Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

He is so tired. He’s tired of worrying. He’s tired of the anxiety. The fog. The pain. The lying.

He’s tired of washing blood out of his bedsheets. Out of his clothes. He’s tired of assuring Fuyumi everything will be ok. That he’s okay.

He sits up and his head spins, a painful throbbing behind his eyes.

His phone is cracked and sitting on his nightstand, the flashing screen telling him he has messages.

Midoriya: hey. Are you okay?

They’d had a stupid training session today with the oh so wonderful number one hero. He was at school. Where he should be safe. Where he thought he was safe.

Endeavor had knocked him fucking stupid. He’d gotten up off the floor a dozen times more than he’d wanted. Aizawa had to use his quirk to stop the fight when he’d decided to burn the other side of Todoroki’s face and give him a nasty concussion.

He’d been sent off to recovery girl, Izuku at his heels.

The scar wasn’t as bad as the one on his left. But it wasn’t gone either. His skin had chilled with shock, frost forming on his injured face and he’d given himself frostbite and a burn.

Now he was symmetrically disfigured.

He also got slapped in the face with the realization this, living under his father’s thumb, being demeaned and ridiculed and beat down, may never actually stop. He may never actually be able to escape.

He’s been counting down the days until he’s eighteen. Until he graduates. Until he has some semblance of independence.

But that’s only at home. He’s a hero. There’s an aspect of collaboration that’s expected of him. With anyone. With everyone. It’s even more common now that All-might is retired.

He’s so tired.

He’d thought he could do it. Knowing there would be an end date. Knowing there would be a time he could finally be free. Now it’s like he’s staring out at the sea and hoping he can see land at some point. He has no idea when that some point might be.

He had found an Island with Izuku. A break. Someone who knew the hell he went through every time he went home. Every time he answered the phone to a voice that was loud enough most people thought he was on the speaker setting. But it just isn’t enough. It’s not enough to have someone know, to have someone understand. He just wants it to be over.

He’s tried coping. He’s done every internet search he can think of at the library at school. He can’t do it at home because Fuyumi would worry and his father would be pissed his masterpiece needed help.

He’s tired of losing chunks of the day to fugue states. He’s tired of looking at his ceiling at three in the morning with charred sheets because the nightmares just won’t go away.

He’s tired of Bakugo yelling at him for leaving icicles in his ceiling. Tired of waking up and needing honeyed tea because his throat is raw from holding back screams. He hopes he’s not actually screaming in his sleep.

Maybe when he’s a pro, he’ll just let a villain kill him. Let it be over then. It happens all the time. It almost happened to Tenya’s brother a few months ago. It could happen to him. Nine hundred and forty days until he can sit for an actual license… How bad would it be to die during his work study? Would his preceptor feel guilty? Would it be possible? He knew Izuku and Kirishima had dealt with a very strong villain.

Hell, maybe he’ll be lucky and the league will kill him while he’s still a student. Maybe Dabi and his strange preoccupation with the Todoroki family will incinerate him.

Maybe not.

He already knows what it feels like to burn.

He doesn’t want to do it again.

He looks at his arm. His left side. The silvery scars lining his forearm. Marks of days he’s only had one way to pull himself out of the haze.

He bleeds because he hates how it feels to burn.

He’d been so angry the first time. He’d looked in the mirror, looked at his face, at what it had done. It had sent his mother away. He had sent her away.

She forgives him but it doesn’t make it better.

An iced fist had shattered the mirror, pieces falling and clinking into the porcelain sink. He’d cut his hand cleaning up, watching the blood stain the white. Ebb away it’s purity. His focus had been drawn to the throb in his hand, to the pulsing around the wound, the heat of the blood dripping down his skin.

It had been a moment he didn’t think of his father that hated him. Of his mother that left him. Of his sister that stood by. Of his brother who was so angry. Of the one they never talk about.

