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Izuku should have known it wouldn’t last.  Did he really think he could just go to the hero course and train under All Might every day with a new quirk that seemingly showed up out of nowhere and nothing would happen?  It couldn’t last forever, but he still made the mistake of putting his faith behind the fair-weather friend that was hope.  And hope would do little to protect him against the will of his father: Todoroki Enji, the number two hero.  Endeavor.

“You can start eating,” he grumbled.  He kept his beard alight even as he shoveled rice into his mouth.  Izuku would have felt the heat from it anywhere in the room, but Endeavor insisted he sit near him at the head of the table.  Sweat prickled the side of his head facing him.  He didn’t move.

The man towered over Izuku sitting down.  Before he started training for One for All, the man’s thumb was nearly as thick as his arm.  His portion of breakfast was triple the size of the other plates.  Just the cup he drank out of could hold maybe three of Izuku’s.  The only thing they had in common was eye color.  He never felt more like a small child than in his father’s presence.  And that was before he started to exercise his control.

“I said eat.”

Izuku was about to take a cautious bite, when the door slammed open.

“I’m here, what do you…”  Shouto’s mouth flattened in barely concealed disgust at the sight of Izuku.  “What the hell is he doing here?”

Izuku lowered his head and chopsticks.

“How nice of you to finally join us, Shouto,” Endeavor said evenly, which for him still sounded like a threat.

“The Sports Festival is today.  We’re supposed to be at school early.”

“And you’ll need to eat a good breakfast if you want to do well.”

Reluctantly, Shouto sat down, never taking his eyes off Izuku.

I don’t want to be here either! he thought at him.  I wanted to run to the beach for good luck, and maybe talk to All Might, but one of Father’s people came to get me from Mom’s apartment.  What should have been a comforting smell from the fried egg over rice was starting to make him sick.

“Let’s get to the point then,” Endeavor began.  “I’ve decided that today will be Izuku’s final chance to earn his place in the hero course.”

“What!?” Izuku exclaimed, before immediately folding under his father’s gaze.  He spoke again when no one said anything.  “But, but I’ve been in the hero course for months.  I passed the entrance exam fair and square and my grades have been good.”

“I wouldn’t describe breaking your own limbs every other day as ‘good.’  Not to mention you were almost killed by villains at the USJ.”  Shouto fought off his attackers no problem, you’re not as good as him, he meant.  “I thought I told you to eat.” 

Izuku complied.  The private chefs of the Todoroki household always made good food.  He could almost taste the mountain streams that fed the artisan rice.  But no fancy ingredients could compare to the magic Mom weaved out of the grocery store bargain section.  He helped her make fresh tofu last night in preparation for today’s miso soup.  Father’s men took him away before he got to have any.

“And you need to look outside yourself.  The first steps to real hero work begin after the festival.  Beyond you lacking the emotional constitution for the job, Shouto will have enough competition for the ranks without you distracting him.”

Shouto scoffed.  Endeavor gave him a hard look, which was ignored, before moving on.

“Shouto’s purpose is to surpass All Might with mine and his mother’s quirks.  Both of which you lack.”  Maybe he didn’t mean to sound accusatory, but that’s how Izuku heard it.  “Even if you were to succeed, nothing would be gained.”

“Nothing would be gained either way,” Shouto said under his breath.

“Then there is the matter of your illegitimacy.”  Both boys twitched at that, but for very different reasons.  “I remind you that the rest of the world doesn’t know you exist.”

‘Exist’ meaning no one knows I’m the bastard son of Endeavor.  Izuku mouthed the word behind closed lips.  Plenty of people know about me.  I have the scars to prove it.  But a quirkless bastard doesn’t ‘exist’ enough for him to do anything about people hurting me.

“It’s taken years and hundreds of millions of yen to keep you secret.  Any attention you attract risks undoing all that effort,” he warned.  “The top heroes rely not just on their deeds, but their reputation to maintain their rank.  That also extends to a hero’s family.  Both of you must do your part to uphold the Todoroki image.”

Something vile twisted in Izuku’s gut every time Endeavor referred to him as family.  Not disgust, or at least not a pure form of it.  Certainly not relief he wasn’t being excluded either.  If Izuku had the words for it, he might compare the feeling to a cloud blocking the hot sun for an instant, just long enough the heat felt that much worse once it returned.  Speaking of heat, sweat caught in his right ear as his father continued.

“But you especially, Izuku.”  He cringed.  “Because it’s not just my image you have to be cognizant of anymore, but Shouto’s as well.”

“Why would your scandal hurt me?  I’m not the one who cheated on Mom,” Shouto seethed.

“Shouto!” Endeavor growled.

“Are you even sure he’s your kid anymore?  With his quirk, I wouldn’t be surprised if his Mom made the rounds with All Might too!”  He flashed his eyes towards Izuku then back at their father.  Izuku thought he detected a hint of regret for what he said, but it could have been his own trademark wishful thinking.

“How many times must I admit I made a mistake and gave in to temptation before you move on?”

‘Gave in?’  Izuku officially felt too sick to eat.  He stared at his bowl while the other two argued like he wasn’t there.  The one time Mom opened up about what happened, she said she felt like she didn’t have a choice.

Endeavor huffed.  “But that brings us to the matter of your quirk.”  Izuku swallowed.  “I’m still immensely disappointed in you for not telling me you manifested a quirk right away, but there are more pressing matters.  Shouto is correct that your quirk is similar to All Might’s, thus, you will serve as a benchmark for his abilities in today’s competition.”

Shouto moved like he was going to scoff again, but didn’t.  Instead, he looked down his nose at Izuku quizzically. 

Of course, making me the official punching bag would be the one thing they agree on.  Izuku pictured Shouto running down all of Izuku’s many weaknesses in his mind.  Even with his current embargo on fire, his ice quirk was nearly unstoppable.  It even scared Kacchan.  Not to mention on top of his raw power, he had a decade of experience just having it, in addition to intensive training.  Izuku picked up trash for ten months and broke his bones over and over for three.  Maybe Father has a point…

“And to make sure you don’t hold back, I offer this ultimatum: if you manage to defeat Shouto and win the Sports Festival, I will allow you to continue your hero training,” Endeavor declared.

Izuku’s heart skipped a beat.  He thought he misheard at first.  After everything he’s been through, been put through, this was his chance.  All Might may have handed him the keys to the kingdom, but he would never be able to unlock it unless he was allowed to approach the door.  His father didn’t just hand out such chances.  There had to be a catch.

“Well?”

“And…  If I don’t win?” he questioned.

“We go back to our original plans: you transfer to the Management Department and study to be an analyst, where there will be a job waiting for you at my agency upon graduation.”  He sipped his mug.  “And you will not defy me ever again.”

Izuku looked down once more.  A bead of sweat dropped off his nose into his rice.

“Don’t look so ungrateful.  My analysts are some of the highest paid in the industry.”  He ate more of his food.  A piece of rice stuck to his lip shriveled and burned.  “And you’re guaranteed a position.  With a future top ranking client no less.  That’s leagues better than most quirkless people can hope for.”

It’s a double insult.  A reminder that not only do he and his mother still and likely always will rely on him financially, and that as a quirkless person, he doesn’t deserve what little he gets.

“I’m not quirkless anymore,” he dared to mumble.

Endeavor hummed.  “Right.”

“I guess that’s all.  Don’t know why I had to be here for this,” Shouto said, annoyed.

“You two ought to use this as a bonding exercise,” Endeavor suggested casually, either oblivious to the boys’ discomfort or ignoring it.  “Comradery through struggle.  Sports Festivals are supposed to be good for that sort of thing.  You’ll work better together in the future if you start building up repour now.”

“Like hell,” Shouto mouthed.  He stood up and slung his bag over his shoulder, taking a moment to stop and look at Izuku.  “See you at the festival.”  Then left without another word.

Why do you hate me so much?  What have I ever done to you!? he wanted to cry after him.  All Izuku ever wanted as a child was to be friends with his half siblings.  That was the first of his hopes to die.  Being a hero would be the last, and he wasn’t going to let it go without a fight.

“Stay,” his father commanded when he tried to get up.  “Finish eating.  You’ll need your strength.”  His tone was audibly softer, but all it did was put Izuku further on edge. 

Izuku didn’t bother arguing.  He’d be stuck there for hours if he didn’t finish his meal.  It managed to stay warm, but the taste was gone.  One thing Izuku did have years of training in was holding back his tears in his father’s presence.  Maybe if he ate quickly, he’d have enough time to call Mom and All Might before school.

“You know,” Endeavor spoke up suddenly, mouth awkwardly full of food.  He was trying to come off as more approachable by letting the formality slip.  He’d done it before.  “For what it’s worth, I think you would be much more…  Fulfilled.  In Management.”

“…  Why?”

“You’d be very good at analytical work.  You’ve got a strong work ethic and attention to detail,” he explained.  “I’ve seen a few of those quirk notebooks you keep.  Those aren’t too far off from what professional quirk analysts do, and you do it for fun.  A little work to refine it all, and you’d be the sort of worker agencies compete for.”

Izuku squeezed his mouth shut.  If he wanted him and Shouto to have ‘repour,’ he could have put them together as kids.  He didn’t, because Izuku didn’t become valuable to him until he got older and started making good grades in subjects that mattered.  Even his hobby was worth more than Izuku as a person. 

“You, you really think that?” he asked cautiously.

“I do.”

Izuku flinched violently at a touch on his shoulder.

“Why do you do that?” soft tone gone.  “When have I ever hurt you?”

Izuku wanted to scoff now.  The answer was never.  Endeavor had never physically hurt him.  Him.  Izuku.  The only person that applied to.  He glanced at Shouto’s empty seat.

You think I don’t notice his scar every time I see him?  That I’ve never seen his bruises or heard him cry?  You think he hasn’t made it abundantly clear to me in exact words how much worse he has it than me?  He dug his fingers into his thigh under the table.  What about your wife?  His mother?  The actual woman you married?  What happened to her?  Izuku tightened his muscles in an effort to keep from shaking.  You’ve hurt your family, your real family, for years without remorse.  You threw your wife in an institution and beat your self-declared ‘favorite’ child since he was a toddler!  Izuku ate faster, desperate to escape.  He silently prayed there was enough time to call Mom before school.  He needed to hear her voice.  To remind him of who he was outside his hatred and fear.  He allowed himself to hope he’d bump into All Might before the festival started.  Me?  I’m a worthless, quirkless, bastard.  A living mistake.  A scandal waiting to happen, and you won’t let me forget it.  How long until you turn on me?

Even though Shouto left before him, Izuku still took the long way to UA.  Towards the further train station in the opposite direction.  Then he went to the stop a longer walk than the one most UA students arrived from.  He did that second one so he had time to cry.

Tears tapped onto his shoes as he shuffled forward.  His father’s words about being too old to cry left him too embarrassed and guilty to get any relief from it, which only made him want to cry more.  All Might called him a crybaby sometimes too, so maybe there was merit to the statement.  But Mom always said it was okay to cry.  It’s normal.  It’s healthy.  The trick was knowing the time and place.  Walking up an empty street before school was as good as it was going to get for now.  It was going to be a long day.  He couldn’t help but wish he could talk to Mom, even on the phone.  He wanted to explain the situation himself and have her say everything was going to be okay, even if neither of them believed it.  Izuku wondered if Endeavor told her about the ultimatum yet, if at all.  He probably didn’t respect her enough to not call her at work the way Izuku did.  And it was his fault she had to work at a crappy department store anyway; Mom had to drop out of law school after she found out she was pregnant, and by the time she could go back, her scholarship had been revoked and she couldn’t afford to pay herself.  She had been working for Endeavor as a cleaner at his agency, and he refused to do anything but the bare minimum to take responsibility.  And he only did that much because he was afraid Mom would go to the press.  Though Izuku couldn’t help but lay some of the blame on himself too.

“It’s not my fault I was born,” he whispered to himself between sniffles.  Mom told him to repeat that to himself whenever he fell into that headspace.  As well as, “My Mom loves me.  I’m a good person.  I deserve to be alive.”  Not according to everyone else.  The thought settled like a cold hand on the back of his neck, and he shuddered just the same.

While his father granted him the occasional kindness outside the usual conditional permission to exist, his half siblings all hated him.  And really, he didn’t blame them.  Endeavor’s ultimate goal was to create the perfect heir capable of becoming the most powerful hero, stronger than All Might specifically, through a quirk marriage.  He treated his legitimate children (apart from Shouto) like disposable failed experiments to come out of the petri dish that was his wife.  Or maybe the more apt metaphor was a broodmare, considering the money he spent to buy her from her family.  Either way, he couldn’t even be bothered to stay faithful to her.  Thus, Izuku.

He never met the woman personally; Izuku only came around the Todoroki mansion once or twice before she was institutionalized, and she refused to see him.  Not that he would remember much anyway, considering he was only five at the time.

Izuku was raised separately from his siblings, but not far enough he could ever pretend he wasn’t involved.  He lived across town with his mother and attended a different school.  He faced constant bullying and discrimination for being quirkless that his father never lifted a finger to help him with, despite his considerable power.  Instead, he would drag Izuku away from his mother every few weeks to stay at his massive mansion home with the rest of his ‘family.’  Izuku never understood why.

Natsuo and Fuyumi, Izuku’s older half siblings, at least talked to him sometimes.  It was almost always awkward and strained, but they were never cruel.  Fuyumi he saw most often, as she was the one typically assigned to babysit Izuku when he was around.  She talked to him and made him snacks, sometimes played together when he was younger, but there was always this limit to her care.  Little discrepancies between how she treated him versus her full brothers.  Things like the familiar tone they used to talk or little touches between them.  She treated Izuku with the arms-length care of a teacher or babysitter more than the love of a big sister.  It was more than nothing, but he always felt the distance.

Natsuo was more of a mixed bag.  They played together without incident when they were younger, then Natsuo avoided him for a while as he got older and started to better comprehend just how bad the family situation was, and finally mellowed out in the past year or so after he left for college.  Distance took some of the pressure off, he supposed.  Izuku woke up one day to an email from Natsuo apologizing for how he treated him, acknowledging they were all victims in this.  After that they started texting back and forth occasionally, sometimes months apart.  Mostly random small talk.  They weren’t really brothers, Izuku would hesitate to call them friends, but whatever they had was kinda nice.  Natsuo even got him a notebook for his birthday last year. 

There was also Touya.  The eldest.  Izuku met him once, when he was three and Touya was twelve, and he immediately cornered him and told him he didn’t deserve to be alive.  At the time, Endeavor carried the sobbing Izuku into another room before going back to yell at his son so loud the walls shook.  Looking back, it was almost validating that someone said out loud how everyone else made him feel.  After that, Touya would always be out or in a different part of the compound like his mother.  He died a few years later.  One day, his picture was on a shrine that looked like it had been there a while.  That was it.  No one explained how and Izuku wasn’t allowed to ask.

And then there was Shouto.  The youngest.  By only six months if you included Izuku, which Shouto certainly didn’t.  With a perfectly split quirk, fire from one side and ice on the other, he was the success.  The masterpiece.  The ‘favorite.’  Meaning from toddlerhood, Endeavor ‘trained’ him within an inch of his life to be the ultimate weapon.  Half his face was deeply scarred from that training.  On the rare occasion Izuku saw him when they were younger, Shouto was always burned, bruised, and too exhausted to emote.  Evidence of a life infinitely harder than the rest of them.

Endeavor tried to force them together more in middle school as he formulated his manager idea.  Developing a repour as children would make their working relationship more efficient long-term.  Endeavor seemed to repeat that every time they ended up in the same room.  Shouto wasn’t receptive.  He threw every insult at both him and his mother every chance he got.  And yet, Izuku tried to offer friendship once they both got into the hero course.  Endeavor couldn’t micromanage them at UA, and if anyone needed a friend, it was Shouto.

“Just because you’re not a statistic anymore doesn’t mean I’m going to start liking you,” he’d said.

It took all Izuku’s self-control not to break down right then and there on the first day of class.  ‘Statistic’ was the most common anti-quirkless dogwhistle.  It referred to the high quirkless suicide rate.  Izuku always felt lesser among his half family, but no one had ever made their feelings known so explicitly.  Not even Kacchan had ever called him that.  And what felt worse was how much of a sidenote it was.  Shouto’s problem with him wasn’t his quirklessness, it was being the child of an affair, the living embodiment of yet another way Endeavor hurt his mother.  But he was willing to bring in anti-quirklessness just to hurt him.

And if Izuku couldn’t beat him at the Sports Festival, he would be stuck working for Shouto forever.  He almost started crying again.

Unless I actually decide to become a statistic…  He slapped himself in the face.  No!  Don’t even think about that.  Don’t be selfish!  Think about Mom!  I have to take care of her!  And what about-

“Young Midoriya!”  A familiar voice cut straight through Izuku’s haze, and lifted his heart.

“All Might!?”  He smiled automatically.

“Good morning, my boy!”  He stuck his head out his truck window and pulled up to the curb.  “Don’t usually see you coming this way!  Want a lift?”

“S-sure!”  Izuku rubbed his eyes and quickly hopped into the passenger seat.  “Thanks.”

“Don’t mention it!”  He ruffled his hair.  If he noticed Izuku had been crying, he didn’t mention it.  “So, why are you walking this way today?  Don’t you usually come from the east station?”

“Um, yeah, I just…  Uh…”  Come on, say something!  You can’t make his suspicious!  “I just, I wanted to take some time to clear my head.  B-before the festival!  So I, uh, took the long way,” he stammered.

All Might, none the wiser, hummed.  “Understandable.  I barely got any sleep before my first Sports Festival, and it wasn’t nearly as big an event as it is now.”

Oh yeah, I forgot about that part.  Hundreds, if not thousands of people in the stands, and another few million watching on live TV.  Izuku sunk into his seat.

“This will also be your unofficial debut as a hero, and as the next Symbol of Peace.  There’s no redoes for first impressions.”

And I have to declare myself as All Might’s successor!  Of course!  How could I forget!?  He curled up into his legs with a groan.

“Oh, don’t be like that,” All Might chuckled, patting his back.  They drove into the shadow of UA’s towers.  Festival traffic stopped them short.  He sighed.  “I know it’s a lot of pressure, but I think it’s the anticipation that’s getting you.  Once you get going, you’ll forget all about the crowd.  Might even have some fun!”  Izuku didn’t respond.  All Might hummed again.  “And no matter what happens…”  His hand moved to his shoulder.  “I’m proud of you.”

Izuku wiped a tear before it could fall.  When he looked up, All Might smiled that special smile different from the one he wore as a hero.  Not as big, but the corners pushed his cheeks even higher so they almost covered his eyes.  Something about it was just softer and warmer in a way Izuku couldn’t put into words.  Maybe it was because All Might seemed to only smile like that around him.  Like just having him around made him happy.

Moments like that brought him back to his younger years.  Sitting too close to the TV screen watching All Might save the day, and treat everyone he met with kindness.  He used to beg his father to take him to industry events the number one hero might attend, oblivious to his own scandal.  Then, Izuku lulled himself to sleep imagining All Might being so taken with him, he’d take him home instead of Endeavor.  Years later, the fantasy was tantalizingly close.

Why can’t you be my dad?

The locker room felt smaller than usual.  Izuku tucked himself away in the corner, but it still felt way too close to Shouto.  He felt his eyes burn into his bare skin as he changed, probably judging his physique and scanning for weak points.  A mental catalogue of scars and blemishes scrolled past his closed eyes.  In his mind, Izuku still saw himself as the scrawny middle schooler who could barely lift the bar without any weights on it.  Worse, he knew once he stepped out into the arena, tens of thousands of strangers would look at him the same way.

How does All Might do that all the time?  Be great at his job while so many people are judging him? Izuku thought.  His shaking fingers fumbled with his gym uniform zipper.  Well, first of all, he’s the greatest hero of all time, he doesn’t make big mistakes.  I’m just me.  And I have to declare myself as the person who’s going to replace him.  He swallowed.

Despite his fear of the public, Izuku feared Shouto more.  The former stayed near the front of the group as class 1A walked to the stadium, while the latter trailed behind.  Disgust radiated off him like the heat he refused to generate.  He was going to do something to him.  Something painful.  Shouto had never physically hurt Izuku before, but he was more than capable of it.  Always had been.  And their father gave him permission, if not outright encouragement, to do it.  Not that he would have listened if Endeavor asked him not to.  That probably would have made him hit harder out of spite.

“Look over there!  UA students!” someone yelled from across the street.  Cheering kicked up from the small crowd still waiting in line to get in.  The on-duty heroes working security looked their way as well.

Some of his classmates cheered back, while Izuku sunk behind them.  His heart pounded up into his mouth and they weren’t even in the building yet.

I need to calm down.  All Might is counting on me to declare myself!  Still shivering, he stood up straight and looked towards the crowd.  They were just regular people.  Izuku saw those every day.  Nowhere near as bad as the villains from the USJ.  He could handle them.  How about a hundred thousand?  That’s how many UA Stadium could hold.  It didn’t seem like that many on TV.  But it was a whole different feeling to walk inside and feel the building rumble under thousands of feet.

