Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Holidays at the Todoroki household suck, as a rule.

It’s Natsuo’s second year of dragging himself home from university to see his family. Last year, Shouto had had to stay in the school dorms so he wouldn’t get murdered by villains, so Natsuo and Enji had gotten into a pretty intense fight that ended with Natsuo leaving a week early to go back to school--leaving Fuyumi home alone with Enji longer than necessary. Natsuo’s not exactly proud of how it went, but he also fucking hates his dad.

This year, though, Enji’s not going to be there for all of it. It’s the only thing that had convinced Natsuo to get a train ticket--Fuyumi’s pleading voice would have been enough if Natsuo was a good brother, but he’s not. Shouto’s going to be home, too, and Natsuo hasn’t seen him in forever, so. He might as well.

He’ll stay a week. If it starts going to shit, he can always come back early.

Natsuo packs up some bags. His girlfriend Kaori walks him to the train station early in the morning. She’s not a morning person, so Natsuo appreciates the gesture--and her face still puffy from sleep and half-buried in a scarf is cute as well.

“Have a good break.” He smiles, shifting a little because he can only see the top of her head--she’s leaning against him in an attempt to fall asleep standing up. She grumbles at the movement and stands up straight, facing him. “Text me.”

“Ugh, fine.” Kaori yawns and checks her watch. “I’ll see if I can fit you into my Google calendar.”

Natsuo snorts. “I’m not in your Google calendar already?”

“Sucks to suck.” She kisses him briefly, just as the train rolls into sight. “Be safe.”

She has no idea how relevant that advice is. Natsuo just smiles and kisses her again and gets on the train.

When he knocks on the front door, nobody answers it. Snow is starting to fall, and his toes are freezing from the walk over--but he’s also the only living family member who gets affected by the cold like this so he just sucks it up. His key still works, at least, so he lets himself in and sees shoes that must be Fuyumi’s and Shouto’s--they must both be home.

“Hello?” he calls. There isn’t an answer.

Natsuo takes off his shoes and wanders to the living room, where he finds Shouto sitting on the couch playing a video game.

“Hi,” Natsuo says.

Shouto blinks up at him, slow enough to make Natsuo feel stupid. “Hi.”

“Did you get in this morning?” Natsuo asks.

Shouto nods, perfectly disinterested.

Natsuo takes a deep breath and tries not to get annoyed. Shouto’s had kind of a traumatizing semester at UA and maybe Shouto isn’t feeling very...present right now. (Natsuo’s trying to be fucking compassionate because Fuyumi yelled at him before when Natsuo had the nerve to assume that Shouto should show interest in a conversation he’s having.)

“Cool,” Natsuo says. “Where’s Fuyumi?”

“Upstairs,” Shouto says, and then goes back to his game.

Quite the warm welcome.

Natsuo goes up the stairs and nudges open the door to his room. Everything is still exactly the same as it was before--just with a thin layer of dust over the tops of the wardrobe and shelves. The wallpaper and ceiling haven’t changed since he was born. His bed has new sheets and a new comforter now, which must have been Fuyumi’s doing, because Natsuo left without doing anything like that last time.

He tosses his duffel bag onto the futon and puts his coat down too before leaving again to find his sister.

As he approaches Fuyumi’s room, he thinks he can hear her in there, so he pushes the semi-closed door open to peek in. 

It’s not a calm Fuyumi he finds. She’s doubled over herself by her desk, one hand steadying herself and the other on her knee to keep herself upright. Her breathing is heavy and her eyes are squeezed shut.

Natsuo knocks on the open door, unsure. “Hey. Are you okay?”

She jolts, and turns to face him. Her eyes are wide, but then they narrow and she wheezes, angry, “Get out.”

He takes a surprised step backwards, more taken off-guard than upset. “What the hell?”

“Get out!” she snaps.

“Jeez, I’m just asking if something is wrong--”

“It’s fine. ”

Natsuo frowns. “Are you having a panic attack?”

“Leave. I’m not kidding.” Fuyumi points a shaking hand. When Natsuo doesn’t budge, still rooted to the spot, she storms over and slams the door in his face. 

Natsuo's hand is still raised as if to knock again. Inside, he can hear Fuyumi wheezing and coaching herself through breathing, but if she doesn’t want his help, fine.

Natsuo turns and retreats back to his room, not feeling all too excited about the upcoming two weeks.

Natsuo had been home for approximately forty-five minutes when his rest and relaxation is further ruined by a phone call from one of his partners on a group project. Natsuo had had to catch a specific train home, so he’d left before his group members had actually submitted the project, because he thought that maybe between the three of them they could figure this out , but--

“Kaneko said he’d submit it after he finished his part, but he missed the deadline and now--”

“ No ,” Natsuo says, and shuts his bedroom door before crossing back to where he’d been under the covers, trying to take a nap. He puts his face in a pillow and screams his heart out before picking the phone back up. “Can we email Sensei?”

“I already did, but could you email too? She likes you better.”

“That’s because I show up to class.”

“Fuck off.” Saito is clearly feeling a bit high-strung, reflecting Natsuo’s current descent into frustration. The project had been one of the biggest parts of their grade so far this year, and Natsuo’s going to commit some sort of crime if Kaneko’s mistake means all of their grades are going to be docked. 

It’s supposed to be a relaxing break (if not relaxing, at least medium- to low-stress). But right now, as Natsuo is sitting up and digging through his bags to find his laptop-- where did he put it --he’s the furthest thing from calm.

“Kaneko got the easiest part,” Natsuo grumbles.

“That’s what I’m saying,” Saito exclaims. He’s a bit high-strung, even on the best days. “I don’t know how he managed to fuck it so bad!”

“Ugh, right. Kaneko will see a project compoenent and say, ‘is anyone gonna fuck this?’ And then not wait for an answer.”

While Saito laughs, Natsuo finally finds his laptop and cracks it open. He has no fewer than twelve new emails from his group members, all screaming about the missed deadline (with many impotent excuses from Kaneko). There’s a new email from his professor, too, sent right after the deadline passed--offering extra credit in wake of the massive amount of missed points.

Natsuo’s stomach rolls. He cannot get a bad grade in this class.

He starts typing an email, trying to strike a balance between begging for his life and also not sounding like he’s shifting the blame to someone else (even though it is Kaneko’s whole entire fault ). Saito keeps chattering, anxious about the entire prospect--he’s relying on a merit scholarship that costs him no small amount of lost sleep--and Natsuo doesn’t want to tell him to shut up but it’s really not helping him focus.

So it’s in this state that someone opens his bedroom door without knocking. It’s not a good time.

“Could you knock?” Natuso asks, not looking up, trying to type and talk at the same time. 

Whoever it is knocks on the open door in a supremely sarcastic way--it must be Shouto. 

“Oh my god-- what ?” Natuso snaps, and wrenches his gaze away from his laptop. 

Shouto’s face doesn’t really change, but he takes a step back and his demeanor kind of closes off. He’s holding an Xbox controller. “I can’t beat this level. Would you help me?”

“In a minute?” Natsuo says. “I’m on the phone.”

“Sorry.” 

“Close my door.”

Shouto closes the door.

“Sorry, that was my little brother,” Natsuo says, but he’s starting to get a creeping feeling of guilt and he can’t really engage with Saito after that. After he ends the phone call and sends off the email, he gives up on his nap and goes down to the living room.

Shouto is sitting quietly on the floor, scrolling through something or other on his phone. The TV is paused on what looks like Wander and the Colossus.

“When did we get an Xbox?” Natsuo asks, and his sudden appearance makes Shouto jump.

His little brother blinks at him owlishly, then looks back at the TV screen. “I bought it with his credit card.”

Natsuo laughs out loud, which makes Shouto relax a little bit. “I played this last year, but I can try this level if you want.”

“I think it’s kind of stupid,” Shouto says, seeming kind of hesitant to share his opinion. “To kill them for no reason. But this one sucks especially.”

It’s not even one of the more difficult levels, but Natsuo has also never seen Shouto play a video game before, so Natsuo doesn’t tease. He’s not sure if that’s one of the many things that’ll make Shouto shut down on him.

Natsuo sits, and plays. Shouto sits, and watches. The volume on the TV is turned to almost zero, and nobody shatters the quiet until Fuyumi appears from somewhere and sinks onto the couch next to Natsuo and says a small, “I ordered takeout for dinner.”

Natsuo hums acknowledgement and pulls his third colossus to the ground, and then hands the controller back to Shouto. 

“Thanks,” Shouto says, but he’s doing his looking-distant thing again and Natsuo wonders if “thanks” is just Shouto’s automatic response to anything being handed to him while he’s like this.

Shouto doesn’t resume the game. Fuyumi looks exhausted when Natsuo glances over at her, and Natsuo kind of has a headache from his half-panic earlier. He’s about to suggest that they all just go to bed early when Shouto speaks up voluntarily.

“I got a weird text today,” he says.

“Oh?” Fuyumi asks. She’s trying so very hard to look interested. 

Being in this house just makes all of them so tired. It makes all of them so frustrated and irritable and at-the-end-of-their-ropes. 

Shouto nods solemnly, and holds out his unlocked phone to display a text from an unsaved number. Natsuo squints and Fuyumi has to adjust her glasses to see because Shouto’s hand isn’t perfectly steady so it’s hard to read the screen.

“Sick fight last week, bud,” it reads, “Are you and your siblings free tomorrow?”

“What the hell?” Natsuo asks.

Fuyumi looks more than uncomfortable when she and Natsuo exchange a glance. “Maybe a classmate got your number. Have they texted you before?”

“A few times,” Shouto says. He turns the phone back around to look at the text again. “Would you go with me to meet them?”

“What the hell,” Natsuo says again, which is his only current response to this situation.

“No,” Fuyumi says emphatically. “Shouchan, you can’t just go meet them.”

Shouto types something and sends it before Natsuo or Fuyumi can stop him.

“Shouto!” Natsuo exclaims. “What did you send?”

“I asked where to meet,” Shouto says. He looks unbothered. “Have they ever texted you guys?”

“Shouto wins ‘Todoroki most likely to be dead in an alleyway’,” Natsuo says, and Fuyumi is torn between admonishing him and hiding a laugh behind one hand. Both of them pull out their phones and dutifully search the number, and, horrifyingly, both of them find months-old texts they completely forgot about.

“They sent ‘happy birthday’ earlier this year,” Fuyumi finally says.

Natsuo blinks at his phone, and wonders how the hell he forgot that “They texted me ‘good luck on exams’ last semester.”

Shouto’s phone buzzes. He unlocks it and intently reads the new message. Then he holds out the phone to show his siblings what’s going on. “He won’t come unless all three of us are there,” Shouto says.

“This is a really good way to get fucking kidnapped,” Natsuo says.

Fuyumi is fidgeting, trying hard not to look too jumpy whilst simultaneously looking extremely jumpy. “Shouchan, I don’t think...Listen, your class has been targeted for villain attacks in the past.”

Shouto scowls. “I can protect us. It’ll be at a tea shop near here, so there’ll be other people there too.”

“What if we get poisoned?” Natsuo challenges.

“We won’t get poisoned, ” Shouto whines. “Please just come?”

Neither Natsuo or Fuyumi are intent to budge. Sensing this, Shouto pulls his dumbass distant-baby-brother card and sort of pouts and says, “I want to hang out with you guys outside of this shitty house for once. I thought because he wasn’t going to be here you guys would want to too.”

Fuyumi sighs. “We can do literally anything else except meet up with a weirdo at a tea shop.”

“I wouldn’t--!” Shouto takes a deep breath, and his voice sinks back into a monotone. “I wouldn’t be insisting on this if I didn’t have a feeling it was important. ”

“Have you never had a stalker before?” Natsuo asks. He dimly remembers having to change elementary schools because of something like that--and he remembers Touya having a similar issue when Dad started taking him out on hero patrols. But Shouto’s always been more sheltered than the rest of them. More valuable. 

Shouto has closed off again, sensing that the two of them are done discussing the issue--he’s sensed that he’s not going to convince them, so he’s changing tactics. “Fine. I’ll go by myself.”

“Shouto,” Fuyumi says, but Shouto keeps talking.

“No, it’s fine. I’ll just go. He won’t show up but it’s okay.” Shouto gets up and turns off the TV. For someone who would have gotten the shit kicked out of him for guilt-tripping anyone for the first fifteen years of his life, Shouto is pretty good at it. 

He’s kind of a brat, if Natsuo is being honest. 

“I wanted to hang out with the two of you over break. It’s fine, though.”

“Oh my god,” Natsuo says. “Why are you trying to get us murdered.”

“We won’t get murdered,” Shouto says evenly.

The doorbell rings. It’s probably dinner.

“Let’s discuss this tomorrow,” Fuyumi says.

The three of them eat in near-silence. Natsuo, as usual, devours the most, but Fuyumi fights him for a fair share of rice and Shouto goes back for thirds and it’s kind of a relief that both of them are eating normally.

When they’re done eating, they continue not-talking. They gather up the containers and throw them away and wipe down the table and then retreat back to the living room. Natsuo sits on the couch and his siblings follow suit, though Fuyumi slumps against Natsuo while Shouto perches uncomfortably at the other end. 