He’d kept a particularly well-shaped shard. It had a blunt edge from where it had been lining the mirror, polished and beveled. Good to grasp without slicing his fingers too much.

He kept it in his sock drawer.

He used it more than the socks.

He also had sleeping pills. He’d tried them. They made him sleep. But they didn’t make the nightmare go away. Instead, he was just trapped in them. Living an interminable loop of every bad moment of his life, unable to wake up.

What if he never woke up?

Does he actually have to wait for someone else to do this, or can he? He looks at the jagged bit of his reflection in the broken mirror.

No. He doesn’t.

His countdown is three. Friday. It’ll give him the weekend. His father has a conference so he’ll be on campus. His friends will think he’s at the hospital with his mother or accompanying his father.

No one will look for him.

Not until it’s too late.

Todoroki: I’m fine. Do you want to walk?

___________________

Walking with Izuku, it almost changes his mind. He knows he’ll miss his friends. He’ll miss Izuku and Tenya and Ochako and Momo. He’ll miss Eijiro and Denki and even Katsuki in his own way. He’ll miss everyone. They filled the gaps he didn’t even know he had, gave him somewhere to go where he was an equal.

It almost changes his mind.

He gets weird looks on Friday when he meanders the classroom after homeroom socializing. He doesn’t say goodbye. It would be too obvious, too weird if he did. But it’s his closure.

“Bye Shoucchan,” Izuku calls out as Shouto walks away, ready to say his last ‘goodbye.’    

“Goodbye, Izuku.” It hurts more than it should to say that one word. Makes his throat tight and his lip tremble. He doesn’t like the idea of never seeing his best friend again. Of never seeing what they could have been.

But he hates the idea of ever seeing his father again. Of seeing the flash of fear in his mother’s eyes everytime she first turns around and sees him.

He wishes he had a bath in his room. It’d be easier for whoever is unfortunate enough to clean it up. As it is, he lays out some towels on his bed, hoping it’ll be enough. He considers writing a note, explaining his actions but he can’t. He can’t leave Fuyumi to deal with what happens when the prodigal son of Endeavor kills himself and leaves a note saying it’s all because his father abused his family.

It’s not fair to her. He’s kept quiet all these years because he didn’t want to deal with it. Didn’t want to hurt his mother worse. Didn’t want to itemize everything that had been done to him. To her. Didn’t want to be called a liar.

He’s seen enough of hero supporters to know they wouldn’t believe him. There’s no medical evidence, nothing but the word of an obviously unstable child. It’d be no different than all of the celebrities that got away with abuse and assault and violence before heroes came onto the scene.

People don’t want to believe their idols could ever do something terrible. Better to berate and batter the victim into just shutting up.

He won’t leave his family with that.

He upends the bottle of pills, tossing the bottle up under the dresser and flips the shattered piece of mirror between his fingers.

He swallows the pills.

And creates a chasm from wrist to near his elbow.

Very quickly, his stomach turns, churning violently with the medication and bile burns his throat. His vision blurs and his head is woozy.

Then it’s black.

He floats in the black. It rocks, almost like he’s on a sea. On black water, surrounded by darkness. The crash of water starts fading and for a moment he hears his name, an agonized shriek that’s all too reminiscent of the way his sister sounded that night in the kitchen with the burning, then the blackness swallows him whole.

Chapter Text

Dying is louder than he thought it would be. There's a dull roar all around him. Stray words occasionally breaking through to the surface. He hears his name more than anything. The roar fades back to silence, the silence then receding, leaving beeping and wooshing in its absence.

Dying is more painful than he thought it would be. His throat burns like someone jammed a red-hot iron down it. His arms ache, his stomach is cramping and he can't feel his left leg.

It’s bright.

Why is it bright?

His eyes are crusty when they blink open, the bright white of the room and the open windows near blinding after the constant companionship of darkness.

            It’s louder and more painful than he thought because he isn’t dying.

            The beeping gets louder and faster and he can feel his quirk activating, tendrils of frost snaking up his arm, heat radiating off his left side.

