything, though, Makoto interjected, "I would recommend you sit down, Endeavor. And I would assume that Principal Nezu wouldn't approve of his conference room being set ablaze, so I suggest you extinguish yourself."
"I'll just be in the other room now," Nezu said, merrily closing the door behind him.
"What is this?" Endeavor demanded, eyes scanning the room.
"If you want to stand while we discuss things, that's fine," Makoto shrugged before sliding the binder across the table to Endeavor. "We so lovingly compiled this just for you."
Rolling his eyes, the hero begrudgingly sat down, flipping through the first few pages before he leveled a glare at Izuku. "Where did you get this?"
"That's not important, and don't bother burning it. We have plenty more copies if we need them. You can keep looking through it or not, but rest assured that everything in there is something that you wouldn't want the public to know. If anything happens to anyone in this room that feels like a threat, we have people who will release whatever they feel is appropriate," Izuku said with more confidence than he felt.
The man's flames went out, though the room felt at least ten degrees hotter from the intensity of the man's glare. "What do you want?"
"We're so glad you asked," Makoto said with the grin of the cat that caught the canary. "We've got some very important documents ready that will emancipate your son. You will have no rights or responsibility towards him. Any interactions with him, any financial support will be Shoto's terms The same goes with your older children, and people will be checking in regularly to ensure that your wife is receiving the care that she needs."
Endeavor continued skimming through the binder, his jaw clenching more and more tightly with each page. Izuku wouldn't say that he looked defeated, necessarily, but he had accepted the inevitability of the situation. Accepting the paperwork from Makoto, he asked stonily, "And how am I supposed to explain this to the public?"
"You decided your son deserved the opportunity to make his own way in the world of heroics. He needed to step outside of your shadow," Izuku said coldly. "Hopefully in the meantime you'll gain an actual sense of morality."
Endeavor signed the paperwork with enough force to shatter the pen before rising from the table. "When you decide to come crawling back, Shoto, there will be hell to pay for this impudence."
"He won't need to come back," Izuku said stubbornly.
"You may have had accomplices, but this whole situation stinks of you, quirkless child. One day reality will catch up with you, and you will learn your place in society: an insignificant insect to be crushed underfoot."
Makoto blinked. "That would sound a lot more threatening if you weren't currently being blackmailed by a so-called 'insect.'"
As if on cue, Nezu appeared to usher out the growling Endeavor. "Thank you for coming on such short notice, Mr. Todoroki. We need this room soon, so if you'd kindly be on your way…"
Endeavor left, led by Nezu as Todoroki stared straight ahead, eyes unseeing. "I don't have to go home again. But… I don't have a home."
"That's not true, Todoroki. Maybe one of your siblings will invite you to live with them, but as long as you want it there's a spare room at my house waiting for you," Izuku said earnestly. "You could even come over for dinner tonight if you wanted."
He nodded numbly and allowed Izuku to lead the way. It was just in time, too, because Izuku had the sudden, visceral need to flee. He had just confronted the Number Two hero, directly putting his life in the line of fire, and he was acutely aware that the Number One hero was due any minute now for his interview with Makoto.
In true Nezu fashion, the principal didn't allow Izuku to talk to him, he merely waved the boy on, saying, "I'll make a note of young Todoroki's whereabouts to his teachers."
Nodding thanks, Izuku hurried out of the school, leftover tension spurring him on more quickly. Eventually, though, he was able to slow down, much to Todoroki's relief. And like at the training camp, both boys found it easier to talk than usually. They spoke about everything and nothing at the same time, each unwilling or simply unable to address the real issues at hand. But this also came with the comfort of knowing that there was time. There was time to worry about what did happen, what didn't happen, or what might happen. And in this moment, there was time to not worry about anything at all.
Todoroki wasn't sure what to expect from this whole situation, but in his wildest dreams he couldn't have expected this. He didn't know what it meant to come to a warm house with freshly made cold soba and a teary mother figure waiting for him. He felt awkward and the conversation was stinted, especially whenever Mrs. Midoriya began crying. But at the end of it all the Midoriyas showed him the bedroom that was his. It was smaller than he was used to and filled with secondhand items, which Izuku and Inko repeatedly apologized for, promising that they could replace anything and everything with things he picked himself. An alien warmth filled his chest, and Todoroki found himself saying, "Don't worry, it's perfect."
Meanwhile, however, Shinsou Hitoshi sat in his bedroom, idly flipping through a binder. "This is some spicy stuff," he said to the absurdly fluffy cat lounging across his bed. "I kind of want Endeavor to mess up so I can watch him crash and burn."
Excerpts from Izuku's Analysis
Name: Bakugou Katsuki "Kacchan"
Age: 16
Height: 172 cm (5'8")
Occupation: Hero Student
Physical Description: Kacchan has spiky blond hair and red eyes. He's fairly muscular, though not as bulky as some.
Personality: Kacchan has a personality almost as explosive as his quirk. [The rest has been redacted for his personal safety.]
Quirk: "Explosion" or "Explosive Sweat." Kacchan sweats something similar to nitroglycerin, and he can detonate that sweat via his hands. It seems he can only activate explosions through his hands. His explosion leaves behind a sweet smell, almost like burnt sugar.
Notes: [Redacted]
A/N: Hey everyone, I'm alive! I know it's been forever since the last chapter, and this one is shorter than usual. This isn't going to be the norm, I promise. I've been struggling a lot with some residual grief, but I'm also a senior in college with two jobs, and something had to be put on the back burner for a while. I can't promise anything major anytime soon, but I just have to make it through finals, and then I get a month off of school. I want to thank each of you that left a kind comment last chapter, I appreciate each of you for that.
On a brighter note, in the next chapter Izuku is going undercover! Things are getting moving! I also got a comment last chapter that apparently someone made a tvtropes page for Detective Midoriya! I'm so frickin proud rn guys, I don't even know how to process it! I also may have mentioned this to Kit, along with the fact that several people have left comments about making fanart for this fic. She says she's waiting for it, and I'm the meantime she's coming up with even more terrible puns. Prepare yourselves. Leave a comment, let me know what you think, it makes my day brighter!
-Rogue
Edit: Sorry for the multiple emails, I'm posting from my phone and apparently this website hates me.