None of them seem to remember how to talk to each other like siblings. There was a time when Fuyumi and Natsuo were close (never as close as Natsuo and Touya were), but that went away once they started needing to buckle down on schoolwork. It really went away when Natsuo and Fuyumi got into a screaming argument about whether or not they should leave home--ending with Natsuo leaving for college and Fuyumi staying behind.

Natsuo, however, wants to be able to talk to them. So he jumps headfirst into conversation and says, “Are you guys seeing anybody?”

Fuyumi immediately ducks her head, which means she totally is. “Why?”

“I’m making conversation.” He nudges her with his elbow. “Who is it?”

Fuyumi’s face is red, and she won’t answer.

“You should invite him over,” Natsuo says. 

“I don’t want to bring him here,” Fuyumi immediately says, voice steely.

That’s...fair.

“He’s not coming over until he has to,” Fuyumi continues, and picks at a loose thread in the couch. “It would be nice if you two wanted to meet him, but we’d have to do it somewhere else.”

This isn’t something that Natsuo and Fuyumi have talked about explicitly, but--yeah. It’s expected that they’ll move into one of the extra rooms of the estate with their spouses at some point, Natsuo thinks. There’s room here, and their father might insist on it.

Natsuo cannot think of a worse place to raise a family. It’s why nobody has told Him about any romantic endeavors (no pun intended).

“Okay. Yeah, let’s do it. Hey, if you want to come visit me at school, you could meet my girlfriend Kaori, too.”

Kaori’s a year older than him and she’s on a volleyball scholarship and she’s studying public relations and Natsuo keeps trying to convince her to go to med school with him so they can take pre-med classes together. He thinks that she and Fuyumi would like each other. Kaori might like Shouto too--she has three siblings and she might understand Shouto’s monosyllabic answers better than someone without siblings would.

Fuyumi asks, “How long?”

“Five months. And you?”

“A year and a half.” Fuyumi tilts her head, considering how much to tell them, but then comes out and says it. “His name’s Yuuto. We couldn’t really be official until he came out, because you know how Father is about that sort of thing? So really more like two years.”

Natsuo has no idea what Fuyumi is saying, but a glance at Shouto tells him that Shouto knows what’s going on, so Natsuo pretends like he does too. 

“Congratulations,” Natsuo says lamely.

“Thanks.”

Fuyumi and Natsuo regard each other, trying to process the sheer amount of each others’ lives that the two of them have missed out on. And then both of them turn to Shouto in unison.

Shouto blinks at them. 

“What’s up with you , then?” Natsuo asks. “Seeing someone?”

Fuyumi opens her mouth and says, “Well, there is someone he’s interested in--”

“Really?” Natsuo asks, blindsided. He’d been asking as a joke. Shouto doesn’t seem like the type to give a shit about that sort of thing.

“Yumi!” Shouto hisses, and the look he shoots Natsuo’s way can only be described as panicked .

Natsuo’s heart sinks. Shouto obviously doesn’t want him to know. “I mean, it’s okay if you don’t want to say…”

Shouto crosses his arms and avoids eye contact. “There’s nobody.”

Fuyumi hums, judgemental. “Shouchan, he’s not going to freak out.”

Freak out about what? Why is his little brother so fucking weird?

Shouto hunches his shoulders further. “It’s not like it matters,” he mutters. “I’ll get put in a Quirk marriage anyway once I turn Pro.”

Oh. Yikes.

“That’s illegal,” Natsuo says. It’s a dumb thing to say, because that hasn’t stopped Enji before, but it’s all he can think of to reassure Shouto.
Shouto shrugs. 

“Who is it? Maybe Dad will actually approve of them. Does she have a good Quirk?”

Both Fuyumi and Shouto snort in the exact same way, and then give each other a weird look. 

After an uncomfortable lapse of silence, Shouto finally asks, “Did you watch the Sports Festival last year?”

Natsuo nods.

“I fought them during the one-on-ones.”

This feels like a test, somehow, to see if Natsuo remembers things about Shouto’s life, so Natsuo does his best to recall. There had been the tape guy, and then the guy who broke all his bones, and then the guy who’d been shackled to the awards stage (which had been fucked up). He’s not forgetting someone, is he? “Did you fight a girl at some point? I’m trying to remember.”

Fuyumi pinches his arm and gives him a look like are you fucking stupid , and Natsuo looks back to see Shouto watching him carefully, expression guarded like it always is. Oh. Natsuo is fucking stupid.

Right. It’s not like he ever expected this, but Natsuo can roll with it.

“Which one was it?”

“You can’t guess?” Shouto asks, raising an eyebrow.

Natsuo rolls his eyes, but does his best. Tape guy was...odd, and the fight was too short for him to be anywhere near an equal to Shouto (but maybe he was nice in normal life). The explosions guy had literally knocked Shouto the fuck out and probably yelled too much for Shouto to be interested (unless Shouto was into that?). The green-haired kid had gotten Shouto to use both his Quirks, and had almost gotten himself killed, but was the most plain-looking of the three (not that Shouto seems to care about how people look).

“Midoriya?” Natsuo guesses, at random. 

Shouto nods, and goes back to his phone.

“Wait, hold on--his Quirk is really powerful, though.”

“He’s a he, ” Shouto states plainly. “And he’s All Might’s protégé.” 

“Oh, shit,” Natsuo says.

“See what I’ve been dealing with?” Fuyumi asks. 

Shouto’s face flushes red, but it’s because he’s embarrassed and not because he’s mad. 

“He’s had him over a few times,” Fuyumi says, and gives Natsuo a look that implies something and Natsuo wants to throw up at the thought of his brother getting up to anything like that in this house. Not in a homophobic way, it’s just--it’s an unspoken rule between him and Fuyumi that they don’t hook up with people here and maybe they should’ve looped Shouto in on that information. “And he told Mom about him.”

“We’re not together,” Shouto says, noticing the look Fuyumi is giving Natsuo. “He’s just a friend.”

“For how much longer, though?” Fuyumi stage-whispers to Natsuo.

This is the last straw. Without any more protesting, Shouto gets up and leaves the room.

Fuyumi and Natsuo watch him leave. When Shouto’s out of view, Fuyumi says, “I shouldn’t have yelled at you earlier.”

Natsuo says, “I was just making sure you weren’t dying of poison or something.”
Fuyumi glares at him. “I was just. Panicking. You know. Because--actually, it doesn’t matter. Holidays just stress me out.”

“I feel you there,” Natsuo says. “I wasn’t gonna judge you or anything.”

“Sure,” Fuyumi says, sounding dubious. She doesn’t say anything else.

Todoroki Fuyumi created Group: [ Todoroki Fuyumi, Todoroki Natsuo, Todoroki Shouto ]

XX/12/25

Fuyumi: why is someone singing

Fuyumi: @Natsuo @Natsuo @Natsuo shut up challenge

Natsuo: i’m performing

Natsuo: why don’t you appreciate my art i thought you were fam

Fuyumi: it’s one in the morning laws of fam don’t exist right now. some of us have sleep schedules

Fuyumi: @NATSUO

Fuyumi: if you start that song over one more time i’ll snap

Todoroki Shouto changed Todoroki Fuyumi ’s nickname to Sister Snapped 

Sister Snapped: i hate you both i hate you both i hate you both i hate you both

It’s Christmas, and Enji isn’t home. He’s not due home until the 4th. Consequently, Natsuo experiences the least high-tension Christmas he’s ever had in his life. 

None of them get up until around ten, and then Natsuo makes hot chocolate and the three of them sit on the couch and play Super Smash Bros. until Shouto falls asleep again. Natsuo wonders if he should be helping reduce how fucked up Shouto’s sleep schedule is, but Fuyumi gives him a look that tells him not to wake him up. Natsuo leaves him alone.

Really, the day passes without stress. None of them have gotten each other gifts, which is customary, but nobody gets hit and nobody ends up having a panic attack in the bathroom after a meal and nobody gets in an argument that escalates to shouting. 

The bar for a good day is extremely low. They hurdle over it like Olympic athletes.

“You want boba?” Natsuo calls, the next morning. He knocks louder on Shouto’s door.

“He might be asleep,” Fuyumi says. Shouto’s allegedly been sleeping fourteen-hour nights since he got home, maybe to recover from the semester he’s had. But it’s almost eleven and that means Shouto should get up. 

“Hey,” Natsuo says, ignoring Fuyumi. He pounds his fist into the door. “Boba?”

Finally, he hears something stir within the bedroom, and then some footsteps across the tatami. The Shouto that greets him has severe bedhead and dark rings under his eyes and red sleep-lines etched into both arms and his unscarred cheek. 

“What do you want?” Shouto asks. 

“We’re getting boba,” Fuyumi says. 

“It’s literally lunchtime, bud. Why were you still asleep?” Natsuo asks.

Shouto blinks at him. He rubs his eyes and takes his sweet time responding, long enough for Natsuo to get irritated. “I’m tired.”

Natsuo doesn’t know what answer he expected, anyway. 

“Please come with us?” Fuyumi asks. “We haven’t gone since you started UA.”

Apparently Fuyumi and Shouto used to get bubble tea together, when Natsuo first left. This is something Natsuo is learning just today.

“Can we meet with the person--”

“No,” Natsuo and Fuyumi say.

Shouto shuts the door in their faces, but Natsuo sticks his foot in the way and blocks it, and then squeezes through the opening so he’s in Shouto’s room. “C’mon bud! Let’s do it. Get changed.”

“I’m going back to bed,” Shouto states plainly.

Fuyumi is just as good at guilt-tripping as Shouto is (maybe Natsuo needs to learn this skill too, but he doesn’t have as much of a leg to stand on in the guilt department as his siblings). She proves this when she says, “Shouchan, I missed you. Are you really going to sit in here all day?”

“Yes,” Shouto says.

“Oh,” Fuyumi says. Her face looks sad, but Natsuo’s almost entirely sure she’s acting. “I thought we could have some time together outside of the house. But if you want to stay here, I guess that’s okay.”

Shouto stares her down. She holds his gaze.

“Fine,” Shouto finally mumbles. He scowls when Natsuo ruffles his hair.

“Get changed! We’ll see you downstairs.”

Shouto keeps texting someone while they’re walking towards the nearest bubble tea place, about ten minutes away. He almost runs into a few obstacles while he’s distracted, but he scowls at Natsuo every time Natsuo pulls him out of a collision course anyway.

“Are you texting your stalker?” Fuyumi asks.

“I’m not ,” Shouto says. He pulls his phone closer to his chest, but not before Natsuo can read that he’s texting someone named Izuku.

“Is that--”

“Stop,” Shouto says, and then bonks his forehead into a lightpost at full speed as he tries to evade Natsuo.

Fuyumi stops, and tries to assess the damage to Shouto’s forehead, but Natsuo just takes the opportunity to look at the screen again. There are...too many heart emojis for them to be mere friends. “Who’s Izuku?” he asks, teasing.

“Stop it,” Shouto says, and swats Fuyumi’s hands away from his face. He puts his right hand onto his forehead to ice his bruise.

“Stop texting, we’re having sibling time,” Fuyumi says.

Shouto glowers at her, and then resumes typing.

“Shouto.” Fuyumi jabs her arm out to smack at his phone. He swings it out of the way. “Shouto.”  

She swipes again and hits the phone out of his hand and it tumbles towards the sidewalk, but Shouto grabs it just in time and grumbles about how it could have broken. He shoulders Fuyumi hard enough for her to get knocked off-balance. She shoulders him back and he careens into another lightpost.

“Ow,” Shouto complains, monotone.

“Put your phone away,” Natsuo says.

Instead of appreciating the backup, Fuyumi gives Natsuo a dirty look. “I’m in charge.”

“Fuck you, you’re not in charge of anything.”

“Fuck you, I’m in charge,” Fuyumi says, as if swearing louder will make her point better.

Shouto goes back to texting Midoriya, ignoring the power struggle.

When they reach the boba shop, Natsuo and Fuyumi cut off their argument so they can enter the establishment in a respectful manner. Their icy silence goes completely unnoticed by Shouto, who’s always silent anyway. Fuyumi and Natsuo keep “accidentally” treading on each other’s feet and then hissing at each other. 

Group: [ midnight is 30 not 56 ]

XX/12/27

Sister Snapped: someone get the door

Sister Snapped: @Natsuo answer the door right now 

Natsuo: i can’t i have homework :/

Sister Snapped: why do you suck so bad

Natsuo: vacuum cleaner quirk :////////////

Shouto: Can someone answer the door i heard someone knock

Natsuo: no

Sister Snapped: no you do it

Shouto: That was a test and you both failed. I ordered meat buns and they couldve been yours

Natsuo: WHAT

Todoroki Shouto changed Todoroki Natsuo ’s nickname to Hungry Idiot

Shouto: :-) 

Todoroki Natsuo changed the group name to shouto is #1 worst younger brother

Todoroki Shouto changed Todoroki Shouto ’s nickname to #1 Worst Younger Brother

Sister Snapped: ugh i love seeing you reclaim that for yourself

Hungry Idiot: @Shouto where the FUCK are you hiding you little bastard

Natsuo gets out of the shower and sees Shouto sitting on his bed, talking on Natsuo’s phone like he owns it. He hears Shouto say, “Yeah. What are you studying?” 

“Who are you talking to?” Natsuo demands in a whisper.

Shouto raises a middle finger at him and says, “Oh. That’s cool. Yeah. No, I go to UA.”

