Work Text:
Working at the hospital could either be really boring, very interesting, or absolutely wild depending on the time of day. When he had decided to specialize in the ER and was hired by a hospital to do his residency, Natsuo knew it would have its ups and downs. Some patients had serious but non-life threatenings while others put the floor in, well, a state of emergency.
For the most part, the attending physicians and senior residents dealt with those extremely serious cases, which left Natsuo to deal with the smaller ones alongside the nurses and the other junior resident he had been hired on with. Unlike his colleague who wanted to be involved in the flashy stuff and actively got mad when he was excluded, Natsuo didn’t mind the less stressful ones. They weren’t always minor. One time he had to take a pencil out of a guy’s butt. That was fun.
He knew Fuyumi worried about him because of the stress and emotional workout, but Natsuo could take care of himself. After having been ignored by his father for nearly his entire life and losing his oldest brother, he’d learned how to compartmentalize his emotions. He could keep work and his personal life separate. At the end of the day, when he walked out of the hospital doors, he was Natsuo and that was it. He shrugged the medical life off. If he took his work home with him, it would only be like his dad, and he couldn’t handle that.
What he didn’t anticipate was home creeping into his work. If he had, he would have realized that was much more dangerous than getting worked up over cases off the clock.
“Okay,” Natsuo said as he stepped into the room, “it says here you fell out of a tree?”
The moment he looked up, he knew it was a mistake. One second his mind was thinking about all the times he’d climbed the trees in his backyard, and then he locked eyes with the young boy sitting on the hospital bed and all he could think about was Touya climbing out of his window and breaking his arm when he fell trying to climb down. It would seem so innocent if Natsuo told the story, but there was something much deeper and painful underlining it. Touya had been trying to figure out a means to escape.
In the end, he had, but it ended in misery anyway.
An uncomfortable smile twitched on Natsuo’s face. “So - tree?”
“Yeah, I was climbing and-” The boy glanced anxiously at his father sitting beside the bed before looking back to Natsuo. For confirmation. He knew that look well. Touya would do it whenever someone asked about his bandages - whenever anyone asked anything of him when their father was around, even with them and their mom. Shouto would have had he ever been allowed near them. “And I fell.”
“It’s pretty easy to do, isn’t it?” Natsuo said as he set the chart aside on the table. “I climbed trees all the time. My dad got so mad. Apparently, trees aren’t meant to be climbed.”
The boy’s lips quirked into the faintest of smiles. “Then what are they there for?”
“That’s what I said!” Natsuo laughed. “I guess they were planted there to look nice. Go figure.” He put one hand on his hip and wagged a finger at the kid. “Now, let’s take a look at that arm.”
One of the things he knew about himself was that he was fully capable of having a large personality. It was a Todoroki thing, he supposed. Fuyumi had one when they were at home after their mom was sent away. Trying to play the mom meant she had to be more than a teenage girl. She was more subdued after Touya ran away, but she was still brave enough to get Natsuo out of the house. Shouto had one too, just in a different way. Touya…
Well, it was best not to think of him.
A large personality meant Natsuo could easily distract people. Right now, that goal was two-fold. On one hand, he wanted to put the patient more at ease. The kid was only seven, but he held himself so tensely that Natsuo was concerned he might strain the muscles around his potentially broken arm even further. If he could get the kid to loosen up and feel more at ease, things would be a lot easier. On the other hand, he needed to distract the boy’s father. There was concern on his face, but the glare in his eyes said that concern was more for himself than his kid.
Endeavor never told them not to say a word about what went on at home, but with one look, he could silence all of them. Those large personalities they inherited from him were snuffed out in a second. There was a reason Natsuo graduated and was in his residency and still hadn’t said shit about what their father was like at home back when he was a kid. Maybe he could justify it by saying that Enji Todoroki wasn’t such a bad guy anymore. He could try, but he wasn’t as forgiving as Fuyumi.
“Hm.” Natsuo examined it carefully, taking note of every time the boy winced. He asked a few questions, watched the boy move his arm, and took note of the obvious bruises, but there really wasn’t a question over what had happened. “I’m pretty sure you have a break, but we need to take an x-ray to be positive.”
The boy gulped. “An x-ray?”
“Yeah, but it’s not that scary, trust me,” Natsuo insisted. The boy stared down at his feet. Any other child would’ve looked to their father for comfort, but he didn’t. “Takeru? Can I call you that?” He nodded but didn’t look up. “I’m Natsuo, pleasure to meet you.”
“I’m probably just a bother to you,” Takeru muttered.
“Not at all!” Natsuo shrugged and bowed in an exaggerated manner. “Before you, I was bored sitting behind a desk doing paperwork. I wanted to go to sleep. It was so lame. I love x-rays though. They’re kind of creepy because they just show the bones.”
Takeru perked up slightly. “Yeah? You mean it?”
“Of course!” Natsuo smiled brightly. “I’ll call to let them know you need one.” He glanced at Takeru’s father, forcing the smile to reach his eyes. He could fake it. He was good at faking stuff like that. “This won’t take long. Do you mind waiting outside in the waiting area?”
The father, as Natsuo expected, jumped to his feet in protest and put a hand on his son’s shoulder. “I really should stay-”
And the way Takeru stiffened under his father’s touch was way louder than any words.
