Notes: I really need to catch up on posting. Whoops.

Touya stared at his coffee as he slowly spun a straw around the cup. He had been tired, hence why he made it, but now that it was in front of him, he didn't feel the urge to drink. Instead, all he did was watch as the creamer mixed in with the coffee and then continued to stir. Round and round the liquid went, like a miniature whirlwind, growing colder by the second. He didn't care. He'd just dump it out and pour a second cup.

Shouto hadn't used his flames during the combat scenario. He had used his left side, but only as a means to melt the ice that had frozen the building and his enemy in place. It wasn't much to go by, but it did give Touya some pause. He hadn't needed to use his flames in order to win. Even if Ojirou was hard-working and Hagakure's quirk gave her the perfect stealth, they were no match for the brute force and strength of even half of Shouto's quirk. They were going to have to learn how to deal with stronger opponents if they wanted to last and become heroes.

And the Support Companies needed to get off their fucking asses and develop a proper uniform for Hagakure. Sending a teenage girl butt ass naked into the battlefield against villains. He was absolutely livid, but no one else had batted an eye at the ridiculous get-up, not even All Might, who was goodness itself personified. He could not fucking believe the teachers were okay with that. What were they thinking?

And then Kayama's first hero costume popped into his mind, and he shuddered. That costume had not been kind to his teenage self. Of course villains had hesitated against her. She had loved the thrill of it, but it still mind-boggled him. Where was the protection? The functionality? The practicality? The usefulness? At least now she was covered up from nearly head-to-toe, even if it was that ridiculously skintight suit.

Okay, so maybe he could believe it, but they should still know better. Hagakure was fifteen-years-old. Maybe she was here to become a hero, but protection was still important. Plus, plenty of men were creeps even if they weren't villains or small-time criminals. She didn't need to be subjected to that kind of behavior. What she needed was a uniform that offered some sort of cover besides gloves and shoes. It had been her lack of clothing that had enabled her to get trapped so easily by Shouto's ice.

He let go of the straw so he could pick up his pen and scratch a reminder to call one of his preferred Support Companies. They'd helped him out when it came to the issue with Togata's quirk and costume. They could do something with Hagakure. He was not about to let a girl run around naked surrounded by a bunch of teenage boys - or fight villains. He didn't care if no one could see her. That wasn't the point. And that was without bringing up Yaoyorozu's outfit, which could've easily been made less absurd by cutting an opening in the back of her shirt instead of the front and giving her practical shorts. These girls being left vulnerable and for what? For fucking what?

Touya dropped the pen on the note and rubbed his eyes. He was getting worked up because it aggravated the hell out of his, yes, but also because it was easier to be frustrated over Hagakure's and Yaoyorozu's hero costumes than think about his brother. They were nice distractions. He could get angry about it and not feel bad. He could make plans about speaking with them about their comfort and preferences for their costumes. He could fix this.

What he had with Shouto - or rather, what he didn't have with Shouto - could not be simply fixed. Honestly, he wasn't even sure if there was anything he could do or wanted to do, aside from apologizing for throwing a hot pocket at him and bolting. Touya groaned and dropped his forehead against the table. Had he seriously done that? What kind of unprofessional nitwit…

"Ah, Mr. Korihada, is this a bad time?"

Touya jerked upright and peeled off the paper that had stuck to his forehead, flicking it onto the table. He met eyes with All Might, who hung in the doorway like he was asking for permission to enter the teacher's lounge. Well, who was Touya to say who could and could not enter when he often used this place as a sanctuary? Usually, that implied Aizawa's, Yamada's, or Kayama's presence, but they had been busy with their teaching duties, leaving him alone for once.

Except not anymore, because the one teacher he didn't want to see right now was peering at him anxiously with those deep, sunken eyes of his. Touya had found them a bit unsettling at first, but now he didn't even blink. It just made him feel...irritated. This was the man whose dust his father had been swallowing all these years? This was the hero who had driven the great Todoroki Enji to such lengths that he'd conceived four kids just to abuse and neglect them?

Pathetic, absolutely pathetic.

Frustrated and embarrassed by his own bitterness, Touya shook his head and gestured silently in what he hoped was a sign of peace. He had his own issues, but they weren't All Might's fault. Now how he had handled Bakugou and Midoriya's fight? That was definitely his fault, and Touya was allowed to be angry with him over that. However, having an actual reason to dislike All Might only made things worse, and he knew Aizawa would call him out on his behavior if he acted like a twat.