Aizawa-sensei left them in a side room with some tables to wait for the opening ceremony.  Izuku stood off in a corner again, hugging himself.  Thankfully, no one asked what was wrong.  Everyone who wasn’t talking about how exciting everything was were quietly meditating themselves.  He leaned against a wall for a moment before jolting away.  The walls felt like they had a pulse from all the vibrations.

All Might said the anticipation was worse than the actual thing.  Shouto continued to glare from the opposite side of the room.  Izuku sighed and tried to glare back.  Whatever you want to do, just get it over with!  As if he read his mind, Shouto approached.  Wait no, I take it back!  He hunched his shoulders and backed all the way into the corner.

“Midoriya.”  There was a hint of mockery in his voice, like his name was a joke he was playing along with.  “It seems we’re the strongest people here.”

“The hell you just say!?” Kacchan barked.

Izuku flinched, Shouto didn’t.  The room went quiet.

“But looking objectively, I’m stronger than you.”  He said it like a simple statement of fact.  As simple and mundane as describing the weather.  “My quirk is more versatile, I’ve had it longer, and it doesn’t have anywhere near the negative drawbacks yours does.”

“I…  Yeah…”  Izuku’s neck sunk into his shoulders.

“He’s right, but he doesn’t have to be so mean about it,” someone whispered too quietly for Izuku to tell who.

“And yet, All Might has taken an interest in you.”

More whispers.

Wait, how does he know that?  Did he see me getting out of his car?  Holy crap does he know about One for All!? he panicked.  Then he remembered that morning.  No.  He thinks I’m actually All Might’s son.  If only…

Shouto sneered down at him with his eyes while the rest of his face remained impassive.  His lips twitched with an unsaid insult.  Had to choose his words carefully with other people around.  Maybe the All Might comment was an intentional lead to keep the others from suspecting the truth.  Not that they had any.  Everyone knew his quirk was similar to All Might’s.  Though not even Shouto knew why.

Izuku’s eyes narrowed.  Does he actually think I’m related, or is it just a cheap shot at Mom?

“Either way.  I’m going to beat you.”  And then he just walked out into the hall like nothing happened.

“Hey asshole!  Where do you get off sayin’ shitty Deku is stronger than me, eh!?” Kacchan shouted, stomping after him.

Izuku felt the door slam up in his teeth.  His mind took a second to process what just happened.

“The heck was that about?” Sero broke the silence.

“Yeah.  I’m pretty sure Todoroki hasn’t said two words to the guy since school started,” Kaminari added.

“Maybe that’s why.  Todo’s decided there’s only room for one quiet kid in the class.”

“Pfft!” Uraraka, the brown-haired girl Izuku saved in the entrance exam, failed to stifle a laugh.

Izuku deflated.  While a lot had changed since middle school, somethings hadn’t.  Namely, he didn’t have any friends.  Uraraka and Iida, the now class president, were friendly the first day.  Most of them were nice enough.  But the distance widened with each passing day.  They didn’t kick him away from the lunch table, but they stopped inviting him into conversations.  The rest never got beyond polite respect for his abilities in combat at best, or were swayed by Kacchan telling them how much of a creep and liar he was at worst.  Izuku could never find the strength or words to defend himself.  No different this time.

“Beyond that, Todoroki has a point,” Yaoyorozu said.  “They are the strongest quirk-wise.”

“Even All Might’s taken notice of him.”

“Meaning…”

“They’re the ones to beat.”

Every eye in the room bore into Izuku.  He buckled under their weight and backed up against the wall.  Where he remained until a teacher called them to the arena.

“People of the world, meet your UA first years!” Present Mic blared over the speakers.

Noise hit Izuku like a truck.  Stomping feet and clapping hands pounded through his chest, drowning out is own frantic heartbeat.  Hard enough he stumbled exiting the tunnel.  It never looked this huge on TV.  The sea of faces blurred and morphed as a wave went through the crowd.  One hundred thousand people.  Another few million watching from home.  All looking at him.

If I mess up, everyone will see…

His father’s words rang through his mind.  No one can know who he is.  The family’s reputation and future was on the line.  If anything happened, the world would know instantly.  But he had to win to be a hero, and that meant standing out.  And he would be punished for blowing the scandal.  Mom too.

Oh.  That must be the catch…

Then All Might wanted him to announce himself.  Make a scene.  Declare to the world that he was its next Symbol of Peace.

…  How?  He scanned the stands for the teachers’ booth.  Hard to tell what was what with everything so far away.  Can he see me from where he is?  …  Can Mom?  Izuku looked towards the cameras.  She’s probably not watching live, she’s got work all day.  But she said she’d record everything.  He stood up straighter.  If nothing else, I can make her proud!

“I’m gonna win,” Bakugou said into a mic.  Izuku snapped back to him on the stage.  The other students shouted indignities. 

And I have to deal with him too.  Why is he on the stage anyway?

“Asshole making us all look bad.”

“Really?  That’s the first-year representative?  Is that seriously the best the hero course has?”

“What did we expect?  They’re all full of themselves!”

A kid with purple hair bumped hard into Izuku’s shoulder.  “Must be nice having it that easy,” he hissed at him.

Izuku just slunk away.  And I’m not the only one who needs to win to be a hero.

Besides the other hero class, there were also two classes a piece from the Support and Gen Ed departments.  If they did well in the festival, they got the chance to try out for the hero course.  Gen Ed especially; most of its members tried out for the hero course but didn’t make the cut.  Winning was a guaranteed transfer, sometimes at the cost of the worst performing hero student.

The Management Department aka the Business Course didn’t even compete in the Sports Festival.  The sold concessions in the stands and made stat tables for the actual competitors.  What would his odds look like?

So. Izuku dug his fingers into his hair. In order to win the festival and keep Father from pulling me out of the hero course, I have to contend with: the non-hero course students who want to take my spot, the other hero class jealous of 1A’s attention, the rest of my own class full of powerful quirks and experience fighting villains, including my childhood bully who’s never lost anything in his life, and my asshole half-brother with one of the most powerful quirks I’ve ever seen, a decade of training on how to use it, and a lifetime of barely repressed hatred he’s been waiting for an opportunity to unleash on me. All in full view and judgement of millions of people, including my teachers, hero scouts, my mentor the number one hero who wants me to declare myself his successor, my horrible father who will surely turn on me if anyone finds out he is my father, and my Mom who’s scared of me getting hurt.  And I have to do all that using a quirk I can’t control without breaking my bones. He crouched down and silently screamed into his hands. I am going to die!

Midnight, she was the ref apparently, clapped awkwardly as she shuffled Kacchan off the stage.

“Okay, with that out of the way, let’s start the festival!”  A giant screen rose from the ground behind her stage.  “For those of you joining us for the first time, the Sports Festival is made up of three events: two elimination rounds, followed by a tournament where remaining students duke it out in one on one combat!”  She paused for cheers.  “That’s the same every year, but the first two events are a surprise!  Let’s take a look at what our young heroes will be up against first!”  The screen cycled between pictures of events from years past to make it look like a randomized slot machine.  All for show of course.  The school decided the events months before.  The screen stopped on what looked like a playground jungle gym.  “And for our first preliminary round, we have the obstacle tower!”

The ground shook.  Kids closer to the middle of the arena had to run away from the splitting ground in the middle.  Tubes, bars, boxes, platforms, ropes, rock-climbing walls, slides, and messes of unknown shapes broken up by mismatched primary colors rose high above them.  The sun flickered through the many openings as it climbed.  Wrapping slides at every level gave the impression of a maypole or jellyfish.  The structure got wider the more came up, with more climbing avenues on the outside towards the bottom.  The tower finally capped off at fifteen stories.  Stadium cameras showed a single yellow platform at the very top, with only a single spiral staircase to reach it.  The crowd cheered while the students looked on in anxious silence.

“Behold!  The Perilous Obstacle Tower!” Midnight hyped up the audience further.  “It’s as straightforward as it is deadly!  Our young heroes must scale this fifty-meter tower in order to demonstrate their speed, dexterity, and spatial awareness.  Get to the top however you can!  There’s no time limit, but only the first forty-two finishers will advance to the next round!”

“Only forty-two?”

“Piece of cake.”

“That’s less than half of us.”

“This will be fast.”

“Just enough for all the hero students…”

The crowd thinned as students got into place to start running.  Izuku’s knees shook under him.  While tall, the tower lacked the width to support so many people.  He inched away towards the stage to avoid being immediately trampled.

“But wait!  There’s more!” Midnight announced.  Only a few kids looked back at her, including Izuku.  “This is a test of maneuverability and problem solving, not raw fire power.  In the real world, there will be situations where your quirks will do more harm than good, but you still need to get in there and do your best!”

Like the heroes at the sludge villain scene?  Izuku shook his head and focused.

“To simulate such an occurrence, you’ll be running this race quirkless!”

“What!?”  Both the students and crowd booed at that one.  Not all the students actually.  Mischievous smiles swept through the Gen Ed kids while the Hero Course complained.

“Quirk use will be monitored with sensors, so no funny business.  Any violation is an immediate disqualification!”  True to character, she seemed to enjoy the others’ misery.

Izuku, meanwhile, tasted a new shot of confidence.  I don’t have to use my quirk to win this round.  I can save it and my fingers for later.

“Students,” Present Mic sing-said over the intercom, “get ready!”

Deep breath.  In.  Out.  Izuku looked up, and finally caught sight of the teacher booth.  Distant but distinct blond hair peered over the railing.

I can do this.  I’ll make you proud, All Might!

“Go go go!”

Izuku bolted.  One hundred and nineteen students stampeded around him.  They bunched up at the base, trying to find space to climb amidst the others around them.  Some climbed on top of others or pulled them off to make room.  Izuku immediately ran around to the other side.

But he wasn’t the only one.  A boy that looked like Kirishima from his own class at first body slammed Izuku away from the rock wall to get first dibs on climbing.  Closer inspection revealed the silver-haired kid from class 1B, Tetsutetsu.

“I’d say nothing personal, but I’d be lying!” he taunted.

With a grunt, Izuku got to his feet and jumped onto the wall behind him.  While the tower itself nearly reached the highest seats of the stadium, the pieces and equipment themselves were still designed for children.  As such, Izuku could barely grip and balance his feet on the small outcrops.  Inside the structure, the traffic jam compounded with young adults trying to squeeze their way through passages intended for preteens.  But the climbable features only went so high up, forcing Izuku to find a way inside.

Through a circular window, he rolled onto a foam platform covered in plastic.  The smell invoked a birthday bouncy house on a hot day, where Kacchan once shoved his face into a corner to choke on the stale air.  Izuku wrinkled his nose reflexively.

A labyrinth of metal and plastic components crisscrossed above him.  Dozens of students as well.  Too much visual noise to identify anyone.  Not that he had time to do so.  He weaved his body up and through the parallel platforms closest to him.  A rainbow bridge to the next section waited at the top.  Izuku instead ran to the tallest point, and jumped for diagonal monkey bars that went higher.  He never made contact.

A student with the same idea hooked his torso mid-jump, sending them both toppling down.  Before either could think, they crashed into a ball pit below.  Whoever the black-haired girl was, her head ended up squished between the ball pit floor and Izuku’s back, leaving her delirious with a nosebleed.  No time to spare, Izuku flipped her on her stomach by the rim so the blood wouldn’t congeal in her brain, and kept going.

Two steps up some padded stairs and a kid much bigger than him used him as a steppingstone to jump to the next level.  The rough plastic caused rug burn on his cheek.

I can’t get anywhere like this!

Two steps forward, one step back.  The only people making any progress were those willing to step on others.  He couldn’t afford to pick fights in the first round.  His body was a finite resource, as was the luxury of not having to worry about getting hit by quirks.  Plastic casing ripped apart by shoes cut his skin.  Like trash at the beach.

I can do this!

He reached a stretch of rope arranged between pipes like a giant spider web.  The local playground in Izuku’s neighborhood used to have one of those.  He, Kacchan, and the other kids would pretend it was the lair of a spider villain and they, as heroes, had to rescue one another.  Usually Izuku.  He was too weak to play a hero.  Eventually, they stopped letting him be a passive victim and made him the villain so they had an excuse to beat him up.  They’d make him climb to the middle, then they’d try to make him fall through by shaking the robes, pushing him off, or picking at his fingers from underneath.  Izuku predicted and avoided all three when rival students came after him.

He beat the others on the web to the tunnel at the top.  He shot up the soft stairs as fast as his hands and knees could crawl.  Faster than the bigger students behind him thankfully.  His small stature gave him an advantage for maybe the first time ever.

The shouting died down.  The crowd thinned out on the other side.  He reached familiar faces at last, though no one stopped for pleasantries.  Mina the pink acid girl squeezed through narrow obstacles with ease, while the giant Shoji could practically treat different climbing levels as stairs.  Mutant types with natural climbing abilities like Tsuyu seemed cautious in their movements, unsure what did and didn’t count as them using their quirks.

Izuku passed by all of them.  They started to look winded, he didn’t.  Why?  He sailed past Kaminari on a climbing net.  His arm dwarfed classmate’s.

They’ve been relying on their quirks until now!  I trained without one!

As if on cue, a buzzer sounded, followed by Aizawa-sensei announcing disqualifications for quirk use.  Gen Ed.  Gen Ed.  Support Department.  Hero Course.  Tired and frustrated, people let lose without thinking.  Izuku could relate.  The stupid tower just kept going up with no way to tell how much further to go.  Eye-bleeding bright colors didn’t help.  He got some idea from how much thinner the total space got.  Ten different parallel obstacles became five, dwindled to four, three, two.

He reached a bottleneck.  Class 1A students brawled on a wide platform, big enough to say whoever designed the structure anticipated the conflict, over getting through the next spiral slide, the only way up.  No Kacchan or Shouto to be seen.

Dammit.  Quiet as he could, Izuku heaved himself up onto the platform.  How am I supposed to get through?  Uraraka and Iida fought among the group.  No doubt she could use her bodyweight to grapple him and throw him back down, while Iida might as well be a brick wall for all the good fighting him would do.  Class vice president Yaoyorozu shoved a class 1B boy with a ponytail back and forth.  Ojiro, the kid with a tail and probably one of the boys in the best physical shape of 1A, dove for the tunnel only to be dragged out by two girls from 1B.  The consistent fights stayed on class lines, but Uraraka still shoved Yaoyorozu away when she got too close.  Ojiro managed to toss one of the girls on him over the edge down into a net.  That’s gonna be me if I get involved.

Movement caught his eye past the fighting.  Giant screens played the action, now at eye level.  Shouto appeared on the feed.  He held the lead with Kacchan in hot pursuit.  Izuku looked at the cluster of fighting, then up.  Platforms and pipes all the way to the top.  Iron bars painted yellow around them.  Bars arranged into squares.

Izuku swallowed.  This is a bad idea…

He snuck to the edge of the platform, found his footing on the first bar, and squeezed through the square.  Gasps rang through the stadium.

“Wait.  Wait what’s this?  A student has decided to climb the outside of the tower!  Let’s get a closer look!” Mic shouted.  “It’s Midoriya Izuku of class 1A!  The little dude who got bodyslammed at the bottom!”

“Of course it’s him…” Aizawa-sensei groaned.

“He’s apparently been making his way up and is now avoiding the pileup by going around the outside!  He’s currently twelve stories up with no guard rails but the ones he’s climbing on!”

“Please don’t remind me…”  Izuku did his best not to look down.  Wind tugged on his baggy gym uniform.  If his hands started sweating, he could slip.  Nowhere to go but up…  And up he went.  Object terror kept him moving, nobody in his way kept him from stopping.  Only once, he misjudged where to lift his foot and slipped.  More gasps.  Izuku hugged the bar.  His heartbeat pounded through his tongue and gums.  Whether or not he won, not only would he never climb anything again, he’d bury himself underground forever.  But for now, he had to keep going.

Finally, mercifully, he made it to a solid platform.  Izuku hauled himself up with the desperation of a drowning man climbing into a boat.  Once up, he paused to catch his breath.  And maybe threw up a little in his mouth.

“Midoriya is in the lead!”

“What?”

“But he better watch out!”

“You!”  Shouto climbed up the opposite side.  His teeth flashed in rage.

“Oh no.”  Izuku scrambled to his feet and leapt towards the next level.  Shouto caught his ankle.  Before he could register what happened, he slammed him into the metal floor.  “Ow…”  Izuku rolled over right into Kacchan’s face.

“Deku!”  He pounded his fist where Izuku’s head had been an instant before.  Then he launched himself over him to get at Shouto.  Stomping feet left little room to get up.  All the times Kacchan and his friends beat him up on the playground only taught him how to run and hide.  Not an option.  He kicked blindly and caught someone’s shin.  Kacchan stumbled.  Shouto took the opportunity to throw him by the arms into the cage bars, then turned to the ladder.  Izuku grabbed him around the stomach like the girl earlier, and it turned out much better for him.  Shouto fell while Izuku remained on his feet.  His plan was to swing him into Kacchan to knock out both of them.  But mid swing, Shouto got his leg free and kicked Izuku square in the face.  He stumbled back.  His heel went over the ledge.  Izuku fell.

Sound dropped out.  The world moved in slow motion.  Izuku read somewhere that the brain reverts to its most basic instincts in life-or-death scenarios.  His most basic instinct apparently was remembering All Might videos.  An old one.  A villain on top of a construction sight punched him off the edge, but All Might rolled with the blow, using the momentum to flip himself around to grab a bar of scaffolding.  Izuku lifted his arms and threw his head back.  His palm caught a bar.

“He’s got it!”

The whole stadium exploded.  Izuku barely noticed.  His heart pounded loudly across every individual vein in his body.  He looked down.  Too far down.  A shiver ran up his spine as he willed his hands to fuse with the metal.  Blood from his nose dripped onto it.  If this had been regular training, he might have tapped out.

But I can’t!  Not when I’m so close!  Gritting his teeth, Izuku heaved himself up to the next bar.  Then the next.  A steady, constant rhythm.  The audience clapped in time, chanting his name.

“They’re gonna be cheering your name someday,” All Might told him once.  Izuku only wanted him to be one of them.

The horizontal bars only went so high, up to the original platform Shouto kicked him off.  Speaking of which, he and Kacchan were still mid duel on the spiral platforms.  No way was he getting through without another fight.  He could wait.  The top forty-two finishers got to move on, and he was seated comfortably in third.

But a symbol can’t settle for third place.  He hugged the bars again, then looked behind him.  An enclosed yellow slide encircled the whole structure all the way to the bottom fourteen stories down.  The entrance was the top level.  Deep breath.  He rolled up his pants, then brought his feet up to the same hold as his hands.  Neither does a Todoroki!

Izuku leapt across open air to the top of the slide.  Exposed skin kept him from slipping down the plastic.

“Holy *BLEEP*!  Midoriya clears a five-meter gap over a forty-five-meter drop to get around his opponents!” Present Mic narrated.  “What are you teaching these kids, Shouta!?”

“Not enough self-preservation, apparently,” Aizawa-sensei answered, annoyed.

I’ll apologize later!  Izuku scurried to his feet yet again and sprinted up the slide.  It wobbled under every step.  Please don’t collapse!  He swallowed bile.  Every centimeter his foot slipped from where he landed made his heart skip a beat.  All the anxiety started making him lightheaded.  The stadium devolved into white noise.  Everything that wasn’t balance or breathing shut down.  Nothing but him and that stupid slide.  And then, it was over.

He white-knuckle gripped the railing at the top like a lost loved one before he hauled himself over.  Izuku sunk to his knees and ran his hands over the metal mesh floor.  No thoughts, only solid ground.

Something pierced through the cotton in his ears.  A voice.  One he knew.  Izuku turned towards it.

All Might.  Izuku stood up at eye level with the teachers’ booth.  An impossibly large smile split his mentor’s gaunt face as he clapped like a madman.  He must have realized how dazed Izuku was, because he pointed up towards the giant screen above him.

Izuku saw his own face.

Round 1 Winner: Midoriya Izuku!

Everything slammed back into him.  The crowd.  A hundred thousand people.  All echoing his name.

I…  I did it!  He smiled back at his mentor, bouncing in place.  All Might pointed down to the audience below.  There wasn’t a single person sitting down.  Then, he gestured a forward motion.  Oh!  Right!  He raised his still-shaking fist high in the air.  He’d really done it.  He won.  All the noise around him morphed from a distraction to a cushion to rest his racing heart on.  Imagine what it will be like when I’m a real hero.  When I do more than just win a race…  He sighed triumphantly.

All Might pumped his own fists excitedly.  The hero whooped and hollered louder than anyone.  Maybe even Present Mic, who was still losing it over the speakers.  Because of that, no one warned Izuku of Shouto’s approach.

“How did…?” he growled from behind.

Izuku yelped in surprise, then pulled his arms close to his body.  You almost killed me, he wanted to shout back.

“What.  The actual.  Fuck!?” Kacchan made his presence known.  “How the fuck did you get past us, shitty Deku!?”

Both pushed into his personal space.  Beyond them, he saw his father.  Burning bright red in front of a dark tunnel in between the sea of faces.  Too far away to read an expression.  In some ways that made it worse.

