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Stop being a villain, they said. It’ll make you live longer, they said.
Touya heaves into the toilet for the nth time that morning, and really, really wishes he’d just stuck with his day job. Night job. Whatever.
Villainy had never fucked him over like this.
“Natsu, you’re dead to me,” he groans, staples clinking against the porcelain of his current face rest.
“You say something bro?” An entirely too chipper voice calls from the doorway. Touya opens one bloodshot eye and raises a very succinct finger in response.
Natsuo is leaning against the door frame - practically filling it - while munching on an apple and smiling smugly. Also looking stupidly alert, despite downing at least a gallon more alcohol than his older brother the night before.
“You need some water or something?” Natuso asks, crunching away happily.
“Ugh .” Just the thought of swallowing makes Touya nauseous. He closes his eyes and tries to breathe through World War III going on in his guts.
(The Russians had come in with some heavy potato-brewed artillery. And Japan was a strong contender with the copious amounts of sake shots. But if Touya were a betting man, he’d say that Mexico and its goddamn triple sec was going to win the war.
In any case, his stomach is losing. Badly.)
Crunch, crunchity, crunch.
Water is running in the sink faucet, but Touya flagrantly ignores it. If Natsu needs his bathroom anytime soon, too fucking bad . Touya’s going to be snuggling with the toilet for the foreseeable future.
Something cold, wet, and kinda scratchy plops onto his head, splattering water all over his scarred arms and obscuring his already fuzzy vision.
“Natsu, you have five seconds before I ruin my parole,” he growls, voice muffled behind the wet towel. His brother has the gall to laugh at him.
“You know, if I thought you were good for anything more than lighting a cig, I’d actually… still not be afraid of you.”
From under the curtain effect of the towel, Touya can see his brother’s socked feet leave the ground as he hops up to sit on the bathroom counter. The ex-villain’s eyes narrow, irritated that his misery has apparently become a spectator sport.
“Go ‘way,” he grumbles, turning his head and mushing his nose into the toilet seat. The piercings shift and dig uncomfortably, but it’s better than acknowledging his brother’s presence any longer.
Which is probably not the nicest way he could express his gratitude to Natsuo for opening his apartment to an ex-villain, familial relations notwithstanding. But hey, mean habits die hard.
Kind of like Dabi had. Explosively, even. In what people were still calling the “Fight of the Century”.
If only they could see him now.
Something warm and soft touches his shoulder, rubbing in light circles. Touya would literally rather eat his boot than admit it felt nice, and it’s probably that little flare of stubbornness that makes him shake the towel out of his eyes.
To see his brother’s foot, resting on his shoulder.
“It’s okay, bro,” Natsuo says, mischief shining in his eyes, “I feel your pain in my sole. ” He wiggles his toes, just to be sure Touya gets the pun.
“I’m ready to go back to jail now,” Touya deadpans, shaking his shoulders to dislodge the offending appendage. Natsuo just laughs and drops his leg back to thump against the cabinet.
At least he laughs about it now, the ex-villain thinks, closing his eyes against the pain the laughter causes his throbbing skull. Not too long ago and he would have lost his shit. Yumi probably still would.
Speaking of which.
“Please tell me you rescheduled lunch,” Touya mutters, already knowing the probable answer.
“Nope,” Natsuo returns with a truly obnoxious ‘pop’ on the P. “Shouto and Fuyumi wouldn’t miss this for the world.”
“My misery? Think that’d be old news by now,” Touya grumbles without thinking. Then he winces as Natsuo sighs gustily overhead.
“I’ma let that one go because at this point I think you only have black humor left in you. Personally, I’m blaming your terrible dye job,” the younger Todoroki says, with a pointed poke of his toe into Touya’s exposed armpit. The ex-villain jerks his arm back reflexively, which sets off another spot-inducing head trip.
“Bleeerrghh,” he moans, stomach jumping and knotting simultaneously. Over his head, Natsuo snorts with exactly zero sympathy.
“You really can’t hold you alcohol, you know that?”
“Shut uuuup.”
Natsuo continues as if Touya hadn’t said a word, “So why did you take that challenge? Who was it… "
“Don’t remind me.”
“Mako? Tokio?”
“Natsu…”
His brother snaps victoriously. “ Makoto! That was it.”
Touya groans. And Natsuo’s grin widens.
“Isn’t she the sister of the detective that ran your case? Tsukauchi, right? She drank you under the table, bro. It was kind of embarrassing.”
“Oh believe me,” Touya huffs, finally reaching up to flush the bile in the bowl. “I’m never drinking with you again. Worst decision of my life.”
“Hey, now. Worse than going villain?” Natsuo pouts. Touya snorts indelicately.
“So much worse. At least in the League they were up front about trying to murder you.”
“Really not my fault you’re a lightweight,” Natsuo points out, entirely unapologetic. He does, however, lean over to hook an arm under Touya’s as the elder attempts to rise.
The wall of the bathroom, Touya finds, is much more supportive than his bratty brother. But sadly, it didn’t pay the rent, and until he finds someone idiotic enough to employ an ex-villain, he’s kind of at Natsu’s mercy.
So he opens a squinty eye to meet his brother’s openly amused grey ones. And digs a crumpled receipt out of his jean pocket.
“Nice try, dumbass, but you’re still too fucking obvious.”
He slaps the receipt into Natsuo’s hand and stalks as best he can out of the cramped bathroom. His brother’s disbelieving voice follows him down the hall.
“YOU GOT HER NUMBER? WHEN?!”