Relaxing his bony shoulders, All Might stepped further into the room and shut the door gently behind him. He went to the fridge to retrieve what looked like a smoothie of some kind, and Touya looked back down to his notes. He'd started to scribble when his thoughts threatened to go back to Shouto. There had been a lot of strength in the ice half of his quirk, the thought of which chewed at the back of Touya's mind. Shouldn't he be more comfortable and prone to use his fire quirk? Their father surely would've focused on that in his training.

"Did you make this?"

"Huh?" Touya glanced back and found All Might pointing at the coffee pot. "Uh, yeah, you can have some."

"Oh, I wish," All Might sighed wistfully. "I can't anymore due to my...injury, but I used to drink it all the time when I lived in the States."

"Hm, yeah, I remember the commercials," Touya said without thinking. Not even the Number One Hero could escape the lull of merchandise. Nothing sold a person on coffee quite like seeing All Might's beaming, energetic face on the television draining a cup and then punching the hell out of a villain. Except his father, of course, who only drank tea and wouldn't allow coffee in the house. He always got so worked up over those commercials.

All Might's cheeks actually turned pink. "I hoped people had forgotten about that."

"About what?" Touya asked. "That even the Number One Hero could be a sell-out?"

Surprise flashed across All Might's face, his mouth parting slightly. All he could manage was a single, "I-" before Touya held up a hand to stop him.

"Sorry, that was rude. Heroes have to make a living somehow." To be honest, Touya wasn't all that apologetic, but it had been needlessly rude. Yamada often gave soundbites, especially since he still hosted a radio show, and Midnight often did interviews and went out of her way to give the media and public a show. He didn't begrudge them for that, but maybe it was a little hypocritical when he simply preferred Aizawa's method. There was no fanfare, no showing off, just going in and doing this job.

Eraserhead would never be a popular hero, but he was the one people needed, even if they didn't know it.

"No, it's fine," All Might said. "It simply caught me off guard."

Yeah, Touya bet it did. He probably wasn't used to people not fawning all over him. As soon as the media got wind that he was a new teacher here, they'd clamber to find a way to interview him, but that likely wouldn't happen. It was going to happen sooner than later, and he was not looking forward to the shitstorm that would follow. It would be funny to watch Aizawa react to a mic and camera being shoved in his face. Touya would pay good money for that. All Might, on the other hand, for however awkward he sometimes sounded when he brushed off deeply personal questions, was made for the camera. It loved him.

Careful. You're starting to sound like Endeavor.

It was a good thing Touya hadn't been holding his pen or he would've snapped it in half upon that intrusive thought popping into his head. Stupid traitorous brain.

(To be fair, it wasn't wrong.)

"You don't like heroes very much, do you?" All Might said carefully.

Touya's eyes flickered to him, and he flatly asked, "What gave you that impression?"

All Might smiled somewhat nervously and gestured to the chair across from him at the table. Once again, Touya waved at him indifferently. It wasn't like he owned the place. All Might had a right to be here as much as him, perhaps more so since he was a hero while Touya remained the only civilian to "teach" at UA. It wasn't even a real class if he was being honest, but Nezu called it as much.

"It's hard to say exactly, but while you work at UA, you seem to hold an awful lot of contempt for the hero profession," All Might continued.

Having grown in the Todoroki household, Touya knew how to keep his face schooled and devoid of any reaction, but it still left a bitter taste in his mouth to be called out like that by the Number One Hero of all people. "I respect heroes," he replied.

"Of that, I've no doubt," All Might said, nodding thoughtfully. "You hold Aizawa in high regards, do you not?"

Touya shrugged. "He's a good hero and a great teacher. He does his job and he does it well. I can respect someone who does that."

"You can respect them, but that doesn't mean you have to like them." All Might set his drink down. It remained mostly untouched. "You're clearly familiar with heroics and all the aspects about it, including the training that these kids must endure. You care about them and their future as heroes or you wouldn't be here. I find it very curious that someone who doesn't like heroes is helping people become them."

"I don't...dislike heroes." Touya looked away and rubbed his arms. "They're good. They protect and save people. They give the public peace of mind. They make decisions and sacrifices that I could never imagine." He dug his nails into the sleeves of his shirt. It was hard not to talk about heroes and not think of his father. He tried to think of Aizawa or Yamada instead, but… "They're also capable of abusing the power, attention, and wealth that being a hero grants them. They can be selfish, cruel, and absolutely brutal. They can be terrifying and self-absorbed, righteous bastards or greedy to the core."

When he looked back to All Might, there was a deeply sad expression on his face. No, it was more than sad. It was hurt, not for himself but for Touya. He instantly found himself pushing away, like Bakugou after the combat scenario. He didn't want All Might's pity. The man could and would never be able to fathom the consequences of his existence. All he'd been trying to do was good and save the world and become the Symbol of Peace, and it had driven what might have been a not-so-shitty person into becoming a flaming garbage can.

