A/N: Very excited to share this piece for the BnHA Big Bang! Artwork is by artiemisiaa, see profile for art and links.

cw: mentions of death, mentions of blood and injury, mentions of police


"Todoroki-san," said Takemura gravely. "Although your resume is impressive, it's not the best fit for our program. Can you explain to me how your experience in foundation-phase education prepares you for a career as a hostage negotiator?"

Fuyumi pushed her glasses up her nose slightly, and let out a small sigh. "I was hoping it wouldn't come to this," she said, pulling another folder out of her purse. She opened it and slid it across the table to the admissions officer.

His eyes widened as he looked at the color photo Fuyumi's nail was tapping on. "Kept this one alive for ten years," she said dully. "Call me back when you've read the rest."

Takemura barely noticed when Todoroki Fuyumi left his office. Of course he knew who she was; the whole of Japan knew who she was, whose family she was, both hero and villain. Still, he had the sinking feeling that he didn't want to know the details that were in the thick set of documents that had a picture of Pro Hero Shouto paper-clipped to one corner.


Fuyumi got the call not a day later.

"Todoroki-san, it is our pleasure to extend to you an offer of enrollment into Japan's top hostage negotiator course."

"Thank you," replied Fuyumi. "I gratefully accept. However, I should have you know that I'm in this to save lives, not for pleasure."

After all, heroes came in many different forms these days.

"You're the reason any of us are alive and free," Rei said to her when she heard the news.

It was strange indeed to think that an ordinary kindergarten teacher could live up to that description. Fuyumi borrowed a move of her brothers' and shrugged noncommittally. "It's not like Shouto didn't help."

Rei gestured around her, at the house, the Todoroki family home of a different era. "Each of us can save in different ways, dear. You know that full well. And besides."

Fuyumi looked up at her mother's pause, and saw so much warmth in those grey eyes that she could almost swear someone with a fire Quirk was in the room.

"You were always the first one on the scene. For me, for Enji, for Shouto and even Natsuo… you stepped in before we even knew we needed help, and stuck with us no matter how bad things got. I can't see you doing anything different for anyone else, even if they're complete strangers."

Fuyumi swallowed hard, then nodded. "Mmm."

She didn't trust herself to speak, but she hoped with all her heart that her mother was right.

Rei laughed, a quiet sound like falling snow. "Come here," she said, opening her arms, and Fuyumi went. "I'm so very proud of you. You're going to be amazing in this new role."

Fuyumi nodded again, clutching hard at her mother's sweater. She would try her best, as she had always done, but sometimes – one time, the one time that mattered – she hadn't even thought to try, didn't know how Touya was struggling until he was gone.

Never again, Fuyumi swore to herself, mouthing it silently into her mother's shoulder. She'd become that kind of person, who wouldn't let things like that happen.

Rei held on to her for as long as she needed it, but eventually Fuyumi wiped her misty eyes, straightened her back, and got to work.


one year later...


"I saw Fuyumi at work today," volunteered Shinsou.

Shouto felt a small frown form on his face at that. Shinsou rarely volunteered anything, much less chit chat. One of the many small yet important factors that made their roommate situation ideal.

At least it was typical Shinsou that he'd said this when Shouto was on his way out the door.

"I thought she was still embedded with the police," Shouto replied, picking up Kinako and scratching the cat's ears absently, since they were both lingering by the doorway anyway. "Did she transfer to… wherever it is you're contracting with right now."

As freelancers, Shouto and Shinsou had both long ago given up the hopeless task of keeping track of where the other was currently collaborating.

"Eraserhead," said Shinsou, tempting Shouto to delay his appearance to Ingenium's offices an extra five minutes to press for more clues about Aizawa and Shinsou's clearly familial relationship. "And she's still doing her traineeship, apparently, although they fast-tracked her after that embassy debacle, so she's already going to be supporting SWAT and some of the more specialized heroics missions."

"Huh." Shouto would have to remember to call Fuyumi later. They still had their bi-monthly family dinners, but he'd missed a lot of them recently due to the demands of typhoon season and his contract with the Red Cross. "Maybe I should take on more violent crime assignments. It would be nice to work together, get a chance to see her in action," he mused.

"Just stay out of the gangs, they're intense right now," Shinsou advised, slamming back a can of coffee before tossing it in the recycling bin. "Right. Well. I said hi. Duty done, so remember the next time she sends over food I get my rightful fifty percent. Did you feed the cats?"

"Yeah," Shouto answered, reluctantly releasing Kinako and sneaking a peek at the time. He'd gone and earned some extra vigorous hand-chopping from Iida with his dawdling. "Bye. Sleep well."

He shouldn't have bothered with a farewell. A glance back at the couch showed Shinsou already fast asleep, a half dozen of their cats joining him for their morning naps.


a few weeks later...


"You should've heard her, Shinsou, it was amazing," gushed Midoriya.

Hitoshi side-eyed Bakugou with no small amount of jealousy, wishing that he, too, had hearing aids he could just turn off. He tried wrapping his capture weapon around his head and ears, but if anything it seemed to make Midoriya louder.

"I was at a complete loss," Midoriya continued. "Not combat-wise, of course, but honestly the last thing the situation needed was a Detroit Smash. I was so glad when they called in negotiators, because there were people who could've gotten hurt real bad if I'd made a move. I mean, there was a 79% probability that I'd get to 60% of the hostages before anything went wrong and then a 110% chance that if the villains had tried anything I would've just rather flung myself in front of the bullets, you know?"

Hitoshi did know. "Why do they even send you into hostage situations," he grumbled to himself. He didn't need to know a ton of math to know that those usually ended up with Deku in the hospital after going Plus Ultra trying to save everyone at once. "That's what people like me are for."

And like Fuyumi. Hitoshi had watched her growing career with as much interest as he could muster for things that weren't heroism, cats, coffee, or the existential fears that kept him up at night, and he found himself scarily invested in her success. He blamed his roommate for that, and while he was at it he tacked on the charge of having to hear Midoriya prattle on when Hitoshi was nearing the end of his shift and just wanted to go home, play with a few of his cats and drink coffee before passing out for the day.

"Emotional intelligence, that's what she has." Midoriya was still talking. "I know she doesn't have an empath Quirk, since I asked Shouto twice already, but it's like Fuyumi nee-san just has to know one or two things about a person and she immediately knows what they really want. This poor person was just so lonely and ostracized –"

"Nee-san?" Hitoshi pounced on Midoriya's slip-up. Pot calling the kettle black, he knew, but Midoriya wasn't the most frequent visitor to the apartment when Fuyumi stopped by to cook. That would be Bakugou, who made everything into a competition and never backed down from a challenge, even if it was one of his own making.