Natsuo charges across the room and makes a wild grab for the phone, but Shouto dodges out of the way and then spins out of another grab, still managing to sound boring as hell when he says, “Thanks.”

Natsuo glares, and asks again, louder, “Who the fuck are you talking to?”

Shouto glares back, and his tone turns more spiteful. “He’s out of the shower. Sorry if he’s cranky, he’s been complaining about his group project for three days now.”

“I haven’t--” Natsuo manages to snatch the phone and finds that Shouto’s been talking to his girlfriend. “Dude, what the hell?”
He hears Kaori laugh, tinny in the phone speaker.

“Sorry,” Shouto says.

“Why are you even in my room ?” Natsuo asks.

Shouto just stares at him, and then gets up and leaves.

Natsuo puts the phone to his ear and says, “I’m sorry, he’s just--I have no idea why he was answering my phone.”

Kaori laughs again. She sounds like she’s enjoying the drama, which is better than her being weirded out by Shouto. “It’s okay. He seemed nice.”

“He’s.” Natsuo doesn’t know what to say. He hasn’t introduced Kaori to any of his family for a reason, and the sudden merging of his two separate lives is kind of throwing him off. “Yeah.”

Kaori moves on. “You’re still mad about that group project?”

“Of course I’m still mad about the group project! Kaneko’s a dickface.”

Kaori says, “Want to FaceTime about it?”

“ Yeah, I miss you. Let me get dressed, though.”

“If you insist,” she says. “No worries either way.”

“Wow,” he says flatly, just so he can hear her laugh again. 

As Natsuo is wont to do when he’s at home, he has a nightmare.

It’s not even an original one. It’s the one that kept him up every night for about a month when he was younger, until someone got tired of hearing his yelling and got him on some trazodone to maybe make him sleep deeper. He doesn’t take the meds anymore, because his nightmares don’t make him scream anymore.

Unless he’s at home.

It’s because the wallpaper and ceiling he sees in his dream is the same of the night he’d woken up to blood-chilling screaming and crying and--that’s Fuyumi yelling and Natsuo tumbles up out of bed and his bare feet smack on the tatami and he sees Touya. 

Touya’s--melting.

Touya’s face is peeling off of itself. Fuyumi didn’t see it all but she was the one who was there for the most of it--Fuyumi won’t tell Natsuo whether it was Touya or Enji who started the fight or if it was Touya or Enji who started the fire.

Enji’s--yelling.

Natsuo is frozen in horror. His feet won’t move. He should get water. He should call the police. He should. He should--

He should manifest a Quirk already maybe it’ll be ice and maybe it’ll help--

Fuyumi’s--yelling.

Touya hits the floor, writhing. Are the flames blue or red? 

Natsuo can’t move. 

Natsuo--can’t move.

He hears his mom crying, sees her corral Shouto so the six-year-old won’t see it--Natsuo wants to ask why do I have to see it if Shouto’s the one who’s going to be a hero .

Touya finally starts screaming when Enji reaches for him. His screaming blends with everyone else’s screaming and then it’s Natsuo that’s the one screaming and he flinches away from the hand on his arm and he bangs his knee into the wall and-- fuck.

He’s in his room. He’s nineteen. It’s getting light outside. 

Fuyumi’s older too and she’s not crying and she managed to avoid his reflexive kick in her direction.

“Sorry,” Natsuo says. He tries to breathe. His sheets are damp with sweat and so is the hair that’s plastered to his forehead. 

“You’re nineteen, and you’re at home,” she tells him. “It’s seven in the morning.”

Natsuo breathes.

She sits back on her heels. “Do you need anything? I’m going back to bed.”

“I’m fine. Thanks for waking me up.” 

The ceiling and wallpaper of his room haven’t changed a bit. 

Fuyumi smiles a tight smile and gets to her feet. He wants to ask if she still has nightmares, living here. 

She leaves before he can find a way to word it.

“Where are you going?” Natsuo asks. It’s early, and Natsuo has a mouthful of omurice, and Shouto is trying to slip out the front door without being noticed. Unfortunately for Shouto, Natsuo has the hearing of a bat, and he’d also given up on falling back asleep after an hour.

Shouto freezes, a deer in the headlights, one shoe half-on and the other still untied.

“You want breakfast?” Natsuo asks.

Shouto shakes his head.

“So where are you going?” Natsuo asks. His top guesses are either hanging out with Midoriya or maybe trying to meet up with his stalker, and one of those is definitely okay but the other one is not and Natsuo has a duty to stop Shouto from ending up in a ditch somewhere.

Shouto says, “I’m visiting Mother.”

This is somehow not what Natsuo had expected.

“...Do you want to come?” Shouto asks, which is also unexpected.

“Okay,” Natsuo says. He shoves the last of his breakfast into his mouth. “Can I invite Fuyumi too?”

“She didn’t sleep well,” Shouto says. Natsuo considers asking how Shouto knows this, but leaves it alone. It makes sense that Fuyumi and Shouto would be closer than Natsuo would be with Fuyumi, but it’s still not something Natsuo wants to dwell on.

Natsuo has never been hurt by his mother. There’s not really an excuse to have not visited her, besides the fact that he wouldn’t have been physically able to until a few years ago. Still, the idea of seeing her is nerve-wracking--but if Shouto can do it, Natsuo can too.

It’s a quiet train ride, and then a quiet walk to the hospital. Shouto is half-submerged in a thick scarf around his neck, and Natsuo keeps yawning and having to brush snow out of his hair before it melts. The flakes have been falling all morning, and there aren’t many people out this early, so everything seems soft and cold.

Despite this, Natsuo’s hands are sweating as they enter the lobby. He takes off his gloves and wipes them on his jeans once, then twice, and then it’s gotten to a point where he’s just obsessively doing it and even Shouto notices. 

“You’re nervous,” Shouto states, sticking his visitor’s badge to his chest and handing one to Natsuo.

“Not all of us are incurable mama’s boys,” Natsuo snaps. 

Shouto is supremely unoffended by this. Or maybe he just doesn’t let people know when he’s offended. Either way, he walks very calmly up three flights of stairs and reaches Rei’s door without faltering, and Natsuo trails behind and tries to breathe.

Shouto side-eyes him. “It was hard my first time too,” he says, a rare dalliance into empathy.

Natsuo lets out a breath. “Okay.”

“She asks about you a lot.”

“Oh,” Natsuo says.

Shouto opens the door, then. He steps inside and ducks his head when Rei stands up to greet him, and Rei gives him a hug and Shouto doesn’t flinch away from her.

Rei’s eyes fall on Natsuo, and she freezes. So does Shouto, still in her grip. 

“Natsuo,” she says, eyes already teary.

“Hi, Mom,” Natsuo says, even though his throat is closing up.

Rei looks...older. There’s a pasty shine to her skin, and her eyes look tired tired tired, but there’s also some spark of life in her that had gone away in the months leading up to Touya’s death--Natsuo remembers his mother, suddenly, in a way he’d repressed before.  

She releases Shouto, and Natsuo is already there to hug her, moving into her arms like the last time he’d seen her, more than a decade ago.

“Hi, baby,” Rei says. Her hand is on the back of Natsuo’s neck, pulling his face into her shoulder. “You’ve gotten so big.”

Natsuo has always thought he takes more after his mother. Case in point: when he feels her smile against the side of his head, he starts to cry.

“I’ll be outside,” Shouto says in a low tone. The door slides open and shut behind Natsuo.

“He’s allergic to feeling things,” Natsuo says. He sniffles, and chokes, but when he tries to move away his mom won’t let go.

Rei pats his back. “Be kind.”

Natsuo laughs. It sounds almost out-of-place in the drab hospital room.

He’s finally released, and he stands up straight and Rei looks up at him. She wipes his cheek with her sleeve, but her own face is just as damp.

“I missed you,” Rei finally says. She raises her other hand to hold the other side of Natsuo’s face, cradling it like it’s something precious. “How are you, sweetheart?”

“I don’t know,” Natsuo says, because he’s instantly forgotten everything about his life and he’s scrambling to make himself sound interesting to her. “I’m--um, I’m good. I’m studying health, it’s my second year. And. I have a girlfriend.”

“Really? Why don’t you tell me about her?” Rei asks, face brightening just a little bit. She leans around Natsuo and calls, “Shouto, you can come back in.”

“Oh, speaking of,” Natsuo says, as the door slides open. “Fuyumi said Shouto told you about someone named Midoriya--”

Shouto says, “Shut up.” 

“Don’t tell your brother to shut up,” Rei says, looking sternly to Shouto, who sulks and sits down in a chair and shoots a glare at Natsuo. “ Hey. Apologize.”

“Sorry,” Shouto mutters. 

Natsuo is having the time of his life. “Apology not accepted.”

“Natsuo,” Rei chides, but even as she gently swats the back of Natsuo’s head, she’s almost smiling.

They end up staying for a few hours. Even though Natsuo dominates the conversation, because he keeps thinking of new things to tell his mom about what’s been going on with him, Shouto doesn’t get on his phone to ignore him. Rei’s attentive too, sitting calmly and participating in conversation, and it starts making Natsuo wonder how long she actually needs to be staying here. She seems fine, and she hasn’t tried to murder Shouto again, and she smiles at the jokes Natsuo tells.

Maybe this is just a good day for her, though. 

Around lunchtime, they stand up to go.

“I’ll be back soon,” Natsuo promises, and gives his mom another hug. Shouto follows suit, and accepts a kiss on the forehead from Rei. 

“I’m looking forward to it,” Rei says, and smiles.

Shouto picks up his backpack and produces a small wrapped gift, which he sets on Rei’s bed and then immediately bolts for the door. “Have a good New Year,” he mumbles.

Natsuo...didn’t get his mother a Christmas gift. He hasn’t done that for more than a decade, now, but he still feels like shit. 

“Natsuo,” Shouto says, and slides the door open.

“Happy New Year,” Natsuo tells his mom, and follows after Shouto.

"Why didn't you tell me you got her a gift?" Natsuo asks Shouto, annoyed, as they leave the hospital.

"Sorry I'm best child," Shouto says, and winds his scarf back around his neck and then takes off before Natsuo can put him in a headlock.

Chapter Text

Natsuo gets a text from Kaneko, his asshole group member, just as he’s leaving the bathroom mid-afternoon on the 29th. This sets off a very specific series of events.

He slams the bathroom door too hard, which startles Shouto out of his nap on the couch, which means Shouto pedals upright and blasts ice in Natsuo’s direction, which means Natsuo shouts and dives out of the way, which means he hits his head on the coffee table and screams again.

When the metaphorical smoke clears, Natsuo lays on the ground, breathing hard and staring up at a massive chunk of ice that just barely passes over his face and is embedded in the wall.

“What the hell,” Natsuo breathes.

Shouto scrambles off the couch and melts the ice with his left hand, which releases so much mist into the air that Natsuo feels like he’s going to dry-drown. Shouto then steps to examine the new dent in the wall, anxiety flickering across his face.

“And no one’s going to ask if I’m okay?” Natsuo whines, and heaves himself up into a sitting position.

“Are you two good?” Fuyumi shouts from upstairs, delayed and sounding like she’s asked merely out of obligation.

“Yes!” Shouto yells back, coolly ignoring Natsuo’s indignant look. There’s a sheen of sweat over his forehead, but it might just be the vapor in the air sticking to him. 

Natsuo finally stands up, and cuffs Shouto on the back of the head. “Why did you attack me, brat?”

Shouto glares, not looking away from the wall. It’s not a huge dent, but Enji is definitely going to notice. “You shouldn’t have slammed the door like that.”

“Fuck off, it’s not my fault.” Natsuo is aware that it is, at least partially, his fault. 

The two of them stare at the wall for another few seconds. Shouto’s getting twitchy, so Natsuo ventures, “What if we just, like, hang a photo over it?”

Shouto, annoyed, asks, “What?”

Natsuo goes over to some framed photos on the wall and takes one off, pulls the pin out of the wall, and goes back to the dent. He sticks the pin back in the wall, and hangs the photo up, and it conceals the dent just fine. “Aw, good as new.”

Shouto says, “That’s not going to work for more than a day.”

“He won’t even notice,” Natsuo says. He ruffles Shouto’s hair, and Shouto doesn’t jump out of his skin this time (progress!). “You want lunch? I’m hungry.”

It’s only when they’ve sat down to eat that he remembers the reason for the whole episode--it’s because Kaneko’s the worst person in the whole world.

“I’m going to kill him,” Natsuo says, when he checks his phone and finds that Kaneko’s sent more texts. He presses his fingers into his temples, trying desperately to lessen the headache that’s creeping up on him. Part of it might be because he’d hit his head trying to dodge Shouto’s kill blow, but Natsuo’s willing to attribute most of it to Kaneko.

“Who?” Shouto asks, and then slurps more noodles into his mouth.

“This asshole in my group project,” Natsuo half-explains. He starts typing out an angry text in response, but then hits the backspace until it’s completely erased. “He fucked us all over and now he won’t take responsibility so we’re all gonna fail the class.”

Shouto finishes chewing and swallows, and then asks, “What’s his phone number?”

“Why could you possibly need to know that?”

Shouto blinks at him.

Natsuo, in an act of spite towards Kaneko, gives Shouto the number.