“Answer me, dammit!” Kacchan shouted.  A screen replayed Izuku’s big jump.  He pointed to it.  “You fucking cheater!”

“How is that not cheating?” Shouto agreed.

He used the distraction to flee down the slide he previously ran up.  The cheering turned to static again.  A shudder racked his body.

That was only the first round!  Tears pricked his eyes but he wiped them away.  Everyone gets to use quirks next round.  I won.  I’ll be the target.  So many times he prayed for one thing, just one thing, to go his way.  That one thing was up.  The festival isn’t even half over.

Everything got loud yet again as he exited the slide.  Some still cheered his name, but the excitement wore off, replaced by dizziness and familiar anxiety about the rest of the day.  Midnight directed him to some water bottles and a place to sit to wait for the rest of the qualifiers, though he heard none of what she said.  Izuku took one drink before collapsing onto his back.  The red stadium terf was hardly the dirt he wanted to dig his own grave in, but ground level was ground level.  He watched the clouds until Kacchan and Shouto reappeared.  They didn’t come near, but they glared holes in his skin.  Izuku shut his eyes along with the rest of the world, then spent the remaining round running through the breathing exercises Mom taught him.

I hope she’s proud of me at least.

“Up next for round two: Dodgeball!”

Why can’t I just be struck by lightning if the universe hates me so much?

The rules were standard for dodgeball: hit someone with a ball to knock them out, catch an incoming ball to knock out the thrower and revive a teammate.  Rules specific to the festival were they went until one team was eliminated, or only twenty played remained.  And as the winner of the last round, anyone who knocked out Izuku were guaranteed to advance.  Quirks were allowed and encouraged.

Wonderful.

The top 40 finishers were split into two teams randomly.  Both Shouto and Kacchan ended up on the other team.  Because of course.

Izuku turned to his team.  “Okay, they have two of class 1A’s biggest powerhouses, so we’re going to need to work together and strategize.  Wait, hey!”  They spread out over the field, completely ignoring him.  He approached two of his own classmates.

“Sorry, but it will be easier to try and hold out on our own than beat the other team,” Tsuyu said bluntly.  “Which side wins doesn’t really matter with that rule.”

“Yeah.  And this team can’t get a chance at immunity…” someone hissed behind him.

Izuku scrunched his shoulders.  An argument died in his throat.  Even his own class cast judgmental stares.  It’s not like they were villains, he should be able to just say something.  He needed to be brave.  He knew he could be.  He grabbed onto All Might and rushed out to save Kacchan from the sludge villain.  Two things extremely stupid and out of character for him.  And he was shaking in his shoes the whole time.  He couldn’t be brave on command.  Stupid worthless Deku.

He had a plan.  That was worth something.  Tokoyami and the girl with vines from class B could shield two groups at a time.  Their quirks weren’t counted as part of their bodies, so they could be hit.  Split the other team’s fire and flank those attacking the other.  Maybe not a great plan, but they needed something.  No, Izuku needed something.  He had eight to ten shots of his quirk max, one for each finger, and he needed to conserve them for the actual tournament.  And that’s apart from him being the prime target.  He had to ride the coattails of others to advance.  What kind of hero was that?

A short cement wall rose along the court dividing line, then receded into the ground, leaving behind a line of red rubber dodgeballs.  The kind that hurt.

“Players, get ready!”

Just because the rest of them aren’t using a strategy doesn’t mean I don’t have to.  The other team will be gunning for me.

“Set!”

If I keep moving, I can draw their fire and hopefully let my teammates get some hits in.  Across the yard, the other team lined up, ready to run for the balls.  Shouto stood behind them, unconcerned.  He had a plan too.

Izuku gulped.

“Go!”

Everyone on Izuku’s team besides him charged for the middle.  The other team didn’t.

Faster than Izuku could warn them, a giant wave of ice covered the entire playing field.  He backed up instinctively.  The ice reached under the dodgeballs before rising up, rolling them back to Shouto’s team.  But it didn’t stop.  Higher and higher it climbed until it reached near the height of the obstacle tower.  The base stopped inches short of the field divider.  The sun shone right at the top, forcing them to squint up at it.  A shadow moved.

Izuku moved without thinking.  He rolled to his side just in time to dodge a flaming meteor of a dodgeball aimed right at his head.  The concrete on impact.

Kacchan.

“Scatter!”

Chaos erupted.  Dodgeballs rained from the top of the ice wall.  The bright sun made seeing them coming difficult.  Buzzers went off every few seconds signaling someone out.  Keeping clear of shadows, Izuku weaved and jumped around to the best of his abilities while his teammates attempted to fight back.  Those who didn’t get knocked out in the first round gathered up the dodgeballs for return fire.

Yaoyorozu created a canon with her quirk, but it could only fire two balls at a time.  She made up for it by making more dodgeballs, doubling the original number in minutes.  Shoji and Iida threw hard and fast, but didn’t quite have the raw power needed to reach the several story high target.  Kirishima, Tetsutetsu, and Kendo (class B president with big hands) worked on catching to mixed results.  More often than not, they were getting one another back in the game.

Tokoyami and Shiozaki (vine girl) faired better.  Not only could they throw, but they managed to catch a couple hits too thanks to Dark Shadow.  Other team members fell into a support role, like Uraraka.  She circled the field collecting stray balls and brought them to the throwers.  A little boost from her quirk got them to the top.  But no buzzers for out on throws.  Only catches.  And not enough to make up for the damage being done.

Izuku narrowly dodged another hit from Bakugou that tripped him to the ground.  He heard him yelling about how that was totally a hit all the way up.  The sound drew his eyes up.  Flickering in silhouette, Sero’s tape swung in a giant net to catch incoming dodgeballs.  As a quirk, it didn’t count as a true catch and couldn’t get anyone out, but it shielded them from return fire.  And would do so every time they tried to attack back.  They needed to get them off that ice.

“Stop!”  He ran to Yaoyorozu.  “Stop making more dodgeballs!  They can’t hit us if-”  he ducked a third hit from Kacchan.

“Oh, come on!”

“They can’t hit us if we don’t send them back.  We have to hold out.”

“Hold out-” canon fire, “-for what?”

“Yaomomo!  We need more!” Tetsutetsu and Kirishima yelled at once.

“One second!”  With a heavy breath, two more dodgeballs popped out of her back.  “Tell that to them,” she panted.  Her uniform hung looser than before.

“I-I can bring the ice down.  I can bring the ice down!” Izuku shouted in vain.  “If we wait until we have all the dodgeballs…”  He trailed off.  No one listened.

Kirishima caught one of Kacchan’s mortars, but no one came back on the field.  Tsuyu and a loud blond guy from 1B got hit in the head and knocked out.  They were down two people permanently.

“I need people to just listen to me!”  He looked around desperately.  Suddenly, someone swept him off his feet faster than a bullet.

Concrete cracked.

“Bullshit!”

“Iida?”

The taller boy set him down.  “Be careful, Midoriya.”  And he sped off.

“Wait!  Iida, I need your help!”  He was a helpful guy.  And he seemed nice, if a bit intimidating.

“What is it?”

“I have a plan, but it involves everyone.  I need you to get them to listen to me!”

“Alright.”

“Wait, just like th-”

“Everyone!  Midoriya has a plan to bring down the other team!  Please gather behind Shiozaki’s vines!” he yelled loud enough the top bleachers must have heard him.

So did the other team, as another mass rain pummeled them.  Shoji and Koda were out.

Even more surprising, they listened.  Desperation must have set in.  Sixteen students plus Izuku huddled behind vines.  Thirty-two eyes on him.

“So?  What’s the plan, greenie?” a girl with pink hair who Izuku wasn’t sure was even in the hero course asked.

“Please make haste…” Shiozaki said, twitching from hits.

They’re all counting on you.  Don’t let them down.

“You, you keep doing what your doing,” he told her.  “You too Tokoyami, absorb their fire.”

“On it!” Dark Shadow floated about the barrier on his own.

“You mean like what they were doing before?” Mina snarked.

“Hey, let him finish.”  Uraraka gave him a thumbs up.

“The difference is, we’re not gonna attack back.  There are only so many dodgeballs on the field, and we have the person who can make more.”  Yaoyorozu hugged her skinny arms.  “And I think that ship has sailed.”

“Okay, so we’re holding out for one big attack right?”  He nodded.  Kaminari still looked skeptical.  “But…  How do we get that many balls up that high?  Only a few of us have that good an arm.”

Izuku held up his fist.  “We bring them to us.”

Class 1A’s eyes widened.  This could work.  They believed in him.  He couldn’t keep the smile off his face.

“I don’t know what that means, but I know that look.  Y’all got something crazy up your sleeves!” Tetsutetsu cheered on.

“Whatever ends this,” Kendo agreed.

“Okay!”

“Break!”

Shiozaki’s vines became a home base, bunker, and storage shed.  Every ball that hit the ground got taken to her feet.  Tears streamed down her face as her vines found their limit.  Tokoyami and Dark Shadow tried to take some of the pressure off.

“A maiden of light calls for out aid.  We shall be vigilant.”

“I see now.  Great chivalry can come even from darkness.”

Iida took point on retrieval.  No one could hit something that fast.  Most of the others took to feigning.  Intentionally weak throws, sometimes reusing the same ball once it came back down, to keep the others from suspecting anything.  A ball in hand also served as a personal shield.  That’s how Izuku defended himself as he again ran around to draw fire with his immunity.

Kacchan did manage to hit him.  Sort of.

“Die already!”

Izuku looked up into a flaming blast headed his way.  No time to move.  He held his own ball over his chest and braced for impact.  The hit knocked the wind out of him and back at least ten feet.  Both balls burst into flecks of rubber.  He just sat there a moment.

“Instant replay says that was a block, Midoriya is still in the game!”

“Absolute fucking bullshit!”

Eyes still blown wide, he jumped back to his feet and got back to his job.

His next one came soon after.  Because eventually, the rain stopped.  They had a small mountain of dodgeballs as Shiozaki’s feet, and no more incoming from the ice mountain.  Go time.

“Everyone ready?” Izuku asked.  They nodded.  “Okay…  Here it goes!”  He burst from behind the vines.  As he suspected, a few stray dodgeballs flew towards him.  But he was ready.  “Smash!”  With a broken finger, he blew all the incoming balls straight back up.  No time to see if they hit.  “Detroit Smash!”  Full fist and arm into the ice.  A millisecond turned into a minute.  What if it doesn’t work?  Too late now.

The ice shattered.  Chunks the size of cars flew backwards towards the audience.  Cementoss threw up a wall just in time.  Ice back there meant none under the enemy team’s feet.  Izuku heard the screams before he saw them fall.

“Now!”

Shiozaki’s vines unfurled, a dodgeball in each one.  Same with every other member of his team.  They charged forward screaming.  The others fell into a firing squad of dodgeballs.  No escape.  Mass slaughter.  The celebration started before they hit the ground.  In a single move, they eliminated everyone. 

Almost everyone.  Kacchan saved himself by using his explosions to hover out of the danger zone.  Shouto made himself and only himself a cocoon of ice.  Same thing with Sero but tape.  And then a guy with purple hair emerged from a three-person human shield.

Izuku was about to run for more dodgeballs, when the buzzer sounded.

“Twenty students remain!  And that was our second round!”

Cheers.  Not just from the audience this time.  Izuku’s team ran up to him.  He braced for a fight, but Dark Shadow scooped him up under the arms and held him up for all to see.

“Mi-do-ri, the MVP!” the quirk hailed.

“Mi-do-ri, the MVP!” they answered.

Izuku, stunned, just kinda hanged there limp for a bit.  He wore a stupid happy grin, and couldn’t do much else.  Most of his team survived to the next round.  He’d have to fight some of them, but that didn’t matter now.  He didn’t even remember he had a broken arm until Dark Shadow put him down.

“Ow!”  He seized up.  Shiozaki wrapped it in her vines to keep it in place.  “Thanks.”

“It was my pleasure.”

“You know, you’re the real MVP of this whole thing.  We never would have lasted that long without you shielding us.”  Her vines were warm to the touch.

“Yeah!  Three cheers for Shiozaki!”

That evolved into going around in a circle complimenting one another on their roles in the win.  It was a team effort.  Izuku could have all the great ideas in the world, but they didn’t mean anything if the others didn’t back him up.

Off in the distance, Shouto got chewed out for not making new ice to save his team.

“Alright everybody!  Let’s break for lunch!” Present Mic sang.

“Finally…” Aizawa agreed.

“Hey!  Why don’t we all eat together!  A little team celebration!” Uraraka suggested.

Murmurs of agreement swept the group.

“Yeah!  Before we have to kill each other in the next round!” Kaminari added sarcastically.  But it didn’t dull the mood.  The whole group walked together, compliment sharing going strong.

“I’ll meet up with you guys later, I should probably go see Recovery Girl about this.”  Izuku pointed to his arm.  The vines broke free, but remained in place.

“We’ll save a spot for ya!”

“Don’t take too long!”

“See you there, dude!”

He waved them goodbye, then cut a corner towards the infirmary.  Recovery Girl gave him a brace, a spot of healing, and a stern talking to about taking care of himself.

“Make sure you take it easy and eat a good lunch.  You’re up in the first round.”

“Yes, Ma’am.”

First round, huh?  The update on his phone listed his name nest to someone named Shinsou.  He looked him up.  Purple-hair guy.  Kinda rude.  Gen ed?  That’s interesting.  I didn’t see his quirk, so I’ll need to be-

“Izuku.”

He almost dropped his phone.  “Sh-Shouto?”

He saw his breath.  The other boy pushed off the wall nonchalantly.

“I need to talk to you.  Come with me.”

Izuku didn’t have a choice.

The temperature dropped by the second.  Izuku rubbed his arms as he trailed behind Shouto.  The hairs there stood on end from more than the cold.  No clue where they were going, but they walked far enough through the halls their footsteps became the only noise.  Izuku missed the crowd surprisingly.  As much pressure as they put on, they also served as witnesses.  The two boys reached a stadium side entrance, a smaller tunnel out to one of UA’s pocket forests.  Izuku kept forward, looking to get some fresh air.  Frost climbed the walls.

“Are you proud of yourself?” he seethed inches from Izuku’s ear.  He jumped away.  “Are you enjoying yourself?  Having fun working for that monster!?  How can you not be disgusted with yourself?”  He herded him against the wall.

“I, hah, I’m not working for him…” he sputtered between gasps.  “What gave, what gave you that idea?”

“You’re targeting me.”

Seriously!?  “Because you’re usually at the head of the challenges.  I want to win, same as you.  And in order to win, I have to beat you.”

“Tsk.  Just like he told you to.”  Shouto backed up into the opposite wall and crossed his arms.

“…  What do you expect me to do?  You heard what he said this morning!”  Izuku stood up hesitantly.  “If I don’t win, he’ll pull me out of the hero course!”

“And you just accept his orders like a good son.”  He rolled his eyes.

“Well…  So I’m supposed to just lay down and throw away my dreams?” he countered.

“You could have at least attempted to show some backbone instead of ‘just laying down’ and accepting his orders.”  Shouto’s eyes narrowed.  “But I shouldn’t be surprised you caved so quickly.  You’ve never faced his real fire.”

Izuku bit his tongue.  On the one hand, Shouto was right.  He’d never been hurt for failure or disobedience like he had.  But at the same time, he didn’t have a choice, because it wasn’t just him at risk if he went against his father.  If Izuku didn’t play along, what little money Endeavor sent Mom would dry up.  She couldn’t afford to support them both with her meager department store clerk salary.  Izuku might have to drop out of high school entirely to help make ends meet.  Not only would he never be a hero, but without an education, he’d be in that same struggling boat for the rest of his life.  What happened if Shouto disobeyed?  Had anything happened since he decided to stop using his fire?  Outside looking in, he didn’t get anything worse than what he already got.  Endeavor just complained about him being ‘rebellious.’  Maybe it was worse behind closed doors, but Izuku knew with certainty what would happen to him and Mom, and he couldn’t risk it.

“I just want to be a hero.”

“Why?  You think he’ll finally give you attention if you do?  Show you off to the world and call you a ‘Todoroki?’”

“No.”  I want to be a hero to make the world better.  To people smile.  Like All Might.  That reason probably wasn’t good enough for Shouto.  Nothing was.

“Are you even his son?  With your quirk, it would make more sense if you were All Might’s secret lovechild.”

That one hurt, but probably not in the way Shouto meant.  He meant to call Mom a slut again, but Izuku fell back into his daydreams about what it would be like for All Might to really be his dad.  The eye of Shouto’s scarred side was the same shade of blue as his own.  All Might’s eyes were blue too.  Could he pass as his son instead?  He didn’t look much like either him or Endeavor, but he could maybe get away with it given his quirk.

“Either way, he seems to like you for some reason,” Shouto continued.  “If Father wants to use you as a measuring stick to see how I’d fair against All Might, he’s setting himself up for disappointment.  Because I’m going to beat you with just my mother’s ice.”

I know.  You’ve been on the ice kick since the start of the school year.  Izuku looked down and circled his thumbs together.  The temperature turned arctic.

“What?  Are you going to whine about how I should be grateful for my quirk too?”

“Wha- No!”  He waved his hands defensively.  “I-if anyone has a valid reason to hate fire, it’s…”  His eyes drifted to the scar.

“Of course you’d only see the surface…” he sneered.

Izuku swallowed a groan.  Nothing I say to you is ever going to be the right thing.

Shouto turned his scarred side towards him.  “Endeavor isn’t the one who did this.  Not directly.”

Izuku’s eyes widened.  That was new information.

Shouto inhaled softly.  “He bought my mother from her family with the intention of a quirk marriage.  He breed her like a dog to produce the perfect heir to surpass All Might.”  He said ‘heir’ like a curse.  “…  When she tried to protect me from his ‘training,’ he hurt her too…”

Izuku knew this part.  Abuse was an open secret in the Todoroki house.  As well as the fact that their mother was institutionalized when he was five.  Mom worried for a while that Endeavor had his wife locked up quietly to avoid the publicity of a divorce once she couldn’t have children anymore.  And that he’d come for her next.  But he didn’t and Izuku never learned anything beyond that.  The others never told him anything.  Maybe that was best.  The more he learned about what his half siblings went through, the more like a stranger Izuku felt.

“All my memories of my mother are about her crying,” he went on, voice heavy and missing his earlier edge.  “One night, I heard her crying on the phone.  She said she struggled to even look at us.  She was afraid of us.  Because we look like him…”  A pause.  He shut his eyes.  Izuku held his breath.  “When I walked in, she poured boiling water on me.”

Holy shit.  Izuku’s jaw dropped.  His gaze locked on Shouto in horror as his brain struggled to make sense of what he just heard.

“That’s why I hate fire.  It’s not just that it burns.  It’s about what it represents.”  Shouto pushed off the wall and got in his face.  “That’s why I need to beat you.”  Izuku’s brows curved.  “Father doesn’t give a damn about either of us, only his pride.  I’d I’m going to destroy that pride by proving I don’t need his power to surpass All Might.  Prove that the problem was always him.”  With a final piercing look, he walked away.

Izuku, still processing, just stood there.  Cold remained after Shouto left.  It sunk into his bones along with the revelation.  He hurt her so much, she turned on her own kids…

Was she angry and wanted control?  Or was she just that scared, like he said?  …  Does it matter?  He held his breath and counted to ten.  What if he does that to my Mom?  If he went that far with his actual wife, why not his mistress?  He already has her locked down financially.  Exhale.  Shudder.  If I do win, prove I’m a capable hero, what does that mean for her?  Will he start seeing Mom as viable breeding stock?  Izuku gagged.  He’d die before letting that monster touch her again.  I probably would…  It didn’t matter if All Might’s quirk had more raw power, which in that moment Izuku doubted, Endeavor had decades and thousands of fights of experience.  If he wanted to do something to Izuku or Mom, there was nothing he could do to stop him.  What would Shouto say to that?

Wait.  What was even the point of that?  Why did he tell me all that?  What did he want from me?  Izuku clutched his shirt over his heart.  Footsteps pounded through the walls like hundreds of heartbeats again.  Nothing.  He didn’t want me to do anything.  There’s nothing I could ever do to make him like me.  He hates me, and just wanted to take it out on me.  Just like always.  He slid down the wall to the floor.  But why?  What did I ever do to him?  He wrapped his arms around his head.  I was born.  That’s my big crime.  Same with Father.  I exist and it’s my fault and I deserve to suffer for it.  He sniffed.  Why am I crying?  I don’t have it as bad as him.  You heard what he said.  His own mother scarred him over something Father did.  You don’t deserve to get upset when he hurts you…  But it hurts.  It hurts so much.  I try so hard to stay out of his way and he still comes after me.  And it’s not like I have it easy.  I didn’t get any say in my future until All Might’s power forced me forward.  But I’ve never been hit.  Mom never hurt me because she got hurt.  Too bad to be happy, too good to get sympathy.  Izuku should have sucked it up and gone to lunch, or at least gone to get ready for his first match.  Instead, he sat there on the ground and cried like the stupid worthless crybaby he knew he was.

“My boy?”

An awful noise, something between a hiccup and gasp, escaped Izuku’s throat.

