Then, Todoroki.
The source of Shouta's first inkling that there was something wrong in Todoroki Shouto's life was not Todoroki at all, but Midoriya.
He knew they had grown close since the Sports Festival, and now, halfway through their second year and through numerous encounters with danger, they, Uraraka, and Iida had become an inseparable foursome. Shouta liked to keep tabs on his class for how often they were in the fray. Despite their closeness, he had never known Midoriya to be at ease with Todoroki like he was with his other friends, and he'd always attributed it to past rivalry, or Todoroki's cold exterior.
An overheard conversation changed that assumption.
He obviously wasn't meant to hear it. Shouta knew that. But he wasn't bound by enough morality not to listen in, not with the tone of voice Midoriya was speaking in, soft and concerned and scared. In fact, Shouta would have just rounded the corner and asked what the issue was instead of stopping to listen had the first words he heard out of Midoriya's mouth not been, "Are things any better at home?"
All in all, the "inkling" Shouta received was more of a punch to the gut.
He froze, hands in his pockets, right foot halted mid-air where he'd stepped forward. He listened.
"No," Todoroki said eventually, voice level. Midoriya made a noise that sounded vaguely pained or sympathetic. "You don't have to worry about it so much, Midoriya."
"Of course I do," he murmured, and there was so much of All Might in that voice. Sometimes Shouta was convinced that Midoriya could hold the world on one pinkie, if he needed to, with a voice like that. He was positive that Midoriya would assure everyone in it that he could stay like that for however long they needed him to, and Shouta wanted to smack him upside the head for it.
He knew now that the discord between Todoroki and Midoriya was not unaddressed issues or old grudges. It stemmed from an uncomfortable shared knowledge that neither of them seemed to know what to do with.
The conversation ended there, and Shouta forced himself to keep moving after a moment of tense silence, rounding the corner and easily keeping his face neutral even as both of them stiffened, afraid he'd overheard. Neutralcoldunkind, his mind helpfully supplied, but he ignored it, telling them, "Go to lunch." In his periphery, as he passed, he could see them deflate with relief. It took all of Shouta's willpower not to interrogate Todoroki then and there.
This was much too similar to Shinsou. Much too similar by far.
This time, when the cold, clammy hand reached for him, he met it halfway.
Endeavor was not an easy hero to work with.
Every pro knew it; no one liked being assigned to missions with him, purely for the fact that the man was allergic to compromise. He would do things his way or no way, damn the plan and damn the consequences. There was a reason his rate of property damage was astronomically higher than anyone else's—the same reason his PR employees went to great lengths to keep those statistics out of reach of the press.
He had never dared to think that Endeavor's working attitude might affect his family life, in part because Shouta so thoroughly tried to keep his own private life separate, and in part because he shuddered to think what the man might do in his free time. Better not to think about it, or so Shouta had convinced himself.
Like it or not, though, Shouta's private life had become irretrievably entwined with his work as of late, and Todoroki's plight was that much more accessible to him. Thus, Shouta had to pose the question to himself: was Endeavor abusing his son?
More importantly, what should Shouta do about it?
He didn't intend for adoption to become the be-all, end-all result. In fact, Shouta knew quite well that Todoroki Shouto had a mother he adored, and whom Shouta suspected was a perfectly viable primary guardian, provided whatever roadblocks Endeavor had put down were eradicated. Two kids was enough, anyway, and Hizashi might as well be kid number three.
Still, with coldness gripping him, curling against his skin, it was hard not to think about what room he could next outfit for a child. Maybe Hitoshi wouldn't mind sharing.
About a week later, Shouta found Todoroki in Recovery Girl's office, accompanied by Midoriya and looking thoroughly disgruntled. It was a Sunday, a day off for both himself and the students, so Shouta had been planning to avoid them at all costs. He certainly hadn't expected to find two of them there, especially considering the two in question have spent more time in the nurse's than is worth, injured.
"Sensei!" Midoriya exclaimed, straightening up. "What are you doing here?"
"Eri was worried about her stomach hurting," Shouta answered, raising his and Eri's joined hands to indicate her presence, as she'd tucked herself behind him in a bout of shyness. Midoriya's attention wasn't on his response, though, which was curious enough if Shouta ignored the way Midoriya completely glossed over Eri's presence. He usually doted on her. Rather, Midoriya was watching Todoroki, who had his left arm held out for Recovery Girl to wrap. She was securing an ice pack to his outer forearm with extra bandages, so that he wouldn't have to manually ice it. At no point did Todoroki wince, but there was a distinct stiffness to his posture regardless. "Is there a problem?" he asked flatly, gaze flicking between the two boys. Midoriya stiffened, automatically turning to Todoroki for direction. That confirmed what Shouta had initially suspected, then.
If it were a run-of-the-mill injury, Midoriya would have tripped over himself to explain them, taking charge and trying to take all blame, warranted or otherwise, onto himself. Instead, Midoriya deferred to Todoroki.
With ice in his gut, Shouta recalled that Endeavor had requested his son be taken off-campus for 'family business' yesterday.
"No, Aizawa-sensei," Todoroki answered eventually, taking his arm back from Recovery Girl. "I bruised my arm. That's all."
"How?"
"I was training with my father yesterday," he replied, meeting Shouta's eyes evenly.
That wasn't a lie. Shouta didn't need Tsukauchi's quirk to know that. Todoroki wasn't nervous, either, which could mean two things—that they really were just training, or that what constituted "training" in Todoroki's mind was fundamentally more severe than Shouta would like.
The ice that coated his insides and threatened to crawl out over his skin gave him a bad feeling it was the latter.
"Get back to the dorms, then," Shouta told them, for lack of anything better to say, or any excuse to interrogate Todoroki further. Plus, Eri was beginning to tug impatiently on his hand.
Todoroki nodded, his gaze dropping, and Shouta watched unobtrusively as he and Midoriya both shuffled out. Midoriya stuck close to Todoroki, shielding him. Even without Shouta's training in reading body language, someone could see it—the kid was desperate to protect Todoroki.
"Eri, would you like to tell Recovery Girl what's wrong?" Shouta asked, deliberately tearing his gaze from the doorway, refocusing his attention. He hoped the girl would gather some bravery and speak for herself, because it was only 10 AM and his being-an-adult quota was already up.
Unluckily, Eri shook her head, and Shouta sighed and resolved himself to being a responsible caretaker for a while yet.
Shouta takes a slightly closer look at Todoroki Shouto, from then on.
The kid has always seemed distant from the others, and Shouta had initially taken that distance as aloofness. He'd pinned Todoroki as the sort of kid to reject friendship as a waste of time, focusing only on the need to excel, and while such a frame of mind wasn't necessarily healthy, Shouta certainly wasn't one to call him on it. With the context of Endeavor heavy on Shouta's mind, however, he was rather certain it was less Todoroki intentionally acting aloof and more that he genuinely didn't know how to—or that he had the option to—approach his classmates.