The following evening, they discover that Shouto has never seen Totoro. Given that Natsuo and Fuyumi watched it twice a day for like three years, this is alarming, but all of them gloss over this reminder of trauma and Fuyumi puts the casette in and they all settle on the couch.

Shouto doesn’t confine himself to the far end of the couch this time. When Natsuo sits down next to Fuyumi, Shouto cautiously scoots over until Natsuo puts an arm over the couch behind him and Shouto relaxes incrementally until he starts dozing off fifteen minutes into the film. Fuyumi curls up with her head on the arm of the couch, her feet pushing against Natsuo’s thigh.

Natsuo thinks Shouto’s asleep (Shouto has never fallen asleep on him before and it’s a weird brother-milestone to reach at the ages of sixteen and nineteen, respectively). It’s why he jumps a little when Shouto suddenly mumbles, “Can I tell you guys about something?”

“Sure,” Fuyumi says. She looks up from her phone to give Natsuo a look until Natsuo similarly agrees.

Shouto is picking at an old scar on one of his palms. “My homeroom teacher asked if I wanted to transfer custody to UA.”

“Parental custody?” Fuyumi asks.

“Did you tell him about Dad?” Natsuo asks.

“I didn’t tell him anything,” Shouto insists. He hasn’t stopped mumbling, and he isn’t tensing up, but he seems annoyed that Natsuo would think that of him. “I guess it would transfer legal guardianship until I become an adult.”

“UA got your classmate kidnapped last year,” Natsuo says. 

“It wasn’t their fault,” Shouto snaps. 

Natsuo won’t budge on this one, even if it means Shouto gets mad enough to scoot away from him again. “No, but it’s still not safe. What about when the League of Villains attacked the training complex?”

Shouto still doesn’t move away. Maybe the contact is what he needs to admit, “It’d be better than living here.”

Fuyumi lets out a heavy breath. She says, “Is that what you want, Shou?”

Shouto shrugs. “I don’t know. That’s why I asked you.”

The three of them sit in quiet, thinking about it. 

Natsuo can’t say he isn’t tempted. Never having to come back here, letting Fuyumi move far away, maybe starting to loosen the tight grip Enji has on the family--maybe setting the stage for future legal action--it’s a dream. 

But Enji wouldn’t relinquish custody. It would become an enormous battle, one that would almost certainly end up injuring at least one of Enji’s children. If any of them had an adult they trusted, they would consider getting into a custody fight to transfer Shouto to them, but no adult in their lives is stable or trustworthy enough to warrant that, as far as Natsuo knows.

“I could talk to him more about it,” Fuyumi says. “Your homeroom teacher, I mean. If you want to give me his number.”

Shouto shrugs again. A few moments later, he holds out his phone to show Fuyumi some contact information, and Fuyumi copies it down into her own phone’s notes.

After that, they go back to watching the movie.

Kaori’s visiting family out of town for the next week. She’ll be back for school, but that’s too late for Natsuo to have any party plans on New Year’s Eve. Fuyumi throws up a peace sign and goes to visit Yuuto, and Shouto shyly admits that he was invited to a classmate’s party. Shouto’s too quietly pleased for Natsuo to bully him into staying home.

“Have you ever been to a party before?” Natsuo asks, when he finds Shouto staring at three different outfits laid out on the floor.

Shouto scowls. 

“That one,” Natsuo says, and points to the outfit that looks the least awful.

“Leave,” Shouto says, but Natsuo sees him emerge from his room wearing that outfit fifteen minutes later.

The new year comes without much fanfare on Natsuo’s part. After about one in the morning, Natsuo is considering just going to bed already, but then he starts getting texts. Like, a lot of what sounds like drunk texts in his fucking group project chat.

Group: [ shouto is #1 worst younger brother ]

XX/01/01

Hungry Idiot: @Shouto wtf did you do to kaneko

Hungry Idiot: why is he texting me begging for forgiveness

#1 Worst Younge…: Who is kaneo

#1 Worst Younge…: Kaneekjo

#1 Worst Younge…: Kjaneko

Sister Snapped: are you drunk???????????

Sister Snapped: @Shouto answer me right now

Todoroki Shouto changed Todoroki Fuyumi ’s nickname to Fun Police

#1 Worst Younge…: Is kaneko The one you told me to call on the phone

Hungry Idiot: I DONT THINK I EVER TOLD YOU TO CALL ANYONE ON THE PHONE,

#1 Worst Younge…: I think me an d you may have some issues with msicommunictions

#1 Worst Younge…: micsoncsommmunicaiton

Fun Police: shouto did you kill someone???????????????????????????????

Hungry Idiot: what the fuck are you drinking dude?????

#1 Worst Younge…: Not drunk just vibing

Fun Police: oh my god

#1 Worst Younge…: Actualy I don’t know what vibing is if i’m being honestjslk dfsflgllgphp

Fun Police: DID YOU DIE

#1 Worst Younge…: This is Midoriya Izuku, Shouto’s friend. Can you come pick him up?

Todoroki Shouto sent a map pin

Hungry Idiot: ah yes. i’ve heard of you

#1 Worst Younge…: Okay hahaha??? 

Hungry Idiot: be there in 15

Fun Police: i’ll meet u guys at home

A girl with dark hair and heavy eyeliner and dangly earrings is the one who answers the door, face glowing from alcohol, her eyes focused intently on Natsuo. She’d be intimidating if she wasn’t a high schooler. “Do you want us to turn down the music?”

Natsuo glances over her shoulder, trying to catch a glimpse of his brother, but Shouto isn’t in sight. “I’m actually here to pick up Todoroki, I’m his brother. Is he still here?”

“Aw, yeah.” The girl steps aside, and then shuts the door after Natsuo enters. “Did Midoriya text you?”

“Yes.”

“He’s in the guest room, I think. Second on the left.”

“Thanks…”

“Jirou,” she supplies for him. He finally processes that her dangly earrings are actually earphone jacks, which is information he files away for...some other time when he’s asking Shouto about his classmates. 

“I’m Todoroki Natsuo,” Natsuo says. “I’ll go grab him, then.”

“Yeah,” she says, already having lost interest.

Natsuo passes her and weaves through the party. It doesn’t seem rambunctious enough for Shouto to be as drunk as he sounded, which is worrisome. A few people are playing a video game, and some are trying a board game, but most people are just chatting and laughing.

He reaches the guest room and knocks. A kid with wild green hair opens the door, and Natsuo places him as Midoriya Izuku.

“Hi. I’m Natsuo, Shouto’s older brother.” Behind Midoriya, Natsuo can see Shouto laying on his side on a bed. “Is he good?”

“Oh, nice to meet you!” Midoriya says. He smiles, radiant. “Yes, he’s just...drunk. I should’ve been more clear in my text, it’s not an emergency. I must’ve worried you, I’m sorry!”

“It’s fine,” Natsuo says, but he lets out a breath of relief anyway. 

Midoriya stands aside.

Shouto spots him immediately and lurches up into a sitting position. His face is flushed and he smiles and says, “Niisan!”

There’s a horrifying second or two where this greeting has actually put Natsuo on the brink of tears. But Natsuo swallows and grins back and says, “Hey, Shouto. How are you feeling?”

“I’m good.” Shouto blinks slowly, and his gaze slides to Midoriya. “Midoriya, this is my brother Natsuo.”

“I know,” Midoriya says.

“He’s older than me,” Shouto says.

“Yes,” Midoriya agrees, stifling a laugh. The way he looks at Shouto is something Natsuo will tease Shouto about later.

“One time when he was in middle school he dyed his hair black and he punched me when I said he looked like--”

“Shouto, let’s go get in the car.”

“I want to stay here,” Shouto whines.

“You’re coming home and you’re going to bed. Tomorrow’s New Year’s Day and Jirou needs to spend time with her family,” Natsuo insists. He moves forward and coaxes Shouto off the bed, securing Shouto in an upright position with an arm around his brother’s waist. “C’mon, bud. Have you had any water?”

“No thank you,” Shouto says.

“I’ll find a water bottle for him,” Midoriya says, and then darts out of the room.

Natsuo finds that Shouto is leaning into him, face warm where it’s lolled against his shoulder. “How much did you have?” Natsuo asks, incredulous. “It’s a Wednesday night, bud.”

“It’s Christmas,” Shouto says.

“It’s not.”

“Four shots.”

“Oof. Lightweight.”

Shouto frowns. His right hand presses into Natsuo’s ribs and Natsuo yelps when Shouto activates his ice quirk. He pinches Shouto’s side, and Shouto stomps on his foot.

“Cut it out, brat,” Natsuo warns. Shouto pouts and then abruptly tries to sit back down again, pulling them both off-balance--but Natsuo manages to keep them from crashing to the floor by sitting back down on the bed. “ Hey, I said cut it out.”

Shouto gives up on his struggle, in favor of a huge yawn. “You didn’t have to come,” he mutters a second later.

“I wanted to,” Natsuo says.

Shouto blinks up at him, gaze calculating, but he must find that Natsuo’s being genuine because he looks away and doesn’t try to injure Natsuo again.

“Okay, I found some,” Midoriya says, reentering the room with a plastic bottle of water that he hands to Shouto. Shouto’s head has fallen back onto Natsuo’s shoulder and Natsuo can’t see his face, but he’s pretty sure Shouto is attempting to fall asleep. Midoriya perches in the empty spot on the other side of Shouto and gently pulls at Shouto’s arm to put the water in his hand. “Hey. Drink this.”

Shouto looks at the water like it’s offended him. He struggles with opening the lid of the bottle for a full thirty seconds before Midoriya takes pity on him and cracks it open himself.

After Shouto’s had about half of the bottle, Natsuo pulls him back up to his feet and they head for the door. Midoriya supports Shouto on his other side, more out of companionship than out of actual necessity. 

“I can’t fucking belive Todoroki’s brother is as pretty as he is,” says a loud drunk boy as Natsuo passes. “Must come from their mom, though, because--”

“Because fuck Endeavor,” say two other people at the same time as him, and Natsuo is suddenly filled with a glowing spirit of love and generosity for Shouto’s classmates.

“Musty bitch,” Shouto agrees quietly, and Natsuo’s pride grows and Midoriya stifles a giggle behind his hand. 

They reach the front door. Natsuo assures Midoriya that they’ll be okay on the stairs, and Midoriya hovers while Shouto puts his shoes on--Natsuo ends up having to help him tie his shoes, which is equal parts annoying and hilarious.

“Drive safe,” Midoriya tells Natsuo kindly, while both of them watch Shouto slowly put on his jacket.

“Thanks. Thanks for taking care of him,” Natsuo says. He rolls his eyes and says, “Shouto, that’s the wrong sleeve, bud.”

Shouto glares at him.

“Of course!” Midoriya says to Natsuo. He beams at Shouto and says, “Have a good night. Please drink some more water.”

Natsuo takes Shouto’s arm to pull him out the door, but not before Shouto sleepily says, with all the stupid bliss of a teenager who’s drunk for the first time, “Thanks. I love you.”

Midoriya’s gaze snaps to Natsuo, face full of shock, and Natsuo makes the executive decision to spare his brother’s feelings and ignores that Shouto’s said anything at all and yanks him out the door. “Say bye to Midoriya.”

Shouto follows without protest and waves to Midoriya and then Natsuo shuts the door behind them, not letting Midoriya get another word in edgewise.

Shouto makes it all the way to the living room before he demands to sit down again. He lays down in an ungraceful heap on the couch and puts his head on Fuyumi’s leg and refuses to budge again.

From the sound of Fuyumi’s text, she’d been worried about Shouto’s level of intoxication and had ditched Yuuto to check up on him. It’s sweet of her. Natsuo can’t for-sure say he’d do the same in her place, which makes him a little guilty.

Fuyumi puts a hand on Shouto’s forehead and says, “Hey, party animal. You look like garbage.”

Shouto grunts.

“Tell her what you said to Midoriya,” Natsuo says.

“I didn’t say anything to Midoriya,” Shouto mumbles. He closes his eyes when Fuyumi starts running a hand over his hair. 

“He told him he loooooves him,” Natsuo says.

Shouto’s eyes open abruptly and dart to Natsuo. “Did I?”

Fuyumi says, delighted, “Did he?”

Shouto struggles upright and searches wildly for his phone, hand patting his pockets. “Did I say that?”

“You said that,” Natsuo confirms. He holds up Shouto’s phone, out of reach. “No texting until you’re sober.”

“Give it back,” Shouto demands.

Natsuo smiles.

Shouto surges up off the couch and trips over the coffee table, and he ends up tackling Natsuo and both of them slam into the ground. 

“Hey!” Fuyumi says, but Shouto has already decided he’s wrestling Natsuo and there’s nothing she can do at this point.

Natsuo gasps to get air back into his lungs, and then moves his legs to get better leverage and flips him and Shouto over so he’s pinning him, lying perpendicular over him and pressing one forearm into Shouto’s throat. With his other arm, he tosses the phone to Fuyumi, before Shouto wriggles out of the hold and tries to shove Natsuo off. He is wildly unsuccessful, and Natsuo maintains the hold.

“I forgot you were a wrestler,” Shouto mumbles, when it’s clear he’s not getting free.

Natsuo smiles. “You’ll get ‘em next time.”

Once Shouto’s done fighting him, Natsuo releases Shouto and gets up, but Shouto just lies there on the ground, staring at the ceiling.

“Don’t sleep here,” Fuyumi says. “Get up and go to bed, loser.”