"Oh, well, you know, we were talking after, and she said that since I'm Shouto's best friend already, I might as well call her –"

"You Endeavor's secret lovechild or something?" Hitoshi deadpanned in his best Todoroki impression. He didn't even bother using his voice changer.

"SHINSOU-KUN!" Midoriya screeched, so loudly that it earned him a shut it, Deku! from Bakugou.

"Sorry," said Hitoshi, not sorry. "I meant, are you the Number One Hero's secret lovechild or something."

He watched in satisfaction as Midoriya did a red-faced dance of embarrassment that he was pretty sure Bakugou was subtly filming. Number ranks were a thing of the past, so in their lifetimes there'd only been two Number One Heroes – All Might and Endeavor.

"Oi, Deku!" barked Bakugou when he visibly started to lose interest in his film footage. "You gonna keep wiggling like a pre-schooler needing to pee, or are you gonna stop bothering mini-Zawa over here –"

"I resent that," sighed Hitoshi.

"– and shove all that wordy fucking analysis into the incident report where it belongs? Nee-san only needs another three successful de-escalations credited to her before the brass graduates her summa cum laude."

"Oh, ha, of course you're right Kacchan, I've got some great adjectives picked out, I'll be sure they know it was all because of her… wait a minute. Nee-san?!"

"Welcome to the family," intoned Hitoshi. Midoriya should be grateful that Hitoshi's mask was hiding a grin which he had no doubt was borderline cannibalistic.


a few months later...


"Kanpai!" Glasses clicked together merrily, and Fuyumi sighed in contentment. She'd done it. All those late nights and long days, stressful assignments both in the academy and in the field –and she was finally qualified for more of that, only with one hundred percent of the responsibility on her shoulders, for success and failure alike.

"You'll do great, nee-san," said Natsuo, eyes crinkling at the corners. "I swear you could talk an arsonist into giving up fireworks."

"It's not that hard," mused Shouto, and Natsuo mock-gasped and inserted a comment about the many phases of moody pre-teens. "Especially if they have raging Daddy issues."

The long slurp of noodles that followed gave everyone just enough time to blink before bursting into laughter. Mouth full, Shouto joined in with a sly smile.

They'd come a long way, Fuyumi thought, wiping away a tear of laughter, to be able to genuinely laugh about things like that. And the fact that their mother was sitting here with her children, that her two dumb brothers could be their true snarky selves without worrying for her, that their father finally understood when to give them space and when he might be begrudgingly accepted... it might not be the perfect family as any of them had envisioned, but it was a family that was healing, and that was all Fuyumi had ever wanted.

Even if... even if Touya wasn't there.

She wondered if he'd be proud of her, like the rest of them were. In another life, she could see it: herself as his support, using her mind and words to save where his fire and cunning protected. But that was someone else's vision for their lives, and while Fuyumi might choose it in hindsight, she wasn't sure that Touya would. Even when he'd ended up choosing a path that was so much worse, Fuyumi knew that it was at the very least his own.

"You okay there, sis?" Natsuo's sharp eyes read the sudden sombering of her mood. "They're not putting you to work right away, are they?"

Fuyumi shook her head, coming back into the moment, because it was a good moment to be in. "No, the certification needs to go through the proper channels so I'll have two weeks off in the meantime. And then of course the orientation for becoming a proper negotiator instead of a trainee –"

The loud ring of Shouto's phone interrupted her, and he scrambled to answer it; it was the work ringtone they were all by now extremely familiar with.

"Where the hell are you, Todoroki?!" yelled a voice loud enough to be heard by the whole table despite the tinny phone speakers.

Shouto's startled look met Fuyumi's for an instant; suddenly she realized that they were both halfway out of their chairs.

"Ah," Fuyumi said, struggling against instinct to sit back down.

There was an awkward pause. The person on the other side of the phone was not happy with that.

"The fuck, get your hot and cold ass over here pronto, you don't sign up to be on-call for Dragon-level combat threats and then back out on G2Z, I want you on damage control so Round Face and I can go apeshit already!"

"Sorry," Shouto said, then covered the phone's microphone, adding unnecessarily: "It's Bakugou. I've got to go. Sorry for stealing your spotlight, nee-san. Unless you'd rather?"

Fuyumi giggled and shooed him towards the door. "Next time, maybe. I'll win, too!"

Not against whatever monstrous destructive force was currently running amok, she was sure, but against the more insidious poisons that festered at people until they lashed out at others... those she would always fight against with her whole mind and heart. "Go keep everyone safe, Shouto-outo."

She shouldn't have bothered. Shouto was already halfway out the door, a smart remark aimed at Bakugou halfway out of his mouth, but Fuyumi found she didn't mind one bit.

Her time would come, and when it did, she would be victorious, too.


a few days later...


"Clearly, I have to change my last name, now that Fuyumi works in the metro area more often than I do. Besides, she's had it for longer. Shinsou, can I have yours?"

"Wha?" Hitoshi blinked awake as a cold finger poked him in the side. "No."

He wasn't one hundred percent sure what Todoroki had asked, but it was always best not to enable him.

An explosion rocked the room, and Hitoshi started to drift off again to the soothing noise of Bakugou's screams.

"Why not? Aren't we common-law married yet?"

"Someone's been watching too much American television. Besides, that takes longer than six years," Hitoshi mumbled, then shivered. Todoroki had thrown up an icy shield around the bleachers they were sitting on, as Bakugou and Uraraka's attempt at their new supermove got out of control.

"What do you mean, too much destruction?" Uraraka yelled from somewhere in the space above them. "It's called Skyfall, not Sky-let-you-down-gently!"

"How long does it take then?" Trust Todoroki to be completely unperturbed by small local disasters. Come to think of it, Hitoshi wasn't exactly sure why he'd been roped into this hangout with the Terrible Two. Sure, G2Z – as Denki had nicknamed the agency based on the nicknames of its founders, Ground Zero and Zero Gravity – had the best gym around, but Hitoshi wasn't a big one for Quirked sparring in general.

"Too long for… whatever you need to be common-law married to me for."

Hitoshi hoped that was the end of that, but of course it wasn't.

"Uraraka!" Todoroki deserted the ice shelter to climb up to the announcer's box and use the PA. "Can I have your last name?"

"What?! Of course not!"

