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Chapter Text

Standing in an abandoned alleyway being poked in the chest by Bakugou Katsuki was not what Shouto would prefer to be doing with his afternoon.

Considering that the sports festival had ended just a couple days prior, he had mostly just been waiting for school to be over that day, so that he could go home and not have annoying conversations with his most ill-natured classmate. What was he mad about again? Probably his refusal to use fire in their match. Still.

“Don’t even say one goddamn word, you half-and-half apathetic bastard. Don’t think I’m not onto you. This whole goddamn time, you’ve been looking down your nose at me. Well, I’ve got the upper hand on you now. I know that you aren’t as special as you always pretend you are.” Bakugou was repeatedly poking him harder and harder in the chest, to the point where Shouto was concerned he was going to start using his quirk to add emphasis.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Shouto deadpanned. He turned and tried to leave but found himself blocked by Bakugou’s arm.

Bakugou laughed. Or maybe cackled  was a better term. “Oh, I’m sure you fucking don’t. But just wait. Just wait until you know who my father is .”

Okay, now Shouto was really lost. “Um. Why do I care?”

For several seconds they just stared at each other, Bakugou’s face red enough that Shouto wouldn’t have been surprised to see steam rising from his ears.

“My father. IS. ENDEAVOR.”

... Huh?

~~~~One Day Earlier~~~

Bakugou Katsuki was sitting on the couch in his living room the day after the UA sports festival, watching TV. Exactly what every teenager wanted to be doing. And yet, he kept finding himself distracted, glancing behind him at the kitchen every two minutes. More accurately, at his mom in the kitchen. The little frown that tugged at the corner of her mouth as she washed the dishes was very suspicious. He was used to one of two things: gigantic, exaggerated grimaces, or face-splitting smiles. This frown, it was… wrong.

In truth, Bakugou Mitsuki had been acting strange, ever since the day before. Katsuki hadn’t thought much of it until he forgot to do the dishes that evening, and she didn’t even yell at him. Just quietly did them for him. And as much as he preferred that to actually, you know, doing his chores, it was weird. Like, his mother always stubbornly forced him to do his chores, no matter what. She said it was “character development” and that he had to “learn that he couldn’t always get his way,” and that it would “teach him some humility.” Whatever. Not today, though. He was honestly starting to think she’d been brainwashed. It was the only explanation.

So he kept glancing at her, and she kept doing the dishes and frowning, and god, Katsuki was going to explode if he didn’t find out what was up soon. Probably not literally, but literal explosions were always a possibility.

He cleared his throat. She didn’t even react. He did it again, louder this time, and she still didn’t react. “YO, WOMAN!” he shouted. That got her attention, as she jumped slightly, then grimaced at him.

“HEY, I thought that I taught you MANNERS!” she shouted right back. “That is NOT HOW WE ADDRESS PEOPLE!”

“AWE, SHUT IT YOU OLD BAT, I WAS JUST TRYIN TO ASK YOU WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG!”

She was taken aback by that, dropping the dish in her hand. Luckily, it was plastic, so it didn’t shatter, but still. There was a moment of silence, and then… “There’s nothing wrong,” she said, almost gently.

“You aren’t a very good liar,” Katsuki said, standing up and crossing his arms, defiant. “What’s wrong?”

“I already told ya, NOTHING,” she snapped, leaning down to retrieve the dish, and placing it gently in the sink.

The snapping was more normal, but now that little frown was back, and there was nothing normal about that. Whatever was going on, she felt the need to hide it. That was the part that felt so wrong. It wasn’t like she’d never had something bothering her before, but it was just… Katsuki knew they weren’t the most functional family, but they told each other shit. That was kinda their thing. Usually, they’d end up yelling whatever it was at each other, but that still counted as communication, as far as he was concerned. Secrets? Those weren’t the Bakugou way. He was hurt. No, angry. Just angry.

“What do you even have to hide?!” Katsuki shouted, sneering at her. “I know everything about you! I know every secret you try to hide from teachers or whoever else you meet! WHAT ARE YOU NOT TELLING ME?!” And she flinched. If Katsuki knew anything about his mother, it was that she never backed down, never showed her weakness or her fear. Her flinching… that was new territory. “What could you possibly have to hide?” He asked again, voice lower this time.

She sighed. “I really don’t wanna tell you. If you’re this much of a brat now, I don’t wanna see what you’ll be like after.” There was no bite to her words. Just resignation. Katsuki had won, but somehow, he wasn’t sure if that was a good thing. Still, he motioned for her to continue. She sighed again. “So, you know all about the night of your conception, right?” she said hesitantly.

It felt like a rock had been dropped into his stomach. Katsuki knew that whoever his father was, he was a lowlife. He’d had a one night stand with Katsuki’s mother and just left, never even bothering to give her his name. And then she’d realized that Katsuki was a thing a few weeks later, when she started throwing up everywhere. It was a story he knew well. Or at least a story he thought he knew well. But if this secret had anything to do with that... “Go on,” he said.

“I didn’t tell you this, but about a week before I knew you were… a thing,” she said, “I was listening to the radio. And I heard a very familiar voice being interviewed. It was familiar because I had heard it being very… expressive a week earlier.” She winced at that. “The interview was with Endeavor? The hero Endeavor?”

Katsuki’s brain? Gone. Completely, entirely not functioning. “My sperm donor… was Endeavor,” he said, quietly. “My sperm donor, the man who never gave you his name, was Endeavor?!”

“Look, there’s no need for this to be a big deal or anything--”

“NOT A BIG DEAL?” Katsuki suddenly found himself fighting to resist actually making his hands explode. “You--I--number two--but--” he began pacing. “Holy shit. Holy. Shit.”

His mother was pinching the bridge of her nose, looking defeated. “I had my reasons for not saying anything, alright? It’s exactly like I always told you; the guy was a jerk, and I saw no reason to trouble you with trying to get in contact with him.”

“Oh yeah, except for the fact that he’s the NUMBER TWO HERO IN THE WORLD. THIS EXPLAINS EVERYTHING.” And suddenly, he turned back toward her, and his face had burst into an almost manic grin. “I’m the son of the number two hero. Hell, I guess we know where my quirk came from!” He looked down at his hands in wonder. “Damn… and here I thought my old man had nothing to be proud of.”

“HEY.” She walked over and wacked him over the head with her free hand. “Don’t you go around idolizing trash, alright?! Number two hero, my ass; no man is a hero if he can’t respect women. Got it?”

“Yeah, yeah,” said Bakugou, waving a hand. “So, why the fuck is this plaguing you now, then?”

“Well, at the sports festival, it was the first time you had a chance to see him in person… I guess I kept worrying that at some point he’d hear the name Bakugou and remember something. Also, maybe I got tired of seeing him sitting up on his pedestal, knowing that he isn’t facing the consequences of his actions.” The corners of her mouth twitched upward in what could only be described as a mischievous smile.

“Ehh? You saying you want me to go around telling people about this?” asked Katsuki incredulously.

“WHAT? NO. Just, you know, if something slips, don’t feel too bad about it.” She picked up dish she had put in the sink and innocently returned to cleaning it.

“Your mind is messed up.”

“Hey, WATCH YOUR MOUTH.”

---

That night, Katsuki lay awake in bed, staring at the ceiling and thinking. Normally, he was out like a light; he didn’t make a habit of questioning himself too often. This time, however, he was questioning everything from his new feelings about his father to his entire motivation for being a hero. Hell, at first he’d been excited to find out he was related to such a powerful guy, but Endeavor was still totally second tier when compared to All Might. So did that mean that Katsuki was gonna be second place? Not to that bastard , Deku, hell no. Or to that half-and-half…

Holy shit.

Katsuki sat bolt upright.

Todoroki. Shit, Katsuki had totally forgotten that guy. He was Endeavor’s son. So did that mean… did that make…

No. No way. Hell no. Nope, not happening, not a thing.

Todoroki was NOT Katsuki’s… relation. He was weird, and pompous, and an asshole, and a loser who gave up fighting because of his stupid-ass feelings.

Oh yes, Katuski was going to make it very clear to him that he had no intention of being bro…. Relations. No intentions of being relations at all.

~~~Back to the present~~~

Bakugou was grinning at Shouto as if he’d won something.

“...Get out of my face.” Shouto pushed past him again, this time managing to shove his way through. But Bakugou grabbed onto his backpack before he could escape.

“Hey! I’m not making this up, dumbass, it’s true . He had a skeevy one night stand in a bar with my mom. She wouldn’t make shit like this up, alright?” He dug in his heels as Shouto tried to move forward.

Okay, now Shouto was starting to get annoyed. “My father was married when we were born. You do realize we’re the same age, right? If this is your idea of a practical joke, I’m not in the mood.”

“What the hell would be the point of making this up?! Maybe the guy cheated on his wife, I dunno, but the fact my powers are better than anybody else’s isn’t an accident! I’m descended from the number two hero, same as you, so get used to it. ”

Finally giving up, Shouto suddenly spun around, making Bakugou stumble in the process, and leveled him with a glare. Bakugou was scowling equally hard, arms folded, trying to pretend that he hadn’t almost fallen on his ass.

The early-evening shadows were just starting to creep up to eye-level as the two faced off. Even though this was obviously a weird lie (Shouto wasn’t going to try to understand Bakugou’s motivations), Shouto ended up examining Bakugou’s features despite himself. Trying to see if there was really any resemblance. His hair was blonde, not red, although Shouto supposed Bakugou could have gotten that from his mom. Maybe, if he squinted, his face shape was similar, but that was probably just because Shouto was used to seeing his father glaring at him with the same expression. They both had that sort of… ferocious, fiery glint in their eyes. If he was being honest, Shouto could sort of see it, but that was most likely just his mind playing tricks on him… right?

“Look, I was pissed to be related to a weak, pathetic loser like you, too. And you know what? This doesn’t even change anything. I’m still going to kick your ass as a hero either way. You can believe whatever you want, but I ain’t keeping quiet about this. My mom wanted people to know that my dad’s a douche so that’s how it’s gonna go. I thought you might want a heads up, but apparently not, so have a shit life or whatever,” Bakugou spat, and finally turned to leave.

As Shouto watched him go, his mind racing, pieces slowly began to fall into place. Considering his father’s treatment of his mother, infidelity wouldn’t even be the worst thing he had done to her. Plus, there was the fact that Shouto could not think of a single motivation Bakugou could have for telling him this. Just to mess with his mind? Why would he do this, specifically? Also…

Anger issues. Arrogance. General lack of concern for others. Obsession with being number one.

Oh god. Bakugou was Shouto’s brother.

Chapter Text

Izuku kept glancing over at Todoroki, who was tap-tap-tap- ing his pencil against the desk, his eyes fixed firmly on Kacchan throughout the class. This was out of character. Todoroki always prioritized school, and yet he didn’t even seem to be listening to Aizawa-sensei. Izuku knew he was no better, since he was focusing his attention on Todoroki instead of their lecture, but in his defense, he was worried. First Iida, and now Todoroki? Not only that, but Kacchan kept sending Todoroki glances right back. Had something happened between them?

Izuku and Todoroki’s friendship was still tentative, sure, but that didn't mean he didn't care about whatever was wrong! And clearly something was wrong, and whatever that was had to do with Kacchan. Honestly, Izuku didn’t want to think about whatever Kacchan had done to make Todoroki uncomfortable. Sure, Kacchan was mad at him, but honestly, Todoroki didn’t usually care about anyone else. Wait, that sounded bad. Todoroki cared about people! He cared about Izuku. Or at least, Izuku hoped he did.

“Midoriya,” Aizawa Sensei’s voice cut through Izuku’s internal monologue. “Something you’d like to share with the class?”

All eyes were on Izuku. “I… Uh… Huh?”

“You were muttering,” Sero loudly whispered, leaning towards Izuku’s desk.

“Oh, um. No, sir,” Izuku spluttered, blushing fiercely.

“Good,” Aizawa said. “Now, picking up where I left off…”

 ---

When class ended, Izuku marched to the door, determined to waylay Todoroki. Figuring out what was wrong was more important than lunch.

But Todoroki passed Izuku as though he hadn’t even seen him. His eyes looked far away, like he wasn’t really processing where he was. Izuku watched Todoroki go through the door, his own worry building up even more. Then he shook his head, and caught up to Todoroki, reaching out to gently lay a hand on his arm. Todoroki jumped a bit, shoulders tensing, before seeing it was Izuku and relaxing.

Izuku tightened his grip on Todoroki arm a bit. “Would you mind talking with me about something? Alone?”

Todoroki stared at Izuku for a moment, then seemed to see something in Izuku’s expression and nodded. Izuku smiled, and waited for the last of their class to leave the classroom before pulling Todoroki back in. He didn’t let go of Todoroki’s arm. Todoroki looked at Izuku expectantly.

“Is everything okay?” Izuku asked.

Todoroki tilted his head to the side, looking puzzled.

“You just seem really off today,” Izuku clarified, grip on Todoroki’s arm tightening a bit more. “Like, in your own head, not paying attention to class. And you kept looking at Kacchan for some reason--I’m just concerned.”

Todoroki pulled away from Izuku’s touch, closing in on himself. “Oh,” he said.

Izuku started fidgeting uncomfortably. He’d crossed a line, hadn’t he? He’d made Todoroki uncomfortable. They still weren’t close enough for things like this, he should have known, he shouldn’t have pressed, he’d just wanted to help but he should have known that asking Todoroki to talk wouldn’t be the way to, he’d been so stupid. He opened his mouth to apologize, when--

“There’s no reason not to tell you,” Todoroki said. “Afterall, he’ll probably tell everyone soon enough.”

That was also concerning. Was Kacchan really going to spill a secret of Todoroki’s? Was he really that mean? (Yes. Whether Izuku liked it or not, the answer was yes.)

“You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to,” Izuku replied hurriedly, trying to sound comforting and supportive and not freaked out.

“No, I should,” Todoroki said. He straightened up, took a deep breath, and looked Izuku directly in the eyes.

“Bakugou is my brother.”

... Wait, what?

For several seconds, Izuku just gaped at him, trying to process this new piece of information that did not even remotely fit into his conception of reality. “But. No he’s not,” he said. “I know Kacchan’s mom, she’s really close with my mom. And she’s definitely Kacchan’s mom. And she’s definitely not your mom.”

“He’s my half brother,” Todoroki explained. “Same dad.”

“You mean, Endeavor is Kacchan’s dad?”

“Yes.”

Izuku just kept staring, and he was pretty sure he was starting to make Todoroki uncomfortable, but it felt like his brain had a glitch in it. After a few more moments trying to comprehend this, he blurted out “And Kacchan is Endeavor’s son.”

“Yes, that’s what I said. My father had an affair with Bakugou’s mom and then she had Bakugou. Which makes him my half-brother.”

“But… but this is--” crazy. Completely nuts. All this time and Bakugou was actually the son of the number two hero? His miraculous quirk, which got everyone at his childhood school so excited, was descended from the same one that had been plastered over all the newspapers for years? No way, this couldn’t possibly be true. Todoroki and Bakugou looked nothing alike, acted nothing alike… was Bakugou really Endeavor’s son? But then again...

Anger issues. Arrogance. General lack of concern for others. Obsession with being number one.

Whoah. Endeavor might really be Kacchan’s father.

Which would make Kacchan Todoroki’s brother.

“Oh my god,” Izuku whispered.

---

“I’m worried about Deku,” Ochako said, poking at the remains of her lunch rather than continuing to eat. Lunch was halfway through, yet Deku hadn’t joined her and Iida yet. Normally, she would be happy to spend time alone with Iida, but ever since the incident with his brother, he had been quieter, and lost in thought a lot of the time. The fact that Ochako had no idea how to help kept weighing on her, and Deku made it a bit easier. Alone with Iida, she was getting restless, and she really was worried about where Deku could be.

“We have no reason to think he’s in any trouble,” Iida said. But she could see the concerned little frown he had on his own face. That was all it took.

“I’m going to go check on him,” Ochako decided, standing up, shoulders squared. “I’ll report back.”

Iida nodded at her, giving her a smile that seemed slightly forced, and then returned to staring down at his food. For a moment, she hesitated. Maybe she shouldn’t leave Iida alone… but she told herself she would be right back.

 ---

When Ochako got to the classroom, Deku was talking with Todoroki, eyebrows drawn together.

“Hey,” she said, waving at the two of them. Deku jumped a bit, clearly not having noticed her coming in.

“O-oh, hey, Uraraka,” Deku said, although he sounded like he was still lost in thought.

“Hey,” she said, before realizing that she was repeating herself. She felt herself blush slightly, and cleared her throat. “Sorry for interrupting! It’s just that you two have been in here a while, and I wanted to make sure you guys were okay!”

“Neither of us are injured,” Todoroki said.

Ochako’s eyebrows drew together. That didn’t sound good. “Not injured isn’t the same as okay,” she said, hopping up onto one of the desks and crossing her arms. “What’s going on?”

Deku finally seemed to be centered in the moment, as he looked worriedly between Ochako and Todoroki. It was then that she remembered -- she and Todoroki weren’t really friends. She had no right to be pushing like this.

At this realization, she sighed and uncrossed her arms. “I’m sorry, you don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to. I shouldn’t have been pushing. It’s just -- I’m worried. You were both acting weird today, and now you’re having some super-secret conference together. But me being worried isn’t an excuse to make you uncomfortable.” She looked to Todoroki. “I’m sorry. I’ll stop prying if you want me to.”

Todoroki looked thoughtful for a moment, staring at a point on the wall, then nodded his head once and turned his eyes to her.

“Bakugou is my brother.”

...

There was no way she had heard that right. “What?” she asked.

“… Bakugou and I are brothers?” Todoroki repeated, tone uncertain.

Ochako looked between Todoroki and Deku. Deku gave her a pained smile. “I know it’s weird,” he said, “but it’s really true. Apparently Kacchan is Endeavor’s illegitimate son.”

Ochako furrowed her brow. It wasn’t like Todoroki had any reason to lie about this, right?

She squinted up at Todoroki, trying to see it. Where Bakugou was all big explosions and aggression and scary faces, Todoroki was cold commitment and dedication. They had practically nothing in common!

And then she remembered the sports festival. How Todoroki fought with reckless abandon, like there was nothing for him to lose. He’d even gone completely crazy with it at one point, during his match with Sero. And didn’t that sound like Bakugou? At least a little?

Not to mention, they were the two at the top of their class… the two who always went around saying they were going to be the number one hero. Neither of them really cared about how anyone else saw them. Just their goals. Plus, it would explain Bakugou’s quirk.

In a way… it actually… made sense?

“You and Bakugou are brothers,” Ochako said, slowly, testing the phrase out. “You and Bakugou.” Todoroki nodded, and Ochako looked to Deku. “Did you know about this already?” she asked. “I know that you and Bakugou have… some sort of history, whatever it is.”

Deku waved his arms in front of him, almost frantically. “No, no!” he said. “I only found out a little bit ago! I was just talking to Todoroki about it, and he only found out yesterday! I was just trying to help him figure out… I don’t even know.”

“How to feel about all of this?” Ochako supplied.

“Yes!” Deku said.

Ochako turned to Todoroki. “I’ll try to help with this however I can! I think I’m a little better with feelings than Deku.”

“Hey!” Deku protested, but it made Todoroki smile a bit. Ochako realized, that might have been the first time she saw him smile… which was a bit concerning. It was in that moment that Uraraka Ochako decided that she would do her best to befriend him, just so she could help fix that.

---

By the time that Iida walked into the room, looking concerned, Todoroki’s shoulders had relaxed a little, and the tone of the conversation had gotten calmer. It seemed that Uraraka and Izuku had helped a lot! For some reason, Todoroki had been very tense about it, like he expected them to react badly or something.

But then-- “What’s going on in here?” Iida asked, his brisk tone demanding. Out of the corner of his eye, Izuku saw Todoroki flinch slightly at the tone, but Iida didn’t seem to notice. “Is everyone alright? You just disappeared!” That seemed aimed at Uraraka. “Never came back!” And then he rounded on Todoroki and Izuku. “And did the two of you even eat lunch?!” he demanded. “I wouldn’t want either of you weak for any training we’re doing today! What if one of you passes out?! What if you get hurt?!”

A cloud of tension had entered the room along with Iida’s presence. Izuku’s heart lurched in his chest. He exchanged a quick glance with Uraraka, enough to see her mouth stretched into a grimace. It was touching really; even when Iida was so immersed in his own problems, he still had time to care for his friends.

“I hadn’t thought of that,” Midoriya said, bowing his head. Should he apologize? Maybe he should try and assure Iida that it wouldn’t happen again? Or was Iida too angry to listen? What should Izuku say? What should he do? Uraraka wasn’t saying anything. Did they mess up really badly? Izuku had been really worried about Todoroki but maybe he should have been paying more attention to Iida. And the fact that Iida still cared so much… Izuku just really wanted to be able to help his friend.

“Just like our class president, always taking care of people!” Uraraka chirped, looking around between the three of them. Izuku appreciated her attempt to lighten the mood. “But I promise you, it was important that we stay and talk. Neither of them would skip lunch if it wasn’t important.”

“Are they both alright?!” Iida cried, turning on Todoroki and Izuku again.

“Neither of us are injured,” Todoroki said, again. Izuku didn’t miss the look Uraraka sent him at that.

“Oh, well then that’s good,” said Iida.

Just then, the door to the classroom opened, and the rest of the class started shuffling in. Izuku found himself looking for Bakugou. He was near the front of the crowd, as he shoved his way into the room. When he saw Todoroki sitting with Izuku, Uraraka, and Iida, and his eyes narrowed.

“You already started telling people?!” Bakugou shouted, making Izuku jump. “Just wanted to one-up me, didn’t you?! Make sure that I wasn’t the first one to spread the word! Well I’m telling the rest of the class!”

Bakugou cleared his throat, and Izuku felt a resigned dread start to build within him. “Attention everyone!” Bakugou shouted, and anyone who hadn’t already been staring at Bakugou’s antics was staring now. “I’m letting you all know, Endeavor is my father! That’s right. I’m the son of the number two hero.”

There was a moment of silence, before the class, almost as one, burst into laughter.

“OI!” Bakugou shouted. “WHAT’S SO FUNNY ABOUT THAT!?”

“Are you,” Kaminari weased “- heh - i-implying that - that TODOROKI is your-” he couldn’t even get the words out, as he started laughing again, even harder.

“It isn’t that good a joke, dude!” Sero said, nudging Kaminari, even as he was still chuckling himself.

Izuku and Uraraka looked to Todoroki, worried, while Iida knitted his eyebrows and glanced from Todoroki to Bakugou.

Todoroki sighed. “He isn’t lying,” he said, mostly to Iida.

That shut the room up.

“Wait, seriously?!” Mineta shouted, pulling out his phone to do who-knows-what. Todoroki nodded.

“... I can sort of see it,” Ashido said, thoughtful.

“WHY IS IT YOU ALL BELIEVE HIM AND NOT ME?!” Bakugou shouted.

“You seem more likely to say things just for attention than Todoroki does,” Asui said, causing Jiro to snicker as Bakugou yelled (or rather, spluttered)  back a response.

Then, the rest of the class started chatting as they went back to their seats. Like it wasn’t even that big of a deal.

Endeavor’s Secret Love Child? (Not Clickbait)

We here at Hero Daily are sure that you have all been hearing a lot about the scandal involving the number two hero, Endeavor, and the Bakugou family, which many are calling the Endeavor Scandal. It may be hard to distinguish the truth from the rumour, so we are here to give you the most accurate account thus far of this scandal, including how it started and where it will lead.

It all began with a tweet from Mineta Minoru, a student in class 1-A at UA, which reads:

[Image Text:]

[Todoroki and Bakugou are brothers?? WTF???? Wonder what family dinners are like with the ice king and anger management failure lol

#EndeavorGotFreaky]

The above tweet refers to Todoroki Shouto, who is known to be the youngest son of Endeavor, and Bakugou Katsuki, rising star of UA’s class A, known for achieving first place in the renowned UA sports festival. #EndeavorGotFreaky became the hashtag for the movement to find out the truth behind the claim of the secret love child between Endeavor and Bakugou Mitsuki (mother of Bakugou Katsuki). Speculation is running wild, as the public is understandably questioning what this will mean for Endeavor’s career and Bakugou Katsuki’s future as a hero.

When reporters attempted to talk to Endeavor’s wife to learn her opinion on the matter, they were not allowed into the ward that she was staying in. Sources say that their oldest child, twenty two year old Todoroki Fuyumi, drove the reporters away from the ward by allegedly whacking them with a broomstick, saying:

“How can you expect anyone to recover when they’re being bombarded with questions they don’t want to answer? Leave her alone; it’s Endeavor you want anyway.”

(Note: no assault charges were filed.) Todoroki Fuyumi was correct on the matter of the most important testimony in this case. Reporters have been flocking Endeavor’s home since the moment the tweet sent. It was not until that statement, however, that Endeavor finally decided to address the reporters, stating:

“Yeah, I slept with her, so I guess that’s my kid.”

He did not answer any follow up questions. A short time after the interview with Endeavor, Bakugou Mitsuki also agreed to speak with our reporters, and her statement appears to further confirm the validity of the claim in young Mineta’s tweet:

“I slept with [Endeavor], but only once. Trust me, he isn’t good enough to warrant seconds. I didn’t tell anyone until now because I didn’t want Katsuki to grow up with this bullsh*t. I don’t know how you expect me to know if he’s slept with other people. We met once, hooked up, and didn’t keep in contact. And yes, Endeavor is Katsuki’s father. End of statement.”

If what happened between Endeavor and Bakugou Mitsuki was truly a one night stand, this raises the question of whether any other secret children will surface. Since the news broke out, several young people have claimed to have a similar relation to Endeavor, but he has not acknowledged anyone other than Bakugou as his child.

The fact that Bakugou Katsuki is Endeavor’s son puts a different light on his victory at the UA sports festival. Was the anger he demonstrated actually due to being forced to pretend that he had no relation to Endeavor? Was it because he wanted to assert himself as a son more worthy of his father’s praise than his final opponent, Todoroki Shouto? We have yet to receive a statement from either Bakugou Katsuki or Todoroki Shouto. Stay tuned for more information as the story further unfolds.

Chapter Text

Shouto did not like seeing his father even when he had time to prepare for it, but having the man show up at his school, unannounced, was was much worse. Endeavor just barged in, in the middle of Aizawa-Sensei’s class, as though he had any right to do so. It made Shouto’s skin crawl.

Whatever he needed, he didn’t even have the decency to avoid undermining a fellow hero’s control over his students. Mineta got out his phone to take pictures of the number two hero, whispers broke out among everyone else, Bakugou suddenly sat up straighter, and Midoriya and Uraraka were shooting Shouto concerned looks as Iida was shooting Midoriya and Uraraka concerned looks. Aizawa let out a deep sigh.

One would think students frequently taught by the number one hero wouldn’t freak out over seeing the number two. One would be wrong.

“I’m assuming you are not here just to interrupt my class,” Aizawa-sensei said, leveling Endeavor with a withering look which Shouto wholeheartedly approved of.

“I must speak to Bakugou Katsuki,” Endeavor said, cutting straight to business. Bakugou straightened up impossibly more, a grin starting to break out over his face.

“He is in class at the moment,” Aizawa said, “I’m afraid that would be impossible.”

“If you want me to leave, I suggest that you let me talk to my son.”

Aizawa tried to stare Endeavor down, but Endeavor didn’t seem to be budging. Aizawa raised an eyebrow. Endeavor crossed his arms. The whole class felt incredibly uncomfortable. At last, Aizawa sighed, but didn’t break eye contact. “If he is not back in class within five minutes, I will have you banned from school grounds,” Aizawa warned.

“I will not need that long,” Endeavor replied. “Come, Katsuki.”

Bakugou shot up from his desk. The expression on his face could only be described as an evil grin. He bound out of the room like an excited (and already well-trained) puppy. Shouto wasn’t sure what his own face was doing, but when he glanced over at Midoriya, he was staring at Shouto as if ready to vault over the desks between the two of them in order to ask him what was wrong. Uraraka and Iida were glancing at him with worried expressions, too. Shouto was too tired to deal with this.

When Bakugou re-entered the room, his grin was, impossibly, larger. He walked over and collapsed into his chair, leaning back with his arms behind his head and looking more self-satisfied than Shouto had ever seen him.

Whatever Endeavor had told him to make him look that pleased was probably something that Shouto did not want to know about. Unfortunately, however, he had no way to control the curiosity of his classmates.

“So what’d he want?” Hagakure turned around in her seat to stage whisper at Bakugou.

“Just to offer me some extra one-on-one training,” Bakugou drawled. Clearly trying to pretend he didn’t think it was a big deal, when it so obviously was.

“What?! No way,” said Sero, leaning forward. “You for real?”

“If you’re all quite done chatting,” Aizawa began pointedly. They reluctantly turned their attention back to him, and he resumed their lecture from where he had left off.

Part of Shouto had expected something like this, but it didn’t sit well in his stomach.

Whatever. The relationship between his father and Bakugou didn’t need to have anything to do with Shouto. That’s what he told himself as he took his notes on auto-pilot, not absorbing any information. That’s what he told himself as he didn’t meet Midoriya or Uraraka or Iida’s eyes.

The second they were dismissed for lunch, Shouto heard Bakugou go up to Kirishima to brag more in that infuriating, pretending-not-to-care way, and he knew that he couldn’t be around him right then. He thought of his classmates’ (acquaintances? friends?) worried faces and knew he did not want to be around anyone. He pushed his way to the front of the classroom, avoiding talking to anyone, and made his way to the library. He could handle another day without lunch.

He found a seat at the back of the library and settled in, taking a book from his backpack. He had been meaning to read more for a while now. It took him almost a page to realize that he wasn’t absorbing a single word. He sighed and resigned himself to the last thing he wanted to do: thinking.

His father hadn’t even so much as looked at him. Not that he wanted his attention; usually he wanted the exact opposite. Yet, something about it didn’t sit as well with him as it should have. One thought in particular kept pestering his mind.

What did Bakugou have that Shouto didn’t?

Bakugou actually won the sports festival, Bakugou was willing to use his powers, Bakugou wasn’t broken-- Shouto’s brain helpfully supplied. Well, at least, mostly he wasn’t broken. There was his childish temper, although… that did seem like something their father would respect. But it didn’t make for a good hero. Bakugou would never be the type of hero that Shouto could be if he insisted on just screaming at everyone around him all the time.

But Bakugou wasn’t the one who couldn’t even stand to stay in the same room as Shouto. Wasn’t Bakugou the more stable one right now? The one handling this better?

Though it didn’t make any sense, Shouto couldn’t seem to block out the gnawing feeling of frustration creeping into his chest.

Maybe because his own father hadn’t even acknowledged his existence.

Before he even noticed it, he had pressed fingernail marks into the palms of his hands with how hard he was clenching his fests. His right hand felt cooler than normal, and his left was uncomfortably warm.

Midoriya chose that moment to burst through the door of the library, stumbling over himself and looking around wildly. Shouto was jolted out of his reverie so suddenly, he dropped his book.

“Oh! There you are. Okay. Alright.” Midoriya choked out through panting breaths. Had he been running in the halls? He really shouldn’t do that.

“Hello, Midoriya,” said Shouto curtly, bending down to reach for the book under his desk as if he hadn’t been on the brink of a meltdown. Once he had successfully retrieved it, he turned in his chair to address Midoriya. “Are you alright?”