Shouto ignores her. “Did I really say that to Midoriya?”

“You completely did,” Natsuo informs him.

Shouto’s gaze is going distant again. “Oh.”

“Ugh,” Natsuo says. He nudges Shouto with his foot. “You’re not making this fun because you’re sad.”

Shouto turns his blank gaze on Natsuo. His brow furrows, almost an afterthought. “Sorry.”

Shouto is really fucking lucky he was homeschooled through middle school. Natsuo has the distinct impression, not for the first time, that Shouto wouldn’t have made many friends--even if it’s hard to bully him, being an impenetrable fortress of a human doesn’t lend itself to fitting in. 

“You would’ve had a great time in public middle school,” Natsuo tells him.

Fuyumi tosses a throw pillow at him. “Stop being so mean to him. Nobody had fun in middle school.”

“I had a great time in middle school,” Natsuo informs her. “I was captain of the soccer team.”

“Your peak,” Shouto says from his spot on the floor, and Fuyumi barely gets up in time to restrain Natsuo from delivering a kill blow to Shouto’s skull. She’s laughing too hard to keep Natsuo from kicking Shouto in the ribs, though.

Fuyumi finally shoves Natsuo away and then pats Shouto’s shoulder and says, “Go to bed. I’ll bring you some water.”

“Hmm,” Shouto says. He closes his eyes. Fuyumi and Natsuo don’t realize he’s intending to fall asleep there on the floor until it’s too late.

It’s New Year’s Day, and Enji isn’t home. 

Natsuo thinks maybe Enji got the hint that a day of rest and relaxation for his children would not include him. Or maybe villains are taking advantage of a national holiday to wreak havoc. Either way, Natsuo isn’t complaining. The house is quiet and clean and the first thing Natsuo hears is Fuyumi laughing at a joke that Shouto attempts to tell and it’s nice.

Shouto, despite the hangover that has put dark bags under his eyes, is calm. He seems to have decided to ignore the fact that he confessed his love to his best friend last night, and is moving on with the assumption that he’ll never speak with Midoriya again. This is the first day he’s gone without being glued to his phone. Natsuo would comment on it if that wouldn’t make him sound like he’s eighty years old.

It stops snowing mid-morning, which is when Fuyumi says, “Let’s play soccer.”

“There’s three of us,” Natsuo says.

Fuyumi has emerged from the hall closet brandishing an old soccer ball, as well as a winter coat for Natsuo. “Us two versus Mr. Big-Time Hero Student.”

Shouto shrugs. “Okay.”

“What? No, I could take both of you!” Natsuo insists. “Shouto, have you ever even played soccer?”

“No,” Shouto says. “But it doesn’t seem like it’d be that hard to beat you.”

Natsuo grabs Shouto in a headlock and grapples him towards the front door. Shouto hisses and scrabbles at his hold, but Natsuo succeeds in kicking the door open and tossing his brother into a snowbank while Fuyumi shouts at them.

Shouto shoots upright, left side sending steam into the air, face screwed up in indignation.

Fuyumi shoves Natsuo from behind and slams the door after him, cackling. His socks immediately soak through, and before he can open the door again, Shouto has reached him and picked Natsuo up (only a few inches off the ground) and Shouto then throws him towards the same snowbank.

“Wait it’s cold, ” Natsuo yelps, before tumbling face-first into the powder. He rolls over and slips and slides up onto his feet before turning on Shouto again. Shouto bolts back towards the front door and Natsuo darts after him. The two of them burst into the house and tumble into a heap on the wooden floor, Natsuo still spitting snow out of his mouth and Shouto screeching like a toddler.

“‘Wait, it’s cold’,” Fuyumi mocks, but she’s laughing so hard her face is scarlet. 

“You’re next,” Natsuo snarls, before successfully getting Shouto in another hold that immobilizes him, letting Natsuo catch his breath. “Wow, easy to beat me, huh, Shouchan?”

“Don’t call me that,” Shouto says. He pauses for breath, then starts thrashing again.

It takes them another fifteen minutes to get out into the courtyard to play soccer (after Natsuo pins Shouto for good, Natsuo has to change his socks and Fuyumi has to explain the general rules to Shouto). Once Shouto’s informed that he’s not allowed to use his Quirk to play, he acquiesces to being on Fuyumi’s team and the two of them square off against Natsuo.

Natsuo’s siblings have a bigger advantage than he’d hoped for--both of them are pretty good at running around on snowy surfaces. Even if Shouto doesn’t mean to use his hero training, he’s used to skating, and Fuyumi’s Quirk makes her immune to icy temperatures so she takes her shoes off for better balance and laughs at Natsuo whenever he wipes out.

Natsuo loses, to the great excitement of Fuyumi and the quiet smugness of Shouto. The smug look on Shouto’s face is what gets Shouto thrown into his second snowbank of the day, actually.

Shouto and Natsuo crash back into the house after they get tired of trying to kill each other. Both of their clothes are soaked through, and Natsuo’s teeth are chattering, but he also feels good. He can’t describe the feeling, really. Exhilarated?

Natsuo changes into dry clothes and wraps himself in his comforter and goes back downstairs, and both his siblings are there already. It’s a weird feeling, to be perfectly comfortable joining them on the couch to warm up. 

“Are you leaving tomorrow?” Fuyumi asks him when he sits down. “I was wondering if we should do a nice dinner tonight.”

Natsuo stops and thinks about it. His original plan had been to leave the following day, before Enji could have a chance to ruin his break. But that would mean Shouto and Fuyumi would still be stuck here without him, and that’s starting to sound less appealing. 

“I think I’ll stick around a few more days,” Natsuo says cautiously. Fuyumi brightens, in a way that’s near unprecedented, and Natsuo feels like maybe he made the right choice.

That evening, Natsuo gets an email from his professor that says Kaneko’s taken full responsibility for the project going awry, so they’re all getting mostly full credit (except for Kaneko). Natsuo puts his laptop down and bolts to Fuyumi’s room, yelling, “ Fuyumi I’m not going to fail my class!”

“Woo!” she cheers. She actually sits up in bed to hype him up. “Did your professor email you? Congratulations!”

Natsuo beams at her. “Where’s Shouto? I need to thank him for bullying my groupmate.”

“Downstairs,” Fuyumi says.

Natsuo catches Shouto trying to sneak out the front door. Natsuo walks over to harass him, which Shouto ignores in favor of putting his shoes on. This kid clearly has no idea how to tie his shoes, and Natsuo’s wondering when he’s supposed to bring it up.

“I’m getting credit for my project,” Natsuo announces. “Kaneko took responsibility for being the worst.”

Shouto gives him a thumbs-up. It makes him lose his spot in the shoe-tying process and he starts over. “Good.”

“Thanks for doing whatever to scare him,” Natsuo says.

“No problem,” Shouto says.

“Heading out?” Natsuo asks.

Shouto nods. 

“Where are you going?”

“Out.”

“To Midoriya’s?”

Shouto doesn’t respond, which is an answer all on its own.

“Okay. Be responsible,” Natsuo says, half a smile on his face. “So your drunk confession turned out alright?”

Shouto’s face turns red. 

“Aw! Can I tell Fuyumi?”

“No,” Shouto snaps.

“God, you’re so boring,” Natsuo says, already taking out his phone to text his sister.

Shouto shoots him a death glare, but it softens into something else that makes Natsuo pause. “I’m just going over to talk. Can you stop being so weird?”

“Oh, I’m weird?” Natsuo asks. 

“Leave me alone,” Shouto mutters. He pulls his coat on and leaves without another word.

Natsuo honestly can’t tell if the two of them are getting closer or further apart.

Group: [ shouto is #1 worst younger brother ]

XX/01/02

Fun Police: @Shouto wya??? 

Fun Police: if you re meeting w your stalker i’ll call the police

Fun Police: @SHOUTO WHERE ARE YOU

No. 1 Worst Younge…: Idk where am i

No. 1 Worst Younge…: [IMG 1272_341]

Fun Police: IS THAT MIDORIYA??????????????????????????

No. 1 Worst Younge…: Idk is it

Hungry Idiot: GET IT SHOUTO!!!!!!

No. 1 Worst Younge…: Get what?

Todoroki Natsuo has tried to use a word that was banned by Todoroki Fuyumi .

Hungry Idiot: yumi how fucking dare you try to keep me from saying the word d!ck

Fun Police: :/

No. 1 Worst Younge…: :-/

Todoroki Natsuo changed the group name to GET THAT (REDACTED) 

Todoroki Shouto has left the group

Todoroki Natsuo has added Todoroki Shouto to the group

Todoroki Shouto has left the group

Todoroki Natsuo has added Todoroki Shouto to the group

Todoroki Shouto has left the group

Todoroki Natsuo has added Todoroki Shouto to the group

Shouto: Is this hell

Group: [ GET THAT (REDACTED) ]

XX/01/02

Fun Police: @shouto boy are you coming home. it’s late

Hungry Idiot: rly earning your nickname yumi

Fun Police: fuck you. @shouto give me a sign that you’re alive or i’ll call midoriya

Hungry Idiot: if midoriya doesn’t answer,,, guess we have an answer huh

Fun Police: gross

Fun Police: @SHOUTO

Group: [ GET THAT (REDACTED) ]

XX/01/02

Hungry Idiot: :///

Todoroki Fuyumi changed Todoroki Shouto’s nickname to Harlot

Harlot: Why are you so obsessed with me?

Harlot: You pocket dialed me while you were with Yuuto yesterday

Harlot: Also I’m sleeping over here

Todoroki Shouto changed Todoroki Shouto ’s nickname to Shouto

Hungry Idiot: THE TURNTABLES

It’s January 3rd, and Enji comes home a day early. 

Natsuo hears the front door slam open in a familiar way, and he hears a booming voice, and he hears the door shut again. Natsuo’s in his room, working through some homework, but he knows he needs to get up and go downstairs and greet his father.

Fuyumi passes his open door, hurrying through the hallway, but she pauses long enough to give Natsuo a panicked look. Enji home early isn’t ever a good thing.

And Shouto’s not here. He’s at Midoriya’s house.

Natsuo rolls off of his futon and scoops his phone off the floor and texts a frantic @Shouto get home now . He runs a hand through his hair and straightens his shirt and rolls back his shoulders and accompanies Fuyumi down the stairs.

“Welcome home,” Fuyumi says once they hit the first floor, and Enji turns on them.

He doesn’t seem as big as he seemed when Natsuo was younger, but he still towers over Fuyumi and he’s still a fucking asshole. He seems like he’s in a bad mood--and bad moods are when he forgets that he’s trying to be decent nowadays. Old habits die hard. “Where’s Shouto?”

“‘Good to see you, Natsuo’,” Natsuo says, rolling his eyes because Enji isn’t going to do shit to him right now.

Enji’s face turns into a glare. 

“You’re home early,” Natsuo says, and narrows his eyes. 

“Is he here?” Enji asks, staring right back. 

Fuyumi won’t want to rile anyone up. Natsuo remembers Fuyumi, aged sixteen, running out of the room at a mutual friend’s house to puke because someone raised their voice. He remembers a late night when they were kids, Fuyumi muffling sobs as she kept watch while Natsuo tried his best to patch Touya up after an argument gone south.

It’s why Fuyumi says, “He’s visiting a friend.”

Natsuo doesn’t glance over at her, because that would make it seem like they’re lying. He holds his breath.

“A friend?” Enji asks, incredulous.

“He’s training with them,” Fuyumi says. Natsuo sometimes forgets she has a backbone of steel, that she only uses it when she sees no other option. “Yaoyorozu Momo has her own training dojo.”

Enji recognizes the name Yaoyorozu , and it’s a big lie that could easily be disproven, but he seems to accept it. 

“He’ll be home soon,” Natsuo says. Because the text he sent has a lot of possible causes, but Shouto will understand.

The two of them escape upstairs. They’re both disappointed that their vacation is cut short--and Fuyumi’s already slipping back into her protector mode, where she forgoes all of her own wants and needs to make sure her youngest brother isn’t murdered by their father. Natsuo hates it, and he hates that he doesn’t have as much practice doing that because he left , and he hates that Shouto had finally made it out of the house to visit his dumb crush and Enji had ruined it.

There are only a few days left of break, but Natsuo and Fuyumi won’t be able to sit on the couch with Shouto anymore, or take him out for boba or watch him suck at video games. It’ll be enough time for Shouto to start dissociating twenty hours a day again, and enough time for Natsuo’s blood pressure to go through the roof before he even returns to school, and enough time for Fuyumi to stop eating breakfast altogether under the stress of it all.

“I fucking hate him,” Natsuo mutters, glaring at nothing. Fuyumi hums, and grabs his arm and pulls him into her room and shuts the door so they can both breathe for a second. 

“He’s a bastard, ” Natsuo insists, gesturing to nothing. “Can he not let Shou fucking live ? Can he learn how to cook his own food like an adult man?”

“I know,” Fuyumi says. “I live here.”

That almost takes the wind out of Natsuo’s sails, but he’s mad and looking for an outlet, so he changes targets and snaps, “You shouldn’t. You could move out and live with your boyfriend.”

Fuyumi’s gaze turns cold as they turn to this familiar topic of contention. “I’m staying until Shouto’s old enough to leave.”