"The fuck do ya wanna be called Round Face Shouto for?" hollered Bakugou, who needed no PA system.

"So I don't keep getting confused with my sister," Todoroki replied. "What about yours, then?"

There was a large explosion and then something that looked roughly like a human grenade was falling from the sky. Hitoshi's view was still partially obscured by ice, but his ears worked fine and he was pretty sure it was screaming "Bakugou Shouto?" to itself in disbelief, only getting caught at the last minute by one of Uraraka's wires.

"Why the fuck do you need to be a Bakugou all of a sudden?" yelled said family's most vocal member, once he was no longer in danger of impacting the ground.

"Oh. I don't want that name of yours. I'll take Führer President King Explosion Murder Shouto, please."

Uraraka picked that moment to release Bakugou. Hitoshi could swear he saw her sly smile before it broke into hearty laughter.

"That's not my goddamn name! And the Red Cross will fucking fire your two-toned ass if you get a name like that!" Bakugou's enthusiasm was there, but the delivery was somewhat lacking as it was spat out around a mouthful of rubble.

"I volunteer. They can't fire me."

Hitoshi, if he cared enough to do such things (if he did, it was only for Aizawa-sensei's sake, the old man was sentimental after all) would mark that moment as the day Bakugou Katsuki mastered the art of cooperation. A sharp glance at Uraraka was all it took for the two of them to fly into seamless, unified action.

The roof of the gym didn't stand a chance.

Neither did the lookout booth, which Todoroki abandoned with a flash of flame that got lost in the general exploding the rest of everything was doing, and once or twice the ice tunnel that he directed over himself and Hitoshi shook ominously with heavy impacts of debris that had been given a gravity-assist or five.

"Isn't this the second time this month they've destroyed their own gym?" Todoroki wondered aloud, eyes widening minutely as a shard of concrete almost pierced through the thick ice.

Hitoshi nodded morosely. What was the use of mooching off of someone's training facilities if they just kept blowing them up before they could even get a chance to use them? "I say this with only the utmost respect, but… gravity is a bitch and her name is Uraraka Ochako."

Todoroki let out a wistful sigh as part of the ice tunnel caved in behind them, yet the rest of the concrete rain floated almost gently to the ground everywhere outside the target zone which happened to be their heads. "I know. And I want to be That Bitch."

Hitoshi felt a headache come on, because he should have expected that Todoroki couldn't just use whatever normal, socially accepted technique existed for demonstrating that he was proud of his sister.

"With that last name," Todoroki continued. "So that I don't keep getting confused with Fuyumi."

The next piece of rubble that came whistling down into the ice, Hitoshi willed to smack him in the forehead.


a few days later...


Hitoshi slowly awoke to the smell of frying garlic and onions, and a level of silence that meant it wasn't Bakugou in the kitchen.

Good. He needed coffee, and he would much rather deal with Fuyumi than with Bakugou first thing in the evening.

"Hi." Hitoshi's muttered greeting might have sounded like it came from a newly-resurrected corpse, but Fuyumi paid it no mind.

"Coffee's in the pot. Did you sleep well, Hitoshi-kun?"

"No."

Fuyumi clicked her tongue but carried on with her cooking nonetheless.

A good quarter liter of strong espresso later, Hitoshi felt capable of raising his head from the kitchen table to engage with the world once again. "Congratulations, by the way."

"Oh! Thank you, Hitoshi-kun! Although it's really not going to be much different now that I've graduated the program. Other than more choice in where I'm assigned, and better pay and benefits of course."

"Still." Hitoshi remembered what it had been like to graduate UA and feel like he'd finally accomplished a dream he'd had for so long, while simultaneously scared out of his mind that he'd proceed to make a mess of it all. "You've worked hard to get here."

"You helped!"

Hitoshi grunted into his coffee cup. That was Fuyumi for you, always a little too quick in his opinion to credit her own accomplishments towards someone else. True, their lines of work were very similar; they'd shared criminal psychology textbooks, argued through case studies, and critiqued examples from Hitoshi's job, but it wasn't like Hitoshi had done any of the work for her. If anything, she'd made him a better hero.

Kind, sensitive words like this were unfortunately not Hitoshi's speciality so much as the ones which bit through defenses at vulnerable spots or incented visceral reactions. Their approaches to winning the mind- and word-game against criminals reflected this: Hitoshi was cruel to be kind, and Fuyumi kind to be cruel, often lamenting the irony that compassion and understanding became tools to manipulate the perpetrator rather than help them – but even someone as dedicated as her couldn't find a way to save both the victims and the criminals.

The opening of the front door pulled Hitoshi from his thoughts, but he resolved to re-visit the thought at a later hour of the night and text it to Fuyumi.

"Oh, Fuyumi-san is here!" Tsuyu's voice croaked from the entrance. "Hello! Don't mind me, kero, I'm just stopping by for a few minutes."

"Welcome, Tsuyu-chan!" Fuyumi called, not pausing in her vegetable chopping. Hitoshi reluctantly echoed her.

Tsuyu's head poked into the kitchen a moment later, her froggy form already swarmed by her favorite cats. "Shinsou-chan? Already awake?"

"I do live here, you know."

"So does Todoroki-chan, but I hardly ever see either of you."

"We prefer it when visitors aren't here for us."

"Hitoshi-kun!" Fuyumi scolded, but then threw him a wink when Tsuyu ducked back out at the clear dismissal to play with the cats, which was why she was here in the first place.

Hitoshi rolled his eyes at Fuyumi; she knew she was an exception to rule, because she cooked for them. Although if that was the only criterion, that would include Bakugou too, and Hitoshi wasn't sure how he felt about that, because the way Shouto bickered pettily with the blond tended to suck the air out of the room and the life out of him.

"How many people have the key to your apartment, by the way?" Fuyumi asked, interrupting Hitoshi's musings.

"It's a passcode," said HItoshi, a little pointlessly, because clearly Fuyumi already knew that. "So about forty?"

Fuyumi clicked her tongue and shook her head. "Of all the brothers I thought would grow up to run a speakeasy, Shouto wasn't one of them."

Hitoshi yawned to hide a snort of laughter. "But he was the one most likely to run a cat cafe. Which is basically what this is."

"Doesn't the HPSC get down your necks about this?"

Hitoshi allowed himself to be a bit smug when he replied. "We're freelance, they can't do anything to us. Besides, they avoid Shouto like the plague."

"Mmmmmm."

Hitoshi felt a bit guilty for referencing the whole family shitshow of several years past, but it had shaken up society enough that it was an impossible topic to avoid forever.