“Huh?” For a moment, Midoriya just stared at him, mouth hanging open dumbly. Then, he blinked hard, seeming to shake himself out of it. “Yeah! Yeah, sorry, I was looking for you. Um. I brought you lunch.” Hesitantly, Midoriya held out a brown paper bag that Shouto hadn’t originally noticed he had been holding. Midoriya was staring fixedly at a point above Shouto’s head. “Do you want to, maybe, eat together? Or.” Shouto just watched as Midoriya retracted the bag and started fidgeting with the top of it.

Shouto… couldn’t figure out how to react. Was Midoriya really that worried about him? His legs felt heavy as he slowly pushed his chair out from the desk and stood up, stepping forward with his hand outstretched to accept the packed lunch. “Thanks.”

With a little too much eagerness, Midoriya shoved the lunch into his hand, as if he was playing hot potato. “No problem!”

---

Class went… pretty much alright. Shouto avoided looking at Bakugou the whole time, and that made his feelings fall dormant.

And then afternoon training came along.

“Today, you will be doing individual sparring sessions,” Aizawa said. “I want each of you to try individual combat with everyone else in the class, to analyze everyone else’s strengths and weaknesses. You will be assigned a new partner every seven minutes. Who you will be facing will be projected on the screen.” Aizawa motioned to the screen as it lit up. Shouto scanned the names and found that his first opponent would be Tokoyami. He was a difficult one. “You will not be using your quirks.” Alright, maybe not as difficult. Still, at least it would provide a distraction from Bakugou.

But unfortunately, even that didn’t seem to be in the cards, because Bakugou apparently felt the need to be constantly, loudly boasting about that day’s developments.

“Todoroki may have been recommended, but I would have been too, if my father was known!” “I was already at the top of the class; this makes everything make much more sense.” “You should appreciate the chance to train with me before I’m too far out of your league.”

Shouto couldn’t even focus on his own match, he was so busy hearing what Bakugou was shouting to--Shouto glanced over--Aoyama. And Shouto had enough of an upper hand when it came to close combat that Tokoyami wasn’t even a challenge. He took up hardly any of Shouto’s concentration.

“BAKUGOU!” Came Iida’s distinct shout. “YOU NEED TO FOCUS!”

“YEAH, YEAH,” Bakugou shouted back. “You can only lecture me if I’m LOSING, President Four-Eyes!”

When it came time for the next match-up, Shouto realized it wasn’t going to get better. Bakugou had something to say to literally. Everyone. He even shouted that this was “proof of his superiority!” to Midoriya. Their classmates just rolled their eyes and kept going with their training.

And every time that Iida commented that goading the enemy wasn’t a viable combat strategy, or that Bakugou should be focusing, Bakugou would always say that none of that mattered, and that Aizawa wasn’t stopping him. Shouto quietly hoped that their teacher would, but no such luck. Nothing that Bakugou was doing was against the rules. At least Iida kept trying. It was more than anyone else did.

Shouto was honestly going through the motions of sparring without paying much attention. He was better than the majority of the class; pretty much the only opponent that managed to keep his attention for any period of time was Ojiro. Ojiro even managed to get the upper hand once, and send Shouto stumbling. It took his focus off of Bakugou, for once. But then those seven minutes were up and he was right back to just listening to Bakugou’s bragging.

At every shout from Bakugou, Shouto went just a little bit harder, until, on autopilot, he somehow managed to knock Asui down - hard - within ten seconds. He winced slightly. He hadn’t meant to do that, it looked like it hurt. She groaned slightly, and blinked up at him. “You aren’t doing very well with the news, are you?” she asked, finger going to her chin. She was giving him a look like she already knew the answer. “ Ribbit .”

Rather than replying, he offered her a hand up. It wasn’t any of her business, anyway. After a second, she took it, and they continued sparring in silence for the rest of their time.

Shouto heard Bakugou brag and brag and brag, to the point other people were starting to make fun of him for it, and each time grinded on Shouto’s nerves. Uraraka telling Bakugou to knock it off was met with him laughing and saying she was jealous. Kaminari saying he was getting a big head lead to Bakugou saying that he couldn’t think too highly of himself if it was true. Shouto couldn’t help but focus on what Bakugou was saying, whether he wanted to or not.

Which meant that he was listening during Bakugou’s match with Asui when Bakugou declared, “You can’t win! Excellence is in my blood!”

“Does this mean that all of your success as a hero in training is because of your parentage and not your own achievements?” Asui responded. At that, Shouto glanced over his shoulder to look at the two of them. She was in a fighting stance, while Bakugou slipped out of his for a moment, spluttering, before striking an even more aggressive pose. Kaminari, Sero, and Jiro were all snickering.

“NO!” Bakugou shouted. “SHUDDUP, I’M STILL GOING TO DESTROY YOU, YOU SHITTY LITTLE FROG!” Shouto found himself smiling at that. Asui caught his eye and sent him a little nod, which Shouto returned.

“STOP INSULTING EACH OTHER!” Iida shouted in vain.

Honestly, Shouto didn’t know Asui well, but he felt a sudden surge of affection for her and her blunt honesty. Plus, from then on Bakugou took to pouting, rather than boasting around like an idiot. Training wasn’t so bad, after that.

Chapter Text

It was Saturday, at last. Shouto was enjoying his day of not having Bakugou around, constantly getting on Shouto’s nerves. It was promising to be relaxing, and a much needed reprieve.

He could finally focus on other things, like trying to get his homework done.

And then he heard heavy footfalls approaching his door, and let out a long sigh. “Shouto,” Endeavor said, as he barged into Shouto’s room. “Your brother will be here soon -- make yourself presentable.”

Shouto’s eyebrows drew together. “I didn’t know Natsuo was home for the weekend.” He also didn’t know that their father cared enough about Natsuo for him to want Shouto not to be wearing pajamas. His heart skipped a beat, excitement and apprehension building up. It- it couldn’t be Toya, could it…?

“Bakugou Katsuki,” Endeavor said. “Bakugou Katsuki is joining us for dinner.”

And the excitement came crashing down. Of course it was Bakugou. That’s what made sense, wasn’t it? Because, honestly, if Natsuo was coming over, their father would do his best to make sure that he and Shouto didn’t eat dinner together. And Toya… Toya wasn’t coming back.

Shouto picked absentmindedly at the corner of his notebook. “Why are you the one telling me this instead of Fuyumi?” he asked. Usually Endeavor made her deal with everything outside of training.

“Fuyumi is out tonight.” Naturally. Endeavor couldn’t have Bakugou meeting what he would classify as a failure. Endeavor was already trying to keep Bakugou separate from the non-heros of the family. Shouto didn’t know why that filled him with so much dread. “And stop fidgeting with that book,” Endeavor added, before leaving as abruptly as he came.

Shouto sighed. So much for a day without Bakugou.

---

Shouto had long since showered and changed into a button-down when he heard the doorbell ring. It was probably for the best -- he hadn’t been working on his homework anymore, just tapping his pencil on his notebook incessantly. He felt justified, his mind had been occupied by the thought of the dinner that was about to happen. Resigned, Shouto flipped his notebook closed and made his way to the front door.

Endeavor had already let Bakugou in, and Bakugou looked… out of place. He didn’t look nervous -- Shouto was pretty sure that Bakugou didn’t do nervous -- but he did look a little bit uncomfortable. Shouto noticed that it looked like Bakugou had tried to flatten out his hair a bit with water, and failed miserably. Shouto bit back a smile at that.

“Ah, Shouto, you’re here,” Endeavor said, but the way he looked at Shouto said that he should have gotten there faster. Shouto swallowed and nodded. “Good. We shall give Katsuki--” Bakugou smiled smugly when Endeavor called him by his first name. “--a tour of the house. After all, I intend for him to spend much more time here in the future.”

Shouto and Bakugou both fell into step behind Endeavor, avoiding looking at each other as Endeavor led them through the massive house (which was probably way too big for just three people). He started by leading them to the guest wing.

“This is where you will be staying, when you choose to stay here for an extended period of time,” Endeavor said, looking back at Bakugou. Yup, there it was. Shouto finally shot a glance at Bakugou, expecting him to look pleased. Instead, he looked even more uncomfortable than he had when he’d first arrived.

“Thanks,” he said, eyeing the doors around him. “What, no private kitchen and ballroom? I thought you said this was a mansion.” His voice had an edge to it that Shouto didn’t understand.

“I am sure you will find it quite a lot more luxurious than what you’re accustomed to. Just one of the advantages of being the number two hero,” Endeavor said cooly, rising to the challenge.

Bakugou crossed his arms and rolled his eyes. “Yeah, I shouldn’t be surprised that you’d live somewhere so-” Bakugou looked around pointedly and raised an eyebrow, “-badass.”

Endeavor nodded, a smirk playing at his face. “I suppose you could say that our way of life is… badass.” Wow, that was the first time Shouto had heard him use that word. He wasn’t sure if he could get more uncomfortable. “Come, I’ll show you the rest of the house.” At least he had dropped the pretense of ‘we’.

Most of the tour was uneventful, but that was because Endeavor was saving the training room for last.

When they approached the room, Shouto decided to fall back and stay by the door. He hated that place. Yes, it had made him a better fighter, but… he prefered not to think about the hours spent in there.

It was a huge, stadium-like place, filled with all sorts of gadgets and bad memories. Bakugou bounded into the room, and spun in a circle, taking in all of the space, the equipment to the sides, the sparring ring in the center, everything. His mouth fell open. “This is almost as good as the stuff we use at UA!” he shouted, dashing over to some of the equipment and touching it reverently.

Shouto took a step back. He really didn’t need to see someone else being impressed with the room he had passed out in more times than he could remember. Staring at the wall. That was something he could do. Huh, he’d never noticed that particular pattern at the bottom of the wallpaper before.

“Yo half-and-half, let’s sparr it out! Bet I could use this shit better than you.” Bakugou’s voice resounded off of the walls. When Shouto glanced over, he saw that Bakugou had gone straight to the weapon rack in the back corner, and was picking up some of the items and testing them out.

“That isn’t a bad idea,” said Endeavor idly. Somehow the words seemed to carry more weight to them than Shouto was comfortable with.

“No thank you,” said Shouto. It was worth a try.

“Are you actually scared? HAH.” Bakugou was now brandishing a large and very unwieldy axe. “Come and show me what you GOT, you half-frozen hot-pocket.”

Shouto had thought Bakugou was difficult to deal with when they were at school. But having Endeavor’s hard, disapproving stare fixed on him was making this, somehow, at least a hundred times worse. It was a good thing that Shouto had long since learned how to turn himself numb in the presence of his father. He just had to remind himself that what his father thought was irrelevant, and he did not have to do anything his father wanted him to do.

“Well?” The one word from Endeavor felt like a fiery hot iron on Shouto’s chest. He felt his fists clench.

“I’m hardly dressed for battle. I was told this was going to be a nice dinner.”

“Well this is your house, isn’t it? Go get changed, dumbass .” The slightly strained note was beginning to intensify in Bakugou’s voice. What was Bakugou’s problem, anyway? Wasn’t this supposed to be a dream come true for him or something?

“I, for one, would be interested to see how Bakugou does. It is your training ground, Shouto. What do you have to worry about?” Somehow, Shouto could feel the tension behind his father’s words, even though Endeavor hadn’t raised his voice by a single decibel. The implication that Shouto had a choice in the matter was an illusion. His father was certain that this situation would go according to his wishes. Unsurprisingly, there was an ulterior motive to this evening. It had seemed rather unlike Endeavor to orchestrate a pleasant family dinner, after all.

Shouto made a small piece of ice to roll around in his fingers. To feel the cool of it against his skin. I am not Endeavor’s. I am my own.

Apparently bored with the weapons, Bakugou began to wander around and examine some of the fancy-looking controls, fiddling with some of them.

But I also can’t let this guy waltz in here and take everything. My training ground.

And it was at that moment that Shouto realized just what buttons Bakugou was messing with. Suddenly, Shouto’s feet were moving of their own volition.

“Bakugou watch out --”

BOOM.

A huge hunk of solid rock landed precisely where Bakugou had been standing a split second before. At Shouto’s warning, he’d blasted himself out of the way, landing a good ten feet to the left and skidding into a large pile of rope. “What the HELL?!”

It was one of the obstacle options that Endeavor had spent an unfathomable amount of money to have installed. There were four settings: Beginner, Practiced, Advanced, and Extreme. From the size of the boulder and sound of the impact, Bakugou had switched the setting to “Extreme”.

Large holes were opening all over the walls, ceiling, and floor. Not a second later, another three boulders shot out, two toward Bakugou and one toward Shouto.

“ Shit ,” Shouto growled, and hurtled ice at it to slow its trajectory long enough to dodge out of the way. He barely made it.

On the other side of the room, Bakugou used his quirk to blast himself up about thirty feet, all the way to the ceiling, causing the two boulders that had targeted him to crash into each other and explode upon impact with the force of an earthquake.

“Well then, it looks like we have our course set up. First one to get the flag wins.” Endeavor, apparently seeing nothing wrong with this arrangement, stepped calmly over to a control panel near the door and hit a small blue button. In the center of the training ground, a panel on the floor slid open, and a pole arose from it with a bright blue flag attached to the top.

Shouto, unlike Bakugou, knew that this training ground wasn’t actually designed to be lethal. If it had been, it would have been illegal to put a child into it. While the boulders were very real and very terrifying, they were also designed to detect whether something was an actual human being, and crumble on impact if so. That being said, on the hardest level, they were flying at a high enough velocity to become very, very painful if you were hit.

Shouto barely had time to register the change in rules before being forced to jump, using his ice as leverage, to avoid three more boulders hurtling at him.

“That it? EASY,” Bakugou practically screamed from above them, where he was jumping around like crazy trying to avoid the boulders that were coming out of the ceiling holes.

Well, the faster Shouto got to the flag, the faster this would be over. So much for his dinner clothes.

The first thing he did was shoot a sheet of ice, as thick as he could make it in such a short time, out over to where the flag was. If he could create some sort of tunnel free from rocks--

Immediately, two boulders flew up from the ground and slammed into the ice, creating huge cracks along it, and then one came in from the side for the final shatter. Suddenly, Shouto found himself dodging shards of his own ice.

“Nice try, two-face!” Bakugou had finally dropped down from the ceiling, apparently realizing it would be a lot easier to dodge from a distance. His feet slammed into the ground, and he extended two fists out to either side of him, just in time to explode two boulders coming at him from both directions. “This is nothing.” He made a run for the flag.

Fine. If Bakugou got the flag, then it would be over.

So then why did the idea make him feel so sick ?

Now that Bakugou had figured out that these boulders were easier to break than regular ones, he was running without nearly as much hesitation, keeping track of the boulders out of the corners of his eyes and exploding them as they came close. He was almost to the flag when suddenly one flew out from the wall, a few feet in front of Bakugou, and slammed directly into the flagpole, sending it flying across the room.

“DAMMIT,” Bakugou yelled, skidding as he tried to change directions.

It had been awhile since Shouto had trained with this particular option, and it bothered him that Bakugou seemed to be doing better. Ice wasn’t nearly as good at breaking rocks as Bakugou’s explosions. Another three came flying toward Shouto, and he unleashed his frustration, forcing a huge blast of ice out of his hand, aiming straight at the incoming boulders. They collided with an enormous crash, and the force of it sent Shouto’s feet skidding back across the ground.

...Wait a minute. Back when Shouto had trained with this before, he’d still been refusing to use his father’s quirk. He was reverting back to all of his old strategies. But it wasn’t his father’s quirk. It was his.

When the next one came for him, he stood his ground and blasted it as hard as he could with his fire. And this time, the boulder broke upon impact.

“Good.”

Shouto closed his eyes for a moment. He wished he hadn’t heard his father’s voice.

Any hesitation in this arena, however, was a mistake. The next boulder hit Shouto directly in his face.

Pain shot through him, and even as it crumbled on impact, Shouto went flying. However, he was used to this as well, and quickly used his ice to pad his fall and send him into a controlled tumble onto the floor. Pinching his nose, Shouto got to his feet and looked up just in time to see a rock smash hard into Bakugou’s back, sending him rolling head over heels until he smacked into the wall.

Looking around wildly, Shouto spotted the flag. It was much closer to him than to Bakugou.

He sprung into action, dodging another boulder and smashing any oncoming ones with fire, eyes on the small burst of blue among all of the grey rubble. Another advantage he had was that his muscle memory had the pattern of the holes on the floor ingrained, so dodging them wasn’t as hard as it most likely was for Bakugou (although Bakugou did seem to be mostly relying on his explosions to propel himself through the air, rather than running). Just as Shouto reached for the flag, a boulder slammed down right in front of him. Desperately, he pushed down on the ground with his ice and jumped over it.

Before he could land, something hit him in the chest and flung him off course. But it wasn’t a boulder. It was an explosion.

“Not so fast, fucker.” Bakugou had used his quirk to cross the distance to the flag at an incredible speed. Before he could land, however, a boulder flew up from the ground and hit him right in the crotch. A howl of pain erupted from him and he promptly fell out of the air. The ground rose up to meet him unforgivingly.

This wasn’t working. Shouto hated it, hated it , how even when he swore to himself that he wasn’t going to let his father make his decisions, and force him to push himself farther than he wanted, it always ended up this way anyway. Today was supposed to be a break from all of this. Training at school felt rewarding, like with every step he took, he was closer to his goal, and his hard work was appreciated. Here it was just pain, and sweat, and desperation, and Shouto was always inadequate, and always compared to others. He didn’t want to just let Bakugou get it, and he didn’t want to be fighting for it alone. Bakugou wasn’t moving anymore anyway, just trying to fight off the boulders as they came while gritting his teeth through the pain.

Shouto took a deep breath. It was about time to come up with a real strategy.

The problem was in focusing his attention. If he was defending one direction, then he wasn’t defending a different one, and he kept getting hit. Bakugou was having the same problem; even though his quirk was highly effective against them, he couldn’t focus everywhere at once.

If they could just work together, then they could watch each other’s backs, and work their way to the flag in no time. But this was a competition.

At that moment, however, Shouto didn’t care. He was too angry this was happening at all, and he was going to end it.

Without giving himself time to change his mind, Shouto began sprinting, not toward the flag, but toward Bakugou. Immediately, Bakugou fell back, clearly ready to defend himself against whatever Shouto was planning.

Shouto shouted over the sounds of falling boulders. “Hold still and I’ll ice it for you! That should help you walk!”

“Like hell am I falling for that!” Bakugou continued backing away, still trying to defend from the boulders coming at him from all directions. Another one hit him in the shoulder, and Shouto could hear him hiss in pain.

“If we go back to back, we can defend both sides. You can grab the flag, I don’t care. I’m done with this. Just--” Shouto blasted two more boulders away from himself, and then saw one coming for Bakugou from behind, yet again. To prove his point, Shouto stepped forward and blasted that one too, breaking it to bits.

Bakugou whipped his head around to look, and then turned back to glare at Shouto. Blood was trickling down his cheek. “I don’t need your HELP. You’re not better than me. It’s about time you stopped treating me like someone who needs charity, and started treating me like a goddamn OPPONENT.” Bakugou punched a boulder coming right at him from above, blasting it to smithereens.

“Maybe it’s about time you stopped being an idiot! We can’t see everywhere at once. Heroes are supposed to find the smart way to do things. Maybe I’m the one who needs your help.” The words stung in Shouto’s mouth. He could almost imagine his father’s disapproving frown.

Bakugou didn’t answer for a few moments; he just continued to fend off the boulders. Then finally, he turned toward Shouto. “No. Not this time,” he snarled. Then he put his hands behind his back, and blasted himself forward, straight past Shouto, toward the flag.

Shouto felt the last of his willpower fading. Two more boulders flew toward him, and he tried to use his fire, but the blasts weren’t powerful enough to completely stop them. Both slammed into him, and he found himself on the ground again, pain shuddering through him.

Out of the corner of his eye, he could see that Bakugou had switched to a tactic of just blasting around him wildly, uncaring where the boulders actually were, and running toward the flag. A sudden mix of panic and anger began to bubble up in Shouto’s throat. I can’t be done yet. I can’t just let him win.  

The next moment, he was on his feet again, he was running again…

Time seemed to slow down.

Rocks smashed around him.

His feet were moving strangely, sluggishly.

He saw Bakugou standing tall, clutching the flag in his hand, grinning maniacally and covered in sweat, dirt, and blood.

A loud buzzer sound rang through the arena, and Shouto stumbled to a stop, turning to see Endeavor’s hand on the power-down switch. His father then began to slowly clap.

“Nicely done, Katsuki.”

---

To say that the actual dinner part of the evening was awkward would be an understatement. With both Bakugou and Shouto nursing bruises, and their exhaustion, and the food going cold from the unexpected detour the night had taken, and Endeavor’s unexpected manipulation of the whole situation, no one really felt up for conversation. Bakugou was hardly even bragging -- the course had managed to drain even his energy. He didn’t even seem angry, which was strange and mildly uncomfortable. Shouto hadn’t known that Bakugou could exist without rage. However, Shouto was still angry (god, that word didn't cover it. He was seething with rage) that Endeavor hadn’t put a stop to the obstacle course when he could. That made the whole dinner even more strange, like Bakugou and Todoroki had somehow been switched. And so they sat, Endeavor at the head of their too-large table, and Bakugou and Shouto facing each other, a large expanse of table between them, as they picked at their cold food.

Overall though, it wasn’t any more awkward than what Shouto had expected.

There wasn’t much that Endeavor wanted to say to Bakugou after dinner, apparently. Just- and wow did it hurt to hear- “I'm proud of you, son.”

Bakugou had beamed at that. But that was the end of conversation, until Bakugou finally said, “My mom will be expecting me home soon.” He sounded petulant and reluctant, in a way that Shouto didn’t appreciate. He would give anything to have an excuse to leave.

Endeavor smiled, and the expression looked so wrong. There wasn’t warmth - it was the look of someone who had something to prove, a challenge to win, not the look of someone saying goodbye to their child. Shouto briefly wondered if Endeavor could feel anything other than burning passion. “Do not worry, Katsuki. You will come back soon, to officially start your training.”

Bakugou grinned at that. “Guess I’ll get even farther ahead of the rest of the class.” Endeavor’s smile widened, and did not drop, not even when Bakugou actually left.

It annoyed Shouto more than he cared to admit.

“Shouto, I would like to talk to you,” Endeavor said. Shouto bit back replying snarkily that they had been talking all night. He knew that his father wouldn’t appreciate it. Instead, he just nodded mutely. “I have given much thought into Bakugou Katsuki’s-” strange, that he used Bakugou’s full name whenever he wasn’t around, “-role in this family. And I believe I have a burden to relieve from you.” He took a deep breath. “Shouto, I have decided that I want to groom Bakugou Katsuki to be the number one hero.”

Shouto’s world stopped. Make Bakugou the number one? Did Endeavor know what he was asking? He was asking Shouto to give up the only goal that he had ever worked towards, something that had been a part of his identity from the moment he was conceived. He would be the number one hero. That’s just how it was, how it always was.

“No,” Shouto said, amazed that his voice didn’t shake even as his world crashed down around him.

“You have a history of being difficult,” Endeavor said, as Shouto began to feel a bit light headed. “You have only just started to use the power I gave to you.” Shouto’s throat was closing up. Midoriya said that his powers were his, not Endeavor’s. He stared at the floor, letting his hair fall in front of his face. “Bakugou has no such qualms about using his full powers. That is why he is the head of your class. That is why he won today. He does not hold back.”

And Endeavor was right, wasn’t he? Shouto held back, he held back constantly, and Bakugou had taken full advantage of that. “I do not intend to turn my back on you,” Endeavor said, and Shouto’s eyes snapped up, locking with Endeavor’s. “I want you to be the number two hero - a position not easily obtained.” Number two. Number two like his father. That thought left a bitter taste in his mouth, made an uncomfortable shiver run down his spine. Just like his father. “I will continue training you. My offspring will be at the highest tier, dominating all other heros.” That smile was back, and Shouto had to look away again. “That is all. You may go to your room.” With that, Endeavor left, heavy footsteps pounding down the hall.

And Shouto stood there, like his right half had taken him over entirely, left him frozen to the spot, unable to move. Maybe it had, he wasn’t sure. He wasn’t sure how long it took him to get up the strength to move, to go to his room, to get ready for bed. Didn’t know how long he spent laying in his bed, staring at the ceiling.

What he did know was his last thought before sleep finally claimed him: he wasn’t going to back down quietly. He would show them both that he had what it took to be the number one.

Chapter Text

Aizawa Shouta was a man known for his patience. He could hide undercover for weeks, not knowing if his target was a villain or not, waiting for the moment when they would expose themselves one way or the other. Waiting for the moment when he would either let them go or strike with such quiet precision, they never even saw his face, never knew who took them down.

And yet, when it came to teenagers, his patience was practically nonexistent. They had a talent for getting on his nerves. Strange, how these little monsters managed to so thoroughly drive him just a hair away from insanity on a regular basis.

It wouldn’t be so bad if he could just yell at them, quit his job, and be done with it. But, oh no. Shouta had come to care about the kids he taught, and to love his job. Such an inconvenience.

The two particular brats who were making his job far more tiring than it had to be were a certain pair of newly-realized brothers, currently interrupting his lecture on group strategies.

“You wouldn’t understand strategy if it hit you in the face with a boulder.”

“OH YEAH? I GUESS THAT’S WHY I BEAT YOU THEN. MY LACK OF STRATEGY.”

“Your refusal to learn is why I can guarantee that I will overtake you in the class ranking, sooner rather than later.”

They were now both standing and glaring at each other. Shouta could feel a vein threatening to burst in his temple. “Will you two stop interrupting--” but Bakugou yelled over him.

“SAY THAT TO MY FACE!!!”

“I just did.”

“WELL AT LEAST I’M NOT AN ARROGANT PRICK WHO LOOKS DOWN HIS NOSE AT EVERYONE ELSE IN ORDER TO HIDE HIS OWN INSECURITIES!”

“Actually, I think you’ve just described yourself perfectly. ”

“You think you’re SO smart, but I’m miles ahead of you and you know it. There’s NOTHING YOU CAN DO TO CATCH UP AT THIS RATE!”

It was at this moment that Shouta noticed Bakugou’s fingers beginning to spark, and apparently Todoroki noticed too, as he immediately began to cover his arm in ice. Time to put a stop to this rapidly building headache.

“Enough,” Shouta barked, and deactivated their quirks.

The sudden loss of powers finally seemed to get their attention. They both looked up to the front of the room and, pleasingly, seemed to shrink a little at the expression Shouta was bearing. Both of them conspicuously avoided eye contact.

“You will both be seeing me after class,” Shouta said. Not that he actually wanted to deal with them any longer than necessary, but if their petty dislike of each other was going to start preventing Shouta from teaching, then it needed to be dealt with. A small voice in Shouta’s head said that he could just expel them. A more rational, but equally disgruntled voice responded that he probably shouldn’t kick out two of his most promising students just for some peace and quiet.

“Whatever,” Bakugou said, flopping back down into his chair. Todoroki slowly sat down, too.

Shouta would have liked to say that the rest of the class went smoothly after that, but unfortunately the universe seemed to have developed a personal vendetta against Shouta, specifically. None of his students wanted to pay attention when the topic of Bakugou and Todoroki’s feud was far more interesting than strategies for different-sized group attacks. The perpetrators themselves never stopped sending each other dirty looks, and everyone else kept nudging each other and whispering about it. If Shouta couldn’t sort out this mess after class, he was going to need to start investing in headache research, because no contemporary medicine would be ready to combat the chronic head pain that he was facing.

When the bell finally rang, the rest of the students escaped to the freedom of lunch break, while Shouta had to stay behind with Todoroki and Bakugou, who approached their teacher as the classroom began to empty. Bakugou was trying to look nonchalant, but the muscles in his jaw kept twitching. Meanwhile, Todoroki had on a blank mask of indifference.

“You both know why I want to talk to you,” Shouta began.

“I haven’t done anything wrong,” Todoroki said cooly.

“NOTHING WRONG?!” Bakugou immediately shouted. “He’s been antagonizing me all day!”

“I didn’t know you knew the word ‘antagonizing.’”

“ I’ll show you antagonizing. ”

Shouta’s loud, pointed sigh interrupted their argument. Bakugou and Todoroki fell silent and looked at their teacher.

“Oh, are you done?” he asked, folding his arms.

With an appropriate aura of guilt, they seemed content to keep their mouths shut for once. When Shouta was quite sure they weren’t going to interrupt him again, he continued. “I cannot have the two of you creating an unproductive learning environment with this distracting and childish feud of yours. Honestly, it’s not my job to make sure the two of you deal with your personal problems. However, consider this your first warning.” Shouta paused for effect, and stared each of them down individually. “If either of you create a scene like that again, I will make sure that you thoroughly regret it.”

“Understood,” Todoroki said.

“ I won’t start anything, but I can’t promise he won’t,” Bakugou grumbled, crossing his arms.

Todoroki opened his mouth to retort, but Shouta held up his hand and Todoroki stopped. “Do you not see how unhelpfully provocative that comment was?” Shouta asked Bakugou in a deadpan voice.

Thankfully, Bakugou didn’t seem to have a response to that. He just stared at the wall and muttered “Fine. Whatever.”

“Good,” Shouta said, and reached down to pull his sleeping bag out from under his desk. “That will be all.” He was already daydreaming about the peace and quiet that, he thought, he tremendously deserved.

---

Bakugou Katsuki was not known for his patience. He was much more known for his temper. In fact, multiple adults in his life had described him as having “chronic anger management problems”. Yet despite knowing that Katsuki had a grudge against him already, Todoroki had insisted on goading him. Katsuki genuinely wondered if the dude was suicidal or just an idiot. Honestly, it was so unfair that Katsuki had to get in trouble for something that Todoroki so obviously started. Was he supposed to just sit there and let that half-and-half bastard insult him? Hell no.

But now Katsuki found himself walking to the cafeteria, side-by-side with his second least favorite rival.

Pretty much the moment that they were out of Aizawa’s earshot, Todoroki glanced at Katsuki. “I do not plan on initiating anything with you, just as long as you stay out of my way,” he said, tone level and practical, pace not faltering on his way to the cafeteria. The sheer casualness of it made Katsuki’s blood boil.

“You’ve been the one getting in my way this whole time! You’ve been getting in my way since the second you held back at the sports festival!”

“I want to make it clear that you are the one who waltzed into my life.” Todoroki’s voice was low, almost a whisper.

“Well I can’t choose who I am or am not related to, so you may as well get used to it!”

“But you’re the one who chose to act on it. You didn’t have to tell everyone.”

For a moment, Katsuki was dumbstruck. What right did Todoroki have to say that he should have hidden what he knew?! What did Todoroki know of his life, anyway?! Todoroki had no idea what it was like to grow up without a dad. He had no idea what it was like to watch his mom get more and more tired with every year that passed, to know that he was a burden to her, even if she didn’t say it. And now he had a rich father with a respectable job who had the choice to refuse him but wanted him , and it was everything that Katsuki had dreamt of since he was old enough to realize that he didn’t have that! It wasn’t like his mom didn’t want him, but she was so busy that most days they only saw each other for dinner! Todoroki knew nothing of his life, his hopes, his desires, and he dared to say that Katsuki should have just kept quiet?! Oh no. Oh fuck no.

They were right outside the cafeteria when Katsuki roughly pulled Todoroki to a stop.

“Just who do you think you are?” Katsuki growled dangerously. “Who do you think you are to tell me what I should or shouldn’t have done? You’re just a rich, arrogant prick who’s mad that he has a bit of competition for once in his fucking life. Well, guess what? I’m not backing down. And there’s nothing that you can do to make me.”

Katsuki vaguely noticed Deku coming out of the cafeteria, and heard him say something, but he didn’t bother to listen. All his attention was on the asshole who thought he could get away with telling Katsuki what to do with his life.