Somewhere between the keg stand and the flaming tequila shots, Touya thinks, but refuses to say aloud. Instead, he yells back.
“She’s expecting you to call today!”
He immediately regrets raising his voice, and blindly reaches for the freezer in hopes of finding something to put on his aching skull. But his grasping hand meets with a whole lotta nothing.
“And you better call her,” he grumbles, opening achy eyes to see a very empty, frost covered freezer. “You goddamn bachelor.”
Deciding ‘fuck it’ he leaves the door open and just sticks his head into the freezing bliss. It might make his staples burn a little, with how cold they got, but it was fucking worth it.
“Need some help?” A familiar, amused voice asks from behind him. Touya pulls his head out of the freezer to see Fuyumi placing plastic bags full of food on the counter.
“Please,” he says pathetically, shouldering the freezer door closed and shuffling over to his twin. She barely has a moment to finish divesting herself of her bags before he’s thumping his forehead into her shoulder.
She giggles at his dramatics and runs her fingers through his black hair, linking them across the crown of his head and bringing her quirk to bear.
Instant relief. Touya refuses to admit that he might have whimpered.
“What happened to you?” A deeper voice asks from the front door. Shouto is there, replacing his shoes with a spare pair of slippers.
“Natsuo,” Touya grouches succinctly. Shouto and Fuyumi roll their eyes simultaneously. It’s a little eerie.
“What was the occasion?” Fuyumi asks, pulling her hands around to palm his temples. He closes his eyes and sighs deeply.
“Heh,” Natsuo laughs as he enters the kitchen. “Thanks to my seniors at the law firm and that crazy determined detective, Touya's parole’s been shortened. You’re looking at a free man in only two months.”
Fuyumi gasps, pulling her brother’s face back so she could look him in the eyes. “Really?”
“Good behavior, apparently,” Touya admits grudgingly.
“Oh my gosh, that’s wonderful! I wish you’d told us - we would have celebrated with you!”
“Not Shouto,” Touya points out, only for said brother to snort.
“I’ve been legal for months.”
Touya blinks in surprise, eyes scanning his little brother as if searching for evidence that he was, in fact, an adult.
“Are you sure?” He questions suspiciously. Fuyumi laughs and swats his chest.
“He couldn’t very well be a sidekick if he got caught drinking underage, Tou-chan,” she chides. All three of her brothers look at her with varying degrees of disbelief. Even Shouto seems mystified by the naivete before him.
Fuyumi sucks in her cheek, pouting. Then sticks her tongue out at Touya, of all people.
Of course, as the mature one of the duo, he snorts right in her face.
“You know,” Natsuo says slowly as Fuyumi gives up her silent feud with her twin, “I have a going theory.” He swings one of his kitchen chairs around to face his siblings, straddling it backwards and leaning his forearms across the back.
“Hmm?” Shouto hums in mild interest. Or disinterest. It was hard to tell, even after all this time.
Natsuo points a finger between Touya and Fuyumi, who was pulling takeout cartons from the bags. “You guys were evenly split on the quirks - right?”
Touya leans against the counter, away from the wafting smell of Chinese food filling the kitchen. Instead he focuses on his brother.
“Yeah, so?” And isn’t it a wonder that they can talk about their quirks without anyone feeling like absolute shit? Therapy, man. A goddamn marvel of the modern world.
“Soooo,” Natsuo continues, “I’d swear you were split on everything. Red hair, white hair. Girl, dude. Sweet…”
“And sour?” Shouto adds, pulling out said dish of food with uncommon comedic timing. Natsuo snorts loudly, and even Fuyumi has to giggle. Touya’s smile is more reserved.
“Good… and evil, right?” He adds quietly. His siblings turn to him as one. But Natsuo beats them all to the punch.
“Maybe a few years ago, bro,” he says, using the honest - but positive - reinforcement technique they’d all learned at the shrink’s office. “Today, the only thing evil about you is your booze stank.”
Touya scowls in mock severity as Shouto chuckles.
“And who’s fault is that?”
Natsuo grins and raises his hands lazily, “Definitely not mine. You face-planted into the beer pitcher all on your lonesome.”
“You did what?” Fuyumi asks between her ill-repressed cackling. Touya doesn’t take his eyes off Natsu.
“You’re making that up,” he says with more confidence than he feels. Natsuo’s grin goes kind of feral. Touya fights the urge to take a step back.
You faced down Endeavor. Pull yourself together, you patchwork pansy.
“Wan~na bet?” Natsuo sing-songs, pulling out his phone. He doesn’t even get to voice his threat before Shouto plucks it from his hand with hero-trained speed. Touya just looks at his brother in stark betrayal.
“I got you that chick’s number,” he accuses, as a video with way-too-familiar background music starts blaring from Natsuo’s phone.
Natsuo doesn’t even have the grace to look sheepish - shrugging in ‘what’re you gonna do about it?’ manner.
Fuyumi lifts up on her toes to whisper in her twin’s ear, “Tell her Natsuo snores and has athlete’s foot. That’ll show him.” Touya glances down to see his sister’s eyes sparkling behind her glasses. Subtly he holds out a fist, which she bumps back. Then she reaches up to ruffle his hair, just for good measure.
He almost pulls back, until he feels the chill of her quirk working on his pounding head again.
Maybe he regrets letting Natsuo drag him out to get shit-faced. But the sight of his little brothers actually laughing at a video of him, and the feel of Fuyumi’s fingers curling affectionately in his hair? Is something he wouldn’t trade for the world.