"Still. It doesn't seem particularly safe."

"Neither do our jobs. Besides, Razorclaw Destruction God and Edamame attack intruders on sight."

"Even after all this time? They still haven't been adopted?"

"The only person I know who'd be interested in a guard cat named one of them, and Bakugou's building doesn't allow pets."

"What a shame. They're sweet cats, underneath it all."

"Yeah," Hitoshi agreed, eyeing the two former alley cats, who were currently engaged in a spirited scuffle over the kitchen scratching tree. "One day they'll find a forever family. Shouto's pretty attached to Razorclaw though, so I could see them staying with us, too."

"I wish I could take one more," Fuyumi sighed, scraping the veggies off the chopping board and into the pan with a sizzle. "Little Azuki is such a precious bean -"

Hitoshi would've called her out on the doubtless intentional pun, but Fuyumi's phone was ringing so he lost the opportunity.

"Moshi moshi!" Fuyumi's voice, and the phone's speaker volume, was loud to be heard over the frying vegetables.

"Nee-san." Shouto's low drone sounded through the device. "Don't panic."

Hitoshi saw a frown crinkle Fuyumi's brow before she purposefully relaxed it. "Then don't say things like that."

"I won't be able to make it to dinner. I'm in the hospital –"

Hitoshi saw the effort it took for Fuyumi to exhale slowly yet silently.

"– it's nothing serious, though. A Quirk-related incident, so they want me for observation."

"What happened?"

"I was on my way home when I heard them call for Todoroki over the dispatch. There was a bank incident, so I responded right away, but actually they wanted you instead."

Fuyumi's blink of surprise mirrored Hitoshi's own. "What?"

Hitoshi, through supernatural effort, managed to keep gravity from pulling his face into the table with force. Was it just him or was Shouto determined to self-fullfill his own dumb prophecies?

"Yeah. I suppose they hadn't registered your new hours in their system yet. I did my best, though, and all the civilians are safe, but during the course of the operation… I was forcibly defenestrated."

"How are you okay?" yelped Fuyumi, spatula in hand, cooking now fully forgotten.

"Relax. I landed on one of the accomplices, who then got me with their Quirk."

Hitoshi snorted out a laugh despite himself.

"What's the Quirk?"

There was a silence from the phone that set Hitoshi to quietly snickering.

"Hair growth acceleration," Shouto eventually declared, bland as always. "Of all hair."

Hitoshi lost it.

"Send pics," he shouted, because now he had twenty-seven cats and a bicolored yeti for roommates.

Fuyumi had a half-smile of relief on her face as she turned a mock-glare at him, but she went back to stirring the vegetables so Hitoshi knew she was okay. "Any side-effects?" she asked.

"They're expecting intense itching once the effects of the Quirk itself are reversed, or if I decide to shave it off prematurely."

"Oh."

Oh indeed. "We've got ten scratching posts in the apartment," Hitoshi volunteered. "I think we're better equipped than the hospital for that situation, but suit yourself."

"Do you want me to bring you anything?" Fuyumi asked earnestly.

"Soba," Shouto answered immediately.

Fuyumi and Hitoshi rolled their eyes in sync.

"Cat or food?" asked Hitoshi.

"Both?" Shouto's monotone was hopeful.

"I'll bring you zaru soba," Fuyumi placated him.

"Thank you, nee-san!"

"Anything else?"

"Arabica would be nice…"

This time it was Fuyumi's turn to ask: "Cat or coffee?"

"Coffee, please, the hospital stuff sucks."

"I blame you for turning him into a coffee snob," Fuyumi accused Hitoshi after hanging up the phone.

"Lies and slander," Hitoshi declared. "All coffee is equal to me, as long as it is equally caffeinated. It's not my fault I've built up a gourmet collection because it's the default thing people gift me."

Fuyumi laughed, then turned back to test the doneness of the dish on the stove. "Shall I pack you a bento, Hitoshi-kun? Or does your contractor have a decent cafeteria this time?"

"It's Chargebolt."

"I'll make two bentos, then."

"Thanks, nee-san."

God, Fuyumi was such a great big sister, Hitoshi thought much later that night when he was freaking revitalized by the simple yet tasty meal of yakisoba and grilled shitakes that he and Denki shared. He'd gladly forgive Fuyumi her only failure of having a brother dumb enough not to realize that the two of them shared a last name.


one year later...


Fuyumi was winning, and saving lives. Until she wasn't.

Fuyumi thought she'd been prepared for this. She'd read all the platitudes and statistics from the training manuals, that were meant to appease emotions or logic, but they did nothing in the face of reality.

A fourteen-year-old child. Life cut short, because she'd failed. Countless others injured, some seriously. If the day had been a textbook anything, it was a disaster.

It wasn't fair, Fuyumi thought, mechanically going through the motions. A cold, cold shower at the police station, voice professionally dull as she made the mandatory appointment with a therapist, gaze empty as she let herself be squished into the rush-hour train car, barely feeling the swaying as the metal container barreled along underground, not really registering where she got out until she exited the station and finally recognized her surroundings.

Ah. Of course.

Fuyumi walked the short distance to the familiar apartment building, inhaled the scent of rich broth issuing from the ground-floor noodle restaurant, and typed in the unit code.

Shouto wasn't home when she got there, and neither was Hitoshi. Working, she presumed. Maybe even to clean up the mess she'd left.

Fuyumi closed the door behind her, sat in the dark, and cried.

She didn't know how long it was before the door opened again, and her brother's soft tadaima echoed through the stuffy, silent air. There was a pause after that, and then: "Nee-san?"

He'd seen her shoes, probably. And the news; of that she had no doubt.

Fuyumi couldn't go to him, because she had two cats on her lap and one flopped on her shoulder like it couldn't decide whether or not it wanted to be a scarf, but she reached out with her free hand to switch on the lamp on the side table.

"Hi," she croaked.

Shouto came to her. "I heard," he said, and he'd never been particularly good with words, which was fine because that wasn't what Fuyumi needed right now. It was enough that he sat down beside her, reached out, and let her clutch at his shirt while she wondered if the tears would ever stop.

They dried eventually, each one carefully thumbed away from her cheeks by a gentle hand rough with callouses from commanding opposite elements, and Fuyumi had never wished it this way, for their roles to be reversed so, but found that this was why her feet had led her here all the same.

"It wasn't your fault," Shouto said gravely, handing her a glass of water after wrestling Arabica off of her arm, patting the cat consolingly before shooing him off the couch.