“You know what?” Todoroki said, after an eternity of silence. It was barely over a whisper, and yet it held so much in it that it felt much louder. “I don’t need Endeavor. I accept your challenge. I’m not going to be -- to step down.”

And with that, Todoroki stormed off. “Yeah, you better run!” Katsuki yelled after him. Deku shot him a look, before running to catch up with Todoroki.

During lunch, Katsuki mostly ignored Kirishima’s attempts at conversation, preferring to just pick at his food and occasionally shoot a glare over to where Todoroki was sitting with Deku and his ignoramus groupies. They seemed to be having some sort of intense conversation from the expressions on their faces, and some of them definitely glanced at Katsuki more than once, which was all the confirmation he needed to know that they were talking about him. Absentmindedly, Katsuki began digging his fork into the table so hard the wood started to chip.

“Dude, what did Aizawa do to you after class? You alright, man?” Kirishima’s voice came swimming into Katsuki’s consciousness.

“Mmh,” Katsuki grunted by way of response. He was watching Todoroki closely, as he leaned in to whisper something to Deku. Then the two of them stood up, Deku said something to the others, and they left the cafeteria together. What were they up to?

“If you’re not going to finish your rice, can I have it?”

“Mmh,” said Katsuki again, distractedly. What if Todoroki and Deku were hatching some dweeb plan to take Katsuki down? But if that were the case, why not discuss it with the rest of the dweeb crew? Maybe Katsuki could get away with sneaking out of the cafeteria to listen into their conversation, but if he caught them and it turned into a fight, he was going to have to deal with Aizawa’s wrath, and he’d already had enough of that for one day. Maybe he would just confront Todoroki about it later.

“Fine, I’ll just take it then.” Kirishima reached over to grab it.

“Oi, hands off my rice. ”

---

That afternoon at field training, the situation went from bad to fucking intolerable.

“Today, we’re going to put into practice some of the techniques that you will hopefully recall from this morning’s class. I will be dividing you into groups with varying numbers of members, and then pairing the groups up. Sometimes, as a hero, you will need to take a certain item from a villain, say something they stole, or a hostage. Other times, you will need to keep a villain from stealing something or someone from you. Thus, one group will be holding onto one of these--” Aizawa indicated something on the ground next to him: a large-ish brown styrofoam cylinder, roughly the size of a human torso. “--and the other will be attempting to take it from them. Each round will last five minutes, and will take place one at a time so I can watch how everyone does. When it is your group’s turn, you will come into the gymnasium for the fight. It will be set up like a regular building. I expect you to use at least one strategy covered earlier in the day. And--” Katsuki noticed Aizawa look pointedly at Todoroki, and then at Katsuki. “--there will be no debating team members. Here are the assigned teams and pairings, please break off and start discussing your strategies. I will give all of you ten minutes to plan. While you are waiting for your turn, you will be watching the other groups on this screen.” Aizawa turned on the projector, which currently had the list of groupings neatly lined up. “After each session, we will gather to discuss the groups’ performances. Find your groups.”

Katsuki didn’t have to look to know who he was going to be teamed with. That was just the way his life was, nowadays. It didn’t help that he definitely hadn’t remotely paid attention to the techniques they were supposed to be learning. Pettily, he refused to move from where he was standing. Todoroki would have to come to him if he wanted to do the assignment.

“Let’s just get this over with.” The all-too-familiar voice appeared to Katsuki’s right.

“If you just stand back and let me deal with it, I’ll crush them in no time,” growled Katsuki through gritted teeth. “Who are we up against?” He finally looked at the screen, and scanned it for his name. He found it right at the bottom; they would be going last. Sure enough, it was just him and Todoroki in a group. Apparently, they were to face off against Asui, Uraraka, and Koda. “Heh, easy.”

(“Aizawa, are you sure it’s alright to put them against those three? Asui, Uraraka, and Koda are all quite excellent at teamwork. I’m afraid young Bakugou and young Todoroki are going to get crushed.”

“Then they will have learned their lesson.”)

“So you aren’t even going to consider following Aizawa-sensei’s directions? Typical.”

“Who the hell cares about stupid two-person group formations? I’ll just blast them away and grab the thing, I bet I could do it in thirty seconds.”

Katsuki was too preoccupied with his irritation toward Todoroki to notice that Aizawa had been approaching them. When Aizawa cleared his throat from behind him, Katsuki jumped.

“I trust that there will be no issues here, as per our agreement?” Aizawa asked, tone indicating a thinly veiled threat.

“None at all,” replied Todoroki shortly.

“Remember that as heroes, you will often have to join forces, even with your rivals, for the greater good. If you are willing to let petty disagreements impede your ability to protect the public, then you are hardly worthy of calling yourselves heroes,” said Aizawa without a hint of mercy. “Now, I have some preparations to attend to.” With that, he turned and stalked off toward the gymnasium.

“God, at this rate he’s just going to expel us for looking at each other funny.” Katsuki wanted to punch something.

“Maybe if you could learn to keep your mouth shut, he wouldn’t have gotten so angry.”

“Oh as if YOU’RE the one to talk--”

Aizawa poked his head out of the gym door and called out, “Five minutes until group one will begin!”

“Well, it looks like we’re going to be the attackers. Aizawa-sensei talked about two different strategies for two people who are on the offense which we can use, assuming you were actually paying attention,” Todoroki started calmly, still trying his hardest to get on Katsuki’s nerves.

Katsuki was this close to just ignoring the test and using it as an excuse to punch Todoroki in his smug half-and-half face . “I was probably paying attention better than you ,” he flat-out lied.

“Fine. Then I suggest we use the decoy method. You can distract them, and then I’ll grab the cylinder. You should be right in your element, since you’re so good at making noise.”

“Like hell. You can play around with ice and shit, but I’m getting the cylinder,” Katsuki declared stubbornly. As if he was going to let Todoroki make him look like an idiot and get all the credit for the assignment.

“It doesn’t matter which one of us gets it, we just have to steal it within five minutes. Could you please focus?” Todoroki seemed intent on continuing his holier-than-thou “I am a totally objective mastermind” facade.

“ You focus. Which one of us got the flag in the end again? Oh yeah, not fucking you.”

That seemed to hit a nerve, as for the first time Todoroki hesitated before responding. Katsuki thought he saw a flicker of anger cross his face. Finally. Arguing was normal territory for Katsuki, but he could not get over how infuriatingly calm Todoroki always insisted on being. Todoroki may think it was cool, but it was really just condescending and pompous.

“Fine. But you’re probably going to make us lose since you’re too dimwitted to pay attention to Aizawa-sensei’s class.”

“WHAT DID YOU JUST SAY?!”

---

Whatever was going on between Bakugou and Todoroki, Ochako was secretly glad she wasn’t really a part of it. She wanted to help however she could, of course! But Bakugou kind of intimidated her (plus she was still a little frustrated from the sports festival), and Todoroki wasn’t the easiest person to get to know. Besides, she wasn’t the sort of person to do well in big arguments even in the best of situations.

During lunch, Todoroki had opened up to all of them a little, telling them about having Bakugou over for dinner for the first time. Apparently they’d sparred in his practice room, and maybe it hadn’t gone well? Todoroki wasn’t very specific. Then he’d gotten upset and gone off to talk to Deku about it, since he was closer to Deku. That suited Ochako just fine. She figured she could be a friend to Todoroki if needed, but she didn’t really need to get in the middle of things.

That, along with her experience at the sports festival, was why looking at the match board for that afternoon’s training exercise made her heart sink.

“Are you kidding? Todoroki and Bakugou?!” she exclaimed aloud before she could stop herself. A couple of heads turned, but Bakugou and Todoroki were already too busy arguing amongst themselves to notice.

“It looks like we’re going to have our work cut out for us. Ribbit ,” said Tsuyu, who had sidled up to stand with Ochako.

Well, at least it was three against two. That had to count for something, right? Ochako looked around for Koda, and found him standing at the edge of the group, eyes locked on the match board, fidgeting fretfully with the hem of his shirt. “I guess we should start our team meeting. It’s a good thing we’re going last; we’re going to need time to think.” Ochako couldn’t help but wonder if they were put last on purpose precisely for this reason. It was pretty clear that Aizawa hoped this would somehow smooth things out between Bakugou and Todoroki. But this was going to be a very rough match, considering that those two had placed first and second (of the whole class year!) at the sports festival. The memory of her match with Bakugou still burned.

Tsuyu and Ochako went to fetch Koda, but he didn’t even notice them when they were standing right in front of him. The two girls exchanged a worried glance, and then Tsuyu reached out a finger and prodded him in the cheek.

Koda startled and looked at them, then smiled and gave a nervous little wave.

“Hello, Koda-chan,” said Tsuyu.

“Alright, let’s find somewhere away from those two to talk strategy,” said Ochako, pointing a thumb over her shoulder at Todoroki and Bakugou, whose argument only seemed to be getting worse.

Koda just shook his head sadly as the three of them walked around to a quieter corner of the courtyard. He was biting his lip, and his eyes were watery.

“Don’t worry too much, Koda-chan. We don’t know how well they will actually manage to work together. Ribbit .” Tsuyu frowned thoughtfully. “As it is now, I would say we have a pretty good chance. We can try some of the three-person defensive moves from class.”

“I hope it will be okay… which one of the strategies do you think fits our quirks best?” asked Ochako, leaning back against the brick wall that they were standing behind.

“Hmm… both you and Koda-chan have quirks that can be implemented from a distance to make traps. Maybe the hide-and-snipe?”

“That could work! What do you think, Koda?”

Koda shrugged, grimacing. He was shuffling his feet distractedly.

“Are you worried about their quirks? I suppose they could be pretty dangerous to animals,” said Tsuyu gently. Koda quickly nodded.

“Hmm, okay, so they shouldn’t be used too directly in the line of fire,” Ochako said. “Should we use a decoy approach then?”

“I think that’s for attack, not defense. Ribbit .”

“Okay, okay… wait a minute…” Ochako folded her arms, brow furrowed as she thought through their possibilities. Tsuyu was good at avoidance and agility… Koda could distract and trip them up, but probably not fight them off inside the gym... Ochako could set up traps or make things less convenient for them… Wait, a second, what if…?

Ochako snapped her fingers. “Got it! Alright guys, here’s the plan...”

---

Katsuki was well aware that he and Todoroki had not successfully made a plan. He just didn’t think it was as much of a problem as Todoroki seemed to think it was. It wasn’t like the opposing team had any powerhouses in it (Katsuki chose to ignore the fact that Uraraka had almost defeated him at the sports festival, hoping that it was an anomaly), so really, they had nothing to worry about. Katsuki could take down the three of them on his own, no problem.

He watched as Uraraka, Asui, and Koda entered the gymnasium. Now they just had to wait.

…

Was one minute always that long? Katsuki was already getting fidgety.

He glanced at Todoroki, who seemed comfortable with the waiting. He would be. God, Katsuki just wanted to explode some shit. His fingers twitched, longing for the spark.

“Your minute is up,” Aizawa drawled, and Katsuki whooped, running directly for the gymnasium.

“Bakugou, wait!” Todoroki shouted, but dammit, Todoroki could go be lame and plan things out somewhere else. Katsuki had some ass-whooping to do.

And then he almost crashed head-long into five deer that were standing between him and the entrance to the gym.

Wait, they were allowed to bring the battle outside?!

Katsuki glanced at Aizawa, who gazed on, impassive. Whatever. If he didn’t have a problem with it, then Katsuki didn’t either. He directed his explosions to the ground, propelling himself up--

And directly into a vulture. Katsuki squacked, accidentally stopping his explosions, which caused him to drop from the sky. He landed… in a slide of ice, which deposited him neatly to the ground.

“I don’t need your help, you popsicle!” Katsuki shouted, scrambling to get back to his feet.

This time, Todoroki didn’t even bother with a comeback -- hell, he wasn’t even looking at Katsuki. Just some spot over Katsuki’s head. Katsuki scowled. “Oh, can’t even react, huh?!” he yelled.

And then the vulture dove at his head.

He cried out as the vulture’s talons scraped against his scalp, leaving shallow cuts in their wake. Katsuki sent explosions after it, but the vulture wasn’t where he’d expected it to be -- it was on the other side of him. “STOP THAT!!” Katsuki shouted, sending another explosion its way, only for it to dodge and loop down in front of him, tauntingly. He sent a third explosion, which the vulture dodged--

But the explosion hit Todoroki head-on. Todoroki flew back, ducking in a roll to avoid the worst of the damage. “Watch it,” Todoroki snapped.

“I’d like to see you try against this thing!” Katsuk shouted.

At that, Todoroki calmly stepped forward and raised his right arm, shooting out two neat slabs of ice. They hit it their mark easily, encasing both wings in ice, and the vulture immediately dropped from the sky. He raised an eyebrow at Katsuki, who sneered and barked out, “You got lucky!”

However, Katsuki barely had a moment of reprieve before a very sharp pair of antlers suddenly rammed into his ribs, knocking him back. Fucking deer.

Looking around wildly, Katsuki saw that three of the deer had rounded on Todoroki, leaving the last two for Katsuki. Apparently, Koda had decided Todoroki was the bigger threat.

Oh he was going to show these people what he was made of. If they were gonna underestimate him, they had a whole ‘nother thing coming. Fewer opponents would just make it easier for him to slip past. Koda had just dug his team’s grave.

This time, when Katsuki shot himself upward, there were no obnoxious birds in between him and the gymnasium. He arched over the deer (gracefully this time, like a fucking ballerina) and landed safely on the other side, running full-tilt towards the gym. Those stupid, smelly animals weren’t nearly fast enough to turn around and pursue him.

The only animal-related obstacle left was a rabbit, right at the door. It wasn’t even doing anything, until it saw him and hopped inside. Weird.

Katsuki burst through the doors of the gym -- and immediately found himself wrapped in Asui’s (disgusting, slimy) tongue, which slammed him hard into the wall next to the door, knocking the air out of his lungs.

When he finally got his bearings, he saw Uraraka in front of him, in a fighting stance, and no Asui in sight. Also, no cylinder.

Katsuki rose to his feet, looking around -- and then he remembered who he was up against, and looked up.

Oh god.

It was like half of the school was floating up there. There were chairs, a table, a bookshelf, an odd smattering of rocks and boulders (for some reason), some books, some gym equipment - anything that Katsuki could think of. The gym had been set up with various objects around to make it seem like an actual mission.

And he felt, with absolute certainty, that the cylinder was hiding somewhere in that mess.

Katsuki immediately launched himself into the sky-

And felt Asui’s tongue wrap around him from behind, throwing him back to the ground. He looked at the wall behind him, and saw her attached there, waiting for him try flying.

Frustrated, he tried to explode her tongue, but she retracted it at lightning speed, then leapt down -- onto his head -- and used him as a springboard to get to the side wall of the gymnasium. This had the added effect of knocking Katsuki off-balance, giving Uraraka an opening to throw a full-on exercise bike at his head. He automatically aimed an explosion at it, negating its momentum, but also sending him stumbling backwards.

Katsuki landed on his ass right beside the rabbit, which hopped twice, before dashing back outside.

It was at that point that Todoroki chose to show up. His hair was mussed, and it looked like something had bitten him, but he was there, probably to steal Katsuki’s thunder. Pettily, Katsuki decided not to warn Todoroki about Asui, and felt no remorse when Todoroki was grabbed and smashed into the wall. The look of shock on Todoroki’s face was priceless.

“The cylinder is above us, half-and-half, not in the wall!” Katsuki gloated. Todoroki shot him a cold glare.

Uraraka tried to throw a chair at Katsuki as he was distracted, but he easily dodged out of the way. Strange. She seemed slower than usual.

Katsuki didn’t have too much time to think about that, as Todoroki made a platform of ice to bring himself up to the ceiling.

“Ochako-chan!” Asui yelled, and her tongue shot out. Katsuki ducked on instinct, but he wasn’t the target. The tongue went directly into Uraraka’s hand, and Asui started floating. Uraraka swayed slightly where she stood.

Katsuki looked at Uraraka, really looked. And there it was. Her hand was in a fist at her mouth, as though she was trying to will herself not to vomit. She was stretching herself too thin! All Katsuki had to do was get her to take on more weight, so she’d have to drop everything and the cylinder would be more easily accessed. Of course, there was the minor problem of avoiding the extremely heavy falling debris, but he would face that issue when he came to it.

Katsuki lunged towards Uraraka, aiming at her feet. Uraraka yelped and jumped back, before rounding on Katsuki. He grinned. This would be too easy. He lunged at her again, using his quirk to propel himself, and she did just as he’d predicted; she sent him flying to the sky, away from her. Katsuki used his explosions to control his trajectory and grabbed onto a weight lifting machine, preparing to use it as a weapon or a shield, as needed. He looked around. Asui seemed to be hiding from Todoroki, as Todoroki made more and more of an ice bridge to try and find her. Katsuki was in the unique position of having a clear view of both of them, which was nice. It was even nicer when he saw her subtly push something roughly torso-sized between a chair and some dumbbells, effectively hiding it. A grin stretched across Katsuki’s face, and he propelled himself right towards her.

“ Ribbit?!” she cried, as she saw his approach.

Of course that was when Uraraka decided to let everything go.

It was all Katsuki could do to use his explosions to stay afloat as the falling items induced utter chaos. He dodged to avoid the heavier stuff, not even trying to stop the books from hitting him. A treadmill smashed into Todoroki’s ice bridge, sending him toppling with the rest of the junk.

Once the dust settled, Katsuki let himself down, angling himself towards where the cylinder would have landed. He rolled out of his fall, cushioning himself with an explosion, and looked around desperately. His eyes alighted on the chair, now crushed by the dumbells, and he started towards it, when-

“Times up,” Aizawa and All Might said in unison, Aizawa in a bored monotone and All Might bright, booming, and loud.

“Son of a BITCH!” Katsuki shouted, exploding the already-broken chair.

---

Todoroki unfroze Tsuyu’s hand from the ceiling, and the second she climbed down, she wrapped Ochako in a hug. “We did it, Ribbit !” Tsuyu cheered. “We did it, Ochako-chan!” Ochako hugged her back, smiling widely. “Those two are really bad at teamwork,” Tsuyu said, retracting from the hug.

Ochako repressed a snort, as Todoroki crossed his arms and Bakugou shouted, “HEY! TAKE THAT BACK, THIS IS ALL ON HIM!”

Neither of the girls paid him any mind, as they walked outside.

They both stopped.

Yup, that sure was Koda, trapped from the shoulders down in a block of ice.

“Ah, sorry,” Todoroki said, as he left the gymnasium. “I’ll get you out.” Todoroki started melting Koda’s frozen cage as Ochako, Tsuyu, and Bakugou made their way back to the group of students.

“If that had gone on any longer, we would have won, you know,” Bakugou spat.

Ochako glared at him. Honestly, what kind of jerk takes losing a training exercise this hard? “I don’t think that matters,” she said, “seeing as it didn’t and we were both working knowing about the time limit.”

Bakugou sneered. “That-”

“Is all that matters,” Tsuyu cut him off. “We were both trying to play against the clock, and you chose brute force over strategy. It’s that simple.”

Bakugou glared at the both of them. Before he could say anything else, Koda and Todoroki came running up to them.

“You did a great job holding them off, Koda-chan!” Tsuyu said, smiling up at him. Koda smiled widely, cheeks flushing slightly at the praise. Bakugou scoffed.

They reached the rest of the class. “Alright,” Aizawa said, turning to face the class. “They’re open to your criticism.”

Iida and Yaoyorozu both immediately raised their hands. Aizawa nodded to Yaoyorozu. “Let’s start with Asui, Uraraka, and Koda.”

“Well,” she says, straightening up. Her eyebrows are pulled together, thinking over their performance. “To start off, they did a good job executing the interior-perimeter strategy. They also had their heaviest hitter on the outside, fighting to buy time. Their use of their surroundings was superb. They managed to create a system that would make the object incredibly difficult to reach, while also hiding it, making it just as difficult to find. They played to all of their quirks well. Having the bunny warn Uraraka and Asui when someone was about to enter was a good strategy for giving both of them a head’s up.” She paused for a moment. “The main problem that you encountered was not making the most out of Koda’s quirk. While he worked well in the position that he was given, there could have been more for him to do. It was more like Uraraka and Asui were the team, while Koda was nothing more than a distraction, the way they executed it.”

Honestly? Yaoyorozu was usually much harsher. They must have done pretty well, if that was her main complaint. Ochako couldn’t contain her smile.

“Now, Iida, you can do Todoroki and Bakugou,” Aizawa said.

Iida cleared his throat. “To put it plainly, I’m not certain that the two of you could have been less prepared.” Ochako glanced at Todoroki, who shifted uncomfortably, looking guilty. This wasn’t going to be good. “It seemed like neither of you had any strategy at all! You didn’t use anything that we learned in class! Were either of you even paying any attention?” He glared at the two of them, hard, and Ochako knew that Iida was always intense, but this was different from the usual Iida. “In order to be a hero, you have to be able to work with other heros in a time of crisis! How do either of you ever expect to make it if you can’t stop arguing for long enough to do a simple task!”

“Iida,” Ochako found herself saying, trying to interrupt him. He didn’t even pause.

“Both of you just charged in, hoping for the strength of your quirks to save you! What will you do if you end up against someone stronger than yourself?! How do you think you could win, as you are now?!”

“Iida!” Ochako said, louder this time. She had a feeling that she knew what this was about, and honestly, it wasn’t right for him to take out his frustrations about his brother on anyone else. But yet, he still ignored her.

“With your lack of strategy, you could have gotten yourself killed in a real situation!” Were those tears in his eyes? “You have to be more careful! You have to-”

“Enough,” Aizawa said. That finally shut him up. Ochako had never been so thankful for their teacher being scary before. Aizawa looked over at Todoroki and Bakugou. Bakugou looked pissed, while Todoroki just looked a bit shocked. “He is correct that neither of you used any strategy at all. This makes it rather difficult to critique your strategy.”

Aizawa took a short pause for the losing team to stew in, then finished with a cold finality.

“Class is dismissed.”

Chapter Text

Katsuki had some aggression to work out. And honestly, training with Endeavor (should he be calling him Dad? That felt too weird) was the perfect way to blow off some steam. And so, there he was, at Endeavor’s house, in his training room, delivering blow after blow to a punching bag. Stupid training. Smack. Stupid Todoroki. Smack. Stupid Uraraka. Smack. And her stupid plan. Smack.

If it hadn’t been for Todoroki holding him back, Katsuki would have won. Smack smack. What was with that guy?! Smack. And why did Aizawa have to put them together? SMACK.

Oh great, the punching bag broke. It fell to the ground, a hole opening up and spilling the stuffing beans everywhere. Perfect, just what Katsuki needed. He picked up the punching bag and threw it with the full force of his quirk, sending it flying across the room, where it hit a wall of weaponry with a resounding crash. Katsuki watched the weapons fall with a manic smile on his face. At least that was satisfying. He was aware that he shouldn’t wreck the place, but god, did he need an outlet, and it did way better for his mood than just the punching bag had.

He heard a throat clear behind him, and suddenly felt sheepish. He turned to see Endeavor, raising an eyebrow at him, and Katsuki felt himself flush. Right. Probably shouldn’t destroy someone else’s house.

“Feeling better?” Endeavor asked, and Katsuki hesitated before nodding. “Good. We can start the real training for the day.”

“Real training?” Katsuki straightened up immediately. “Bring it on.” In truth, he was still somewhat tired from his punching bag session, but it would make him look like a weak-ass punk to ask for a break now.

Endeavor’s mouth spread into a smile that could only be described as sinister. “I approve of your enthusiasm. You’re going to need it. How would you like to spar with the number two hero?”

Holy shit. Even though part of him was recoiling in fear, Katsuki declared with all the confidence he could muster, “HELL YEAH.”

---

As it turned out, sparring with Endeavor was fucking brutal.

The guy didn’t let up for even a second, it was almost like fighting an actual villain. Katsuki thought the boulder obstacle in the fight with Todoroki had been difficult, but that was nothing compared to this. Every second, he had to be on his feet and focused, to avoid the calculated blasts of fire coming at him constantly. Worse, Katsuki had the sneaking suspicion that he was doing really fucking badly. Whenever he slipped up and got hit by one of Endeavor’s attacks, Endeavor would yell out something like “You can do better than that ”, “You call that a counter?”, or Katsuki’s least favorite: “That was even worse than Shouto’s first time.”

Still, he gritted his teeth and kept going. He was determined that it was going to take more than this to break Bakugou Katsuki. If anybody could handle it, he could. At least, that was what he told himself.

By the end of it, he was pretty much on the brink of collapse. The second he heard Endeavor say that training was over for the day, he just sat on the ground right where he was, panting hard and dripping with sweat, too weak to even get up for some water.

He heard, rather than saw, Endeavor approach him. When he finally got up the strength to lift his head, he saw Endeavor offering him a hand. Reluctantly, Katsuki took it and let himself be pulled to his feet. For a good couple seconds, he thought he might just keel right over again. Somehow, Endeavor had hardly even broken a sweat.

“The showers are just outside and to your left. I’ll have a meal prepared for you in the meantime.” With that, Endeavor turned and walked off. What, no “good job, Katsuki, you didn’t freaking die”? Whatever, he was too tired to care.

After taking the most heavenly shower of his life (he wasn’t sure he had ever been that sweaty before), Katsuki wandered in a daze toward the dining room, where the incredible aroma of whatever the cook (yeah, they had a separate cook) had prepared awaited him.

“Hello, Katsuki. Come, sit. There is something I want to discuss with you.”

“Yeah yeah, food first, talk later,” Katsuki muttered, collapsing gratefully into the chair opposite Endeavor and immediately reaching to fill his plate with food (roast beef, nice ).

“I think you will want to hear this, as it pertains to your future as a hero,” said Endeavor in a calm, level voice.

That got Katsuki’s attention. In a manner of speaking. “Allight waissit?” he asked through a mouthful of beef.

Endeavor patiently waited for him to swallow before continuing. “I see a lot of potential in you. Of course, you must know this already, considering the amount of time and effort I have been devoting to your training.”

“Uh-huh”, said Katsuki, reloading his already empty plate.

“However, as you may be aware, I have had Shouto training since he was very young, under the hope that he would one day surpass me, and become the number one hero. Now, I have some new thoughts on the matter.”

For the first time, Katsuki paused in his eating, now paying attention more fully. Was he saying what Katsuki thought he was saying? Because if so…

“Since I have recently discovered a second heir, with a quirk that also has great potential, a new realm of possibilities has opened. I would like to devote my energy to training you as I have trained Shouto, so that you can be the number two, right alongside him.”

...wait what the fuck?

“Hold up, what?” Katsuki stared at him incredulously.

“Now that he has finally let go of some of his teenage rebellion, Shouto is well on the way to being the number one. Together, however, the two of you will be able to create a legacy like no other--”

“Yeah but hold the phone for a hot second. You expect me to what, sit back and let him be the number one?”

“You have to understand, Katsuki.” Endeavor sat back in his chair, fingers laced together on the table. “Your quirk is certainly special--to think that combining my fire with something as useless as a chemical excretion would result in such a potent ability, it’s very impressive. However, Shouto’s mother has a quirk specifically chosen to combine with mine and improve it. Additionally, I have spent the past sixteen years doing all in my power to train him, so that he may grow into a truly awe-inspiring hero. I see great potential in you, but Shouto… Shouto is my masterpiece.”

“That…” Katsuki slowly placed his fork down on the table. “That is complete and utter BULLSHIT.”

Endeavor blinked, and it was probably the most taken aback that Katsuki had ever seen him. “Excuse me?”

“You heard me. Sure, he’s got a tough quirk. So what. I’ve fought him twice now, one-on-one, and won BOTH times. I’m not here to play games. I’m not here to be number two. So if that’s your offer, you can stick it up your ASS.”

At this, Endeavor suddenly rose from the table, straightening to his full height to tower over Katsuki, which was a lot more menacing now that he knew what it was like to actually fight the guy. But Katsuki was pissed off, and he wasn’t about to let this shit go. He stood up too.

“You will treat me with proper respect. That is no way to talk to your father.” Endeavor’s words were practically smoking with rage.

“Whatever. I’m not about to be groomed to be second-place by a second-rate hero. That’s right, you’ll never even come close to catching up to All Might, and you know it. Who needs your advice anyway? I’m out of here.”

Endeavor suddenly slammed his fist on the table, hard enough to cause the whole thing to shake. Katsuki’s glass toppled over, spilling Mountain Dew all over the beef. “You mean to turn down the greatest opportunity you will ever receive, to work personally with one of the greatest heroes in the world? You will regret this.”

“Sure. Whatever lets you sleep at night.” Katsuki sneered. “I’m going home. You still gonna let me use your chauffeur or should I call my mom?”

For several moments, Endeavor just glared at him so hard Katsuki thought he might be trying to set him on fire with just his eyes. Then, through gritted teeth, he growled out, “Akiyama!”

A man in a neatly pressed suit appeared at the door. “Yes, sir?”

“Please kindly escort Mr. Bakugou home.”

“Yes sir.”

Katsuki followed the guy out without another word. He didn’t even bother to look back at his dad, who was literally fuming, trails of smoke rising off of him as Mountain Dew soaked into the tablecloth.

---

Eijiro was worried about Bakugou. Honestly, Bakugou being angry wasn’t new territory, not in the slightest, and Eijiro probably wouldn’t even have noticed if it weren’t for how both Todoroki and Midoriya sent looks Bakugou’s way. Uraraka looked straight-up accusatory every time she looked at him. Once again, none of this was uncommon, and Todoroki was always glaring at Bakugou nowadays. But now Midoriya was sending him looks of annoyance, without Bakugou starting it, which was kind of out of left field. Which meant something had happened. And Eijiro would get to the bottom of it.

After all, there is nothing manlier than helping out his friends!

It was lunchtime when Eijiro first tried asking what was up. “Hey, Bakugou!” Eijiro said, happily taking his seat next to Bakugou. Bakugou just grunted. Good start.  “Soooooooooo,” Eijiro continued, “I can’t help but notice that there seems to be something going on with you. Care to share?”

“OI!” Bakugou snapped, fully focussed on Eijiro. So a success!

Then he grabbed Eijiro’s arm and pulled him out of the cafeteria, and then continued marching him along, all the way outside and around to a deserted corner of the school grounds. A success? “Do you want the whole student body knowing shit, shittyhair?” Bakugou cried, dropping Eijiro’s arm. Well, that didn’t bode well. Bakugou was never one for secrets. If he had beef, he shouted it directly in the person’s face. It’s what made him so manly!

“Well, we’re outside now,” Eijiro pointed out. “So, are you gonna tell me?”

Bakugou sighed (a tad dramatically, if you asked Eijiro). “Yeah, yeah, I’m getting to it,” Bakugou said, as though that should have been obvious. Eijiro waited. Bakugou crossed his arms. “That SHIT HEAD SPERM DONOR of mine told me he wants me to be the number two hero! BEHIND TODOROKI!!” Oof. Wow. “Like, THE FUCK?! Did he expect me to just SIT BACK and let that idiotic two-face WIN?! FUCK THAT!” Bakugou kicked at a rock on the ground, sending it flying into the side of the school building, leaving a neat little dent.

“Yikes,” Eijiro said, scowling slightly.

“Yeah, you can FUCKING SAY THAT AGAIN.”

“Yikes,” Eijiro repeated, getting Bakugou to let out a reluctant chuckle, that sounded more like a scoff. “He said that to your face? What an asshole move!,” Eijiro said.

“My mom pegged him right,” Bakugou said. “Honestly, I swear to god, I can’t remember the last time she’s said someone’s an asshole and been wrong!”