Midoriya, along with Uraraka and Iida, was a good indicator of this truth. When Todoroki was with them, not one single time did Shouta see him initiate anything. No conversation, no physical contact, not even a topic change. He followed their lead every time, offering comments only when the four of them were already deep in the throes of conversation. Shouta couldn't fault the rest of them for letting it happen; it was probably the best they could do for Todoroki to let him contribute in his own time. Let him learn for himself how to navigate socialization.
That didn't stop Shouta from wanting desperately to be able to lay it all out for the kid, though. It also didn't stop him from writing up a lesson plan on communicating with mission partners, unexpected field team-ups, and interacting with civilians in a number of contexts. Not that any of it meant much for casual conversation, but Shouta could hope. Todoroki didn't seem like the type to so thoroughly separate his personal and private identity that skills don't transfer over; perhaps field communication skills would translate somewhat into hanging out with friends.
Hitoshi was closer to Shouta's mirror as a teenager, but he saw a fair bit of himself in Todoroki, too—standoffish initially, weak for the one person who managed to slip past his defenses. Midoriya wasn't like Hizashi, really; he was too quiet, too meek to really merit that comparison, more reckless in battle than even Mic can be. Somehow, though, he'd managed to worm his way into Todoroki Shouto's soft spot, just like Hizashi had to Shouta so many years ago.
Fuck, is it easy to let these kids burrow into his heart. Shouta hasn't spoken a word to the kid outside of a professional context and already he's willing to lay down his life.
Todoroki's was a slow-developing situation. Endeavor, for as obtuse as the man was, had learned—likely the hard way—to be subtle. He didn't show his face on campus often, if ever, and Todoroki only sported his bruises and burns after returning from longer-than-a-weekend breaks. Long enough he had an excuse not to have been resting after a week of grueling school training. Long enough to explain away injuries that, were they any more regular, would be textbook red flags for abuse.
Shouta wondered, often, watching over his class, if Recovery Girl saw the signs and deliberately said nothing, or if she was just too desensitized to UA's antics that it didn't register as wrong. Against his own better judgement, he decided not to consider it anymore, because either answer's implications were too much to compartmentalize, running as he was on three and a half hours.
Despite everything, it took the better part of the year for Shouta to make any headway on The Todoroki Situation. Mostly for lack of evidence, and also for the fact that Shouta hasn't actually approached Todoroki about the matter at all. He'd do what was necessary for a kid no matter if they wanted him to, of course, but it would be wrong of him not to make Todoroki aware of his intentions. By this point, it wasn't a matter of is-he, isn't-he. Shouta knew beyond doubt that Todoroki Enji was abusing his son.
As was the original catalyst, the next rung in the ladder for Shouta was Midoriya. If Shouta approached Todoroki directly, the kid would likely close off, regardless of whether or not he held any affection for his father; abuse does that to a person. It was just Shouta's luck, then, that another person held knowledge about Todoroki's situation—and not just any other person, but the one student in his class that Shouta knew could be relied on to lay down in traffic for a friend or even a stranger, were it necessary.
He'll train that self-sacrificial tendency out of Midoriya, eventually, but for then, he was okay with tugging on it. Shouta needed an in. Midoriya Izuku was simply the easiest route.
"Midoriya," he said as he was concluding a lecture that Thursday. It was the last class block of the day; Shouta had volunteered to stand in for Nemuri, as she'd called out to take Sushi to the vet. "Stay after." It was convenient that her class was last; it gave Shouta an excuse to take Midoriya to his office while those on cleaning duty went about their jobs. If they lingered in the classroom, eavesdroppers would be inevitable.
"Sensei?" Midoriya said, coming up to him after his friends had shuffled away. Shouta stood, beckoning the kid, and led him out of the room, down the hall to his small office just off the staff lounge.
"Am I in trouble?" Midoriya asked as soon as Shouta closed the door, an uncomfortable expression on his face. He was still, which, for a fidgety kid, was odd enough. But the tension in his tone was more than enough to throw Shouta off.
After a moment, Shouta broke eye contact, unnerved by the odd gleam in Midoriya's eyes. Whatever that was, it wasn't related to The Todoroki Situation. One student issue at a time.
"No, Midoriya. Sit." He gestured to the chair across from his desk and, thankfully, Midoriya obeyed. "I want to talk to you about Todoroki."
Midoriya stiffened, just slightly. Were Shouta not who he was, he might have missed it. "What about Todoroki, sensei?" Midoriya said, a false bewilderment coloring his tone.
"I think you know well what about him." Shouta sat down in his own chair, putting them on the same level. "Endeavor is abusing him." At that, Midoriya stayed quiet, watching, waiting to see what else Shouta would say. "I need you to tell me everything you know about the situation."
"Shouldn't you talk to him directly about this?" Midoriya asked, tight. "Sir," he tacked on at the end, well aware of his tone.
"You and I both know he would say nothing." They stared at each other for a brief, tense moment before Shouta averted his gaze, sighing. "I want to help him, Midoriya. I have no love of Endeavor."
Midoriya loosened at that, at least a little. His eyes still danced with reluctance. "I—don't think he'd want me to say anything," he muttered, posture subtly curling inward.
"No, I imagine he wouldn't," Shouta said. "But your silence only hurts him, in the long run."
Midoriya bit his lip, looking at his lap. His crooked fingers fiddled together, betraying the kid's nerves. Shouta would have to train the tells out of them all, too.
Eventually, he looked up, and in his eyes Shouta could see a pained sort of understanding. Another red flag sprung up inside him, and the only reason Shouta didn't open an internal case file for the problem child then and there is that he knew Midoriya had a support system. He'd met Midoriya Inko; he knew she loved her son fiercely, as did his friends. Todoroki had no one.
Or, actually, Todoroki had plenty of people. Midoriya, Uraraka, Todoroki, even Asui, considering how much time she spent with Uraraka and therefore the rest of that friend group. It was simply that all of them were children, and Todoroki needed a steady adult figure to be there for him. It was simply that Todoroki was allergic to vulnerability, and Shouta knew he would never open up.
"He told me before the one-on-one battles in the Sports Festival our first year," Midoriya began, and Shouta had to fight the urge to suck in a breath. Midoriya had known that long and told no one. For that matter, he had known that long and Shouta hadn't noticed. "It was—I think he was trying to intimidate me. He told me about how his father raised him to become stronger than All Might someday, and that he'd beat me, but only with the half of his quirk that came from his mother. He saw his left side as his father's, not his."
Ah. That explained their altercation during that second match. Hizashi had theorized forever about what led up to the infamous bone-breaker battle. This was not as… lighthearted, as most of his theories turned out.