“My boy, what’s wrong?”  Without a hint of hesitation, All Might slotted himself down.  Not touching, but close enough where he could reach out if Izuku wanted him too.  And he did.  Just not yet.  All Might knew this.  He somehow always knew Izuku’s boundaries, even when Izuku didn’t know them himself.  But something he did know was how much he loved him for it.  “I passed Young Todoroki on my way here…”  Izuku flinched.  “Did something h-”

“No!”  He slammed a hand over his mouth.  “I mean.  He didn’t do anything.”  Different from usual anyway.  “I’m just being stupid…”  Izuku had been around the block enough times to recognize the face adults made when they thought he was lying.  But at least this one let it go.

“Young Midoriya, I know for a fact you aren’t stupid,” All Might assured.  “If your history of excellent strategizing on the fly isn’t enough, I’ve seen your grades.  You’re in the top percentile of a top percentile class in a top percentile school!  That’s so far from stupid, you’d need a passport to get there!”

Sniff.  “But it’s not enough…”  All Might stayed quiet to let him talk.  “Good grades don’t make someone a Symbol of Peace.  Or just win the Sports Festival.”  Cautiously, Izuku looked up.  Even under the heavy shadow of his brow, his mentor’s eyes looked like his own.  A fresh round of tears hit him.  “I need to prove I’m worthy!”  I’m so scared I’ll let you down!

“Young Midoriya…”  He sounded so disappointed.  But he gently snaked an arm around his shoulders.  “You proved yourself worthy the day you ran out to save Young Bakugou.  And nothing’s shaken my faith since.  Quite the opposite, in fact.”  He gave him a friendly shake.  “I couldn’t ask for a better successor, I mean it.  You don’t have to worry about proving yourself to me.”  His smile melted some of the cold.  Some of it.

“What about everyone else?” he asked, voice cracking.  All Might’s smile dropped.  “I have to declare myself as the person who’s going to replace you!  I’m nothing like you, All Might!  I’m not big or cool or brave!  Just smiling in front of so many people has been hard!  Even if I am the right person, who, who’s going to look at me, a giant crybaby who barely scrapes by in every challenge, and take me seriously just because I said so!?  No one!  And I-”

All Might squeezed his shoulder.  Not hard, just enough to get his attention and keep him from rambling.  He sighed.

“Now, everything you just said was absolute nonsense.”  He paused for emphasis.  “Except one thing: you’re not that much like me.”  Izuku almost burst into tears for a third time.  “But!  But…  That’s a good thing.”

“H-how?  You’re the best at everything.  Everyone loves you.”

He smiled a moment, then got serious again.  “It’s nice you think that, but it’s just not true.  First of all, they got entire buildings full of people who hate me.  They’re called prisons.”

Izuku snorted at that.

“But beyond that, there’s always going to be people who just don’t like you no matter what you do.”

Like Shouto.  It’s not my fault I can’t do anything to get him to like me.  It’s not my fault I was born or Father didn’t abuse me.

“Take Endeavor for example.”

Izuku’s heart plummeted to his stomach.

“Now, I’ve known the guy about twenty years now, and not once have we had a pleasant conversation,” All Might told him nonchalantly.  “Even now, I bumped into him earlier today-”

Oh no oh no oh no…

“I tried to be friendly, invited him for tea and everything, and he just growled some bullshit about how my ‘time as number one was limited, I’m an idiot for smiling all the time, blah blah blah,’ same as always.”

Izuku’s brain needed a moment to reboot.  Endeavor always spoke of All Might like a buffoon who lived in his own reality and couldn’t tell left from right, let alone how much the other hero despised him.  Ironic.  Once his thoughts started working again, he filed away that tidbit for later.

“I have no idea what I did to offend the guy, but he’s been like that as long as I’ve known him,” he said, exasperated.  “No clue what his problem is, and I doubt I’ll ever get an answer.  Some people are just like that.”

You have no idea…

“But back to you.  I’ve made a lot of mistakes in my life, and my job as your mentor is to make sure you don’t repeat them.”  Another sigh.  “I understand that now…”

“Huh?”

“Kid, I’ve spent decades running myself ragged, and look where it got me.”  The old hero turned his head at an intentionally unflattering angle.  “I didn’t take good care of myself, didn’t respect my own limits, and now, my time as a hero’s been cut short.”  Sadness flashed over his face and left just as fast.  “Now this right here,” he pointed to Izuku’s curled position, “this looks like a prime example of hitting a wall hard.  Which means it’s time to back off a little.”

“What about going beyond?” he asked genuinely.

“Yeah, but that motto doesn’t say how much.  Going just a little beyond is still going beyond!”  A big thumbs up in his skinny form lacked the bombast of his hero persona.  “It’s like cleaning the beach.  You keep at it and do a little better every day.  Take on too much before you’re ready, and you could hurt yourself.”

Izuku frowned skeptically.  “But I can’t keep doing that forever!  You said the embers of One for All are going to go out soon!  The world will still need a symbol!  I need to be ready!”

“Maybe.  But is the exact same symbol what it really needs?”

Izuku slumped forward.  All Might, I’m really not in the mood for philosophy right now.

His mouth flattened like he read his mind.

“You may not see it because you’re young, but the world is changing,” he explained soberly.  “The big showy symbol who could do no wrong and fixed everything in a flash worked for a time.  It inspired people to want to be greater than what they were, while also giving them the security to try for it.  But in the future…”  He closed his eyes, considering his words.  “I think for the future, people will need a hero to meet them where they are.”

“I’m…  Not sure I get it,” Izuku admitted.

“How about this: my generation needed to learn that the impossible was achievable.  Your generation grew up with that as the norm.”  He gingerly took Izuku’s uninjured hand.  “So, they need a hero to remind them that the impossible isn’t the only thing that matters.  All Might is a carefully curated, larger than life figurehead who stands above the masses…”  He squeezed his hand.  “Midoriya Izuku is a human being, who reaches out to other human beings, and says good things are still good even when they don’t change the world.  That people don’t have to be infallible titans to be heroes.  Real heroes.”

Izuku looked up at him like he promised him every star in the sky.  He basically did.

“And part of being a human being is knowing when something is too much,” he stated.  “It’s my fault, really, for putting so much pressure on you to declare yourself when you’re just starting out.  If you feel like you’re not ready, you’re not ready.  Simple as that.”  All Might patted his knees and rose to his feet, joints creaking.  Then he pulled Izuku up with him.  “But I’ll still support you no matter what.”

“A-All Might!” Izuku croaked.

He rolled his eyes with a smile.  “Oh, no more of that, come here.”

Izuku’s brain stopped working as his hero guided him into a hug.  His arms easily encircled the man’s thin torso, yet just one of said man’s hands could easily cover the distance between the far edges of Izuku’s shoulder blades.  All Might always made him small in either form, but in a good way.

“I’m proud of you.  You’ve done amazing so far,” he whispered.  “You don’t have to prove yourself to anyone.”

His brain shot back into overdrive.  While his mentor rubbed his back, a daydream about what would happen if he told him everything right there hit him hard.  All Might would scoop him up and carry him far away where he never had to face any Todoroki ever again.  He’d rescue Mom from her shit job and give her all the money she needed to live comfortably.  Maybe even go back to law school.  Then he’d tell the whole world about how terribly Endeavor treated his family.  All his fans and sponsors would reject him, even the Hero Public Safety Commission would revoke his license.  He would never be a hero again, and Izuku could become one without fear or obstacle.  And All Might would be by his side the whole time, telling him how proud he was to be his father.  How happy he was just to know him.  Izuku looked up into those blue eyes again, the ones that didn’t make him ashamed of his own.  It was a silly, childish fantasy for sure, but it made Izuku feel better.

All Might told him to smile through his fear, so that’s exactly what Izuku did as he stepped out for the first tournament match.  The cheers rattled his bones same as when he first left the tunnel.  Only this time, his classmates cheered with them.

“Get ‘em, Midori!”

“You got this dude!”

“Show that cabbage head what for!”

He waved to them only slightly awkwardly.  They all but ignored him up to that point, but now they chanted his name like his biggest fans.  Whether that translated into actual friendship after the festival remained to be seen.

Kacchan didn’t cheer, and Shouto wasn’t there at all.

He’s not even going to watch?  Not even to study my techniques?  His smile faltered.  Is he that confident he can beat me?  Even after everything today?

Endeavor watched.  He literally glowed like a beacon between the stands.  Did he stand so he wouldn’t burn anyone with the flames he refused to put out, or did he just think he was too good to sit with the rest of the crowd?  Either way, his crossed said all that mattered:

I’m watching you.

You and the rest of the world.  You aren’t special, Izuku stewed.  Sadness gave way to simmering rage.  One day, when I’m a successful enough to support Mom, I’ll tell everyone.  The whole world.  I won’t even do it tastefully like in a memoir or something after he’s dead.  I’ll hold a press conference with a slide show and everything!  Even if he or Shouto makes it to number one, their legacies will be tarnished forever.  His eyes still itched from crying.

His actual opponent entered the stage.  Shinsou Hitoshi.  Hero Course reject from class 1C.  One of the only non-Hero Course students to make it past the first round.

“The dark horse,” Present Mic called him.

As the title suggested, no one noticed him much leading up to this moment.  Izuku certainly hadn’t; Shouto literally dominated the last round until the end.  Shinsou’s strategy had apparently been to hang back and only do enough to qualify for the next round without drawing attention.  And it worked.  Izuku had no idea what to expect.

The last moments of the dodgeball round replayed in his mind as he walked to the starting point.  Shinsou was one of the only members of the other team to survive the firing squad at the end.  After the volley, he emerged from behind fallen teammates untouched.  A cluster of them.  A few kids from class B, plus Ojiro.  They all circles around him.  Like they were defending him.

But why?  Were they friends?  Ojiro didn’t say anything back when Shinsou showed up outside their classroom.  But why else would they all take hits for this one guy?  He didn’t pass the practical exam, but still made it to the final round of the Sports Festival.  What’s the difference?  Did he train a bunch like I did?  Three months instead of ten?  What’s his quirk?

Izuku scanned him.  His walk.  The way his clothes hung from his body.  Anything to indicate a quirk or fighting style.  Shinsou didn’t have much to impose.  Even at a distance, he looked almost emaciated compared to Izuku’s muscular form.  His eyes drooped above dark circles indicating he needed a good nap.

Both reached the markers.

“You boys know the rules?  Anything less than lethal force is fair game.  Quirks or otherwise, clear?” Midnight said, hand over her mic.

Shinsou smirked the way one might at an indulgent meal.  “Crystal.”  Izuku flinched when he made eye contact.

Wait.

“Fighters ready!”

Izuku fell into a defensive stance.  Shinsou didn’t move at all.

Robots.  We fought robots in the entrance exam.  Here it’s just…

“Get set!”

People…

Shinsou’s fists tightened at his sides.  He turned his head down, making the dark circles under his eyes appear even darker.  But the eyes themselves spoke of a deep, primal hunger.  Not once had he taken those eyes off him.

Izuku’s own widened.  Mind Control!

“Fight!”

Flinch.  He blocked his face.  Nothing happened.

“Uh?  Kids?  The matched started…” Midnight encouraged.

I can still move?  Izuku’s feet shuffled.  So the mind control isn’t instant.  It must need a trigger.

“Hiding behind your hands?  What are you, five!?” Shinsou mocked.

He lowered his arms but kept his face down.  Might be eye contact the way he looked at me.  His body tightly shifted into a fighting stance.

“Why don’tcha come and get me?”

The crowd almost drowned out the footsteps.  Izuku spun, wind from Shinsou’s punch brushing his face.  The other boy stumbled.

“Oh yeah?  How about this?”  Another easy dodge.  Shinsou punched loudly.  Izuku didn’t have a lot of hand-to-hand training, but this guy had even less.  He grunted before every swing, giving him away.  “Not even gonna look at me, huh?  I’m not even good enough for that!?”

Izuku held his tongue.  Maybe his quirk is activated by some sort of call and response.  He risked opening his eyes, but still faces the ground.  Shinsou attempted a kick, only for his shin to meet Izuku’s knee.

“Gah!” he winced, hopping back.  “You entitled fucking asshole!”

Or maybe he’s just a jerk.  Izuku waited for his next move.  If I can bait Shinsou towards the boundary, I can throw him out.

Instead, he started talking again.  “How’s it feel?  Being so goddamned sure of yourself you don’t even have to pretend to put up a fight!?  Tch.  But it’s always been like that for you, huh?”

What is he talking about?

“Not everyone gets to be born with a combat quirk!  The rest of us don’t get our dreams handed to us!”

Oh.  Izuku locked his teeth behind his lips.  I guess it must look that way from the outside.  I basically won the last match by myself.  I thought I had a hard time in the entrance exam.  With his quirk, he was probably even worse off.

A fist suddenly burst into view.  Izuku didn’t dodge in time.  Shinsou uppercut him in the forehead, sending him wobbling back.

“You’ve had it all handed to you!  You’ve never had to work for anything!”  This went beyond taunting.  He’d been hurting a long time. 

Izuku empathized.  Before All Might, before One for All, he knew the deep primal truth that no matter how hard he worked, nothing would change his lot in life.  Without a quirk, he couldn’t be a hero.  Simple as that.  No matter how hard he clung to his hope of beating the odds.  But he got out, Shinsou was still there.

Izuku tried to snake around him, but he tripped him up.  He narrowly missed a stomp to the leg.

“You’ve never been made ashamed of being alive!”

That gave him pause.  That point he hadn’t gotten away from.  Endeavor’s fire burned in the corner of his eye. 

Illegitimate.  Bastard.  Living scandal.  Shinsou’s words buried themselves among those others digesting Izuku’s soul.  He spun from another hit.  Dust got in his mouth.  When Shinsou punched him in the stomach, he spat in his face.  The crowd oohed.

Both froze.  While Shinsou wiped the spit from his face, Izuku seethed at him like a stew pot about to boil over.  The locked eyes.

Nothing happened.

“What’s with the face?  I’m not even good enough for your spit?”

So it is voice-based.  This approach, Izuku countered.  He dunked under Shinsou’s blow to nail him in the same spot on the stomach.  Sputtering coughs overtook his next words.

“Angry?  You aren’t, heh, you aren’t too good to get mad?”

If there was anything of value Izuku learned living among Todorokis, it was how to keep his mouth shut when he was being insulted.  But this time, he had a way to make it stop.  This time, he attacked first.

“Gah!  Shit!”  He clutched his thigh.  “We fighting dirty?  I know it’s not because you don’t think you can win without it.”

Izuku gritted his teeth.  Will you shut up?  He beat back a growl.  Any noise could potentially trigger his enemy’s quirk.  And yes, Shinsou was his enemy.  He admitted it.  The words got to him.  Izuku’s entire life revolved his shame.  But if he won, it wouldn’t have to anymore.  And Shinsou stood between him and that freedom.

“I bet you think you deserve this!  Mommy and daddy raised an entitled little shit who gets whatever he wants because you were born right!”

If you don’t shut up, I’ll make you!  Izuku shoulder-checked Shinsou off balance, then grabbed his arm before he could his the ground.  It was thin.  Thinner than Kaminari from earlier.  Izuku wouldn’t need his quirk.  He spun on his heel.  Nails dug into skin.  Shinsou slammed hard into Izuku’s back.  Not looking at him, he could imagine him as Shouto.  And he yanked until he felt the bone dislocate.

“Gyah!” Shinsou wailed.  He couldn’t even finish the sound before Izuku hauled him over his shoulder.

I don’t need to justify myself to you!

The crowd erupted in time with Shinsou hitting the ground.

“Midoriya Izuku wins!”

That’s right!  That’s what you get!  Izuku, face stuck in a snarl, watched him cough against the hard ground outside the lines.  Must have had the wind knocked out of him.  Try and say something now!  All the noise around him granted euphoria for the first time, more for the lack of insults instead of the presence of cheers.  And they wouldn’t start back up again.  Not from this clown.  He lost his shot at the hero course.  He’d go back to Gen Ed and Izuku wouldn’t have to see him until next year’s festival.  The one asshole he could shut up without fearing for his future.

“Of course…” the boy on the ground hacked.  He pulled himself up slowly, wincing at unseen injuries.  Shinsou looked back at Izuku once.  Righteous anger still burning, but buried.  He squeezed his lips shut, and left the stage.

The stew split.  Izuku hiccupped, suddenly near tears.  If he had a single vindictive bone in his body, it was small and underdeveloped.  Anger hit hard, but it only came in brief waves.  He lacked the endurance for drawn out revenge schemes like his father or half-brother.  Though it never passed so quickly as it did after slamming Shinsou into the ground.  The satisfaction of watching him limp away warred with the disgust it caused.

Does…  Hurting people make me feel better?  Not a pleasant thing to learn about oneself.  Perhaps he wasn’t as different from his not-family as he thought.  As a child, he pointed out things he had in common with Fuyumi and Natsuo to ‘prove’ he was their brother.  Now, the mere notion set him emotionally adrift.  Luckily, he had a safe harbor to tread water in the form of All Might.

“Good job, kid.  Great recovery out there!” the man said once he came back to the tunnel.

“Thank you,” he answered plainly.

“Oh…”  He wrapped his arm around Izuku’s shoulder again.  “Don’t let that guy get to you.  It’s one thing to be upset at misfortune, it’s another to take it out on people who have nothing to do with it.”

You mean like I just did?  He sighed quietly.  I mean, yeah we were supposed to fight, but I still feel scummy.  Am I being selfish?  All Might gave him a little squeeze.

“You earned your spot in the Hero Course fair and square,” he reminded.  “Your quirk too.  Everyone else in this stadium was born with their powers, you earned yours.”

“…  But what if I wasn’t meant to have a quirk, and that’s why I was born without one?” he mumbled, not meaning All Might to hear.  He chopped the top of his head.  “Ow…”

“Hey.  Don’t say stuff like that.  It’s nonsense and you know it.  Just because was born without great power doesn’t mean they somehow don’t deserve it.  Vice versa too.  Someone with power right out the gate doesn’t automatically have more merit than anyone else,” he ranted.  “Talk like that is how people got trapped under the divine right of kings, and we got rid of that crap centuries ago.”  He snorted.  Before they rounded a corner, All Might stopped him.  “Besides,” he turned Izuku to face him, “you wouldn’t say that about me, would you?”

“What?  No, why would I…”  The words suck in.  Izuku’s eyes widened.  “You.  You were…?”

“Quirkless.  Just like you,” he declared with a proud smile.  “Bit more common in my day, but still rare.”  Izuku stared up flabbergasted.  All Might laughed hardily.

“…  Why didn’t you tell me?”  He sounded hurt.  More so than he meant.

“Never came up, I suppose.  Probably another overcite on my part, sorry.”  He rubbed the back of his head, then crouched to Izuku’s level.  His smile instantly put him at ease.  “I know firsthand the impulse to tear yourself down.  And I also know that it’s complete and utter bullshit.”  Both hands gripped his shoulders.  Lightly.  Like the gentle weight of the blankets Izuku tied around them as a child to use as capes.  “You, Midoriya Izuku, are a good person.  And you’re going to be an even greater hero.  Deserving isn’t a factor, little prince of nonsense.”  Another squeeze.  “But, for the record, I think you do.”  All Might didn’t need to pull him in that time.  Izuku threw his arm around the man’s neck with a quiet sob.

“I’m sorry!  I’m sorry I’m doing this again…”  He tried to pull away, but All Might kept him close.

“It’s alright.  We can do it as many times as it takes for you to get the message that you deserve to succeed and be happy.”  The man sighed around him.

Even in his weakened form, Izuku felt the power of his exhale.  He was safe like that.  Like he was meant to fit in his mentor’s arms.  Just being near eased his heart, but this?  This was a hearth to a candle.  The only comparison that came to Izuku’s mind were those videos where someone restores old rusty tools.  Grime scraped away, broken edges sanded down, polished to perfection.  Made right.  Maybe it was One for All reacting to the embers it left behind with All Might.  Maybe it was just love.

Still hugging, All Might stood up and took Izuku with him a foot off the ground.  He set him down carefully.

“You’re alright, kid.”  He ruffled Izuku’s curls.  “Now, I gotta head back to the other teachers before they get suspicious.”

“Okay,” he tried and failed to hide his disappointment.

A chuckle.  “Oh, don’t be like that.  You wanna catch the next match, don’t you?”

“Oh no, did it start yet!?”  Without thinking, he ran the corner and up the stairs.  Then stopped.  All Might smiled just as warm as ever.  “Bye, All Might.  And thanks!”

“You’re welcome, my boy,” he said, then turned to head the other way.  “Say hi to your friends for me!”

Izuku nodded, and continued.  The speakers announced the second match: Kacchan versus Uraraka.

This I need to see!  He flew up the stairs like his life depended on it, already formulating hypotheticals for how Uraraka could beat his former friend.  So caught up in the excitement, he didn’t notice the halls get hotter.  Izuku burst out of the stairwell with a smile on his face, and ran straight into his father.

“E-Endeavor!” he squealed.

His eyes narrowed a moment, then softened so slightly most people wouldn’t have noticed.  Most people didn’t grow up where reading him constituted a necessary survival skill.

