Bullet | Suicidal Todoroki x Midoriya

10 | Bullet

This story is not intended to promote or encourage actions/behaviors such as suicide, self-harm, abuse, violence, or substance abuse.

Izuku Todoroki

Izuku was panicking. Over twenty-four hours had passed since he had last seen his husband, and none of the kids had seen Shoto after Izuku's last encounter with him. Typically, Shoto would vanish for a few hours—predominantly in the afternoon or at night—and return in the early hours of the morning, or the late hours of the night. Yet, Shoto had seemingly disappeared without a trace for at least twelve hours.

Izuku had called Shoto's phone when four confirmed hours of the lack of Shoto's presence had hit, but much to Izuku's arrant horror, Shoto's phone was sitting on the couch in the living room. Immediately afterwards, Izuku reported his husband as missing—Izuku had no desire to allow any delay when he was acutely aware that Shoto was an alarming threat to his own self and potentially others.

Tangled tendrils of trepidation triumphantly trampled over the vestiges of Izuku's sangfroid while the ardent dissonance of reassurance and overwhelming stimulus gnawed at his mind.

"I can't get it out of my head. My father's voice continues to revile me. It feels like he's still beating me from my memories. As long as I remember what he did to me, the abuse never seems to end.

"I try to think about everything you've told me when I start relapsing again, but the more I try, the more the truth feels like it loses its value. Then, it seems meaningless."

While a deluge of memories splashed down atop Izuku's head, Rina dithered as she plodded towards Izuku. "O-Oh, Rina." Izuku then became conscious that Rina's face was dusted in scarlet, and her sky-blue eyes were rimmed with swollen sorrow. "What's wrong?"

I'm sure it has something to do with Shoto, Izuku thought as Rina curled her arms around him.

"Why...do Yuujin and Kiru hate Dad so much?" Rina queried with despondent pensiveness. "They aren't sad. Why are they glad? I think they feel a little guilty. Still. It's not fair. He never hurt us. He's carrying too much. He snapped. But he's not gone...right, Papa? He's coming back, right?" She nuzzled her face into Izuku's chest as he ran his hand through her hair.

Rina's questions tended to be the ones that Izuku never wanted to answer, but with a sigh, Izuku wearily replied, "I don't know, Rina... Your dad's behavior is definitely scary, and I'm sad that you guys have to be exposed to it, but I know he didn't want this. Your dad didn't want to repeat the past, yet..." Elastic heaviness squeezed around his heart as he held his daughter fast. "I...don't know if he's coming back. I hope it's just a misunderstanding. Even if he's in the hospital for alcohol poisoning, I h-hope he's all right." Tears began to aggregate behind his eyelids, but the tears were unable to be contained by the thresholds of his eyes alone; rivulets of translucent, fragile emotions snaked down Izuku's cheeks.

"I don't want to lose him yet," Rina whispered with her languished voice. "He... He just came back. No one else is like him. He's still young. Papa... Did Dad...cut too deep?" Her bluntness was steeped in scarlet sorrow.

Izuku bit his lip. His cognizance of Shoto's splintered mental health tramped across his mind with serrated claws, but even then, his mind refused to fully believe that his husband had committed suicide. He clung desperately to the wishful hope that Shoto was still alive. Blades had slashed through Shoto's own body more than Izuku could fathom the full depths and extents of, and truly, Izuku was injected with unadulterated and unfettered anguish and terror at the thought that his husband could have cut more than his body could handle. Shoto had been plagued by suicidal thoughts when Izuku began his relationship with the former, but from Izuku's knowledge, no attempts had been made in their time together.