Warning: suicidal thoughts, some self-harm. In case I've missed something and you think you might be triggered at any point, please refer to the warnings in the first chapter. And to be safe, it might be best to constantly keep in mind that Shoto is a slightly dramatic, traumatized teenager and a very unreliable narrator.
This chapter also contains a little silliness and concerned Good Adults, so it's not all angst.

Shoto kicked the ground beneath his feet, lightly, and resisted the urge to sigh aloud.

The final exam had been… not at all like he had expected—especially considering that he, along with his classmates, had been expecting towering metal constructs, and had instead been met with their powerful, pro-hero teachers.

When it was announced that he would be paired with Yaoyorozu, to fight against Aizawa-sensei, Shoto had been apprehensive about their chances, because even weighed down by a considerable handicap, Sensei was no low-level thug. Still, despite that apprehension, Shoto's first instinct had actually been relief—because All Might had been in that line up, and the thought of going up against the Number One, when he was so far from ready, had nearly paralyzed him for a few endless seconds.

Some of the relief must have carried over into his overall mindset because it didn't occur to Shoto, until they were already at the site where they would be tested, that he should have taken advantage of the short drive to the facility to discuss plans with Yaoyorozu. This mistake had quickly become apparent, as the announcing of the start of their battle had immediately shown him another obstacle in their potential path to winning:

Shoto paused, and looked at his fellow recommendation student incredulously.

"What do you mean, you don't have a plan? Don't be ridiculous, of course you have a plan. I'm just throwing out ideas to get us moving; nothing I say needs to be set in stone. We don't have a lot of time, so I'm sorry to be harsh, but I'd appreciate it if you could get to it already."

Her flinch still made him slightly guilty, which in turn annoyed him further, as he had already apologized and the clock was tick-tick-ticking.

Giving Sensei the time to ambush them like this was like asking to be curb-stomped.

"I…" Yaoyorozu stopped, looking tearful and terribly uncertain, and Shoto deliberately didn't roll his eyes like he wanted to. Instead, he loosened the muscles in his face and attempted to be kind.

It probably came off as brisk more than anything, in the end, but if Yaoyorozu wanted a soft touch, she would have to wait until after the exam to find it. "I know you can do this, Yaoyorozu. You're smart and you're capable, and if you have an idea, I know it'll be a good one. Stop hesitating and tell me what you're thinking, before we run out of time."

"Well said," came a voice above their heads, and then they really were out of time.

The exam had gone well, in the end. Yaoyorozu came through, and they managed to trap Sensei in the tight constraints of his own capture scarf—even if it had been an imitation made by Yaoyorozu's quirk, Creation, and had had a different function.

They had passed, and Yaoyorozu had been moved to tears by Sensei's honest compliments of her abilities. They had then gone back to wait with the other students for the exams to end.

And that left Shoto, sitting on the curb outside of the building holding the examiners and the viewing stations, chewing the inside of his cheek nearly bloody over the images that kept sneaking across his mind's eye:

Sensei, leaping backward. Shoto, white strands flying about him, his fire sparking to life in his hand. Shoto, sending that fire streaming towards Sensei, who was subsequently caught by the hardening material of the imitation-capture weapon.

The fire was what had him staring at the ground and biting on the uncomfortable feeling that wouldn't stop trying to migrate from his stomach to his chest, and back again.

He had used his fire in combat, again. Ever since Hosu, Shoto had considered using his fire during training at home, or during Foundational Hero Studies; but each time, he had flinched away from using it, the thought still too unsettling, the memories too raw.

Using his fire to protect himself and others, and against some who deserved it, was one thing; using his fire against someone who he happened to strongly respect—and tentatively enjoy being around—was another. But Yaoyorozu had been counting on him; Shoto had done what he needed to do, knowing that if he hesitated, they would fail, and it would not be only his failure that he would have to shoulder.

He flexed the muscles of his left arm, watching them shift the clothing hiding them from view, and pondered the mysteries of quirks, and their origins, and the lengths people would go to to obtain them—and what lengths he would have to go to to be rid of his own, if he thought such a thing were truly possible.

"What's got you thinking so deeply out here, little listener?" a loud voice boomed, sounding almost directly by his ear, and with a yelp, Shoto fell onto his side and into a roll, his heartbeat beginning to thunder in his ears as adrenaline levels rose—

"Whoa whoa whoa, little—Todoroki-kun! It's just your good ol' English teacher, Present Mic! Mic-sensei! Kid, relax, I'm getting jittery just looking at you."

Looking up at the man staring down at him in apparent concern from behind large sunglasses, Shoto slowly pulled himself to his feet, too stunned to feel embarrassed.