Fuyumi gave him a look. It probably wasn't very impressive, given that her nose was probably as red-tipped as her hair, but he was her little brother so he'd know what she meant.

"It really wasn't," Shouto insisted, never one to put much stock in social cues. "You weren't the one who hurt those people. The criminal was. And you're not allowed to say 'I might as well have pulled the trigger'. That would be… the pot calling the kettle black, or however that saying goes."

"I made the wrong call," Fuyumi argued. "I said the wrong thing, it was meant to placate her but instead it triggered her, and people got hurt because of it. Someone died."

"Fuyumi." Shouto sounded oddly pained, as if this were something he didn't want to say. "Sometimes… you know, sometimes there are people who just want to hurt other people. Sometimes, there might not be a reason."

"Then they're probably sick," said Fuyumi. "They need help."

"But they won't always be willing to accept it from you," said Shouto. "And in a time or place or situation where they're already so desperate as to do something like that, it's not your fault if they won't let you help."

"It's not theirs, then, either." Bright red, scalded skin filled Fuyumi's vision, a cruel reminder.

Shouto sighed. "I know. But after you do your best, there's nothing left that you can do."

It wasn't what Fuyumi wanted to hear, her own words to Shouto after a particularly devastating tsunami echoed back at her. Despite that, she couldn't argue, because Shouto understood. His kindness had never turned harsh, not like their father's, and she could see compassion in his eyes every day despite the amount of tragedy they'd witnessed.

"I don't know," she started slowly. "Maybe it's just a big sister thing. But… a part of me… that first time… I mean, I know I got lucky."

Shouto's hum was tinged with disagreement, but Fuyumi knew she was right on this. No matter how desperate and determined she'd been at the time to fight tooth, nail, and Quirk if necessary for the safety of her kids, no schoolteacher managed to talk a villain down without a bit of luck.

"I did," she insisted out loud. "I mean, I went after that man shaming him like everybody's stereotypical Asian auntie and it worked."

Shouto shuddered lightly at that, which Fuyumi could understand, having met both Midoriya Inko and Bakugou Mitsuki. "Somehow it worked, and my kids went home safe to their parents at the end of the day, and I promised myself that I'd never be powerless again."

Before, she'd only been able to provide care after the worst had already happened, and after that day she knew that there was more that she could do.

"You've saved so many people, Fuyumi. You know that, right?"

Fuyumi thought she had. But right now those numbers paled in comparison to the one life she couldn't.

"I couldn't rely on luck, after that," she continued. "So I got training, to do it right. I wanted to become someone who had that power. And then the first time I handled a negotiation on my own..."

Fuyumi took a deep breath, and wondered if she could stop herself, but everything was pouring out today, and this was Shouto, who constantly reminded her that he didn't need her protection, as much as she was glad to give it.

"I was in control, and I had power in that situation, and it felt… good, and right, and losing it is so devastating," she confessed all in a rush. "I know that's selfish. Shallow, even. Is that why this happened? Because of my pride?"

Shouto was quiet, taking his time to pick his words. Fuyumi listened to the rapid beating of her own heart, the obstructed whine of air through her nose, and knew that although it would break her heart for him to think less of her, it would hurt even more if he didn't know her truly.

"If pride was the problem, you'd never even ask that question."

He would know, Fuyumi supposed, having been treated as an extension of Endeavor's ego for a good part of his early life. But if Todorokis were weak to a deadly sin, it was this one, so how could Fuyumi be certain she'd escaped the family curse? She didn't want to be another scumbag hero only in it for how it made her feel, finally adequate after years of clutching the broken threads of a family together.

"Are you hungry?" Shouto asked eventually, when Fuyumi had drunk her water, and his question pulled her out of her floundering thoughts.

"Mmm." She hummed her agreement, but was in no mood to cook.

"Don't worry about it." Shouto continued reading her thoughts, and Fuyumi gave a small snort at that, feeling his chin shift from where he'd parked it on top of her head as he fished in a pocket for his phone.

"I just," she said after a while, when the silence began to be too much for her. "He was so young. Fourteen. Like..."

"Like Touya." Shouto said what Fuyumi couldn't bring herself to.

Fresh tears almost surprised Fuyumi; she hadn't thought she could cry anymore, but apparently that was all it took.

Touya was who it all came back to, for so many of them.

Fuyumi was still sniffling when the door opened. Shouto looked up, unsurprised, as Bakugou strode in, armed with a cloth grocery bag.

"Fucking half and half bastard," Bakugou grumbled with no real conviction, kicking off his shoes by the doorway.

Beside her, Shouto started to unwind himself from Fuyumi so he could stand up, but was stopped by Bakugou's growl.

"Oi, Icyhot, what the hell do you think you're doing? Fuckin' comfort your sister or whatever, I don't care, just stay the fuck outta the kitchen." He immediately contradicted himself by turning a fierce look on Fuyumi and declaring: "Days like this fucking suck."

Which, while Fuyumi wouldn't have put it that way out loud, summed it up pretty accurately. She almost cracked a smile when the glare intensified as it moved to Shouto, even though Bakugou's words were still for Fuyumi. "Sorry you have such shitty brothers, maybe try getting better ones."

Then he made a show of flinging his hearing aids onto the coffee table and stomping into the kitchen.

"How would that even work," Shouto pondered, and Fuyumi almost did laugh then.

"Did he just... show up?" Because she had to wonder.

"No, I asked him to. You need comfort food, so. Mapo tofu it is."

Bakugou was wrong, Fuyumi had the best brothers. Soft enough to express their affection in the best ways they knew how – and even on the rare occasion, with words – and stubborn enough to never treat her with kid gloves.

"Tell me about your cats," Fuyumi said, because with Shouto it was all too easy to drift into talk about work or let him listen in comfortable silence, and Fuyumi could use a pleasant distraction right now.

So he did, and Fuyumi let herself be swept up in tales of small conflicts and quirky habits while delicious smells started wafting from the kitchen.

"Food's on the stove," hollered Bakugou eventually, making his way back into the living room to collect his hearing aids and almost immediately escape from Shouto's thanks to go answer the polite knock at the door.

Fuyumi's sneaking suspicion of who it was was confirmed when she heard Bakugou's snarl. "Great, one too many dumbass Todorokis, I'm out."

"Nice to see you too, Bakugou." Natsuo's sarcasm carried a hint of concern beneath it, and Fuyumi was flooded with a sudden wave of contentment.

