It had all started out innocently enough. Well, Todoroki supposed, the simplicity of the situation really bespoke of the inevitability of this conclusion. He was probably just always destined to gravitate towards Midoriya Izuku.

"Okay," Aizawa-sensei said, picking sand out of his eye. "Since it seems like we as teachers got a bit overzealous in the last exercise," from somewhere under his cocoon of casts and bandages, Bakugou managed a small indignant explosion. "I've been legally advised to encourage you to all to use this upcoming two-day weekend to relax and avoid stress to your bodies, or the school is liable to come under charges for child abuse."

"Yes," Iida observed, pushing up his glasses with the hand that wasn't flattened and cast-bound, "the minefield may have been just shy of constitutional."

Their teacher rolled his eyes and retreated back into his sleeping bag, zipping it closed with a sting of mutters that were probably obscene. "I'm lying down now. If anyone says a single word between now and when the bell rings I'm suspending them."

"But won't you just wake up when the bell goes off in three minutes?"

"Go to the damned principal's office, Aoyama!" It had been a hard week for everyone.

Five minutes later after quietly shuffling out of the classroom and into the hall, the class erupted into chatter. "Two days off!" Hagakure cooed excitedly. "There's SOOOO much I can do in two days off with just some light burns! We should plan something fun together!" The light burns in question were bizarrely visible – floating band-aids from the front, but on the other side one could see the red-and-yellow stains of her injuries left on the white cotton.

Jirou wasn't carrying her bookbag at this point so much as dragging it on the floor behind her as she trudged. "Yeah, that would sound a lot more fun if I hadn't been impaled yesterday. I'm thinking of staying home. And resting my organs."

"I'm in on any plans that don't involve standing or stairs," Ashido joined, popping up on the back wheels of her wheelchair and attempting a clumsy spin that nearly knocked over Kaminari, who would have minded more if he hadn't gotten a peek at her panties in the process of her nearly kicking him down and figured this was the best part of his day so far.

Todoroki hung towards the back, mostly because the crutch was slowing him down. Not really the foot itself – a few bones had been shattered, but the pain wasn't enough to bother him. The fact that he wasn't allowed to put weight on it, though. Shouto was quickly discovering how graceless he was trying to balance with this creaky metal hand-me down from pulled out of the closet of Recovery Girl's office.

So distracted he was trying maneuver down the two steps down from the hallway to the shoe lockers, Shouto didn't even notice Midoriya was no longer talking with Iida and Uraraka and had fallen back to match his pace until the other boy spoke. "What about you, Todoroki? Planning on spending both days visiting your mom?"

He frowned. "Visiting hours are only from the morning to afternoon, so. Unfortunately I'll have plenty of free time home with my father." Endeavor was on temporary forced medical leave himself, and had been impatiently storming around the house for nearly two weeks now due to, quite ironically, a foot injury of his own. Shouto was not looking forward to the no doubt horrifically creative ways his father would find for them to spend this time together in the name of self-improvement.

Midoriya winced sympathetically. "Oh, geeze. What about your siblings? You don't along with them?"

Todoroki shrugged. "My brothers have both moved out, I don't really talk to them much. My sister and I get along alright, but she's pretty preoccupied with moving out herself. And her wedding next month. Mostly she's busy with that."

"I'll bet," Midoriya said with raised eyebrows, pulling his shoes out of his locker and changing into them. Shouto, upon opening his own locker, realized he was going to have to sit down to change his shoe and then stand back up again with this abominable crutch. Or maybe he could just sort of... Slip his school shoe off and hop out of it, and then put his sneaker on the ground and kind of hop into it? This was going to be a process, wasn't it? He put his injured right foot on the ground to test how much weight it could take. Midoriya surprised him again when he asked "Do you need help with that?"

Shouto thought about that offer for a moment. Then he handed Midoriya his right sneaker. "Shove this in my bag? I think I've got the rest."

Somewhere in the following struggle, Midoriya spoke again. "So. Here's an idea. Since it seems like you could you a reason to get out of the house, maybe tomorrow after you visit your mom you could come over to my place?" When Shouto looked away from his attempts to tie his own shoe laces to look at his classmate, he looked terribly uncomfortable. Not bruised-ribs uncomfortable, because Midoriya had a terribly worrying habit of injuring himself so often pain like his current set didn't even faze him anymore. More like, sweaty uncomfortable. It was, for some reason, still sort of cute. Nervously, Midoriya continued, "To, you know, hang out or whatever. I guess?"

The first thought that occurred to Todoroki was that he had never been over to a friends house before, and the fact that it was Midoriya who was asking was so absurdly pleasing Shouto could actually feel himself flushing hot with happiness. The second thought was that Endeavor would not be pleased to hear him skipping out on even a moment that he could be spending training on something so wasteful as friendship and happiness, and would go out of his way after this to make his ire known. Unfortunately, this was the idea that Todoroki actually managed to respond to, and instead of saying something reasonable like 'Sure I would love to share the day with you,' the words that actually came out of his mouth were "Do you think I could spend the night?"

Luckily for him Midoriya didn't seem to notice how rude it had been of Todoroki to just invite himself to sleep over like that, and just beamed brightly. "I'd have to ask my mom first, but I'm sure she won't mind! S-she's been telling me I should invite some of my friends since she found out I had any, so she'll probably be thrilled!"

Todoroki nodded, indescribably relieved that Midoriya's social awkwardness rivaled his own enough for them to communicate on the same wavelength. "As long as I'm not in the way," he said stiffly.

"Not at all," Izuku assured him with a little smile, and something about seeing it grace that freckled face made Todoroki happy. Proud of himself; that he had been able to make his friend smile so easily. "So, tomorrow when you're done visiting your mother maybe you could text me and I'll meet you somewhere near the hospital?"

Shouto shifted his weight until most if it was on the metal crutch instead of his good foot while he considered the idea. He nodded. "Since it's right in the middle of the city, maybe we could wander around and pick up lunch or something?" He'd never had the time or inclination to walk around the city by himself, but the idea of doing so with Midoriya was oddly appealing. He liked spending time with the other boy, but they didn't always know what to say to each other, and it made Todoroki a bit nervous. He was hoping that having the distractions of the boisterous city might make things roll smoother.

"Sure, that sounds like fun!" Midoriya agreed sunnily, and for a few moments neither of them had anything to say better than smiling in nervous embarrassment at each other while both boys continued to blush redder and redder with each passing second.