“To be fair, you think most people are assholes,” Eijiro pointed out.

“AND I’M NOT WRONG!”

Eijiro snorted. “Let’s go actually eat lunch now. You can woop Todoroki in training later.”

“Whatever.”

---

When Midoriya stopped Eijiro on the way out of school for the day, it came as somewhat of a surprise. It wasn’t like Eijiro disliked Midoriya--he thought Midoriya was cool, and totally respected the guy’s passion! It was just--they never really spoke.

“Do you mind if we talk for a bit?” Midoriya asked, head tilted, little worried crease between his eyebrows. As if Eijiro was gonna say no.

“Sure,” Eijiro said. Midoriya shot him a smile, and started leading the way over to the side of the school. Funnily enough, they ended up in the same spot he and Bakugou had been in for their little confession time. “What’s up, man?” Eijiro asked.

“Well, I’m worried about the state of Kacchan and Todoroki’s relationship,” Midoriya said, not beating around the bush. Eijiro could respect that.

“I know what you mean. You’d think discovering that a chill guy like Todoroki was his brother might, I don’t know, cool him down--and man, having Endeaver for a dad?!  How great does that seem? But if anything, he’s got a stick further up his ass than usual!”

“And Todoroki is actually getting into fights!” Midoriya said, frown tugging at his face. “And when he’s not fighting, he’s got this gloom about him!”

Eijiro thought for a second. “Yeah, I can kinda see that,” he admitted. “This whole situation has kinda fucked both of them over, huh?”

“Yeah. And it’s gotten so much worse since Endeavor decided Bakugou would be the number one hero, you know?”

“Yeah, I mean -- wait, what?!”

“That’s what I really wanted to fix, because Todoroki is already feeling so bad about it, and Bakugou has been making everything so much worse, so I was hoping you could talk--”

“Wait,” Eijiro interrupted. “Todoroki told you that Endeavor wants Bakugou to be the number one?!”

“Yes!” Midoriya said. “That’s just- it’s just a rude thing to say to someone, right?!”

Dread settled in the pit of Eijiro’s stomach. Wow. Oh wow. Endeavor really was an asshole! “Dude. It gets so much worse.” Midoriya tilted his head and frowned in confusion. “Bakugou told me that Endeavor told him Todoroki would be the number one hero, with Bakugou as the number two.”

Midoriya’s mouth fell open. “What?” he asked, eyebrows drawing together. “Then that means…”

“The BASTARD!”

“He’s trying to pit them against each other?” Midoriya looked Eijiro in the eyes, and said, tone incredibly matter-of-fact, “Crap.”

---

Katsuki hung up the phone in the middle of whatever Kirishima was saying, since nothing else could be important other than the fact that Endeavor had told Todoroki he wanted Katsuki to be the number one. And then told Katsuki the opposite. What the actual fuck??

Katsuki sat on his bed, staring at the wall, shaking and too angry to move.

Sure, he’d been mildly pissed off before when Endeavor had suggested that he settle for being the number two hero. But now? Now he was really mad.

Katsuki finally stood up and stormed out of his room. “MOM!” he shouted.

“WHAT?” she shouted back from the study. Katsuki made his way to the front of the house.

“I’m going over to Endeavor’s house,” he said, putting on his shoes.

“Hey, I thought you weren’t training with him anymore, due to him not seeing your talent,” his mom said. He heard her shut her laptop, and she came out to the front of the house, arms crossed and scowl on her face.

“Oh, I’m not going for training.” A vicious snarl spread over his face. “I’m going over there to fucking murder him. ”

His mother looked at him for a moment, assessing, before she grinned right back. “Do you need a ride?” she asked. “A getaway driver? Any weapons?”

“I can take the bus,” Katsuki said.

“If you’re sure,” his mom said. She opened her arms for a hug, which Katsuki groaned about before accepting. “Tell me if I have to bail you out of jail,” she said, pulling back.

“Will do,” he said, and left for the Todoroki household.

---

Shouto hadn’t known they were expecting anyone when the doorbell rang. He glanced at his watch -- it was almost five o’clock, too early for a dinner guest. He heard Fuyumi answer the door, and decided to let her deal with it. At least, until he heard a familiar voice scream, “WHERE THE FUCK IS HE?!”

Shouto sighed. He wasn’t even sure what he had done. Apparently, though, it was enough for Bakugou to come to his house on a non-training day. Shouto seriously considered the benefits of staying in his room and letting Fuyumi try to sort this situation out. There were many, many benefits. The most prominent: not having to deal with Bakugou until the next day. The only negative: if he did, would that make him a horrible brother? It might be worth it. But then again, was staying at his desk and letting Fuyumi deal with it something his father would do?

Probably.

Shouto sighed again, but got up from his desk and padded his way over to the front hall.

“What do you want?” Shouto asked, crossing his arms. Bakugou wheeled on him.

“WHERE THE FUCK IS THAT LYING BASTARD WHO CALLS HIMSELF A HERO?!” Bakugou roared. Fuyumi shot Shouto a pleading look, which roughly translated to what the fuck? Shouto shrugged, answering both of their questions. He wasn’t sure what his father had done, but it was pretty easy to get Bakugou angry. He was just Like That.

Fuyumi sighed. “He’s out tonight, doing hero work. Won’t be back until late.”

“Then I’m fucking waiting for him,” Bakugou growled, storming his way over to the living room.

Fuyumi looked at Shouto and wrung her hands together. “What do you usually do when he gets like… this?”

“Fight with him until a third party stops us,” Shouto admitted.

“Real helpful, Shouto.” She started going to the living room, but stopped when Shouto didn’t follow. She put her hands on her hips and set her jaw, in her ‘I’m your big sister and you’re going to do what I want’ pose. “Listen, I’ve never met Bakugou before today, he is a complete stranger to me, and there is no way I’m going in there without backup.”

That was totally reasonable. It didn’t mean that Shouto had to like it. He tried to think of any argument against this course of action, but came up blank. With a deep sigh, he headed toward the living room. Fuyumi smiled and continued on her way.

When they entered the living room, Bakugou was pacing, arms crossed, and eyebrow twitching. Shouto wasn’t sure what Bakugou thought was so important that he had to invade their home, but clearly this was something that would end in a fight one way or another. For both of their sakes, Shouto should probably draw the fight toward himself. He did not want his father legitimately angry.

“What did he do?” Shouto asked. Of course, with Bakugou, there was a chance that it was nothing, but not a very good one.

Shouto’s phone rang. Bakugou stopped pacing. “That’s probably Deku ,” Bakugou spat. “You’d better answer it, this is actually something important.”

That didn’t bode well. Bakugou usually didn’t think anything Midoriya had to say was important.

Shouto fished his phone out of his pocket and looked down to see that it was, in fact Midoriya. He answered.

“ Todoroki thank god you picked up, um. So you might, uh, see Kacchan sometime this evening. ”

Shouto watched as Bakugou petulantly knocked a large bowl of nuts onto the ground. They rolled all over the floor. “I would say there is a good chance of that, yes.”

“ Oh, is he already there? Okay, did he tell you what happened? ” There was a definite strained note to Midoriya’s voice.

“Not yet, but he’s angry about something.”

“DAMN RIGHT I AM,” Bakugou interjected, starting to grind nuts into the ground with his shoe (which he was supposed to have taken off when he came in).

“ Well, remember what Endea--your dad said, that you told me the other day?”

How could he forget? “You… you told him about that?” Shouto had thought it obvious that this wasn’t information he wanted shared, but he supposed it was too late now. “But I thought he would be ecstatic.”

“Oh, it gets SO MUCH WORSE, AHAHAHAHA!!” Bakugou burst out, and Shouto couldn’t tell if he was trying to laugh or just yell.

“ The thing is, he told Kacchan the same thing. ”

“Alright, so why is he mad?”

“ No, I mean… he told Kacchan that he wanted you to be the number one, and Kacchan to be the number two.”

For a moment, Shouto didn’t process what Midoriya had said. Bakugou had finally stopped wandering around breaking things, and was now standing with his arms folded, glaring at Shouto expectantly.

He told Bakugou that he wanted Shouto to be the number one.

So he hadn’t meant any of it.

There was, perhaps, a moment of shock, or anger, or something, and Shouto’s eyes flashed… but it quickly dwindled down to disappointed resignation.

“Alright, I understand. Thank you for telling me, Midoriya.” Shouto kept his tone perfectly level, and calm. Bakugou was tapping his foot impatiently.

“ No problem! Uhh… good luck dealing with Kacchan.”

Shouto was very much going to need it. “Thank you. Bye.” Todoroki hung up the phone and slipped it back into his pocket.

“SO?” Bakugou barked. “Now that you know the SHIT he pulled, do you have something to fucking say?”

“I don’t know what you want me to say,” said Shouto.

“Okay, I’m still kind of lost here… what happened?” Fuyumi looked back and forth between Bakugou and Shouto.

“Our father told Bakugou that he wanted to make me the number one, with him as the number two. He told me the opposite. Most likely to motivate us to compete with each other. It seems that Bakugou has taken offense to this,” Shouto explained, watching the veins starting to pop in Bakugou’s forehead, more prominently the longer he talked.

“YES. I. TAKE. OFFENSE.” He punctuated each word with a punch to the wall. There was a dent in it by the time he was done. “What the HELL is wrong with you? Even now you aren’t fucking MAD?”

Fuyumi leaned back against the wall, biting her lip. “Well, this isn’t exactly… out of the ordinary for our father.”

Bakugou’s eyes were bugging out; he looked like a lunatic. “Are you SERIOUS? What, he just goes around LYING to you and doing whatever the hell he wants? YOU JUST LET HIM GET AWAY WITH THIS SHIT? HELL no. Just FUCK no. When he gets back here, I’m giving him a piece of my mind.”

“Please don’t,” said Shouto, even though he was already resigned to the fact that Bakugou probably wasn’t going to listen.

“What, you expect me to just accept this?! You might be a weak-ass bitch but that shit ain’t gonna fly with me.”

“Look, Bakugou, that just isn’t how we handle things with him, alright? It’s complicated,” Fuyumi tried, but Bakugou just shot her a glare before turning back to Shouto. Well, Shouto appreciated the effort at least.

“What the hell’s so complicated about it? He did a shitty thing, and we’re gonna make him pay for it. SIMPLE.”

“I don’t know what things are like in your house, but my father doesn’t take well to being challenged,” said Shouto.

Bakugou stared at Shouto as if he’d just announced that he had decided to quit hero work to become a ballerina. “Doesn’t take well? DOESN’T TAKE WELL? Who the fuck CARES if he DOESN’T TAKE WELL? Are you telling me you’re SCARED of him?” Suddenly, he rounded on Fuyumi. “Has he just been taking this shit like it’s nothing? His whole damn life?”

“Our father is very hard on Shouto. He always has been. Shouto was the only one of us to get both of our parents powers so he… he decided that Shouto was going to be the number one hero, and never really gave him another choice.” Fuyumi shot Shouto a grimace. “And it’s not like we’ve really had much control over it. He would put Shouto through training and not let him think about anything else. I mean, he wouldn’t even let Shouto get to know me, Toya, or Natsuo. I think he’s decided to do something similar with you, now that he knows you’re his son. Just because, I mean, you’ve never even met me and I’m, well. I’m your sister too.”

That finally gave Bakugou pause. “Wait… you’re his sister?” He pointed at Shouto.

Fuyumi nodded.

“He didn’t even tell me that there’s more half-siblings? Fucking hell.” Bakugou turned back toward Shouto, expression unreadable. “So that’s how he’s been treating you then.” After a moment of silence, he added, “And you’ve never told him off for it?”

“I have ,” said Shouto petulantly. “I even decided to swear off using his quirk to become a hero. I decided to only rely on my mothers for a while.”

“Yeah, but you still let him get away with it.”

Shouto opened his mouth to respond, but whatever he was going to stay got stuck in his throat.

That seemed to convince Bakugou of something. He nodded his head once, uncrossed his arms, and squared his shoulders, facing Shouto. “Listen to me, Todoroki. This. Shit. Ends. Now. The second that guy steps through that door, I am gonna make it clear to him that he may be used to pushing you around, but things are gonna be different now that I’m here.” He pointed at himself with his thumb. “So are you with me or not?”

Before Shouto could say anything, they all heard the sound of a doorknob turning, and the front door creaking open. It appeared that Endeavor had gotten home early.

With one last meaningful look at Shouto, Bakugou spun around and marched toward the doorway.

Chapter Text

Fuyumi lurched toward Bakagou as he marched for the door. “Wait, hold on--”

Shouto held a hand up, indicating for her to be quiet. “I don’t think there’s anything we can do to stop him now. You can go if you want; this isn’t your fight.”

She hesitated, then gave in with a small shake of her head. “Good luck,” she said before turning to go up to her room.

Heart beginning to beat faster, Shouto followed Bakugou to the foyer.

“Welcome home, dad ,” Bakugou spat, the second their father had caught his eye.

“Katsuki. What an… unexpected surprise.”

“We’ve got some beef to discuss with you.” Bakugou indicated Shouto.

“Unfortunately, it will have to wait. I’m rather busy at the moment. If you will excuse me--”

As Endeavor attempted to walk past him, Bakugou stuck out his arm to block. “Yeah, I don’t think so. You’re gonna make some time.”

Shouto winced. He had learned from years of anger and yelling not to interrupt his father when he had work to do. Everything had to be on his schedule, on Endeavor’s terms. But Bakugou was just walking right up to him and demanding.

For a moment, Shouto saw the rage flash in his father’s eyes, but it was soon replaced by a mask of calm. “Make it quick.”

“We know that you lied to us. We know that you’re trying to pit us against each other so that we’ll fulfill all your goals. That you want us to be your perfect little guinea pigs and do whatever you say. And we’ve had enough.”

The two of them stared each other off, and Shouto could see the warning signs creeping into his father’s expression, but he was helpless to do anything as Bakugou plowed forward.

“You can yell and get mad as much as you want, but I draw the line at you lying. You want to know what I think of you? You are a WEAK, PATHETIC, JEALOUS, LYING PIECE OF SHIT AND A DISGUSTING EXCUSE FOR A HERO.”

“Don’t you dare--” Endeavor began, in a dangerously threatening tone, but Bakugou continued yelling over him without giving him a chance to continue.

“Todoroki’s ENTIRE goddamn LIFE was spent as a gross little project to fix YOUR stupid-ass insecure feelings about being constantly outshined by All Might and you fucking know it. So you can take all this manipulative bullshit and stick it right back up your ass where it came from. Todoroki may be used to it, but I don’t take that shit lying down--”

“ENOUGH.” Endeavor grabbed the front of Bakugou’s shirt, and pinned him with a glare that would make Shouto’s knees tremble. “You understand nothing, you insolent child --”

“Oh I understand PLENTY.” Bakugou didn’t back down for even a second. He met the eyes of the number two hero with just as much fire, just as much hatred. “You may have them trained to be scared of you. All your kids. Yeah, I know about them by the way, and I know you were trying to isolate me from people I have a RIGHT to know if I goddamn want to. But that isn’t gonna work with me, and you know why? Because I’M. NOT. SCARED. OF. YOU.”

Suddenly, Endeavor raised a fist, and Shouto’s stomach lurched so hard he wanted to throw up. Against any other opponent, he wouldn’t hesitate to step in and save someone, but against his father, he felt like his feet were made of lead.

However, Bakugou wasn’t his mother, or even his younger self. He didn’t let people hit him. As Endeavor swung his fist, Bakugou ducked, sliding out of the shirt that Endeavor was still holding as the attack sailed over his head. Instinctively, Bakugou doubled back a few paces from the number two hero, crouching into a fighting stance with his fists raised.

The room fell into a silence so tense it felt physically oppressive.

Even without quirks, there was no way Bakugou could win in a fight against the number two hero. But thankfully, Endeavor seemed to forcibly get his own anger under control, slowly lowering his fists to his sides. Maybe it was because, for once, he knew he would be met with resistance. Shouto was almost in awe. He had never seen his father back down like that before.

The hand still clutching Bakugou’s shirt was starting to shake, but Endeavor didn’t say anything. So Bakugou continued, apparently choosing to ignore how close this situation had gotten to violence. “If you want to call yourself my father, then you are going to treat me with respect,” he growled.

Finally, Endeavor threw the shirt at Bakugou, hitting him in the chest. Bakugou clutched it, and Shouto noticed his hands trembling slightly. Endeavor slowly, deliberately, straightened up to his full height. Without taking his eyes off Bakugou, he addressed Shouto. “Shouto. Do you have nothing to say?”

At first, Shouto had been watching almost in a daze. Seeing someone confronting his father like that? It felt like it didn’t belong in this reality. But even under the threat of abuse, Bakugou had stood his ground. Shouto felt his fingers curl into fists, his jaw clench harder, his heart beat stronger. Bakugou wasn’t backing down. So neither would he.

To his father, he kept his tone completely level, almost disinterested. “I think Bakugou pretty much summed it up.” After a moment’s thought, he added, “Of course, unlike him, I am not stupid enough to turn down an opportunity to train with a very powerful hero--”

“HEY,” Bakugou interjected.

Shouto ignored him. “and I have to consider the fact that my home is, in fact, here. However, I will have to ask that our relationship be on my terms, from now on. It’s about time we realized that you have more to gain from my training with you than I do. So if you try and do this again, I’m going to renounce you. For good.” Even though, in a way, the words terrified him, he found that they rolled off his tongue without hesitation.

Endeavor slowly turned his gaze onto Shouto. He could see the almost crazed fury burning in it, even while the rest of his expression remained calm. But somehow, with Bakugou there, Shouto found himself able to meet that gaze, unafraid.

“Then it seems,” Endeavor began slowly, every word pronounced and deliberate, “that we are done here. Please get out of my sight.”

Bakugou and Shouto glanced at each other. Shouto’s hands were shaking, adrenaline racing through his blood. So he walked past his father, and left through the front door. He didn’t look back to see if Bakugou was following him, but heard his footsteps. Once they were both outside, Bakugou slammed the door behind them.

The early evening air was cold enough to make Shouto shiver. Bakugou put his shirt back on.

Neither of them spoke at first. They just stood there, Bakugou panting slightly from the exertion of yelling so much. Shouto wondered how long it would be until he could go back in without incurring his father’s wrath.

Eventually, Shouto was the first to speak. “So what are we going to do now? I don’t exactly have anywhere else to go.”

“I’m hungry. Let’s go get ramen or something.” Bakugou started walking toward the gate of the estate, so Shouto didn’t have much choice but to follow.

“Should I call a cab?” Shouto asked, glancing at him. Bakugou just shrugged, so Shouto pulled out his phone to call one. He knew a decent ramen place, and luckily he still had his wallet in his pocket.

After he had hung up, the two lapsed into silence, which very quickly became awkward. Bakugou was facing away from him, tapping his foot. Shouto just kept looking down at his phone, waiting for the cab to come.

Eventually, Bakugou spoke. “This doesn’t change anything.”

Shouto kept looking at his phone. “Why would it?”

“We’re still rivals.”

“Of course.”

“I still don’t like you.”

“Obviously.”

…

“Good.”

“Fine.”

They didn’t really say anything else until the cab showed up.

Nothing about the ride to the ramen place seemed natural. The cab driver made a few comments, about how nice the weather was or music choices or something equally inane, to which Shouto and Bakugou grunted in reply, staring resolutely out their windows.

After what felt like a thousand years, they reached the ramen place. Shouto muttered a “thank you” as he got out, and led Bakugou inside.

It was a nice place -- it was Fuyumi’s favorite, more than Shouto’s, but he could still see the appeal. It wasn’t too big, wasn’t too expensive, and his family visited often enough that people generally didn’t bother them too much about being related to Endeavor. Plus, it was one of the few ramen places that also served soba, so he did have a soft spot for it.

Shouto picked up a menu. “You order at the front,” he said, handing the menu to Bakugou.

“Cool,” Bakugou said, accepting the menu and flipping through it.

Shouto ordered his zaru soba and found them a table. Bakugou joined him soon after.

They didn’t say anything until their food arrived, when Bakugou raised an eyebrow and asked, “Did you just order soba at a ramen place?”

Shouto shrugged. “I like soba,” he said.

“Yeah, but this place is meant for ramen. There’s no way their soba is particularly good.”

Shouto glanced to the front of the room, hoping no one working there was listening to their conversation. Upon seeing no one around, he shrugged. “It’s not the best soba I’ve ever had, but it’s still soba, which makes it better than ramen.”

Bakugou snorted. “Anything is good if there’s enough hot pepper in it.”

Shouto raised an eyebrow. “Doesn’t that drown out the other flavors?”

“Only if you have a baby mouth.” A gigantic grin spread over his face. “Holy shit, Todoroki, please tell me you have a baby mouth!”

“I do not, I just like to taste what I ordered.” He punctuated that by taking a pointed bite of his soba.

“Yeah, yeah, just keep telling yourself that.”

They didn’t continue talking after that, but Bakugou did ask for some hot sauce to be brought to the table, and proceeded to pour half the bottle into his ramen. Shouto made a face, and Bakugou made a face right back.

Overall, the whole experience could have been a lot worse.

After they were done with their food, they stood outside the restaurant for a bit. Shouto wasn’t sure what to do. Say goodbye? Thank him? Honestly, neither seemed too appropriate.

“Let’s never do this again,” Bakugou finally said.

Shouto smiled a bit. “Yeah, definitely.”

“Well, see you tomorrow, I guess.” And with that, Bakugou walked off, and Shouto got out his phone to call a cab home.

Yeah, it could have been a lot worse.

---

Izuku wasn’t sure how he expected everything to proceed after… well, everything. So when he walked into class to find Todoroki and Kacchan already arguing, it was both a relief and a dissapointment. At least it was familiar.

“I CAN’T BELIEVE THAT YOU DIDN’T THINK TO TELL ME!”

“In my defense, I thought that you already knew.”

“HOW THE FUCK WAS I SUPPOSED TO?”

“I assumed that you had bothered to do at least some research before starting this assignment. I suppose that was my mistake.”

“AND WHAT’S THAT SUPPOSED TO MEAN?”

“Whatever you think it does.”

Yet, there was something different about this fight. It seemed less heated, somehow.

Izuku smiled.

It was almost brotherly.

Chapter Text

The fact that Endeavor had offered Katsuki an internship left a sour taste in his mouth. Honestly, he thought he’d be done with the guy after the whole ‘get out of my sight’ thing, and Endeavor inviting him back felt like taunting. Like he was throwing Katsuki a bone. Well, Katsuki was no dog, and Endeavor wasn’t the only one of the top ten heroes who wanted him. Best Jeanist, the number four hero, wanted him too! And he probably wasn’t only offering to prove some fucked up point.

---

“To be honest, I’m not a fan of yours.”

“HUH?” Katsuki gaped at Best Jeanist.

“And I imagine the only reason you chose my agency is because I’m one of the top five most popular heroes, right?”

“But you decided to draft me…”

“Yes! Because all I’ve had lately are little do-gooders, but you’re the first in a long time who is a bit more ferocious. And my job as a hero is reforming people like you.”

Alright, so he was just trying to prove a point. But at least he was honest about it.

“Heroes and villains are two sides of the same coin… I can see it in that glare of yours. So what is it that really makes someone a hero?”

“Not taking people in under false pretences, for one,” Katsuki grumbled.

Best Jeanist laughed slightly. “That may be the first endearing thing you’ve said to me,” he said. “There may be hope for you, yet.”

Katsuki wasn’t sure that he wanted whatever Best Jeanist described as ‘hope.’ At least this was still better than working with Endeavor. He just had to keep that in mind.

---

Katsuki’s training for the day was done, and he was doing some cool-down stretches with the news on in the background when he heard about Hosu. His head snapped up when he heard mention of Nomus.

It was a live report of the attack. There were Nomus in the streets, and large number of heroes had gathered to help bring them down. Katsuki’s mouth fell open as he listened, and he found himself slowly stopping with his stretches. This sounded like the biggest attack in the last few years! And he was missing it! Because he was with stupid Best Jeanist!

And then he got a text.

It was from Deku, to the entire class. All it contained was an address.

In Hosu.

God, of course that nerd was where all of the action was! Because why wouldn’t he be? Katsuki chose to ignore the hint of an unpleasant feeling at the edge of his consciousness. He wasn’t worried, of course not, not for anyone. Especially not stupid Deku .

He turned the TV up louder. To drown out his thoughts and keep him updated, all in one.

The screen showed him that Endeavor was there, fighting the Nomus, which made him scowl. It also meant that Todoroki was there, making him scowl harder. Of course Todoroki would end up with more practical experience than him after this. Because that was just his life.

When the news reported that three high schoolers had been cornered by the Hero Killer, Katsuki’s blood ran cold. He knew just the three idiot classmates of his who were in Hosu to seek out the Hero Killer. With Deku, Todoroki, and Iida’s personalities, plus Deku’s text…

It made too much sense.

God, Katsuki should have taken up Endeavor’s offer. He could have stopped the Hero Killer, no problem! He hated to admit it, but Todoroki might have made the right call in choosing Endeavor’s internship. Honestly, Katsuki shouldn’t have been surprised. His stretching got a little more aggressive, bordering on painful. He winced, and decided he should be done.

Katsuki sat down to watch the live recording of what was happening. Watched as the reporter described “the kid’s” injuries (which she made sound bad. Very bad.). Watched as Deku got snatched by a Nomu (because of course he did) and saved by the Hero Killer himself ( because of course he was ).

He heard the Hero Killer’s speech.

Honestly, it didn’t do much for him.

And he couldn’t get the thought of those three being injured out of his head. Iida’s hand, Deku’s… probably everything, knowing Deku, and Todoroki…

Katsuki told himself, firmly, that he was not worried about Todoroki. At least, not any more than a professional sense of being the only one allowed to crush him in combat. Nah, he was just jealous that Todoroki got to meet a real villain -- a bad one, too.

Alright, jealousy didn’t sit any better with him.

If he called his mom, that was neither here nor there. It was certainly not for comfort, that would be stupid.

“Whether you want to admit it or not, he is your brother,” she said, sounding slightly cross. “You can admit to being worried.”

“But I’m really not!” he responded. “And even if I was, it’s not anyone’s business but mine!”

“Oh, yes, you’re only my son, I can see how it’s none of my business. So sorry.”

“HEY! Watch the sarcasm!”

“I’m just saying, you wouldn’t have called me if you weren’t worried.” Katsuki didn’t have a response to that. “I think that you should visit him in the hospital.”

“Oh HELL no!”

“Why not? You’d get to see just how alive he is for yourself.”

“Mom, I am not going all the way to Hosu just to visit Todoroki. That would give him the wrong idea.”

“What, the idea that you’re a person with feelings who cares about him? How mortifying!”

“DROP IT!”

“I’m just saying-”

“I’ll hang up on you!”

“It’s not good to-”

“Bye mom!”

“Repress--”

Katsuki hung up resolutely.

His phone started ringing again, shortly thereafter. He answered it without looking who it was, with a short, “What?”

“Hello to you, too, Bakugou.” That wasn’t his mom. He checked the caller ID. Uraraka? Why was she calling?

“... Hi,” he said hesitantly.

“Hi. I, uh-- this is awkward, sorry. I wanted to call and check if you’re -- okay, I guess?”

“OF COURSE I’M OKAY! WHY WOULDN’T I BE? WHY DOES EVERYONE SEEM TO THINK THAT I’M NOT?”

Uraraka sounded a bit annoyed as she continued. “Jeez, there’s no need to get defensive. After all,” she took a deep breath, and when she continued talking, she sounded significantly less annoyed, more tired, “It’s just… I know that I wasn’t okay, and I’m not… you know…” Related to anyone who was hurt? Yeah. “So I figured, if I wasn’t okay, you probably weren’t either. And that you were definitely too prideful to call and hear that everyone was alright for yourself.”

“I’M NOT PR-prideful.” Bakugou sighed slightly. She had a point. “So, you talked to them?”

“Yeah,” she said. “Everyone is alive, and functioning well enough to talk. The results of the full examinations aren’t back yet, but Deku said he’d tell me when he knew everyone’s conditions for certain.” She hesitated. “Do you, uh, want me to pass that information along?”

Katsuki considered saying no. He considered pretending that he didn’t care at all, pretending that it wouldn’t bother him not to know. But then again, who would that spite other than himself? “Yeah,” he finally forced out. “ But that stays between us, ” he added, aggression seeping into his tone.

“Jeez, fine,” she said. There was a moment of awkward silence, before she said, “Well, bye, then,” and hung up.

A few minutes later, Katsuki learned that Iida’s hand had been permanently damaged, Deku wasn’t allowed to walk for a couple of days, and that Todoroki had no severe injuries.

He didn’t want to admit it, but that made him feel a bit better.

---

“The incident in Hosu City of Western Tokyo last night… it certainly worries me,” Best Jeanist said the next morning, as he combed out Katsuki’s hair. “Yes, it worries me quite a bit. People are so easily distracted by big incidents like these. But now, more than ever, heroes need to remain calm and composed. Because chaos is often so good at drawing out the slumbering brutality in people’s hearts. As such, we’ll continue our usual operations today, just as always. Let our TIGHT JEANS keep our bodies and minds bound upright!” Katsuki’s hair snapped back to its usual style, along with the vein popping in his temple.

He had chosen the wrong place to intern.

---

That night, Katsuki’s mom called him first.

“Hey,” she said, “I’ve been thinking.”

“I know that’s hard on you. Don’t strain yourself.”

“OI! MANNERS! God, I’m the one who raised you, so I KNOW that you were raised better than that!”

“According to Best Jeanist, not even the best influence on me could change me.” Katsuki barked out a laugh. “You tried your best, but apparently I’m just a stubborn ass!”

“...Best Jeanist isn’t like… him, is he?”

Katsuki panicked a bit at that. “Ah, shit, no, not at all. He’s just kinda boring, rude, and overly proper, he’s not, like, emotionally manipulative and pushing me past reasonable limits.”

His mom let out a relieved sigh. “Alright, just checking! Because I would go over there and beat his ass.”

“I’m pretty sure that, of the two of us, I’m the one better at beating people up.”

“Yeah, but that would go on your permanent record and affect your hero career! I’m already living the high life, I can handle a hit to my record.”

“Yeah, yeah, working as a personal assistant is the dream.”

“It is when Ms. Sazaki is really, really rich! Anyways, what I’ve been thinking about. So, I haven’t actually met any of your siblings.”

Katsuki grunted in agreement.

“I want to invite all of them to dinner next week!”

Katsuki took the phone from his ear and stared at it, like it would show him why the fuck that was a good idea. “WHAT?!” he cried out. “WHY THE FUCK DO YOU THINK THAT’S A GOOD IDEA!”

“OI, DON’T TAKE THAT TONE WITH ME! And it’s a good idea because they’re your family!”

“They’re really not.”

“Well, they could be, if you let them! And if they’re your half-siblings, that makes them kind of my half-children.”

“THAT’S NOT HOW ANY OF THIS WORKS!”

“Well, either way, I still want to meet them.”

“ I haven’t even met all of them yet! This is just gonna be a hailstorm of bullshit.”

“Oh, don’t be so dramatic. The worst it will be is a little bit awkward.”

“Yeah, exactly .”

“I think it’ll be a good experience!”

“You’re wrong!”

“Katsuki.”

“Mom.”

“Look, it won’t be too bad! Just invite them when internships end! You only have a few days left anyways, it’s not like this is gonna affect school at all.”

“No. Nuh-uh. No way. I’m not doing it, and that is FINAL.”

Chapter Text

“Todoroki, you and your siblings are coming to dinner at my house this weekend. Tell them.”