Especially when she heard someone else speak up from behind Natsuo. "Hello, Katsuki-kun."

"Ma'am."

Fuyumi did giggle then, both at Shouto's triumphant smirk and at imagining the sour, red-eyed and red-faced expression that caused it. "Mom!" she cried, finally feeling like getting up, and suddenly very hungry.

"I'm here too," Natsuo complained as she swept right past him to greet their mother.

"Didn't ask you to be," droned Shouto, that liar, earning himself a smack on the back from his brother.

"It's not about you, squirt."

Shouto's silence was as much agreement as Fuyumi had heard between the two of them, and she smiled as she and their mother followed the boys to the table.

She still wasn't okay, and wouldn't be for a while, but she was cared for. That was more than enough for now.


a few weeks later...


Hitoshi was doing his best to merge into a single entity with the couch beneath him when Todoroki spoke.

"It's becoming a problem," he announced out of the blue, spinning around on his barstool like an overdramatic talk show host, and that was when Hitoshi knew that his roommate might be a little bit drunk.

Hitoshi scanned the room for someone better qualified and more Midoriya-shaped to deal with any potential outpouring of hot and cold emotions, but for now the class reunion had abandoned them. It definitely wasn't the other way around, or a familiar situation from just before graduation that left the two introverts with the conclusion that each other as roommates was the least awful outcome, considering the rest of their class.

"What is," Hitoshi sighed, already deeply regretting it.

"Fuyumi answering my calls and vice versa. I really don't want to get thrown out of a window again."

"You didn't seem to mind that time Kirishima caught you."

Todoroki fixed him with a look. "Who would?"

Hitoshi grunted in reluctant agreement, because that was fair.

"Outside of that, though, the experiences have been far from pleasant, and I'd prefer to avoid them where possible."

Typical Todoroki exaggeration, Hitoshi thought. A grand total of two, maybe three, incidents being grounds for a full-blown mistaken identity crisis. "I didn't sign up for any of this," Hitoshi lamented. "Besides, I thought you dealt with your identity issues when you were nineteen."

Todoroki was definitely tipsy, because he talked over Hitoshi like he wasn't there. Wishful thinking that they both shared. "If only I could learn to understand people like she can… or like you can. Shinsou, teach me!"

Hitoshi knew a hopeless case when he saw one, and you Could Not Pay Him to get involved, if whatever was going on or not going on with Todoroki and Bakugou was an example of the extent to which Todoroki understood people. "Why the sudden identity crisis?" Hitoshi tried re-directing to the original topic, which now looked actually appealing in comparison. "You've done a good enough job separating your public image from Endeavor's legacy, since you fight nature more than crime these days."

"Do you think so?" Todoroki asked, doubtfully. "I still rely on so many of his techniques for my fire side. It's hard to get away from your family traits. Fuyumi thinks so too."

"Uh huh, traits like actually giving a damn about the people you're trying to save and –" Hitoshi's finely pitched sarcasm broke as Todoroki's last phrase registered. "Wait, she what?"

"Pride," droned Todoroki. "The Achilles heel of a Todoroki."

Hitoshi wondered if he was drunk, or if it was just the near fifty hours of constant wakefulness that were finally getting to him, because even an expert like himself couldn't tell if Todoroki was being sarcastic or not.

If he was, more power to him.

"She's wrong, of course, at least concerning herself. But she does make a good point."

So... not sarcasm, then. Hitoshi nodded along, a bit lost and hoped he would soon nod off to sleep.

"Certain characteristics are inherited and there's little to nothing one can do to change them. Hair, for instance."

Todoroki ought to be staring intently at a mirror and not Hitoshi, but Hitoshi couldn't be bothered to point that out.

"Fighting style. Quirk. Affinity for particular weaponry."

Hitoshi was unfortunately awake enough to not like where this was going, and tired enough not to stop it until it was too late.

"Like you and Aizawa-sensei. You know. Because he's your father."

God fucking dammit, not this again. Every time Hitoshi thought Todoroki had finally lost interest in the subject, it was dragged out to see the light of day like a cat that had fallen into a toilet. Not that Todoroki was wrong, technically – Aizawa had adopted Hitoshi near the end of his time at UA – but it was a secret that he and a few close confidants would take to the grave before revealing to Todoroki. Mostly just to mess with the guy, but it was the principle of the thing.

Hitoshi let out a long, long, sigh, hoping that the streak of uncharacteristic rage would go out with it.

It did, but left petty annoyance in its wake, and that was worse.

For Todoroki.

"You know," started Hitoshi, in a purposeful drawl. An idea was dawning on him, and it was awful. It was a wonderful, awful idea, and Hitoshi was absolutely going to milk it for all it was worth. "Sharing traits with your family isn't always a bad thing."

A blank look. "Have you met us?"

Hitoshi let his tone turn sharp. "Yes. I know you, I know your family. And Fuyumi's not the only one who's wrong about where their strengths lie."

Todoroki continued to look unimpressed. "If you're talking about me, it's my Quirk obviously."

"Riiiight. And Fuyumi's is her voice. Because, I don't know, things like being able to assess a situation and identify an angle of attack that plays to your strengths or preys on your opponent's weaknesses doesn't make you better at your jobs. Neither do little things like manipulating the temperature to make frost stick around or using a regional dialect to set someone at ease. Or, you know, automatically doing these things in the first place to the extent that you don't even think about it. Nope, you absolutely just got all the worst traits from your family."

Todoroki's frown flattened out as he registered the overdone sarcasm, until eventually his eyes cleared. "You think I'm like Fuyumi? That's… wow. Thank you."

Hitoshi smiled. There might have been too many teeth in that smile, but Todoroki was doubtless too pleased to notice.

Time to murder a bitch.

"Although," Hitoshi started, drawing out the word just enough to get Todoroki to lean in, barstool teetering slightly. "Do you know who really shares a lot of these genetic, familial traits with Fuyumi? I mean," Hitoshi dropped his voice and leaned in too. "It's uncanny."

"Who?" Todoroki's eyes were conspiracy-bright and only a little alcohol-fogged, but completely drawn in to Hitoshi's net.

"Well. Fuyumi can change her voice at will, right? She's got tones ranging from disappointed mother to first high school crush to sleazy politician." From long practice and not any innate ability, Hitoshi knew, but Todoroki was good at ignoring things like that. "And the way she draws people in until they have no choice but to respond to her –"

Todoroki shifted uncomfortably. "I don't like where this is going."

"I mean, it's no surprise that these are the top two people you want on-scene in a hostage situation."

