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Shouto’s told he’s a child of fire and ice, but in his dreams, all he sees is fire.
In his dreams, there is fire and battleships, metal and war. There is training. Even though he’s small, Shouto somehow knows that this training in his dreams, it’s different from the training his father puts him through.
Even though another father looms over him. Angry. Demanding. Disappointed.
But with burning black eyes not fire-bright blue.
When he wakes up, Shouto looks in the mirror and wonders if the amber eye he sees is from the him in his dreams, not his mom.
Rather than dreaming of Touya, of Natsuo, of Fuyumi, Shouto dreams of an elder sister. She wields fire with the same skill and fierce joy he sees in Touya, but where their father turns away from Touya in favor of Shouto—who is still somehow never enough—his sister is beloved.
In his dreams, their father is cruel and ambitious, and his cruelty and ambition twist his sister, until she’s equally cruel and ambitious.
Or maybe she always was her father’s daughter.
Or his father’s son?
Sometimes Shouto looks at Touya—through cracked doors, around corners—and gets confused. Is it Touya or her?
Long before he’s ever burned by his mother, he dreams of being burned by his father. He dreams of a vicious fight, of his father being strong—so much stronger—than he is. He dreams of being a disappointment and a shame, and—
Unworthy.
And then Shouto’s mother goes away, just like his mother in his dreams. In his real life, his father says it’s to protect him, that she’s crazy, broken, unworthy of attention or love.
Alone in his bed, however, Shouto mourns her loss, like he mourns the loss of the mother in his dreams. Another tragedy, and another mirror.
One thing the dreams don’t predict is Touya dying. His sister never died, and somewhere in the distant future, Shouto thinks that maybe they can even be friends, or, at least, friendly?
But Touya dies. He dies in his own fire. He sets a mountain ablaze and there is nothing left but his jawbone to even confirm he was there. Privately, Shouto considers the mountain to be his grave. It’s where his ashes are scattered, after all.
But in his dreams, his sister is still there. Laughing, angry, vicious, powerful.
Alive.
It makes him wonder if Touya could be too.
Fire fills his dreams. It haunts them really. Fire and a bone-deep desire to make his father proud when Shouto has never wanted anything less.
Ice becomes his refuge, both in his dreams and in his life. His mother gave him his ice quirk, and in his dreams, there are teases of someone in blue, in the cold. It makes him think of a cold drink on a hot day, the chill of an icy glass of water after a hard workout running down his throat. It sends a shiver through him, but a welcome one.
The cold is peaceful.
Training feels like it consumes Shouto’s life almost more than the fire does. Nearly every waking moment with his father is dedicated to it, and then when he sleeps, he dreams of more training.
It helps, oddly enough. There are days he wakes up with his body remembering things he only learned in his dreams. He wouldn’t have expected that to carryover, and he’s not sure whether it’s cool or it’s frightening.
He learns how to use his fire even better. In some ways, it’s even more instinctual and easy than his ice.
But Shouto never tells his father that.
The dreams aren’t only of training and fire and yelling. They aren’t only desperation or the thrum of pushing himself to prove that he’s enough, that he’s worthy. Pushing himself for reasons Shouto has never had to in his waking hours.
Both Shouto and his dream self want to defeat their fathers, but their reasons are not the same.
The dreams are also of burning, of large, hot hands on his hips, the weight of a huge body behind him. Of violation. Of being stretched in places not meant to.
This is all you’re good for murmured as he cries.
The first time Shouto dreams of his father coming to his bed, he barely understands what it means. He knows how he feels in the dream though. He feels small and helpless. He feels pain like nothing he’s ever felt as his body is forced to accept something it was not meant to.
He feels shame.
The words spoken in that first dream are frighteningly clear.
“That’s right, you little bitch. Open your cunt for me. Let me in. The least you can do is serve me in bed.”
When Shouto wakes, he runs to the bathroom to be sick.
Time in his dreams is a strange thing. He sees not just the him that is his age, but the him that is older. Sometimes the him that is younger. Sometimes, it’s the him that is full-grown.
The glimpses of the older him are fewer, rarer. He starts to notice that his feelings about the day are reflected in the dreams of the night, so the happy ones are scarce, fleeting.
Sometimes, he’ll see the grown him, who is happy. That him has a man he loves and is loved by. Shouto wonders if he’ll ever know what that’s like.
In what little free time Shouto has, he researches. He tries to find who he was. Shouto’s sure he was real, but search for Fire Nation returns no real countries. The Water Tribes yields mostly indigenous Polynesian people who live on islands but look nothing like the water people of his dreams. Ice people brings up other indigenous people, but still, nothing that is right.
He searches names. Zuko. Azula. Ozai. He finds nothing.
Yet he knows that he could not have made them up. The dreams are too real, too vivid, the feelings too much to be dreams alone.
Shouto never wants to think of the dreams as prophetic. They are him in another world, in another life, in another place.