Shouto blinked up from his lunch. Bakugou was standing over him, arms crossed, not looking directly at him, and scowling. Shouto couldn’t tell if Bakugou was angry or nervous, but he also wasn’t sure that it mattered. Whatever his reasoning, he decided that it was important enough to interrupt Shouto’s conversation with Midoriya, Iida, and Uraraka, so Shouto decided that he should consider this invitation seriously.

“Wow, what a polite, generous invitation,” Uraraka muttered, rolling her eyes in a very un-Uraraka-like fashion. Shouto eyed her, eyebrow raised.

“Wow, I didn’t realize that you were part of this conversation,” Bakugou snapped back.

“You did interrupt us to make your demands,” Uraraka said, taking a pointed, loud sip of her fruit punch pack.

“Guys, can we not?” Midoriya asked in a strained voice, biting his lip.

“SHUT IT DEKU!” Bakugou cried. He was always too touchy when it came to Midoriya. “Uraraka CLEARLY has something to say to me.”

“Everyone, you must stop arguing. Countering rudeness with rudeness will not help anyone,” said Iida, looking back and forth between Uraraka and Bakugou. Seemed reasonable enough to Shouto.

However, Uraraka just said “He’s the one being rude” at the same time as Bakugou yelled “I’M NOT BEING RUDE.” They both glared at each other.

The whole situation struck Shouto a bit odd; Uraraka wasn’t normally one to get in fights.

“Look, you could have been a little calmer in your request, Bakugou.” Iida tried.

“Oh, yeah, everyone team up against me,” Bakugou said with a roll of his eyes. Before Uraraka could respond, he turned on Shouto again. “You coming or what?!”

The faster Shouto answered, the faster Bakugou would leave and… whatever was happening would stop. Shouto shrugged. “Alright,” he said.

“Alright,” Bakugou repeated. “Good.” He stomped his way back to his own table and flopped down into his chair.

“I apologize for his behavior,” said Shouto once Bakugou was out of earshot.

“Oh, it’s okay, Todoroki! I guess I was a bit harsh--I promise I’ll give him a chance since he stood up for you against your dad. It’s hard to get past his… you know.” Uraraka waved a hand.

“General unpleasantness? Yes, I agree.” Shouto shrugged and picked at his food. “If you don’t mind pointless arguments all the time, he’s not so bad.”

After lunch, Iida unexpectedly pulled Shouto aside, asking everyone else to continue on their way to class. Curiously, Shouto stayed with him. They’d been a bit friendlier ever since Shouto had helped save him during the Hero Killer incident, but they still didn’t spend a lot of one-on-one time together. Shouto wasn’t sure what this could be about.

“Well, Todoroki, thank you, truly, for stepping in to deescalate the situation earlier,” said Iida, leaning forward to clap Todoroki on the shoulder.

Shouto blinked in surprise. “Oh, it was nothing, I didn’t do much. I just gave him what he wanted.”

“Still, as class president it was immensely appreciated! I really ought to be able to mediate such disputes but I’m afraid I often find the task to be… difficult. To say the least.” He scratched the back of his neck awkwardly.

“I never understand what people are feeling. Don’t worry about it.” Shouto shrugged, and Iida nodded back awkwardly.

“Well, right then. Enjoy your dinner with the Bakugou family, Todoroki.” Iida smiled and turned to follow the rest of their classmates out of the cafeteria.

Oh right, Todoroki had almost forgotten.

A family dinner at the Bakugou house. That should be… interesting.

---

Katsuki hacked away at some cabbage and threw it into the pot. He was… uncomfortable. Not that he was nervous or anything. It was just that he hadn’t even thought to ask about dietary restrictions. What if one of Todoroki’s siblings was vegetarian? He knew Todoroki wasn’t, but he knew nothing about the others. He didn’t even know if there were two of them or three of them! (That one wasn’t his fault, though. The way that both Todoroki and his sister had talked about it had been purposefully vague and confusing, he was convinced.) Like, should he make the hotpot vegetarian and serve the pork on the side…?

Why couldn’t that half-and-half asshole be more specific ?

“I can hear you overthinking,” his mom said, entering the kitchen. What, did she develop a psychic quirk all the sudden or something? “You want me to take over?”

“ I can cook, ” he responded, giving the pot a pointed stir. “So why not get outta my kitchen and let me handle it?”

“Ah, your kitchen, is it now?”

Katsuki rolled his eyes. “You know what I mean.” He pointed his spoon at her, accusing. “We both know I’m the better cook, anyway. You shouldn’t even be in here; you’ll contaminate everything just by being near it.”

“YOU TAKE THAT BACK YOU LITTLE SHIT!”

“OR WHAT?!” he challenged.

“OR I’LL GO AHEAD AND SHOW YOU JUST HOW GOOD OF A COOK I REALLY AM!”

Katsuki grit his teeth, and held his spoon in front of him like a weapon. “You wouldn’t dare,” he said.

“Oh, wouldn’t I?” She crossed her arms, smirk playing at her lips.

“Alright, alright! You’re an excellent cook, now get the fuck out of the kitchen!”

“Damn right I am,” she said, nodding in approval. “I’ll be in the other room, if you change your mind!”

“I won’t!” he responded, and she shook her head as she went back to the living room.

Katsuki looked down at the pork again. Honestly, he might as well add it. If someone was vegetarian, they could just deal with it.

Or he’d cut up a salad or something real quick.

---

Shouto wasn’t entirely sure how he was supposed to be feeling as he, Fuyumi, and Natsuo made their way up the Bakugou family’s driveway. He’d rarely spent family time even with his full siblings before. Half the time he couldn’t even remember where Natsuo went to school. And now, here they were, preparing to spend time with their secret fif-fourth sibling, and needing to pretend it wasn’t even half as awkward as it was.

Shouto hadn’t even expected Natsuo to come, but Natsuo said he’d been planning to visit their mom soon anyway, so this weekend was as good a time as any.

When they reached the doorbell, Fuyumi was the one to ring it. Shouto distinctly heard Bakugou shout, “FUCK, THIS WON’T BE FINISHED FOR TEN MORE MINUTES! STALL FOR ME!” Natsuo and Fuyumi both shot each other a look, and Shouto had to suppress a laugh. Somehow, he wasn’t surprised.

The door opened, and a young woman was standing there. She had spiky blonde hair, sharp features, and red eyes. Wow, alright, Bakugou had gotten his entire appearance from her, then.

“So you’re the Todoroki’s!” she said, smiling brightly at them. Her smile held the same hint of danger that her son’s did. Really, their resemblance was uncanny. “Come on in, dinner should be ready in about ten minutes!”

“I SAID STALL, NOT RAT ME OUT!” Bakugou shouted from the kitchen.

“THERE’S NO REASON TO STALL, THESE PEOPLE AREN’T STUPID. THEY UNDERSTAND THAT COOKING TAKES TIME! PLUS, YOU JUST RATTED YOURSELF OUT, DUMBASS!” she shouted right back, face contorting into the same angry expression Shouto had seen on Bakugou countless times. Natsuo and Fuyumi winced a bit at all the yelling, but as Ms. Bakugou turned back to them, her face smoothed out into the same, happy expression she’d had before. “Come into the kitchen, and we can do proper introductions!” she said, immediately leading the way.

Their kitchen wasn’t large, but it wasn’t cramped either, and everything in it looked well-used. Shouto found himself looking around in wonder. He was used to the giant, spotless kitchen in their house, rather than this place with dents in the pans and burn marks on the spoons (on the handles specifically--Bakugou’s doing, most likely). Bakugou was standing in front of their stove in a red apron (Bakugou wore aprons. Wow.), stirring whatever he was making fiercely. And Shouto couldn’t stop himself from asking, “You cook?”

“HELL yeah I do!” Bakugou said, turning to face the newcomers in the kitchen. “I’m damn good at it, too!”

“Huh,” Shouto said, thoughtfully.

“SO!” Ms. Bakugou said brightly, clapping her hands once. “I’m Bakugou Mitsuki, feel free to call me Mitsuki since there are two Bakugou’s here!” Shouto knew that he would not be doing that. “And this is Katsuki!” she continued, gesturing at her son, who had returned to cooking.

“I can introduce myself, you know,” Bakugou griped.

“Oh, really? I thought you were in the middle of cooking and didn’t want to be disturbed.” Bakugou shot a glare at her, and she glared right back. So many things about him were starting to make sense to Shouto. “Anyways! Who’s next for introductions?”

“Well, guess I’ll go,” Natsuo said. “I’m Natsuo, nice to meet you!”

“Nice to meet you, too!” Ms. Bakugou said, shaking his hand enthusiastically. “Next!”

“I’m Fuyumi,” Fuyumi said, smiling a bit at Ms. Bakugou’s enthusiasm. Ms. Bakugou shook her hand just as enthusiastically.

“Shouto,” Shouto said, waving a bit awkwardly. Ms. Bakugou shook his hand, too. God, her grip was strong.

“It’s nice to finally meet all of you!” she said. “I had to wait for Katsuki and Shouto to stop hating each other to even suggest doing this. I was worried that it would never happen!”

“HEY!” Bakugou said. “We still hate each other JUST FINE, thank you!”

“Hating each other isn’t a good thing,” Natsuo pointed out.

“It’s okay, anger is how he shows love,” said Ms. Bakugou.

“NO IT IS NOT!”

“Oh would you look at that, the timer went off! Must have been while you were yelling, you probably missed it over the sound of your own voice.” Ms. Bakugou smiled sunnily as she sent Bakugou into another cursing spree, scrambling to turn off the stove. “Now as for the rest of you, why don’t you come sit down in the dining room? It looks like dinner is just about ready.”

Shouto gratefully allowed himself to be shepherded into the next room along with Fuyumi and Natsuo. They both looked very uncomfortable watching Bakugou interact with his mom. At their own household, everyone had to be quiet and reserved… or risk their father’s wrath.

The more time Shouto spent in this house, the more he liked it. The dining room wasn’t too different from the kitchen and living room: not fancy, but… homey. There was a simple, but long wooden table that spanned most of the room, covered by a read-and-black striped tablecloth that had a few stains here and there. Several picture frames were hanging on the walls. Some of them showed Ms. Bakugou, smiling that huge, menacing Bakugou smile. In one of them, she was holding hands with a man Shouto didn’t recognize, leaning her head on his shoulder.

“Ooh, now would be a good opportunity to get out our nice napkins!” Ms. Bakugou declared out of the blue, strutting over to a cabinet at the end of the room to dig them out. She triumphantly emerged with a hand full of neatly folded cloth napkins (which didn’t look that fancy to Shouto, but he was too polite to say anything).

Bakugou had just stomped into the room with a large bowl of food in his arms when she unfolded the first napkin. Shouto didn’t even get a chance to see what was on it before Bakugou let out a blood-curdling yell and slammed the food down so he could jump across the table to try and grab it from her hands. “DO NOT FUCKING DARE TAKE OUT THOSE NAPKINS YOU DEVIL WOMAN--”

“ You’re going to spill dinner, Katsuki!” Ms. Bakugou yelled. “Get off the table. Everyone ready to eat?”

“NO,” Bakugou roared.

“Aren’t these cuuute?!” Ms. Bakugou held one up out of Bakugou’s reach so that the Todoroki’s could see the crudely drawn picture of All Might. “Katsuki made them in third grade!”

“NO THEY’RE SHITTY. ALMOST AS SHITTY AS YOU ARE. I will walk out of this house and live like a rodent on the streets if you don’t get that shit out of my face--”

“Oh calm down, Katsuki. I’ll put them away if you don’t want me to get them dirty--”

“LIGHT THEM ON FIRE FOR ALL I CARE.”

“So you don’t mind if we use them?”

“I SWEAR TO FUCK I WILL LEAVE.”

“Alright, alright, they go back to their place of honor under lock and key.” The grin on her face really was devilish as she walked back over to the cabinet to put them away.

Looking very disgruntled, Bakugou went to sit at the far corner of the table, as far as he could get from where Shouto and his siblings were carefully slipping into their seats. His mom then gave him a very pointed look, and loudly cleared her throat. When he ignored this, she cleared her throat again and gestured for him to move closer. He continued to pretend he didn’t notice.

“Well, it seems that Katsuki doesn’t want access to his video games for the next month after all, since he’s so keen to be rude to our guests,” said Ms. Bakugou conversationally.

With that, Bakugou finally let out an overdramatic groan and dragged himself out of his chair more aggressively than necessary.

When Bakugou tried to leave one chair in between himself and Shouto, his mom glared at him until he was begrudgingly sitting right next to Shouto.

“Alright, now that that’s out of the way, everyone can help themselves!”

Shouto and his siblings exchanged somewhat awkward looks. Home cooked family meals like this were new territory to all of them.

After a moment’s hesitation, they politely chorused “Thank you for the food,” then began to load their plates.

Shouto tried very hard not to stare at Bakugou out of the corner of his eye, and failed miserably. He took the first bite, and had to take a moment to be surprised. It really was pretty good.

Bakugou was just picking at his plate, shooting his mom dirty looks and avoiding eye contact with everyone else.

“So, how does it feel to have Katsuki for a brother?” Ms. Bakugou asked after swallowing a large bite of food.

The question had been directed at all of the Todoroki’s, but none of them seemed to want to answer.

Shouto had a lot of mixed feelings about it. On the one hand, he would prefer not to have someone so obnoxious and distracting as a bigger part of his life. On the other, it had been… sort of nice to have someone else in the same boat as him, when it came to his father’s plans. Especially since Bakugou had been surprisingly supportive, in his own way. But Shouto wasn’t about to say all of this to a stranger. In fact, he wasn’t sure he would say it to anyone.

Before the silence could get too awkward, Fuyumi finally spoke. “It’s a bit different, I suppose… I would imagine it’s weirder for Bakug--um, Katsuki, since he’s never had siblings before.”

“It’s fine I guess,” Bakugou mumbled, stabbing at his food with his fork and mostly missing.

“Aww, that was almost positive!” Ms. Bakugou said, grinning sharply at Bakugou.

Bakugou flushed, and scowled at her. “No it wasn’t,” he grumbled, and continued to pick at his food rather than eat.

Shouto wasn’t good at reading people. He really wasn’t. But he was starting to think that Bakugou was--

“Embarrassed, Katsuki?” Ms. Bakugou asked. “Honestly, having pleasant feelings isn’t something to be embarrassed about. How do you expect to make friends if you pretend to hate everyone?”

“I have friends!” Bakugou said, face getting even redder.

And maybe it was mean, maybe it wasn’t his place, but Shouto couldn’t stop himself from saying, “One friend.”

“WHO ASKED YOU, TODOROKI?!” Bakugou shouted, turning on Shouto.

“All three of us are Todoroki,” Natsuo pointed out, snickering a bit.

“Nah,” Bakugou said, pointing to Natsuo, “you’re Older Todoroki, and she’s-” he pointed to Fuyumi- “Girl Todoroki.”

“That makes Shouto base Todoroki?” Natsuo asked, mock-offended. “As the he’s youngest, I think he should be Little Todoroki.”

“No,” Shouto said.

“Hah. Little Todoroki should be his name,” Bakugou said with a smirk. God, he was going to make Shouto regret this dinner for the rest of their school career, wasn’t he?

“No,” Shouto repeated.

“I guess that makes you New Todoroki,” Natsuo said to Bakugou, ignoring Shouto completely.

“I’m NOT a Todoroki,” Bakugou replied.

“So, what do you all do with your lives?” Ms. Bakugou asked. “I know that Shou-- I mean, Little Todoroki goes to UA, but what about you two?”

“Well, I’m going to a college halfway across the country,” Natsuo said. “Get away from home, get away from Dad, you get it.” He shrugged casually. Shouto realized that he had never known Natsuo’s reason for going so far away. He probably shouldn’t have been surprised, and yet… how had he never known? There was a moment of uncomfortable silence, until Natsuo elbowed Fuyumi into speaking.

“Oh!” she said. “Right. I’m an elementary school teacher.”

“Sounds like you’re both doing well for yourselves!” Ms. Bakugou said, trying to dispel some of the discomfort.

There was another moment of silence, where Natsuo and Fuyumi both just looked at eachother. “Not as well as Shouto, I’m sure,” said Fuyumi, tone a bit self deprecating. In that moment, Shouto was reminded again why he hated their father. He treated Natsuo and Fuyumi like they didn’t matter. They weren’t even used to people showing interest in their lives. It made Shouto want to shout at him all over again. Well, watch Bakugou shout at him.

“Sure, UA is exciting, and their class has had more, uh, difficulties than most, but I already know all of the big events from Katsuki. I want to hear from you,” said Ms. Bakugou, shrugging casually, as though she didn’t notice the tension at all. “I helped raise just one elementary schooler, and I know the kind of mischief he got up to. Admittedly, Katsuki was a little bit special. Still, I can’t imagine that there aren’t great stories from a whole class of ‘em. And college is always exciting, a time to explore, a time to find yourself, so I know that neither of you are just leading boring lives. Tell me all about yourselves!”

Both Fuyumi and Natsuo looked awestruck, just staring at Ms. Bakugou, the adult who genuinely wanted to hear about their lives, and cared what they thought. Then, Natsuo said, “Well, I do always love telling the story of how me and Haruhi, my girlfriend, met!” Fuyumi groaned.

The rest of the dinner was… nice. Fuyumi and Natsuo really did talk all about their lives, swapping stories of work and mischief and joy that Shouto had never even considered asking about before. He and Bakugou joined in, too, including telling everyone about their confrontation with Endeavor. Natsuo had actually high-fived Bakugou when he heard how he tore the ‘Number Two Hero’ a new one. Neither Bakugou or Shouto mentioned the part where their father had tried to hit Bakugou. It seemed like it would ruin the mood.

And when they told everyone about the ramen dinner (one of the most awkward events of Shouto’s life), Natsuo interrupted. “Hey, Shouto, I never knew your favorite food was zaru soba.”

Shouto tilted his head slightly. Odd. “It’s always been my favorite,” he said, shrugging.

“Weird, that we lived together our whole lives, and I never even knew your favorite food.”

And Shouto realized that he really didn’t know anything about either of his siblings lives. He lived with Fuyumi, and they talked often enough, but he never thought to ask her to elaborate on her day beyond, “It was fine.” It made it clear that he didn’t have a relationship with his siblings, not really. They had developed the habit of isolation when their father kept them apart as little kids, and even now it hadn’t really thawed. But he also hoped that this night could be a first step. That he could get to know them.

They continued on with the meal, and Shouto may have paid closer attention than he had been before. He decided that he wanted to get to know these people.

The Bakugous included.

---

After dinner, Fuyumi and Natsuo went to sit in the living room while Bakugou and his mother began clearing dishes from the table. Almost automatically, Shouto began picking up plates, too. It was hard to put into words, but Ms. Bakugou had given him something valuable that night--he needed to return the favor somehow.

“Oh Shouto, you don’t need to help if you don’t want to, you’re our guest!” Ms. Bakugou said as soon as she noticed what he was doing.

“It’s no problem, really, I want to help,” Shouto responded, stepping past her to get to the kitchen.

From behind him, he heard her say “Wow, so polite! You’re a really good guy, Shouto.”

For a moment, he faltered in his step, suddenly lightheaded. The words repeated in his head. You’re a really good guy, Shouto. Maybe he shouldn’t be so affected by such a simple comment, but… he didn’t think he had ever heard his father tell him something like that. No matter how hard he worked in training, no matter how much housework he did, no matter how polite or mild-mannered or--or anything. Nothing he did was good enough.

But here, something as simple as helping with the dishes was enough.

It should have been a happy feeling, but for some reason he wanted to cry. So he just slowly crossed the rest of the way to the sink and lowered the dishes he was holding into it.

“Dude, how long does it take to put dishes in the sink?” Bakugou griped from behind him, pulling Shouto out of his reverie. He shoved past, holding all of their glasses very precariously in his fingers, and dumped them in the sink. It was surprising that none of them broke.

“At least I’m not the one throwing glass around,” said Todoroki cooly.

“Coming in with the rest! Watch it--” Ms. Bakugou barreled through, holding the rest of the plates and silverware in a stack on one hand. Shouto only barely resisted the urge to reach up and take them from her before they fell all over the place . The next second, she had dumped them into the sink, on top of the glasses, and all Shouto could think was that meeting Bakugou’s mom explained, just, SO much. “Okay, we can save all that for later, come on Shouto, I got something to show you and your siblings.” Then, without looking, she reached a hand out to her right and grabbed Bakugou’s T-shirt as he attempted to make an escape out of the kitchen and away from the living room. “You’re coming too, Katsuki.”

“Hey, you just said dinner! G’roff me-- ” He tried to squirm out of his mom’s grip but she just grabbed his arm as well. The sight of Bakugou struggling like a child with his mom was especially amusing having witnessed him accomplish incredible feats in battle.

“YOU’RE NOT OFF THE HOOK UNTIL OUR GUESTS LEAVE. Now let’s go.” She forcibly dragged Bakugou by the arm into the living room despite his protests, with Shouto trailing after them and pinching his lips together to disguise the laughter wracking his chest.

Natsuo and Fuyumi were both sitting on the couch in the living room, looking somewhat lost on where to proceed. Ms. Bakugou dragged Bakugou all the way to the couch (“I CAN WALK MYSELF, WOMAN”) and then turned to them with her hands on her hips. “Wait here for just a minute, I’ll go get the surprise. Might take me a minute to find.” With that, she turned and walked off down the hallway. A beat later, Shouto could hear her climbing stairs.

Thus for the first time that night, Shouto, his siblings, and Bakugou (or just, Shouto and his siblings, technically?) were left alone, without Ms. Bakugou as a buffer. All of them, in their own way, looked like they would rather be anywhere but there. Natsuo was leaning back on the couch, tapping his fingers on his thigh. Fuyumi sat hunched over, fingers folded in her lap. Bakugou’s arms were tightly folded, and he was avoiding eye contact with any of them.

It was one of those silences that felt physically suffocating with awkwardness.

Finally, Fuyumi broke the silence. “Your mom is really nice, Bakugou.”

“Pfft. To YOU,” Bakugou grunted.

“So how did you learn to cook without exploding your food with your quirk whenever it tasted bad?” asked Shouto conversationally.

“For your INFORMATION,” Bakugou snapped immediately, sitting up to face Shouto. “I was a fucking NATURAL at cooking, just like with everything else.”

“Alright,” said Shouto.

That seemed to piss Bakugou off. “What, I’d like to see YOU try it. I bet it’d always be half cold, half hot, and ALL SHITTY.”

“I’ve never really tried cooking before,” Fuyumi said.

“REALLY?” Bakugou asked, mouth hanging open.

She shrugged, a bit self-conscious. “Yeah, servants always cook for us at home. Never lived on my own, so I guess it just never happened.”

“Do ANY of you know how to cook?” Bakugou demanded. The silence permeating the room was answer enough. Fuyumi had outed all of them in the name of peace, and they all must suffer the consequences. “Damn. DAMN. Two of you are grown-ass adults, too!” Bakugou thought for a second, and then continued, “You know what? Whenever he’s in town again,” Bakugou gestured to Natsuo, “you should come over. I’ll show you how it’s done.”

They all three gaped at him.

“Really?” Fuyumi asked.

“You all not knowing how to cook is just pathetic.”

Did Bakugou just suggest an activity for them all to spend more time together? Was Shouto hallucinating? None of them really knew what to say to that, and they were stuck back in the strange, uncomfortable silence they had been in until they heard Ms. Bakugou’s footsteps pounding back down the stairs.

Ms. Bakugou bounded into the room, triumphantly holding some sort of book in front of her.

“FUCK NO!” Bakugou screeched, jumping to his feet. “If you don’t put that thing away, I’ll blow it to--”

“I have coated myself in glycerine,” Ms. Bakugou interrupted, “so if you try to explode it, I’m going up in flames with it!” She smiled at him, that same, sharp smile of hers, that this time reeked of victory. “Sweating glycerine is my quirk,” she explained in an aside to the Todorokis.

“Gross!” Bakugou said, before lunging at her and trying to swipe the book.

She ducked under his arm and shouted, “Catch!” Before Shouto processed it, the book was flying towards his face. He caught it out of instinct, realizing as he did that it definitely would have hit his face if his reflexes hadn’t been so honed. He was glad that it was tossed to him and not his siblings. As it was, he almost missed because the book was kind of slick. Actually, he agreed with Bakugo’s “Gross” comment.

Bakugou turned to him, a feral look in his eyes, and Shouto decided in that moment that if he was going to die, he wanted to know why.

He opened the book.

Shouto instantly understood what was happening. It was a scrapbook, and it was filled with pictures of Bakugou as a toddler. Shouto’s mouth fell open.

He was still so recognisable as Bakugou. Half the pictures had the same angry expression he still wore.

“Close the book, Todoroki,” Bakugou warned, voice low. Shouto glanced up, looking at Bakugou’s still-feral eyes, and slowly started to shut the book.

Then, quickly, before it was fully shut, he tossed it to Fuyumi. She yelped as it hit her in the chest, but reacted quickly and wrapped her arms around before it could hit the floor. She threw the book open, with Natsuo rushing behind her to see what it was over her shoulder. “Awe!” she said, looking up at Bakugou with a smile. “You were so cute!”

“I was not!” he snapped, crossing his arms. But it seemed the fight had gone out of him, now that everyone had seen some of the pictures. He went over to the couch and threw himself down, doing whatever the angry equivalent of pouting was.

“You were and you know it,” Ms. Bakugou said, smiling down at him. He flipped her off, a gesture which she returned easily.

“At least your mother cared enough to take photos of you,” said Shouto casually.

Bakugou just snorted. “Yeah, yeah, dad’s a dick, what else is new.”

“Well, my mother didn’t take photos either,” Shouto mumbled.

Ms Bakugo had made her way over to Fuyumi and Natsuo, saying, “C’mon, Shouto! Don’t wanna miss this!”

Shouto had to agree, and filed in behind Fuyumi with the others.

The book was opened to a kindergarten-aged Bakugou and another kid, kneeling over a puddle, Bakugou poking at something in it with a stick. Something about the other kid looked familiar, with his messy green hair, and that look of utter amazement and wonder...

“Is that Midoriya?!” Shouto exclaimed, pointing to the picture.

Ms. Bakugou smiled. “Oh yeah, I forgot that you’d know him! Good eye!”

Shouto looked at the picture again. “Midoriya was a cute kid. I suppose that makes sense.”

“I think you mean GROSS. And what do you MEAN by ‘that makes sense?!’” Bakugou shouted, turning to Shouto.

“He’s cute now, so it makes sense that he’d have been cute then,” Shouto explained.

Ms. Bakugou and Natsuo both shot Shouto a look he didn’t understand, while Bakugou spluttered.

“The FUCK do you mean by cute?!” Bakugou shouted. “Deku has the single worst face I’ve ever seen! How could anyone EVER think THAT face is CUTE?!”

Shouto was confused. What about Midoriya could be construed as not being cute?

“It’s a matter of opinion, Katsuki,” Ms. Bakugou said.

“Not when his opinion is WRONG!”

“I’m just stating a fact,” Shouto said, still confused. “Midoriya is cute.”

“NEVER say that again,” Bakugou said, a look of utter disgust on his face.

Before Shouto could reply, Ms. Bakugou continued merrily flipping through pages, making a point to show them the most embarrassing ones. “Hah, here’s his first sponge-bath” she said, pointing to a picture of a bright red, screaming newborn, “and here’s him trying to swallow a bug to look cool! … and--oh, look, there’s him with his favorite All Might figurine…and here’s his sixth birthday party!” She pointed to a pictures of Little Bakugou and Little Midoriya, wearing party hats, as Bakugou blew out candles on an All Might birthday cake.

Shouto couldn’t resist asking, “What happened between you and Midoriya as kids?”

Bakugou turned to face them all, wearing an impressive scowl. “Oh don’t even fucking ask . Here I thought that I would go to UA and forget about that idiot’s existence, but NO. It’s like he exists to follow me around and pester me.” Bakugou dug his fingers into his hair and pulled on it as he talked.

Shouto frowned, thinking. Trying to see how anyone would consider Midoriya annoying, of all things. “But… why do you hate him so much? What did he do?”

“What DIDN’T he do?” Bakugou let go of his hair and began gesturing wildly. “Running around, acting like he’s better than he is, all ‘Kacchan’ this and ‘Kacchan’ that--.”

“HEY. Are you talking trash again, Katsuki?” Ms. Bakugou suddenly slammed the book closed and rounded on her son.

“I’m always talking trash,” Bakugou retorted, but he went back to his closed-off posture with his arms folded.

“Well, I think we can be done with the album tonight, although I’ve got plenty more where that came from if y’all are interested in seeing.” Ms. Bakugou had easily switched back to her cheery tone.

“That would be lovely,” said Fuyumi, offering Ms. Bakugou a warm, genuine smile.

“I do NOT agree to do this a second time,” Bakugou declared loudly, but everyone ignored him as the Todoroki’s started to get up and gather their things.

“You all gotta promise me to take care of yourselves, alright?” Ms. Bakugou stood facing them with her hands on her hips as they all gathered in front of the door.

“Cross my heart,” said Natsuo with a smile.

“Oh c’mere you all--” Ms. Bakugou stepped forward and grabbed the three of them in a big group hug.

For a second, they were just surprised, but then they slowly moved their arms around her, and around each other.

Huh. This might have been the first time Shouto had ever hugged his siblings.

“COME SAY GOODBYE, KATSUKI,” Ms. Bakugou yelled over her shoulder.

“Fine, fine, UGH.” Bakugou reluctantly shoved himself off of the couch, and dragged his feet on the way to the door. “Bye, I guess.”

“Nice to meet you both,” said Natsuo, and Fuyumi nodded her head in agreement.

“See you in school.” Shouto said to Bakugou, and got a half-hearted grunt in response.

After one last goodbye from Ms. Bakugou, they finally closed the door behind them, officially blocking out the remaining warmth and light from the Bakugou household. The three stood in the cold night wind, silent for a few moments as they all processed the events of that evening.

And then Fuyumi burst into tears.

“I’m sorry,” she said, sniffling. “It’s just,” she choked out a sob. She looked up at them, and she was smiling. She was smiling so wide and bright, and Shouto wasn’t sure that he had ever seen her look so happy, even with tears still streaming down her cheeks.

Shouto looked at Natsuo, to see that he had teared up a little bit, too, grinning back at her. “Yeah,” he said. “I know what you mean.”

Then the three of them just… stood there. None of them really knew what to say, so they just said nothing, letting themselves revel in this moment.

Finally, Natsuo checked his watch, and let out a sigh. “Well, I have a train to catch in an hour. I should get going.”

“And we should get home before father gets angry,” said Fuyumi softly, still sniffling slightly.

Taking a deep breath, Shouto stepped forward and gave Natsuo a quick, almost non-committal hug, hurriedly backing off to safety. Daring to look up, he saw Natsuo blinking at him in confusion for a moment. Then, he broke out into a smile. “Take care, Shouto. Fuyumi.”

Fuyumi smiled at Shouto too, and following his example, went in to give Natsuo a hug. “Travel safely.”

---

Shouto and Fuyumi didn’t talk much during the car ride home. Shouto just stared out the window, replaying that night’s events over again in his head.

One thing was certain. It had gone much better than their first family dinner.

Chapter Text

Bakugou Mitsuki knew from the moment she met those Todoroki’s that she would have her work cut out for her. They had all wandered in like lost sheep, and acted more polite and reserved than she could ever have imagined. It was hard to think of them as Katsuki’s brothers and sister. Clearly he hadn’t gotten a single splash of the polite side of the gene pool.