“Izuku…” he said, tone unclear.  Just because reading him was a necessary skill didn’t mean Izuku was always good at it.  He backed away to get some relief from the heat.  Endeavor stepped closer.  “Your performance so far today has been…  Unexpected.”

His fire made up most of the light in the hall.  Wherever it touched Izuku felt exposed.  He scanned for potential escape routes other than the stairs his father now blocked.

“It’s been one thing to hear about your quirk.  See a recording…”  Fire flickered in time with the rumble of his hum.  “It’s been another to be in its presence.  Even up in the stands, I have felt its power.  Though you use it fleetingly.”  That one had some disappointment in it.  “But your lack of quirk use has left open the floor you see your other characteristics.”  Another step towards him.  Izuku froze in the heat.  “Determination.  Strategy.  Perseverance.  The ability to command the respect of others.”

Izuku stood waiting for his next words a while.  Panicked, he tried to find something to say as he assumed he was expected.  But upon looking up, Endeavor closed his eyes.  Contemplating.  He didn’t know what to say.  The panic didn’t subside.

“I admit, you’ve come much farther than I thought you would.”  A heavy hand dropped hard on his shoulder.  “I’m proud of you, son.”

Izuku caught a choked squeak before it left his mouth.  “Th-thank you.”

His fear and worry boiled away into something else entirely.  As much as he feared and loathed his father, he was still his father.  And Izuku spent his whole life wanting what any other son wants: he father’s approval.  Between daydreaming about never having to deal with him again were the moments of longing for him to change.  Be the kind of good dad he saw on TV who spent happy, quality time with him and supported his dreams.  Who was proud of him.  And here that was.  Endeavor was proud of him.  Izuku got what he wanted.  His empty stomach boiled.  He didn’t feel better.  Because nothing changed.  Just like how Endeavor only acknowledged his hero journals so far as they indicated his potential usefulness.  Him being proud wasn’t a sign he cared, a relief from his impossible standards.  It existed as a cold reminder that his approval, his love, was and always will be conditional.  Izuku’s skin went numb to the temperature.

Endeavor patted his shoulder twice before retracting his hand.

“But it’s no time to become complicit.  You’re facing Shouto next,” he reminded, back to his usual tough bravado.  “I know he spoke to you earlier.”

Izuku had too much fuzz in his head to react like he normally would.

“I don’t know what he said to you, but whatever it is doesn’t matter.  Neither, in this moment, does his future.  What matters is now.”  In another context, that might have been encouraging.  “He needs to learn his place, and you may be the only person in this competition who can put him in it.  Don’t hold back.”

Izuku stared at his shoes.

“Well?” Endeavor growled.

“Yes, Sir,” he responded robotically.

“Good boy.”  He patted his arm again.

Izuku didn’t watch him go and the arena drowned out his footsteps.  The temperature didn’t change for him.  Earlier, he wanted to bury himself in the ground after being so high up on the obstacle tower.  Now, the idea seemed more appealing than ever.  Quit this whole mess and become dirt.  He’d never be a hero, but he wouldn’t have to feel the worst of the aftermath anymore.

Vaguely, his classmates cheering from the end of the hall outside.  All he had to do to join them was take a few steps.

If I don’t go out, they’ll think I think I’m too good for them.  Like Shouto, what remained of his conscious brain pointed out.  His joints cemented together.  How would the others react seeing him like this?  They already didn’t think much of him.  If I stay put, All Might will come find me again.  He did before.  Izuku remained alone.

“Ladies and gentlemen, it’s the match we’ve all been waiting for!  No, it’s not the finals yet, but it’s the fated battle between the two titans of this year’s festival!”

“You’re supposed to be unbiased,” Aizawa warned.

“Hey!  What about me, asshole!?” Kacchan shouted off to the side.

“In the north corner, we have the ice-cold son of the flaming number two hero!  The frozen wall who’s been the overwhelming one to beat since he first stepped onto our stage.  Rumor is he’s got some fire power too.  Will we see it?  Let’s hope so!  It’s Todoroki Shouto!”

He walked on with the same dull stoicism that was his baseline.  Endeavor must have spoken to him, how else would he know about his ‘talk’ with Izuku, but seemed unaffected.  Izuku couldn’t say the same.  Gravity felt doubled as he climbed the stairs on shaky legs.

“And then from the south, it’s the pint-sized powerhouse who’s thwarted Todoroki’s efforts at victory at every turn.  He’s managed to climb to the top of the ranks and into everyone’s hearts, and that’s after only using his quirk once today!  But I think we’re about to see much more of it if he wants to win!  It’s Midoriya Izuku!”

The crowd chanted his name again like in the obstacle climb.  Izuku didn’t wave to them this time.  A paranoid part of his brain worried that Todoroki would attack him the second he broke eye contact.  In his first-round match against Sero, (Izuku never did rejoin the class, instead watching the livestream on his phone), Todoroki dealt a single, instantaneous winning blow seconds in.  It might have been sooner if Sero’s even faster first attack hadn’t caught him off guard.  Izuku ran the mental math.  His finger smashes took a few seconds to charge.  If he attacked first like Sero, there was a not so small chance it wouldn’t take out Todoroki leave him room to counter before Izuku had the chance to set up his second blow.  Same problem if he let Todoroki get the first hit.  He had to attack at the same time he did.

They met in the middle.

“Let’s have a good clean fight, okay?” said Midnight.  “No excessive force.  No killing blows.”

Izuku instinctively straightened up before bowing.  Shouto didn’t react.  Good sportsmanship was beneath him too.  Or maybe it was just Izuku.

You really are the worst.  He kept his straight posture.  If he wasn’t already shaking, his heartbeat alone would have been frantic enough to rattle his body.  This was the moment Shouto had been waiting years for.  Cart blanche to hurt Izuku however he wanted short of killing him.  Maybe I should let him.  Murder would kill his hero career in the cradle.  Maybe ruin Endeavor’s reputation too, the way he always talks about how our actions reflect on him.

The man himself loomed over Shouto’s shoulder in the background.  He moved from the tunnel to lean on the rail like an excited child to watch his two sons try and kill each other.

To watch Shouto try and kill me, Izuku corrected himself.  He’s the project, I’m the scandal.  He doesn’t give a damn about me.  His heart skipped a beat.  He won’t let me be a hero, even if I win.  Even if he was telling the truth and he’s proud of me.  Nothing I do will ever be worthy…

Finally, Izuku broke away from both of them to look up at the teachers’ booth.  Like a lost sailor finding the north star after a storm, just enough relief came with the sight of familiar golden locks. 

He’s not the one I have to be worthy of.  As dark as his world felt, the only way out was forward.  Back to Shouto.  I won’t throw my life away out of spite like you.

“Combatants, take your places!”

They moved to the starting positions.  Izuku exhaled slowly as he fell into his stance.  Shouto did the same.  At least he was taking him seriously as an opponent.  For once.  Maybe the only time.  And maybe the only time Izuku was allowed to fight back.

Actually, no.  I don’t need to be worthy.  I don’t have to prove myself to anyone!  He sucked in air and grabbed his wrist.  I’m not going to win this match for All Might.  Or Endeavor, or Mom, or my hero career, or even to teach you a lesson!  He glared daggers at Shouto.

“Get ready!”

I’m doing this for me!

“Begin!”

Ice immediately took up Izuku’s vision.  Half a second later, he sent it flying back in pieces.  He didn’t wait for a second strike before sending his own.  The bandages on his fingers evaporated.  Snow and dust kicked up over the field all the way back into the audience.  Lost hats danced in the flurry.  Shouto put up an ice wall behind himself to keep from being knocked out of the ring, so long-range wind blasts were out.  But the sparkles in the air gave him an idea.

Shouto launched his second wave, and Izuku aimed his counter lower.  Instead of flying backwards, the blast shot debris straight up in the air, covering the field in falling chunks and mist.  Izuku ran in.  Close range might have enough power to hit him through the wall.  Better yet, he could flank his left side where he was less guarded.  Assuming he stuck to his anti-fire promise.  Stubborn ass like him made those odds good.

Speaking of which, Izuku heard crunching steps to his right.  Shouto had a similar idea to use the mist as cover.  Difference was he didn’t bother being quiet.

Izuku lined up a shot, fingers throbbing.  The steps ran right in front of him.  The mist cleared just in time to see Shouto’s face a foot from his hands.  Smash.  He sailed into an ice pillar.  Said pillar expanded over the ground faster than Izuku could move.  It knocked him back while trying to jump, trapping his foot.

Dammit!  Izuku struggled to stay upright on the slippery ice which trying to jiggle his foot loose.  Across the field, Shouto recovered from his last hit.  Izuku was a sitting duck.  No choice!  He forces his broken fingers into a fist and slammed it down.  The shockwave broke his foot free and canceled the new attack.

Shouto saved himself with an ice wall again.  Wind knocked out of him, he coughed clouds of hot air.  Izuku, also panting and clutching his broken arm, stumbled back into his fighting stance.  His skin started turning red from the damage.  Blood dripped onto the ice.

“You’re injured,” Shouto stated.  “Barely two minutes in and you’re falling apart.  Why are you destroying yourself for a school event?”

Izuku bristled.  “A school event!?” he snapped.  “Were you not paying attention this morning!?  My future is on the line!”  He used a finger on his other hand to blast him again.  Shouto blocked it, but slower this time.  “But of course you don’t take this seriously.  You don’t have to!”  Another smash.  “You get to rebel!  You get to half-ass everything you do without consequences!”  Cold air scratched his screaming throat.  “I have to go all out!  I don’t have a choice!”

Shouto ice-bridged away from his next attack.  It shattered faster than he could make more, so he had to jump down onto a new ramp.

“You think I had a choice in everything that’s happened to me?”  He set up a tall wave that stretched over Izuku’s head.  A smash straight up would leave his feet vulnerable to getting caught again.  He crossed his arms and broke a finger on each hand.  “A father who sees me as an object and a mother who hates me for looking like him!  You think I chose that!?”

“And that means you’re justified in everything you’ve done to me!?”  Izuku’s voice cracked.  “I didn’t choose to be born!  I didn’t choose to be made ashamed of existing every day!”  He charged forward, quirk powering up.  “By you!”  Smash.  Shouto stepped back, stunned.  The force of the blast only slowed him down a moment.  “You’re afraid of pushing back against him too hard, so instead you’ve pushed me down every day we’ve known each other!  Just like he does because he can’t fight All Might!”  A low blow and they both knew it.  But the fact of the matter was Izuku was at a disadvantage and needed to use every avenue he had.  Same as Shinsou earlier.  He already thinks the worst of me anyway.  “Neither of you think you have enough control, so you take your anger out on someone weaker than you!  And you both treat me like a disposable pawn in your own asinine revenge schemes!”  Shocked, Shouto fumbled his wind up.  Izuku was too fast for him.  Egg in the microwave…  He punched him hard in the stomach, sending him flying.  Shaved ice kicked up around where he fell.

“I’m, I’m nothing like him!” he argued between coughs. 

“Aren’t you!?  You said you wanted to measure your strength against mine!  Just like him!  So far, you’re failing!” Izuku taunted, clenching his shattered fingers.  “All these injuries are self-inflicted!  You haven’t put a scratch on me!”

“I am nothing like him!”  Shouto rode an ice wave towards him.  “Did he put you up to this?  Or did you finally grow a spine of your own!?  Who are you to talk!?  You’re just his bastard!”

Izuku charged straight on.  “How is that my fault!?”  He threw a hunk of ice into his face, distracting him.  “You think I like being treated like a living scandal!?”  He ran around the wave to jump him.  Shouto threw up another wave that Izuku needed to smash away.  “All I ever wanted was for us to be friends!  Brothers!  I thought, heh, I thought we could shoulder the burden together!” he ranted.  They exchanged equal blows that knocked them both back.  “Because you were the only other person who understands how awful this whole mess it!  But you’ve spat in my face at every turn!”  He crossed his arms again and let off two blasts in sequence.  The first destroyed Shouto’s attack, the next pushed him into another wall.  “But I’m done.  I’m so done.  I’m done trying to win your respect.  I’m done living in fear.  And like hell am I ever going to work for either of you!”

“Then why are you ripping yourself apart!?”  He pointed to Izuku’s mangled fingers.

At some point, he started reusing already broken ones.  His pounding heartbeat made itself known through every inch.  Adrenaline smoothed over the agony somewhat.  Perhaps that helped loosen his lips too.

“It always has to be about you.  I couldn’t possibly have my own reasons,” he said almost mockingly.  His fingers wouldn’t bend.  He stuck his thumb in his mouth.  “You’re just as self-centered as he is!”  Izuku flicked his thumb out of his cheek, turning another ice wall to dust.

“I’m not him!  I’m not him!” Shouto snarled.

“Then prove it!  Let’s see some fire!” he said without thinking.

“What?”

“You want me to believe you aren’t just as petty?  You want me to see you different?  Stop holding yourself back to prove a point to him!”  Bold move to taunt an opponent on the ropes to use better moves.  But that was hardly at the forefront of Izuku’s mind.  Like he said, Shouto had the option of putting arbitrary limits on himself whenever he felt like.  Izuku had to risk everything just to scrape by.  Abuse or not, he had no right to tell Izuku he had everything easier.

“Shut up!”  Sharp crystals burst in every direction.  Izuku jumped and shaved the points off a petal of the giant ice flower.  Shouto stood at the bottom, covered in frost, shaking.

“You’re shivering, Todoroki.”  His head shot up at his family name.  His family name.  Not mine.  He’s not my brother.  Izuku tore down the hill, grabbing an icicle on the way.  “Why don’t you warm yourself up!?”

“No!”  His attacks got slower.  Easily dodged.  “Fire is nothing but a weapon to inflict pain!”

Izuku threw a handful of snow in his face.  “This hurts too.”  He sidestepped and slashed Shouto in the back of the knee with his own ice.

He collapsed on it with a yell, sending another burst in time with hitting the ground.  Izuku leapt clear just in time.  Shouto made himself some high ground like in the dodgeball match, but not as high as fast.  The stadium screens zoomed in on the blood in the ice.  First instinct was to break it up again, but his fingers wouldn’t move.  He couldn’t even feel his heartbeat in them anymore.

“If it’s an endurance match you want, you know I’ll be the one on top!  Unless you want to try breaking your toes!” Shouto called down to him.  Suggested by anyone else and Izuku might have been tempted to try.  “You want a comparison to Father?  How about wasting your time fighting impossible odds, taking stupid risks for minimal returns?”

Izuku grumbled.  He needed a new tactic to tip the scale.  Maybe I can break the pillar under him like before, but this time launch myself and throw-

“Or maybe you get that from your gold-digging slut of a mo-”

“Enough!” he screeched.  One for All snapped his ankle in two, sending him flying towards Shouto.  Frozen spikes rose to meet him.  In a split second, Izuku forced a snap to push him higher.  He grabbed a fist full of Shouto’s hair, then used the momentum of his fall to yank the other boy off his pedestal and back down into the ice crater.  No hesitation.  Izuku jumped down, forcing Shouto to retreat.  “Don’t you ever mention my mother again!”  Neither a broken ankle nor a sharp incline up a new ice mountain could slow down his pursuit.  “You wanna keep pretending you’re better than me?  That you’re just a hapless victim and I’m Endeavor’s malevolent lacky helping to keep you down?  I’ve never spoken a word about your mother!  Not once!  To you or anyone else!”  His eyes stung from more than the cold.  “But you insult mine every time we’re in the same room!”  Both of them panted hard, daring the other to make the next move.  Shouto’s injured leg wobbled.  His skin looked somehow paler then usual.  Izuku locked up his shoulders.  “Do you know who that reminds me of?”

Shouto growled, stopping himself short of swinging his left arm.  “I.  Am not.  Like him!”  He tucked said arm behind himself.

Is that all you know how to say?  All the nasty words and hard hits didn’t make Izuku feel better.  Didn’t make him happy.  Does Shouto even deserve this?  He has been hurt a lot.  I could keep fighting without taunting him.  And All Might definitely wouldn’t approve of me taking things this far.  His eyes narrowed.  But All Might isn’t the one fighting.  I am.  And I’m angry.

“If you hate using that arm so much-” Izuku lunged faster than Shouto could react, “-then you won’t mind losing it!”  He jerked his left arm behind his back, dislocating his shoulder and snapping his ulna and radius in his grip.

Shouto cried out louder than ever.  Through the pain, he spun Izuku around into his spike-coated arm.  It was Izuku’s turn to scream as ice pierces his arm and torso.  He lost his grip and tumbled down the hill, crashing into yet more ice.

Okay, maybe that wasn’t a very good idea…  Cold air stabbed his lungs like hundreds of little needles.  Dazed, he struggled to find his footing again in the gravel-like ice pile under him.  Unfortunately, he could feel his fingers again.  They throbbed louder than his thoughts with triple the joints they were supposed to have.  He didn’t know skin could get that shade of purple.  Some purpleish-blue patches went up his reddening arms.  Frostbite.  His new stab wounds made themselves known every time he moved as well.  He sighed painfully.  I can’t do this much longer…

“Is that all you have!?” Shouto yelled at him from atop his mountain.

Are we still doing this?

“You talk a big game, but you still can’t back it up!  If you had just stayed out of my way and accepted your place, we wouldn’t have to do this!”  His voice cracked that time.  He was at his limit too.

“Are you-” he coughed.  Shouting started to hurt.  “Are you talking to me or yourself!?”  Shouto adjusted his broken arm in his grip.  “And aren’t you the one who said I needed to learn to fight back earlier?  Which is it!?”

Shouto growled instead of responding.  Sharp ice erupted from his stomping foot.  Out of breath, Izuku couldn’t dodge.  He sacrificed his thumb to the counter, letting out his first real cry of pain he caused himself.

“You, you don’t even know what you want,” he kept talking, too tired to stop.  “You just want to hurt him.  However you can.”

“And?  Is that supposed to some grand moral statement?  I should feel bad for not wanting to go along with the sick plans of the man who abused my mother into breeding me for clout?”  He sounded exhausted too.  The battle devolved into attrition.  “You don’t get it.  You never will.  What, he doesn’t support you being a hero?  Try and tell me that’s worse than being forced to train under threat of violence since I was five!”

“When did I say I had it worse?  Why does what I went through have to be worse for you to take me seriously?” Izuku cried.  Actually cried.  A tear threatened to freeze on his cheek.  “I got here just like you did!  I’ve bled and hurt, not in the same way but it was there, nonetheless!  He’s kept my Mom locked in poverty since I was a baby!  If I don’t do what he says, he’ll ruin her life even more!  And he hasn’t hurt me physically yet, but he will.  He hurt you and your mom, and you’re special.  I’m a quirkless bastard.  Everyone else hurt me, why wouldn’t he?”  It hurt to inhale.  “Why wouldn’t you?”

Shouto stood too far away to read his face, but he hesitated before responding.  “Then what are you saying?”

“I’m saying, I am begging you, to leave me alone!”  He let off a shot of wind.  Shouto blocked it with a wedge in front of him.  “Endeavor will never see who you are beyond his purpose for you, so why do you keep trying to get him to see you when you could be succeeding for yourself!”

“I am succeeding!” he interrupted.  “I’m going to be the number one hero without his fire!”

“Your fire!” Izuku screamed at the top of his lungs.  “Don’t you get it?  You’re still playing his game!”  If there were any solid bones left in his fingers, that was about to change.  Shouto positioned himself at the top of a ledge surrounded by spiked walls with a shield in the middle.  Izuku crossed his arms, lining up his shaking fingers towards either wall.  “If you want to keep shackling yourself to him, even if it’s with spite, don’t you dare drag me down with you!”

The twin winds of his final double smash rushed around Shouto’s shield and off the walls, creating a concentrated funnel that knocked him off his perch.  The force pushed Izuku onto his back as well.

No buzzer.  Not enough to throw him out of bounds.  Izuku hauled himself up yet again and climbed up the slope, gasping with each step.  The top stood tall enough to catch some warmer wind.  Below him, Shouto struggled to his feet yet again.  Ice shuffled under him clear as day even from at least two stories up.  No other sound besides his own breathing.  What?  He looked around for the first time.

Tense silence choked the arena.  One hundred thousand people held their breaths for what would happen next.  No cheers, boos, or sounds of concern for how intense things got.  Not even Present Mic chimed in with commentary.

Could they hear all that?  Izuku’s gaze wandered to himself on the giant screens.  Bruised and frostbitten.  The white stripes on his gym uniform had blood on them.  But he was the one still standing.  He turned to the teacher’s booth, and a familiar flash of gold hair.  They’ll hear me now.  He straightened up, formed the best fist he could muster, and slammed it over his heart.

“I am Midoriya Izuku, the hero who never gives up!  Hand-chosen successor to All Might and the next Symbol of Peace!” he declared to the world.  Silence fell to gasps.  Gasps slowly gave way to roaring applause.  He could have sworn he heard one voice cry for joy louder than any other.  Warmth rose throughout his body.  Izuku peered down on Shouto, who looked more shocked than ever.  His next words were just for him.  “I have a purpose outside my hatred.  Who are you without it?”

A pause.

