Todoroki stared up at the stark white lights that almost hurt to look at. The same light he'd seen for thousands of times, the same white walls that seemed to scream for something, anything, to fill the bright void. The almost perfectly cleaned tiles that smelled of chemicals. A perfectly made bed, and some plain patterned hospital robes. Everything was always the same, and he hated it with every inch of his being. Because it would always be the same, and nothing could ever change it.
Because Shouto Todoroki, one of the strongest rising hero's in class 3-A, was ill. He was sick. He would eventually die, and he knew it.
He suffered from Friedreich's Ataxia, a fatal illness with no cure. Prolonging his inevitable death was all his doctors could do. Right now his symptoms weren't terrible, sometimes his arms and legs would go numb and he couldn't walk or speak. Yet, those where rare and todoroki could tell when his little episodes where coming a few minutes before they happened.
The disease was caused by a genetic mutation, a rapid coding of DNA that messed with his brain and spinal cord. Because his DNA isn't multiplying that fast yet, he visited his doctor with a DNA destroying quirk once every month. Yet, even with this help, he wouldn't live past 21. Two and a half more years of life at most.
It was almost as if todoroki was destined to die.
And no one besides his family knew about it.
More than anything todoroki wanted to tell his classmates, to get close to them, to get to know them. Experience what a normal 18 year old should be, going out doing fun stuff. But he pushed everyone away, because how much pain would they be in if they knew? If they cared about him he would die and crush them, and Shouto doesn't want to hurt anyone like that ever. So no going out to the movies with Deku, Uraraka, iida and Momo. No going out and doing stupid stunts with the Baku-squad. Keeping everything a secret, hoping that by the time they graduate they will forget about him. And when he dies they remember him as just a fellow classmate and nothing more. And you'd think he has his family at least, but he pushes them away to. Sure, his relationship with his mother and father steadily grew better and stronger over the past years, but he just keeps them at arms length, distancing himself as much as possible. So he is left with nothing.
Nothing but the crushing pressure to become then number one hero.
To become something, to leave something of a legacy behind, before he dies. So he trains, studies, and practices. To try and help as many people as he can, to save as many people as possible. To try and make an impact on the world in a very limited time.
To todoroki, it felt like he was born to die, his greatest enemy was himself, and he can't fight DNA.
Destined to die alone, with the crushing weight of unfulfilled dreams.
Destined to die without ever really living.
What todoroki didn't know, is that destiny may have other plans.
For on that cold winters day, while Todoroki sat in his hospital bed, waiting for someone to tell him he was free to go, a blood drive was going on in the hospital, and two spiky haired idiots who happened to get lost a lot decided to donate that day.
...
Bakugou was pissed of, staring at the idiotic read haired imbecile in front of him as they wandered down the endless halls. He shouldn't have trusted Kirishima to get them anywhere, he is always getting lost. It was his shitty idea to come donate blood in the first place Bakugou thought, still angrily glaring at his friend. Actually, it took Kirishima quite a lot of convincing and begging to get Bakugou to come along with him. The only reason he dragged Bakugou along to this event is because they got cool t-shirts if they brought a friend. If only they could find a map.
"Where the fuck are we shitty hair!?" Bakugou growled, done with Kirishima and his bad navigation skills.
"I don't know! If I did we would be outa here by now!?" Kirishima responded, confused and frustrated.
Then Bakugou stared look in the rooms, full of equipment and hospital beds, and came to the conclusion that this is either the trauma center or maybe some kind of treatment center. He had no clue but it was his best guess.
Suddenly a man in scrubs and a large white coat stepped out of a room, looking startled to see the pair standing in the hallway.
"How did you to get in here? Are you a patient? If so who is your doctor?" He asked, rushing over to the two teens. Bakugou was about to chew the mans head off, frustrated and out of fucks to give, but Kirishima stepped between his angry friend and the doctor to answer his questions. Bakugou tuned them out, looking around and into the room next to him
Meanwhile, Todoroki's doctor had just left, giving him the ok to go back to the dorms. Todoroki was just about to go grab his clothes when he heard a commotion out side of his room. And he looked out the door.
And both Bakugou and Todoroki looked at each other.
Bakugou was confused and blinked a few times to make sure his brain was functioning correctly. Why the fuck is icy hot here? In a hospital? In this specific part of the hospital? Bakugou questioned internally.
Todoroki froze, ice cold panic shooting through his veins. His brain stopped functioning as he wonder why the hell Bakugou of all people was here, and staring at him. And even worse, he knows somethings wrong. A thousand lies ran through Todoroki's head, excuses for why he was in the hospital. Blood test, doctors appointment, sore throat.