"When he told me that, a lot of other stuff spilled out, too. His parents were a quirk marriage. I don't know all of it, but I'm pretty sure Endeavor bullied his mom's family into having her marry him. And, uh, the burn on his face—"
"Did he do that?" Shouta barked, unable to contain his revulsion. Midoriya shrunk back some, startled.
"No! No, it was actually, uh, his mother. She… the way Endeavor treated her, it broke her a little, I think. She poured boiling water from a teapot on his face because he startled her; she thought he looked like Endeavor. He would have been fine, I think, but she panicked and used her quirk on him. It's a frost burn." Midoriya looked supremely uncomfortable the whole time he spoke, but he spoke clearly, like reciting a passage from a book. "She's in a mental hospital now."
Shouta had known Todoroki Rei was kept out of the press, but he hadn't imagined this was why. Hell, he'd known that Todoroki took special trips to visit her, further away from UA than his home, and yet Shouta had let it go without questioning it. It made him want to grit his teeth and growl, but Midoriya was there, and he was already nervous enough. Though it pained him to, Shouta let out a slow breath.
"Thank you, Midoriya. I'll make sure he doesn't know you told me anything." Midoriya immediately opened his mouth to say something more, but Shouta cut him off. "I think you should tell him that you told me, but that's your business. Todoroki needs you. I won't do anything to put a wedge between you two."
"I—okay. Thanks, Aizawa-sensei." He stood, making to go.
"Midoriya."
"Yes?"
"Todoroki isn't the only one who deserves help." Shouta gave him a pointed look. "I don't care how minor you may think it is. If you need help, ask for it."
His face twisted, at those words, into something between discomfort and panic. Shouta cringed internally. Perhaps it would have been better not to say anything.
"I'll… keep that in mind, sensei," he murmured, and left.
Todoroki was a tricky kid.
He never wore his heart on his sleeve the way Hitoshi did. Oh, the kid tried to act aloof, but he was an open book for Shouta to read. Todoroki wasn't like that. He had the only true poker face Shouta had ever seen on a UA first-year, and while it had softened some in the face of Midoriya Izuku, he was still incredibly hard to read.
Shouta knew one thing about him, though, and that was that Todoroki would not ask for help. Whether or not he'd accept help was a different thing, and the simple fact of it was that Shouta had no idea how to go about offering in a way that wouldn't immediately put him off. He didn't have shit on Endeavor; he'd need Todoroki's cooperation for that, and possibly his mother's testimony, but Shouta didn't have any legal right to visit her, nor would he call in a favor with Tsukauchi to force his way in. No, that would only be unnecessarily stressful for all parties.
Not to mention the fact of Rei's hospitalization. She couldn't take custody of her children that way. While it was possible she was stable enough to leave, and was only kept there because Endeavor pressured the staff, Shouta wouldn't be optimistic. Midoriya's voice had not wavered when he'd said she'd been broken, and with the way Endeavor carried himself, Shouta knew there was likely no end to the baggage that woman was carrying.
He sighed. This will be arduous.
About a week later, Shouta got an in.
Endeavor had requested permission to come onto campus. Nedzu had approved it, of course—there was no reason not to, no matter how it made Shouta's teeth grind.
It was a Sunday. Most of Class 2-A was relaxing in the dorms, though a few of his students were off in one of the facilities exercising with a diligence that was frankly astonishing for their age. For once, however, Todoroki was not one of them. He'd injured himself during a class training activity that Friday, and was warned off strenuous activity for a few days.
Shouta couldn't outright deny Endeavor entrance to the dorms, so instead he shadowed him. Todoroki was in the common room with an uncommon smattering of students—Kaminari and Sero were on the couch across from him, both looking at something on Kaminari's phone. Tokoyami was eating breakfast near one of the windows. Kouda was patiently teaching Jirou some sign (good. Shouta had noticed both she and Bakugou were beginning to have trouble with their hearing, and he'd have shoved them both at Hizashi if they didn't seek out help themselves).
Todoroki himself was not talking to anyone. Rather, he was quietly reading a book, legs crossed, back straight, one arm in a temporary sling. His left. When Endeavor entered the room, Shouta saw him stiffen, though it was so minutely that he himself almost didn't catch it. Ice coated the bottom of his stomach, at that. Shouta was probably the best in all of UA at reading body language, save Nedzu—if Todoroki was this adept at hiding it, it was a bad sign, indeed.
Endeavor approached him with all the subtlety of an ox, which was to say, none. Every student in the room looked up at his entrance except for Todoroki himself, an act of defiance which surprised Shouta.
"Shouto!" Endeavor said. It was more of a bark than anything, and spoke of an expectation of immediate attention. Instead of submitting to his tone, Todoroki took his sweet time replacing his bookmark and shutting the book silently.
He looked up after a good few seconds. "Yes?"
"You hurt yourself in class," Endeavor bit, and Shouta could tell from his tone alone that this meant more to Todoroki than any of them knew. That acknowledging Todoroki's injury—his failure, Shouta realized—was a warning. Or maybe a threat.
"Yes, I did," Todoroki replied flatly, looking at his father with the most bored look a teenager could muster. Shouta wondered when he'd learned defiance—was it at the Sports Festival, when he'd refused to use his fire? Before?
Or was that petulance, rather than real defiance? Was this refusal to cow before Endeavor's obvious displays of intimidation Todoroki's true pushback?
Endeavor's fire—for of course he was in costume, blazing heat oppressing enough to fill the common space—flared brighter, at that. Shouta watched as his entire stance changed, and Todoroki stilled. The air was different between them. It hadn't been light, before, but now it spoke of danger. This was not an Endeavor Todoroki could backtalk.
"Outside," Endeavor growled, and Todoroki stood almost before he'd finished the word, never more eager to comply.
Behind Shouta, someone had just entered the dorms. A short glance behind him saw that it was Midoriya, and the look on his face as he caught sight of Endeavor was thunderous.
Endeavor led Todoroki out of the dorms, and Midoriya watched them as they went, expression openly hostile. Endeavor pointedly avoided his gaze as he passed. Once they were both out, and the door had swung shut behind them, Midoriya's head whipped to face Shouta, face set.
"Aizawa—"
Shouta cut him off. "I know." Without any further delay, he slipped out of the doors as well, intent on keeping Endeavor and Todoroki in his sights.
They had stopped only a short distance from the building, Endeavor looming over Todoroki, back to the sun. The resultant shadow cast over his son made him seem so much smaller than his presence usually conveyed, and for the first time in a while, Shouta really saw the child there.
Todoroki was good at putting on a blank face, but Shouta could see him now, and he was afraid.
Ice seemed to coat even Shouta's heart, beating fast enough to break the frost, again and again and again.
Shouta was not an underground hero for nothing, and he stopped a short way away from them having attracted neither of their attention. His breathing was low, inaudible, and his steps were silent. Despite the bright daylight, and his dark outfit, he was invisible to them. Consequently, he watched with a front-row view as Endeavor berated his son with a venom Shouta would have reserved for particularly petulant villains.