Finally, after a pathetically long silence, Todoroki managed to awkwardly fumble out the words "Um. Yeah. So, visiting hours end at three o'clock, and... I'll see you tomorrow?"

"Y-yeah! Have a good night!" Midoriya bowed, too fast and too low, and scrambled off to walk home.

Shouto continued to stand next to the school lockers for a few minutes after that, wondering why his heart was beating so quickly.

–

The train station smelled like stale smoke and melted plastic, a large black scorch mark marring the cement floor under to a bench where someone had lost control of their quirk and apparently started a nearby garbage can on fire. Todoroki checked the time on his phone again. It had only been two minutes since he last checked, and Midoriya's train wasn't due for at least another five. If he was a normal teenager, Todoroki would probably have some sort of game on his phone he could use to entertain himself while he waited, but what he had instead was audiobooks not suited for just a couple minutes of anxious waiting. Browsing through his files, he realized he didn't even have interesting books – they ere all textbooks and modern philosophy. Shouto narrowed his eyes at the screen, realization dawning that he was probably some kind of nerd. This was not helping him to feel less nervous.

Or maybe nervous wasn't the right word for the fluttering of his pulse. Excited, probably. Shouto was excited and self-conscious, which were two things you be at once, he was pretty sure – and if he and Iida and Midoriya could all talk naturally between classes then there was no reason he should have any difficulty at all finding things to speak to Midoriya about for an entire day... And night... Just the two of them... Right? On second thought, he might be nervous. Maybe hanging out in a group would have been better? Todoroki frowned at the thought; somehow Midoriya having invited him alone was what made today feel so... important. So special.

The screech of train wheels snapped his thought process off its own rails, and he looked up from where he'd been staring absently at his phone screen in time to watch doors open and a flood of

people flow forth out of them. Shouto scanned the crowd for Midoriya, but he was too short to catch sight of in the sea of heads and Todoroki ended up being caught by surprise when the other student suddenly greeted him.

"Hey, Todoroki. Sorry you ended up having to wait for me, I hope it wasn't too boring." Midoriya was smiling at him, looking much more calm and natural than Shouto currently felt. The sight was oddly soothing.

He shook his head in response. "No, I didn't mind at all. Should we get going?"

The two of them had decided to meet halfway in between Midoriya's apartment and the hospital in a district neither of them had ever had any reason to go to before, mostly out of an inherent sense of adventure but saying to each other that as heroes they should have extensive knowledge of the entire city so they could respond to whatever obscure locale they might be called to in the line of duty. While the idea sounded good in theory, the reality was that as soon as they stepped foot out of the train station, neither of them had any idea of what to do or where they should go.

"Flip a coin?" Midoriya suggested with a helpless shrug. Tails won the toss, and to the left they went, wandering towards the edge of the city. Todoroki instantly relaxed once they got moving, a comfortable silence settling between them save for the soft thump of a rubber stopper hitting cement in between each of Shouto's steps and the low buzz of the surrounding streets.

It was only about five minutes of walking before the sound proved too distracting, Midoriya glancing over at his limping pace with worry. "Oh geeze, was this actually a good idea? Is your foot okay to walk around on for a few hours? We can go straight back to my place or stop to sit down if this is too much..."

Todoroki was quick to stop him. "No, I'm fine. I was the one who suggested it, remember? And besides," He tapped his cane to the ground meaningfully. "I walked around the house using this for a half hour last night to test it, it feels much better than the crutch did. I'm good."

"Yeah, uh," Midoriya looked up and down the length of the red glass walking cane (with practical rubber stopper for gripping). "I did notice the cane. Did you get it yesterday after school or something? It seems... Fancy."

"No, I've had it for a few years actually. My grandmother Hinako gave it to me when she had to had to move into her wheelchair." He paused, scratching at his cheek and wondering if this was even worth explaining. "Uh, if you've heard of her it would have been by the name Firefoot Fran, though."

That apparently caught Midoroya's attention, his head snapping to look at Shouto so fast he was a little worried for the other boy's neck. "F-Firefoot Fran?! The infamous hero whose explosive kick is said to have once hit a villain in the face so hard that after he healed he looked like a completely different person?! She's your GRANDMA?"

Todoroki flushed red, a little embarrassed and a little proud. "Um. Yeah, I think that's supposed to be true? Well, because her power originated from her Achilles region she had a tendency to shatter the bones in her feet and ankles during really difficult battles, so." He gestured again to the dark-colored walking stick. She had used it intermittently through her career, but more than that? All of Shouto's best memories of his grandmother she'd had it in her hand, too crippled from years of harsh heroics to stand upright on her own but too proud to succumb to the indignity of pain until her ankles finally betrayed her and gave out for good. Also she'd once smacked his father upside the head with it so hard he'd snorted flames out of his nose and burned his chopsticks to cinders, and out of all of the family memories he'd had in his life that was probably Todoroki's favorite. "It's fireproof." He explained lamely.

"Makes sense," Midoriya agreed, now looking much more impressed with the cane than he had moments before. "Is it iceproof, too?"

Torodoki looked down at the smooth handle he held in his right hand. Huh. "I hope so. I'd sure feel like an asshole if I broke the thing."

Midoriya laughed, a light, happy sound. "We should still take breaks every so often. Technically we are supposed to be resting, right?"

There was really no reason to argue, especially since he really was working his foot more than Recovery Girl had permitted. And not to mention... "Speaking of which, how are your ribs?"

The other boy had the decency to look abashed. "Totally fine, I swear! I mean, I grew up with Kacchan, so falling onto a landmine is like nothing at this point! I'm practically explosion-proof by now," Midoriya said with a chuckle in his voice, like having spent his entire childhood EXPLODING wasn't absolutely horrific.

"That's not a good thing!"

The way Midoriya's eyebrow raised managed to convey the idea that it was somehow Todoroki who was the crazy one. "Isn't it, though?"

There was really nothing Shouto could say to that. Or, if there was, he certainly wasn't thinking of it. "...As long as you're alright, I guess." He tried not to sound concerned: an art frequently practiced in Midoriya's presence.

Ignoring their individual reasons to be uncomfortable, it was turning out to be a lovely walk. The weather was probably a bit on the chilly side, the sky overcast with a slight breeze cooling the air, but Midoriya was wearing a hooded sweatshirt and they were on the move, so neither of them were bothered. It seemed to be a more rural area of the city. The buildings weren't too tall or too shiny and the streets weren't clogged with people, only passing by a few on the sidewalks as they wandered.

