TodoDekuWeek

Two weeks before summer break, he runs into Midoriya. It’s just after two in the morning, and he pads into the kitchen to see Midoriya bent over the sink, scrubbing at his face. Shoto is about to turn around, but Midoriya beats him to it.

“Todoroki?,” he mumbles, voice thick with sleep and something else. “What’re you doing up?”

“I had a bad dream,” Shoto responds, because he can’t think of a lie and he’s never been able to hide anything from Midoriya anyway.

“Me too,” Midoriya says before Shoto can ask what he’s doing up, and once his eyes adjust to the dark he can just barely make out the puffiness under the other boy’s eyes. Midoriya sniffles, turns away to open a cabinet, scrabbles blindly for a mug then looks blankly at it in his hand like he’s already forgotten why he picked it up.

“Need some water,” he says after a long moment, and Shoto tilts his head.

“I like to make tea after a bad dream,” he says. “Would you like some?”

“Oh.” Midoriya blinks owlishly at him. “Um, I mean, yes. Thank you.”

“No problem.”

He makes twice his usual batch, then sits with Midoriya because going straight back to his room feels rude, somehow. And he likes being around Midoriya, who usually fills any dead air with idle chatter but is now quiet and pensive, staring into his mug as if he might find within it the secrets of the universe. The silence stretches out comfortably, peaceably, until the tea is gone and Shoto is once again keenly aware of just how tired he is.

“Thanks for the tea,” Midoriya says, and he sounds a little bit lighter. “It was really good.”

“I’m glad,” Shoto responds. “I’ve had a lot of practice.”

“Had a lot of bad dreams?,” Midoriya asks, and it’s kind of a joke but Shoto nods and Midoriya’s shoulders sag ever so slightly.

“Me too,” he says again, and Shoto has no idea how to respond to that. 

“...Good night, Todoroki.”

“Good night, Midoriya.”

~

He writes it off as a coincidence, but all of two nights later Midoriya is sitting at the kitchen table, looking forlornly at a mostly-full mug. When Shoto gets closer, he sees a handful of dark specks floating sadly in the water.

“I tried to make tea,” Midoriya says by way of greeting. “But it just tastes like leafy water.”

Shoto smiles a little, despite himself. He would bemoan the waste if Yaoyorozu didn’t keep the kitchen so well-stocked. “I can show you how,” he suggests, and Midoriya perks up.

“Yes please,” he says, and so Shoto goes through the motions a little more deliberately than usual, even deigns to use the electric kettle instead of heating the water himself. Midoriya watches intently, and Shoto is disorientingly aware of his presence. Not unpleasant, just unfamiliar. 

“Thank you,” Midoriya says quietly when he’s done. Shoto nods. He appreciates many things about Midoriya, and one of the things he appreciates most is that he never expects Shoto to talk. Usually, when Midoriya is his typical chatty self, all he needs to do is listen. And now, as they sit together, cradling their mugs and occasionally meeting each others’ eyes through the steam, the silence feels…

Private. Raw, almost. Like Midoriya is letting him in, trusting Shoto to see him quiet, sorrowful, vulnerable. He wonders if Midoriya thinks the same about him. If the other boy’s gaze really is as piercing as it looks, seeing right through Shoto’s frozen surface and into the heart of the roiling storm below.

A small, confused part of him hopes that it is. That Midoriya sees him, really sees him. Sees the things he wishes he knew how to talk about.

“Todoroki?,” Midoriya asks, and he looks up. “How often do you, um…” 

He trails off, and Shoto tilts his head. Midoriya takes a deep breath, then forges ahead.

“How often do you make tea?”

It’s not the question he wants to ask, and they both know it, and Midoriya sounds terrified that he might be pushing too far but Shoto is so relieved.

“...Every night,” he says after a long moment. Something behind Midoriya’s eyes breaks, just a little.

“I, um.” His gaze drops, away from Shoto’s, and his hands curl tighter around the mug. “I…not every night. But…most nights.”

“I’m sorry,” Shoto says softly, and Midoriya gives him a small, wobbly smile.

“Me too,” he responds. “And thank you, again. For the tea, and…” He gestures vaguely at the air. “It’s, um, nice. Not being alone.”