He's gone on this run-around once before, now. The phone that was in his pocket, recording Endeavor's every bitter word, had been turned on even before Endeavor had set eyes on Todoroki.
It was only once Endeavor raised a hand, and Todoroki flinched violently, that Shouta stepped in. As much as icy anger swirled in his gut at the display, he needed proof far more than he had for Shinsou Akane. Endeavor was the number one hero, and the public had latched onto him desperately in the wake of All Might's retirement. Shouta would have to drag him from their hands, kicking and screaming.
In a second, Shouta had lashed out with his capture weapon, wrapping its length around Endeavor's wrist as he poised to strike Todoroki. Immediately, Shouta's stealth was broken, and Endeavor whipped around to face him, rage so writ in his features it was like he'd never felt anything else.
"That's enough," Shouta said shortly, and it was situations like these that made him grateful he knew how to be cold. The neutral-cold-unkind was for this: for an unwavering persona, immovable as All Might. Shouta stood with his feet apart, one hand holding back Endeavor's muscle, a glare in his eyes that said you will back down.
Todoroki's blatant relief as his eyes caught Shouta hit him like a punch to the throat.
"What right do you have to interfere in a conversation with my son?" Endeavor spat, throwing his own glare right back at Shouta.
"This is UA property. You have no rights here. I don't need to give you a reason to throw you out," Shouta said, and it was technically true, if one ignored the fact that Shouta wasn't the one who could personally order someone's removal from the property.
Regardless, Shouta plucked his phone from his pocket, ending the recording and dialing Nedzu's number. At the dial tone, Endeavor scoffed, but stepped back, and Shouta released his weapon.
"You'll regret this slight against me, Eraserhead," Endeavor said, and stalked off.
Shouta didn't dignify that remark with a response, instead turning to Todoroki, who was looking at him with some strange mixture of shock and confusion. "Are you alright?"
The kid stayed silent for a moment. "Yes," he said eventually, the blankness sliding smoothly over his features once again. Along with it was a note of indignance that was nearly reminiscent of Bakugou. "I didn't need any help."
Shouta didn't dignify that with a response, either. "I can't stop him from coming on campus, but he's not allowed to enter the dorms without staff permission. I won't open the door for him."
Yes. Shouta could see, as his words registered in Todoroki's mind, that this was the route he'd needed to go all along. If he'd offered help, Todoroki would have refused it outright. It was a demonstration he'd needed, proof that Shouta knew what he needed, and would follow through.
Shouta cast a short glance over his shoulder as Todoroki continued to flounder for a response, face blank but for the way his eyes danced with disbelief. "Go back in. I think Midoriya's going to burst a blood vessel if you don't go talk to him." Todoroki's gaze jerked just to the side of Shouta, looking up at the doors, where Midoriya was quite literally pressed against the glass, waiting for him.
"Ah—yes, Sensei." And he left.
The next step was getting Todoroki to trust him.
Shouta was sure there was some measure of trust there—Todoroki deferred to him, at least; all of Class A did. But trust can mean many things, and trusting a Pro to have your back in battle isn't the same as trusting an authority figure enough to admit you're being abused.
So, for a good month, at least, Shouta kept his phone on him for the few times Endeavor would come around, catching not only the moments he and Todoroki interacted—of which there were scant few, thanks to Shouta's intervention—but also the vicious way he'd speak with the other staff, the way he'd dismiss any student who approached him, the literal collateral damage to his anger; Endeavor had broken or melted or outright incinerated more than a fair few pieces of furniture in his anger.
And, for a good month, at least, Shouta did his very best to make himself approachable to Todoroki.
It was on a weekend night in the common room, just as winter was setting in, that the kids decided to have a movie night. The girls raided people's rooms for blankets and pillows and set about making the common area comfy, while Satou and Tokoyami prepared hot chocolate for everyone who liked it, and Bakugo and his stragglers argued over genres.
Todoroki was doing nothing, standing to the side and watching everything come together, separate from the cozy atmosphere his classmates had begun to create. From the opposite side of the room, Shouta could see the distance Todoroki was keeping like a physical barrier.
Shouta glanced at the fireplace, unlit, and coincidentally within the circle of chaos. It would be much more cozy lit, wouldn't it?
"Todoroki," Shouta called, and the boy himself turned immediately at the sound of his name. "Come here." Shouta moved over to the fireplace, crouching before it and pulling open its glass doors to peer inside. There was wood already there—leftover from last year, probably.
"You want me to light it?" Todoroki asked as he approached, hand already out, ready to catch flame. Something in his tone—a small thing, but it was there nonetheless—seemed resigned.
"No," Shouta said, and Todoroki stopped short in surprise. "I'm going to show you how to actually light it, so that you all can use it responsibly. Have you ever lit a fire without your quirk before?" Todoroki shook his head. "Okay." Shouta opened his mouth to say more, but Todoroki stopped him before he could.
"Why me?" His voice was quiet. "Wouldn't Iida be a better choice to teach, if you want us to use it responsibly?"
"I want you to know how to deal with fire," Shouta told him, standing up. "Besides, you're the least likely to panic if something catches fire that shouldn't."
Todoroki didn't seem to know what to make of that. "Okay."
Shouta showed him how to open and close the flue, then what could be used as kindling, pulling out some old newspaper and cardboard and showing him where it was kept. "If you're building a fire outside, you should get tinder too—anything that's smaller and easier to burn—but inside it doesn't matter so much. Lighting the wood directly doesn't usually work." Todoroki nodded, watching with attention. "I keep the lighters and matches in my room; if you need them, you'll have to come ask me. It's for safety."
Shouta lit the kindling, blowing on it lightly before letting it burn, slowly spreading to the wood. A glance to the side showed that Todoroki was watching with a strange fascination—he'd likely never thought of fire like this, so benign. Fire was a weapon, to him, and here was a small blaze just meant to keep them warm.
They both stepped back, and Shouta closed the doors, letting the fire pick up behind them, casting a flickering light outward. Even with the glass before it, the area was already growing warm.
"I'll bring in some more wood. You guys will be responsible for putting it out after you're done with it. Water is fine for this kind of fire."
"Kind?" Todoroki asked, softly.
"There are other types of fires. Water can make some of them worse. We'll be going over them with Thirteen later this month."
"Oh."
They both stepped back from the fire, looking down at it. Then, Shouta watched as Todoroki turned away from it, looking into the room. While they'd been occupied, the room had taken form, and most of the class had trickled in, cuddling up to each other and giggling, the noise level surprisingly low considering how many people were present. Satou had brought out snacks, including brownies he'd made, and Yaoyorozu was now leading a majority vote on what movie to watch. Midoriya and Uraraka were sitting together on the edge of the couch, and when Todoroki stood, they turned to face him.