There seemed to be a lot of restaurants in this area, judging from the changing scents as they passed by the doorways of each building. Actually, just taking a look around Shouto realized it wasn't even just the buildings – ramen carts and crepe stands and the like were littered on the sidewalk corners as well, a veritable buffet at their convenience.

The smell was certainly enough to distract Midoriya. He had been walking in pace with Shouto, people watching like it was second nature to him, when he suddenly inhaled a great breath of air and sighed it out as the words "Oh crap, is that taiyaki?"

Todoroki's eyes automatically sought out the cart in question. "Is that a bad thing?" He couldn't help but raise an eyebrow at the almost exasperated tone of voice his friend's words had manged to take.

Midoriya blushed a little, shaking his head quickly. "No, I don't, uh, have any kind of problem with it or anything, it's just a snack food. Um, it's more like." His eyes darted upwards towards the sky, a smooth and unconscious instinct. "You remember that workplace experience week we had, my mentor was Gran Torino? He really loves taiyaki, and at one point I was making some for him in the microwave when he helped me realize something about my quirk that helps a like a LOT, especially with the whole shredding my limbs thing. So now every time I use my quirk at all I think about evenly-microwaved taiyaki, which means I end up thinking about taiyaki like. Very often. I think about taiyaki a lot."

Shouto looked at Midoriya. Looked back at the food cart. A little uncertainly, he asked "Do you... wanna get some?"

Midoriya looked resigned to his fate. "Yeah," he agreed, a little dejectedly. "Yes I do."

There weren't quite enough people around for there to be a line, so the vendor was able to serve them quickly and cheerfully. Shouto paid for both of them before Midoriya had the chance to try to protest, "You said your mother is making dinner, right? So, I can at least cover a snack," because appealing to Midoriya's inherent politeness seemed like the shortest way to keep him from arguing.

Todoroki hadn't realized how much the varied parfums of the restaurant district they were in had been getting to him until he bit into the sweet potato fishcake he'd ordered, he and Midoriya managing to moan into their mouthfuls of taiyaki at very nearly the same instant. They glanced at each other, and the moment they made eye contact realized they'd even managed to do that at the same time – and thusly both descended into laughing together as well.

They kept walking as they ate, wandering farther into towards the edges of the neighborhood. Restaurants turned into post offices and drugstores until they were walking through blocks taken up entirely by apartment buildings, and by the time they reached a section of park and playground Todoroki's foot was bothering them enough to take a break. They settled on a bench facing a blacktop basketball court, neglected enough to have cracks in the pavement and no nets on the hoops but not enough to lack a small gathering of children playing on it with complete contentment.

Or maybe not COMPLETE contentment. There were four kids playing with a faded orange ball, unabashedly using their Quirks in whatever ways they could think of to aid their play. Three of the children were having no problem showing off – one girl was controlling a floating doll to steal the ball and drop it into the net, a tiny boy with glasses had some wind or telekenetic force he was using to make shots, and the largest girl was using some sort of shockwave to trip all of the others when she stomped on the ground. The last boy Todoroki hadn't seen use any quirk yet, but he

seemed to be getting frustrated with the game. Shouto was just beginning to wonder if he didn't have any quirk at all, but the notion was dismissed by the basketball sailing straight through his body when when the tall red-haired girl tried to pass it to him.

"Friggin' hell, Haise!" The redhead cursed as the ball bounced off the court towards the bench.

"Language, Ino!" the little curly-headed one reminded her. He was ignored.

"It's not like it was on purpose!" Haise hissed back. Literally, as it were – he and the girl with the purple doll shared a rather telling pair of matching reptilian eyes. "You guys are the ones that wanted to play this, it's not my fault whatever side I'm on always loses!"

His sister floated the doll back into her arms. "It kind of is, though." He snatched the plush out of her arms and threw it to the ground, which really accomplished nothing as it just bounced softly and laid flat on the pavement until she floated it back into her hands again.

The littlest boy had his own addition to the conversation, grinning brightly and pointing to the bench Todoroki and Midoriya were sitting on with the declaration "Then let's just add more team members! Hey! Do you guys wanna play basketball with us?"

Shouto looked away from the court in time to miss the redhead grabbing the little boy's arm and scolding "Don't invite weird highschool kids off the street to play with us! What did your mom tell you about strangers?" Instead he was looking at Midoriya, who had stood up to grab their ball for them while the kids had been bickering and was now looking back at Shouto with a deer-like expression.

"Well it's not like they're dangerous- just look at them. I bet they're total nerds." Haise assesed. Todoroki wanted to protest but found he really couldn't. Nerds they indeed were. "That one's got even a cane like and old man."

"Well that's a little rude," Midoriya muttered, just low enough for Shouto to hear.

"Yeah, I'm pretty sure teenagers are supposed to go on dates and stuff on Saturday afternoons and not just sit on benches," The doll girl agreed. "They clearly don't have anything better to do."

The redhead looked at them for a moment before shrugging, apparently in agreement that he and Midoriya were very clearly harmless losers. "Yeah, that's true. Well, whaddaya say? Wanna play with us?" It was Ino's call on the final verdict of any matter – the children had unanimously elected her leader based on her ability to beat all of the others up: the truest original law of nature.

He and Midoriya glanced at each other, a silent communication passing between them through their facial expressions. 'Well, what do you think?' Said Midoriya's eyebrows.

'I don't know, I've never even played basketball before,' Relpied the minute baffled shake of Shouto's head.

'Me neither, it could be fun,' The raise of Midoriya's shoulders said back.

'Fair enough,' reasoned the raised eyebrows and tilt of Shouto's head. He grabbed his cane and used it to stand up off the bench. "Forgive me if I have trouble keeping up, as I'll literally be playing with one arm and one leg tied behind my back."

Upon closer inspection the redheaded girl proved to be sporting a rather handsome pair of tusks, around which she declared with finality: "That's fine, you can be on me and Shizu's team. If this one's as much of a weenie as he looks like, it should all about even out."