"You're not wrong," All Might admitted. "Not everyone becomes a hero with the best intentions. Some don't have a single drop of empathy. It's...unfortunate, to say the least." He sighed and gazed down into his drink. "It's easy to get caught up in everything that comes with being a hero. The glamor, the fame, the money - I've seen good heroes turn into someone unrecognizable because of it all."

Some of them even turned into monsters.

He's not a monster, just a piece of shit. Stop being so melodramatic.

"I want these kids to fulfill their dreams," Touya said, keeping his eyes down, "and maybe I am a little selfish or arrogant when I say that I want them to do it for the right reasons."

He thought of Shouto. Why was he at UA? Was it because he wanted to be here or because their father was determined to see him become a hero? Did he even have a reason of his own? Had he found something else to focus on other than their father's greed?

"It's an admirable goal," All Might commended him.

"Most of these kids won't amount to much, if I'm being honest. Some won't break the top one hundred, most won't open their own agency, some might never become more than sidekicks. Many of them go on to do other things." It was a fact that they didn't like to talk about, but it wasn't a bad thing. Some graduates ended up letting their hero licenses expire or went into a different career path and did great things. Had he attended a hero school, he likely would've done something similar. "But the few that do rise to the top… I don't want them to abuse the responsibility given to them. And I've seen too many heroes do it time and time again. It's shit."

"You're very passionate about your job."

"I guess." He was. There wasn't really a point in lying about it, but it was also something he didn't like to talk about. He had a careless reputation to uphold, after all. If the kids ever got wind that he actually gave a shit about them, it would be game over. Or maybe that was behavior he'd learned from Aizawa, who acted like he could care less when Touya knew for a fact that he cared a fuck ton. What people might've seen as horribly cruel when Aizawa expelled an entire class one year, Touya had seen as a kindness.

Most of those kids never would've made it, and some of them would've died. Handling their crushing disappointment would have been one thing, but watching them die not long after getting their licenses would have been excruciating. Aizawa had known they couldn't cut it, especially after Touya's own reservations and recommendations, so he cut them entirely.

That was something Touya hadn't learned until after he ran away from home: that perceived cruelty and punishments were not always a bad thing. He had been slapped, hit, kicked, and burned - yelled at, mocked, neglected, and forgotten - but when Aizawa stopped him for stealing and scolded him for his destructive behavior, it hadn't been out of anger or disappointment. It had been done out of concern.

"You've not had good experiences with heroes outside of UA, have you?"

"To be fair," Touya said, which he really wasn't, "I haven't really had any experiences with villains to balance it out." He leaned back in his chair and folded his arms across his chest. "I'm sure I might think differently if a villain jumped me or I got stuck in the middle of a terrorist attack, and there was a hero or two around to save my ass."

All Might gave him a strange look. "No experience with villains then?"

"Technically, I've had a handful, but they've always been under the professional capacity," Touya explained slowly. When All Might didn't say anything, he took a breath and continued, "I'm not a quirk specialist, per se, but I work with quirks all the time. Sometimes, they can be damaging to a person's mental and physical health, so I'm called in to determine its effects on a villain and testify about it in court."

He was always hesitant to talk about this side of his work. While he mostly dealt with kids who manifested dangerous and unstable quirks, there were times when he was also called in to interview criminals and villains. Kayama hadn't liked it much, but then she said it was simply because she wasn't comfortable with him being around villains. Yamada was supportive. Aizawa said his opinion didn't matter - that if Touya wanted to work with them, it was up to him. He liked it. Sometimes, it was for a defense case; other times, it was for the prosecution. Either way, it was...fascinating, the way quirks could help push a person down the right or wrong path.

If not for Aizawa and the others, he likely would've been on the latter path instead of where he was now. It had certainly been going that way.

"You do quite a lot," All Might noted.

"Hey, us civilians have to make a living too," Touya said dismissively. "I'm not cashing in on action figurine sales or raking in the dough due to an outdated popularity contest."

"Care to share more thoughts on hero society?" All Might asked, sounding more amused than offended. That was a relief. As grumpy as Touya was acting, he did not need Kayama needling him about being nicer, even if she was right.

Touya rolled his eyes. "I grew up around heroes. It's hard not to form an opinion of them when you're more involved in the world than most kids."

The moment All Might sat up straighter, Touya knew he had made a mistake. It was one thing to talk about his opinions about heroes and maybe even admit that he hadn't had the best of experiences with him, but saying that he'd grown up around them implied something much more. Everyone had grown up with them, but not everyone had grown up around them and in their world.