"What are you doing here?" he asked, too surprised to avoid his usual blunt lack of social awareness. Mic-sensei pressed his hand to his heart and leaned back, making a 'pew' noise with his mouth that seemed to serve no purpose, and was also confusing.

"You do have a way with words, young listener! Can't a man look for a peaceful stretch of ground without any creeping, slithering things running across it, without getting the third-degree?"

Shoto understood about… one-third of that sentence, but he nodded, because Mic-sensei was his teacher and also an adult, and it was generally safe to just agree in this type of situation.

Mic-sensei's glasses, which had slipped down his nose, revealed gleaming, green-ringed irises in eyes that squinted happily at his acquiescence. He then plopped himself onto the ground, on a raised concrete block, and gestured at Shoto to sit down again. Shoto did so, slowly, wondering what exactly was happening here.

He and his English teacher didn't interact much. English class verged on the edge of too much for him to handle, most days, with its loudness and constant engaging of his students from Mic-sensei, who was demanding even when he wasn't trying. Shoto wouldn't admit it if it killed him (mostly because he got the feeling it would kill Mic-sensei), but he had been kind of going out of his way to avoid the loud man.

Looking at him now, with crazily-styled hair spiking up out of his head like an exclamation point, his bright-colored eyes staring happily into the distance and an unfamiliar tune hummed under his breath, Shoto thought that maybe he had been a little too hasty in his avoidance.

The man seemed… diminished, somehow, sitting like this with Shoto, on the ground outside the building. He wasn't lesser by any means, but he was definitely quieter, the whole of his body seeming to settle into the comfortable silence that had fallen between them. It made him more approachable, more… human, and Shoto found himself relaxing, too, into the peacefulness of it.

"You doing all right, kid?" the man asked, after a few more moments of silence had passed.

Shoto moved his eyes away from an ant that was laboriously making its way between his feet and looked to his right, puzzled. "…Yes? Should I not be?"

A quick grin was his answer, as well as a shake of a blond head. "Not at all! It's just that I saw your fight with Shota—ah, Eraserhead. That was something, huh."

It could have been a random comment. Shoto fisted his right hand and pulled it into his lap, resisting the urge to begin scratching at his left side in a move that, he realized with some surprise, he hadn't felt the urge to do for some time now.

It could have been a random comment… but Shoto felt, somehow, that it hadn't been, and chose to take it as such.

"I wouldn't have hurt him," he said, the words coming out thickly, distant and detached, when he didn't feel anything of the sort. "I'm not as proficient in the left side of my quirk as I am with my right, but that doesn't mean… I wouldn't have hurt him."

"Kid… that wasn't what I—"

Shoto stared down at his lap, felt the tingling running from his toes and up through the scarred skin surrounding his eye, and unclenched his hand—wandering fingers quickly finding purchase, and digging deep.

"I would rather kill myself than hurt someone—someone who didn't deserve it—with the left side of my power," he said over Mic-sensei's words, feeling something inside himself settle as he said it. The tingling grew less pronounced, even, and Shoto felt the words latch onto a part of himself that he had failed to acknowledge before now, and cling.

Death would be preferable, when he really thought about it. Of course, he would do his absolute best to ensure that that eventuality never came to pass, but… even then. The knowledge that he had the resolve to do what it would take to keep the people around him safe—safe from the danger his very nature represented—was… good.

Shoto drew his nails sharply down his side and thought: Very good.

"Hey!" a voice snapped. Shoto looked up, where the words had come from, and leaned back in surprise.

Mic-sensei stood in front of him, hands on his hips, a very uncharacteristic frown pulling at his ever-smiling mouth. His sunglasses were nowhere in sight, and even with the sun blocked by his very tall form (something Shoto had never really noticed before now: Mic-sensei was very, very tall), it did nothing to detract from the brightness of his eyes, and the way his eyebrows were pulled together over them. Shoto felt the bizarre sight jar him out of his thoughts, and he wondered how he hadn't noticed the man standing up.

"I don't want to hear that from you, boyo. That's… you have issues with your quirk, okay, I understand, you're not the first and you won't be the last, but…"

Mic-sensei ran a hand up his hair, smoothing it but not crushing it, and made a frustrated noise. He began pacing in front of Shoto, who followed him with his eyes, hesitantly attempting to put together what had his teacher in such an unexpected state.

Then Mic-sensei spun around, something in his face settling into determined lines, and Shoto straightened shoulders that had begun to bend, and swallowed around an unexpected twinge of nervousness.

Something about Mic-sensei, when he was like this, really reminded Shoto of the fact that his teachers—all of them, come to think of it—were pro-heroes, with the power to back up the title.