Shouto grunted again, and blasted fresh ice up the mountain like a reverse flood.

“Let’s end this!”  Izuku jumped off the cliff.  The audience gasped again.  One for All heated up his skin.  He couldn’t make a fist if he tried.  But it didn’t really matter.  His open palm lined up with Shouto’s body at one hundred percent.  “Smash!”  The moment lasted long enough to see the other boy’s face fall into panic.  Then, fire.

Red.  Orange.  Green.  White.  Hot.  Cold.  Everything got quiet again.

Suddenly, Izuku’s face rested on concrete.  He couldn’t move, save his eyes.  Dark grey dust cut by debris.  Ice and concrete rained around him.  Two of everything.  The fog settled enough to reveal a crater in the far arena wall.  Someone fell sideways out of it.

“Midoriya Izuku wins!”

Izuku couldn’t breathe when he came too again.  He hacked and swallowed but nothing got past the back of his throat.  He might as well have been a severed head for all he could feel of his body.  Muffled sounds like hearing underwater rang all around him.  Flashing light stung his eyes.  Hallway lights.  Passing over him.  The stretcher carrying him sent vibrations through his teeth.

A mask got shoved on his face.  Breathing was hard enough, but he couldn’t move his neck to fight it.  He felt rather than heard himself moan in pain.

“-ight.  It’s alright, m-oy,” someone whispered close to his ear.

Izuku couldn’t turn to look either.  He had his chest now, the way it rose and fell and shifted his back against the stretcher.  His legs made themselves known when a large presence lifted under his knees.  Shoulders too.  Giant fingers caressed the back of his head.

“A-All Migh-ich?”

“I’m here, my boy.”  His muscle form looked odd without his smile.  Not since the USJ had Izuku seen him without it.  This time, he looked sad instead of angry.  He looked over his shoulder.  “Are you sure about this?”

A second voice didn’t answer loud enough for Izuku to hear.  Not that he minded.  Listening to All Might was eno-

“Aahhhh!”  Freezing cold water suddenly surrounded him.  His body existed again out of nowhere and every inch of it hurt.  He struggled and thrashed to get out only to knock against his eviscerated fingers for more agony.

All Might grabbed his wrists.  “Midoriya!  My boy, calm down.  Calm down, I’ve got you.”

Izuku wheezed with every breath.  Even his heartbeat hurt.  It plus the water made him aware of every open wound and bone out of place all throbbing at once.  Air leaked out before it could get all the way to his lungs.  Water drained into the gaping hole in his chest, freezing his organs over.  He didn’t dare look down.  Instinct told him to run from what was hurting him, even if it was his own body.

“I know it’s uncomfortable, but it’s gonna be worse if you get out,” All Might explained.  “You’re overheating.  If we didn’t cool you down right away, your brain was gonna start melting and your heart would give out.  This won’t last long, I promise.”  His thumbs ran circles over his palms.  “Try not to panic, and focus on breathing.  I’ll be right here the whole time, okay?”

“O-ok-ay-ay,” he chattered weakly.

“That’s my boy, that’s it…” he repeated.  All Might gently lowered one of Izuku’s hands into the water, making him flinch.  “It’s alright, you can cry, it’s okay.”

It’s okay.  Izuku tried to push through the brain fog to focus on All Might’s hands.  Big.  Calloused.  Warm.  So, so warm.  The one that let go came up to hold the back of his head again.  Fingers gently combed his hair through the water.  His second hand let go.  Izuku’s fingers accidently brushed his side, making him seize up.

“Oh no, I’m sorry.  I’m sorry.”  His real voice came through his hero form.  He carefully rubbed Izuku’s cheek with one hand, and pours a drizzle of water over his forehead with the other.  The air was warm against the wet spot left behind.  “I’ve got you.”  That one reverberated through Izuku’s own chest.  Air finally broke through.

Mom used to do something like this when he was little.  Bath time got him excited and rowdy, then after he had his fun, Mom would hold his head halfway in the water like a magic spell to calm him down so he could actually get clean.  She said he fell asleep on him a few times.  All Might’s big hand cradled him nearly ear to ear, not unlike how Mom’s hand would have compared when he was a toddler.  Sleep sounded nice.  His eyelids weighed heavily but everything still hurt so much.  What remained of his strength let go willingly, and he cried.

“It’s alright, my poor boy.  We’re almost done,” he assured yet again.  His breath brushed his hair.  “Looks like you might need a haircut too.  Some of these ends are singed…”

Izuku’s fingers were cold enough to break off.  Each cough hit like a punch to the chest.

“Not much longer.”  He adjusted to rest Izuku’s head on his arm.  His hand shivered out of the water.  “I’m gonna try and get your shoes off, okay?”

He tried to talk, but had to just nod.  Whatever happened to him, his shoes survived untouched.  All Might undid the laces with one hand.

“Your ears might go under while I get these, is that okay?  I promise I won’t drop you in.”  Another nod.  Quick but gentle, he slipped the first shoe off.  The tip of Izuku’s right ear touched the cold and he flinched again.  “Sorry.”  Second time went slower.  All Might’s hand seemed that much bigger holding his heel than his own hands.

Will One for All make me that big? came a stray thought.  He eyed the shaking free hand.  Straining, he tried to reach out.  All Might noticed, and met him halfway.  He rubbed his palm, mindful of his fingers.  Izuku closed his eyes and sighed.

“Did I really win?” he asked weakly.

All Might squeezed his hand and smiled.  “You did.  You did and I am so proud of you.”  He leaned down, forehead to forehead.  “You were amazing out there, kid!”

“I…  I wo-on!”

“You did!  And…”  He bit his lip.  His next words sounded choked up.  “And you showed the world what they have to look forward to in the new Symbol of Peace.”  Pride poured from every word.  So much Izuku almost felt warm again.

“Alright, that should be enough.  Don’t want to risk sending him to the opposite extreme,” Recovery Girl said.

With an acknowledging grunt, All Might scooped under Izuku’s legs again to pull him out.  Warm air made him gasp.  The adults wrapped him in a towel met for someone much larger than him.  He missed All Might’s hold before he even set him down.

“Well, let’s see the damage…”

A lot.  There was a lot.  Broken ankle.  Broken leg.  Two broken arms.  Concussion.  Four stab wounds, one almost deep enough to puncture his liver.  Small patches of frostbite all over his arms.  His fingers broke into splinters which further cut and pierced the flesh.  Some pieces were too small to be salvaged, and needed to be removed entirely through surgery.  The worse though was his chest.  Third degree burns from his neck to navel, so bad his undershirt melted into his skin.

“What!?”  His head dropped to look and he immediately regrated it.  Pieces of his torso peeled off in ribbons alongside shredded fabric.  He couldn’t tell if the black bits were his shirt or burnt skin.  Bile climbed his throat.  “But it doesn’t even hurt that bad…”

“Because the fire fried your nerve endings,” Recovery Girl told him.  She approached the table with a needle and scissors.  “We’ll start with a local anesthetic.  Better to let you calm down.  I don’t want to put you under right away after so much adrenaline.”  His heartbeat still raged, just like she said.  He looked away when she hooked in his IV.  “Fluids too.”

“Can I-I just have a drink of water?”

“Not until after surgery.  All Might?” she prompted, pointer the needle at his uniform.

“Right.  Let me help you, my boy.”  Steady as ever, he slipped off what remained of Izuku’s gym uniform.  It hurt brushing his fingers, but not as much.

Worse than the needle pricking his chest.  But he whimpered at that one.  All Might held his hand again.

“Can you feel this?” Recovery Girl asked.

“Feel what?”

“Good.”

He heard the scissors cut something.

“Just close your eyes, my boy.  You’ll be alright,” All Might soothed.  He took off the rest of Izuku’s undershirt and guided him to lay down.  The ice bath lingered in his shaking hands.

“We’re done moving him for now.  You don’t have to maintain that form.”  Another cut.  “And you’ll need to leave before I start surgery.”

All Might took a deep breath, then deflated with a slow exhale of steam.  His bangs flopped in front of his face.  Then he smiled the special smile.  Izuku did his best to return it.

The door slammed.

“Where is my son!?” Endeavor demanded.  Izuku swore he felt the table shake.  Or maybe that was just him.

“Endeavor?  I sent Young Todoroki out a few minutes ag-”

“Izuku!”  The room got hotter before he stomped closer.  All Might squeezed his hand again before standing up straight.  Endeavor paid him no mind.  He looked him up and down, grimacing.  “How bad is it?”

“Now you know I can’t just divulge a student’s private medical information.  Not even to a hero,” Recovery Girl snapped back at him.

But she let All Might stay.  He’s my mentor, that’s more important.  Izuku would have smiled at that in isolation.  Now, he braced for what was to come.

The flame beard flickered at his deep breath.  “Izuku is my child.  As his father, it is my right to know the state of his health,” he spoke slightly and only slightly calmer than before.

All eyes turned to Izuku.

“Is this true, dear?” Recovery Girl asked like an apology.

I could lie, came his first impulse.  Then they’d kick him out and I could stay with All Might.  For now.  He bit the inside of his cheek and sniffed.  But then he’d just get me later.  And punish me for defying him.  Pull me out of the hero course even if I win and cut Mom off.  He swallowed.

“Y-yes…”

“What?” All Might gasped.  His mouth hung open.  Izuku’s paranoia twisted his shock into betrayal.  Tears pooled by his eyes, unable to fall while he laid down.  The old hero reached out to touch his face.  Suddenly, Endeavor grabbed his shirt.

“Who the hell are you to be laying your hands on my son!?”  Endeavor violently jerked All Might to the side, where he almost stumbled to the floor.

“Cut that out!  You could knock someone into fragile equipment, not to mention to child!”  Recovery Girl was the only person Izuku had ever seen Endeavor heel to.  He backed up and crossed his arms.

Shouto stood in the doorframe behind him.  A bandage wrapped around his head to cradle his jaw.  Izuku found out later he hit the ground jaw-first when he threw him out of the arena.  It was a miracle he still had all his teeth.

“Well?” Endeavor huffed.

Recovery Girl hit his shin with her cane.  He didn’t react.  But she relayed the summary of Izuku’s injuries.

“Beyond the surgery in his hands, his chest will most likely need a skin graft.”

Izuku cringed.

“Send that information along to Dr. Dasabre at Bogano Specialists.  Wrap him up until the car gets here.”  Like a piece of meat.  The hero hospital at Bogano specialized in treatments out of public view.  That included covering scandals like domestic abuse, excessive force against villains, and civilian caught in the crossfire.  Izuku was born there.

“Bogano!?  That’s over an hour by train, let alone through traffic!”  She glared behind her goggles.  “So discretion is more important than your son’s health?  There is fiber fused to his skin!  If you want to take him to a hospital, he’s taking an ambulance to Mustafu General after I finish treating him.”

“I don’t want more people than necessary involved.”

“I’m already involved!” she spat.  Even All Might recoiled.  “Besides, I know for a fact the staff there don’t have the healing quirks I do.  Without me, Midoriya here could be out of commission for months!  He’ll fall behind his hero training and miss his first work study!  I know for a fact that’s how you made your first connections in the industry, so you know how critical that is!”

That choked Izuku up again.  He’d sit in the sidelines, arms mummified, while his classmates grew exponentially stronger and made connections in the industry thanks to the festival.

“It won’t matter either way.  He’s transferring to Management after the festival break.”

“What!?” Izuku cried.  His voice didn’t sound like his own.  “But…  But I won.  I-I beat Shouto!”

“And you nearly killed yourself doing it!” he shot back.  Izuku’s neck retreated into his body.  “Besides.  You are far too injured to finish the festival, even with Recovery Girl’s quirk.  All this has done is prove you don’t have what it takes.”

His heart skipped a beat, then shattered like his fingers.

Endeavor huffed again.  “Finish treating him.  I’ll escort him to Bogano after.”  He turned to leave.  Shouto slinked out of sight.

“You, you lied.  Didn’t you?  You were never going to let me be a hero…” Izuku challenged.  Maybe it was the sedative, maybe the pain itself, maybe everything together made him too tired to worry about the consequences of talking back.  But that’s what he did.  “Were you?”

“Izuku…” he sighed, then faced him.  “I gave you a task that needed to be fulfilled, and incentive to do so.”

“So you lied.”

“You have a tendency to be weak of heart.  I needed you to rise to the occasion.”  He paused, then added, “And you succeeded.”

“As a measuring stick for Shouto and your stupid scheme!”  His voice cracked more times than his bones.

All Might listened in horrified awe at the edge of the room.  His eyes flitted around while the gears in his head turned.  Just like in the fight videos involving hostages.

“But you exceeded my expectations,” Endeavor continued.  “You’ve made me proud.  That wasn’t a lie.”

“How do I know that?” Izuku scoffed.  Definitely whatever drugs Recovery Girl put in him talking.  Because the self-preservation instincts that should have been saying to stop talking were not getting through to the surface.

His father turned up his nose.  “It doesn’t matter if you know or even appreciate my pride in you.  What matters is that it’s there.”

“Wh-what the heck is that supposed to mean?” Izuku sputtered.  “What good is your pride or whatever if I don’t feel it?  Isn’t that what a parent being proud of their kid is for?  To make me feel better?”

Recover Girl stepped forward.  “Alright, I think that’s enough-”

“It doesn’t.  I’ve never once felt better around you!”  Hardly the bold challenges he threw at Shouto earlier.  Tears and snot choked his already strained voice.  I feel like I’m walking on a minefield every time we’re in the same room.  I feel like I’m stuck playing this stupid game where if I lose, I die, and winning means maybe you won’t be the one who kills me!  He couldn’t quiet get those thoughts into words.  “I hate you…”

“Save it for home,” he said unaffected.  He moved to leave again.

Izuku gritted his teeth.  “We don’t life together.”  Endeavor kept walking.  “Or are you gonna drag me home to threaten Mom in person?”

“Enough!”  That got him.  His eyes flicked to Recovery Girl and All Might so fast Izuku almost missed it.  “You’re clearly too emotional to think straight.  We will continue this discussion once you’ve calmed down and had your wounds treated.”

“No we won’t.”

“Is this a tantrum now?  Screaming and crying in public because you aren’t getting your way?”  His shoulder flames burst out.  “Need I remind you what exposing your self could me for-”

“For your career, I know!  I know, okay!” he shouted into a cough.  “I know because you and everyone else never stop reminding me what a mistake I am!  I’m not a person, I’m a scandal!  I don’t get to make my own choices or dreams because someone might find out I exist and make you look bad!”  Sobs racked his body, jostling his injuries that much more.  He couldn’t hear the shut-up instinct enough to ignore it.  The aching pain clouded every corner of his mind, save anger.  “I know you think I’m worthless.  No, I’m worth less than that considering all the millions of yen you’ve sunk into keeping me secre-”

“That’s not true!” Endeavor spoke up with some emotion for the first time.  He held uncertain eye contact for a while.  “You’ll be an invaluable asset to the family agency the future.  And to your brother.  Now that you’ve fought as equals, you can hold mutual respect, and start forging an even greater bond.”

The engine in Izuku’s brain stalled.  He’s never called us brothers before.  When they were little, he even corrected Izuku when he said something like that.  About any of his siblings, not just Shouto.  The worst part was now he had confirmation Endeavor knew how much it hurt him.  Of course.  Of course, he would pull that card right after I’d decided to give up and move on.  Nothing can ever be real.  It’s all manipulation.  Leverage.  Punish me for being alive, then treat stopping like love.  What Izuku wouldn’t give to scream all that from the rooftops.  But courage was a finite resource.

“Shouto isn’t my brother…”  Fuck Shouto.  Something moved in the doorframe out of the corner of his eye.  Endeavor meanwhile hovered over him, expecting more.  “…  And don’t suddenly act like I’m part of your family now that you want something from me.”

He at least had the good sense to look taken aback.  “Don’t say that,” his father said with a sigh.  He knelt down.  Izuku had never seen him do that before and it put him on edge.  “You are my family.  You’re my son, and I care about you.”  A hot glove touched his hurt fingers, the pulled back when he flinched.  Endeavor looked over all Izuku’s injuries once more, expression turned down.  “I just don’t want you to hurt yourself…”

“Right.  Because you’re a control freak and can’t have me doing your job for you.”  The words tumbled out of his mouth before he could process them.

“Izuku, when have I ever hurt you?” he asked for the second time that day, just as offended.

“Have you not heard a word of what that boy just said?” All Might responded before he could.

“You stay out of this!” Endeavor snapped loud enough to make Izuku’s ears ring.  Smoke came out of his nose.  “Go wait in the hall and keep your mouth shut.”  Then, quieter, “We can negotiate the terms of your discretion once I’m done here.”

Izuku sniffled loudly.

“This is going nowhere.  Recovery Girl, put him under for surgery,” Endeavor ordered.  Izuku couldn’t see where she was from the table, but he didn’t hear any movement.  “Well?”

“If you think there’s enough money in the world to keep me silenced after what I just heard-”

“Then I’ll drown you in litigation for breach of privacy!”  The room boiled as he jumped to his feet.  “What did you hear?  I have an illegitimate son who doesn’t appreciate the opportunities granted to him!  Hardly a criminal offence.”

“No child is illegitimate…”  All Might mumbled.

Endeavor turned to grab at him again, but Izuku interrupted.

“You don’t even consider it abuse when it is physical…”

“Izuku, don’t lie because you think it will buy you sympathy,” he scolded, as if he was nothing more than petulant.  “I have never once struck you.  Not on purpose, not on accident.  I didn’t even let your mother spank you when you were a baby.”

“Yeah, me,” he drawled sarcastically.  “What about everyone else?”

“Izuku!”

“Let him talk!” Recovery Girl interjected.  “Go on, dearie.”

He needed a second to process being encouraged to speak.  He needed to choose his next words a lot more carefully than his current brain function allowed. 

“You, you hurt Shouto,” he opened.  The boy himself appeared in the door again.  “He’s your favorite.  Your prized show dog.  And you’ve been ‘training’ him like a pro since he first got his quirk!”  Even with Izuku’s newfound stance of ‘fuck Shouto,’ training a five-year-old until they puked was bad no matter who it was.  The stadium shook again.  He closed his eyes and imagined everyone was cheering him on.  “Or, what about his mom?  The woman you actually married?  She’s in an institution because the physical stuff was the least bad thing you did to her!”

“He doesn’t know what he’s talking about.  I don’t think he’s even been in the same room as her,” Endeavor grumbled.  The following silence spoke of disbelief.  “You want the truth?  She attacked Shouto when he was very young.  That’s where his scar comes from…”

“Yeah, but why?”

“I said enough!”

“No!  It’s not enough yet!” Izuku wailed.  His chest hurt again, along with everything else.  He closed his eyes.  Nothing else he could move.  “E-everyday since I was little, since I realized I was different, I’ve thought…”  He tried and failed to swallow a lump in his throat.  “I’ve thought…  When am I next?  …  When is he going to turn on me?”

His fingers were static.  His legs cramped like they wanted to bend backwards.  Gears churned the flesh and bones of his chest inside out.  Such a sensation would have seemed inconceivable that morning.

I could have died so many times today…  What if I still am?

Mom stood at a shitty register that barely worked across town.  Did one of the store TVs show the festival?  Did she keep up on her phone between customers?  Did she even know what happened at all?  Would the managers let her take a break to cry if she did?

Izuku wanted to go home.  He wanted to fall into Mom’s arms and cry without being judged.  He wanted to bury himself in the dirt.  Then she would bath him like she used to, running her fingers through his hair.

“I-I watched you hurt your real family.  Your masterpiece kid and your trophy wife.  The people you told me every day were better than me.  And you hurt them…”  How did one pack a lifetime of fear and confusing into understandable language?  “But you didn’t hurt me.  The weak, crybaby, quirkless, bastard.  Bastard, bastard, bastard.  A living scandal.  A statistic waiting to happen…”  All Might flinched at that one.  Izuku turned weakly from him to his father.  “So, why didn’t I get hurt?  I deserve it, don’t I?  I’m not as important as them.  Or…”  Saliva and snot dripped into the back of his throat.  Each word burned that little bit more.  He wanted to stop talking now, but couldn’t.  “Or is it because you didn’t want anything from me yet?  You expected nothing so I hadn’t failed, so I didn’t need to be punished.  But…  But now, now you want something…  A-and I’m just so scared I can’t do what you want and, and you’re finally going to turn on me!”  He voice devolved into a series of broken squeaks.  It may have been the longest his father let him talk and explain himself.  Fear filled his lungs like water.  He forced himself to watch Endeavor’s movements, every twitch of skin and shift in his flames.  Anything to warn him of what he knew was to come.

Izuku festered alone on that silence for a long time.

“Izuku…  My son…” he said.  Endeavor reached out to stroke his shoulder.  All the hairs on his arm stood up.  “I am not going to hurt you for disappointing me.  The only thing that’s going to happen is maybe, maybe, a stern talking to.  And then, you’ll go out and do better.”  He grasped his hand, ignoring how he flinched.  “If you were so worried, you could have said something, and we could have talked about how you feel.”