"What do you mean, you and Fuyumi aren't -"

Hitoshi barreled on, playing the one card Todoroki couldn't possibly ignore. "And Fuyumi's always liked Aizawa-sensei."

Todoroki's eyes were impossibly wide. "No…"

Hitoshi leaned back in his chair, folding his arms behind his head. "Think about it."

"No, it can't be, Fuyumi would never… you're too old, right? How old are you?"

Todoroki could never do math after he'd had a drink, and Hitoshi took full advantage of this by remaining silent but waggling his eyebrows suggestively.

Todoroki fell off his stool. Hitoshi nearly collapsed laughing, and it was only thanks to years of training and operating as a professional hero that he was able to contain his expression to one of triumphant vindication as he looked down at his fallen prey.

"No," groaned Todoroki, sounding more pained than Hitoshi had ever heard him. "It – no. Don't tell me…"

Hitoshi should put him out of his misery. But then, somebody should have put Hitoshi out of his misery twenty-four hours ago, so. Life was unfair like that.

Still, the distress and horror on Todoroki's face was a sight to behold as he hesitantly raised it and forced the dreaded words past his lips.

"I might be your… uncle?"

Hitoshi lost it, and cackled until he thought he might actually pass out.

If only the universe were so kind.


a few days later...


"Icyhot, I did not need to know that your guts had heterochromia too."

Fuyumi recognized Bakugou's voice but her brain refused to register the words.

"I did. For science."

A pink-haired woman decked out in more cyberpunk than an overhyped video game skipped past Fuyumi and Natsuo, who were both blinking in disbelief at the hospital room door.

"Next time keep that shit inside you where it belongs," shouted Bakugou, continuing his rant at Shouto.

"What exactly is going on here?" Natsuo finally found his voice and it was almost as loud as the angry, self-titled Explosion God when it came out.

"Natsu-nii! Fuyumi! Did you bring –"

"Of course we did." Fuyumi wasn't going to give over the customary hospital offering of cold soba until she got to the bottom of this, however.

"Tch. Fucking leech. Bet this was all part of a dumbass plan to mooch free soba out of everyone you know, bastard!"

"If it was, it was a dumb plan indeed, as you say. I need my stomach for eating soba, so I actually prefer that it not be splattered all over the concrete."

Fuyumi looked helplessly at Natsuo, who looked very concerned, but not queasy, which was more than she was certain he could say for her. Well, at least he hadn't made a mistake by going into the medical field.

Natsuo ignored the younger men and picked up the chart at the foot of the bed, scanned it over, then smirked at Bakugou. "Get out, drama queen, before I fill this one in on the director's cut. And you." He turned to Shouto and whacked him over the shin with the tablet as Bakugou stomped out. "Behave and don't go exaggerating to your nice sister who actually worries about an ungrateful little shit like you."

Fuyumi sighed, too frazzled to work out the exact details of what was happening, but apparently Shouto wasn't as badly hurt as it had sounded, and chipper enough to antagonize Bakugou (although she had the feeling he would gladly do so on his actual deathbed) so she would be happy with that. "Hungry?" she tried.

"Very," said Shouto, eyeing her tote bag with interest. "Unfortunately, part of what I said is true. I have to wait for another healing session this afternoon before they'll let me eat solid food."

Fuyumi wordlessly stacked her bento box on top of the other one from Bakugou, and the one below it that was probably courtesy of Yaoyorozu or Midoriya. A small block of slowly melting ice kept the contents cool, but was placed far enough from the box of sweets from their mother not to freeze them. "What happened? I read the news, of course, but..."

It never gave all the details.

"Would you believe me if I said it was another case of mistaken identity?"

"No," Natsuo answered instantly, not liking the slyness in Shouto's monotone.

Fuyumi just leveled Shouto with a look, and all the attitude he'd been giving earlier evaporated.

"Okay, so it wasn't really. But it would have made more sense for you to be there. I know I got called in because it was a powerful, unclassified Quirk, but… the guy looked really scared. And not of me, maybe of what he was doing? Or something else maybe, but I was too distracted trying to find an angle where my ice wouldn't hit any bystanders to figure it out."

"Oh, Shouto." Fuyumi could sympathize, because he was right that his job didn't prioritize listening to his opponents as much as it did fighting them.

"Yeah," he agreed. "You could have talked him down fairly quickly, I think. I don't know if it would have changed the overall outcome if I'd known how, because there was a civilian I had to slide out of there in the opposite direction and through a bunch of obstacles, so by the time I could turn my attention back to the wall he threw at me, it clipped me pretty badly."

"Yeah, that would probably hurt. I walked into a glass wall once," Natsuo contributed.

Fuyumi punched him lightly on the arm because she could see that Shouto wanted to but was unable. "You did well, Shouto. Besides, I don't think you really would have wanted me there." She said it with a smile and a small laugh, but was answered with a frown.

"What's that supposed to mean? You would have been more than capable." Shouto's statement was blunt, and Fuyumi blinked in surprise.

"Well, I just…" She made some motions with her hands, trying to brush it off. "You know."

"I don't," countered that stubborn brat of a brother. "What are you talking about?"

"I…" Fuyumi suddenly found her eyes prickling, as she realized what she was, in fact, talking about.

She hadn't been back in the field, since then. She'd undergone the mandated therapy and passed the psych eval, but some part of her still didn't trust herself, this new role she'd taken, and now…

Now Shouto was in the hospital, and Fuyumi couldn't help but remember now of all times the other time it had been like this, when he'd been so young and unable to speak about the sibling they thought they'd all lost. She also couldn't help but step into that over-familiar role as his caretaker, even though he had other people in his life now and it wasn't like that time, they were all doing better and they'd all moved on.

All except her, it seemed.

Just because Fuyumi understood what this was about didn't mean she was okay with it.

"Excuse me," she said, and then fled the room.

You should be over it, she berated herself as she rested her forehead against the sterile white wall of the hallway. It had been almost ten years since Touya announced himself to the world, and thirty-six days since Fuyumi's efforts hadn't been enough to keep a child alive. Time heals all wounds. You're not that same person from ten years ago, you're someone who can act, someone who can change things.

No matter what she told herself, Fuyumi hadn't felt like that person for weeks.

"Hey." Natsuo's voice drew out the word in a cautious sound, and Fuyumi snorted. Of course he'd come after her. He'd changed, too, stopped running away and started being there, with a pat on the back or outstretched arms. "'Yumi, I know it's hard. I thought you were doing better, I'm sorry I didn't see how much this was still weighing on you."