            He’s not dead.

Endeavor is going to know what he did if he doesn’t already.

His chest explodes in pain when he shifts, trying to get up, feeling a tug in his arm, a pull in his throat.

He feels the weight shift lower, a rush of tingling shooting up his leg where before there had been no feeling.

There are rough fingers on his face, a voice soothing and familiar trying to coax him out of the blur, out of the indescernible wash of colors.

There’s predominantly green.

He can hear commotion. As quickly as it’s come, the tightness and heaviness recedes and he feels almost like he’s floating above the bed. It’s almost like Uraraka’s quirk only he feels it on the inside too.

His head lolls to the side, pushed back so his eyes meet the splash of green by a warm palm. He can feel fingers dancing on his cheek, flitting over the awful scar on his left side, brushing his hair out of his eyes.

It’s been so long since he’s been touched like this.

The haze becomes an outline, the outline becomes a person. Green eyes, wild hair, and freckles.

He tries to say the other’s name but is met only by the immediate urge to hack and cough, to dispell whatever is blocking his words.

“Shouto, calm down. You have a tube in your throat. When we- when I found you, you weren’t breathing. They. They said you’d taken so many pills it had stopped your lungs. Your heart stopped. They shocked you for almost an hour. The poor nurse pounded on your chest forever. I thought we lost you.”

Shouto hates that he can’t say anything.

“They gave you some awful black stuff that you threw up and some anti-poisons or something. They’re still not sure your lungs will take back over, or that your kidneys won’t shut down.”

Shouto points to the tube.

“I’ll ask the nurse,” Izuku says. His eyes are sad.

He wasn’t supposed to have to see this.

They weren’t supposed to care.

He was supposed to be dead.

Izuku comes back with a small army of people. Lab coats and scrubs crowding into the room.

“We’re going to try and take this tube out. I need you to give a good exhale when I tell you. If you struggle to breathe we will reinsert the tube. Do you understand?”

Shouto nods.

He’s glad he wasn’t conscious when the tube was placed. Pulling it out is worse than throwing up. It feels like gagging that doesn’t end. Gagging that doesn’t bring any relief.

He knows it was only seconds, but it felt like forever.

"Don't try to say too much. Between the tube and the vomiting you're going to be pretty sore."

Does she think he’s a child? He can handle pain.

Or maybe he can’t.

That’s kind of why he’s here he guesses.

“Can you tell me your name?”

“Shouto Todoroki,” he rasps. He asks pitifully for some water. He’s told to take it slow. It’s hard to take it slow when it feels like a salve on a blistering burn as it goes down.

"Can you tell us what happened?" The doctor talking to him isn't unkind. He looks carefully concerned. Shouto doesn't know what the point of telling them is. It's pretty obvious what happened. He looks to Izuku, to his tear-streaked face, to the red blotchiness on his cheeks and his swollen eyes.

He can’t look at him when he says it.

"I tried to kill myself." Izuku chokes on a sob and Shouto feels a piece of his heartbreak off.

He never meant to hurt anyone.

He just wanted it to stop hurting him.

“We are going to keep you here on an involuntary psych hold for a minimum of seventy-two hours. A psychiatrist will be by shortly to assess you. Take it easy. Your body has been through a lot. Our healers could only do so much considering the state you were in.”

Shouto nods.

“Do you feel like visitors?” Izuku says. He must read the abject terror on Shouto’s face at the idea of one particular visitor. “He’s not here.”

Shouto can practically feel himself deflate with relief. The look on Izuku’s face though, that makes him pause. He looks… guilty. Why does Izuku, innocence personified, look guilty.

“I’ll be back,” he says, projecting false cheeriness before darting out of the room.

Shouto’s eyes burn when he casts them upwards to the ceiling. He looks back down, surveying the damage. He’s got thick white bandages on both forearms, and he can see a black stain on the hospital issued gown he’s wearing.