And with that rather encouraging statement, the girl Ino threw the ball into the air and the game was begun. Todoroki looked at Midoriya from the other side of the court, both of them trying to decide how much effort it would be appropriate to expend against a group of children while the boy with glasses used his quirk to stop the ball mid-air and pop it towards his teammate's waiting hands as Haise jumped up to grab it. Remembering that he had ended up on the girl's team and that this was not a favorable turn of events in that regard, Todoroki immediately froze the boy's feet to the ground, halting him where he'd been about to run past Shouto towards the net and letting his leftover forward momentum jolt the boy's upper body enough for the ball to fly out of his hands for his sister to pick up. He didn't step through the ice fast enough to prevent her from tossing it up it to her stuffed doll, plush arms wrapping around the ball securely as it drifted up towards the opposite net – but it the doll moved too slowly to avoid Midoriya, who didn't need to use his quirk to be able to jump high enough to snatch them both out of the air. He did look a little startled by the fact that the doll was still clutching the basketball uselessly, but quickly just sort of shook it off so he could pass the ball back to the boy with glasses.

And so it went along those lines. Shouto had to remain mostly stationary, basically limited to hopping around on his good foot and stopping the other player's movements with his ice. But from his immobile vantage point it was easy to watch the game, and Todoroki found he was having a good time just for that.

Midoriya's movements were kind of incredible to watch up close, Shouto decided. He'd only used his Quirk once so far, when Todoroki had frozen over the rim of the net Midoriya's answer had been to jump up and put his fist through it to break the ice, and Shouto wasn't sure what it was about the act that left such an impression on him, but he'd remember the image later. Midoriya in the air, small body curled in on itself at the height of his jump, eyes shining with concentration as he punched his hand down through the ice for it to plummet in a solid clean chunk to the pavement below. Midoriya was... Cool. That was the word he wanted, right? Midoriya was just cool.

He was even better at coordinating with his teammates than Todoroki was proving. Despite the fact that he was rendered completely to support duty by his leg, Shouto still only managed to communicate to the girls by with awkward shouts and they slipped on his ice nearly as much as it helped to stabilize them. The boys team, on the other hand, had Midoriya constantly darting down to whisper in their ears, always followed by a brilliant display of teamwork and ingenuity that would inevitability make Ino stomp her foot in frustration so hard the moving ground knocked everyone off their feet besides the girl herself and, ironically, Shouto, who had gotten so skilled in his one-footed hopping that he was able to avoid the attack entirely.

So, all in all, it was a pretty good time. They played for probably an hour at most, the sun turning orange in sky until the lizard-eyed boy called for a stop because their mom was making pineapple curry for dinner and they should probably go home for that.

"Yeah," Midoriya agreed, eyes on the streaks of red starting to paint the bottom of the skyline. "We need to figure out how to get back to the train station before we miss dinner ourselves."

Shouto looked around the court, now sporting an extra crack in the concrete and and uncomfortable amount of ice that would probably not melt on it's own by tomorrow. The redheaded girl was giving Midoriya directions to the bus stop nearby so Todoroki figured he had a moment to spare to at least melt the ice down so kids would be able to play here again the next day. The moment he summoned the warmth of a flame into his hand, however, he was rather startled by Shizu's impressed cry of "Oh, wow! You can make fire, too?"

Three more heads immediately snapped to look at Todoroki. Trying not to be unnerved, he carefully directed heat towards the icy pavement. "Uh. Yeah, it just. Didn't seem useful in a ball game?"

Ino's eyes had gone wide as she stared at him, suddenly flailing out an arm to point at him rudely. "Wait a minute wait a minute, I know you! You're the one that lost my dad twenty-thousand yen!"

Todoroki and Midoriya exchanged confused glaces. The other children, if anything, looked even more impressed. "Um. Excuse me?"

"The Yuuei sports festival! Final round he bet on you to win and you went out like a punk bitch!" She called out, again immediately scolded by the bespectacled boy for her language. Which was. Wow. Super great. Shouto was really glad that's how that event was remembered.

"I think it's. Illegal to do that."

The two siblings at least looked excited, crowding around Todoroki with wide eyes. "You mean you go to Yuuei? And made it the FINALS?"

He could hear Midoriya smothering a chuckle into his fist from somewhere beside him, and Shouto decided there was no reason to feel like the only one stuck under the spotlight; he turned to his friend and snapped "So did he!" in a tone that sounded far too accusatory for something they were both actually quite proud of.

The kids all looked at Midoriya, even more impressed that when they'd heard about Todoroki. "YOU'RE in Yuuei?! What's your Quirk, anyway?"

Red-faced and holding up his hands defensively, Midoriya stuttered out "Oh, um, just, uh... Super-strength? I guess? I'm not good at it yet, it still tears up my body when I use it wrong."

His modesty failed to curb their elation. "That's so cool, I can't believe it!"

"C'mon guys, leave them alone," Ino's scoff turned into a snort at the end. "If we don't get back before the sun goes down Kiri's mom is gonna tell my mom to tan me."

"She might do it herself!" The boy hopped cheerfully, waving the basketball above his head. "When I told her how much you swore today!"

She shoved him towards the opening in the chain-link fence bordering the western half of the court. "Tattle and you'll find out how hard I can smack that big mouth!"

Most of the ice on the blacktop had been reduced to manageable puddles by the time they'd successfully awed the children, so Todoroki and Midoriya could be back on their way after a brief goodbye. Midoriya was smiling as they walked away from the court, a bit of laughter coloring his voice when he commented "Well, you certainly made an impression on them."

"I think they were pretty taken with both of us, really."

Midoriya's smile had something sly in it as he elbowed Todoroki in the shoulder. "Yeah, but I'm not the one who charmed a girl into developing a crush on me in forty-five minutes."

Shouto's eyebrows shot up in surprise. "Huh?" He reflexively turned his head around to look back at the court the were walking away form where he could see the not-quite retreating form of Shizu still standing near the fence clutching her doll and indeed, staring right at him. When she saw him look back at her, she blushed red and yelped a little, ducking her face down to hide behind her long hair and running off catch up with her brother. "What the- how did that even happen?"

Midoriya really did laugh then. "Don't you know, Todoroki?" His voiced pitched higher as he sang "You're just like, soooo cool!"

Todoroki couldn't have helped the laughter from bubbling out of his throat if he'd wanted to, and the both of them had to stop walking to catch their breath, doubled over with mirth in the middle of the sidewalk.

It wasn't until they reached the bus stop the tusked girl had directed them to that either of them spoke again. While they waited for their ride to arrive, Todoroki broke the silence with the observation, "You're really good with them. Children, I mean."