What was the weight of a human life, after all? Two weeks unpaid leave even after completing the mandatory therapy, then another three weeks only taking desk assignments while frantically revising in the evenings, looking at case study after case study to figure out where she went wrong, what more she could have done?

"Pathetic, right?" Fuyumi tried to laugh but it came out sour. "I should just get back out there already, I know."

"Everyone's different, Fuyumi. It doesn't matter if you take longer. Hell, look how long it took me to come around to even being civil with the old man."

"It does matter," Fuyumi insisted to the wall. The wall was safe, it couldn't judge her like grey eyes could. "Shouto's not like this. He… he was a kid yet he did all he could for Touya, and I never even realized until it was too late, because I took too long."

"'Yumi, you did all you could. And you were busy taking care of both of us and neither of us ever bothered to ask if you needed taking care of too after Mom was taken away. Which of course you did. And if we're blaming people for being too self-absorbed to help out those around them, the first person you should point at is me."

She might have wanted to, once upon a time, but to tell the truth she could never blame Natsuo for doing what it took to keep himself safe and get to a better place, because she'd wanted that so badly for all her brothers, but the others had never had the chance.

Still, this was one time that Natsuo was wrong. If Fuyumi had really done all she could... "Then why didn't I take care of Touya, too?"

"Fuyumi, you were twelve years old!" Natsou's voice was loud with frustration, and Fuyumi looked at him in surprise. He'd always been expressive, but he'd never yelled at her about her. "No one blames you for what happened to Touya!"

"What, am I not allowed to? Shouto does, and he was seven!" Fuyumi wasn't sure why she was yelling back. Maybe it was just the effect her brothers had on her sometimes.

Natsuo stared at her for a beat, then ran his hand through his hair. When he spoke again, his voice was quieter, more resigned, but still sharp. "Shouto blames himself for being born, he's not exactly the one whose example you should be following. And you're right: he did all he could later, when he was barely older. Anyway, stop deflecting."

Natsuo gripped her shoulders then, and Fuyumi couldn't find the heart to wrench herself away. "Tell me, Fuyumi. Why do you want to save people?"

Fuyumi swallowed back tears. Anger, sadness, frustration, a grand cocktail of all three all pointed in one direction: herself. "Maybe this is my atonement, for what I didn't do when I was younger," she bit out.

"Bullshit," Natsuo replied instantly. "You're not Endeavor. You're the best of us, Fuyumi, don't you see? You think you let Touya down but you didn't. That'd be like saying you let me down, or Shouto, or Mom, or even the old man."

Fuyumi was too tired to argue, and Natsuo's conviction forbade it anyway. And she knew, deep down, that the reason she'd given wasn't her own.

So what was? It wasn't as simple as what Shouto's friends made it out to be: save to win or win to save. Winning was a luxury that Todorokis rarely got to enjoy without dire consequences attached, and saving… saving was long and complicated, it was two steps forward and three steps back, and above all it was never, ever guaranteed.

"Fuyumi, do you know what's so amazing about you?" Natsuo asked, and Fuyumi fixed her eyes back on his gentle grey ones. She nodded ever so slightly, feeling exhausted but ready to listen.

"Even when someone you love is so utterly changed that no one even recognized him – don't look at me like that, I knew Touya better than anyone and I never would have thought – you never stop believing that a person can be saved, no matter who tells you that you're wrong."

Maybe it wasn't about saving either, then, because deep down Fuyumi knew that saving someone was never up to her in the end. Not to her, or even heroes like Shouto and Endeavor, but to the person themself.

A dry voice broke in as Shouto stumbled into their hallway huddle. "Yeah, why else would you and Natsuo have a ten-year standing agree-to-disagree policy about Dad's redeemability."

Natsuo whacked his brother half-heartedly in the arm. "Oh, shut up, you. Go to your room. Fuyumi raised you better than this."

Shouto nodded sagely. "True."

"Shouto!" Fuyumi shoved him gently back towards his room, but he caught her hand on its way back.

"Natsuo's not wrong," he said. "You believe in people. And you don't just say it, your actions show it. How much you care. That's worth a lot, you know. More than you think."

Caring used to be all Fuyumi was able to do, and she knew at the heart of her that she'd never stopped, that she'd never be able to. In her quest for more, for taking actions that were big and bold instead of small and thoughtful – was the caring part of her something she'd neglected?

Shouto wasn't finished and couldn't read a room to save his life, so he kept talking. "It's how I learned what being a hero should look like. From watching you."

Someone really should have stopped him before he'd utterly destroyed her. "Shouto!" Fuyumi complained, burying her face in her hands.

"Damn it, brat, you made your sister cry," scolded Natsuo.

Fuyumi shook her head, although he was technically correct. "It's the good type of crying, I promise…"

She got two awkward pats on the back for that, because her dumb brothers couldn't just hug in public, even if there was no one else around in the hospital hallway.

To hell with that, Fuyumi decided, and flung an arm around each of them. She cared, she did, so very very much, and even if all she could do was to show up at someone's starting line for them, she would do that. And if they allowed her to talk them through defeating their monsters and walk side-by-side with them towards a better path, Fuyumi would do that too.

Her brothers might say it with actions and she with words, but their love and support for her was part of the foundation that enabled her to pay it forward. In her own way, and in her own time, because she was different from them, and different yet the same from who she'd been before.

Whether she spoke to save or acted to take care, she would do it with everything within her; because all along, both were Todoroki Fuyumi.


A/N: Somehow along the way this meant-to-be-comedic fic developed an actual heart…

Two notable characters absent from this fic, although their impact remains, are Dabi and Endeavor. At the time of writing this - and throughout the sporadic process - I wasn't sure which future I wanted this to fit in with. The work that inspired this fic has particular endings for Endeavor and Dabi (won't spoil it for you here) that would both make them pretty much absent for this fic, so I continued in that vein. The work which this fic is now firmly in the universe of (where Shouto works in disaster relief and I stubbornly refuse to ever clarify his relationship with Bakugou) doesn't have either Dabi or Endeavor in it, so I've chosen to also leave their fates vague, which will hopefully allow these works to stay canon-compliant for as long as possible. (Once that work is published it will be linked here; otherwise, be on the lookout for my SubZero Big Bang contribution some time in March!)

Anyway, if you're still here, thank you for reading! Please do leave a comment, follow the links in my profile to like and reblog the art on tumblr, and be sure to check out the other works from this event!