Bakugou saw Todoroki's reaction, and how terrified he looked. Now he was really concerned, because even though he'd never admit it, he cares about all his classmates deeply, even the icy hot bastard. And in all there fights, all there encounters with villains, he'd never seen half'n half look scared. He went to grab Kirishima, before Todoroki shook his head violently, his eyes almost begging Bakugou not to in fear that everyone would find out.
Everyone would know, and try the help him, try to comfort him, and that's the last thing he wants, people getting close, people helping him. He's supposed to be the one saving people, he's not supposed to be the victim.
Bakugou stoped dead in his tracks, seeing the blatant panic in Todoroki's eyes.
Explain later
He mouthed, suddenly turning and blocking todoroki from Kirishima veiw, and seconds later they where gone. Todoroki was worried, and confused. Since when did Bakugou give a shit about what todoroki felt or asked? He was constantly yelling and arguing with him, and the last emotion he expected Bakugou to show was concern, and for him of all people. Along with the confusion of his long time rival being kind, he was freaking out, because Bakugou expected him to explain.
Todoroki silently cursed himself for his reaction, because if he hadn't freaked out and just kept his cool then Bakugou might not have even asked for an explanation. But no, he was an weak, over emotional idiot and showed his weakness. Maybe that was it, that's why Bakugou was kind, because he just wants to find his weakness and exploit it.
Whatever Bakugou's reasons where, they didn't matter now. He'd been caught. After so many years of perfectly hiding his illness, even when living with his classmates. No one suspected a thing, an no one ever would have. Yet, all his hard work just started unraveling in minutes because of a mere coincidence. Absolute random chance. If that isn't the biggest amount of bullshit Todoroki's heard he doesn't know what is.
Trying to shake off his growing anxiety, he stood up and walked over to a little cubby where he left his clothes. He quickly changed back into his warm white turtle neck and jeans, slipped on his black winter jacket, and exited the room as fast as possible. He just wanted to get back to the dorms as soon as possible. Hospitals where his least favorite place in the world, everything about them just screamed loneliness and despair, and he had enough of that on his own. Quickly navigating down the familiar hallways and down several flights of stairs he made it to the main part of the building. It was a lot more crowded than when he came in this morning, but he ignored everyone, pulling up his hood quickly so no one would recognize him. Even if they did, it wouldn't really matter. This was the same hospital his mother had resided in, and the public didn't really know she was back to living in are house, so it was an easy explication. If only Bakugou has seen him here, in the main area, where he could just lie through his teeth with ease and get on with his day. But no, Bakugou saw him in a hospital bed, in the treatment center. Todoroki couldn't use his mother as a guise for this, so as he flew by the large crowd and out into the cold, snowy January air, he tried to come up with a lie that Bakugou would actually believe. But he knew Bakugou wasn't stupid, and even though he's a pain in the ass, he got second place in exams almost every time, only Momo beating him. He almost exceed in sensing other people's bullshit, it was uncanny.
He kept walking through the snowy streets, UA, being a fifteen minute walk a away from said hospital. He activated his quirk as the temperature kept dropping, his nose slightly numb from the cold. Luckily he had a fire quirk, because he had not dressed nearly warm enough. He just kept walking through the relatively empty streets, which still had many Christmas decorations up. Todoroki barley paid his surroundings any attention, his mind swallowed by the anxiety of the possibility that Bakugou would unearth his secret, and maybe even tell others.
However, despite constantly sparring with the angry teen, he didn't know much about him. The most interaction they had on a daily basis was sly remarks to piss each other off. Teasing Bakugou was actually one of the few things todoroki took great pleasure in doing, easily pressing the right buttons that caused Bakugou to explode with anger. But he didn't really hate Bakugou, though he was sure the other very much did.
Yet, as he kept thinking of lie after lie, he realized something. He didn't have to tell Bakugou anything, it's not like it's his business. And he had assumed that Bakugou even cared enough to know, which maybe he dose maybe he doesn't. Still doesn't mean he has to tell him anything. And if he tells others he will just tell them it was a doctors appointment, it's not like he'd be lying. Taking in a deep breath of the frigid air, he tried to to relax as he approached the large gateway guarding UA. With a simple swipe of his ID card he was within the walls. He reached the dorms quickly, a blast of warm air heating his face as he walked inside the building. Surprisingly there was no one sitting in the dorm lobby as most of his classmates would on a normal Saturday afternoon. Todoroki just continued the path to his dorm room, taking the elevator to his floor, opting his dorm and closing his door quietly behind him. He would usually go straight to studying or training but that was not the case today. They had just taken exams yesterday and they hadn't started on anything new so there was nothing for him to study. I'm addition he'd grown in strength and power by a lot since his internship with his father had grown increasingly difficult. He found training by himself now was not nearly as rewarding as months ago and found that he needed to train with a partner in order to be able to push himself. His father was usually that, guiding him on how to further increase his firepower.