When Izuku returns, he has half of class 1-A, Aizawa, and All-might.

Aizawa looks especially grim, All-might looking both like a reaper, and one about to be reaped.

There's a cacophony of expressions of relief. One by one, his friends reveal their happiness that he's alive and their frustration with his idiocy.

“We were so worried, Todoroki,” Momo says, wiping tears from her eyes daintily. He can practically see the question on everyone’s tongue.

Why is damn near spelled in the air.

He doesn’t intend on answering.

“Has my father been by?” He asks, his voice only marginally better than before. Something darkens in Aizawa’s expression, but All-might is the one who answers.

“He has,” Shouto’s heart quickens. He tucks his hands beneath his blankets, pretending to smooth at the sheets as he tries desperately to hide the tremors. “But he’s been barred from seeing you, young Todoroki.”

“What? Why?” Shouto’s eyes are wide and frantic, searching between his teachers for an answer. It’s Izuku who steps forward, his head bowed.

“I’m sorry, Shouto.” His voice is wavering, his lip quibbling before tears once again spill over freckled cheeks.

“He told us something he should have said a long time ago,” Aizawa says, delivering a small thunk to the back of Izuku’s downturned head.

“I had to,” Izuku says, his voice breaking and hoarse. “I didn’t before because I thought we were okay together. I thought I could help you. You tried to kill yourself. I- I had to do something to protect you.”

“They know.” His voice is flat.

“We know,” Aizawa confirms. “Child protective services will be by later to confirm with you. They took x-rays while you were unconscious, checking for organ damage. Did you know broken bones leave scars Todoroki? Even if they’re healed with a quirk?”

"I didn't," he admits. He'd never thought about it. He'd never considered telling anyone. He didn't think anyone would believe him. It's the number one hero for god's sake. Who would believe a fifteen-year-old who says ‘daddy hits me and mommy.'

Izuku did, his brain supplies. Izuku believed you without a second thought.

“What’s going to happen to me?” Shouto asks. His voice is small again, more pitiful than it’s sounded in years.

“I’ll be taking temporary guardianship over you,” Aizawa says. “You’ll live in the dorms over breaks unless otherwise specified.”

“What about Fuyumi?”

“They wouldn’t allow her to assume responsibility for your care. She admitted to being present during the course of the abuse, and they felt you wouldn’t be safe with her,” All-might says.

“My sister was here?”

“I called her,” Izuku says. “She deserved to be here. Especially if… If we ended up losing you. She went to get clean clothes, but she’ll be back soon.”

"Why you Aizawa-sensei? Why do you care?" Shouto asks. Aizawa looks appalled at the notion of the question.

"You're my student. It's my responsibility to ensure you become a great hero. That your well-being is assured. That and I convinced the CPS people that I could take him in a fight.”

“You can’t!” Pain explodes in his chest again, his words breaking down into a fit of coughs for overexerting his throat. “None of you. I can- I’ll tell them she was lying. He’ll, he’ll hurt you,” his eyes are on Izuku when he says this, the other boy’s figure swimming in the water pooling over his vision.

“You think I’ll let him touch anyone here?” Aizawa says. “I have no intention.”

“You’re going to be safe, young Todoroki. I promise. Because we are here.”

His throat hurts. His arms ache and pull with every movement. His chest feels like it’s been flayed open and yet… this is the best he’s felt in a long time.

His chest heaves and sobs rip from his throat unhindered. Izuku wraps his arm around Shouto’s neck, pulling the other into his chest, letting him cry into the soft All-might merchandise.

His fingers stroke through Shouto’s hair, reminding him of the gentle touch of his mother before everything went to shit.

He's hiccuping and sniffling and coughing. One by one, their hug becomes a three-person hug, a four, a five, until everyone but a grumpy looking Aizawa has near dogpiled onto the bed.

The brief seconds of All-might’s muscle form reach out and snag the other pro, bringing him into the comfort circle.