But something felt off about the whole thing. They had seemed so uncomfortable even around each other; how could siblings who grew up together act like such strangers? Also, she hadn’t missed Shouto’s comment about his parents not having pictures of him, or Natsuo saying that he wanted to get away from home.

There were also rumors that Endeavor had only chosen his wife based on her quirk. Hopefully they were untrue, but one could never be sure. If that were the case, it painted a dark picture of what their family may be like.

Anyway, she was resolved to become as much a part of these kids’ lives as possible, whether Katsuki wanted her to or not.

So she took to inviting both Fuyumi and Shouto to dinner whenever possible. Since she wanted them to actually, you know, show up, she told Katsuki that he would SOMETIMES be allowed to stay in his room if he was feeling grumpy. Sometimes. To her surprise, however, he never took her up on the offer, saying something about how “It’s MY house, I’m not gonna hide in the corner like some hermit.” Secretly, Mitsuki was pretty sure he enjoyed their company.

Natsuo was harder to see in person, but no matter; she called him a couple of times a week. He seemed like such a nice guy, and she would hate for him to be left out.

As she got to know all of them better, she began attempting to find out more about their homelife. But unfortunately, none of them ever seemed willing to budge on the issue.

(“So, do you keep in touch with your parents, Natsuo?”

“Yeah, enough.”)

(“What is it like training with your father, Shouto?”

“It’s fine.”)

Never more than a one or two-word response, always non-committal and vague.

Finally, she decided to resort to asking Katsuki. Sometimes, kids weren’t as willing to open up to adults about this, and if they could tell Katsuki, she figured they could tell her. Even though Katsuki was capable of being a brat the vast majority of the time, she could at least count on him to tell her shit. That was kind of their thing.

“Heyyy Katsuki, how’s your homework going?” she asked, barging into his room. If she knocked, he would just tell her to go away. It was much easier to ask forgiveness than permission when it came to her son.

“It WAS going well. Do you MIND?” He angrily ripped out his earbuds but refused to turn away from his computer.

“Good to hear!” Mitsuki strutted across the room and plopped down on his bed. “I got something I wanna talk to you about, Katsuki.”

With a pointed groan, he swiveled his chair around to face her. “If it’s about the GODDAMN laundry again, I TOLD you I was going to fold it AFTER dinner--”

“Yeah, yeah, it’s not about the laundry, although you did say yesterday you’d do it right after school. But I don’t want to get off topic--” she added quickly as he opened his mouth to retort. “I actually wanted to talk to you about the Todoroki’s.”

“Oh. What about them?” He turned back to whatever he was reading on his computer, apparently bored with the conversation topic.

“Well, they never seem to want to discuss their homelife. I was wondering if you had any idea how it is between them and Endeavor.” She tried to keep her tone casual, and not too accusatory.

Katsuki scoffed. “Oh, it fucking sucks.”

She raised her eyebrows. “How so?”

Apparently, the conversation was worth his attention again, as he turned his chair back around. “The guy’s just a douche. I talked back to him ONE time, and he tried to hit me. Says a lot about what he’s like to his other kids.”

At his words, Mitsuki felt herself descending into a very controlled, and very dark anger. He took one look at her face, and the expression he saw there was enough to make him recoil. He knew her well enough to know when she was Really Angry.

“He tried to what,” Mitsuki spat.

“I know! Like, obviously I wasn’t gonna stand there and take it, but that shit is straight-up illegal. And I KNOW that the others let him push them around.”

Mitsuki’s knuckles were turning white as she clenched her fists in her lap. Unconsciously, she started sweating glycerine.

“Uhh, anyway, can I get back to my homework now?” Although he was trying to sound nonchalant, Mitsuki knew that he very much did not want to be a casualty in the anger spree that was very clearly on the rise.

“Yes. Thank you for telling me, Katsuki.” She stood up, stomped out of his room, slammed the door behind her, and immediately took out her phone, bringing up Natsuo’s number.

He was the most talkative of the three, and less close to the situation than the others.

Natsuo answered, with a chipper, “Hey, Ms. Bakugou!”

Mitsuki took a deep breath, trying to remain calm, and said, voice completely level, “Hey, Natsuo. You're going to tell me about your father.”

She heard Natsuo make a choked off noise of surprise. “I- what?”

“You're going to tell me about your father, so I can get your siblings the fuck away from him.” Mitsuki could hear the low, angry note in her voice, one which spoke of danger. She took another deep breath. This was a delicate situation, and Natsuo had been abused (God did that make her cringe). She had to be careful not to lose her temper. “Please,” she added, as an afterthought.

Natsuo let out a chuckle. It sounded strained and scared, more than amused. “Trying to set a good example for Katsuki?” he asked, trying to lighten the mood.

“Always,” Mitsuki responded. There was a moment of silence, and then-

“I can do you one better than telling you about him,” Natsuo said.

“Whatever it is, I'm in,” Mitsuki said.

“I'll email it to you.” Without further ado, he hung up the phone. That was probably for the best. The longer they talked, the more he risked getting caught up in her temper.

Mitsuki went to her study and booted up her laptop, fidgeting uneasily. After what felt like hours, it was on, and she immediately went to her email. She clicked on the email from Natsuo, and saw that he had attached a pdf file, then downloaded it without a second thought.

When it came up, her eyes widened. There was a series of entries, the first dating back to seven years ago. It was almost 150 pages long. The first entry:

“I think that there’s something more wrong than I knew. Shouto is hurt, and Mom is gone, and now it's just Dad and Fuyumi and Fuyumi doesn't know what's happening and Dad only calls me useless if I ask. I’m so confused and I hate it, and I still don't know if Shouto and Mom are okay. Fuyumi says we'll get to visit Mom soon, and then everything will be better, but I think she's lying. I think she might know more than she says, and just isn't telling me for some reason.”

Mitsuki read the next entry.

“Dad yelled at Fuyumi for over an hour after she asked to visit Mom. Things like “ungrateful,” “spoiled,” “unwanted,” “useless.” I wanted to help her, but I didn't want to risk leaving my room. I think I heard him throw something, too. I’m scared of him. I can't say it out loud, I don’t want to know what he’d do if he heard me say it, so I'm going to write it here. I'm scared of him. It feels good to admit.”

Mitsuki jumped ahead, to a few years later, realization of what this was sinking in.

“My fears are confirmed. I snuck by the training room, and things don't look good. Shouto has been begging that man to let him stop for almost ten minutes now, and he just shouts that stopping will make Shouto weak. I know I should stop this- but then, what can I do? That man is much stronger than me, the only one with a chance against him is Shouto, and, well… obviously that isn't happening. I hate him. I hate that I'm useless here.”

Mitsuki skipped to the last entry.

“It has been two days since I came home from college, and Endeavor hasn't acknowledged my presence at all. Honestly, that's kind of nice, but I know it isn't normal, so it's worth recording.”

This was a record. A record of every time that Endeavor was abusive since Natsuo was in middle school, and old enough to realize that something was very, very wrong.

For a moment, Mitsuki just sat there, trembling, paralyzed with rage. Then, she got to work. She shot Natsuo a quick ‘thank you” email and downloaded the pdf onto her phone. She knew what she had to do.

---

Shouto didn’t have to be a genius to guess that the ruckus which sounded like someone trying to break down their front door was one of the Bakugous. He vaguely wondered if he and Fuyumi had forgotten a dinner invitation. He glanced at his watch -- it was almost three o’clock, so that theory went out the window. He heard Fuyumi answer the door, and started to make his way to the front of the house. Whatever was going on, it probably required the both of them. These days, most things with the Bakugous did. It was kind of nice. At least, that was where his thoughts were going until he heard a familiar voice scream, “WHERE THE FUCK IS HE?!”

Shouto froze. That was Ms. Bakugou. What had he done? He wasn’t sure what he had done to make her angry, but judging by her tone of voice, she was livid. Whatever it was, it was best to just apologize. He couldn’t be the one to ruin what they had with the Bakugous for Natsuo and Fuyumi. He refused to be the reason that it ended.

But he couldn’t seem to bring himself to move. He had never been afraid of Ms. Bakugou, she was nothing like his father, but the idea of facing an adult raging at him made him hesitate.

“WHERE IS THAT SADISTIC BASTARD THAT DARES TO CALL HIMSELF YOUR FATHER?!”

And the spell was broken. Shouto let out a shaky breath that he didn’t even know he’d been holding in. She was here for Endeavor.

But that begged the question: why now?

Shouto continued forward to the front hall.

When he got there, he saw Fuyumi standing there, looking more panicked than he’d expected. Shouto thought for a moment, and then suddenly, he understood, the panic filling him as well. Their father was home.

He heard stomping from their father’s wing of the house, and he didn’t know what to do. Ms. Bakugou’s quirk made her extremely flammable, and while Endeavor had only ever used fire as a scare tactic on any of them, if any of the flames reached her, she might just go up in smoke. What would they do then? “You should go,” he tried to say, but all that came out was a small, strangled sound.

“Shouto, you’re here!” Ms. Bakugou said, not seeming to care about his father’s approaching footsteps. “Fuyumi, take him to my car. Shouto, make sure she doesn’t try to rush back in. I’m getting you both out today.”

...Huh?

Ms. Bakugou sent him and Fuyumi a sharp smile, and Shouto had no doubt that she meant it. She was going to get them out. For a moment, he felt the strangest combination of fear and relief, surprised that this could ever happen, and like he had always known that things were headed this way and had been waiting for it his whole life. But there was no way that he was going to leave her alone. He couldn’t leave her alone with him.

Now if only he could get his vocal chords to work, so he could tell her as much.

“I’m not leaving you alone with him,” Fuyumi said, the meekness she was prone to replaced with a quiet determination. Shouto had never been more glad to have her as his sister.

And then, Endeavor was there. “So,” he said, raising a cold, unimpressed eyebrow, “unless I misheard, you wanted to see me.”

“You can bet your ass I do,” Ms. Bakugou spat, taking a step towards him, posture and tone radiating aggression. “You see, Fuyumi and Shouto are coming with me, and they are never coming back.”

“You are not taking Shouto,” Endeavor said, not even taking her seriously. “Fuyumi is a different matter, but Shouto stays.”

“FUCK you, that statement ALONE is enough to make me wanna punch your teeth in!”

“Resorting to threats?”

“Oh, I haven’t even STARTED threatening you!” She was grinning, a terrifying thing, and even though she was fighting for him, Shouto couldn’t stop himself from being a bit intimidated.

“Breaking into a home and threatening the owner is quite frowned upon,” Endeavor said, almost conversationally.

“But she didn’t break in,” Fuyumi said, quiet voice ringing out. “As a resident of this household, if I say she has a right to be here, then she does.”

“Besides,” Ms. Bakugou said, “years of child abuse and neglect tend to be frowned upon more than someone screaming.”

At this, Endeavor rolled his eyes. “I never hurt them.”

“First of all, bullshit,” Ms. Bakugou spat. “I happen to know that you LITERALLY TRIED TO PUNCH MY SON’S FACE IN, and you’ve worked our Shouto here past the point of exhaustion and into dangerous territory. And second of all--” she pulled out her phone, and pointed the screen at Endeavor, “--There’s more than one type of abuse.”

Endeavor grabbed the phone and started reading. Then, suddenly, his features contorted into an expression of fear, before carefully schooling himself back into his neutral mask. Ms. Bakugou was no fool--she grinned, clearly noticing.

“What you have in your hands,” Ms. Bakugou said, “is a record of every time that Natsuo felt unsafe, unloved, or scared since he was in middle school, including at least one section from when he was older analyzing how your behavior fits the pattern of abuse.” Shouto’s mouth fell open. “That is what I call HARD EVIDENCE, asshole! And don’t bother trying to destroy it; there are multiple copies, and destroying my phone looks worse on you.”

Endeavor advanced on her, menacingly, fists clenching. If he was threatening her, that meant that she posed a real threat to him. This was… going well. “Do you really believe that I would back down due to this?” he asked.

“Yeah, actually, I do,” she said. “You see, you’ve already got quite the scandal going on, what with our whole affair.” She batted her eyelashes mockingly. “The media is already against you. If this goes to a court case, I have Natsuo’s testimony.”

“Mine too,” Shouto said, jaw set. The look that Endeavor shot him was one of pure hatred, and Shouto wanted to back down, more than anything, but he stood firm.

“And mine,” Fuyumi said, standing straight and tall.

“Even if you do win,” Ms. Bakugou continued, “It’d be purely because of your status, and the public will know. They’ll turn against you for sure. And then you can kiss your chances of being the number one hero goodbye.”

There was a beat of silence, in which Ms. Bakugou and Endeavor faced off. The look in her eyes was just like Bakugou’s had been when he’d told Endeavor off before: bold, and unafraid.

Finally, Endeavor let out a low chuckle. “I think I understand what I saw in you, all those years ago.”

“Well? Are you going to try and stop me or not?” Ms. Bakugou snapped, folding her arms and tapping her foot impatiently.

“I suppose you have me cornered.” The anger had returned to his voice. Through gritted teeth, he ground out, “Shouto. Fuyumi. Do what you want. I can’t stop you.”

I can’t stop you . Those words. Coming from Shouto’s father. Out of everything that had happened since discovering that Bakugou was his brother, this had to be the most outrageous. Ms. Bakugou wasn’t even their mother; she couldn’t get custody over Shouto, could she? But he supposed it didn’t matter.

There was one thing he wanted to clear up, though.

He stepped forward. “I will be continuing my training here.”

Both Endeavor and Ms. Bakugou turned to look at him. Endeavor’s face revealed nothing, but Ms. Bakugou’s eyes were wide with shock.

“What are you talking about?! After all that he’s done?” Ms. Bakugou asked incredulously.

Shouto continued, “I still intend to be the number one hero someday. And I believe that training with my father is the best way to accomplish that goal. I don’t have to live here, but I wish to continue my training. I trust that you will agree to that, father.”

Slowly, Endeavor nodded, eyes remaining fixed on his son.

“Fine. It’s a conversation for another time,” said Ms. Bakugou, glancing between them. “But I’ll make room in our house for both of you. How long will it take you to pack your bags?”

“At least a day, probably,” said Fuyumi, looking over at Shouto. “Right?”

Shouto just shrugged.

“How about this. I stay here with you while you pack, and you can spend the night at my house. I don’t want you two spending any longer here than absolutely necessary.” Ms. Bakugou’s gaze was locked onto Endeavor once more, eyes flickering with warning, lest he dare to contradict her intentions.

“I would be okay with that,” said Fuyumi.

“Then I suppose it’s settled. If the press hears about this, then all of you will be hearing from my lawyers. And you--” Endeavor shot a glare at Ms. Bakugou. “After this is over, you will no longer be welcome in my home. Ever. In fact, please refrain from attempting to contact me again. Now if you don’t mind, I have business to attend to. Do not disturb me if you know what’s good for you.” With that, he turned and walked down the hall, his feet hitting the ground harder than necessary. A moment later, they all heard a door slam hard enough to shake the foundations of the house.

“Alright then. Time to pack.”

---

As it turned out, despite both Fuyumi and Shouto having quite a few possessions, their eagerness to leave drove them to the maximum packing efficiency. Also, Ms. Bakugou was quite good at figuring out how best to fit things into suitcases. It took a few hours, but the sun was only just beginning to set when they packed the last box and declared it done.

“Good thing my car’s big. We might need to borrow a car from your dad, though,” said Ms. Bakugou, observing the two small mountains of suitcases and boxes piled in the front hallway, one belonging to Shouto and one to Fuyumi.

“I’ll go get Akiyama. He can help drive,” said Fuyumi, and she went to find their chauffeur.

None of them spoke about the conversation with Endeavor as they started loading things into the two cars. Shouto was still having trouble believing this was really happening; it honestly felt like a very vivid dream. He and Fuyumi kept sending disbelieving glances at each other. But soon enough, all of their things were packed, and it was time to get in the car and drive away from this place. Away from the luxury and oppression that Shouto had grown up in.

He supposed he could always come back if he really missed it, but he doubted he would. His chest was already full of anticipation and excitement for what was to come from his new living arrangement. After the cold, empty mansion that he was used to, the Bakugou house was like a warm, welcoming haven. Like a real home. A home that was soon to be his.

“You ready?” At some point, Fuyumi had walked up to stand next to him, as he looked over his childhood home.

“I think I’ve been ready for a long time,” he replied softly.

She smiled and squeezed his shoulder.

---

Honestly, Katsuki should have known that this would happen. His mom was real good at the foot in the door method. ‘Oh, it’s just one dinner!’ ‘Now they’ll come over every week!’ ‘Now I make sure to have some form of contact with each of them every day!’

Katsuki really should have known that the Todoroki’s moving in was the next logical step. Oddly enough, he found that he… didn’t mind the concept. Not that anyone else had to know that.

That is, until his mom informed him that Todoroki would be staying in HIS ROOM.

“Your room is twice the size of the guest room, so naturally it would make sense to have two people living there. I’ll try and clear out another room, but for now, you two can share.” Before he could even protest, she walked out the door to start taking in luggage.

Fucking fantastic.

A few minutes later, she burst back in, carrying a huge box, and shouted “Katsuki! Help me bring in the suitcases!”, then disappeared out the door once more.

“This was your stupid decision, why should I suffer from it?” Katsuki responded, making his way over to the living room and plopping himself down on the couch.

Only, the couch was freezing cold. Katsuki jumped up, and DEFINITELY DIDN’T YELP, THANK YOU VERY MUCH. He wheeled around, expecting to see Todoroki, but saw Girl Todoroki standing there instead. He supposed that explained why it was just cold, with no ice. She folded her arms, and raised an eyebrow at him. He glared at her. Her eyebrow raised slightly higher. “I agreed to testify against my father in a court of law today,” she said. “You can’t intimidate me right now.”

Katsuki sighed dramatically. “Fine, I’ll help take in the stupid luggage,” he grumbled.

“ATTA BOY!” his mom called.

Grumbling under his breath, he stomped his way outside. The sight that awaited him was two cars stuffed to the brim with more junk than he could POSSIBLY imagine them needing.

Stupid. Rich. People.

“Oh, you’re actually helping?” Todoroki’s voice emanated from behind the very large cardboard box that he was carrying.

“What the HELL is IN all of these?! Your gargantuan porn stash?!” Katsuki asked by way of response.

His mom poked her head out from from the doorway and shouted “STOP BEING RUDE, KATSUKI.” Like her freakish mom-ears were tuned in to anything REMOTELY impolite he said, goddamn.

“Well, this one has the weights I like to train with,” said Todoroki casually, hefting it up a bit higher and walking past Katsuki with a smirk on his face that was DEFINITELY intended to be showing off. Since if it really had a bunch of weights in it, that box would be heavy as shit.

“Like HELL it does--”

“Are you going to help or not?” Girl Todoroki had reappeared. Katsuki had THOUGHT she was shy and reserved or something, but apparently she had a goddamn SASSY side.

“Yeah, yeah, whatever.”

From the front door, Todoroki called out, “Please only help with Fuyumi’s things. I would prefer that you not break my possessions.”

“EXCUSE ME--”

“If you two start fighting nothing’s going to get done,” said mom cheerfully, marching toward one of the cars to get more boxes. “So please refrain, Katsuki.”

“I’m sorry, DO YOU NOT HEAR HIM STARTING IT?!!” he yelled incredulously. “I’m ALREADY done with this shit and it’s been 10 minutes, how do you expect me to live with them for--for however fucking long you’ve decided they’re living here?”

“Indefinitely,” said mom, grinning at him over her shoulder before leaning into the car to grab another large box. “And you will live with them because I say you will.”

“Here, you can take this. Unless it’s too heavy for you.” Girl Todoroki shoved a large duffle back into Katsuki’s arms, and he definitely did NOT have any trouble catching it because he can carry anything a GIRL can, thank you very much.

“It is NOT too HEAVY,” he declared pointedly, and marched it into the house as fast as he could. He almost crashed headlong into Todoroki, who was just exiting after dropping off his box.

“OI, WATCH IT.”

As a response, Todoroki just made significant eye contact with Girl Todoroki, which pissed Katsuki off even more. He opened his mouth, but before he could even SAY anything his mom was somehow there, watching him disapprovingly.

He resorted to just grumbling under his breath for the rest of the move-in.

Once they had finally--FINALLY--gotten the last boxes moved into the guest room and Katsuki’s room (Katsuki had no goddamn clue how he was supposed to navigate his space with Mount Todoroki taking all of it up), Katsuki suddenly found himself actually having to face the reality that he was now, officially, living with both Todoroki’s.

“This is going to be so nice! You’ll finally have siblings, Katsuki!” Mom ruffled his hair like he was five. “I’m making hot chocolate for everyone! You two can get settled in. Katsuki, show them where everything is or something.”

“They’ve already seen where everything is. Also why are you making hot chocolate in the middle of summer?” At this point, Katsuki was too tired from moving boxes all day to have much bite in his voice. Maybe his mom was tired too, as she didn’t even acknowledge it, just continued into the kitchen to get the hot chocolate started.

This left him in the living room with the two Todorokis, in a scene very reminiscent of the first time they had been over for dinner. They were all a bit too tired to speak, and they didn’t quite know each other well enough yet for the silence to not be awkward.

“I’m going to go start unpacking the room,” said Girl Todoroki finally. She got up and disappeared upstairs.

Great, now he had to just sit here with Todoroki, who apparently didn’t have the decency to follow his sister (their sister? ...No, too weird).

Todoroki pulled out his phone and started scrolling on it, but Bakugou couldn’t help glancing at him every few seconds. It felt like he should say something. What was there even to say, though? They were going to be forced to live with each other now. Above all, Katsuki just didn’t want it to be weird. Like he could deal with arguing with Todoroki over shit, but he was not going to get used to sitting there in silence all the goddamn time.

God. The few times he’d imagined having siblings, or even a roommate, it most definitely had not been someone like freaking Todoroki Shouto. Although he guessed it could have been worse. But were they expected to actually… hang out now? The thought made Bakugou cringe.

“What’s the wifi password?” asked Todoroki, and oh fuck, it was definitely awkward.

Wordlessly, Bakugou got out his phone and scrolled through it until he found the file where he had it saved. “chase3910bat319002app228756.”

“What, you guys still haven’t changed it from the default?”

“I don’t fucking know, we don’t have guests that often.” Bakugou latched on to the mild quip like a lifeline.

However, Todoroki just fell silent again for a few more moments after that.

Finally, he spoke up again. “It was really nice of your mom to let us stay here.” His tone was hushed, but thankfully he didn’t look up from his phone.

“Yeah, I guess. She always pulls dramatic shit like this when she gets mad, though. I thought she was gonna rip someone’s head off when she found out about Endeavor’s bullshit.”

“She pretty much did rip dad’s head off. You should’ve been there. I can see where you get it from, now; it was practically the same scene as before, but with her instead of you.”

Ugh, it felt like Todoroki was suddenly breaking all sorts of unspoken rules they had. Like for instance, Katsuki didn’t miss the fact that Todoroki just referred to Endeavor as “dad”, and not “my dad”, which meant acknowledging the fact that they were related. Also, he freaking brought up the time Katsuki yelled at Endeavor to treat Todoroki better, which he thought they had silently agreed not to bring up. He wanted to break the tension by arguing or something, but he didn’t really know what to say.

They’d sort of been teetering on the edge of being rivals versus… whatever. Before it had seemed like nothing was really going to change, but now they would literally be sharing a goddamn room. Suddenly, everything felt like it was tipping.

And fucking hell, Katsuki didn’t know how to have a fucking… fine. A fucking brother. There, he’d thought it, happy Mom? Here he was, thinking of Todoroki as a… brother. Eugh.

This was definitely his mom and Todoroki’s fault.

Katsuki really wanted to ask why Todoroki was acting all weird and nice, but admitting that Todoroki was acting nice would probably be worse than setting fire to his own eyeballs, so he did not do that. Instead, he stood up, deciding that he’d had quite enough of this for one lifetime. “I’m gonna go do homework or something. Tell me when the hot chocolate’s ready.” Ah yes, the hot chocolate that his mom was making for all of them. Because they were fucking living together, now.

“‘Kay,” said Todoroki, still not looking up from his phone, which was fine by Katsuki.

Once he had finally returned to the relative (and soon-to-be-compromised) safety of his room, which was now full of goddamn boxes, Katsuki collapsed on his bed, and just spent a few minutes staring at the ceiling.

This was going to be a lot to get used to.

Chapter Text

Izuku noticed that Todoroki brought a bento to lunch. It was the first time that had ever happened. Not that Izuku made a habit of stalking what Todoroki was having for lunch or anything. He was observant, that’s all! He knew that Uraraka always brought a bento, so it wasn't any weirder for him to know that Todoroki never did.

But that wasn't the point. The point was, the bento box had a picture of All Might on it, and was filled with curry. And Izuku recognised both the box and the smell of the food. He’d spent a lot of his childhood eating that same curry (it was never very good and always too spicy),  and had seen Kacchan with that same box for years (until he had replaced it with a ‘less embarrassing’ one in fifth grade).

“Todoroki,” Izuku asked slowly. “Why are you eating Kacchan’s mom’s curry?”

Todoroki looked down at the curry, taking a spoonful of it and holding it up. “She packed some for me,” he said with a casual shrug. He took a bite.

“Okay,” Izuku said, even more confused than before, “why is Kacchan’s mom packing you bento boxes?”

“Because I live with her,” Todoroki responded, casual as can be.

“You what?!” Izuku asked, mouth falling open.

Iida and Uraraka chose this moment to sit down at the table.

“My sister and I are living with Bakugou and his mom, to be specific,” Todoroki clarified.

Iida and Uraraka stared at him.

“Why would you do that to yourself?” Uraraka asked.

“I’m inclined to agree with Uraraka on that sentiment,” Iida admitted.

“I have many questions,” Izuku said.

Todoroki shrugged. “Living with him has been… surprisingly not bad. Even though we’re sharing a room at the moment.”

Izuku nodded, then processed what he’d said. “YOU’RE WHAT?!”

“Why are you doing that to yourself?!” Uraraka repeated, with more urgency this time. “What is living with him even like?!”

Todoroki frowned thoughtfully. “Well, it’ll definitely take some getting used to.”

---

As Shouto climbed the stairs up to Bakugou’s room in order to get ready for his first night at Bakugou’s house, he already felt the feeling of trepidation descending over him. Sure, they’d gotten to know each other fairly well by that point, but now they would actually need to learn to live with each other. In close proximity. Also, Shouto somehow got the feeling that Bakugou would not be the most considerate and reasonable roommate.

When he got upstairs, the door was closed. After a long moment’s hesitation, he reached out and knocked.

“COME IN,” Bakugou yelled from inside.

Taking a deep breath, Shouto entered the room, and gingerly began to make his way around the various unpacked boxes to the futon that they had set up for him.

“Why the fuck do you feel the need to knock? This is supposed to be your room too, idiot.” Bakugou didn’t even look up from his computer.

“I don’t know,” replied Shouto honestly, as he sat down on the futon. Normally, he would do some reading or something before bed, but he really wanted to avoid too much awkward conversation with Bakugou. So he decided to go to bed as soon as possible. “Mind if I turn out the light?”

“Dude, it’s not even 9 pm. Are you five or something?” Bakugou griped.

Oh, Shouto had assumed it was later than that. He was much more tired than usual after the day’s events. “Okay, nevermind.”

“Oh my god, I don’t need the fucking light on. Just turn it off already.” Bakugou was typing rapidly on his computer, still refusing to look up.

This was going to take a lot of getting used to. With a sigh, Shouto stood up again and went to switch off the lights. He almost tripped on a box on the way back to his bed, even though the room was still fairly well-lit from Bakugou’s computer screen.

Shouto went to lie down, and stared up at the ceiling for a few minutes, listening to Bakugou’s typing. Was this really going to be better than living with his father? At least that house was familiar territory. Here, he didn’t really know what was expected of him, or how Bakugou was really going to react to them living together.

Still, after that day’s events he didn’t have too much trouble falling asleep.

But a few hours later Bakugou shook him awake, and whispered loudly “I can’t sleep with your goddamn snoring” before climbing back into bed.

Shouto grumbled tiredly in annoyance before letting his muscles relax again.

How rude. Shouto was fairly certain that he didn’t snore.

---

If there was one thing that Eijirou knew about Bakugou, it was that the guy was usually full of energy. Like, he really couldn’t imagine Bakugou losing sleep over pretty much anything. Bakugou’s sense of guilt might be broken.

However, over the past few days, the guy had been especially grumpy, and he’d started getting dark circles under his eyes. Naturally, Eijirou was very curious what the hell had happened to him.

So he decided to bring up the subject at lunch one day.

“Yo Bakugou, why’ve you been so tired lately? You look like a zombie,” Eijirou commented with his mouth full.

“Because that fucking two-faced half-and-half hot-and-cold moronic loser snores like a fucking motorcycle when he sleeps,” Bakugou replied harshly, stabbing at a piece of broccoli hard enough to scratch his plate.

“Wait what? You talking about Todoroki?” Eijirou asked, completely lost. What the hell did Todoroki have to do with Bakugou’s sleep schedule?

“Yeah, my mom decided to adopt him or some shit, and forced me to let him stay in my room.” The glare Bakugou was sending down at his broccoli was truly something frightening. “What, I didn’t mention that?”

“Um, no you definitely did not,” said Eijirou. Even though he knew Bakugou and Todoroki were brothers now, he definitely would not have predicted this. “Why is he staying with you?”

“‘Cause his homelife sucked and my mom’s impulsive.”

“Seriously? So now you and Todoroki have to be roommates?” Eijirou stared at Bakugou in wonder. “Other than the snoring, how’s that going?”

“Oh don’t even get me started.”

---

Katsuki wasn’t sure why Todoroki was getting up at ass o’clock on a Sunday, but he wasn’t pleased. He rolled over, pressing his pillow over his head and groaning pointedly as the alarm blared. He peaked over to the futon across the room. Todoroki was still snoring away peacefully, so Katsuki groaned louder. Todoroki still didn't get up, so Katsuki did the only thing left to do. He sat up and chucked his pillow at Todoroki as hard as possible.

Todoroki mumbled, groaned, and sat up slowly. He looked down at himself in confusion. “Why do I have two pillows?” he asked.

“Make that DEMON CLOCK DESIST!” Katsuki said, trying to whisper so he wouldn't wake up his mom. And Girl Todoroki too, now, he guessed. But he didn’t try that hard.

Todoroki FINALLY reached over to his phone and shut off his alarm.

“Pass me my pillow,” Katsuki said, making grabby hands toward where it had ended up by the futon.

Todoroki looked at the pillow, then looked at Katsuki. “Ah. That makes sense,” he said, and tossed the pillow back, right toward Katsuki’s face.

On instinct, Katsuki tried to swat it away, but his reflexes were a step slower than usual since he had just woken up. In a fit of desperation, he tried to blast it away with his quirk, but not only did the pillow still hit him in the face, he managed to fucking explode it, and feathers went everywhere. Well, he was awake now. “Watch it fuckstick!” he growled angrily.

Todoroki just shrugged and got up, starting to shift LOUDLY with the drawers. Katsuki flopped back down onto his bed with his ruined pillow, intent on getting more sleep, but there would be no rest as long as Todoroki was moving around. Katsuki sat back up and checked his phone. It was 7:32 am.

“What in the name of all things good and holy are you doing up before 8 a.m. on a Sunday,” Katsuki demanded, glaring up at Todoroki.

“I'm going to visit my mom,” Todoroki responded, pulling a pair of pants out of the pants drawer they now shared. Based on how baggy they were, they were Katsuki’s, not Todoroki’s. Todoroki put them back and kept rummaging.

“Wait,” Katsuki said, “you still go to visit your mom?”