Don’t ask him how he knows it’s him, he just knows. Down to his very bones, his very core, that the eyes he looks out of in the dreams are his own.
But he dreams of his father climbing into his bed for years before it happens for real.
Shouto tries to say no, tries to fight, but just as in his dreams, his father is bigger and stronger, and he does not listen to his son’s protests.
One thing the dreams didn’t warn him of was how much the pain lingers. The violation is emotional as well as physical, but the physical effects on his body are surprises Shouto wishes he never knew.
The way his hole feels stretched, open, gaping, even a couple days later. The way that come trickles out of him for nearly as long. How raw and tender he is. The way his stomach aches.
How much his abs and whole back are sore from the hours he spends dry heaving over the toilet, long after he’s given up everything in his stomach.
It becomes a cycle, a terrible, sick cycle. Now that his father has had a taste, he seems to see no reason to restrain himself, and he comes to Shouto’s bed more and more often.
“If you want me to stop, then make me,” he growls in Shouto’s ear.
It’s both better and worse than the “This is all you’re any good for,” that he hears in his dreams.
Except his dreams are no escape on those nights. Like a twisted mirror, they never fail to reflect his father’s violence and sick lust. On those nights, sleep holds another nightmare.
Shouto trains harder. He trains until he collapses into sleep, doing his best to use the way his dreams have started reflecting reality more to use even his time sleeping to train.
It doesn’t always work though. Because the nights he passes out in utter exhaustion are often nights his father invites himself in. Shouto’s determination to make his father stop—just as he’s been challenged to—is producing fast results. Faster than his father probably expected. So he’ll wait until Shouto is nearer to unconscious than sleeping, and slip in.
And on those nights, his father visits in his dreams too.
Though he’s never breathed a word about his dreams to his father, he begins to use the skills he’s learned in his sleep while he’s awake. He takes everything he’s learned about wielding fire and applies it to his ice, and to his relief, the muscles in his mind to use both abilities seem to be the same.
He begins to create walls of ice, makes them sharp, aims them like spears, forges them into blades and weapons of his will.
But such extraordinary exercise of his abilities requires incredible energy.
So he sleeps deeply, and his father rapes him.
With his only defenses available when he’s awake, Shouto begins to shun sleep. He’s grown strong enough that his father can no longer force himself on Shouto while Shouto’s awake. At least, not unless he’s entirely exhausted, and working Shouto to exhaustion is now taking a similar toll on his father.
Todorki Enji carries his years well, but keeping up with his fourteen-year-old’s reserves must make him feel them at least a little.
The turning point comes with a throwaway bit of mockery.
“Do you miss riding me so much?” his father says.
Shouto answers with the Heaven-Piercing Ice Wall.
Something changes after that. In Shouto, in the dreams, in his father. Perhaps in them all. Suddenly, the ice answers his will like a living thing, like he is its master. He still refuses to use fire, not wanting to prize any power that came from him, but using ice becomes less an effort than a decision.
Training begins to change, and his father notices. He notices how strong Shouto is getting, how effortless his command of his ability is, and he is pleased.
Shouto can’t beat him consistently, but when he does, he sleeps safe from his father’s touch.
Going to school with others is strange. It’s the first time in his life—outside of his dreams—that Shouto has had anyone his own age around him. They aren’t friends, not immediately, but as his dreams often do, they begin to fill with more friends.
Of them all, one stands out the most. He’s the one that Shouto knows will become more than a friend. There are glimpses of him in the future, of them in the future, but still, in his waking life, Shouto holds himself back from his classmates.
Friends are still a foreign concept, and Shouto is cautious.
Shouto doesn’t exactly mean to tell Midoriya how much he hates his father. Once he starts talking, it just keeps coming. He holds back the worst thing—the most shameful thing—but everything else comes out like a dam breaking.
And then there is the fight.
“It’s your power, isn’t it!”
For the first time while he’s awake, Shouto feels like he’s seeing through his other self’s eyes, thinks he hears him echo Midoriya’s words.
It’s our power, isn’t it?
Shouto reaches for the fire, and it answers, waking up from its years-long slumber, energetic and eager to serve its master.
Two people start showing up in his dreams more than before.
The first is Sokka. Shouto has seen his face more times than he can count, but his name is new, and Shouto can’t help but cherish it. He remembers them being at odds, being enemies, but they change— Shouto changes—and they become closer.
First they become friends, then, later, lovers. In his dreams, he seems to be past his father’s ability to touch any further.
Shouto wishes that were true outside of them.
The second person who begins to show up more is his sister, Azula.
Shouto wonders about Touya.
Time continues on, so does life and Shouto’s dreams. He makes friends, and his dreams fill with adventures with friends that don’t exist in this life.
Azula continues to make herself present in his dreams, and he starts to notice a pattern. She shows up before and after encounters with the League of Villains.
