Work Text:
Time stood still, and so did the boy.
The picture on his mind was of the park as it had been - a small, neighbourly place where parents in the vicinity used to bring their children on playdates or free afternoons. He could close his eyes and picture it, images hazy through the veil of memory and nostalgia, but the feelings as real as they had been at the time. The pull on his belly when he jumped off the swinger, the soft whispers of the wind through the trees and his curtain of red-and-white hair, the crunch of sand under his shoes as he ran, the cold of the metal slide he used to play on. He froze it once, and had been so embarrassed about it. Today, it brought a small smile to his face, the softness of a mother’s laugh in his ears, the feeling of his brother’s fingers messing up his hair.
It was early evening now, as far as possible from the spring afternoons of his childhood. The park was quiet and bleak, empty except for his lonely figure, and the winter wind felt sharp and tingling even to his heated skin. Snow danced around his feet instead of sand, clinging to his boots even as he lightly kicked it away, a creaking sound much like a moan coming from the rusty chain of the swinger where he sat. He felt his body rock slightly with the movement, surprised that the thing could still hold his weight after all this time.
Todoroki Shoto was not, usually, a nostalgic person, especially when the subject of said nostalgia was his family. Most of his past memories evoked harder, darker emotions than the lightweight feelings playing in his heart. As much as he wanted to leave it all behind him, all the screams and tears and self-loathing, his father’s words and his siblings stares, he knew well it would not be gone of his mind in a day, nor a week or a year. He was getting better, or at least he thought he was, but there were times when it was hard not to be bitter, and it was hard not to be angry. There were others, though, like this evening, when the hardest of all was not to be sad.
The day went by like any other, nothing different but the numbers on his calendar and cellphone lockscreen. He went to class like he always did, had the usual lunch, trained like he normally did, talked to his friends like he was getting used to. None of them said a thing about the date, and neither did he.
And yet his mind kept going back. Back to his mother smile, to Fuyumi braiding his hair in secret, to his brothers racing in the courtyard, to a vanilla and strawberry cake they baked with their quirks, to a cat plushie with a large red bow he kept carefully hidden in his dorm room. It brought him back to sharing ice cream and being pushed from the slider he was too afraid to go down alone, to soft long fingers in his hair, to tears over broken toys and a kiss over scraped knees. It kept reminding him of a time when he would make funny faces at the mirror instead of loath it, when his brother would tick him until he could hardly breathe, when his sister would sit with him and his children books and help him learn the words in her best mature voice.
It felt almost like a dream, to remember a time before everything happened, before that man began training him, before the uneven skin of his left side was there. He touched it slowly, almost reflexively, already used to the rough texture, the rough handling, the rough nights. His sister had done her best, baking small cakes in secret, buying things she thought he would like, but it was not the same, they both knew. His brothers drifted away with time, to live their own lives away from the hell that was his. Even Fuyumi stopped with time, too busy and too tired to engage with a withdrawn and angry teenager. That day - when mother brought him to the park, where he played with his siblings and playmates, when they had cake and toys and the life a child should have - was long gone, and long forgotten.
Except he would come back to the park, every year, as he did now. He would swing alone at the children’s playground and give himself the gift of solitude and remembrance away from the Hero Endeavor.
There had been a time, years and years past, when Shoto had a father. A huge and scary and powerful man who made mom sad, but he was a hero, and heroes were good, weren’t they? His father had to be good too. He was almost never there, but that was because he was saving people in need, like All Might did. He was almost as good as a hero as All Might, so he had to be a good person too. He had a powerful quirk he used to save people, just like Shoto wanted to do. Maybe he would have that quirk, like his older brother had. Maybe he could control fire…
His hand slowly fell back to his lap, and he thought, for the first time in years, how he missed being that naive. How he missed thinking the world was black and white, villains and heroes, fire and ice, and not thinking that it could be both at once, one dressed as the other, a villain in heroes’ clothing. He missed a time when he could talk to his sister more than just the necessary, when he knew where his brothers were, when his mother was at home not at the hospital. He wondered how things would have changed, if he had a father.
One by one, the small flames danced on his fingertips, light and warm and everything he refused to think fire could be. It felt inviting, invigorating, far more than just a protection against the cold air. It felt like Midoriya’s chuckle, Ochaco’s smile, Iida’s firm handshake, Bakugo’s angry stare, Yaoyorozu’s help, Kaminari’s laugh, like a million little quirks of another kind. It felt like support and help, it felt like kindness and jokes, it felt like feeling accepted and feeling like himself. It felt like the good memories of the past, and the memories to-be that he would make.
There was a light buzz in his pocket, the artificial light of his phone a colder blue shade compared to his left hand. Shoto snapped out of his revery, reaching for his phone as he wondered if it was Iida reminding him of curfew time. He frowned slightly when he saw Bakugo’s contact name, angrily doing what he expected of the class president.
Bakugo:
its fucking 7pm dumbass
Bakugo:
come back
Bakugo:
ill kill u if i have to go to that class alone
Todoroki:
I’m on my way.
Bakugo:
my ass you are
Bakugo:
just get here asshole
Time was barely up when he got back to the dorms building, careful to slide in before being seen by any teachers. Shoto could not hold back a sigh as he finally allowed himself to breathe, to pick up his composure before facing his classmates. He took out and hung his winter jacket, showing the black turtleneck underneath, hair still damp from the snow falling outside. As he unmade the knots of his winter boots he could hear the snickering and shushing sounds from his colleagues in the common room, excited and worried voices alike. He almost thought they were seeing a movie, as it usually went, when someone said his name loud enough for him to pick it up.
“Do you think he knows?”
“It’s Todoroki we’re talking about. Of course he doesn’t.”
“Is he gonna take long? I’m hungry.”
“That’s why I told you to snack before!”
“GET AWAY FROM THE CAKE, YOU IDIOT. I DIDN’T SPEND THE AFTERNOON MAKING THIS SHIT FOR YOU ASSHOLES TO RUIN IT.”
“Kacchan, don’t scream! He may hear us!”
“HE BETTER DO AND RECOGNIZE THE FUCKING WORK I HAD FOR HIS ICYHOT ASS”
“Shhhh! I think I heard the door open! Everyone go to their positions!”
There was much mumbling and a few complaints, and then, finally, silence.
Shoto looked down at the mysteriously frozen door handle, suddenly unsure if he should or should not enter. He was unprepared to deal with this - with this idea of what they were doing, with the feelings it brought up inside him, with the memories still lurking on the back of his mind. Could he really handle it? Maybe he misunderstood their intentions. Maybe they were waiting for him for another reason. Maybe he did not want to deal with the weight of expectations, maybe he did never spent time enough in that park to learn how to be loved. Maybe he was obsessed with a past, good and bad, that was long gone, because he was so afraid of what the present could bring him.
Slowly - but deliberately - the door opened.
“HAPPY BIRTHDAY, TODOROKI!”
And maybe, he thought, maybe it was time for better memories.