His relationship with his father had changed greatly since his childhood. Endeavor had wanted todoroki to become his great master piece, but when he learned todoroki was likely to die before he could ever hope to reach that position, he became even harsher towards the child. He was only five, but his father constantly berated him for his weakness, saying he was born a pathetic weakling.
It is definitely why todoroki thinks of himself as pathetic and weak all to often, and Endeavor knows it.
In his first year Endeavor had started to try and better himself, realizing he had already wasted the little time he would have with his son. He worked on becoming a guide, and a mentor to todoroki, helping him achieve what he wants and how he wants to.
But the damage was done, and todoroki was very much alone, pushing himself so hard to be something. Constantly thinking he wasn't good enough. There was a crushing weight of guilt that plagued Endeavor every time he saw his son, because part of his misery was on his hands and always would be. He knew he deserved it, and used that to motivate him to be a better father.
So todoroki had interned with him, his father teaching him how it uses his fire and ice to its maximum efficiency. This year he had let Shouto handle cases all on his own, giving him amazing hero experience. He was already doing all the work a hero would do, he just needed to graduate and he'd be on his way. However right now all of that was far from his mind as he though of the most recent case he's been working on, easily the most difficult one his fathers assigned him.
A few weeks ago, there was an incident where a whole crowd of people lost control of there bodies, seemingly being controlled like puppets. The people then began attacking other people causing a massive amount of panic. Hero's couldn't do much, they couldn't fight because they would be hurting innocent people. In addition the people seemed extremely agile and had stronger quirks while being controlled. Suddenly they regained control of there bodies and the villains wasn't found. Ever since then, cases if people being controlled in a similar manner have appeared all over the city seemingly at random. It was all very frustrating to Todoroki, who had gone over every piece of evidence at least a hundred times with no way to connect the dots. What was weird was that the villain never really stole anything or severely injured anyone. They puppets would attack people but never do more that, the most damage they did was a few bruises and scratches. Todoroki was dealing with an overwhelming lack of information. It's kind of hard to run a race if you can't even find the starting line.
Still he sat down at his desk and viewed over his notes, newspapers, images, articles, police reports. All of it. Trying to look at the big picture. He was so engulfed in his work he could forget about everything. His classmates, his family, his weakness. It was almost relaxing for him, like a puzzle. Trying to twist and turn every piece of evidence to form one big picture. Thing is he needs a few more pieces, to bad he can't he can't go do any patrols or investigating right now. His father won't let him do any hero work Two days after his monthly treatments because todoroki gets insanely sleepy a few hours after his appointment and wakes up feeling like he got ran over by a truck. It was highly annoying but there's nothing he could really do about it.
So he was stuck with just the evidence he had, looking over image after image. unfortunately the Key photos having a lot of glare. All the photos of victims uncontrolled and recovering had no glare of course, but during the actual attack? The photos where absolute shit. It made it very hard to make out details. As if this case could get any more frustrating.
Suddenly todoroki heard loud noises from outside his window. He craned his neck to look out on the snowy field, seeing a large chunk of them having a snowball fight out in the snow. Looking at the scene you could almost forget that all these students where rising heros, extremely powerful and famous. Right now they just liked normal teens, and todoroki felt rather empty watching it all. It's not like it was his classmates fault he was dying, but he was still envious. Envious that they had the time to enjoy simple things, envious of how normal they all where. God what he wouldn't give to be normal.
All of a sudden, a loud, aggressive nocking came from his door, causing todoroki to jump out of his chair.
"Hey IcyHot! Open the fuck up!"
Authors notes: hey there! Got a brand new fan fiction for you! I'm taking a break from my other fan fiction because I have some writers block with it right now. This fanfic will update whenever I feel like updating cuz I feel like my writings a lot better when I can take my time with it. This is going to be quite the ride as you can all ready tell. I wanna say that it is inspires a bit by another anime but I'm not gonna say yet. Just know if you can't handle angst you should leave. It's gonna be a rough ride. Lemme know what you think of this first chapter! Until the next chapter!