A familiar wail and clatter of plastic alerts him to the appearance of his sister who takes to the pile immediately. Her glasses are foggy with her own tears and she wedges herself between Shouto and Izuku, her salty tracks mingling with the ones on each of their cheeks.

He hurts all over, but for once, he can see land beyond the waves.

He’s at the end of his countdown.

He gets to live.

He gets to be free.

Chapter Text

It turns out, recovery is harder than he’d thought it would be too. He’s away from Endeavor. Completely.

“We handled it internally. Legally, he has no claim over you anymore, but we felt both for your safety and society, we should prevent this from becoming a media craze. This way he’s still motivated to behave so as to not further tarnish his reputation. Unfortunately, it also means he remains a licensed hero. Is this ok with you?”

Shouto thinks. He thinks a long time. He knows hero society is fragile right now. They’re still reeling from the loss of All-might. As much as he hates his father, he’s the only one close to filling those shoes. He can’t very well take that away from people too.

“Of course, we will take measures that the two of you do not interact during your work study,” All-might adds.

"Pending a large-scale disaster, those measures should hold. It's not perfect and to be honest, he deserves a harsher punishment and you deserve better," Aizawa grumbles, obviously unhappy with the turnout though he was the one who'd explained it to Shouto.

“I understand.”

“We also want you to know, Nedzu and I worked to find a therapist who specializes in hero related issues. We think it would benefit you to have a couple of sessions at least. From what I was able to drag out of Midoriya, this affects you a lot.”

"And that's nothing to be ashamed of young Todoroki. But you don't have to deal with it alone anymore and you may be able to learn to better cope with it. I think it's safe to say most pros here have had to do a session or two after, particularly bad fights. We may win wars, but we don't always come out unscathed."

“You said something intelligent for once. Congratulations.”

“I’ll… I’ll try.” He concedes.

"We also rearranged the dorm assignments. This is by no means allowing for you to break the rules, but we thought for better or worse, you trust our problem child and wanted you to have resources available to you. I also relocated my quarters to be on your floor. The rooms above and below you are unoccupied as I understand you experience unintentional quirk use when stressed?"

Todoroki slumps his shoulders. “I do. Bakugo was angry with me last year.”

“Well, we haven’t informed your classmates of any details pertaining to your situation. They’ve deduced certain things on their own, but it’s yours to share.”

“Thank you.”

“All right. Quit hiding,” Aizawa says, looking over his shoulder where a very sheepish Izuku pokes his head out.

“Sorry-“

“Save it,” Aizawa says. All-might looks conflicted between them. “You do know a lot of this could have been avoided if you’d stepped up sooner?”

“I know you were trying to help him young Midoriya, but sometimes heroes have to do things that are in good interests of people even if it’s not what they want.”

Izuku opens his mouth to talk but Shouto talks instead. “Don’t be angry with him. I never would have come forward.” He feels Izuku’s rough fingers lace with his own, giving a gentle squeeze.

“It’s going to be alright now young Todoroki. Because we are here for you.”

Tears blur his vision and slip down his face. Those words had given him comfort and inspiration so many times as a child, but he’s never felt them as strongly as he does now, even with All-might’s diminished form.

_____________________

Getting away from his father, as it turns out, doesn’t fix all his problems. It doesn’t stop the nightmares. It doesn’t stop the daydreaming his therapist has dubbed “dissociating.”

It does change things. It changes that now he has twenty-five people in his corner instead of one.

When he feels panic gripping his heart and it seems like water is filling his lungs, there’s always someone there. Midoriya. Iida. Uraraka. Momo. Tsuyu. Kirishima. Aizawa. Grounding him with their words and gentle touch, letting him know he’s here, at UA, and he’s safe.

When he’s frosting his room and screaming into his pillow, sleep crusted Izuku is knocking gently, climbing into his bed and holding him while he calms. Last minute sleepovers are held in the common room, sleeping bags smooshed together in the small space, reruns of bad comedies on the tv.