“It won’t take long,” Natsuo reassured him smoothly. Damn, if having Endeavor for a father hadn’t made him a good liar. Of course it was super cool to have the Number Two Hero as a dad. He loved it. Blech, he could throw up. “Plus, you can’t be in the room with him because of the radiation.”
That...wasn’t strictly true - not anymore at least - but he didn’t need to know that. In smaller clinics that was the case, but in a large hospital like this, he could stay in the room with no harm done to him. The fact was that Natsuo didn’t want him in the room.
“Ah, yes.” The father hesitated, pulling his hand away and sitting down. “Of course.”
With that smoothed over, Natsuo took care of ordering an x-ray. It only took a few minutes of waiting, but it felt like a lifetime. He was certain it felt even longer for Takeru, but Natsuo made sure to stand right outside in case anything happened or was said. Even from here he could feel the boy’s nervous energy radiating from him, like he might burst at any second, and the father’s anger building up slowly the longer he had to wait. Natsuo had plenty of patience under most circumstances, but it was abruptly wearing thin, his edges ragged and touchy.
The moment he was given the all clear, he swept back into the room and Takeru perked right up. It was a good sign. Poor kid must’ve been eager to latch onto someone that showed him kindness. Natsuo used to do the same thing to male teachers that showed him any interest. He’d latch on, projecting onto them like it was nobody’s business. He still had a habit of that, but at least now he knew the difference between admiring the head ER surgeon and wanting a new dad.
“You ready, kid?” Natsuo greeted.
Takeru huddled in on himself. “I guess.”
“Be good,” his father told him. Takeru nodded hastily and watched with careful eyes as his father stepped out of the room.
Natsuo watched him go too, thinking of all the times Touya would watch their father leave for work and then sink in relief. He hadn’t really noticed it before because, well, he’d been young and stupid. He thought Touya got all the attention and that was why their dad didn’t care about him. He got the fancy fire quirk while Natsuo inherited an ice one. He didn’t see the ways Touya would flinch away from their father, how he looked at him nervously before he spoke, the way he lied and lied about every injury.
“I overdid my quirk on accident.”
“I got startled.”
“I tripped and fell down the stairs.”
“I ran into a wall."
"I burned myself while cooking."
“I fell out of a tree.”
Natsuo looked at Takeru, who held his arm against his chest like someone might take it and break it all over again. There were bags under his eyes, just like Touya’s and Shouto’s. He looked like he either didn’t sleep well or he’d been awake for a while. He was big for his age, like Natsuo had been since he inherited their dad’s build, but he held his body to make himself as small as possible. What stood out the most was the fear evident in his eyes. He was afraid of saying the wrong thing without his father around to correct him. How many times had Touya made the same look when he was being questioned?
“You know,” Natsuo began as he set up the equipment, “if there’s anything you need to talk about…”
An alarmed look crossed Takeru’s face. “No, I’m good.”
A different approach then. “Your dad’s a hero?”
“Yeah.” Takeru furrowed his brow. “How did you know? He changes his look for his job.”
“My dad’s a pro hero too.”
“Oh.” Takeru eyed him, probably in an attempt to figure it out on his own, but Natsuo hadn’t given his full name. He was supposed to, but the moment he’d realized what was going on, he couldn’t. He was worried it might spook the father, but also he couldn’t stand using his old man’s name right now. Takeru fidgets like most children under stress do, even when Natsuo holds his arm still. “Does…? Did he want you to be a hero too?”
Natsuo swallowed - and shoved aside any rage he might’ve felt before. “He did when I was born, but I didn’t have the right quirk. He trained my oldest and also my youngest brothers to be heroes.”
“Did they?” Takura asked. “Become heroes, I mean.”
“My youngest brother did.”
“What about the oldest?”
Natsuo paused in his work to take a deep breath and then finished setting everything up. “He didn’t become a hero, no.” There was so much more to it than that, but in a strange way, that was all he needed to say for Takeru to understand. Maybe he didn’t, but the sad nod of his head said he didn’t have to know all the nitty-gritty details. He understood enough. “Do you want to become a hero?”
“Sometimes.”
“And other times?”
Takeru watched with empty eyes as an x-ray was taken of his broken arm. “I don’t know.”
Once the x-rays were over, Takeru leaned back in the bed and stared at the ceiling. In a few minutes, his father would step back into the room, and he would pretend like everything was okay. Natsuo would pretend like he didn’t know the truth - like he didn’t know this kid’s hero father had most likely broken Takeru’s arm in the middle of training him. The break was consistent with a fall from a tree, but it looked more like it was from blocking a blow to him.
Touya had suffered a break like that once, but they had a family doctor to take care of it. He’d never seen a nurse or a doctor doing their residency that might be able to spot the signs of abuse.
“Hey, Takeru.” Natsuo tore off a piece of paper with his first name and number on it from his clipboard and held it out to the kid. “Take this. If you need anything…”
Takeru stared at the paper. “What? You’re gonna save me from my hero dad?”
A fire burned inside of Natsuo. “Yeah, I am.”
Startled by the response, Takeru took the paper and gazed at it for a few seconds before stuffing it into his pocket. “Why? What do you care?”
Natsuo shrugged. “Because no one saved my brother.”
And that was really all he could do now, wasn’t it? The whole thing was a shit show, but he couldn’t just stand by and watch it happen. Maybe Takeru would call him. Maybe he wouldn’t. Either way, as long as Natsuo could make sure he didn’t end up like Touya, that was all that mattered.