“Yeah.” Todoroki pulled out a pair of pants that looked like his own.

“Didn’t she, like, pour boiling water on your face?” Katsuki asked. “Doesn't sound very motherly.”

Todoroki’s movements stalled. “How did you know about that?” he asked, turning towards Katsuki.

Right, Katsuki had been eavesdropping when he’d learned that at the sports festival. Fuck. “None of your business,” he said, crossing his arms.

“Really? Your strangely detailed knowledge about my childhood is none of my business?” Todoroki replied, crossing his arms right back.

Katsuki may not have liked it, but Todoroki had a point. He may have technically been the one who invaded Todoroki’s privacy. “I overheard it at the sports festival, when you were talking to Deku.”

Todoroki made a face. “You were eavesdropping on my private conversations.”

“Well, we're brothers,” Katsuki said. “So it’s my business.”

“Well, we certainly- wait. What did you just say?”

What had Katsuki…. Oh fuck. Had he just called Todoroki his brother? Like, out loud? “Nothing,” Katsuki said, making his voice as venomous as possible.

Todoroki stared at him. It was incredibly uncomfortable. “You didn't know we were brothers then. We hardly knew each other.” Todoroki frowned thoughtfully. “I probably would have had to tell you at some point, anyways,” he admitted. “Still, now you have to tell me something about your family to make up for it.”

Katsuki goaned. “What, is this your idea of justice?” Todoroki nodded. Katsuki groaned again, more dramatically, and then thought about it. Why not trade a mom story for a mom story? “Well, my mom was married once.”

“Really?” Todoroki looked much more interested than Katsuki had expected.

“Don't get excited,” Katsuki ground out, “there’s no cool breakup story. He died in a villain attack, like, two years before I was born and my mom was depressed or whatever but then I was born and she had a life purpose again or some shit and now we're here.” Katsuki didn’t look at Todoroki, and Todoroki didn’t say anything for a bit.

“Just so you know,” Todoroki finally said, “my mom is a lot better than Dad, even though she...” he trailed off.

“Yeah, whatever.” Katsuki said. He didn’t actually care that much about Todoroki’s sordid past. Todoroki sighed, and looked… relieved. Katsuki’s brow furrowed. “Look, I wasn’t gonna judge you for visiting her, idiot. I still tried to get to know my dad even though he’s an asshole.”

“Wow, that was almost heartfelt,” Todoroki said. “You must be tired.”

“SHUT UP YA SHITTY HALF AND HALF BASTARD.”

“You are aware that, of the two of us, you are the literal bastard, right?”

“BOYS!” Katsuki’s mom’s voice boomed through the house. “WILL YOU KEEP IT DOWN?! WHY ARE YOU EVEN AWAKE?!”

Katsuki gave Todoroki a pointed look, and Todoroki at least had the decency to look guilty. Honestly, he should know better than to provoke Katsuki to yell early in the morning.

Todoroki kept getting ready to go, and Katsuki laid down to go back to sleep.

---

“This could be a really good chance to get to know Kacchan a bit better,” Izuku mused, still processing this newest piece of Todoroki-and-Bakugou-are-brothers gossip. “I think having siblings will be good for him! And having him as a brother has already helped you a bit, right? You might as well start living together like actual brothers.” With a small nod, Izuku decided that this living arrangement had his stamp of approval. Carefully, he avoided mentioning the benefit of leaving Endeavor’s house; he wasn’t sure how much Todoroki would really want to get into that.

“What’s his room like?” asked Uraraka, shooting a fleeting glance over to where Kacchan was sitting and raging on about something or other. “I’ve always wondered if he’s always that… extra , or only in class.”

“Yes, I’m rather curious too.” Iida chipped in, before returning to diligently eating his large, healthy meal.

Todoroki shrugged and swallowed his current mouthful of curry before continuing. “His room is somewhat messy. There are a few posters, two of which are of All Might. There aren’t many wall coverings. The furniture seems fairly old, but sturdy.” Todoroki rattled off the list like he was responding to an exam question. “As for what he’s like to live with...”

---

Shouto was not a morning person under any circumstances, so it didn’t particularly surprise him that the first morning at the Bakugou household, he woke up alone in the room. What surprised him slightly more was the smell of cooking mixed with the sounds of shouting. It sounded like it had been going on for a while. How had he not woken up sooner?

Shouto sat up and considered his situation. Would it be okay for him to go to the kitchen in his pajamas? Or would that be too forward? Bakugou’s words from the night before rang in his head. “ This is supposed to be your room too, idiot.” He knew that Bakugou wasn’t trying to be sentimental or anything, but still. His room, in this house. In his house?

Before he could overthink it further, he heard a soft knock on the door. Since it was gentle, it had to be Fuyumi. “Come in,” he called.

She opened the door and smiled at him. “Good, you’re up. We were starting to get worried. According to Bakugou, if you weren’t up you would have slept thirteen hours, which seemed like a bit much.”

Shouto’s eyes went wide, and he checked his phone. It was 9:52. God, he was lucky it was a Saturday. He looked up at Fuyumi. “Yesterday was a long day,” he defended.

“So you did just sleep for thirteen hours,” she said, a teasing tilt to her voice.

“Long day,” he repeated.

Fuyumi just shrugged. “I’d suggest that you get to the table. The food is getting cold, and Bakugou’s way of heating it up is dicy at best.”

Shouto stared at her. “Does he really just explode the food to warm it up?” he asked, dumbfounded.

“Well, he at least threatened to,” Fuyumi said. “I… can’t really tell if he’s joking. I’m not entirely sure that he does joke.”

Shouto stood up and looked down at himself. Well, it was now or never. Might as well see if they cared that he was in pajamas.

Fuyumi lead the way to the kitchen.  Bakugou was standing at the stove, where a covered pan sat on low heat. Shouto assumed that was his breakfast. The second that he stepped into the room, Bakugou honed in on him. “Oh look who showed up. The snoring nightmare! ” Bakugou sneered.

Shouto raised an eyebrow. “I don’t snore,” he said.

“Like HELL you don’t snore!” Bakugou shouted back. “I could barely sleep the whole night! That’s why-”

“Katsuki,” Ms. Bakugou interrupted, “we are not moving Shouto into the guest room with Fuyumi. That room is more like a walk-in closet.”

“Well, he should’ve thought of that before he SNORED the whole night!” Bakugou responded.

“People can’t help whether or not they snore!” Ms. Bakugou said.

“I don’t snore,” Shouto repeated.

“You do,” Bakugou said, glaring at him.

“Get some breakfast, Shouto!” Ms. Bakugou said with a smile, ignoring her son’s comment.

“DON’T IGNORE THE ISSUE AT HAND!” Bakugou shouted.

Shouto walked up to the covered pan and lifted the lid. Inside, there was scrambled eggs with mixed vegetables. It… actually smelled really good. It was hard to believe that Bakugou was the one who made it.

“What, you too good for my food?” Bakugou barked when he saw Shouto just looking. “Sorry I’m no professional chef, but-”

“I don’t know where the plates are kept,” Shouto interrupted.

And just like that, the snoring was forgotten.

Or so Shouto thought.

The next morning, Bakugou slammed his laptop open the second that Shouto sat down at the table with a bowl of cereal. Shouto blinked at the screen, which seemed to be showing some sort of video, although the picture was mostly just dark and fuzzy, so Shouto couldn’t really tell what he was looking at.

“What am I looking at?” Shouto asked. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Ms. Bakugou give a very defeated sigh as she bustled around gathering her coat and briefcase for work.

“PROOF,” Bakugou barked (he sounded like a pissed-off greyhound), and Shouto had absolutely no idea what he was talking about.

“Of what?” he asked, nonplussed.

Instead of answering, Bakugou pressed play.

The image shifted as the camera was zoomed out, making it somewhat easier for Shouto to decipher what was actually going on in the video. He could make out Bakugou’s face (even through the dark fuzziness, his expression looked displeased), and he appeared to be pointing at something. The audio was quiet for a second, and then he heard a motor-like rumbling sound, a bit distorted through the computer’s speakers. This was how he pieced together what video-Bakugou was pointing at: Shouto.

Oh. It was a video of Shouto snoring while Bakugou pointed at him and stared at the camera. Apparently, Bakugou had been right.

“Alright. I don’t see why you had to go to all the trouble of recording it though.” Shouto took a bite of cereal, determined to move on from this topic of conversation. So what if Shouto snored a bit? Plenty of people did. Bakugou would just have to get used to it.

Evidently, Bakugou was less than satisfied with this response. “I TOLD you so, fucknugget. Don’t go pretending you didn’t deny it. THIS is what I’ve been dealing with. I might never sleep again.”

“Don’t be so dramatic, Katsuki.” Ms. Bakugou appeared from behind him, coat on her back and unimpressed expression on her face. “You’ll get used to it.”

“DO YOU NOT GIVE A SHIT ABOUT MY WELLBEING, WOMAN?”

She gave him a rough nuggie and snorted. “Deal with it. I’ll be back late, you two. Let Fuyumi know, too. And save some dinner for me, yeah?”

“Whatever,” Bakugou grumbled, slouching all the way down in his chair.

Even though the whole situation should have just been annoying, Shouto had trouble containing the amused smile that threatened to spread on his face as he finished his breakfast.

---

Eijiro pretended to comfort a grieving Bakugou with regard to his so-called “terrible living arrangement”, but secretly he was pretty damn sure Bakugou was enjoying this. Like there were a few levels of Bakugou anger moods, right? And some of them were like, actually mad, while others were more happy-mad, or sad-mad, or hungry-mad. After talking to Bakugou for a few minutes, Eijiro would put money on Bakugou being happy-mad.

“Wha’re you loo’in at?” Bakugou spoke with his mouth full, pointing a fork at Eijiro, and whoops, had he been staring? He was still trying to figure out the details of Bakugou’s mood.

“Huh? Nothing, don’t mind me,” said Eijiro innocently. Bakugou narrowed his eyes, but seemed to let it go. Hopefully. “So what, nothing good’s come out of this, then?”

Bakugou scoffed. “Hell no.”

“What’s he like as a brother though?” Kaminari inquired, grinning. “You kill each other yet?”

“Practically on a day-to-day fucking basis,” Bakugou responded, and immediately descended into another anecdote.

---

Somehow, without even saying anything, Todoroki was managing to be a pretentious know-it-all. They were both working on the current English assignment (whoever had invented participles owed Katuski 1,000,000 yen) and Katsuki just knew that Todoroki had already finished it and was gloating in his victory over Katsuki. But goddammit, Katsuki’s class rank was still better than Todoroki’s, and he would rather swallow a cactus than ask for his help. Even if he’d been rereading number 5 over and over again for the past twenty minutes, trying to figure out where the hell the problem in the sentence was supposed to be.

The sound of page-turning emanating from Todoroki was grinding on Katsuki’s last nerve. He tapped his pencil hard against the edge of his desk, gradually increasing the speed until it sounded like a mini machine gun.

This should not be this difficult.

Todoroki turned another goddamn page, and Katsuki finally lost it.

“Okay, there is no way in hell that you’ve finished page three already. Number five is a perfect fucking English sentence.”

“Hmm?” Todoroki looked up from where he was sitting cross-legged on his futon. “Which one was that?”

“Look it up yourself, asswipe.”

Todoroki flipped through some more pages, perusing his stupid booklet as casually as could be. “Oh yeah, I finished that part.”

“What the hell? HOW? Did you work on this in class or some shit?”

“No. I’m just fairly good at English.”

Katsuki rolled his eyes as hard as he could and slammed his pencil down on his desk. He then shot a pointed glare at Todoroki before turning back to the stupid packet.

“Bakugou.”

“WHAT?” Katsuki snapped, swiveling around in his chair to face Todoroki again. Stupid know-it-all asshole interrupting Katsuki while he was trying to concentrate--

“Is this your way of asking for help?”

“Fuck off.” Katsuki turned back to his desk and snatched up his pencil again. He was going to get it damn it. Then he heard a soft pop and felt splinters in his hand and glanced down to see that the wood of the pencil had charred in his fingers. Great.

“It’s no problem if you need--”

“I do NOT need help with anything, ever. I’m the better student here, got it? Now if you can keep your goddamn mouth closed for five minutes then MAYBE I can concentrate long enough to finish this stupid, apparently easy-as-fuck assignment.” Katsuki threw his pencil in the waste bin and grabbed at his backpack so he could dig through it for a new one. There was a reason he kept spares.

“Alright, if you’re so sure.” Todoroki shrugged and returned to his own work. Katsuki felt a vein threatening to burst in his temple as he began furiously rereading the sentence a few more times.

After another agonizing five minutes that felt more like five years, Katsuki looked around for a cactus to swallow. Upon seeing none, he slowly and carefully placed his new pencil back down on his desk. “FINE. What. The. Fuck. Is. The. Answer. To. Number. Five.”

“It should be ‘I took the bus’, not ‘I was taking the bus’,” said Todoroki immediately, not even looking up from his work. Clearly he had just been sitting there WAITING for Katsuki to ask.

Katsuki looked at the sentence again. He honestly didn’t know why the FUCK that was the answer, but at this point he could not give less of a shit. He scribbled it down.

Then in a fit of frustration, snapped his pencil in half and threw it in the trash, along with the other one. “I’m done with homework for today.”

---

There was a little frown on Izuku’s face. “That’s right,” he said, “your living situation would be a bit weird.”

“Only you would describe sharing a room with Bakugou as ‘a bit weird,’” Uraraka said, smiling slightly.

“I mean, Kacchan’s room isn’t exactly big,” Izuku said. “That can’t be particularly comfortable.”

“Why do you know the size of Bakugou’s room?!” Uraraka squeaked, sending Midoriya a scandalized look.

Izuku just shrugged. “We used to be close,” he explained. “So, anyways, how are you getting by?” He aimed that last part at Shouto.

“Ah. Yes. The room.”

---

It was the second day that Shouto was at the Bakugou house, and he set himself up with his homework on his futon. Shouto was fidgety, having trouble focusing. It was strange -- since Bakugou was out grocery shopping, he’d expected to get a lot done. Instead he couldn’t focus at all. He looked around the room. Everything felt wrong about it. It was entirely Bakugou, with nothing of Shouto’s there to set it apart, unless the boxes shoved on his side counted. He couldn’t feel comfortable. He couldn’t relax.

Shouto shook his head, and tried to get back to homework. It was another half an hour before he realized that he really wasn’t going to get anything done if he didn’t do something about this. He looked around himself and was struck with an idea. He texted Bakugou.

>Would it be alright if I redecorated the room some?

He didn’t have to wait too long for his answer.

<DO NOT TOUCH MY HALF OF THE ROOM OR YOU WILL LEARN WHAT IT MEANS TO MAKE ME YOUR ENEMY

So, Shouto was free to redecorate his half of the room. He looked around, then sent a quick text.

> We have been enemies before, may I remind you. Please try to stay out of the room until I am done. I don’t need any distractions.

< IS THAT A THREAT?! YOU ARE ON THIN FUCKING ICE, YA HEAR?!?!?!?!??!

Shouto heard his phone buzz a few more times, but didn’t bother checking it. He locked the door. He had some work to do.

Three hours later, Shouto was finished. He padded over to the door and unlocked it, stepping outside. Almost the moment he left the premises, Bakugou was there.

“Geez,” Bakugou said, “what did you even do in there? How can redecorating take all day?” Without so much as waiting for a response, Bakugou shoved his way into the room. His jaw dropped.

Neatly down the center of the room, there was a divide from the Western style hardwood flooring and the Tatami mats that Shouto knew were superior. He had added a set of drawers to his side of the room that suited him far more than Bakugou’s, and had a tall stalk of bamboo growing in the corner by the window. He had left the futon untouched; it was surprisingly comfortable.

“The fuck did you do?!” Bakugou cried, staring between the room and Shouto.

“I redecorated,” Shouto said.

“You changed the goddamn architecture!”

Shouto shrugged. “I think this suits me better.”

Bakugou glared at him. “I think you were trying to one-up me. Well guess what?! I like Western style rooms just fine!”

Shouto stared at Bakugou for a moment. Did everything have to be a competition with him?

“Well,” Shouto said, “I’m going to study now.”

Shouto sat down on the futon and got out his school books. This time, studying came much easier.

---

“So, that’s just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to Todoroki bullshit,” Bakugou grossed. “We haven’t even gotten into the Girl Todoroki bullshit.”

“Girl Todoroki?” Eijiro asked, raising an eyebrow. “Is Todoroki gender fluid now or something?”

“What?! No! Todoroki has a sister who is ALSO living with us because my mom had to steal ALL OF THE TODOROKI’S.”

“Oh. So you have a brother and a sister now?”

“Actually, two brothers.” Bakugou paused. “Two and a half. There’s another one they don’t talk about.”

“They’re all your half siblings,” Kaminari pointed out.

“GOD DAMN IT! Fine, put together I have either two or one and three quarters, depending on how you look at it.”

“Not sure that’s how it works, bro,” Eijiro admitted.

“WHAT THE HELL DO YOU KNOW ABOUT IT?!”

Eijiro shrugged. “So, you were saying? About Girl Todoroki?”

“Yeah, right. So, Girl Todoroki tried to fucking COOK DINNER one time.”

Why did Bakugou make that sound like it was the worst possible crime? He was aware that most people thought it was polite to cook dinner for others, right? Eijiro shook his head.

“I’m gonna be honest, you lost me on that one,” Kaminari said.

“That’s because you don’t understand yet. Listen up.”

---

Katsuki had spent the day in the library, studying away from Todoroki. After the whole English incident, he decided that he wanted nothing to do with Todoroki’s stupid studying for as long as he could help it. Katsuki had actually managed to be productive, too. Which was likely the problem, because after having finished both his math and his hero studies homework, he checked his watch to find that it was nearly seven.

And his mom wasn’t home, either. The Todoroki’s were gonna starve.

Katsuki booked it home, but apparently, not fast enough. He had just made it to the door in time to hear the fire alarm go off.

Before Katsuki could process that those idiots had somehow caught the damn house on fire, the door flew open, and a frazzled Girl Todoroki stood there.

She stared at Katsuki for a moment. “The fire alarm is going off,” she said, “so we should get probably away from the house.”

“The fuck did you do?!” Katsuki asked.

A blush crept across Girl Todoroki’s face. “I- well. I tried to cook.”

Katsuki stared at her. “Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Katsuki said, and pushed past her and into the house, Girl Todoroki following close behind. There was certainly smoke filling the kitchen, but only enough to be mildly annoying, not enough to actually choke anyone. Todoroki was standing at the top of the staircase, looking like he’d gotten lost.

“What’s happening?” Todoroki asked.

“Your dumb-ass sister tried to cook, is what’s happening!” Katsuki replied, going fully into the kitchen to assess the damages.

Katsuki couldn’t see anything obviously on fire, so he started by opening a window. Then, he turned to the stove.

The nicest wok they had was sitting on it, filled with what looked to be a thick, bubbling tar, smoke coming off of it, the burner still turned up as high as it would go. Katsuki started by shutting off the burner. One of the bubbles popped, and a putrid stench unlike any Katsuki had ever smelled or wished to smell greeted him. It took everything in him not to gag.

And the goddamn fire alarm was still ringing.

“So, should we evacuate?” Todoroki asked.

“Is there fire?!” Bakugou asked. “Do you see any fire?! The FIRE ALARM is going off because of the SMOKE coming off of WHATEVER THAT STUFF IS!” Katsuki turned on Girl Todoroki. “The fuck did you do?! How did you do this?!”

Girl Todoroki flinched back at that, wincing. “I don’t really know what I did? I got a recipe online, but there wasn’t the right ingredients, so I started substituting,” her voice trailed off as she went, until it was just a quiet mumbling that Katsuki couldn’t make out over the alarm.

“What was it supposed to be?” Todoroki asked, leaning over the wok to look at it.

“Miso soup?” Girl Todoroki replied, voice high pitched. Another bubble popped. Todoroki flinched back.

Katsuki looked down at the concoction. “Wow. Congratulations. You burned soup.”

Finally, the fire alarm stopped. All three of them breathed a sigh of relief.

Another bubble popped.

“I’ll just… cool that down, I guess,” Girl Todoroki said. She held her hand out, and the sludge stopped bubbling. Katsuki could finally see the use of a cooling quirk.

Katsuki grabbed the handle of the wok. It was cool to the touch. He picked it up and tried to pour what was in it into the trash can. It was too stiff to go. He took a deep breath and turned around, pointing the former-best wok at Girl Todoroki. “This ends here,” he said. “You have two options: either you let me teach you to cook, or you stay out of my fucking kitchen, permanently. ”

Girl Todoroki stared at him for a moment. Then, she dropped into a bow, exactly parallel to the ground. “Please teach me, Bakugou-Sensei!” she shouted.

“Shut up!” Bakugou spat, pretending he didn’t like the title. “In that case, clean this.” He placed the wok on top of her back. It really was like a table.

Todoroki took the wok off her back. Girl Todoroki straightened up. “I’ll be taking the lessons, too,” Todoroki said, placing the wok in the sink.

“The FUCK makes you think I’m also teaching you?!” Katsuki shouted.

Todoroki looked back at Katsuki, raising an eyebrow. “Would you rather I try to cook without it?”

Fuck. He made a compelling argument. “Fine,” Katsuki bit out. “But tonight, you’re both just watching. We don’t need another incident.”

When his mom came home an hour later to find Katsuki shouting at Girl Todoroki as she carefully measured out some soy sauce while Todoroki scrubbed at their wok like his life depended on it, she smiled.

“THE FUCK YOU THINK YOU'RE SMILING AT, WOMAN?!” Katsuki roared when he noticed her watching. “WE ARE NARROWLY AVOIDING DISASTER!”

“LANGUAGE!” His mom shouted back, but she didn’t stop smiling.

---

It was only after they got home that day that both Bakugou and Todoroki remembered they had been planning to keep this development quiet, so that news of Endeavor’s parenting wouldn’t reach the press.

Hopefully it wouldn’t come back to bite them.

Chapter Text

Ochako knew that Iida, Deku and Todoroki were all incredible in school, and that any of them would be more than willing to help her study, if she just asked. But see, that was the problem. They were the numbers two, four and five in the class. She was thirteen. She knew none of them would judge her, knew none of them would call her stupid, but a part of her would feel like the stupid one if she asked for their help. Not to mention, it would feel like she was using them! It wasn’t on purpose that she ended up hanging out with all the smartest kids in class (heck, even Tsuyu-chan was number six!), but she refused to let any of them feel used.

So, she decided to go to someone who she wouldn’t feel so guilty for using. And besides, she’d told herself that she would try to get to know him anyway.

“You want WHAT?!” Bakugou snapped, sneering at her. Ochako crossed her arms.

“I want you to tutor me, too!” she said, resolute.

“And WHAT makes you think that I would?!” Bakugou asked.

“Well, you did say that you’d tutor Kirishima to prove that you have virtue,” said Ochako, smiling sweetly at the two of them. She was aware that Yaoyorozu was a safer option, and she was clearly willing to tutor people… but Ochako didn’t want to spread her too thin. Bakugou was the number three, and he had also agreed to tutor. Plus, he deserved a bit of hardship, from the way that he treated… pretty much everyone. “Don’t you think extending the offer would prove that you have even more?”

“She has a point,” Kirishima said, grinning at Bakugou. Then he turned his grin to her, and draped an arm across her shoulders, cheering, “Study buddies!”

Ochako laughed awkwardly, and then turned to Bakugou. “So?” she asked.

“You’ve gotta!” Kirishima said, giving her shoulders a gentle squeeze before letting go, looking at Bakugou imploringly.

Bakugou’s eye twitched. “What, you can’t get help from all of your stupid nerd friends?”

At this point, stroking his ego was probably the best way to get what she wanted. “I studied with them for the midterm, but I still didn’t do that well. They’re too easy on me! Are you scared you won’t be a good teacher or something?

“NO!” Bakugou snapped, and Kirishima snickered. For several moments, he seemed to grapple with himself, face turning slightly red with the effort, and then he sighed dramatically, and Ochako knew that she had won. “Fine,” he said, “but we’re studying at one of your houses. I don’t need Todoroki coming in and taking over.”

“I’m kind of living alone right now,” Uraraka said, raising her hand slightly, “so we don’t have to worry about distractions if we study at my place.”

Kirishima turned to her, looking concerned. “You live alone?” he asked.

Ochako laughed a bit, uncomfortable. “Oh, yeah! I lived kind of far away, so my parents rented out an apartment for me to be able to stay near here,” she explained, trying to play it cool.

“Sounds kinda lonely,” Kirishima said.

Ochako shrugged. “It’s not like I never see people. We go to school every day!”

“Still,” Kirishima said, frown tugging at his lips.

“Who cares if it’s lonely or not?” Bakugou asked. “You want to do it there, fine. I just want to get this over with so I can get to my OWN studying.”

Ochako felt a strange mixture of being annoyed at Bakugou’s blunt rudeness, and grateful for him not seeming to care about her living situation one way or the other. Still, it took a lot of willpower to stop herself from saying something like ‘you don’t have to be so rude, you know’. This whole thing was her idea, after all.

“Well, we’ve got a plan!” Kirishima said, shaking himself out of whatever he was thinking. “Guess we’ll go home with you for the next couple days?” he asked, nudging her with his elbow.

“I- yeah!” she said, trying to remember if she had tidied up any time recently. “Sounds perfect!”

Somehow, the school day went by without Ochako overthinking her new study arrangements. But it was after school ended, and she saw Kirishima and Bakugou approaching her, that the overthinking began. She started thinking about how not even Deku and Iida had actually been to her tiny apartment yet. Honestly, her first time inviting people over, and Bakugou was one of them. This was probably a mistake, wasn’t it? But then, she saw Kirishima wave at her, big and overdramatic, and she knew that it was too late to back out now. She took a deep breath, smiled, and waved back.

---

Katsuki wasn’t sure what was up with Uraraka, but it was starting to piss him off. He was pretty sure that she was supposed to be nice to everyone - she had been quick to offer up her house for studying and everything - but it became clear during their study session that for whatever reason, she turned into a sassy motherfucker whenever Katsuki was involved. And what was worse was that she didn’t need as much help as Kirishima did, so she had more time to sit back and critique his teaching strategy.

And Kirishima was no help, either. He seemed to find the whole thing hilarious. When Katsuki was trying to calmly explain to him that the quadratic formula is the easy way, Uraraka felt the need to point out that there is a reason that they always tried factoring first. When Katsuki got fed up and tore out a page of Kirishima’s notes because they were indecipherable, Uraraka said that his destructive tendencies were the reason there were two people ahead of him in the class. She was out to get him, and Kirishima knew, and he just thought that it was funny. The traitor.

Hell, if anything, Kirishima seemed to love having Uraraka around. He joked more with her than he did with Katsuki (which was TOTALLY NOT BECAUSE THAT KATSUKI WAS BAD AT TAKING JOKES OKAY), he offered to help her out on the practice problems that Katsuki gave them (which he shouldn’t be doing, that was going to hinder both of their learning), and he generally seemed content to just sit there chatting with her whenever Katsuki let them take a break. And Katsuki was pretty sure that she was doing this on purpose, too. She knew that Kirishima was Katuski’s friend, and was targeting him specifically because of that! She was probably faking needing tutoring in the first place just to do it, too. Trying to get Kirishima to turn against him.

… Alright, even Katsuki could see that that was pretty far-fetched, but he knew that people tended to underestimate her! He learned that the hard way, and he did not want to be blindsided by her again.

After one of the study sessions, as Katsuki and Kirishima were leaving together, Katsuki finally snapped.

“Okay, why the hell are you suddenly acting like you’re Uraraka’s best friend or some shit? I CAN’T STAND HER.” Bakugou kicked a stone hard, and sent it flying through the air. It collided with a metal fence with a loud clang.

“What?? It’s not like that, she’s just sweet and easy to get along with. You mad because she’s Midoriya’s friend or something?”

“NO. I don’t give two shits what DEKU does. I’m mad because she acts all holier-than-thou and everybody keeps claiming she’s this innocent fucking princess, but I frankly can’t remember a single goddamn thing she’s ever said to me that wasn’t passive aggressive and condescending. Like, do you not notice this?!”

“I dunno, man. I feel like she’s just kidding around? Maybe she wasn’t expecting you to be so sensitive about it,” Kirishima replied nonchalantly.

“WHO’S BEING SENSITIVE?” Katsuki yelled, rounding on his friend.

“Hey, I’m just saying, she’s a pretty easy-going person. If you’re mad about it, just ask her to stop.” At this point, Kirishima was apparently immune to Katsuki’s rage. Unacceptable.

“Whatever.” Katsuki folded his arms, and strutted ahead of Kirishima, intending to pointedly not talk to him for the rest of the walk. Although he ended up forgetting about his silent treatment five minutes later.

---

Tenya sat with Todoroki, Midoriya, and Uraraka at lunch every day, but today, he did it with intent. “We need to devise a plan for group studying!” he said, karate chopping the middle of the table, shaking their lunches and making Midoriya jump. “Some other members of the class already started working with Yaoyorozu yesterday, so we need to work hard now to stay ahead!”

“Oh, you’re right!” said Midoriya, smiling at him. “I already started studying on my own, but it was nice working together for midterms!”

Tenya turned to Todoroki. “For midterms, the three of us went to my house to study. I assume you’re joining in these arrangements?”

Todoroki smiled slightly. “Alright.”

Tenya nodded firmly. “So, you three will come to my house after school!”

“Um,” Uraraka said tentatively. “Actually, I already have plans to study with Bakugou and Kirishima.”

Everyone stared at her.

When had she made these plans? Tenya thought that they were a study group. There was a certain sanctity to study groups that must be upheld! Besides, Tenya had gotten better scores on the midterms than Bakugou, so why would she choose him over their already-established group?

Also, unless Tenya drastically misinterpreted the situation (which he very well may have), Uraraka and Bakugou didn’t even like each other.

“So that’s where he was yesterday,” Todoroki said, contemplative.

Uraraka nodded. “Yeah, we thought studying at my place would be best, since it’s quiet there and all.”

Todoroki shrugged. “It was actually quiet enough to think without him there, so thanks.”

---

Finals day finally arrived, and Ochako was getting really nervous. The study sessions with Bakugou and Kirishima hadn’t been quite as bad as expected, but still, she couldn’t help but wonder if she’d made a huge mistake, studying with people she wasn’t totally comfortable with. Would she have learned better if she had studied with Deku and Iida? Or with the group that went to Yaoyorozu’s house?

However, she had discovered that the study scenario of being yelled at whenever she started slacking off had kept her quite focused. Plus, it was nice to study with someone like Kirishima. He was actually a really fun guy to be around, and he was a bit worse at the material than her, so they could commiserate together (and make fun of Bakugou together, which she got a strange amount of pleasure from). Overall, she thought she’d managed to learn everything pretty well, so maybe this test wouldn’t go badly.

However, when she found out what the practical final would entail, and who she would be partnered with, she suddenly wasn’t so confident.

“Hey, Urarakaaaa!!! Looks like we’ll be partners for finals! Let’s both work hard!” Aoyama hollered in a sing-song voice, waving vigorously as he approached. All she could think was oh, no .

At least she wasn’t Deku. He was with Bakugou.

“Hi, Aoyama! I guess we have a bit of time to come up with a strategy on the way to the arena.” Ochako gave him a forced smile. They started to make their way to the bus.

“Strategy? Easy! I will shoot them with my laser, and then we can run to get help.”

Ochako sighed. “Thirteen can just absorb your laser.”

“Oh, right. Well… then you can make something float, and--”

“And they’ll just suck that up too?”

Aoyama frowned and scratched his chin. “This may be harder than I thought.”

