Work Text:
Todoroki poked his head out from behind his door frame, surveying the suspiciously empty hallway. At this time of the evening, it was unusual for the halls to be this silent. He had just finished tomorrow night’s English homework (ever the overachiever) and was just reaching for the TV remote when his lamp sputtered before going out. A little fishy, since he had just replaced the lightbulb with Hatsume’s “new and improved bulb” last week. He sparked a small fire to avoid tripping over the clutter as he left his room.
Softly closing his door, he frowned as he saw the lights throughout the dorms were out. With his amazing powers of deduction, he realized Something had caused the power to go out.
After a few minutes of eerie stillness, Todoroki realized nobody else was going to fix this and decided to take matters into his own hands. He held his fiery hand out, mimicking a flashlight as he crept through the darkened, slightly ominous halls. Todoroki made sure to stay wary and step carefully as he descended to the basement, just in case anything else seemed out of place. Pausing on the landing of the stairs, he could see that something was indeed out of place.
A flash of electricity flashed throughout the room, a blinding light amidst the unlit basement. A hushed voice, which Todoroki quickly identified as Ashido’s, followed. “Try again, Kami. We can’t get in trouble with Aizawa-sensei again, it’s only been a week since our last. Debacle.”
Ah yes, the latest ~debacle~. Last Saturday, the Bakusquad decided to race from the roof of the dorms to the ground using just their quirks. It’s easy to see how this got out of hand, and it ended up with part of the building melted from acid and covered in tape. (None of this included Bakugou, of course. He refused to partake in such tomfoolery, and instead went to sleep painfully early.) Needless to say, they were not on Aizawa’s good side at this point in time, and this power outage incident obviously wouldn’t improve matters.
Todoroki finished rounding the stairs, coming face-to-face with the concerned faces of Kaminari, Ashido, and Sero. Their eyes widened in guilt as they sputtered excuses, all while trying to cover up the curiously crooked fuse box behind them.
“Heyyyy Todoroki, what’s going onnnn?” Sero inquired with a disturbingly high voice and unconvincing nonchalance. Todoroki took an instinctive step back, their wide eyes and restless fidgeting reminding him just a little too closely of the squirrels outside.
“I was just coming to check on the electricity, since the power went out a few minutes ago. I wanted to make sure there weren’t any...problems.” Todoroki’s narrowed eyes and pointed tone were enough to make the three guilty students shuffle uncomfortably as they stared at their slippers.
“Well uh, I guess our cover is blown. Is there any way you could maybe, er, not mention this to sensei?” Kaminari asked with a slight blush. “Pleaseee?” he added after noticing Todoroki’s unmoved expression.
Todoroki sighed, considering his options. On one hand, it would be so easy to just tell Aizawa the truth, and Todoroki was all for the easy path. It required a lot less work on his part. On the other hand, snitching was generally bad for cooperation and effective teamwork. He had often heard the saying, “snitches get stitches” uttered from Ashido’s mouth as it carried across the classroom. Plus, he knew it wouldn’t do any good to his already fragile relationship with Bakugou. Despite his rather aggressive language, Todoroki could tell that Bakugou cared deeply for his friends and would surely not appreciate their extended detentions. And although Todoroki didn’t care much about most of his classmates' opinions of him, he preferred to stay out of drama whenever possible, and he found that staying out of Bakugou’s way was his best shot. So with a deep and annoyed sigh, Todoroki nodded in assent.
And then, to everyone’s surprise, rather than silently turning back upstairs as expected, he moved to the corner of the room and crouched next to a dusty red box. Kaminari, Sero, and Ashido watched in confusion as Todoroki continued rifling through the container before producing a wrench, screwdriver, and other fancy-looking tools. They continued to stare in amazement as he shrugged off the accumulated dust bunnies and approached the fuse box, placing the tools down and setting to work.
“Bro you’re like, um. Bob the Builder?” Sero exclaimed, still in shock by Todoroki’s unexpected handiness with the tools. Todoroki rolled his eyes in response, glancing back judgmentally at Sero before turning back to the problem at hand.
“So, how do you know how to do this, anyways?” Ashido questioned as she cocked her head to the side. Todoroki was suddenly thankful that he was facing away from them as a deep blush spread across his normally pale and unfazed face.
Even though Todoroki “didn’t care much about most of his classmates' opinions of him,” he definitely didn’t want any of them to know that he taught himself how to repair and renovate from Pinterest. In his defense, their DIY tips had come in handy multiple times in the dorms.
Ignoring the question, Todoroki twisted the wrench tightly until he heard a click. He hit the light switch above him and admired his handiwork as the dim light flickered on. Kaminari evidently took his small smile as an invitation and crashed into Todoroki, pulling him into a big hug.
“Thanks man, you really saved my ass there,” Kaminari laughed as he clapped Todoroki’s back. For a moment, Todoroki’s stiff posture refused to let up as he stood awkwardly in the hug. But with an exasperated sigh, he relaxed his body and his eyes softened in fondness. Maybe teamwork wasn’t the only reason he helped.