"Were your parents-?"

"But there are some good ones, and that's why I'm here," Touya stated loudly, unfolding his arms and leaning forward again. He ignored the question outright. When All Might didn't move to ask it again, he fought the urge to sigh in relief. The last thing he needed was All freaking Might to ask him about his parents. That was a can of worms that he did not want to open or even deal with lying about. "These kids - all of them, even the little shits - are trying to become heroes, and it's my job to make sure they don't kill themselves along the way."

All Might folded his hands on the table. "It hasn't been long since we've met, but truth be told, you've already given me some things to think about. We heroes get wrapped up in the ideology of self-sacrifice, but it's easy to forget how harmful that way of thinking is for impressionable kids who want to follow in our footsteps." He dropped his gaze to his hands, his mouth tilting into a frown. "It's...all too easy to push them beyond their means and make them feel like they aren't good enough, which only encourages them to go even further and do serious damage. I thought I was simply inspiring the next generation to be more, but perhaps…"

"There can be negative consequences to positive actions?" Touya snorted. "Sometimes, but not all the times."

Just, you know, when the Number Two Hero was filled with so much jealousy, bitterness, and rage that he bought a woman with the right quirk in order to have children and then either ruthlessly train them to become a hero or completely neglect them. Or when a kid thought he had to break his body repeatedly in order to do one good thing and win. Or when a person was driven into villainy because their quirk could never amount to those shining above them.

"Speaking of positive and negative actions…" All Might fiddled with his fingers.

Touya narrowed his eyes. "Yeah?" Why did he get the feeling that All Might had actually been building up to this the whole time? Had he been distracting himself instead of thinking about the important topic in his mind? Well, Touya couldn't blame him when he'd been doing the same thing. "What of them?"

"I couldn't help but notice your reaction to young Bakugou's fire when he let off that explosion with his grenades," All Might said, oh so careful once more, like he was treading on thin ice. He was. He really fucking was. "The explosion was bright and very loud, but you looked...scared and jerked away so adversely-"

"It was nothing," Touya cut in.

All Might frowned and his eyes flickered down. Touya moved his gaze to follow them. "I didn't mean to, but I saw-" Shit, his sleeves had ridden up, revealing some of the old scarring that hadn't faded in time. Recovery Girl had bemoaned about not being able to heal him and had been even more upset to realize how old they were. It could've been worse. He knew that. They would have been worse if he hadn't received help. "They're old. I thought maybe they might be due to a villain attack-"

More like a hero attack-

"No, they're not from a villain attack." Touya tugged his sleeves down to hide them. Honestly, they weren't that bad. It wasn't like he was totally disfigured or anything. The scarring was worse on his wrists and arms because they were the closest to his flames.

All Might gave him a patient look, but when Touya pressed his lips together, he nodded in understanding. "I'm sorry for pressing. I was merely concerned."

Of course he was. Of course he was fucking concerned. Because he was a good fucking person and a decent human being and a great hero and-

And it wasn't his fault that his father had crushed Touya under his boot like a bug and controlled Shouto's life with an iron fist, which very likely had created complexes about their quirks for both of them, especially if his theories about Shouto not using his fire were confirmed.

Touya let out a breath. "It's fine. Thanks for asking. I just...don't like talking about it these days. It happened a long time ago, and I'm content to forget about it." He forced himself to sit upright and look a little more presentable than normal. "I won't let it get in the way of my job, but" - he pointed a finger at his fellow teacher - "I will correct Bakugou's shit behavior if it keeps up. He's got a lot of potential, but he's gonna get exactly nowhere with that attitude."

"Understood."

"And as for Midoriya," Touya added as he stood and swiped his cold cup of coffee. "He's going to be in my class. I feel like you favor him - maybe because he has a strength quirk of some kind like you - but this is three times he's injured himself with his quirk, so he's mine now." A started look flashed across All Might's face, his eyes wide as he leaned back. "I'll do what I can to help him get his shit together, but if he keeps hurting himself, he's out of here. The same goes for Bakugou. Do you understand?"

"Yes, of course." A strange smile lit up All Might's face. Touya had just berated him over his poor teaching skills, and he was smiling. Shit, he was so obnoxious. "You know, you can be kind of intimidating when you want to be."

Yeah, he'd learned it from the best. Touya shook his head and dumped his coffee down the drain and his cup in the sink. Without even glancing at the other man again or saying a word, he walked out of the teacher's lounge. He'd come back to clean it later. All he wanted to do was hide in his office and contemplate what to say to Shouto. If he had to talk to All Might anymore, he might actually use his quirk, and he definitely didn't need to do that. Fuck, this was hard.