Yeah. This was going to be a long day.

Ochako let Aoyama talk for the next few minutes as they rode the bus the ring, and she could have sworn that she heard a snicker or two coming from Thirteen a couple seats down. She really tried her hardest to listen to Aoyama, but it was getting pointless to correct him every other sentence, and she couldn’t stop her mind from wandering, trying to come up with her own plan. Nothing she could think of would work either--anything she could make float, Thirteen could just suck up.

At some point, her mind wandered to the topic of Deku’s final, too. Ochako certainly had her own problems, but at least she had a partner that was willing to work with her (mostly). If Deku couldn’t get Bakugou to help him, how were they going to win? Especially against All Might. Also, she supposed she should be a little bit worried about Bakugou, too, since they were maybe friends now? But no matter how she looked at it, their stupid, petty rivalry was all Bakugou’s fault.

Once they actually arrived, she tuned back in to what Aoyama was saying.

“--and then you make ME float while I shoot my laser toward the ground, pushing me toward the ceiling, so that I can unleash the barricade and Thirteen will be crushed, and then we can handcuff them! What do you think, Uraraka?” Aoyama finished proudly, hands on his hips.

Luckily, Ochako had caught the tail end of his likely atrocious plan, in time to pretend that she had been listening. “Um, there’s some good parts but as soon as you let go, you won’t go up, Thirteen will just suck you towards them, right?”

“Oh… oh dear.”

“Your match will begin in ten seconds,” A pre-recorded voice rang out over the loudspeakers.

Ochako and Aoyama looked at each other. For better or for worse, this was it. There was no time to be thinking about Deku’s problems; she was going to have to worry about her own.

The arena was a large, mostly empty room, with a stone floor and walls that seemed to be made of paneled glass. A metal fence ran around the perimeter, and a few pillars were spaced here and there to hold up the ceiling. There was no clutter or lose furniture--nothing to use her quirk on. Figures. Also, there was nothing easily breakable, so Aoyama couldn’t just smash something up for her. Not that it would necessarily matter anyway, since Thirteen could easily just suck up whatever they threw at them.

“On your mark, get set… go!” A whistle blew.

Immediately, Thirteen activated their quirk, and Ochako felt herself being dragged toward them. Thinking fast, she grabbed Aoyama and pulled him behind a pillar to escape from the wind.

Carefully, she peeked around it, hair blowing toward Thirteen, to examine the setup more closely. Thirteen was standing in front of the gateway, holding out both arms with the voids activated. As she watched, they lowered their arms and let their quirk fade, turning to look directly at her. They waved.

But there was one thing she saw that might just work...

Ochako turned and leaned her back against the pillar. “Okay. There’s a fence running around the perimeter, going all the way up to the gate. If we can draw them away from the gate, then we can get close to the gate by holding on the fence so we don’t get sucked in.”

“Oh-kay, sounds like a plan! Now how do we draw them away?”

“Well, you’re good at attracting attention. Go over to the left, shoot some beams, destroy some stuff, and we’ll make a run for it!” Ochako peeked around the pillar again. Thirteen was waiting for them, arms folded. “You might be able to use your quirk to give us enough leverage to prevent us from getting sucked in immediately. Then you can take me with you, so we can stay together. Let’s hold hands.”

“Yay! I like it!” He took her hand happily.

Honestly, she had no idea if this was going to work. But they didn’t have much time, and this was the best she could come up with. “Ready?... NOW!”

The two of them ran out from behind their pillar, to the left, and Aoyama started shrieking wildly and shooting beams every which way. Thirteen didn’t activate their quirk again immediately, apparently waiting to see what they were actually trying to do before acting.

“Okay, on my mark, blast that way as hard as you can!” Ochako whispered, then touched Aoyama’s arm to make him float, and then touched herself, wincing against the flash of nausea that went through her at the action. “Go!”

Obediently, he let out another beam, and sent the two of them flying across the room, aimed right at the door. The speed was more than Ochako had bargained for, and she felt a hand fly up to her mouth to avoid vomiting. And then, she heard the telltale sound of Thirteen’s quirk activating. They needed gravity, and fast.

“Don’t let go of me!” She yelled over the burst of wind, and he clutched her arm as she pressed her index fingers and thumbs together.

The two crashed hard into the ground, and for a moment continued skidding in the direction they were going, but then the suction began. Just as they got close to the wall, their trajectory switched directions and they began to be dragged back toward Thirteen. Desperately, Ochako reached out a hand and grabbed the fence. “Aoyama, hold on!” Clutching the bar for dear life, she carefully pulled Aoyama closer to the fence with her free hand, until he was finally able to reach out and grab it for himself. Gratefully, she put her other hand on the bar, as the suction got strong enough to lift them both entirely off the ground.

“AAAH! And we were so close too!” Ochako cried out, feeling her fingers starting to slip. The suction was way more than she had anticipated; there was no way they could move along the bars to the gate, and even if they tried it, Thirteen could just walk up and stand between them and their goal.

“Close one there, you almost got away!” Thirteen called, voice perfectly content and unbothered. “Personally, I dislike fighting, but I have my own method of trapping prey!”

“Now, heh, that’s one quirk that constantly sucks,” Aoyama commented, somehow still cheerful even though at this rate, they were going to fail.

“You doing a routine or something?! We’re in a real pinch here!” Ochako shouted back at him, mind racing to try and find a way out of this.

“My costume… it transmits from my navel, so we’re in no pinch that I can see!” He gleefully blasted a beam out from his knees, pointed toward Thirteen.

“I can also absorb light!” Thirteen replied, and looking behind her, Ochako watched them easily suck up the beam into their void. “Annihilated down to the atomic level!”

Frustration was starting to creep into Ochako’s bones. And, possibly she had been spending just a little too much time around Bakugou.  “This is no joke! WHAT THE HECK, AOYAMA! We already discussed this, if you can’t take this seriously than we’re GOING. TO. FAIL.” She let go with one hand to shake Aoyama’s shoulder, and immediately realized her mistake as the bar was suddenly wrenched out of her grip.

Yelling, she felt herself flying back toward Thirteen, and looked behind her, eyes wide, in time to see them fumble in surprise and deactivate their quirk with a click. “WHA--”

Now was the time to remember her training, and before she could think, she was letting muscle memory guide her actions. She kicked them square in the chest and then grappled, twisting around herself and using her flexibility to hold them down will grabbing one of their arms. Aoyama, having now been freed from the suction, ran up to trap the other arm. A second later, Ochako had secured the handcuffs around their wrists.

Her body had worked faster than her mind, but as the dust settled, she realized why it had been so easy for her to overcome them in hand-to-hand: Thirteen wasn’t a combat hero, they were more trained in rescue.

So she had actually overcome a professional hero.

“Uraraka and Aoyama’s team have now passed the exam!” The announcement blared from the loudspeakers in the room.

“Heyy, nice job using their quirk to get close to them! Very clever!” Aoyama ran towards her, waving.

Well, there was no need to mention that she hadn’t intended to do that. “Thanks!”

The two of them shook hands with Thirteen, and then made their way out of the arena. Neither of them were hurt enough to require a trip to the infirmary, so they were free to go. “I wonder if he’s passed yet...” Ochako thought aloud to herself.

“Ooh, you thinking about Midoriya?” asked Aoyama slyly.

“Huh? How did… you know?”

“Hmm. You were really concerned about him, huh? Do you like him or something?”

Ochako gaped at him, hands going up to cover her mouth. What? There was no way, the idea was totally ridiculous, he was just a cool, sweet guy that she was happy to be friends with. Sure, she had been thinking about him but…

Oh no. What if she had been thinking about him more than normal? She really respected him as a hero, and… he was really sweet, and if she thought about it, kind of cute…

No, no, no, why did Aoyama have to plant this idea in her head?! She turned to respond to him, only to find that he had started walking away.

He waved at her over his shoulder. “Well anyway, thanks for the match! Ciao!”

For several moments, she just stood there, watching him walk away. Then, she shook herself out of it.

It doesn’t matter how I feel about him, at least not at the moment. I should just focus on developing myself as a hero. I can’t get dependent on him again.

Yes. This was the way to think about it.

Because after all, she’d just passed her final! Next stop was training camp!

Chapter Text

Katsuki wasn’t sure what he’d expected from training camp, but being immediately stranded in the woods and told that if they didn’t make it out fast enough they wouldn’t eat sure as fuck wasn’t it.

“The Beast’s Forest?” Deku asked, looking concerned, as Kaminari, Sero, and Mineta made a scene (as per usual). Honestly, Katsuki wasn’t sure what was in store for them, but whatever it was, he was damn sure that he could handle it.

And the forest did not disappoint.

“BRING IT ON!” He shouted as the first beast burst out from the trees (though he was pretty sure that none of his classmates could hear him over their own shouting). Koda’s quirk didn’t work on it, so Bakugou looked closely. That thing wasn’t an animal. It was made of dirt. He grinned and rushed forward, ready to bake it like grandma’s apple pie, only for it to crumble before he could reach it. Deku stood over the pile of earth, breathing heavily.

“OI! GET OUT OF MY WAY DEKU!” Katsuki roared, literally fuming. From his hands.

“You just have to be faster if you want to get the credit,” Uraraka said, grinning at him. Katsuki still wasn’t sure if she was rude on purpose or not, but she sure managed to piss him off.

He opened his mouth to shout something back at her, but before he could, the ground rumbled again and another monster came charging at them. Todoroki and Iida went rushing up to it, moving surprisingly in sync, and Katsuki grit his teeth. If that was how it would be, he had to react faster. He jumped into the fray.

---

By the time that they made it to the Catnip Inn (and what kind of a name was that, anyway?) Katsuki was genuinely too tired to even feel mad about the whole skipping lunch to fight for their lives thing. He was so hungry he was trembling, and all he wanted to do was eat his weight in meat and the sleep for the rest of his life. He wasn’t even listening to whatever the teachers were talking about until the horrible earth woman started shouting about wanting him, Deku, Iida, and Todoroki to join The Wild Wild Pussycats in three years and started pawing at them. Honestly? Katsuki was pretty sure that he wasn’t gonna be caught dead within twenty feet of any of them after this. He would have told them as much, but he had no plans to move his mouth until he was stuffing food into it.

But he tuned in again when Kota, Mandalay’s nephew, punched Deku in the dick.

Katsuki had a moment when he knew that everything in his life, everything that had led up to this moment, was worth it. The pain, the exhaustion, Deku getting into the school and stealing his thunder, all of it. Because seeing Deku get punched in the crotch by a ten-year-old was most likely the best moment of Katsuki’s life.

Katsuki felt himself smiling. “Cute kid,” he said, still looking at Deku on the ground.

“You two are a lot alike,” Todoroki replied.

“You know, I think I’m more of a face-punching kinda guy myself. But I can appreciate a good hit to the dick,” said Bakugou approvingly.

“I see,” said Todoroki. “Though you wouldn’t dare to punch him in front of Aizawa, and you know it.”

Katsuki elbowed Todoroki’s side, hoping it was hard enough to hurt (though in his exhausted state, he wasn’t sure he managed it). “Buzz off, Mr. Frozen-Nuts.”

Todoroki raised an eyebrow. Alright, so it wasn’t Katsuki’s best, but he wasn’t functioning at peak efficiency at the moment. In Kirishima’s words: ‘So hungry. Gonna die’.

The rest of the evening passed in a blur of eating and then just waiting until he could sleep. He was pretty sure that Mineta almost died during their bath, but he kinda deserved it, and then Kota also almost died even though he didn’t deserve it at all (the legend), but Deku saved him (gross).

And then, finally, gloriously, it was time for bed. Katsuki was out the moment that his head hit the pillow.

---

After a long day of quirk training, Katsuki’s wrists were killing him, and he was pissed about it. He wasn’t even that tired dammit, and he should be able to take this shit by now. Maybe it wasn’t the most noble mood ever, but he just really wanted to argue with someone. Besides, there was someone who had been grinding on his last nerve for ages, and it was about time he settled it.

Katsuki looked around the dining hall, and spotted Uraraka, Iida, and Todoroki all sitting together, eating. Deku must have snuck off to god knows where at some point, while everyone else was too busy stuffing their faces to notice.

He marched over to them, and grabbed Uraraka by the arm, pulling her away. She didn’t seem to be eating much, anyway--mostly picking at her food with an unpleasant expression on her face.

“Hey!” she protested as he dragged her away. “Bakugou, what do you think you’re doing?!”

Todoroki stood up. “Bakugou, what are you doing?”

“WE’RE GOING FOR A STROLL!” Katsuki shouted, not letting go of Uraraka’s arm.

“Oh, should we join?” Iida asked, standing as well.

Todoroki took one look at Katsuki’s face and said, “Better not.” He sat back down.

“Now wait just one moment. What is the meaning of this, Bakugou?” Iida insisted.

“We’ve got some shit to air out, alright?!” Katsuki barked.

Uraraka looked back and forth between Bakugou and Iida. “What… what do you want?”

“Just a nice friendly chat. I think you know what it’s about,” Katsuki snarled.

A flicker of comprehension crossed Uraraka’s face. She calmly pulled her arm out of his grip. “Okay, fine. I’ll talk to you guys later,” she said to Iida and Todoroki.

Impatiently, he stomped toward the exit to the dining area, and heard her following behind him as he went.

As soon as they were alone, he whirled around to face her. “What the fuck is wrong with you?” he snarled, and she looked taken aback for a moment, before folding her arms.

“I really think that I should be asking you that question,” she shot back.

“You think that I don’t notice that you’re fucking with me?!” he asked. “Every fucking time that you say anything, it’s snarky and sarcastic, and -” he barked out a laugh, “- the rest of the class? They don’t see it! They always say that you’re some perfect goody two-shoes, but I think that we both know that you’ve been acting like an asshole! So if you’ve got beef with me, then spill.”

For several seconds, Uraraka just blinked at him, and chewed on her lip. “I--I don’t have beef--”

“That’s bullshit and you know it.” Katsuki held his ground, glaring her down. “What, are you still hung up over our match at the sports festival?”

“No!”

“Then WHAT’S YOUR PROBLEM?”

“It’s really nothing--”

“If you don’t fucking TELL ME then I’m going to PUNCH IT OUT OF YOU.”

“FINE!” She suddenly yelled, fists clenched hard and teeth bared, and he could tell that he’d finally broken through. “Fine. It isn’t about the sports festival. My problem--my problem is YOU. It’s the way you’ve treated Deku for years . He’s never done anything to you except try to be kind, but you still try to tear him down every chance you get, as if him pursuing his own dreams is some sort of insult! And it’s not just Deku! After you stood up for Todoroki, I wanted to give you a chance, but you’re rude, and selfish, and arrogant, and just plain MEAN to everyone you meet! And I can’t stand it. I can’t stand that just because you have a flashy quirk, everyone in the hero world considers you a better hero than people like me.”

She took a shuddering breath, balling her hands into fists. “I… I came here knowing that my quirk wasn’t that special, that it was going to be hard. I figured I would just become a rescue hero or something, so that I could make some money to help my family. Obviously, I was never going to be all that big or famous. And I thought I was okay with it, but after getting here I’ve just been so frustrated that, because of my quirk, I’m always going to be shunted to the side, no matter how hard I try to be a good hero, while people like you can just go around throwing punches and everyone’s going to be impressed, even if you don’t care about helping people at all! ”

While she talked, Katsuki stood with his arms folded, not saying a word.

“I’m starting to accept that I won’t be as impressive or important as people like Todoroki or Deku. But I hate that you, of all people, are the one in the spotlight, getting praised just for being born with a tough quirk. I hate it. ” She squeezed her eyes shut, probably trying to prevent tears from leaking out.

It seemed like she was done talking. So that was how she was feeling all this time. Things were starting to make sense.

Katsuki finally spoke. “See? Was that so goddamn hard?”

Uraraka didn’t respond. She just hugged herself tightly and avoided looking Katsuki in the eye.

“Well alright then. Guess that’s settled. Who the fuck do you think you are, pretending you want to be friends while you actually hate my guts?”

He paused to see if she was going to say something, but she seemed intent on remaining silent. But Katsuki wanted a response. “You can hate me all you want. I don’t care. You think it’s just my quirk that got me this far? I study, I train, and I’m fucking good at what I do. I go after what I want, and I don’t back down when shit hits the fan. That’s what makes me a good goddamn hero. That’s why I’m going to be the number one, even though my old man could never get above second place. So I’m not planning to step down for anyone. Play that innocent angel card on someone else.”

Uraraka still didn’t seem to have a retort for him, so he huffed and turned to start walking back toward the camp, unsatisfied. Honestly, if she was going to be an asshole, she should at least be able to back it up with a proper fight. Pathetic.

Then, she spoke up from behind him. “Bakugou, wait.”

Vaguely annoyed, he stopped and turned to face her again.

“I want a rematch.”

Katsuki stared at her, raising his eyebrows. She was breathing heavily, her cheeks were flushed more pink than usual from the anger and yelling, and she had a steely, determined glint to her eyes that Katsuki could recognise in himself, when he had a goal in mind. Hadn’t she gotten an internship that tought her to fight better? Maybe someday she could make a worthy opponent, even more than she had been at the sports festival.

But even if he was in the mood to argue, he needed to save his real energy for training to become stronger. So he didn’t have time for someone who still complained about their quirk being too weak.

“After what you just said, don’t you think that would be a waste of my time? Forget it.” With that, he turned and walked away.

This time, she didn’t stop him.

---

After their dramatic conversation, Katsuki had figured that Uraraka wouldn’t feel like hanging out around him and Kirishima anymore. Not that he particularly cared, of course, although he had maybe started to get used to her constant annoying taunts. But she’d seemed pretty damn mad at him, and he’d rejected her request for a rematch, so he figured she’d go running back to Deku and his nerd crew.

Therefore, the next morning as they all gathered to begin their training, he was pretty damn surprised when she greeted him with a sunny wave and a smile.

“Hi Bakugou! Sleep well? Your hair looks like rats could nest in it.”

Oh, so THAT was how it was going to be. “Ha, ha. It always looks like that, so I don’t give a shit. At least I don’t look like a zombie that’s been swimming in bleach, vomit-queen.”

At that, she just laughed (although there was pain in her expression) and actually dared to fucking punch him in the shoulder. What the hell? Did she think she had turned into Kirishima all of a sudden? “Good one.”

He was honestly too weirded out to respond, but luckily Aizawa started giving them orders soon after that.

“You finally talked to her, didn’t you?” Kirishima asked, looking all smug. Katsuki pretended not to hear.

---

Katsuki was ready for dinner, and a part of him wanted to just cook it all so it’d be done faster than what any of these people could do. But a larger part of him (which he still couldn’t quite explain) wanted to make sure that Todoroki was at least trying to cook, and not just making fires and thinking he was off the hook.

“I see you over there, Hot-and-Cold!” Katsuki shouted. “Not even trying to cook! You think you can freeload off of the rest of us?”

Todoroki stopped stoking the ovens, turning to Katsuki. “Please, try cooking without fire,” he said, raising an eyebrow. “Show me how it’s done.”

“BAKUGOU!” Ashido shouted, pointing an accusatory finger at him. “Now you’ve gone and ruined it for the rest of us!”

“YOU CAN MAKE A FIRE WITHOUT A QUIRK, DIPSHIT!” Katsuki shouted back.

“I told you not to be reliant on his fire,” Yaoyorozu said, clicking her lighter.

“Uuuuuugggghhh,” said Ashido and Kaminari in unison.

Katsuki grinned. “Looks like you’re free to cook now, eh, Todoroki.”

Todoroki made a face, but picked up a knife and stationed himself next to Katsuki. “You are incredibly obnoxious,” he said, starting to slowly and carefully cut up an onion.

“I wouldn’t make you do this if you weren’t incredibly lazy,” Katsuki replied, picking up a different knife and starting to chop up a carrot.

“Bakugou,” Uraraka said, seemingly having appeared out of nowhere, “I’m really impressed! You’re like, actually decent with a kitchen knife!”

“SURPRISED? What the hell! How can you be bad with a knife!?” Then Katsuki looked over at Todoroki, still struggling with his task and now tearing up due to the onion’s potency. “Knife abilities aren’t genetic, I guess.”

Todoroki glared at him, but Kaminari (the little shit) said, “Woah, I haven’t seen Bakugou actually good at something in a while!”

And Uraraka, who was apparently an even bigger shit and the instigator of this whole conversation nodded excitedly. “I know! It’s easy to think of him as having nothing going for him except his stellar personality!”

“How do you all have so much energy?” Kirishima groaned, stirring an empty pot. Katsuki decided that he could only worry about one idiot’s cooking abilities at a time; Kirishima would come later.

Katsuki glanced over at Todoroki, only to find him talking to Deku. God, couldn’t Deku at least let other people improve? “TODOROKI, I’M WATCHING YOU!” Katsuki shouted, and Todoroki jumped slightly.

“DO I SEE IDLE HANDS OVER THERE?!” Iida yelled, rounding on Deku and Todoroki at Katsuki’s shout. “WE’RE SUPPOSED TO BE MAKING THE WORLD’S GREATEST STEW!!!”

Todoroki guiltily slunk away from Deku and back to a cutting board. Katsuki smirked. “That’s what I thought,” he muttered. Todoroki glared at him. It was rendered less effective by the tears in his eyes from his onion cutting.

---

After dinner, everyone gathered to begin the test of courage. Honestly, Katsuki wasn’t entirely sure how this was supposed to be a fun reward, but he supposed that it was better than whatever the remedial group was doing.

Still, it only figures that he’d just happen to get paired with Todoroki. Seriously, didn’t they spend enough time with each other as it was? They lived together, for fuck’s sake! But Kirishima was a part of the remedial group, so it wasn’t like he had someone better to pair with. Katsuki supposed that it could have been worse. He could have ended up with Deku .

Frankly, Katsuki was not impressed. Class B’s scares sucked. The scariest thing was probably when Ragdoll popped out at the midway point, and even then, Katsuki hadn’t really been scared. He was pretty sure that Todoroki was, though, and had been making fun of him mercilessly ever since. Honestly, he couldn’t wait until it was his class’s turn to do the scaring. They’d show ‘em how it was done.

And then the gas started.

At first, Katsuki thought this was another scare tactic--creepy smoke or something. But then someone from class B fell out of the foliage, unconscious, and Katsuki and Todoroki turned to each other, eyes wide. “Is this a part of…?” Todoroki trailed off.

“Sure as fuck doesn’t seem like it,” Katsuki said. He quickly bent over the guy, feeling for a pulse. It was there, but slower than it should have been. “He’s alive!” Katsuki shouted.

“Good,” Todoroki said. “Help me get him onto my back. We have to get away from the smoke, find somewhere that it’s less thick.”

Katsuki hated to just agree with Todoroki’s plan, but he was right. Katsuki mutely helped get the unconscious dude onto Todoroki’s back, and they started trying to find a way out.

At some point, the fog started to clear up. “So, guess we’ve gotta find a way back to the inn,” Katsuki said. “The path is supposed to loop around back to it, so just keep moving forward?”

Todoroki nodded, and they made their way in silence.

---

“Hold hands and we’ll be fine. I’m not scared.” Tsuyu-chan took Ochako’s hand and squeezed it gently. Ochako took a deep breath, allowing herself to be soothed by Tsuyu-chan’s reassuring presence.

Every sound in the night pricked at Ochako’s consciousness as they walked. If only she wasn’t expecting to be scared, it probably wouldn’t have bothered her as much. Also, she kept feeling like she could hear something rustling the bushes nearby, but she told herself it was just her imagination.

But what if someone was about to jump out to scare them?

Yet the truth turned out to be far more horrible.

The message from Mandalay, saying that they were under attack, made Ochako’s heart race. “Tsuyu-chan! Did you hear that? There are villains here,” Ochako whispered, pulling Tsuyu closer. “What should we do?”

“They told us not to engage. Let’s try and find our way back to camp; it should be back the way we came.” Tsuyu-chan kept her voice calm and level, even now. Right. This was what they were training for. Plus, they had several pro-heroes looking after them, it was going to be okay.

They turned and began to make their way back toward camp. After another couple of minutes, they got another message from Mandalay. This time, telling them to fight.

Ochako’s heart began to beat even harder. If Aizawa was giving them permission, then the situation must be grave enough that they needed to use their quirks to protect themselves.

And then-- “One of the villains’ targets has been identified! It’s the student known as Kacchan!”

“Bakugou..?!” Ochako’s eyes widened.

“I hope he’s okay, ribbit .” Tsuyu-chan murmured. Then, “Hold on, Ochako-chan, do you hear that?”

Before Ochako could process what was happening, a girl she didn’t recognize jumped out from behind a tree trunk and sliced at her with a knife. Ochako let out a sharp scream, lurching away from the attacker and into Tsuyu-chan, who yelped too.

There was no time to think. They were under attack.

Standing before them was a very strange-looking girl. She was petit and blonde, wearing some sort of school uniform, but had a horrible mechanical mask over her face that looked like an evil, deformed grin. Strapped to her back was some sort of machine, with multiple sharp bits and empty glass containers.

Tsuyu-chan put herself between Ochako and the girl, sending Ochako a worried look. “Did she get you, Ochako?”

Ochako looked down at her arm. The sleeve of her shirt was ripped, but the knife hadn’t made contact with her skin. She shook her head.

The girl inspected the knife. “Awe, you were too fast,” she complained. “No blood!” She sounded like she was… pouting, behind the mask. The knife-wielding maniac was pouting.

“What kind of villain comes out swinging a knife like that?!” Tsuyu-chan asked, voice low, slightly disapproving.

“I’m Toga!” the villain chirped, too cheery. “And you two are real cute!” That comment made Ochako shudder slightly. What kind of villain was she? She pointed her knife at Ochako. “Uraraka and…” she pointed her knife at Tsuyu-chan, “Asui.”

“They know our names,” Ochako muttered, eyebrows pulling together. This wasn’t looking good.

“From the sports festival, probably…” Tsuyu muttered back. “People found out a lot about us then. Puts us at a disadvantage.”

Ochako thought hard. They had to act differently than they did at the festival. Show off anything new they had. And what Ochako had was a new knowledge of hand-to-hand combat. She had to be the one to make the first move, to catch Toga off-guard.

“But no blood is no fun!” Toga said, reaching behind her. “Usually, with a good wound, I can suck it all out. Slurp! Slurp! But with this machine,” and suddenly, there was a needle in her hand, which connected to the machine by a tube, “One little cut is all I need to-”

Ochako charged. No need to let Toga keep monologuing, not when this would give Ochako a chance to catch her unprepared. Ochako grabbed Toga’s arm, the one with the needle, and flipped her, disarming the needle as she went and using Toga’s own momentum to break the tube. Ochako threw the needle into the foliage, and tried to pin Toga down with her foot. Toga rolled out of the way, and Ochako could see the glint of a knife coming at her.

Before she could process what was happening, she was being pulled to the side. Tsuyu’s tongue was wrapped around her waist, and the knife was buried in the tree behind her.

Toga laughed. “Oh, you’re nothing like I expected you to be!” she cried, getting up from the ground. “This is so much more fun!”

“Ochako-chan, you okay?” Tsuyu asked. Ochako nodded.

“‘Ochako-chan.’ How cute! I think I’ll call you that, too!”

Ochako bared her teeth in a sneer that could rival Bakugou himself. “As if,” she snarled, and lunged back in, trying to sweep Toga’s feet out from under her. Toga dodged lightly, laughing as she did.

Another needle shot out, but it wasn’t aimed at Ochako. “Tsuyu-chan!” Ochako yelled, as the needle caught Tsuyu’s hair, pinning her to a tree.

“Tsuyu-chan!” Toga crooned, pulling her mask down to reveal a smile just a touch too sharp. “Your name is so cute too! Cute little Tsuyu-chan.”

“Don’t call me that,” Tsuyu shouted. “Only my friends can call me that!”

“Ooh, well I guess that makes us friends!” Toga squealed. “Yay!”

Ochako pulled the knife from the tree, and cut the tube of the needle holding Tsuyu while Toga was distracted. Toga whirled on her. “Don’t worry, I haven’t forgotten about you!” She pouted slightly. “I would like it if you stopped breaking my new toy, though.” Ochako scanned her surroundings. Tsuyu was still pinned to the tree, but she was working on getting herself out. Ochako had the knife. The knife that she didn’t know how to use, and would be very dangerous if Toga got ahold of. Damn it. “Stealing my things, too!” she tutted. “Maybe you’re not as good of a friend as I thought you’d be.”

Toga charged, and Ochako knew that she’d be trying to get the knife back. So she thought fast. She grabbed at Toga’s arm and flipped her, quickly following her down and pinning her to the ground. She then touched the knife with all her fingers, activating her quirk, and threw it into the air, where it ripped straight through the trees and kept going. Toga wailed unhappily.

“Tsuyu-chan!” Ochako called. “Can you secure her hands?” She looked over, and Tsuyu had managed to pry the needle from the tree, but it was still tangled in her hair. She walked over.

“Of course,” she said, grabbing Toga’s arms. “That was amazing, Ochako-chan!”

“I was wrong about you, Ochako,” said Toga from beneath them. She turned her face to look up, into Ochako’s eyes. “You’re just like me, aren’t you? Yes, we’ve got the same scent.” Well, that was just about the creepiest thing that Ochako had ever heard. “There’s someone you’re crushing on!” … why? Why could a villain tell this about her? “And you’re thinking you wanna be just like him. I can tell. One maiden to another.”

“You’re wrong, there,” said Ochako, letting out a small bark of a laugh that somehow sounded more like Bakugou than herself. “I look up to him, I respect him, but being more like him isn’t how I’m going to improve.” She pushed down on Toda a little harder. “And a little crush doesn’t define who I am. I’m not like you.”

“Oh, no? You don’t want to be more like him? You don’t end up decking yourself out to look more like him? You don’t literally want to become him?”

Ochako rolled her eyes.

“It sounds like you need therapy more than a boyfriend,” Tsuyu said, holding Toga’s arms tighter.

“Uraraka?! Asui?!” That was Shouji’s voice!

They both looked up to see Shouji running toward them, followed by Todoroki. Was that Deku cradled in his arms?

“Hey guys!” Tsuyu called. Suddenly, Toga started struggling.

“No,” Toga cried. Ochako and Tsuyu held on tighter. “No! I don’t feel like dying!”

“Todoroki!” Ochako called. “Could you use your ice to hold her?” He nodded, and quickly complied. Ochako and Tsuyu climbed off of her, as she looked panicked for the first time since they’d met. And then Ochako looked at the group, and she gasped. Deku was hurt, badly, clinging onto Shouji’s back. Todoroki was carrying someone from class B, but he didn’t look hurt. Deku was the main concern. “What happened?” she asked, immediately going over to him.

“It’s a long story, but I’m fine,” Deku lied. Before Ochako could call him on it, he asked “Who is she?” Toga’s eyes widened as she looked at him. She licked her lips in a way that Ochako did not like.

“A villain,” Tsuyu said. “She’s nuts.”

“Are either of you hurt?” Deku asked, looking them over.

“I really think that you should be worrying about yourself right now!” Ochako said, eyebrows pulling together.

Toga laughed. “Oh, I see now!” she crooned. “We really are the same, Ochako! We even have the same taste in guys!”

Ochako’s cheeks burned, as Deku looked at the villain in confusion.

“There’s no time to stand around,” Todoroki reminded the group. “Let’s keep moving.”

“Oh, I know!” Deku said. “Come with us! We’re guarding Kacchan and heading for the camp!” He glanced at Toga again. “That is… if you think you can leave her.”

“Huh?” Ochako frowned.

“Guarding Bakugou?” Tsuyu asked. “Then where is he?”