"Come join us, Todo!" Uraraka said brightly, patting the open space next to her. Midoriya smiled, nodding his agreement.
Todoroki turned to Shouta, who gestured him forward. He went and sat with his friends, something hesitant in his steps.
When Todoroki was situated, he cleared his throat, gathering the attention of the room at large.
"Get me if there's an emergency. No excessive cuddling. Make sure you clean up when you're done," he said, and then waved them back to their movie night.
"Aww, Aizawa-sensei, stay and watch with us!" It was Ashido who said that, and her remark quickly had the rest of the class begging him to stay, so loudly it grated on Shouta's ear.
"No," he said flatly. They grumbled, but most of the comments died down as Yaoyorozu called attention back to the vote.
As he moved to leave the room, Hitoshi caught Shouta's eye. He was sitting across the room, sandwiched between Ashido and Kaminari. He'd managed to worm his way into Bakugou's mismatched friend group—god knows how—and was proving quickly to be the odd link between them and Midoriya's possey. Since Hitoshi had joined the class, Midoriya had been determined to become proper friends with him, and, against all odds, it seemed to have worked.
Hitoshi gave Shouta a meaningful look, shifted his gaze to Todoroki and then back, and gave Shouta the most shit-eating grin he possibly could. Shouta glared back, though without heat. While his attention was still caught, Hitoshi pulled out his phone, wiggled it at Shouta, and then started typing. Sure enough, a moment later, Shouta's phone buzzed in his pocket.
Hitoshi: i don't think your apartment is big enough for another kid, dude
Me: It's yours too. And you're both living in the dorms right now, so it doesn't matter.
Hitoshi: oh, so you're not denying it
Me: Hush. You don't know the situation.
Hitoshi: i can guess.
Hitoshi: i'll help
Me: And what is that supposed to mean?
Hitoshi: you'll see ;)
He didn't send anything more, and when Shouta looked up again, Hitoshi was happily chatting with Kaminari.
Shouta let his gaze pan back over to Todoroki. There, on the end of the couch, he was seated comfortably between Uraraka and Iida, who had been gently shooed away some minutes earlier by Yaoyorozu when he tried—with all good intentions—to facilitate the vote louder than she had been. Midoriya, on Uraraka's other side, had leaned forward to talk to Todoroki, who was listening with bright eyes. He seemed relaxed in a way he hadn't been, earlier, when he'd been watching from a distance.
The sight warmed Shouta's icy throat, some.
Hitoshi didn't ask anything about The Todoroki Situation, but, as time progressed, Shouta did learn what he meant about helping.
Hitoshi was certainly the link between Bakugo's friends and Midoriya's friends, but it became more pronounced after the movie night. He began spending more time with them, sitting with them at lunches more often than with Ashido and Kaminari, hanging out with Uraraka and Asui individually and joining them on group outings. It was subtle, but Shouta knew what he was gunning for, ultimately. Slowly, person by person, Hitoshi grew closer to Todoroki, until one day Shouta came into the dorms after a staff meeting and found Hitoshi and Todoroki sitting together in the kitchen, drinking tea.
Todoroki was facing away from him, but Hitoshi caught his eye and waved, a smile on his face. It had never stopped being startling to Shouta, since he'd first noticed it—the way Hitoshi now looked at him with real, deep affection, mixed with that gratitude Shouta was sure would never completely go away.
At his wave, Todoroki turned in his seat, and met Shouta's eyes. And, to his utter surprise, Todoroki raised his hand and offered the tiniest wave to him, too.
Shouta was not exactly the type to wave, but he certainly wasn't going to leave without acknowledging him. Meeting his eyes, he asked, "Is there more tea?"
Todoroki nodded. "I can get you some," he said, already moving to stand, but Shouta put up a hand.
"I'll get my own. Thank you, Todoroki," he said, and moved to do so.
As Shouta was about to leave and head for his own room, Hitoshi called out to him. "Ah, sensei—" He'd asked Hitoshi to keep his adoption under the radar, which meant calling him sensei like everyone else. "—I have some work that I'm confused on. Could you help me, later?"
Shouta knew for a fact that that was a lie, since the only thing Hitoshi had been struggling with lately was English, and Hizashi had already helped him with that. So he saw what Hitoshi was doing immediately. Clever kid.
"Sure. I'll be in the common room after dinner." With that, he left, Hitoshi turning back to his conversation with Todoroki.
Hitoshi was trying to indirectly make him more approachable to Todoroki, since the kid seemed to trust his peers more than his teachers. It was something Shouta would have done, were he in a position to.
If Shouta grinned stupidly to himself as he headed back to his room, steaming cup of tea in hand, then that was his business.
Apart from Hitoshi's clever plan to draw Todoroki out of his shell around Shouta, they really seemed to be becoming good friends. From the short snatches of socialization he caught, it seemed like Hitoshi was a good fit for Todoroki. Midoriya and Uraraka and Iida were painful levels of earnest, and while they were good for Todoroki generally, Hitoshi was the only one of them who seemed to know how to truly relate to Todoroki.
That's not to say that their shared trauma was all Hitoshi had going for him in their friendship; in fact, Shouta was pretty sure he hadn't actually brought it up yet. Hitoshi was just more down-to-earth than Todoroki's other friends tended to be. He was less energetic.
Shouta found himself approving an off-campus outing request from Hitoshi, to take himself and Todoroki to a nearby cat café. Shouta volunteered to be their chaperone, and no matter how Nemuri teased him about favoritism, he and Hitoshi both knew it was mostly to hang around the cats.
They paid for two and a half hours of time, and Hitoshi and Todoroki picked a small table by the window to park themselves. A prime spot—in about half an hour, the sunlight there would be perfect for cat-napping. The cats would flock to them.
Shouta himself sat a respectable distance away, at a small table across the room, pulling out student work to grade while giving his students the illusion of privacy. He didn't actually manage to get much of it done, considering half of his attention was on his kids and the other half was on coaxing cats over to him. It was a fair sacrifice.
About forty minutes in, he looked up to see Hitoshi smiling as he watched Todoroki, who was sitting comically rigidly, a cat with bright orange fur curled up on his lap, mostly on his left thigh. Another, a siamese, was rubbing up against that calf. Hitoshi had a cat of his own, a dark tabby, sitting on the table beside a small cake he'd ordered as he scratched it behind the ear.
Shouta smiled, and got up to order himself a coffee.
An hour later, Shouta had successfully lured about five cats his way, and was finishing his third coffee, though this one was probably more sugar than caffeine. Not his thing, but he'd promised Hizashi he'd try it when he got the chance.
He had one cat draped over his shoulders, one in his lap, two on his table—lying all over his student's work, the fiends—and one sitting primly between his feet when he noticed what sounded suspiciously like a giggle from the corner Hitoshi and Todoroki had parked themselves in.