“He lives at UA now! And he’s old enough to…” Natsuo knows Shouto isn’t old enough to have to face this on his own. “You were younger than him when Touya fucking set himself on fire, so do you think--”

“Don’t talk about him like that,” Fuyumi says. 

“I’m just saying--”

“No. Don’t talk about him like that.” Fuyumi jabs a finger at Natsuo’s chest and her hand is shaking. “You left, so you don't get to talk down on us like that. You don’t live here anymore. I’m the one who takes care of Shouto, and I’m the one who takes care of Dad, and I’m the one who watched Touya kill himself. Do you understand that? Not all of us are able to go to med school and ignore family until it’s convenient because some of us had to take over when Mom snapped and some of us have some actual goddamn concern about what happens to our family.”

“Fuck you,” Natsuo snarls, “I care about--”

“You make Dad angry on purpose. You never call and you still pretend like it’s my fucking fault that I was the one who raised you and I’m sorry I didn’t do a good job but I was twelve years old.”

Sometimes Natsuo forgets that Fuyumi was raised by the same Pro Hero he was. Now is not one of those times, with Fuyumi on her feet and standing up straight and a small sheen of ice crackling across her palms.

“Don’t ever fucking talk to me like I don’t understand what I’m doing,” Fuyumi tells him, voice pitched above a polite conversational tone for the first time in years. “I would love to move in with Yuuto. I would love to get Mom out of the hospital and run as far away as I can. But you made your choice and I made mine and I’m not leaving before Shouto’s ready to leave too.”

Natsuo wants to say something. Given the context of the conversation so far, it’s probably lucky that he doesn’t, because it was probably going to be something insulting or just plain inadequate to address the pain that Fuyumi always carries with her.

He doesn’t get to respond, because the front door opens and that means Shouto’s home and that means they need to go.

Fuyumi and Natsuo abandon their conversation and leave Fuyumi’s room immediately, without a single extra word said between them. Despite this situation never occurring before, there's a silent understanding that they know what to do. Natsuo hurries down the stairs first, cutting Shouto off in the entry hall to try and prepare him for what’s coming. 

Shouto’s wearing a hoodie that isn’t his. And there’s a hickey on his neck, which would be absolutely hilarious on any other occasion.

Shouto sees their father’s shoes by the door and his face goes completely pale. 

“Upstairs,” Natsuo says.

Fuyumi grabs Shouto and they run. They’re gone before Enji rounds the corner.

“Shouto’s home,” Natsuo says. Cutting Enji off, he continues, “He went to shower before greeting you. He’ll be down in a minute.”

Enji says something before going back where he came from, but Natsuo is in the habit of ignoring him, and is already texting Fuyumi to tell Shouto to at least get his hair wet to cover the lie. Once Enji is gone, Natsuo takes the stairs two at a time and goes as quietly as he can to Fuyumi’s bathroom. 

Shouto’s sitting on the counter while Fuyumi blends color-correcting foundation onto his neck. Fuyumi’s talking quietly, but she’s still putting off tense vibes from the argument she and Natsuo had had to abandon. Shouto’s staring into space, his bangs dripping water down his face and his hands bunched in the hoodie.

Natsuo shuts and locks the door behind him. 

“--I’ll put powder on it so you won’t sweat it off. Give me a second,” Fuyumi is saying. There’s an implied hold still because this is important, the old man is going to train you for hours today and there’s nothing we can do except make sure he doesn’t find out about your boy toy. 

Shouto doesn’t respond, but when Fuyumi moves away to dig through a drawer for powder, his eyes widen a fraction and he reaches out to hold onto her arm.

Fuyumi soothes, “I’m here, Shou. Just let me grab this really quick.”

He won’t let go. 

“I’ll get it,” Natsuo offers in a low tone. “Which drawer?”

It’s two minutes before the mark is fully covered. It’s another five before they get Shouto’s eyes to focus on something that isn’t the wall behind Fuyumi, and it’s another four before Shouto slides off the bathroom counter and hugs Fuyumi and nods to Natsuo and then goes downstairs to see their father with calm, measured steps.

Natsuo’s starting to see why Fuyumi stays (and he’s reminded of why he’s not going to forgive Enji for as long as he lives). It’s why he doesn’t reignite their argument as soon as Shouto’s out of sight. 

At eleven that night, there’s a soft knock on his door. Natsuo gets up and unlocks it to find Shouto.

“Hey,” Natsuo whispers. He tries to check Shouto over for injuries, but Shouto has put Midoriya’s hoodie back on and looks like he’s trying to hide himself in it, so Natsuo can’t see the areas that are most likely bruised or burned. “You wanna come in?”

Shouto shakes his head. They could get in unimaginable trouble. Especially if they fall asleep and Shouto isn’t in his own room when Enji goes to wake him up. He clears his throat, and it sounds like the action hurts him. Is he getting sick? 

“Are you and Fuyumi mad at each other?” is what Shouto asks, in a raspy voice.

“Not exactly,” Natsuo hedges.

“Okay,” Shouto says. He scrutinizes Natsuo’s face for a second. “Okay,” he says again, and walks away.

Natsuo goes back to bed, and tries to forget everything that’s happened today. On his way, he takes a trazodone to make sure his yelling doesn’t wake Enji up.

Chapter Text

The next two days of having Dad home pass in a similar tense fashion. Enji patrols in the afternoons, but that means that from seven in the morning until lunch time, he’s training Shouto. Fuyumi doesn’t like leaving during training sessions, in case an emergency occurs, so Natsuo sits with her in the living room and they both try to catch up on work and they both try to ignore the muffled sounds of their dad yelling and their little brother getting thrown into the dojo walls and floor over and over again. 

They slip back into a nasty old routine. It’s like it was when Shouto was eleven or so, and Natsuo was trying to get into a good high school, and Fuyumi was panicking about choosing a college. It shouldn’t feel as familiar as it does, and it shouldn’t feel normal, but they understand how to do it. It’s only for the rest of the week, and then Natsuo and Shouto can escape, and Fuyumi...will keep on keeping on.

The idea of leaving Fuyumi behind is starting to leave a bad taste in Natsuo’s mouth.

Group: [ GET THAT (REDACTED) ]

XX/01/04

Hungry Idiot: hey team. d*d’s out till ten do you want to get boba 

Fun Police: that sounds like a great idea! i can be ready in five 

Hungry Idiot: give me ten 

Hungry Idiot: @Shouto you wanna come bud

Shouto: Sorry, not tonight

Hungry Idiot: you have plans??????

Fun Police: with midoriya??????? i can drive you if you need me to uwu

Shouto: No, I’m just not feeling up to going out tonight.

Fun Police: please come ………… it’ll be for like half an hour

Hungry Idiot: @Shouto unlock your fucking door i’m coming in

Shouto: No 

Hungry Idiot: bastard. 

Shouto: You guys can go without me

Hungry Idiot: fuck offffffffffffffffffff you’re coming!!! 

Hungry Idiot: we’ll let you text your stalker to meet us

Fun Police: good god. 

Fun Police: if that’s what we have to do to get you to come then fine but if we get murdered in an alleyway it’s YOUR fault natsu

Shouto: Interesting tactic but I’ll bite

Shouto: Okay he said he’d see us there

Hungry Idiot: that isn’t ominous at all

Shouto finally unlocks his bedroom door and joins Natsuo and Fuyumi in the entry hall about fifteen minutes later. His eyes are drooping shut, like he could fall asleep standing up, and Natsuo’s eyes immediately go to a bruise on his neck (not the one caused by Midoriya, which has been covered up again by Fuyumi--this bruise is undeniably hand-shaped).

“Are you good?” Natsuo asks, uncertain. There’s no good way to ask.
Shouto shrugs. He looks vaguely pissed-off, but he accepts when Fuyumi offers her hand for him to hold. “Fine,” he rasps. “Let’s hurry.”

It’s already dark outside when they venture out, and freezing cold. Natsuo locks the front door and then they start down the sidewalk, Natsuo shivering and Fuyumi uncharacteristically silent and Shouto yawning intermittently. After the first block, Shouto reaches out his left hand and grabs Natsuo’s arm, and the warmth is nice enough that Natsuo crowds closer to him to leech the heat even more.

The shop is fairly empty, because it’s only about an hour until it closes and the post-dinner rush is already over. They order and sit down with their teas and Natsuo says, “Hey, Shouto, I wanna show you a game.”

“What game?” Shouto asks.

Natsuo says, “Here, hold your straw and close your eyes. I’m gonna move your cup around and then tap the top and you stab where you think the tea is going to be.”

“This sounds like we’re gonna make a mess,” Fuyumi says, warning.

“We’ll clean it up,” Natsuo says.

“I’m not cleaning shit,” Fuyumi says.

“Whatever,” Natsuo says. He looks back to Shouto. “You up for it?”

Shouto narrows his eyes in concentration, trying to work through the premise of the game, but then he unwraps his straw and holds it up like a dagger and puts a hand over his face to block his vision. “Go.”

Natsuo says, “Fuyumi, film this.”

“Absolutely not,” Fuyumi says with a scowl, but she unlocks her phone anyway.

Natsuo scoots Shouto’s plastic cup of tea around at random, swirling it across the table, and then he smacks the plastic lid twice. Without hesitating, Shouto slams his straw down in the wrong place and the cup veritably explodes.

Natsuo yells in delight, and Fuyumi yells in anger, but the tea hasn’t blasted everywhere. It’s frozen still in the air, suspended mid-spill. 

Shouto opens one eye and his face splits into a rare smile at the sight--not a single drop of his tea has dripped to the floor. “That was good,” he says, sounding proud of himself.

“Yeah, that was fucking sick, dude,” Natsuo says. He ruffles Shouto’s hair (Shouto flinches) and then Natsuo gingerly picks up the frozen mass of tea and carries it to the trash to throw it away and then wanders back to the counter to pay for a replacement. 

Natsuo waits in line behind someone with a weirdly complex order--only relevant because it takes him twice as long to order than Natsuo and his siblings combined. When Natsuo tries to get a look at who this asshole is, he finds that they have their hood drawn up and their face is largely hidden behind black bangs. They take their tea and stand to the side, just hovering, and Natsuo irritably goes up and orders very efficiently just to show them how easy it can be.

Natsuo goes back to his siblings, handing Shouto his new tea. Shouto accepts, looking a little more calm, and slurps at it while checking his phone (probably for updates from the stalker). When Natsuo looks up again, the person is still standing there. He’s facing them, but his head is tilted down enough that Natsuo can’t be sure if he’s staring at them or not.

Natsuo nudges Fuyumi and then kicks Shouto under the table. “I think he’s here and that’s him,” Natsuo says, barely audible.

Shouto, not subtle in the slightest, twists and looks over his shoulder. “Where?”

“Right there,” Natsuo says, but when he looks over to the counter, the hooded person is gone. A glance around the small shop doesn’t reveal him, and Natsuo groans. “Ugh, I just saw him. He looked real shifty, too. Can you text him?”

Shouto does. No reply comes in the next half hour, at which point Natsuo and Fuyumi make the decision to leave because the shop is closing soon.

“He might be here soon,” Shouto insists, digging in his heels.

“No, I think he got scared and ditched,” Fuyumi says. “And we need to get home soon, just in case Dad’s patrol ends early.”

The reminder of Enji is enough to take the fight out of Shouto. Shouto gets up and follows them out of the shop, and he lets Natsuo link arms with him on his warm side once they’re out on the sidewalk, and Natsuo appreciates the warmth but the automatic compliance is kind of depressing to watch.

“Sorry you didn’t get to see him,” Fuyumi says, not sounding particularly sorry, “but thanks for coming anyway.”

Shouto grunts in acknowledgement and sips his tea.

In a last-ditch attempt to make Shouto stop looking so fucking mopey, Natsuo slurps up a mouthful of tapioca and then spits them out rapid-fire like a Plants vs. Zombies gun. They make a plip plip plip noise in the snow, all in a line. 

While Fuyumi fake-gags at how gross that is, Shouto’s brow furrows in bewilderment. That’s better than his previous zoned-out angsty look, so Natsuo counts it as a success.

When they get home, Shouto immediately goes up to bed without a word to either of them. Fuyumi and Natsuo watch him go, and then Natsuo asks his sister, “Are you...doing okay?”

“Doing fine,” Fuyumi asks, and then obnoxiously slurps her tea just to bother Natsuo.

“Really?”

“Yeah, I’m fine. Please just don’t make Dad mad before you leave,” Fuyumi says. There’s an undertone to her voice like something had happened last time Natsuo did that, so Natsuo doesn’t argue with her. “How about you?”

“Fine,” Natsuo says, because if Fuyumi isn’t going to give him an honest answer then he won’t either. “See you tomorrow.”

“See ya,” Fuyumi says, in such a dull tone that she sounds exactly like Shouto.

At lunch the following day, Enji turns his head in just the right way to spot the change in portrait placement on the wall, and he says, “Who moved those photos around?”

Shouto stops slurping his noodles. He doesn’t move a muscle, except his eyes dart to Natsuo.

Natsuo, the most nonchalant he’s ever been, says, “What do you mean?”

“I haven’t moved anything,” Fuyumi says, truthful.

Enji gets up. Shouto’s hand tightens on his chopsticks, like he’s going to break them in half. Fuyumi turns to Natsuo, a little alarmed.