He sees a therapist now. He takes something called an SSRI that helps manage his symptoms. They talk through everything he’s been through. Everything he’s been suppressing and repressing for years.

He remembers things about his mom he thought he'd lost.

He remembers things about his father he wishes he could have left forgotten.

He remembers Touya. He remembers the last day he saw Touya.

He hears the kettle ringing in his ears less often.

It isn't perfect. He still startles when people walk up behind him, particularly ones who cast large shadows.

His heart still threatens to burst when he can feel someone approaching him that he can’t see.

His throat still closes up when he sees his father on the tv.

It still churns his stomach when he hears people praise his character. But at least he no longer hears it from his classmates. He'd spared them a lot of the gory details, but he, at the prompting of Izuku and his therapist, told them an abridged version of why he tried to kill himself.

Of why he is the way he is.

Part of him still wishes his father were behind bars. His reasons and ability to imprison his mother void, his reputation in shambles. Another part of him is glad he’s not.

His therapist says it’s normal to have mixed feelings about things. Especially in cases of parental abuse.

He still hates that word. He knows it applies, but it implies a victim and he hates feeling like a victim. He hates feeling weak.

She also tells him, every session, that it wasn’t his fault.

He’s not sure he believes her.

If he'd never been born, his dad would have left them alone. He didn't care about any of his siblings. Didn't care about his mother until she got in his way.

She says no one is responsible for things except themselves. Enji, and she says Enji, she never calls him by his hero name, was the one who chose to hurt them.

She asks him all the time if he wanted them to hurt. If he asked his father to ignore his siblings and hurt his momma.

He always says no.

She says then it isn’t your fault.

It’s hard to argue with her sometimes.

———-......———-

It’s been three months. 

He kind of feels like he’s making progress. 

He hasn’t had a nightmare in four days. 

It almost sounds earnest when he tells himself what his father did wasn't his fault.

He no longer has the urge to scoff when Izuku tells him the same thing. 

Her words and Izuku’s mix often. Izuku assuring him he’s not his father. His mother’s words, ones he can finally remember from before things went to hell, telling him he’s so much more than his father or even her. That he can make the choice to be anything. That she loves him. 

He hasn’t heard her say she loves him in so long. 

He's standing in front of a mirror, looking at the incongruent nature of his face. At the red hair he'd grown to hate. At the scars he was ashamed of.

“I’m ready,” he says, watching as a pair of scissors materialize and fall from Momo’s palm. 

“You’re sure?” She asks. 

“I am.” 

Everyone has been there for him in the last six months. Izuku has been there changing channels when his father comes up. 

Iida and Uraraka are both attentive to his moods. Iida, in particular, has a sense for when Shouto is slipping, touches that seem too gentle for the usually exaggerated and spastic clas rep helping ground him.

Kaminari and Kirishima are usually awake when he can’t sleep, teaching him video games and watching crappy movies while he cuddles a pillow to his chest, Kirishima’s leg presses gently but not invasively against his own. 

Tsuyu holds his hand and Momo talks him through panic attacks. Tsuyu's hands are cool and remind him of his mother and sister.

Even Bakugo has toned down his abrasive attitude and overuse of explosions to some degree. 

Satou makes him comfort food. Sero has introduced him to comedians. 

Tokoyami linked him to some meditation videos that help him sleep sometimes. 

He also has a cat now. She was a stray with a mangled ear.

Her name is Chika. 

Aizawa pretends he doesn’t know. 

He also leaves bags of cat treats at Shouto’s door.  

Shouto watches the pile of his hair on the floor accumulate, red and white strands falling atop each other. 

“I’m done,” she says after what seems like a long time. He looks up. 

It's the most of his face he's seen in a long time. She's got his white hair combed over slightly, overtaking the red a bit, a small amount of gel on what's left of his bangs, letting the hair curve up and defy gravity.

He runs his fingers through the short hair on the sides. It’s enough to tug at, but it’s not the shaggy mess it was. 