Midoriya looked a bit self-conscious, smiling awkwardly at the compliment. "You think so? I hope you're right, it'd really come in handy when I'm a hero."

"That's definitely true," Shouto agreed. And then, even though it was a stupid thing to say, before the thought occurred to him not to open his mouth for every thought that flits through his head he added "You'll be a good father someday."

While it wasn't the best thing to add to the conversation, Midoriya's slight wince at the comment seemed a bit excessive until he spoke. "Ahhh... thanks? But I don't think I'll ever have kids." Todoroki looked at him, eyebrows a bit raised, but didn't say anything in return. "So, I don't mean to make a generalization about everyone 'cause I'm sure there are plenty of cases where it works out totally fine, but, um." He was fidgeting, Shouto noticed. "After hearing about Kouta's parents I realized that heroes maybe... Shouldn't have kids?" He bit his lip, and Shouto let him take his time to articulate his words. "I just mean – no one blames them for dying and leaving him alone, right? Because they were heroes, and sometimes to save people you die in the line of duty, and it's just expected. That's the thing about being a hero – it comes first in your life above all else. And I've always gotten the impression that, you know, when you have kids THEY'RE supposed to be the most important thing in your life, and I can't in good conscience bring a life into this world that I have total responsibility for when I know that if I have to leave their birthday for an emergency or die when they're too young to even grow up remembering my face, I'd do it... Just doesn't seem fair to anyone."

Midoriya was still looking straight ahead at the street in front of them when he finished speaking, and for a few moments the silence continued to sit between them. It wasn't uncomfortable, though. Something about Midoriya's words, and the subtle conviction in them, made Shouto feel oddly... relieved. A strangely peaceful silence. "I actually agree that heroes probably shouldn't be parents, but, um. I have a rather... different perspective on that one." Even Hinako had only been a decent grandparent because she'd been retired – not to think ill of the woman, but if she'd been that great of a mom Shouto's father probably wouldn't have turned out to be such an asshat.

"Oh God," Midoriya said with a grimace, nose scrunched up in a way that was once again, actually kind of adorable. "Oh God, I didn't even think about that. Wow, yeah, that's. A whole different kettle of fish, huh?"

"Yes," Shouto agreed sagely. "Different fish entirely."

The following silence was a bit awkward. Totally his fault, that one.

"O-o-on the other hand," Midoriya said after a minute or so of the bus still not arriving. "We've got a lot of friends who'll probably have kids, so someday I'm gonna be a kickass babysitter." He was smiling again. "It's gonna be nuts, all the kiddies will always be super pumped to hang out with cool uncle Deku."

"My sister is getting married next spring," Todoroki realized. "And I have two brothers. Between the three of them, someday I'll be an actual uncle. Real-live nieces and nephews."

"That," Midoriya's voice squeaked gleefully on the word, "sounds really exciting. I totally wanna play with your nonexistent nieces and nephews. Is that weird? Can I babysit your family's future children?"

Todoroki shrugged. "I don't see why not."

They both snorted, and as he watched his friend bury his face in his hands to smother a rather silly-sounding giggle into his palms, Shouto couldn't help but smile. The bus pulled up before either of them had stopped grinning.

–

The train shuddered on its tracks, jostling the car just enough for all of the occupants therein to bounce where they stood. On the seat Todoroki was sitting on, his knees knocked against Midoriya's awkwardly, rattling both of them at the impact of their kneecaps. Out of the corner of his eye, Shouto watched as Midoriya glanced to the woman sitting on the other side of him on the seat, before scooting a just close enough to Todoroki for their legs to press together. The next time the train shook the vibration of it passed through both of them at the shared point of contact, and they rode on smoothly without their shoulders or knees hitting each other.

The setting sun was streaking dark orange light across the white of the train car's interior, and Shouto noticed how the light turned Midoriya's hair and eyes black; gave his pale skin a faint glow.

He tightened his grip around the handle of his cane, and carefully willed his rapidly beating heart back to calmness.

–-

Something he hadn't considered, Todoroki realized when they reached Midoriya's apartment, was that the girl would not be the only person who still remembered the sports festival.

The warm expression of delighted welcome Midoriya's mother wore when the two boys first entered only took a moment to warp; eyes widening for a moment before going tight, smile strained and shaky. "Oh!" She said, voice too-high with tension. "Of course, Izuku said 'My friend Todoroki,' didn't he? So naturally, the friend Todoroki he'd be talking about is the Todoroki he fought in the sports festival. I don't know why I didn't think of it before! I mean, how many Todorokis could there be, right?"

Shouto, if you hadn't noticed by now, was the BEST at making first impressions. Just. So excellent. "Um." He tried not to, but Shouto's eyes flickered to Midoriya's mangled right hand. His mother, probably unconsciously, did the same. Should he. Should he apologize right now? He felt like he should apologize.

"And of course a sports festival is all it was, hahaha! No matter what it may have looked like on the T.V it wasn't a real fight, was it? And even if it was, that's the thing about hero training, isn't it? Someone who's your friend one day you're getting into ridiculous battles against the next, right? Totally normal!" The awkward tension had reached near critical levels, and Todoroki feared that if he and Midoriya's mother continued in this state of mutual panic for much longer one of their heads would explode.

Midoriya looked like he was in a different sort of pain entirely. "Oh my God, Mom!" He crowed out in the classic style familiar to all teenagers being humiliated by their parents. "He JUST GOT HERE!"

Midoriya Inko snapped out of her often overwhelming concern for her son to look at the nervous boy awkwardly trying to shift his weight onto a glossy cane while appearing to not move at all, and absolute devastation overcame her. She'd made a guest in her own home feel uncomfortable before they'd even gotten out of the doorway, the first friend her dear Izuku had ever brought home and she was making him stand here on a broken leg while she was the furthest thing from welcoming. "Oh! Oh no! Oh, I'm so sorry!"

"No, I'm sorry," Todoroki tried to apologize, which was of course even worse, and then Izuku tried to apologize on behalf of his mother, which naturally devolved into three idiots with more politeness than sense all crowded in an open doorway bowing and cowing to each other, potentially until time collapses on itself.

"Food!" Midoriya's mother cried like it was the answer to all of life's problems. "I made so much food! Please, please - sit down and eat something."