Natsuo shakes his head at her. He’s somewhere between being amused and terrified (he realizes too late that he should have taken the blame immediately and now Shouto’s the one who’s going to get yelled at).

Enji takes the photo frame off the wall and sees the dent and he turns his head to Shouto. Shouto, impressively, doesn’t flinch.

“Did you do this?” Enji asks. 

Shouto goes back to his noodles. 

“Shouto,” Enji says, his voice veering just enough into danger territory that the air in the room gets a little bit stiller.

Shouto slurps soba into his mouth and ignores him ( is he ignoring him? Or is his blank expression a sign of him not hearing the conversation at all?).

Enji says, “Eraserhead said you’ve acted out in class previously, but I can’t even trust you in your own home ?”

The dent can less charitably be described as a hole in the wall, which Enji ostensibly has a reason to be angry about, but the picture covered it just fine. Also, Shouto isn’t going to defend himself, and Natsuo’s getting tired of listening to this. “He didn’t do it,” Natsuo says, and rolls his eyes. He still doesn’t draw Enji’s attention, so he tries to take up more space and he waves obnoxiously at his dad to make himself harder to ignore. “Hey! I did it on accident. It’s not even that big of a hole. And it’s not like you can’t afford to fix it.”

“Shouto’s childish rebellion doesn’t concern you, Natsuo,” Enji says.

“Whatever,” Natsuo says. “I was the one who did it, and you’re just looking for a reason to punch Shouto. You want me to pay to fix the wall if you care so much?”

“Natsu,” Fuyumi says, warning.

“You didn’t seem to have a problem wrecking shit when you threw your temper tantrum about All Might,” Natsuo says.

Louder, Fuyumi says, “Cut it out, Natsuo,” and her tone is so sharp that Natsuo actually hesitates. “Dad, let’s just fix the wall and forget about it.”

Shouto slurps his noodles again, into the silence.

“I expect better from you,” Enji says to Natsuo.

“Do you,” Natsuo says, and rolls his eyes. “Maybe if you’d spent even one day parenting me when I was a kid, I’d be different.”

Enji’s face erupts with flames.

Fuyumi stomps on Natsuo’s foot, under the table, and Natsuo remembers too late the conversation they’d had about not making Dad angry on purpose. 

“...Sorry,” Natsuo grinds out, and ducks his head. He wishes he could tell his dad somehow that this apology is just for Fuyumi, and not because Natsuo respects Enji at all . “That was out of line. Excuse me.” Natsuo stands up from the table. “I think I should go calm down.”

“Yes, I think you should,” Enji says. 

Natsuo bites back a response to that, only because of how on-guard Fuyumi and Shouto are. On his way to the stairs, he gives Enji a wider berth than normal, because he half-expects Enji to reach out and burn him, but Enji doesn’t move. 

The conversation isn’t repeated, and Natsuo doesn’t hear anything happen to Fuyumi or Shouto, but Natsuo doesn’t sleep very well that night.

And then thankfully, mercifully, Enji is called out of town again on the third day after arriving. He packs up and is gone within fifteen minutes of the phone call, and Natsuo and Fuyumi waste no time in bolting into the training room to find Shouto.

Shouto’s still in a heap on the ground. He’s completely sweated through the t-shirt he’s wearing, and bruises blot both arms and the one around his throat has only gotten darker. Shouto pushes himself up on shaky arms when he hears Natsuo approach, but when he looks up and sees that it’s Natsuo and not Enji, Shouto falls back down again and coughs. 

“Hey, let’s get to the couch, alright?” Natsuo says. He looks over his shoulder to Fuyumi, where she’s hesitating in the doorway. She makes a weird motion, moving her hand up to her forehead and back down, but when Natsuo looks back at Shouto and processes the way he’s sweating, he reaches down and presses the back of his palm to Shouto’s forehead.

Shouto startles away, but it doesn’t feel like he has a fever. He’s just overworked and and might have heat exhaustion from his and Dad’s Quirks. Natsuo crouches, and slings one of Shouto’s arms over his shoulders, and then stands up for both of them.

Shouto is light, at least. If he’d inherited more of Enji’s bulk, this would be impossible for Natsuo to do.

They stumble out to the living room. Fuyumi disappears and then reappears with some first aid supplies and a sports drink. Natsuo half-drops Shouto onto the couch, where Shouto grunts and coughs again and tries feebly to find a more comfortable position.

“Where is it the worst?” Fuyumi asks.

Shouto reaches out and grabs her arm, and pulls her hand to press into his ribcage. Understanding, she activates her Quirk to be a makeshift ice pack for him.

Natsuo cracks open the first aid kit and tries to keep his hands steady while he starts on the visible scrapes and burns. They spend the next few minutes in silence, other than Shouto’s occasional hisses when Natsuo’s hands slip and shake or when Fuyumi moves her hand to another bruise to ice it.

“Is it always this bad?” Natsuo asks.

Shouto hums, coughs, winces in pain. “No. I’m just...My control of my left side isn’t good enough yet.”

“It’s getting better, though,” Fuyumi tells him. 

“Not fast enough. I need to be better,” Shouto says, and then goes silent again.

Natsuo tries to shut his brain off--he wonders how Shouto does it. Being here, trying to make things just a little more manageable for his baby brother, is enough to make Natsuo want to murder their father in cold blood. This bloodlust isn’t helping him focus, and when he fastens the last bandage too roughly and Shouto accidentally lets himself cry out, Natsuo is ready to run and go have a panic attack upstairs. 

“Be careful,” Fuyumi chides him, from where she’s backseat-driving on Natsuo’s first aid, cross-legged on the floor.

“Sorry, god. Sorry,” Natsuo rushes to say, without even enough bandwidth to sound sarcastic. He lets go of Shouto’s arm so that it drops back to Shouto’s side. “I shouldn’t have pulled it that tight.”

“It’s fine,” Shouto says. His voice is thin, like he has to try really hard to keep it steady. “Natsuo,” he says, when Natsuo’s still spiraling, “it’s fine. I’ve had worse.”

“That’s not--” Natsuo says, and chokes. He’s having trouble breathing.

“Natsuo, go get some water. I’ll sit with him while he drinks this.” Fuyumi pushes Natsuo off the couch, away from Shouto. She pops open the lid of the sports drink she’d retrieved and Shouto pushes himself upright to accept it. 

Natsuo can breathe a little easier now that he’s not up close and personal with Shouto’s injuries. Still wavering, not wanting to ditch Shouto entirely (and looking for another way to keep Shouto present--Shouto hasn’t dissociated yet and Natsuo wants to keep it that way), Natsuo asks, “Do you want me to call Midoriya?”

Shouto blinks at him.

“The old bastard interrupted you the last time you hung out, right?” Natsuo says. “We could text him to come over, if it would make you feel better to have some company.”

Shouto looks from Natsuo to Fuyumi. Natsuo has no idea what he’s searching for.

“That’s a good idea,” Fuyumi says. “We don’t mind having him over! Just tell me where your phone is and I can grab it.”

“Kitchen,” Shouto rasps, and then, out of nowhere, he starts crying.

“Shit,” Natsuo says, and drops back onto the couch to perch next to Shouto. Fuyumi reaches out to wipe at Shouto’s blotchy face. “Did I miss an injury somewhere?”

Shouto, in his exhausted state, is not coherent. He says something like “Not hurt...you just never ... Sorry, I’m. He’s home soon.”

Natsuo has no fucking clue what’s going on (he hasn’t seen Shouto cry since Natsuo found him in a puddle of boiling water on the kitchen floor, a few weeks after Touya). Shouto’s not usually like this after training--is he? Natsuo’s never seen him cry, and he’s also never seen him accept help. 

Maybe he feels like he can safely do that now, around them. The thought freaks Natsuo out so badly that he shoves it deep into the recesses of his mind so it won’t resurface.

Fuyumi works with children, and has already decoded Shouto’s message. “Dad’s gone, Shouchan. He’s traveling to a big attack somewhere out of town and he’s planning on staying overnight. And that means we can help you feel better this time, alright? Just let us help you.”

“I’m going to grab your phone,” Natsuo says. “I’ll be right back with it.”

Shouto nods, and then hiccups. Every time he blinks more tears fall down his face. For the rest of his life, Natsuo is going to regret every single time he did nothing to protect this kid.

While Fuyumi coaxes Shouto into drinking more Gatorade, Natsuo finally flees to the kitchen.

Natsuo picks up Shouto’s phone, and he notices two things. First, Midoriya is Shouto’s lockscreen (wow) and second, Shouto has a new text from the unsaved number. Two new texts, in fact.

Natsuo wonders what the hell Shouto has been texting this person--and this indignation is enough to make Natsuo completely forget that he was originally going to call his brother’s boyfriend to come over. This confusion carries over to when he’s back in the living room and he shoves the phone in Shouto’s face and demands, “Have you been making plans with your stalker?”

Shouto rolls his head to one side so he can read the screen better, and then mumbles, “Not a stalker.”

“Who is it, then?” Natsuo asks.

Shouto swallows. “Touya.”

Whatever lecture Natsuo had prepared is gone now. He exchanges a horrified look with Fuyumi.

“Touya’s dead, Shouto,” she says. “Do you have a concussion?”

“It’s Touya, ” Shouto insists. His voice cracks.

Natsuo isn’t sure how much Shouto actually remembers of their oldest brother. Natsuo’s own memories are vague--maybe because of trauma, or maybe just because it’s been about a decade ago. But Shouto had only been six, and immediately following Touya’s death, their mother had melted half of Shouto’s face off and she’d been whisked away too. That was a lot for a six-year-old to cope with properly. 

It was a lot for Natsuo to cope with. He hasn’t talked about it with Fuyumi, because mentioning Touya is one of the best ways to get her pissed off.

Natsuo wonders what fucked-up Todoroki Lore the stalker had told Shouto to convince him that his long-dead brother was still alive and kicking and answering texts.

“You need to stop texting them,” Fuyumi says. “They’re messing with you.”

Shouto lunges for his phone, but Natsuo pulls it out of reach. “He didn’t say he’s Touya but he is-- give it back!”

“You’re not thinking straight,” Fuyumi tells him. “We’ll talk about this when you’re feeling better.”

Shouto sinks back down onto the couch with a magnificent scowl. Whatever vulnerability he’d shown in front of them five minutes ago is gone now, and no more tears fall.

“What’s your passcode?” Natsuo asks.

Shouto takes a big sip of Gatorade and then says, “Fuck you.”

“Shouto, that was uncalled for,” Fuyumi says.

“Fuck you ,” Natsuo says back to his brother. 

Fuyumi punches Natsuo’s arm, and then visibly holds herself back from punching Shouto because he’s already so beat-up. “Shouto, tell us your passcode.”

“I’ll call him right now,” Natsuo says. He will. He’ll call Shouto’s stalker and tell them to stop impersonating someone who’s been dead for ten years. 

“The code is my birthday,” Shouto says.

Natsuo puts in the code, and then gives Shouto a very smug look when Shouto looks surprised that Natsuo had actually known it. “Yeah, eat shit.”

Shouto kicks him in the side of the head. His leg is shaky, but it still hurts and Natsuo punches him in retaliation (he immediately regrets hitting Shouto, but it doesn’t seem to hurt Shouto that much, so. Natsuo just swallows his guilt and doesn’t apologize).

“Natsu,” Fuyumi says, and yanks Natsuo across the living room, out of punching range.

“Does he really think it’s--?” Fuyumi asks in a whisper, in Natsuo’s ear. She sounds both incredulous and freaked out.

“He didn’t see what happened,” Natsuo says. 

Natsuo didn’t see anything after Touya had been put in an ambulance, either. Maybe Touya could have survived, but--

There’s no reason for the hospital and his mother and his father to all lie to him about that, but--

There’s also no reason for a random stranger to pretend to be the long-forgotten disappointment of Todoroki Enji.

“We should check if he has a concussion, though,” Natsuo says. 

Fuyumi nods, and goes back to Shouto’s side.

Briefly, Natsuo scrolls through the texts between Shouto and the person, fully prepared to lecture Shouto for...actually, for what? Giving away family secrets? Maybe for deliberately endangering himself, but that’s a stretch. Natsuo just wants to yell at someone, if he’s being honest.

Evidence of Shouto’s stupidity is not what he finds. The morning of the third, around the time Natsuo had texted Shouto to come home from Midoriya’s, the stalker had texted first.

From: XXX-XXX-XXXX

sorry. he’s coming home early and he’s in a bad mood.

“dont fight back” kind of bad 

do you understand 

To: XXX-XXX-XXXX

Why are you telling me that?

From: XXX-XXX-XXXX

am i not allowed to look out for you lol

i’m just saying you should be focused on defense today. if you’re not home get home

“How did he know what Dad’s mood was?” Natsuo asks.

“He knows Father,” Shouto insists. When Fuyumi tries to hold his face to inspect his pupils for dilation, he ducks out of her hold and shuts his eyes. “I’m not concussed. Why don’t you trust me?”

“Because you’re talking like an insane person.” Natsuo gestures broadly.

The texts sent today are even stranger.

From: XXX-XXX-XXXX

okay you haven’t said how hurt you are so i’m gonna do something

From: XXX-XXX-XXXX

just getting him out of the house for a few more days. 

i was bored anyway. don’t be weird about this

“Fuyumi,” Natsuo says, not looking away from the screen, “what kind of incident was Dad responding to today?”