A blatant glance toward them—he didn't try to hide it—saw the both of them looking at him, amused, likely by his array of cats. To his pleasant surprise, Todoroki seemed… open. Relaxed, in a way that Shouta hadn't seen him be before.
He met Todoroki's gaze and winked, before returning to the one paper he'd managed to pay attention enough to mark. The surprised, wide-eyed blink Shouta caught sight of before he'd turned away was just icing on the cake.
It was a month and a half later that Todoroki came to Shouta first.
"I'm going to visit my mother this weekend," he opened with, and then stopped, as if he had not planned further than that.
"I know. Did you need something?"
"Do… will you come with me?" The way he asked it was not hesitant, exactly, but it spoke of something larger than a simple, meaningless request.
Whatever was going on in the kid's head, Shouta would not deny him and risk whatever careful bridge Todoroki had built between them.
"Of course."
Todoroki Rei was a kind woman. That much Shouta knew just being introduced to her, the three of them squished into her tiny room. The facility was nicer than Shouta had been expecting; the few staff he'd talked to really seemed to care.
"You're Eraserhead, right?" Rei asked him, and he nodded, surprised she recognized him. "Shouto's mentioned a little about you. You saved them, at the USJ their first year. I know he can take care of himself, now, but thank you for protecting him when he couldn't."
"It's my job, ma'am," he said, struck dumb in the face of her. She was fragile; he could see, hear it in the delicate way she did everything, but her love of her son was real. Heavy.
She shook her head. "I know." She turned back to her son, but Todoroki kept looking at Shouta. There was something different in the way Todoroki regarded him, now. Shouta wondered when it had changed—what had caused it. Was it Hitoshi? Rei?
Him?
He took a backseat, as Todoroki chatted with his mother, and excused himself from the room when their conversation took a more personal turn. An hour or so later, Todoroki emerged, and Shouta made to leave with him before the kid stopped.
"She wants to talk to you," he said, and Shouta glanced back at the closed door.
"Wait for me in the lobby." Todoroki nodded, and walked away without complaint.
Reentering the room, Rei was waiting for him, hands clasped pleasantly in her lap, though her gaze was serious.
"You know a bit about my husband, don't you, Eraserhead?" she began, and her voice was tired.
"Aizawa, please." He corrected her as gently as he could. "Yes. I know him professionally."
"Aizawa-san. I know you do, but… you know more, don't you?" She looked past him, to the closed door, and it felt like she was looking much further than that. "About the kind of person he is."
"…Yes," he replied, after a long pause. She smiled at him, but it was not a happy expression.
"I thought you did. He… I love Shouto, and all of my children, and I will be their mother for the rest of my life, but I can't take care of them the way a mother should, anymore." She raised a hand, and she and Shouta both watched as it shook. "I love my husband. I always will. But I can't forgive him for what he's done to my children. Fuyumi and Natsuo can take care of themselves now, and Touya…" She broke off, a grief clouding her features. It took a moment for her to recollect herself. "But Shouto is still under his thumb. I want better for him, Aizawa-san."
"I understand," he said quietly, meeting her eyes.
"You are helping him, aren't you?"
"As best I can." He debated, for a moment, how wise it would be to tell her of his plans regarding Endeavor, but after a moment determined she would learn eventually. "To be frank, Todoroki-san, I plan to take your husband to court."
Her expression was not… happy, at that, but she did not protest outright. After a moment to gather her thoughts, she responded.
"Good. You should." She was quiet for a moment more. "What would happen to him, after that?"
"Legally speaking, either of your older children could take responsibility for him until he's of age, if they have the resources. However… your husband is the number one hero. He has a lot of strings he could pull, if he wanted to take your son back, and it would likely be easy for him to do so if he were placed with Fuyumi or Natsuo." Rei nodded at his words, and he went on. "I would also be willing to take him in. I have pull as a hero, and would be able to prevent that circumstance."
This changed her demeanor. She regarded him differently, at that statement, looking between his eyes as if searching for something.
"You…?" The way she said it, Shouta was sure the remark was more for herself than anyone. "Why?"
"He's my student, Todoroki-san. I care about him." Shouta pulled out his phone, and, despite a vague sense of embarrassment, pulled up a picture Hizashi had taken of him asleep on their couch at home, Eri leaning against his right side and Hitoshi against his right, both also passed out. "I have two other children who I take care of. Eri was held captive by a villain who I helped take into custody. I offered to take care of her. Hitoshi is another one of my students. His mother was unfit to take care of him. I brought her to court as well." He pointed to Eri and Hitoshi in turn as he explained, and Rei was silent through it, listening.
When he stopped talking, Rei considered him again, before smiling gently. "I see." She offered her hand, which Shouta took, and she clasped his between both of hers. "I'd be at ease if he were in your care, Aizawa-san."
He bowed, then. "I'd be honored," he said, truthfully, and found his voice somewhat choked.
After they'd both collected themselves, Rei turned to him again. "If you need my testimony, I'll give it." She cast her gaze downward. "I'm willing to give Enji another chance, but not when it comes to my children." She met Shouta's eyes again, determined. "I'll tell everything."
"Thank you, Todoroki-san," he said.
"Please," she replied, smiling. "Call me Rei."
"Shouta," he returned.
With Rei's testimony, and a distressing amount of footage compiled on his phone, Shouta only really had one more step to take: talk to Todoroki directly.
He could seek out Todoroki's siblings, but to do so would be invasive, and Shouta had enough on hand without their testimony to open a lawsuit. If necessary, both of them could be brought in later. There was also the issue of Todoroki Touya; Rei had been reluctant to speak much on him. The only definitive information Shouta got on him was that he was gone, and it had had something to do with Endeavor.
Shouta was pondering how to approach Todoroki in his room when there was a knock at his door. It was late, after curfew, so none of the students should be up, not that that stopped them. Still, it narrowed the candidates, and by the time Shouta opened the door he had pretty much convinced himself it would be Hitoshi, come to ask for company. It was not.
Instead, Midoriya stood at his door, a packet of paper in his hands and a steely look in his eyes. "Can I come in?"
"Yes, but I have to keep the door open, so if you're looking for privacy, there won't be much." At Midoriya's confused look, Shouta clarified, "Propriety."
"That's… fine," Midoriya acquiesced, and Shouta moved aside so he could come in, leaving the door open wide for the nearby camera to look in.
"What is it, Midoriya?"
"You're trying to help Todoroki, right?"
"Yes." Shouta frowned, looking at the kid. Midoriya was usually nervous talking to him; he almost never met Shouta's eyes, and tended to avoid talking to teachers directly, with the exception of All Might. Figures that it would be on another student's behalf that Midoriya would work up the courage to look him in the eye.
Red flags, the cold whispers, and Shouta knows. Todoroki first.