It was a relief when Shouto was ushered into the kitchen, where, indeed, there was an impressive array spanning across the small table. At first glance the spread looked completely normal, but upon closer inspection of the buffet it revealed itself to be almost bizarrely multicultural. Tempura udon, tofu, pho soup and radish kimchi all sat in one sort of cluster near the left end of the table. Going on the dishes got more indecisive, empanadas and polish sausage next to a pot of wild rice soup and an entire small lasagna, small bowls of different kinds of beans scattered among the plates. Make no mistake, every item taken as an individual looked absolutely delicious – but somehow, the mish-mash of different kinds of styles strewn across the table made it look more chaotic than appetizing, and Shouto had no idea what to eat.

"Oh wow," he commented lightly as he took his seat. His plate was wedged between a bowl of natto and plate of french fries, and he carefully extracted it without knocking over any of the surrounding foodstuffs.

"Oh my god Mom, I don't even know what half of this is! Are there two kinds of soup? Why would we need two kinds of soup? There's only three of us here!" Midoriya was not, to be honest, completely over the panic from the doorway, and thus everything his mother did until he recovered would be deathly humiliating to him. He paused, enough sense in him to know better than to act ungrateful, and added "Thank you for cooking it looks delicious."

Inko put a small hand to her cheek, flushed red and easily abashed. "Well, I hadn't meant to make so much, but I got excited to be able to make something fun instead of Izuku's regular training menu and wanted to try something new, and then the website I was using kept suggesting more recipes to try and I was having so much fun I supposed I got just a bit carried away!"

Shouto's first bite of lasagna was indeed, mind-blowingly good. "What website were you using? My elder sister is trying to teach herself how to cook, and if she can make anything half as good as what you've done here..."

Midoriya's mother positively glowed. "I'll make sure to write it down for her before you go, then! How long as she been learning?"

"Only the last couple weeks," Shouto served himself a side of black beans and debated how rude it was to reach over the entire meats section to get to some pho soup. "She got engaged about two months ago and then realized she's accidentally scheduled the wedding for three months away instead of six like she'd been planning, so Fuyumi's been scrambling to set up the wedding and learn how to... Housewife as quickly as she can." He didn't have a bowl, though. Were there two soups and no bowls? Well, there was no room on the table for empty bowls. Should he ask for a bowl? Could he just sort of... ladle some onto his plate? No, that was definitely absurd. "Both she and her fiance are still in college, too, so. It's all sort of a mess."

"Oh no, and weddings are so stressful as it is!" Inko cried, automatically serving out a sausage onto her son's plate and dropping one on Todoroki's while she was at it. "Are you helping out much?"

He... was not. But he could start. "Where I can," Shouto answered, promising himself to ask Fuyumi how he could be useful so that wouldn't be a lie.

"That fast? I guess that explains why you didn't mention the engagement before," Midoriya said. "I mean, you talk about Fuyumi from time to time, but... So, how'd they meet?"

"An omiai, funnily enough." The answer was a story Shouto took great satisfaction in, actually. "Our father set her up to go on one as an act of passive-aggression when she brought home a boy for dinner, and so she passive-aggressively retaliated by spending the whole meeting talking to the guy's less remarkable younger brother. To the point that they started dating. And then sort of... fell in love and got engaged." The best part about it was the fact that their father couldn't even be mad since he was the one who sent her to that omiai to marry someone from that family in the first place - she just passed over the brain surgeon in favor of the quirkless graphic design major.

"I guess the upper class have their own way of doing things, huh?" Midoriya's mother observed with a spark of wonder in her voice. "I just met my husband at a goukon like normal!" She smiled affectionately at the memory. "One of the other guys at the date had kept refilling my drink to get me to loosen up, but I got a little too loose and upended my lunch all over him when I stood up too fast. He was about to get mad when your father stepped in to take me to the bathroom, but we only diffused the tension because I threw up on him, too!" She laughed.

Midoriya looked like he couldn't decide if he was horrified or not. "You THREW UP on Dad?!"

Inko finally thought to be embarrassed, but only a little. "Yes, but I got his phone number out of it when I offered to pay his dry cleaning bill." She paused. "Although, I suppose you're still a bit too young for that story to be appropriate yet, huh?"

Midoriya finally decided how he wanted to react to this information. He burst out laughing.

–

"Here, let us help," Todoroki stood up when Midoriya's mother began to clear the table, after all three diners had consumed as much food as their bodies could conceivably allow. "You cooked all of this wonderful food, the least we could do is clean up."

Midoriya had already stood up himself, gathering the empty glasses off the table with the declaration "Yeah, mom, relax, we can take care of it. Besides, it's almost seven, right? You'll miss Ladies Four."

She looked torn at that, glancing back at the living room where the television was and quickly back to the cluttered table, before finally looking her son in the eye. "Well, you know I can never say 'no' to you volunteering to do housework. But if there's too much or you don't know where something goes-"

Midoriya placed a gentle hand on his mother's shoulder blade, turning her around towards the couch. There was an active smile on his face, and when he spoke the words held the lightness of contained laughter. "Love you mom, go watch your soap opera."

She relented, and when they heard the TV click on behind them the two boys looked down at the mess before them.

"We're gonna need so much tupperware," Midoriya observed. He turned to a low cabinet and crouched to the ground to rummage through it, pulling out empty plastic containers in a variety of mismatched sizes. Todoroki realized he was finally standing next to that pho soup with nothing between them, and like a sign from the gods saying 'eat me' there was even a clean spoon sitting next to the pot. "I think that you need to take some of this food home with you, because there's never enough space in the fridge as it is."

Todoroki sighed around the spoon in his mouth, glancing over at Midoriya when he spoke. The pho, as he had imagined, was delicious. "I can definitely do that," he agreed, eyeing the wildrice soup he also hadn't gotten a chance to try. By the time Midoriya got to the table with the tupperware and started dumping things into them, Shouto had time to decide that the wildrice soup was probably even better. "I'm taking the soups. All of it. I'm taking all of your soup."

Midoriya chuckled a little. "By all means, have at it."

Cleaning up the leftovers and storing them in the fridge didn't take much time or effort between the two of them – especially once Shouto stopped filling the last empty space in his stomach with soup and actually helped. The actual act of washing the dishes, of course, was a touch more complex based pretty much solely on the ratio of sink tininess versus the voluminocity of the pots and pans. And, you know. How many friggin' dishes there were.

"So, I'll wash, you rinse and dry?" Midoriya suggested towards the sink filled with soapy water.