You fucking liar! Izuku screamed inside.  Outside, he just cried.  He never had the freedom to express how he felt.  He couldn’t even speak without being spoken to first.  Was this a show for Recovery Girl and All Might, or did he really believe he was in the right?  His body started to shut down around him.  He struggled for air like he just ran a marathon.  And yet, the smallest hint of courage remained.  Just enough to call his bluff.

“Then what happened to Touya?”

All the air left the room.  Then came back as a heat wave.  Endeavor gritted his teeth behind a closed mouth.

Oh no…

His father rose up to full height again, crushing his broken fingers.

Izuku cried out in agony.  Like a child begging for help.  I was right!  I was right!

The shadow of another hand blocked the light above him.  Izuku did his best to brace for impact, but it never came.

“Who are you to lay your hands on my boy?”

“A-All Might!?”

Izuku opened his eyes.  All Might, steam billowing from a fresh transformation, held Endeavor’s wrist in one hand while glaring harder than he did at the USJ villains.  Then Endeavor cried out in pain.  He crushed his arm like nothing until he let Izuku go, then tossed him aside like he did him.

“Get the hell away from here,” the number one hero threatened.  “I don’t care where you go, but if I see you anywhere on this campus today, everything I just heard goes straight to the press, if not the police.  Understand?”

Endeavor stood up slow and tense.

“Understand!?”  The walls shook.

“Yes…”  Just as tense, he left the room, taking the heat with him.

Izuku couldn’t feel relieved no matter how much he wanted to force it.  He was right.  His father turned on him.  As soon as he left this room, his life was over.

“Not you, Young Todoroki.  You come in here,” he beckoned gently.  The other boy stepped cautiously past his father to a seat on the far wall.  All Might knelt in front of him.  “Was all that true?”  He touched his shoulder kindly, like he did with Izuku. 

Shouto’s face scrunched up; he hadn’t known kind touch in a while either.  “…  Yeah.”  And his voice cracked.  All Might caressed his head, whispering something Izuku couldn’t hear.

“All Might, you’re needed,” Recovery Girl called.

Izuku watched himself in the third person.  Panic and sobs morphed his face beyond recognition.  Liquids dripped from every opening and caked on where they dried.  Oxygen wouldn’t go down again.  Bone shards dug deeper into torn muscle as his fingers shook wildly.  All Might rubbed his palm again.

“Shh, shh, it’s alright.  I’m here.”  He dug his other hand under Izuku’s head to cradle him again.  His thumb massaged a spot behind his ear.  “I’m here.  I’ve got you.  No one’s going to hurt you.”

Izuku wanted to believe him.  More than anything.  But he just couldn’t control the abject terror running through his veins.  His worst fears had just been confirmed, and he had no idea what to expect for the future.  So he just cried.

Recovery Girl replaced his oxygen mask with a different one.  “Count to ten if you can, please.”

“Just relax, my boy.  Everything will be alright now.  I’m here.”  All Might, the man Izuku fantasized about being his father as recently as lunchtime, leaned down and kisses his forehead.  And remained there nuzzling him as the anesthetic took effect.

It won’t last.  It’s too good to be true.  But, focusing on the warm spot where All Might’s lips brushed his skin, Izuku pretended he’d finally been saved until he passed out.

Here’s how it played out: Izuku was deemed too injured to finish the festival and dropped out.  In a surprise move, Shouto also forfeited, citing that he lost fair and square, and refused to take an opportunity he didn’t earn.  As such, Kacchan won by default.  His medal ceremony tantrum became a top trending meme, but actual news sources gave it puff piece attention at best.  The real story was the small, unassuming young man who dominated the whole competition, defeated the favored winner, declared himself the heir of All Might, before disappearing from the finals.  Was he really the successor to the Symbol of Peace, or a show-boater?  Is the Sports Festival as an institution too intense and violent for young teenagers to participate in?  Did the prodigal young man even survive his injuries?

Yeah, I did…  Izuku sighed, fogging up his phone screen.  He wasn’t dirt yet.  People held on to that one even after UA released a statement confirming his hospital discharge.  Theories ranged from a UA coverup to preserve their image to government assassins taking him out to maintain the status quo or something.  It didn’t work.  You couldn’t go to a single hero forum, even the casual ones, without hitting speculation about ‘the hand-chosen successor of All Might.’  Why did he need a successor?  Was he retiring or dying?  What qualified this stupid, frumpy, puny, uncoordinated, overhyped, babyish, unacceptable, cheating, plain, unhinged, psychotic, deranged, hopeless-

He put his phone down.  It wasn’t that he hadn’t been called all those things before.  But the sheer amount.  Izuku didn’t expect the world to embrace him with open arms, thinking back to middle school he would have been skeptical of a successor too, but the stadium cheered.  They chanted his name all day, and when he declared himself, they sounded happy.  All that was gone.

Izuku might as well be dead to the world.  UA students got two days off after the festival to recover, he was entering his third.  Apparently.  Time stopped meaning anything after he woke up in the hospital.  No one but Mom talked to him.  None of his classmates had his number and All Might vanished after a brief visit before he went home.  He still had all his fingers at least.  Though he hadn’t been able to breathe right yet.

Last night’s painkillers wore off.  Throbbing in his chest and hands woke him up.  He couldn’t take more until eight, so he lurked online to distract himself.

He powered through the insults for one theory: him being the secret son of All Might.  They had evidence.  Besides the quirk, posters pointed to B-roll of Izuku rubbing the back of his head, a tic All Might shared.  His hair was curly, like All Might’s when he didn’t have his slicked back.  A long thread compared the structure of his face to a All Might in his prime age, red arrows and all.  And they both had blue eyes.  Just as many raged about how it couldn’t be true, All Might absolutely did not have children, what a betrayal to his fans, but Izuku didn’t care.  No one connected him to Endeavor.  He took more comfort in that than healthy to.

The sun peeked through his blinds.  He’d been awake for hours.

Might as well get up.  Have to eat before taking painkillers, and I have to change my bandages before that, or I’ll fall asleep.  Holding his breath, he dragged himself upright, muscles tensing in pain.  He had to catch his breath before standing up.  Wouldn’t be getting any sleep without the painkillers.  They had him on the real stuff now, not whatever Recovery Girl had him take at the nurse’s office.  It was nice to not think about things, but sleep cut his time putting off the inevitable.  Tomorrow, he started the in the Management Department.  I guess I should check if my uniform’s arrived…

Laughter.  From the kitchen.  A TV show?  Mom’s giggles rang out, alongside another familiar voice.

Izuku stopped, then limped as fast as he could out his door.

All Might and Mom sat next to each other at the table, mugs in hand, laughing.

Am I dreaming?

“Oh!  Young Midoriya!” All Might greeted chipperly.  He beckoned him over.  “Good to see you awake, my boy.  I like your new haircut.”  Izuku touched his hair absentmindedly.  “I’m sorry I didn’t text you, I had to take care of some things and time got away from me.  But I brought breakfast!”

Crepes and fruit lined the table.  The takeout bags had a logo he didn’t recognize, but they looked expensive.

“How are you feeling today, sweetie?” Mom asked.  Her free hand caressed the photo album.

“S-sore?”  He looked back and forth between the two adults.

“Oh, well, you can’t take your pill for another hour.  You think you can power through and eat something until then?  If not, we can try the muscle cream again, that seemed to help you, right?”  She pulled out his chair.  The album opened to toddler-Izuku in his old All Might onsie.  He didn’t move.  “We were just talking, and it might be best for you to take another day home.  You were crying last night and I just saw you come in, you can barely walk.”

“Huh?”

“Principal Nezu will understand, my boy.  Getting back in the action before you’re ready will just make things worse in the long run,” All Might agreed.  “Believe me, I’ve been there.”  He sipped his mug.  Izuku’s mug, actually.  The Gang Orca one he got from the Tokyo Aquarium.  It looked comically small in his hands.  Why was All Might sitting in his kitchen?

“B-but…  I have to start Management tomorrow…” he stated, as upset as he was confused.

All Might and Inko smiled at each other, then him.

“You don’t have to worry about that anymore!”  All Might almost spilled his drink with his exaggerated gesture.

“Wha…?”

Mom smiled smugly, something he’d never seen and did not like.  “It turns out your father lied to both of us.  Shocker.”  Mom didn’t use sarcasm very often either.  “He told me the UA staff knew about our…  Situation.  And not to get involved.  But then All Might told me, while you were asleep at the hospital, that neither he nor Recovery Girl had any idea.”

“A new teacher like me is one thing, but Recovery Girl?”  He shook his head.  “Turns out Nezu didn’t know either.  Your mother was the only parent listed on your forms.”

“But-”

“But he called me the other day.  About the transfer.”  Izuku cringed.  “Did the same song and dance he always does about throwing me on the street if I don’t do exactly what he says.”  She smirked again.  She wore her favorite sweater over her pajamas instead of her work uniform.  “But he can’t make either of us do anything if we don’t need his money.”

Izuku’s jaw dropped, slowly turning to All Might.

“I took care of it.”  Special smile.  “You’re still a hero student.”

His heart popped like a balloon.  Izuku collapsed to his knees with a sob, pain be damned.  He inhaled so hard his chest hurt.  His mother and teacher rushed over immediately.  He grabbed aimlessly at their comforting hands, too overwhelmed to do much else.

“Oh, my sweet boy,” All Might whispered.  He buffed up.  Izuku fit in his arms like a small child.  “Let’s get you somewhere more comfortable…”  He laid him down on the couch, then sat with Mom around him.

“You can cry, baby, it’s okay,” Mom promised, guiding him to lean against her.  She sounded near tears too.

“But…  How did…  What?” he stammered.  A fat tear fell into his mouth.

“It’s no trouble.”  All Might wiped his eyes with his thumb.  “When I chose you as my successor, I made a promise.  That I would stand behind you and raise you, in whatever way I can, no matter what.”

“W-wait, you know?” he asked Mom.

She kissed his temple.  “He told me back at the hospital.”

“You were asleep a long time, my boy.”

“I admit, I wasn’t thrilled my son had taken up such a big responsibility without telling me…”  She poked his cheek, then squeezed him some more.  “But I’m happy someone else realized how wonderful you are.  Especially someone who can help you fulfill your dreams.”

“So, you’re really going to help us?  With money stuff?” he turned to All Might.  Just the house and food?  Are you going to cover everything?  Mom’s not in her work clothes, did she quit?  Is she gonna try going back to school?  Are you really giving that much?  His mind ran faster than his mouth could.

“Don’t worry about it.  Not to brag but I have more money than I could ever spend after donating ninety percent to charity.  It’s a non-issue.”  He ran a hand through Izuku’s curls.  “Only catch is we have to talk to Mom about One for All stuff going forward, got it?”

His lip wobbled.  “And…  E-Endeavor?”

“That’s up to you.”

“You don’t have to see him anymore if you don’t want to,” Mom clarified.

He let out a painful keen, clutching his chest over Mom’s arms.  All Might leaned down to join the group hug.  They accidently bumped foreheads.

“Oh, excuse me!”

“Sorry, sorry…”

Both laughed some more.  Izuku hugged them back like his life depended on it.  The two people he loved most, who loved him most, enveloped him in their arms.  His injuries still hurt, but the warmth and love made the pain worth it.  Anxiety melted off him like frost after sunrise. 

“Only one loose end left to cover,” All Might chuckled.

“What?”  He looked into eyes as blue as his own.

“Your declaration.”

“All Might Confirms Sports Festival Declaration: Introduces His Son And Successor”

The cover story hit all the bases.  Izuku was the child of All Might and an estranged lover who never told him about the pregnancy for fear of media backlash.  All Might later met Izuku by accident after saving him from a villain attack, where he tried to save another student.  As a child, his inherited quirk damaged his small body so drastically, he couldn’t use it.  Functionally quirkless, the article stated.  All Might, inspired by his perseverance through hardship and courage trying to save someone else, agreed to help train him for UA.  During that time, he reconnected with Izuku’s mother and learned the truth.  All Might called it fate at the press conference.  Shouto called it a triple-dog-dare to Endeavor.

He must have visited the article a dozen times by now.  A thick streak lined his phone screen where he scrolled up and down constantly.  One paragraph went over the loose plan of the declaration; they wanted Izuku to decide the when and where of his announcement, and All Might encouraged him at the festival.  Another recounted how All Might was also a late bloomer with his quirk, but the bone braking presented a new problem they were working on together.  A reporter asked All Might if he bore any resentment towards his former partner for hiding his child from him.

“While a part of me is sad I didn’t get to be there for him growing up, I understand her circumstances left her little choice and have nothing but respect for her.  She’s a good friend.  And she raised a fine young man.”

He had his arm around a smiling Izuku in the accompanying photo.

How much of that is true?  Shouto hid his phone in his lap under his desk.  Pointless considering his classmates had yet to shut up about the same story since they arrived.  Sound sounded doubtful the events played out exactly as summarized; All Might or his PR team must have smoothed over the edges to make it read better.  No way it was that simple.  They had no idea.  All Might must have really met Izuku before school, they were already close from the start.  And the quirk?  Could it really be just a similar mutation like Izuku claimed?  And what about his mother?  She didn’t appear in any photos, something about wanting to maintain her privacy.  Something about seeing it actually written down in front of him made Shouto doubt his own theory that his mother hooked up with All Might as well as Endeavor.  In all honesty, it hadn’t even been a theory.  Not really.  More wishful thinking that his father didn’t go that far, he and Izuku weren’t really related, and one day his real father would take him away off their hands someday.  Well, his wish came true, and Shouto didn’t know how to feel.

“Midoriya!”

Every head in the room shot up towards the door.  Izuku flinched awkward as ever at the attention.  His hands were still bandaged.  He cut his hair.

“Is it true!?”

“Is All Might really your dad?”

“How come you didn’t tell us!?”

“Probably because he would be a target, genius.”

“Stupid Deku!  First you lied about your quirk, then your parents!?”

“Is that what you guys came clean?  Villains attacked anyway?”

Everyone crowded around him, asking all manner of obvious questions.  Only Shouto and Bakugou remained in their seats.  Izuku backed up stammering half responses.  Then, the brown-haired girl, Uraraka, stepped forward.

“Are you alright, Deku?  You looked really hurt after your match, and you’ve been gone a few days…”

Izuku smiled genuinely at her.  “Thanks, I’m okay.”  He held up his fingers.  “I had to have some surgery, but I should be alright now.  And…”  His eyes flashed to Shouto a moment, making him tense.  Izuku ignored him and rubbed the back of his head bashfully.  “I had Mom and Dad to take care of me at home.”

Shouto’s skin crawled.  He knew a rehearsed line when he heard one.  And yet, he couldn’t detect a hint of insincerity.  He had his mom obviously, but did All Might really take the time to look after him?

“In your seats!” Aizawa commanded from the door.

The crowd dispersed.  Izuku’s smile never faded.  He didn’t spare Shouto a second glance.

Back in the infirmary, All Might never left his side.  Even after he succumb to anesthetics, with Recovery Girl cutting his hands open, he stood a constant vigil, whispering kind nothings so saccharin they bordered on parody.  Izuku couldn’t hear them, Recovery Girl didn’t care, and why go to all that trouble just to make Shouto, no, Endeavor, jealous?  Nothing.  The whole thing seemed at first an elaborate ruse to get Father to publicly claim Izuku.  Now, days deep in the charade smiling like an idiot after he almost died to unsuccessfully prove a point, it could only be genuine.  But still: why?

He pondered the answer throughout homeroom.  Amidst all Izuku’s manic ramblings, he made time to expose how Father treated Shouto.  After he spend however long forcing him to break himself to keep up with the fight.  And a lifetime of hell before that.  Would All Might have comforted him if he hadn’t included that part?  Touched his head like Mom used to and promise he would be alright?  Izuku could have thrown him under the bus same as Endeavor.  Gods know he deserved it.  The phrase ‘ashamed to be alive’ etched itself into Shouto’s soul.  And for what?  He never resented All Might for inspiring his father’s bullshit scheme.  Izuku had even less to do with it.  He rationalized his hatred for years based on the idea of Izuku being the straw that broke his mother’s back.  Endeavor’s affair and Izuku’s birth dominoing into her attacking him with boiling water.  He never hated her either.

And she never hated him.  She said so.  The day after the festival, Shouto visited her in the hospital for the first time.  Mom said how happy she was to finally see him again, and how sorry she was for hurting him and not protecting him.  It wasn’t her fault, he argued, she was in a bad situation with no support.

“I still became a part of the same cycle of violence that hurt me,” she told him.  “And that’s wrong no matter how I ended up there.  Victim and perpetrator aren’t mutually exclusive.”

And if that didn’t wake him up.  Almost like she knew what he did.  What he’d been doing to Izuku since she left.  And he cried.  Shouto cried into his mother’s embrace for the first time in ten years.  Good as it felt, guilt stuck to him like frost no matter how many times he heated himself up.  She must have understood that too, the way she cried with him.

“I love you, Mom,” he blubbered like a toddler.

“I love you too.”  She kissed his forehead.  “I watched the festival yesterday.  What you did with ice…  It was a work of art.”

“Really?”

“Mhmm.”  Her hands and his right were so could, they felt warm touching one another.  “And…  That boy you fought?”

“Yeah,” he replied, understanding.  “That was him…”

“…  I’d like to meet him,” she sighed.  “Someday.”

Someday…  After everything, she wanted to put it all behind her.  Could he really blame Izuku for what happened to her?  Tell himself that if Izuku hadn’t been born, she would have been fine?

Cementoss asked a question.  Literature class started without him.

Izuku raised his hand.  His sleeve fell, revealing more bandages.

No.  No, it wouldn’t have made a difference…

Morning classes came and went.  When lunch rolled around, Shouto made it his official mission to apologize to Izuku.  The rest of the class swarmed him in the hallway before he could get close.

“So does this mean you’re doing your work study with All Might?” the tall kid who always smelled like cake asked.  Shouto really needed to learn the others’ names.

“Maybe?  We only talked about it a little,” Izuku confessed, doing the head-rubbing thing.  Was that on purpose since All Might did it a lot in interviews?  Did he do it before?  “He said he talked to the hero who trained him when he was at UA.  I don’t know if All- uh, Dad is gonna be with us, but he says this guy might be able to help with my quirk control.”

“The guy who trained All Might!?  That’s so cool!”  Lightning.  Loud in literature class.  Katanari?

“He must be like, a hundred years old.  Is it even legal to still be a hero at that age?”  Earphones.  Her hero costume reminded Shouto of the bands Touya used to listen to.

“Hey, All Might’s not that old!”  Frog girl.  Her hero name was Froppy.

“Wait, how old is he though…”  That one was Yaoyorozu.  He knew her.  He voted for her to be class president.  “Is that too weird to ask, Midoriya?”

“It’s not that weird, but he intentionally keeps personal details vague so he’s harder to track!  Lots of villains have it out for him, and he has to sleep sometimes!” Izuku explained happily.  Once upon a time, he would bring up hero facts around Shouto and the others.  Someone always told him to shut up.  Usually him.  At some point, he stopped trying.

“Izuku.”  Everyone stopped.  “Midoriya,” he corrected quickly.  His half-brother’s face dropped to cold neutral, a first.  That threw him off.  “I wanted, I was hoping we could talk abou-”

“Young Izuku is here!”  All Might slid in from nowhere.  The energy of the group came back instantly.  But the hero only had eyes for his ‘son.’  “I was hoping to steal you away so we could discuss your work study options over lunch…”  Something Shouto couldn’t describe changed in his smile.  “But I’d hate to take you from your friends.”

Izuku looked back at all his classmates, except one.  “We can talk after school, right?”

“Of course, my boy!”  He ruffled his hair, making Izuku laugh.  Shouto hadn’t heard that before either.  “Have a good meal, everyone!”

“Thanks, All Might!” they cheered in unison like kindergarteners.

Izuku lead them away to the cafeteria as if Shouto had never been there.  Just like he did to him the first day of school.

All Might did spare him a glance before he left.  Whatever his deal was, you couldn’t knock him for not caring.  He refused to let Shouto leave the infirmary until he promised backwards and forwards multiple times that he was safe.  His father hadn’t struck him outside a sparring session in years, and even then, nothing excessive.  That didn’t reassure him.  The card with his personal number burned a hole in Shouto’s wallet.  He almost used it to tell him off when a social worker showed up at their home.  Father played nice and nothing came of the visit.  Maybe nothing was meant too.  A threat and nothing more.

It would have been more if Shouto hadn’t stopped him.  He asked, begged All Might not to get involved.  Asshole or not, Endeavor still did a lot of good work as a hero.  How many people would end up hurt or killed if the second-best hero in the world got forced off the field for something that happened years ago?  Well, the physical stuff stopped years ago.  The objectification and manipulation went as strong as ever.  But Shouto could handle that.  He understood it.  Frustrating as it was, he preferred it to the massive uprooting of his life that would surely happen with his father’s exposure.  If things were going to change, he wanted them as his pace.

Maligned to admit it, he probably got that from his father too, given how he reacted.  Or hadn’t been reacting.  Shouto didn’t know.  After the social worker, Endeavor took on more patrols in the early morning and later at night.  He hardly saw him at home, and when he did, he was ripping up the home gym.  Then, a few days later, All Might publicly claimed Izuku as his son, and Endeavor ceased to exist as a person outside of hero reports.  Lose control in one area, tighten your grip on another.  Shouto was just glad that grip wasn’t on him.  Or was he?