"I can't do much for him," Midoriya said, regret like a bite in his tone. "But I could do this." He held out the packet of paper he'd been carrying, and Shouta took it. When Midoriya said no more, he flipped through its contents.
It was a research paper, twenty pages long, that was more of an exposé than anything else. In it, Midoriya had detailed what appeared to be all the public information on Endeavor's excessive property damage, incidents where he used excessive force, incidents where he endangered lives of civilians in pursuit of villains, incidents where civilians ended up collateral damage in pursuit of villains, and more—there was so much covered that Shouta couldn't process it all, and the kid had cited it, each and every source. Hell, it looked like he'd interviewed some of the victims of Endeavor's carelessness.
"It's not—it won't do much, if you're suing him as an unfit parent, but—" Midoriya struggled with words for a moment. "If it can do anything—" He's cut off when Shouta puts a hand on his shoulder.
"Midoriya."
"Yes, Aizawa-sensei?" he squeaked.
"Thank you." Then: "This will help."
Midoriya looked between his eyes, for a moment, and there it was again: that anxiety, the almost disbelief that Shouta would take him seriously.
"Good," he said after a moment.
Shouta let his hand drop. "Go to bed, problem child."
Midoriya smiled. "Yes, sensei!"
In the end, talking to Todoroki was as simple as calling him into his office one day, after classes were over.
"You wanted to see me?"
"Yes." Shouta gestured to the chair across from his desk, where Midoriya had sat weeks ago and haltingly explained Todoroki's story to him. "Sit." He sat.
"I am not asking your permission for this, because it's for your own good," he began, and Todoroki immediately stiffened, mask sliding onto his face. Neutralcoldunkind, his mind supplied, and Shouta shoved the thought away.
"I will be bringing your father to court. He is unfit to be a parent, and I will not watch him hurt you anymore."
For a moment, Todoroki just sat there, rigid, his eyes wide with barely concealed shock-confusion. "What?" he croaked, and it was clear to Shouta that the kid's head was spinning, like he could barely comprehend what Shouta was telling him.
Maybe that was too blunt.
"He's abusing you," Shouta said, and that snapped Todoroki out of his confusion.
"He isn't," he said, firmly.
"I'm not asking you."
"I know. You've got it wrong, he's training me." Todoroki's face twists in indignance, and Shouta takes that in—that it's this that breaks Todoroki's careful façade. His father, who had likely shaped that mask himself, forcing Todoroki to create it every time he was berated for "weakness."
"What we do in class is training, Todoroki," Shouta told him. "Your father is not training you. Pushing you past your breaking point and expecting you to keep going is not training. That is abuse."
Looking at him, Shouta knew that Todoroki did not hold any love for his father. It was simply that Todoroki did not know the truth of what was happening. He had lived with it his entire life, and while he hated his father, he didn't understand that what Endeavor was doing was wrong.
Shouta stood, and moved around his desk to kneel by Todoroki's chair. "What your father does to you isn't normal, Todoroki. He's wrong."
Todoroki looked lost, then, and Shouta's heart bled for him, shards of ice breaking arteries, pouring out, pouring forever.
"If you could, would you stop living with him?" Shouta asked, gentle as he could.
After a long time, Todoroki responded, so quiet it was like a breath, "Yes."
"I'm going to make that happen, kid." Todoroki seemed to war between relief and despair, at that. Shouta let his hand fall from his shoulder. "Go back to the dorms and think about it. Talk to your friends."
"…Okay."
Some hours later, Shouta went into the dorms to find Todoroki on one of the couches, Midoriya on one side of him and Hitoshi on the other. They had clearly been talking quietly before Shouta walked in, but stopped at his entrance. Seeing who it was, Hitoshi simply turned back to Todoroki, though neither Midoriya nor Todoroki looked away as quick as he did.
Shouta met Todoroki's eyes. Neither of them smiled, but something passed between them either way.
"Where would I go?"
It was a few days after Shouta initially told him. Todoroki had stayed behind after the rest of Class A filed out, heading down the hall to Hizashi's room. Shouta doesn't ask him to clarify; he knows what he means.
"If either of your older siblings are able, and you're okay with it, you could stay with them," Shouta opened. "Or you could stay with me."
Todoroki had initially scrunched up his face in reluctance when he'd heard "your older siblings," but when Shouta said that last part, his face dropped in surprise.
"With you?"
"Yes."
Todoroki paused. "Why?"
To him, Shouta gave the same answer he gave Hitoshi. The same answer he gave Rei, albeit in a roundabout way. "I care."
"Is there a reason you wouldn't want to stay with your sister or brother?"
"How do you know I wouldn't?"
"You didn't exactly jump at the prospect."
"… I don't know them. Not very well. I'd rather—"
"You'd rather what?"
"Nevermind."
Shouta, though he was pleasantly surprised with the work ethic of the lawyer who'd handled Hitoshi's case, knew that taking Endeavor to court would take more firepower than she'd had. So he called in a favor from All Might to draw in one of the best-known attorneys in Japan.
When Todoroki first met her, his mask had broken instantly. Shouta hadn't told him who he'd hired purely for that reaction, since he knew the kid would know her—all pro heroes do, and Endeavor certainly wouldn't have neglected to pass the information on.
"Hello, Todoroki-kun. Pleasure to meet you." Ueda Masumi said, giving a polite bow, a gentle expression on her face, as Todoroki blinked at her in disbelief.
"And you," he murmured eventually, bowing back.
Ueda Masumi, the most famous Heroics attorney in the country, had gone to court as the representative of countless civilians suing heroes for various grievances, the most common being personal injury or sexual harassment. She was one of the only Heroics attorneys who refused outright to represent heroes themselves, instead focusing her efforts on those affected by their actions. She grew in notoriety after a sexual harassment case against the hero Cast Breaker received media attention; he had been a fairly popular hero, especially among women, and no one wanted to believe he would act in such an abhorrent way. Despite the pushback, Ueda won her case, partly due to the fact that more and more women began to come forward with allegations against Cast Breaker, encouraged by the original girl who decided to speak out.
Since then, Ueda had almost never lost a case. She had never taken a hero to court for child abuse allegations, but it was close enough to her wheelhouse that Shouta felt confident hiring her on Todoroki's behalf. Todoroki could technically open the lawsuit independently, being of age to do so, but his father controlled all of their family's money, so he wouldn't have been able to pay her. Shouta, being a Pro, had enough money to spare, even after Hitoshi.
Shinsou Akane had fought, when Shouta took her to court. It had taken eight months to trudge through all the legal proceedings, though Shouta had taken it upon himself to remove Hitoshi from her care far earlier. With Endeavor, the battle was likely to be about ten times as hard—Shouta was prepared to be seeing enough of Ueda in the next year, or few years, to make him sick of her.
"I appreciate you taking us on," Shouta told her, bowing as well. She smiled at him.