"Sure," Todoroki agreed, reaching out his hand to accept as his friend offered him a towel.

"Or," Midoriya considered halfway through the gesture, "do you even need a towel? No, if you used your Quirk the water would need to evaporate into steam and while we've got a fan above the stove I think it's really only for smoke dispersing and the water would still end up in the atmosphere and the apartment already gets so humid as it is, and while there's a real vent in the bathroom for steam it's two rooms away-"

"A towel is fine," Shouto interrupted, unable to keep a small smile from curling his lips. Midoriya's habit of over-analyzing things out loud to himself, while oddly endearing, was hardly necessary right now.

"That works too, then," Midoriya said, and while he looked a little bit abashed to be caught ranting again, the lightness of his good mood was still visible in his eyes. "Thanks for offering to help, Todoroki."

It didn't take long for them to fall into an easy rhythm. Midoriya washed with a speed that bespoke of how often he helped with this chore, scrubbing dishes and handing them into the empty half of the sink just faster than Shouto could rinse and dry them. The soap opera Midoriya's mother was watching made for an oddly soothing background noise, and it was easy to let the domestic atmosphere relax him. Enjoying the monotony of his motions and the simple contentment of standing next to Midoriya, nearly shoulder to shoulder as they worked in peace.

"Todoroki..." Midoriya broke the silence after a while, a question in his voice.

Shouto glanced over at him. "Hmm?" He prompted.

Midoriya was still looking forward into the sink at what he was doing, but looked over long enough to say they established eye contact. "I was just thinking... Why did pick 'Shouto' as your hero name? I don't think I can name a single hero out there who just... Goes by their first name."

Ah, this question. He supposed someone was bound to ask eventually. "Well. Hero names were originally supposed to be about keeping your identity a secret, right? And it works for some people like All Might and Aizawa-sensei, but... As it is, I seem to pretty... Distinct. As a person." His good foot was starting to get tired from overuse again, and he shifted his weight to lean his hip against the counter to take some of the strain off. "Everyone knows who Endeavor is because his mustache never stops being made out of fire, right? And at this point, with my Quirk? There's pretty much no way to hide who I am out there."

"Yeah..." Midoriya looked thoughtful. "I think it's pretty safe to say the names Todoroki Enji and Todoroki Shouto are like... Way out there."

He nodded. "Exactly. It's just all kind of pointless at this point. So when the day came that we were supposed to pick out names I realized I just... Don't care. At all. So I put down 'Shouto.'"

Beside him, Midoriya snorted back a laugh. "That's... Very like you, actually. Very straightforward."

Shouto paused. "Is that a good thing?"

"It's fine," Midoriya said, and the smile on his face was just genuine enough under its humor for Shouto to safely feel like he wasn't being made fun of. Probably.

There were a few moment of comfortable silence between them again as they worked, but Midoriya held a considering look on his face. As such, Todoroki wasn't particularly surprised when he asked another question, even if it didn't seem to be directly at him as much as absently wondering "So if you and your dad are so well known as being Todoroki, I wonder if you picked 'Shouto' because you prefer being called by your first name?" He was looking up at the ceiling when he said it, as if he was asking the universe itself instead of the person standing less than two feet from him. And then his eyes widened, realization striking that that was a much more invasive question than he'd intended, and his head snapped to look at Shouto, mouth dropping open as he stammered out "Uh, I mean-"

It... He wasn't sure why, but it was important that Izuku not take that back. "You're right, actually," Shouto interrupted before Midoriya could take his foot out of his mouth. "I, uh. Do prefer my first name."

Something happened with that sentence. A bridge built between them, the weight of potential hanging over the air with a nervous excitement as the connection waited to be crossed. Midoriya took the step foreward, and Shouto watched the blush spread across his face with rapt fascination as he stuttered out "So then... Should I call you that? S-Shouto?"

He swallowed around nothing, mouth suddenly too dry as he carefully nodded. Feeling his own face heat up too-warm, he articulated "If that's the case, can I... Do you prefer Deku or Izuku?"

"Oh geeze," Midoriya's face turned an even brighter hue of red at that, the color painted across his whole face and down to his neck. "E-e-either one is fine!"

Todoroki only took half a second to consider that. Half the class already called him Deku, so Shouto quietly confirmed, "Then. Izuku it is."

"Oh geeze," Midoriya repeated, bringing a damp hand to cover his mouth and as much of his scarlet face as he could with it, soap suds ending up in his hair and on his cheek from the thoughtless action.

Something squeaked behind them, and they turned around at once to see – oh wow. If he wasn't embarrassed before this. There was no wall between the kitchen and living room in the apartment – the line between the two rooms only divided by the change from carpet to tile. So when they turned around what waited their sight was the back of the couch, and, a bit horrifyingly, Midoriya Inko's beaming face where she had turned around in it to look at them. "Oh!" She squeaked again, ducking down that only her grinning eyes and the hands she had on the top of the back cushions were visible. "Oh don't mind me, I wasn't eavesdropping I promise!"

"OH MY GOD, MOM!" Midoriya shouted, he and his mother both snapped their bodies away from each other to pretend that hadn't happened at nearly the exact same time, the movement oddly synchronized in Shouto's eyes. Izuku turned back to him then, an apology written on his face as he said "We can hang out in my room after this," the promise of being alone implicit in the words.

There was... something dangerous about that, Shouto decided. Izuku's face was still red with embarrassment, and there was soap in his hair and on his cheek, and Shouto was going to have a heart attack. He didn't know why, but he was sure of it.

Dangerous to his health, Shouto decided as he watched Izuku go back to the dishes. He'd be lucky if he survived the night at this rate.

–

The door clicked shut behind them as Izuku stepped into the room after Shouto, gesturing towards the computer chair as he sat on one end of the bed himself. The embarrassment from earlier had long worn off as they'd finished their chore, so Midoriya was cheerful and honest when he asked "So, did you like dinner?"

Shouto considered the chair for a moment before sitting down on the other end of the bed instead, using the hook of his cane to pull the chair over towards them close enough to the bed to use as a footrest. And in retrospect he had probably been overexerting himself after all, because it felt WAY too good giving his foot some elevation. "How do I best answer that," Shouto said with a touch of drama, turning to look Midoriya in the eye. "If I proposed to your mother, do you think she'd marry me?"

