Archive of Our Own

“We’re like a big happy family!” 

That sentence rang in his ears.

Himiko Toga was only a child, and had seemingly not yet discovered that in their world family does not exist. Tomura had to hold back his scoff just thinking about it, he learned particularly early that care and love were nothing but cruel myths. Anyone who was stupid enough to believe villains could feel anything for each other beyond shallow trust and forced comradery wouldn’t survive here. 

Toga, strangely enough, was perfectly alive. Weaving lies of love and affection was one of her favorite activities. She confounded Tomura.

To say the league’s formation had thrown Tomura off would be a horrific understatement. He couldn’t remember the last time he had an actual conversation with someone besides Kurogiri or his Master. It was uncomfortable, out of his element, he hated it. He was supposed to be good at whatever Master expected him to do.

The thing was, quite frankly, that he had no idea what he was doing. Master had taught him the role of a weapon, a merciless tool he used to bend society to his will, his entire life. But leading?

Yes, sure, Master had told him he must be responsible, unshakeable, fearless, powerful— yadda yadda, he didn’t pay that much attention to the boring stuff—and sure, Master had taught him how not to be weak and how to turn his emotions off and become a very effective killing machine with zero remorse, but he never actually got into the more people-y parts.

 What was Tomura supposed to do when a member of his team got hurt? Was he just to leave them there like a faun abandoned by its family for being a hindrance to their survival? Surely not. They may all be villains, and downright agitating at the best of times, but these were people he was responsible for. With ambitions and personalities and lives, even if they were miserable lives they were still lives, and the absolute annihilation of his rally for the USJ attack had made him very aware of how much he disliked leading his underlings to their failure and just not doing anything about it. It had put him on edge much more than he’d like to admit.

What should he do when they don’t feel like complying? The League was a rowdy bunch, and they clearly didn’t view Tomura as importantly as he’d like. They were still his teammates, though. He couldn’t beat his authority into them, he respected them to some extent and wasn’t one to underestimate them. They had proven their strength a number of times.

What is he to do when his leader, the one who saved him all that time ago and gave him his name and Kurogiri and taught him everything he knew was arrested, and Tomura was left stranded with their base destroyed, grappling at every chance he could get to keep his League safe and healthy and alive, with no spare time or energy to plan the downfall of hero society?

What could possibly be the correct answer when Compress just lost his whole arm and Himiko is bawling her eyes out because Big Sis Mag, their Big Sis Magne, was just murdered in front of them, and he can’t just tell her not to cry because it would solve nothing. She is a child. Magne did feel like family. He felt it more than ever the night no one told Toga to shut up for once because they all felt exactly the same, even if they were too stubborn to admit it. 

What should he do, what should he do, what is the right thing to do, he doesn’t know. It’s scary. It’s so, so scary, and that’s idiotic because he’s Tomura Shigaraki, a mass terrorist, a violent anarchist taking down society, fearless and horrifying leader of the League of Villains, so why does he feel so small?

What does he do when they say they care about him?

They’re lying, they have to be. Care doesn’t exist, not for them. He has never been cared about. He has been trusted, the way a wielder trusts their sword, fixes it when it breaks, keeps it in good condition to take down their enemies. Never cared for. You cannot care for a weapon, it will be ruined eventually.

If there’s one thing he’s learned in his life, it’s that you never get your hopes up at the idea of being more than nothing.

He will always be nothing.

Useless, creepy, stupid little Tomura who never grows up and never learns. He is worth nothing. He is only a weapon. A means to an end.

So why is Toga so insistent that he matters beyond his strength?

He doesn’t.

Nothing does.

He is strong, and good at serving, and knows how to fight and strategize, and that’s all that is important. Personality and emotions-wise? Shigaraki is equivalent to a constipated bull with crippling anger issues that was locked in a dark room its entire life and would be more useful with its guts ripped out of its ass. 

He groans quietly to himself. This train of thought was getting him nowhere, but he hadn’t been able to stop thinking about how tragically stupid and weak he was since Master and later Kurogiri were captured. It was sickening.

His body tenses when he hears sounds coming from the other side of the room, followed by Dabi angrily grumbling about trying to sleep. He looks to the source of the noise, straining his eyes to identify them, already poor eyesight not faring too well in the dark. Concern twists in his chest when he registers the sound of quiet sobbing. Caring gets you nowhere, he tries to remind himself, but he’d already broken that rule, hadn’t he? Letting out a small huff of air, he quietly pads over to the wet and breaking voice he recognized as Himiko’s. She flinches slightly when she feels someone’s touch, not expecting it and feeling guilty for rousing him, but her breath hitches when she feels lanky arms and legs wrap around her curled body and hands pulling her head to their chest, safely encased and guarded. After a deep, shuddering breath, hands curl into Shigaraki’s shirt. She feels secure, she can’t really see him but she knows, and she trusts him. It’s near silent now, but Tomura can still feel her convulsing and trembling, and he’ll stay here all night if he must.

Master would be disappointed, and Shigaraki is a hypocrite. But when he feels Himiko Toga finally relax in his arms because she feels safe , the feeling warm and refreshing and a little bit eye-dampening, he finds that he’s okay with that. Some things—some people , he supposes—are worth being at risk for, and maybe he is more than nothing.