Izuku moved about the cafeteria lighter than ever while Shouto’s food turned to concrete in his stomach.  It would be a week since the announcement in a couple days, and Endeavor hadn’t claimed him.  And Izuku didn’t seem to care.  His father, for all intense and purposes, abandoned him.  Maybe he met with lawyers and PR people in his extra time away, but it would be a week after the story break in a couple days.  Why wait so long?  Why leave his son to settle in with the man he hated enough to dedicate his life to being better than?  Sure, Izuku was illegitimate, but he still cared.  He brought him around the house all the time even when he was quirkless and worth less than nothing to his plans of legacy.  He heard the way Father spoke to him when he thought Shouto couldn’t hear.  With a softness he’d never known.  The way a stern father talks to a son, not a dog trainer shouting down his prized stock for not doing his tricks right.  Is all that gone now?

Jealousy.  That’s why I hated him, Shouto finally admitted to himself.  He threw away his half-eaten lunch.  Izuku got out, and got to be happy.  The concrete grew needles as he accepted that if Father abandoned him, he wouldn’t take it nearly as well.

His stomach mostly settled by the time the class headed for hero training, until he saw Izuku’s scars in the locker room.

A formless red mark covered the length of his torso.  Someone at a distance might have mistaken it for a form-fitting shirt.  Harshly wrinkled in some spots and uncomfortably smooth in others.  White bits its of his pecs and abs melted into one another, like when he accidently burned one of his old plastic action figures as a child.  But this, he had done on purpose.  The way Izuku moved slowly, it must still hurt.

“Holy shit, dude!” Sero, the tape guy from his dodgeball team at the festival, suddenly exclaimed.  All the boys followed his shout.  “You good to train today like that?”

“Yeah, I got the okay from Recovery Girl this morning.  It looks worse than it is,” he assured uncomfortably.

“Well hey, at least you’re probably getting a sick scar out of it!”  Kalahari?  Calamari?  Jammingway piped up.

“I, uh, actually already have a scar from this.  Kinda.  They took a skin graft from my thigh.”  He removed his school pants the rest of the way and pulled up his boxers.  Both hands were still bandaged down to his elbows.  A pink spot shaped like a square with rounded corners wrapped around his upper leg.  “Does, uh, that count?”

Red hair, got along with Bakugou somehow, whistled.

“You definitely got the rest of us beat!”

“Todoroki did quite the number on you,” the dramatic bird kid just had to go and add.

He tensed, reminded he existed.  Was this what it was like for Izuku?

“Pretty crazy we have not just two hero kids in the class, but the kids of the top two heroes!  What are the odds, right?” Tail-guy, maybe Ojiro, said.

“It doesn’t matter, I’m still the best here without a legacy!” Bakugou barked, and was subsequently ignored.

“Um, Iida’s family is made of heroes too…” Izuku brought up.

“Yes!  Though my parents and brother my not be top ranked, the Iida clan have been heroes for generations!” the man himself declared proudly.  Not that it changed the topic.

“Still.  Looks like we’ve got a second-generation rivalry on our hands.  Eh, Todoroki?”

Every eye turned on him.  He kept his head down, focused on getting his new costume on.  But the silence stretched on.

He cleared his throat.  “I think-”

“I think the Sports Festival proved enough,” Izuku cut him off suddenly.

Shouto’s mouth fell open.

“Ooooh!” everyone accept him, Izuku, and Bakugou called.

Through the following jabs and taunts, Shouto considered a rebuttal.  Most of Izuku’s injuries were self-inflicted, he can barely control his quirk.  But he still won.  I only got a few hits in.  And the big one.  The fire.  That was only at the end, after I’d already lost…  He stole one more glance at Izuku’s mangled chest.  And I’m not proud of that one.  He hadn’t used his fire again since.

Training went much the same way as before.  Shouto attempted to talk to Izuku, only to be ignored.  Over and over.  Running a timed course one at a time gave him plenty of chances to try and fail.  All the while, he carried on conversations with classmates who hadn’t looked him in the eye before.  He thought them leeches at first, wanting to get in good with a famous family.  Some tried something similar with him at the start of the year, though they’d long since given up on even talking to him.  Instead, the conversations kept going even after All Might stopped being a part of them.  Izuku talked about the others’ Sports Festival performances.  They exchanged movie recommendations.  Uraraka even managed to coax out his current hero notebook.  She and a few others asked him to tutor them on taking better notes.  Over snacks.  After school.  Something friends did.

“I have a purpose outside my hatred.  Who are you without it?”

Not much apparently.  Shouto always ignored the inane chatter about hobbies or plans.  Distractions to his goal of becoming a great hero.  The number one hero.  To spite his father, who made him with the express purpose of becoming the number one hero.  Spite him by doing exactly what he said, but doing it wrong.  And then what?  When he finally reached the top, did he expect it to be like one of Natsuo’s videogames?  ‘You won!  You dedicated your life to sticking it to your father!’ and then it just ended.  His father had no life outside of being the number one hero, and neither did Shouto.  He didn’t even have a favorite show.  I’m such a loser…

Training ended, along with the school day.  He shamefully tucked himself in a corner of the locker room and changed faster than anyone.  Was he really so pathetic that seeing his half-brother get things he didn’t even want upset him?  The other boys resumed the scar discussion.  Nobody asked about his.  Yes, apparently.  Laughter chased him out.

Shouto decided to take the long way home.  No rush, and he wanted to be alone with his thoughts on a crowded train instead of the compound he lived on.  He texted Fuyumi he’d be late, she’d worry otherwise.  Maybe he’d be nice and grab her a snack from the store on the way.  But what did she like?

“Mochifuwa Pancakes.”  He almost dropped his phone.  Izuku walked up beside him, looking down at his feet.  “She really likes them but almost never gets them because they’re unhealthy.  She won’t turn down one as a gift, though.”

Was I mumbling?  Must have been.  I really am turning into him…  They walked beside one another in tense silence.  Though Izuku seemed more dejected than on edge.  But they were alone.  Shouto wracked his brain for something to say.  Thinking about it nonstop all day should have given him something.

“Why are you walking this way?  Doesn’t your line home go the other way?”  Great job.

Izuku hesitated before responding.  “We’re having dinner All Might’s old master to talk about my work study.  I’m meeting them at the restaurant.”

“All Might?  Not ‘Dad?’” he said before thinking.

“You know…”  Another long pause.  “Has he said anything?  Since…?”

“Not to my knowledge.  He keeps taking up more patrols.  I’m not even sure he comes home anymore.”

“Hmm…” he acknowledged.

Shouto kicked a rock down the path.  “Did you want him to say something?”

“…  I don’t know.”  They reached the rock again, and Izuku kicked it.  True to form, he couldn’t keep his mouth shut for long.  “The announcement wasn’t about him, it was about addressing my declaration.  You can’t just say ‘I’m gonna be the new Symbol of Peace’ on national TV without people asking questions…”  His next words were barely a whisper.  “I don’t know what, but I expected him to say something…”

“Me too…” he confessed.  The awkward pauses were getting uncomfortable.  “Did All Might know you were going to do that?”

“He told me to.”

“…  So, he’s really in your corner, huh?”

“Yeah.”  He pulled out a tissue and wiped his nose.  “Most of the press release was real.  He saved me from a villain, I made my case, so he agreed to train me.  The only fake stuff were the parts about me being his son and the stuff with Mom.  They met for the first time after I was transferred to the hospital.”

“And your quirk?”

“Would you believe me if I said it was transferable?”

“Not really.”

“Good.”  Not the expected response.

“…  What about all the stuff with you being his son?  Legally, I mean.  Can he really just claim that over Father?”

“Father’s name wasn’t on any of my records.  School registration, insurance, not even my birth certificate.  Nothing to cover up.”

Shouto knew Endeavor went to great lengths to hide Izuku from the public, but that seemed like a whole other level of distance.  His shadow stretched far beyond Izuku’s, despite only being a few inches taller.

“Mom’s was the only name on record, and he threatened her with money if she didn’t do what he said with me,” he explained further.  “Once All Might found out, he agreed to cover everything Father threatened to take away, and all his power was gone.”  His voice sounded heavy.  “We decided all together to go ahead with the press conference after that.  Cover all the bases.”

“So, your Mom and All Might aren’t actually together?”

“Never were,” he replied exasperatedly.  Fuyumi did something similar when she was pissed at him, but too tired to fully express it.  “But I hope she agrees to all the extra money he offered.  Then she could go back to school, or just stay home and spend time on her hobbies.  Whatever makes her happy.”

“Your mom didn’t finish school?”

“She dropped out of law school to take care of me.”  His tone carried accusation, but not at her.

Shouto’s own mother, or maybe Fuyumi, mentioned at some point Izuku’s mother was a menial worker for Father.  Emphasis on ‘was.’  A picture formed.  Endeavor got her pregnant from the affair, then fired her to keep her quiet through financial control.  It seemed like something he would do, yet somehow more extreme.  Shouto hadn’t given it much thought before.  In his mind, Izuku’s mother had been a gold-digger looking to live off a pro with a vested interest in having more children.  Instead of someone vulnerable being taken advantage of my someone powerful.  Like his Mom.

He was right.  I’ve been too self-absorbed to see the obvious.

Newest silence aside, this was perhaps the longest single conversation Shouto and Izuku ever had.  Outside the Sports Festival, though he hesitated to count that.  And he still hadn’t apologized.  In the moment, easier said than done.  Deep breath.

“I, I’m sorry I-”

“I’m sorry I avoided you today,” Izuku said first.  “I don’t like being mean, but I really didn’t want to talk to you yet.”

“And…  You changed your mind?”

“Not really…”  Tissue again.  “But I wanted to get it over with before losing my nerve…  Thanks for listening…”

Shouto bit his lip.  And he has every reason to be nervous.  I’ve done nothing but hurt him all our lives.  And for what?  A brief moment of control in my uncontrolled life.  He faced the same sort of noose, but didn’t once try to tug on mine.  Either out of fear, or kindness.  Maybe both, but the latter won over, given all the times he reached out.

“I thought we could shoulder the burden together!”

“I’m the one, who should be apologizing…  For everything” Shouto spoke up.  Izuku finally looked at him.  “Your life was already hell, and I made it worse every chance I got just because I could.  I-I made bullshit justifications about how you were the one making things worse…  When you were just a victim.”

“Victim and perpetrator aren’t mutually exclusive.”

“Even more so than me.  I…” he sighed.  “I understand that now.  I’m sorry.”

“I-I…” he stammered, then looked to the road ahead.  “Thank you.”

But Shouto wasn’t done.  “My Mom…  She said she wanted to meet you.”

“Really?” disbelief obvious.

“Yes.  Maybe not right away, but, someday.”  He held his head a little higher.  Some of his guilt started to thaw, emboldening him.  “In the meantime, I was thinking…  Maybe we could try being brothers.”

Izuku stopped walking.  “We!?  I tried for years to…”  He cut himself off.  Shouto stood petrified.  All that and he screwed it up right away.  The other boy exhaled, palms pressed together.  “Like I said, I don’t like being mean…  But I think it’s too late for that.”

“…  Oh.” 

“But,” he continued, “maybe we can try being friends.  After my burns heal.”

Shouto smiled for the first time in a while.  “That’s fair.”

And they shared a pleasant silence for the rest of the walk.

“Dad?” Fuyumi called from outside the door.  “Shouto just texted.  He’s stopping to get some snacks on the way home and is gonna run a little late.”

“Did you tell him we’re having a family dinner?”

“Yes.”

“And?”

“He, uh, hasn’t responded yet.”

Of course.  “We’ll wait for him.”

“Um, okay.”  She shuffled away frantically.

Enji sighed, expelling smoke from his nostrils.  In his hand, his phone.  The only light in the dark gym.  He pressed ‘call’ again.

“We’re sorry, the number you have called is no longer in service.”

“Dammit, Inko…”  She either changed his number or blocked him.  Ridiculous.  After everything he did for her.  To her, you mean.  Another huff.  Izuku’s contact sat under hers.  Enji’s last text to him asked him to call once he got out of the hospital.  Left on read five days ago.  The impulse hit to go smoke, even though he quit years ago.  Heroes who didn’t smoke polled higher with young people.  And he didn’t want to risk passing health problems down to his children.

As for other problems…  He wiped his face with his hand, extinguishing his brow fire.  If Shouto would be late, he had time to pray.

Enji unceremoniously abandoned the gym, weights undocked, and headed for the shrine room.  A small, quiet room in the children’s wing Rei used to nurse.  He couldn’t remember its original purpose in the house blueprints.  It held a burnt smell distinct from all the other burnt smells around the house.  Sandalwood with a touch of cinnamon.  For a time, he sought to find incense that recreated the smell of his eldest son’s fire.  A potent but not unpleasant singe reminiscent of nothing else.  He must have burned every brand in Asia trying to find what he couldn’t describe.  Even founded his own company and hired experts to try and create new blends.  All unsuccessful.  Touya was truly lost in every sense.

His picture stared blankly back at him as he sat down.  Fourteen forever.  Gakuran too big for him.  Pale and skinny.  Untamable locks all tousled no matter how he tried to comb them.  Always uneasy.

He looks like Izuku…

Enji bit his cheek and swallowed his emotions.  He retrieved two incense sticks from the box nearby, lit them individually between his fingers, and placed them in the vessel.  His hands locked into place automatically.  They felt stiff from how often he did this lately.  Not that he usually neglected Touya’s memory, but his sense of confusion and loss drew him back into the room multiple times a day.  Maybe, some unheard corner of his mind thought, quiet contemplation would bring him clarity on what the hell to do.  But it brought only the feeling that Touya’s picture grew ever so slightly more judgmental every time he sat there.

“You knew this would happen,” he could so clearly imagine his son saying.

Izuku was so like him.  That unquenchable drive to succeed and be a great hero, push past his limits to become and even better version of himself despite the odds, burned so bright, it overshot their frail bodies.  It inspired him as much as it horrified him.  He couldn’t let Izuku follow in his footsteps.

Touya loved fire.  He loved training.  He loved making his father proud.  And with his effortlessly powerful fire, he was perfect for becoming the number one hero.  A path he reveled every moment of dedicating himself to.  So much so that when it became clear that goal was impossible for him, he couldn’t let go.  Touya’s baseline heat doubled Enji’s best, but his body’s makeup more resembled his mother’s; he was weak to his own fire.  He didn’t let the injuries stop him.  He burned is own skin raw, no matter how much both his parents begged him to stop, because becoming the greatest hero was something so thoroughly baked into his being that not even his own health collapsing before his eyes could dissuade him.  He had nothing else.  And it killed him.  He kept training in secret until he took it too far, succumbing to a blaze he set himself.  They only found a fragment of his jaw.  Quirk: cremation.  A sick joke.

When Enji saw that same drive in Izuku, it scared him.  Even more so when he suddenly manifested a quirk that, again, hurt him to use.  He couldn’t lose another child.  But he couldn’t just talk him down either.  He tried and failed with Touya.  The boy just assumed he wasn’t good enough, and if he kept pushing, his father would support his dreams again.  With Izuku, lack of encouragement was never enough, but maybe failure would be.  If something happened, intense but safe and controlled, to shake his confidence, bend if not break his spirit, maybe he’d back down on his own.  Thus, the Sports Festival ultimatum.

Instead, it drove his son from his arms into those of the enemy.  Whatever bullshit his official statement claimed, All Might had some kind of relationship with Izuku before the festival started.  Some scheme to wedge himself into his life as the ‘superior’ authority figure.  The boy had always been an All Might fan, Enji couldn’t imagine it being hard.

You’re deflecting, a voice that sounded like Touya whispered.

He sighed, pressing his folded hands against his face.  All Might had no idea until I barged in there.  He’s a showboating idiot, but he cares for people.  All people.  Genuinely, somehow.  Enji bit his cheek again.  He’s a teacher.  Izuku probably came to school one day looking upset, and All Might asked him what was wrong.  He really wanted to go smoke.  He didn’t take him from my arms.  I hadn’t been holding him in the first place…

He held him as a baby.  All the anger and regret of months trying to cover up a scandal melted away seeing him for the first time.  Looked down into those big, beautiful eyes.  Izuku was different from his other children.  Smaller.  Smaller than even Shouto when he was born months later.  He held a certain innocence.  Something about being born by chance instead of created with a purpose.  And his enthusiasm for life was infectious.  His other children seemed so melancholy.  Enji had Izuku visit the house every now and then to try and cheer them up.  It worked on him.  Just having him around set him at ease after a long day of work.  Even his quirklessness was endearing.  Like a rare, endangered animal or a fragile, one-of-a-kind treasure.  Something precious and delicate that needed to be protected.

But what good are my feelings if they didn’t reach him?  Enji gritted his teeth behind pressed lips and squeezed his eyes shut.

He kept his name off the records to hide his connection, so he had no legal claim.  Spent millions to keep people quiet, so Izuku believed he wasn’t wanted.  Denied him his own life unless he fought his brother for favor, and his son realized the favor wasn’t worth it.  And now, Enji waited too long to speak up.  He assumed it was a challenge, a game of chicken or something, so he waited to hear from Izuku or Inko first.  A week later, Izuku must have assumed he was happy someone else took him.  The boy himself seemed happy.  All Might couldn’t keep his hands off him in the press conference.  And the infirmary.  Enji’s skin crawled.  Inko once told him Izuku didn’t like to be touched, yet he ran right into All Might’s waiting arms with a smile.

I pushed him away, and now I’ll never hold him again.  Just like I’ll never hold Touya.  At that, he wept.

Sometime later, Fuyumi texted that Shouto was home.  Enji whipped his tears, and set the staff of making cold soba.  Tomorrow, he’d call Natsuo to see when he was free to come visit from college.  He still had three living children who hadn’t given up on him, even if he deserved it.  Changes needed to be made, but he swore on Touya’s memory he wouldn’t let them down.

All Might, Toshinori as he insisted he call him when he wasn’t feeling ‘Dad,’ set Izuku down on his bed with a sigh.

“He’s really zonked out,” he whispered.

“It’s his new medicine.  I swear, it works like a tranquilizer,” Mom added softly.  She combed his curls with her fingers and kissed his temple.

All Might chuckled.  “Belly full of Italian will do that too.”  A pause, then a much larger hand caressed his head.  “Goodnight, my boy.”  Another kiss.

Izuku summoned all his willpower to keep from moving.

“Thanks for carrying him up.  And for the food.”  Mom’s heels clicked on the hardwood.

“Really, it’s no trouble.  I don’t get to go out all that often, and I love spoiling my f-”

The bedroom door clicked shut.  Izuku cautiously opened and eye.  Then sat up.  A tear or two escaped.  He’d picked up a bit of a habit in the last few days.  He loved it when All Might carried him around, but was too shy to ask outright.  So, he pretended to be asleep every now and then.  Nothing bad, nothing deceitful.  Just a little indulgence.

Speaking of indulgence, Izuku was really full, and tired as a result.  He sluggishly hauled out of bed to change into pajamas.  The taste of garlic lingered in his mouth, but going to the bathroom to brush his teeth would expose his ruse.  If he was still awake by the time Mom went to bed, he’d do it.

He returned to bed to a text.

Endeavor:

[I’m here if you want to talk.  Don’t have to call, we can just text if you want.]  Sent one minute ago.

The clock on his nightstand said eight past eleven.  Izuku frowned.

Seriously?  After how long?  Is this more manipulation?  What does he want?  Izuku ignored it, burying himself under the covers.  His phone chimed again two minutes later.  No new text, just a recycled notification.  Izuku stared at it for a long time.  He should march down to Mom’s room so she can chew him out while he cried in her arms.  But he stayed put.  Emotions churned like toxic chemicals.  Rage, betrayal, confusion, frustration, terror, anxiety, relief.  Yes, relief.  His father didn’t just discard him.  But it could be bait.  But it could be something else.  He couldn’t just be distant and cruel all his life, then act all caring once Izuku left.

Ping.

Endeavor:

[I’m sorry I didn’t reach out to you sooner.]

Izuku pulled the covers over his head.  If he didn’t address this, he’d stay awake all night thinking about it.

[Leave me alone.  I’m going to bed.]

Thirty seconds later.

Endeavor:

[Alright.]

[Sleep well.]

[I love you.]

Izuku’s feelings faded to white noise.  He sniffled.  It didn’t matter.  He had All Might behind him now.  Anything his father threw at him, he could handle.  Endeavor didn’t abandon him, Izuku left him behind.  He had his chance, and he blew it.  The turn came and went.  And Izuku didn’t need him.  He had a Mom and kinda-sorta new Dad who loved him.  Izuku was going to be the greatest hero of all time, no matter what his father said or did.

Leaving his phone behind, he went to Mom’s room where he fell asleep in her arms.  The next day, All Might would hug him and re-promise to protect him.  He’d go to school and have a good day learning to be a hero with his new friends.  Including Shouto.  On the first day of the rest of Izuku’s life, no tears were shed.