For the first time in his memory, there isn’t hair hanging in his eyes and brushing his cheeks. It’s not hanging down his nose and tangling in his eyelashes. 

He can see his forehead, his eyes, his ears, his scars. 

He can see himself. All of it. 

*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*

The following week is a bad one. Endeavor stopped some large-scale disaster. He's on every news channel. Everyone outside of class A is talking about him. Shouto walks through the halls and all he can hear are whispers of his father's name.

He can feel everything bubbling up and he’s about to completely lose his shit when Izuku takes his hand and pulls him into an empty classroom, strong arms wrapped around his trembling shoulders. 

He’s not sure why he’s shaking. 

He’s not sure why his body does much of anything anymore. Every time he thinks he’s getting better something comes and yanks the rug out from under him again. 

Izuku doesn't say anything for a while. Just holds him. Absorbing his tension, his hand rubbing soothing patterns on the back of his jacket making him realize his undershirt is sticking to him from sweat.

Why is he sweating? 

Carefully, he releases his quirk, letting a chill pass over his skin. It gives him a cold chill, drying the sweat and nearly icing it over.

“It’s gonna be okay, Shouto,” Izuku murmurs, pressing a kiss to his temple. 

"It doesn't feel like it. Every time I feel like I'm making progress I get forced two steps back again," he feels tears burning his eyes and he clenches his fists, nails biting into his palms. ‘I never used to cry this much either,’ he spits in his head. “I’m so fucking frustrated.” Izuku pulls back, tilting his head to meet Shouto’s watery eyes with determined ones. 

“I know. But how long has it been since you got away from him? How long have you really had to process it?”

"Three months and four days," Shouto says automatically.

“It’s been almost a year since Bakugo and I started having some semblance of a normal rivalry. It’s been over a year since he quit beating on me and I’ll be honest, I’m still not quite over it.”

“Thanks. I feel a ton better,” Shouto bites. 

"But every day I feel a little bit better. At first, I still expected to turn a corner and have him throw me into the wall. Even by the second year I still felt my heart try and jump out of my chest when he'd use his explosions. I'd have to talk myself down from hyperventilating when he'd start yelling. But it gets better. Healing isn’t perfect, love. But we’re all here for you. Say the word and Iida and Bakugo will go shut all of them up. We have your back.”

“Thanks, Izuku...” Shouto says quietly, feeling a little ashamed of his behavior. 

"And it's okay to feel these things," Izuku adds as if reading his mind. "It's okay to be sad and angry after going through that." He smiles, gentle and bright. Sometimes Shouto is reminded exactly why he thought Izuku and All-might were related. They're cut from the same cloth. So kind and willing to give their everything into things they care about.

Shouto resists the urge to pick at the scars beneath his sleeves. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

"Cool. Wanna get ice cream?" Izuku asks, turning the conversation on a one-eighty that used to make Shouto's head spin.

“I can’t. I have to see my therapist today.”

“Tomorrow then,” Izuku says, grinning broadly. 

“Tomorrow.” Shouto agrees. 

Izuku does this sometimes on Shouto’s bad days. Makes ‘appointments’ or dates for the next day, as if trying to make sure Shouto has a reason to get there. 

It helps a little bit. Giving him something to look forward to when he gets bogged down by the fog. 

Izuku waves when they part, Shouto heading further into the school, Izuku heading to the gates with their other friends. 

Shouto stands in front of Ms. Shino’s door for a couple minutes before he actually walks in. The first appointment he stood out there for fifteen minutes before he felt brave enough to go in. 

“Afternoon Shouto,” she says. He gives her a little wave, dropping his backpack in the floor and sitting down, sliding down the couch. 

His talk with Izuku made him feel a little bit better, but he still feels pretty down about his progress.

“You seem down,” she says, peeking over her oval lenses glasses. Miss Shino is a small woman with a kind face and dark grey eyes, short dark grey hair with longer fringe on the sides. She’s younger than he’d expected for a therapist but she’s... good. 