As he'd hoped, Izuku immediately laughed, the warmth of the sound spreading to Shouto and stirring a flutter in his stomach. "I think she prefers older men, sorry." He said back with a cheeky grin. "You'll have to marry me instead." Both of them stopped at that, eyes widening and faces flushing equal reds, and Izuku choked out "I -I mean, if you wanted her cooking! Because that was the joke. Except my comeback was terrible. Oh my god."

Midoriya was cringing now, and Shouto's determination to wipe the regretful wince to his face made him speak before he could properly examine his words, just knew if he said something even more embarrassing back Izuku would feel better and so spoke: "Well you're much cuter; I'd rather marry you anyway."

The hue of infared Izuku turned at that was somewhere near atomic levels, eyes so wide they were nearly perfect circles of white in a field of glowing cherry red. "Oh my GOD!" Midoriya squeaked, voice nearly high enough to attract local dogs. In his embarrassed panic, he shoved Todoroki's shoulder with the cry "You can't just say things like that!"

The shove, unfortunately, no matter how innocently intended ended up knocking Todoroki over to the side enough so that his cast got caught in the arm of the chair while he fell over. The momentum hadn't been enough to bring down Shouto by itself, but the weight of his cast on one end of the chair too suddenly was enough to knock it off its unsteady wheels. And when it went down it brought Todoroki to the ground with it – the chair toppled over and Shouto fell off the bed onto the hard floor, somehow tangling himself so bad with the chair it ended up on top of him.

"Oh my god!" Midoriya scrambled to pull the offending furniture from his person. "Oh my god I'm so sorry, is your leg okay!?"

It ached a little extra from where it had banged against the plastic arm, but Todoroki's bad foot was otherwise unharmed. As such, when Midoriya hovered over his face worriedly as Shouto stared dazed at the ceiling, he felt the most appropriate thing to do right now was laugh.

Izuku looked down at him, perhaps even more concerned now. "If you hit your head and have permanent brain damage, it's still your own fault for saying that."

Eventually they wound up settled down side by side on the bed, the screen of Midoriya's computer turned towards them so they could watch Hero TV's footage of today's heroic battles. The heroine team Petrol and Sparkwire battled against an unknown villain who could freeze time in a limited space and Midoriya scrambled for his notebook to furiously scribble down information, jotting down notes up until the anticlimactic end when Midnight stole the arrest by knocking the culprit out with her gas before he'd even known she had arrived on the scene while he was so distracted by the pair. After they finished recapping the day's arrests they moved onto watching internet videos, from intelligent debates on superhero ethics down to net nerds arguing about which hero could beat who in a fight (two subjects Midoriya incidentally had very vocal opinions on.)

"Oops, it got way later than I thought," Izuku eventually commented, finally noticing the clock on the corner of the screen when the latest video ended. "We probably need to head to bed, huh?"

"If we must," Todoroki conceded reluctantly, and Midoriya smiled as he got up off the bed to fetch the futon from the hall closet.

"So, I'll take the futon and you can sleep in my bed, is that okay with you?" Midoriya said once the amt was spread out on the floor, side by side next to his box spring.

Shouto's first instinct was to decline. "With your ribs, wouldn't it be better to take the bed, though? I don't mind the futon at all."

Midoriya naturally refused. "Oh no, I'm just as well off!" He promised, holding up his hands. "Honestly my mattress isn't that great either, but at least this will be better for my back!"

"You have back problems?"

"Well, I have everything problems, so." They both paused, now discomfort thick in the air between them. "Er..."

Todoroki coughed awkwardly. "I'll just. Take the bed then," he conceded for the sake of ending the conversation.

The awkwardness cleared out of the air naturally as they got ready for bed, and once the lights were off and the two boys were comfortably situated in bed they had both relaxed into contentment once again.

Midoriya's bed, Shouto decided as soon as his head settled against the pillow, smelled far too good. He had noticed that the room carried a particular scent when he stepped into it, a smell specific to Izuku he'd never been surrounded by in enough intensity to be able to pick out before now, but it had been a faint thing just noticeable enough to give the room a personal sort of warmth without being overwhelming. This, on the other hand, was something else entirely, almost dizzying in its potency. Shouto wondered if this was what if would smell like if he pressed his nose directly into Izuku's hair, and the thought sent an oddly pleasant shiver down his spine.

"So," Midoriya's voice was dropped low, a quiet whisper barely breaking the silence. "Did you have fun today?"

Shouto turned over onto his side, rolling close enough to the edge of the bed to be able to see Midoriya's blanket-wrapped form in the dark of the room. His eyes weren't closed yet, either, and they were looking at each other again when he answered with a sincere "Yeah, I really did."

"I'm glad," Midoriya smiled gently. "I was sort of afraid you'd get bored, hanging out with just me for so many hours. But it was actually pretty easy, huh?"

Easier than Shouto had thought it would be, actually. He nodded, "I liked it. Spending so much time with you."

"Mm-hmm. We'll have to do this again sometime." Izuku was still smiling as his eyes slid closed. "Good night, Shouto."

The words were simple and sincere, and Shouto wished suddenly that there was no space separating them. That they were in the same bed and Izuku had whispered it with only inches between their faces, so that Shouto could pull their bodies together to sleep in a loose embrace so that the smell really would be from his face pressed into Izuku's hair and -oh. Oh, he knew what this was, now. This was what they called a first love, wasn't it?

The thought wasn't really surprising to him. It probably hadn't happened any time today; had probably been true for ages already. In fact, he realized, it was amazing he hadn't noticed sooner. Or, maybe it had only been today, and the reason Shouto wasn't shocked at all was because even if they'd never hung out today it would have wound up happening anyway. He would have ended up falling for Izuku at some point no matter what, he was certain. No matter what path life took him down he'd have still ended up here, not because of anything as elaborate as destiny or fate but instead due to the simple fact of inevitability. Because Izuku was Izuku and Shouto liked just about everything about him, couldn't hep but admire him and would always want to be around him, just for who he was.

"Goodnight, Izuku," Shouto finally whispered back, just audible over the constant low hum of the computer fan. He rolled onto his back again, just in time to catch the pleased curl of Midoriya's lip at the use of his first name, and Shouto embraced the burst of affection that swelled in his chest. He kind of liked this first love stuff, he decided.

The bed was warm, the whole room smelled like the boy he liked, and Shouto's last coherent thought as he fell into sleep was, quite inanely, 'I sure am gonna get some weird looks on the train home tomorrow carting home all that damned soup.'