Shoto nods. It is nice. Comforting, to share this fragile space. To have a shore to reach for while adrift.

“We should probably get some sleep,” Midoriya murmurs, and (i want to share this silence with you just a little bit longer) Shoto nods again.

“Good night, Midoriya,” he says thickly, and when Midoriya’s hand reaches out to rest on his shoulder his breath stills.

“Good night, Todoroki,” Midoriya responds, and the weight of his hand lingers long, long after it’s gone.

~

The next night, Midoriya isn’t there but something prickles in Shoto’s chest and so he makes two mugs of tea and waits.

The microwave shows the time, little neon green display just bright enough to stand out painfully in the dark. Shoto counts forty-three minutes before Midoriya shuffles into view, pale and haunted. Their eyes meet, and Midoriya hurriedly tries to blink away the shine of tears. Shoto simply warms a mug with his hand and slides it over.

It becomes something of a routine. Wake up, panic, drink tea with Midoriya, go back to sleep. Sometimes they talk, quiet and hesitant, tiptoeing around the conversations Shoto wants to have but doesn’t know how to start. More often, they sit and let the silence relax into something resembling peace, and it’s still not quite enough but it’s certainly better than drowning alone.

He learns that Midoriya is fond of physical contact; bumped shoulders, brushed knuckles, a hug that Shoto freezes under for half a second and then returns, hands unconsciously curling into the other boy’s shirt. He learns that his first instinct is to flee and his second is to cling, that he craves gentleness, craves touch that doesn’t mean pain. He learns that Midoriya’s right hand is gnarled and webbed with scars and that his left hand is soft and warm.

The problem is, Izuku’s heart never got the memo. It staggers and stutters and trips over itself, every time he sees Shouto-kun. Blood rushes to warm his cheeks with alarming regularity, whenever Shouto-kun is near. His traitorous eyes find Shouto-kun in every room, in every crowd, in every Xitter feed video. 

Shouto-kun is always beautiful, always mesmerizing. Loose and comfortable in his body and himself, in a way he never was at fifteen and scared and bitter. Effortlessly charming when he smiles, or talks easily about his mother and siblings, or fails to understand jokes even now. Irresistible in the powerful competence of his body, and in the solid, steady weight of his presence, and even in the undignified way he snorts with uncontrolled laughter. It’s a lost cause for Izuku, long before he tries and fails to stop staring, stop wanting, stop daydreaming. He thinks he has loved Shouto-kun for a long time already. He thinks, perhaps, that he has loved Shouto-kun all along. 

But seventeen is an inconvenient time to fall in love.

The War may be over, but the world doesn’t get to go back to normal so easily. There are dozens of reckonings big and small still to be faced, dozens of problems still to be solved, dozens of institutions still to be rebuilt. 

And there are final exams still to be passed. Being war heroes doesn’t grant them any exemptions in Aizawa-sensei’s eyes, even if the man fought for and with and along them, nearly to the point of his death and theirs. If anything, he’s stricter on them than ever—because the world beyond is unstable. Because he knows the heights they can reach. 

There isn’t time for things like love and heartache. Not when there’s an entire country out there that still needs their help. 

------------

Graduation Day dawns bright and clear and chilly. A few early sakura blossoms flutter under the morning sun, pale-pink and joyful. 

Midoriya Izuku is eighteen. He’s the Number 12 Hero in all of Japan. He’s surrounded by all the up-and-coming Heroes of his generation, all of them in the Top 50. The current Number 1 Hero mingles easily with them like the old friend he’s become. The former Number 1 Hero is all but crying as he stands next to his mother, snapping endless pictures. 

And in his arms, bright and proud and beautiful, he holds the Number 17 Hero. Shouto is grinning the widest Izuku’s ever seen, and Izuku’s grinning back just as wide through the endless tears. It feels like a happy ending and a new beginning all in one, when he pulls Shouto in for a shameless kiss. Their classmates hoot and cheer, and his mother’s camera clicks a symphony with the reporters, and Kacchan complains loudly, and nothing could be better. 

The country is still rebuilding, even now. They still wake up with screaming nightmares and ache with scars that will never fade and tense at sudden movements. The weight of a whole society’s expectations still rests upon their shoulders, settling in and making a home. But still, for this one moment, Izuku is fiercely, fearlessly happy.