While the dreams aren’t exactly prescient, Shouto’s learned not to ignore them.
When Dabi reveals himself as Todoroki Touya, Shouto feels like all the pieces fall into place.
In another life, Shouto had to stop his sister; in this one, he needs to stop his brother.
He hadn’t been able to defeat his sister in his dreams. And Touya’s blue fire versus his own red feels like a fight he’s had a dozen or more times.
The difference, however, was to defeat Azula, he’d needed a friend.
More specifically, he’d needed a friend with water and ice.
Shouto doesn’t have much ability with water, but with ice, he’s not sure there’s anyone better than he is.
Even so, he doesn’t end up bringing Touya down alone, but he would never have guessed that he’d have his mother and sister and brother at his side as well.
The war ends, Touya forgives him, the heroes win, but not without cost. So much cost. It will take decades to rebuild after the sheer amount of destruction waged upon the lands, but the people most important to Shouto have survived.
For now, that has to be enough.
Though Shouto has one bit of unfinished business.
It’s the first time he’s alone with his father since the war began. Watery blue eyes look up at him, full of what seems to be remorse.
“You’re going to retire,” Shouto says, and it’s not a request.
His father nods and says nothing.
Life continues. Izuku has lost his quirk, but they all return to school. They all learn to be heroes in a world where they’ve already served the role. They grow, they mourn, they work, they continue on.
The dreams have never stopped, but when Shouto begins to dream of Sokka a lot—particularly of him and Sokka getting together—Shouto knows how this works well enough to not be entirely blindsided by Izuku pulling him to the side.
Head ducked, scars that are finally healing, looking like he’s finally growing into them, Izuku’s visibly nervous.
Then he straightens and meets Shouto’s eyes.
The first time they kiss, it’s equal parts a shock and the most familiar, natural, nostalgic thing he’s ever felt.
Between one breath and the next, Izuku’s rough hand cups the back of Shouto’s neck, and the kiss deepens.
It’s like coming home. The strength of Izuku’s hands, the softness and tenderness of his mouth, the way he holds Shouto as if he’s unspeakably precious, all of it is both familiar and new.
When the kisses finally break to let them catch their breaths, Izuku flushes charmingly, but he doesn’t let Shouto go.
I’m going to love you, Shouto knows.
They’re twenty the first time they make love. Though Shouto’s dreamed of making love with Sokka more times than he can count, he’s nervous about it.
He’s never told Izuku what his father did, though he knows he’ll have to someday. As commanded, Endeavor had quietly retired after the war, and he isn’t part of Shouto’s life.
And Shouto does not want him to be part of this moment.
“Take me,” Shouto murmurs against Izuku’s mouth. He wants to erase every memory of his father’s touch and replace it with his lover’s.
“Are you sure?” Izuku asks.
“Absolutely,” Shouto replies.
If Shouto thought that kissing Izuku was like coming home, making love with him takes it to another level.
It’s both like making love with Sokka and not. Though Izuku is now quirkless, he’s put a lot of work into his physique, and he may be a little shorter than Shouto, but he’s broad and strong. Shouto feels safe and loved, and perfect.
There’s no remote overlap in how his father had taken him, and that’s exactly what Shouto needs—to be made love to. To be cherished. To be loved and adored.
Thankfully, Izuku rains it all on him unconditionally.
The dreams continue, but Shouto is happy and they mirror his happiness. Both his waking life and his sleep are places of peace and happiness.
When he dreams of becoming the Fire Lord, he should have guessed another milestone approached. In his defense, it’s been years since his dreams have given him glimpses of the future.
A week later, Shouto becomes the number one hero. If that unexpected victory didn’t fill his heart to bursting, Izuku kneeling down to propose pushes him over the edge.
Shouto says yes, crying. Even in his best dreams, he’s never known happiness like this.
Shouto is curled up around Izuku in their bed, head resting over Izuku’s heart, skin cooling from the sweat of their lovemaking drying. Izuku lazily cards his fingers through Shouto’s now-long hair in one of Shouto’s favorite of Izuku’s mindless affectionate touches.
Though he’s not quite asleep, he seems to be close enough to see his dreams. In his dreams, Shouto sees himself curled up around Sokka, just as content and at peace as Shouto is around Izuku.
For only the second time that Shouto can remember, he hears his other self address him directly.
“Welcome to your happy ending.”
Izuku watches, proud, as Shouto takes his place as the new number-one hero. Kacchan seethes next to him, even if he’s a little proud too, not that he’ll admit it.
“So Icyhot really makes you happy?” Kacchan asks him. “You know you can come work for me instead?”
Smiling, Izuku assures, “I’m quite happy where I am.” Doing strategic analysis and quirk support development keeps Izuku plenty busy and feeling useful. Despite being quirkless, he’s a hero in his own right.
This life or the one before, Izuku doesn’t need anything more than his mind to support his partner.