My Hero Academia X Reader Collection!

(Todoroki) Fallen

TW: mentions of injuries and canon-typical child abuse. fire implications?

note: this is an angel!todoroki AU

Shouto was doing perfectly fine on his own, thanks very much.

Yes, he was kicked out of heaven. Yes, he had quite a few new injuries. No, he did not need any help. He was doing fine. Wonderful, even. He was away from that bastard of a father he had - this was the cause of a celebration, not grief.

Now if only he wasn't alone, cold, hungry; lying face-down in a dark alleyway with no place to call his own (save for the dirt he laid on and the bugs surrounding him).

His feathers itched with pain and shame, screaming for a chance at redemption, to prove himself - yet alas, he had been cast out among his flock. Endeavor, as all other angels who hadn't been living in a far cloud knew to call him, had given him one more chance to prove himself - one more chance to show his father that all the years spent training Shouto were not in vain - one more chance to prove himself and secure the option for a spot in the fleet.

But Shouto had failed.

And he had fallen.

And now he lay on the ground, in corner of a cheap alleyway, wings still feeling tender and slightly burnt from the fall. He was weak - weaker than normal; standing up was too much of a chore. Sitting up was too much of a chore. So, he lay where he landed.

People wandered in and out of the alley occasionally, but none ever ventured in far enough to see him. Shouto almost wished they wouldn't come - almost wished no one would find him like this, drained of energy and wings roasted until the feathers melted, fresh burns littering his skin from fire that was much, much too hot.

Shouto almost wished he would die here; alone and unmissed, in this cold alleyway.

But it's okay - he was doing perfectly fine.

He was feeling slightly tired, though.

His head swam, his body ached, and Shouto let himself have the slightest hope of waking up later and sparring against his father once more.

--

When he woke up, he wasn't miles above the city.

Shouto registered his stiff wings, his aching back, then looked around at himself and realized that he was all bandaged up. A quick look at his surroundings showed he was in an apartment. Windows showed he was indeed in the sky, yet a part of him screamed out how wrong this was, to be so low to the ground. To be in a confining apartment.

(By all means - Shouto should have been flying free up in the clouds, yet the fire that had scorched his wings ensured that he may never take to the skies again.)

(By all means - Shouto did not want to live in these conditions.)

(But he was perfectly fine.)

"You're awake," he heard, and Shouto swiveled his head around to see you standing in what he assumed to be the kitchen. "I'm so glad! I saw you coming down - I'm so glad I was able to find you. I was so scared - that must have been a nasty fall."

This was a stranger who had never met him before - had known absolutely nothing about him except that he had fallen from the heavens into the cement of a massive city. You had spent time looking for him - spent time [atching him up, too, if the feel of bandages and bindings against his wings were anything to go by.

"How are you feeling?' You asked, busying yourself with the upkeep of his bandages, which had already started to look rough around the edges - just how long had Shouto been resting on your couch? "I was afraid you weren't going to wake up." At his silence, you continued, albeit hesitant. "What happened out there?"

Maybe it was the exhaustion of the entire event, the training that instigated the fall, the feel of the flames against his bare skin, the terror of the fall, the acute knowledge that he would never, ever be able to fly again - maybe it was the stress of waking up in a stranger's apartment with a new world that he had to somehow acclimate to - maybe it was that, for once in his life since he was six years old, someone had cared for him; brought him home and dressed his wounds, and maybe the realization of figuring out that should have not been something that he's just now receiving. Maybe it was the way you looked at him with such compassion and caring; maybe it was the way he's longed for a gaze like that to be focused on him for so long.

As Shouto, for the first time in what had to be months, cried hard, silently, on your couch, clinging onto the fabric as if he could cling the pieces of himself together, he could admit that he was not perfectly fine, was never able to take to the sky and fly ever again - you said a hand on his shoulder and rubbed lightly, unsure whether a hug would be welcomed or pushed away. When he didn't pull away, you stayed there, hoping he'd be okay - this mysterious stranger whose name you didn't even know, but wanted to so desperately help.

He looked tired. Exhausted. He didn't look fine in the slightest.

Yet, even Shouto was sure, through his grief-stricken mind - he was free from Endeavor. He was free - he was out.

Even if he wasn't now, he would be okay soon.