Mic-sensei leaned down, and Shoto didn't startle at the hands that dropped to his shoulders, only because they had been so obviously telegraphed that he hadn't even thought to.

"Promise me something, Todoroki-kun," Mic-sensei said, somber and unsmiling, and Shoto nodded before he even stopped to think.

"You—aw, kid, you really need to think before agreeing to stuff, you know? At least hear the person out first, okay? But that's not what I want you to promise, so listen:

"If there ever comes a time when you lose control of your quirk—your fire, which I'm guessing is the real problem here—I want you to promise me that you'll go to someone, anyone. Me, preferably, or Shot—your homeroom teacher, who I know for a fact will be able to talk you through what happened, and talk you down if the need arises."

He had nodded his promise, not-quite a binding agreement without being verbal, but one he wasn't going to back down from. Still, what his teacher was saying wasn't quite making sense in his mind, and Shoto guessed that was written pretty much all over his face, as Mic-sensei took one closer look at it—eyes jumping from one point to the next—before sighing.

"Don't worry about the details, all right? I just want you to promise that you will, before anything else."

Shoto, even though he was still confused, could tell that this meant a lot to the man with the power to raise his voice to deafening levels, but who was here, in front of Shoto, talking so quietly and softly. So he nodded, again, and this time added a verbal oath:

"I will, I promise."

Mic-sensei sighed, an explosive exhalation of air, and the lines of his body melted in relief. The hands on his shoulders tightened momentarily, then released, and Mic-sensei plopped himself back down onto the concrete block beside Shoto. Shoto himself placed a hand on his left shoulder, squeezing gently, and marveled at the way this touch, too, hadn't felt like burning.

"WHEW, MY GOODNESS!" Shoto leaned away from the words, eyebrows wrinkling at the reemergence of the hated volume. "Whoops, sorry, my bad, I'm just so relieved that—anyway."

Leaving the conclusion to that confusing sentence up in the air, Mic-sensei stretched his arms above his head and yawned, picked up his quiet humming again, and dropped the conversation without further comment.

Shoto mentally shrugged the weirdness away, and settled his weight on the hands he stretched out behind him, squinting at the force of the direct sunlight above.

Something dark slipped down over his eyes, and Shoto tilted his head onto his right shoulder and stared at Mic-sensei through the dark lenses of his new sunglasses.

"How do I look?" he asked, instead of questioning it. The warmth of the sun, his new resolution and the comfort of quiet, undemanding company, was making him feel mellow and pleasantly relaxed. It brought out the small side of him that enjoyed humor and jokes, and being the one to deliver both.

Mic-sensei gave him a lopsided, secretive smile, and whispered: "You look like a mini-me, kid. I love it."

The words joined the pleasant humming underneath his skin, and Shoto grinned back, uncaring whether it was inappropriate to be joking like this, with an adult who had considerable power over his future.

"Are you corrupting my student, Hizashi?" a deep voice intoned from behind Shoto's head. Shoto tilted it back even further, letting the glasses tip precariously over his eyes, and stared up at his dark-eyed teacher.

"Hi, Sensei," Shoto said casually. The warmth that had started from the slope of his shoulders and had spread to the rest of his body moved up to his ears, turning them red even as he said, as cheekily as he dared: "Like my new look?"

His answer came in the form of fingers flicking his nose, and Shoto wrinkled it and sat forward, so he could turn around and (though he barely dared think the thought) pout at his teacher.

"Ow?" he said, trying the word on for size.

(His heart pounded, frantically beating at the bones caging it in as of to say: whatareyoudoingwhatareyoudoingwhatAREYOUDOINGYOUIDIOT!

But... This was Aizawa-sensei, who wouldn't... he wouldn't get angry, at a little playfulness. Aizawa-sensei was different from most adults: strangely nice, with a weird sense of humor. Patient. Kind. And Mic-sensei was here, too, the funny man who was also weirdly nice... So he wouldn't, he wouldn't—)

The look he got was all raised eyebrows, and the hand that tousled his hair, almost knocking the glasses off his nose and sending his hair flying in all directions, felt nearly… indulgent. The lazy grin, caught in the lenses covering his eyes, settled the excited thumping in his chest, and brought a matching grin to his face.

"Stop lazying about, brat. It's time to announce the results. Hizashi, get off your ass and stop being a bad influence, you're a disgrace."

Exchanging another secretive look with the man beside him as Shoto went to return the sunglasses ("Keep them," Mic-sensei said with a grin, and Shoto didn't argue), Shoto let Mic-sensei's large hand wrap around his own and pull him to his feet.

The sun was shining, he had passed his exams and his fire lay dormant within his left side, the itch running over it long forgotten.