He supposes her quirk helps. It’s not mind reading or anything invasive. She described it as extreme empathy. She actually feels what people around her feel. 

Shouto doesn’t think he’d be able to handle feeling everyone else’s pain. 

He can barely handle his own. 

She had visited him in the hospital before they let him go. They wouldn’t let him leave before they found an outpatient therapist he would agree to see. 

He dismissed four before Aizawa recommended her. The hospital had wanted to use one in their own network, but she leveled with Shouto in a way no one else would. 

She told him about her quirk and how it had hurt her. 

“It was hard growing up. I couldn’t filter it. I couldn’t control it. I felt everything. I felt how sad my mother was. How sad she was around me. 

Eventually, though, I learned I could use it to help people and that made it a lot easier to bear."

Shouto touched his scar. The one his mother gave him. His quirk had hurt her. His quirk made his father hurt her. 

‘You can use it to be who you want to be. To be the kind of hero you want.’

He touched the scar his father gave him. His quirk made his father hurt them both... 

Would it hurt less if he knew he could help people with it? What if he could help her with it? What if he could save her... 

“I almost had another meltdown.”

“What happened?”

"I'm sure you know so don't make me say it," Shouto snaps. She doesn't get angry. She doesn't yell at him. She just looks at him. "Everyone's talking about him again," he says, subdued this time.

“And it makes you angry. To hear them praise someone who hurt your family so much.” Shouto nods. “Are you unhappy with the compromise UA did with the authorities?”

Shouto considers it awhile. He’s thought about it a lot in the last three months. 

“No. And it’s not even really that. I’m just... I’m beginning to wonder if I’m ever...”

“If you’re ever going to be ok?” She finishes. “You are not your illness, but your illness is part of you. People with addiction will always be more likely to use. People who are anxious will always struggle more with change. People with PTSD will have sensitivities and triggers other people don't, but they can be managed. Don’t you feel like you’re doing better than you were the first time we met?”

“I don’t know.”

“I think you are. You’re more open. Less paranoid. You’re more honest with yourself. More willing to accept and even reach out for help. You stay present during our sessions. You’ve reported less of the blank periods. Does this sound accurate to you, Shouto?”

“I guess...”

“Sometimes it’s hard for us to see our progress when it’s so gradual. It’s like when you try and watch ice melt. It seems like it isn’t really doing anything and then it’s just gone. Or like when you run consistently. You don’t really feel like you’re getting faster, but if you compare your times, you’ll see that’s not true. 

Gradual changes can be hard to perceive. It doesn’t mean they aren’t there, or that they aren’t fantastic progress. You went through over a decade of trauma. It’s not going to go away overnight.” She pauses a moment. “You still seem a little unconvinced.”

“I’m... afraid.”

“Of what?”

“That people will get frustrated with me. That they’ll get tired of helping me.”

“Can I ask you something?”

“You ask me things the whole hour.”

“Fair. Your mother has been in psychiatric care for ten years, right?”

“Little longer. But yes.”

“And she tells you she’s still frightened of him. Her behavior still isn’t the same as you remembered it?”

“She still doesn’t touch me much. She brushes Fuyumi’s hair. And she hugs Natsuo every time he visits.”

“Are you frustrated with her that she’s not over it yet?”

“Of course not! He, he beat her. I don’t know if she actually wanted any of us.”

“Would you be angry if it was reversed? If say, your friend Izuku was the one who’d been abused and you were the one helping him?”

“I do help him... we help each other.”

“And are you frustrated with him? Do you think he’s being weak because things that happened a long time ago still affect him?”

Shouto doesn’t say anything.

“Sometimes it helps to think about things that way. If you think you’re being a burden, flip the script and see if that’s how you would see things.”

“Do you think I’ll be able to be a hero? That I’ll be able to be better than he was?”

“I think you already are, Shouto.”