"The pleasure's all mine, Aizawa-san. If what I've been told is true, I'll be more than happy to fight for Todoroki-kun," she said, and Shouta knew with certainty that she meant it. Attorneys that were good at their jobs were all well and good, but attorneys who cared—that meant something.
"Every word of it," he promised, and her smile tightened.
Ueda, blessing that she was, was good with teenagers in a way Shouta had never learned to be. She coaxed Todoroki out of his shell enough that she could draw out his story, and she recorded every word.
She also managed to secure promises from Rei and Todoroki's older siblings that they would testify, and on her own time met with them personally to talk. When Shouta presented her with Midoriya's paper, she had flipped through it with a confident gleam in her eye.
By the time Ueda had collected all her pieces, and officially notified Endeavor of the lawsuit against him, Shouta had looked at her notes and files and been utterly blown away by her organization, her efficiency. Hitoshi's lawyer had been effective, but not like this.
"You seem surprised. I thought you'd worked with an attorney before?" Ueda asked him, watching him examine her materials.
"I did. This is… more than she did," he said, and Ueda's lip quirked up in a half-smile.
"Well, we have a tough opponent." She turned away, tucking a lock of hair behind one ear as she studied a spreadsheet open on her laptop. "I need to be as prepared as possible."
"Yes, you do," Shouta murmured, looking over her work again. You are.
It took fourteen months.
Class A—Class 3-A, now—was three months from graduating before Shouto was released from Endeavor's control.
The case had made it to the press. It was bound to, with child abuse allegations being first brought against him, and then multiple charges of excessive force, property damage, and criminally negligent manslaughter. Endeavor had been essentially castrated before the media. The public at large ripped him to shreds in light of the evidence, which Ueda—with the Todoroki's permission—subtly encouraged be spread around.
Dubbed 'The Endeavor Scandal,' what made Endeavor himself give up custody of his son was not willingness. Rather, it was a media ploy, a last-ditch effort to save face. He gave Todoroki Shouto up as part of a sob story his public relations department had no doubt scripted for him—something weepy about how he'd realized his wrongdoings and wanted to become a better man and father.
Load of good it did him, considering all he earned in the end was jailtime, in addition to suspension of his license and his rank being stripped.
Good riddance, Shouta thought, watching him as he walked out of court on the last day. Per laws regarding quirk use, his flames were extinguished, and the sight of him like that, in a pressed suit, was so underwhelming it was almost funny. Without Hellfire, Todoroki Enji wasn't intimidating. He seemed so vulnerable.
Shouto seemed to see it, too, for when he saw his father for the last time, he stood with his back straight. The look in his eyes was not the pained confliction that had been haunting him since it all started—now they were steel satisfaction, cold and burning in the same breath.
Seeing Shouto this way, having watched Todoroki Enji's retreating back, made the ice finally melt.
"Thank you," Shouto told Ueda personally, in a restaurant after the lawsuit had been closed. Shouta had offered to treat her to dinner, as thanks for her work. She'd smiled and told him she would pay for herself, thank you very much, but she'd love to have dinner with them.
"You're welcome," she responded. "I had no issue with taking that man down a peg, I assure you." Shouto smiled back at her, just slightly.
When Shouta escorted Shouto back to the dorms for the first time since everything ended, barely-restrained chaos rang out.
"Congratulations!" came from every single student. Confetti poppers were shot, and streamers had been hung, and Satou had baked a cake.
Shouto clearly didn't know how to handle it, but Midoriya and Hitoshi guided him through.
For the duration of the proceedings, Shouto had mostly lived in the dorms. During the short breaks, he'd gone to stay with his sister Fuyumi. It was a trial period; he still wasn't sure where he wanted to go, and in the midst of it all, he'd decided he did want to know the rest of his family. From the halting words Shouta had coaxed from him, it seemed to be going well enough. Fuyumi was kind and accommodating, and though Shouto had been kept from her for most of his life, she'd been there for his infancy. She cared about him a great deal.
But what Shouto had said before it all still rung in Shouta's mind, now and then, that "I'd rather." Was he going to say he'd rather live with Shouta? Did it matter?
He got his answer a little after things had calmed down. Graduation was inching closer, and people were beginning to talk about their plans. Shouto still had to decide where he wanted to go, and while he could live on his own, something told Shouta that total independence wasn't something he was ready for.
"Aizawa?" The call came late at night, and would have scared the shit out of Shouta if he hadn't heard Shouto coming. He was in the kitchen. It was well past lights-out, and he was sure the rest of the dorm was dead asleep.
"Yes?"
"Would you still be okay with me staying with you?"
Technically, as his teacher and primary caretaker, living in the dorms with him, Shouta had temporary legal custody of him. It would be nothing to make that permanent.
"Yes." He thought for a moment, then added, "You should probably come see what it's like, before you make a decision."
Shouto's eyebrows creased. "See what it's like? Do you not live alone?"
Somehow, Shouta cracked a smile. "No. You'll see. I'll bring you to see it this weekend."
The first thing Shouta heard, upon letting Shouto into the apartment, was, "I fucking knew it!"
It was Hitoshi, laying on his back on the couch, his head tilted back where it rested on the arm so he could see them, though he was looking upside down. All in all, a fairly bizarre first impression for Shouto, who blinked at Hitoshi in surprise.
Then, his expression cleared, and Shouto said, "Ah, so you are his love child," and Shouta nearly spat out his coffee.
"I am not and you know it! I gave you enough damn hints about my mother," Hitoshi said petulantly. "Now that the cat's out of the bag, I can share all my childhood trauma with you."
Shouto turned to Shouta. "So he's like me?"
"Yes, essentially."
While they were still standing in the entryway, Eri came sprinting down the hall, Hizashi chasing her, cackling like an idiot. He caught her up just as she was about to reach the couch, and she squealed in laughter as he scooped her into his arms, a big grin on his face. "Gotcha!"
Another glance at Shouto saw him struck by surprise once again.
"Eri-chan is here," he murmured, before turning back to Shouta. "You adopted her, too? I thought she was just around you because of her quirk."
"It's both."
"What about Present Mic?" Shouto asked, his head tilting slightly, and Shouta had to fight off a laugh. Hitoshi had asked the same.
"We're married," Shouta told him, and Shouto nodded, taking in the information the same way Hitoshi had.
Gazing out on the chaos—Hitoshi had stood up on the couch cushions to try to steal Eri from Hizashi, who was fighting the theft honorably, while Eri herself shrieked with mirth—Shouto seemed to come to a conclusion.
"I like it," he said, and looked up at Shouta. "I want to stay."
Shouta smiled, an honest-to-goodness smile. Were Hizashi watching, he'd have taken out his phone to snap a picture. "Welcome home, then," he said, and in response, Shouto smiled, too. It was small, and still a little hesitant, but it was there, and the cold, clammy hand that had still been caressing Shouta's wrist fell away.