“I don’t know,” Fuyumi says. She finally succeeds in trapping Shouto’s face in her grip, and holds up a finger for Shouto to follow with his eyes. “Shouchan, work with me or I’ll kill you. Um, maybe just check the news, Natsu.”

Natsuo turns opens the news app on Shouto’s phone and scrolls through until Endeavor’s name pops up--

And he’s in the middle of a Nomu attack.

“Shouto,” Natsuo says, feeling kind of faint. “He’s not...I mean, your stalker is with the League of Villains.”

“What?” Shouto asks.

“He said he caused the attack today.” This is not good--it doesn’t make sense why a villain would admit that to Shouto, in a weird attempt to protect him. 

Both of his siblings just stare at him.

“Um,” Natsuo says, and decides this day is already shitty enough and he might as well just jump in. He goes back to the messaging app. Before he can decide whether or not this is a good idea, he hits the ‘video chat’ button. 

Fuyumi hears the low tones of the video call ringing, and she says, “Natsuo, if you’re calling a villain right now I’m going to--”

The call connects.

An urgent voice says, “Shouto? Is everything okay?”

“Hello?” Natsuo responds.

The screen is showing a blank wall (maybe a ceiling?), with just a hint of what looks like dark black hair in one corner. There’s background noise, sounding like rumbling or crackling, like they’re near the villain attack--one that they allegedly caused.

“ Shit, shit shit shit,” the voice says, and then the call ends.

“He hung up,” Natsuo says.

Fuyumi points at him threateningly. “Don’t call him again.”

Natsuo sticks out his tongue at her and hits the call button again.

The call rings out. On Natsuo’s fourth try, the video connects again and the person says, “Natsuo. If this isn’t an emergency quit calling me.”

And Natsuo, with horrifying clarity, recognizes the way the person says his name.

He remembers. 

Fuyumi must see something in Natsuo’s expression, because she bolts up off the couch, Shouto’s potential concussion forgotten. “Touya?” Fuyumi asks, face pale.

“Damn it,” the voice says. “Is that Fuyumi?”

“You’re with the League of Villains,” Natsuo says, trying to explain to himself what’s going on. “You said you’d make something happen to make Dad leave, and then a Nomu attack happened, and--”

“Shut up for a second.” The camera shifts, and Natsuo hears a door close, but no face comes into view. “Is Shouto safe?”

“...Yeah.”

“Okay. I have to go. Don’t tell anyone this happened or I’ll kill you.”

“ Wait,” Fuyumi says, and grabs the phone. “Touya, let me see you.”

“No.”

Fuyumi glowers. “Why did you stand us up at the boba shop?” 

“Because I got there and realized that you guys would freak the fuck out.”

“And why would you answer the phone now ?”

“I thought it was an emergency, and then I realized you wouldn’t stop calling until you got an answer,” Touya says, exasperated. “Also, I think I’m high right now.”

“Nice, dude,” Natsuo says faintly.

Fuyumi kicks Natsuo in the shin, and then demands of Touya, “Where are you right now?”

“Nice try. You guys are snitches and everyone knows it.” 

“We’re not gonna snitch. Who would we snitch to?” Natsuo says.

“Uhhhhhhh,” Touya says. “I don’t know, maybe the fucking police ?”

“So you are a villain now.”

“Okay, asshole. You’re saying you trust heroes when the Number One is an absolute goddamn monster?”

Natsuo isn’t sure what to say to that. 

Fuyumi wrinkles her nose. “Of course I don’t trust them. But are you out there killing people, Touya?”

“My name isn’t Touya. ”

Shouto sits up ramrod-straight on the couch. “Dabi,” he says.

“What?” Natsuo asks.

Shouto stumbles up onto his feet, and almost falls over the coffee table, swaying as he runs over to join them and grab the phone. “Dabi. You’re--”

Natsuo feels like he’s about to pass out.

“I’m not--Okay. I’m hanging up,” Touya--Dabi says. “Don’t try to call this number unless it’s an emergency or I’ll murder all of you.”

“I missed you,” Fuyumi says, almost an accusation.

“...Whatever,” Dabi says. The call ends.

The three of them stand there in perfect silence.

“That just happened,” Natsuo finally states.

“I told you,” Shouto says to both of them. He muffles a cough into his elbow. Natsuo has no idea how Shouto’s on his feet, and so Natsuo latches onto that as a problem he can solve. Natsuo drapes one of Shouto’s arms over his shoulder and takes Shouto back to the couch. 

Fuyumi’s still standing where she was, not moving. 

Maybe she’s in shock. Natsuo’s pretty sure he is, at least. 

“So,” Natsuo says. “He’s...Dabi.”

In his current state of detachment, he decides...it makes sense. Of course no one would let them visit Touya in the hospital. Of course Dabi has a personal vendetta against Endeavor and of course Dabi has a blue fire Quirk. Natsuo is fully prepared to take a deep breath and accept this news and save his breakdown for later, for when he’s not in front of his siblings.

Then, Fuyumi yells. 

She swings an arm out and slams it into the wall and the wall buckles. When she pulls her fist back, her knuckles are already bleeding, but she doesn’t seem to feel it. Beside Natsuo, Shouto is stock-still. Natsuo doesn’t know how to move, either.

“I’m going to kill him.” Fuyumi bunches her hands in her hair and lets out another growl of frustration, and then she pivots on her heel and stalks down the hall. Natsuo realizes she’s heading for Touya’s shrine and he shoves himself off the couch to run after her, abandoning Shouto. Shouto’s not breaking things, so Natsuo figures he should prioritize the sibling who is.

Fuyumi picks up her pace when she hears him following. “Don’t touch me, Natsu, he made us think he killed himself- -” She slams the door open and it bounces back, almost hitting Natsuo in the face, “--He doesn’t deserve our grieving if he could have picked up the phone at any given goddamn time, if he didn’t want us to know why the fuck would he answer a FaceTime request, I hate him --”

Fuyumi skids to a stop in front of the small collection of candles and the framed photo of Touya, and Natsuo grabs her and yanks her backwards.

“Let fucking go!” she exclaims, and thrashes in his hold. “I’m going to murder him--”

“Dad can’t know,” Natsuo says. “You can’t destroy that.”

Fuyumi yells again, a wordless noise that looks like it hurts to make. She doubles over herself and yells and Natsuo follows her when she abruptly sits down on the floor. She pushes her face into her folded arms and screams and all he can do is sit there.

Natsuo thinks, as he holds Fuyumi and tries to keep her from punching more walls or hurting herself, that he understands why Fuyumi preoccupies herself with taking care of Shouto. When Natsuo’s focusing on Fuyumi, he can ignore the fact that he’s the one who wants to be screaming, and he’s the one who would’ve broken a wall if she hadn’t.

She doesn’t seem to be calming down anytime soon. Natsuo breathes in an exaggeratedly calm way for both of their benefits, and he stares at a framed photo of baby Touya, and he listens to his sister cry.

“I can’t--he’s so selfish ,” Fuyumi sobs, and punches one fist into the wooden floor, not looking up at Natsuo or the picture of Touya. “I would’ve--we could’ve gone with him, maybe or he could have--could have--could have just told someone at the hospital about Dad or--I mean you know that his... accident was the rea-reason why Mom did that to Shouto and--”

“Breathe,” Natsuo reminds her.

“Screw you ,” Fuyumi wails, but she lists sideways to let Natsuo hug her more comfortably anyway. “I’m going to murder him.”

“Do it,” Natsuo says, torn between sympathizing with Touya and wanting to see his sister single-handedly take out the League of Villains.

“I WILL.” 

Fuyumi doesn’t talk much after that, seeming to have said what she wanted to say. It takes her a long time to resurface, but eventually she sits up, wiping her nose with the back of her sleeve. She leaves behind a huge wet spot on Natsuo’s t-shirt. 

Glaring at Touya’s shrine, she says, voice hoarse and cracking, “Fuck him.”

“Yeah,” Natsuo says encouragingly, trying to get her to say more. He’s never seen Fuyumi go into a rage like that before.

“I’m not going to tell the police.” She hiccups. “I won’t. Because he’s our brother. But I can’t--we can’t just t-trust him immediately. He’s a villain. ”

“It seems like he still cares about us,” Natsuo says.

“Don’t get my hopes up.” Fuyumi scrubs at her face, frustrated. “We don’t know why he’s trying to get Shouto’s trust. And if he really cared he wouldn’t have disappeared.” She sniffles. Her eyes are swollen, and her face is blotchy, but she seems much calmer now that she’s gotten her built-up rage out of her system. 

It’s a few more minutes of careful breathing before she says, “He’s gonna try to kill Dad, though. Are you gonna let him?”

“I don’t see a problem with that,” Natsuo says, trying to be as honest as he can. His foot is falling asleep from the weird position he’d sat down in. “Morally. I don’t think I’d stop him.”

Fuyumi pulls away. She hiccups again. “I see.”

“What do you think?”

“I don’t know,” Fuyumi says, defeated. She lets out something that sounds like half of a sob, before she takes a rattling breath and reins herself back in. “He’s my dad. I just hoped that maybe one day, we could be a normal family. But I don’t think that’s going to happen.”

“I don’t think so either.”

Fuyumi stares at the floor for a long time. 

“Right,” she eventually says. She takes another deep breath, trying to rally. “I’m gonna call Midoriya to come take care of Shouto for a few hours. I can’t babysit today.”

“I agree,” Natsuo says. He and Fuyumi get up. Natsuo almost feels like Touya’s eyes follow them out of the room.

One brother’s eyes are traded for another’s. Shouto’s gaze falls on them as soon as they reach the living room. He’s spectacularly unaffected by the Touya revelation, seeming to have taken it in stride, and Natsuo’s honestly a little jealous.

“Lunchtime,” Fuyumi says, with false bravado. She sniffles, sounding like she’s going to be congested for days, and disappears into the kitchen.

Shouto watches Natsuo where Natsuo has paused in the doorway, and Natsuo honestly doesn’t know what sort of expression is on his face right now.

“How are you...feeling,” Shouto asks, sounding like he’s unsure what words are coming out of his mouth. Dork.

“Fine,” Natsuo says. His voice sounds thicker than normal, and he can’t place why. “How are you?”

Shouto looks worried (!?), and he holds his arms out. It takes Natsuo a few seconds to process that Shouto is offering a hug.

“What?” Natsuo asks. “I’m fine.”

Shouto frowns.

Natsuo crosses the room and sits down next to Shouto. It’s honestly the most awkward embrace of his life, but Shouto latches on tight despite the myriad of bruises or injured ribs that are likely making this hell for him. It’s not until this point that Natsuo realizes that Natsuo is, for all intents and purposes, crying.

“Oh,” Natsuo says.

“It’s okay,” Shouto says. Natsuo, shedding all appearances of being a steadfast older brother, crumbles and lets his brother hug him.

Chapter Text

Midoriya is shorter than Natsuo remembers.

That’s the first thing Natsuo notices when he opens the door—he’s reminded (for like, the eighth time today) that Midoriya and Shouto are actually so very young. There’s no way that Natsuo looked like that much of a baby in high school.

The second thing that Natsuo notices is that Midoriya is panting with exertion when Natsuo swings the door open. He looks like he ran the whole way here. Midoriya casually wipes sweat off of his brow, and straightens and beams and says, “Hi! Todoroki Natsuo, right? I remember you from the party.”

“Yeah,” Natsuo says. He’s still drained from crying earlier, and has no idea how to hold a polite conversation. But Fuyumi’s the same way, and she’s half-comatose on the couch right now, so Natsuo has dragged himself to the front door to deal with Shouto’s super-energetic boyfriend.

He has no idea what he’s supposed to talk about with Midoriya. Is he supposed to give a shovel talk? Now? 

(Natsuo had asked Fuyumi if she knew anything about Midoriya, to which Fuyumi had replied, “Oh, he’s a sweetheart. Well, actually I thought he was a good influence but then I found out he breaks all the bones in his body all the time, like for fun?” to which Natsuo had said a hearty “What the fuck,” and Fuyumi had said, “Shouchan knows how to pick ‘em.”)

“Good to see you again,” is what Natsuo ends up saying to Midoriya.

“You too! It’s nice to see you too. When do you head back for school? I thought most universities started this week.”

“You can come in,” Natsuo says, and steps aside. “Uh, yeah. I leave for school tomorrow morning. Things are kind of hectic today.”

He watches Midoriya peel off his shoes and Natsuo realizes that he has no clue how much Todoroki Trauma Midoriya has been briefed on. Shouto doesn’t tell people shit (actually, no known Todorokis are very open with their feelings)—and even Natsuo hasn’t told a word about his father to Kaori.

“He’s in the living room. Um. How much do you know?” Natsuo asks.

Midoriya pauses, halfway through wrestling off one hi-top sneaker, and looks up at Natsuo. “About…your home situation? Or about Shouto? Or…maybe about the extra training he has to do?”

“Uh, all of it.”

Midoriya says, “Well, I kind of know about the Quirk marriage thing and then Shouto told me about how his mom did… that to him. And then I know you didn’t hang out with him a lot when you were kids because Endeavor kept him separate from you and Fuyumi and then I know they do a lot of extra training and it’s one of the nightmares Shouto has a lot. I mean, I’ve never really seen what he looks like after training because it happens here but I assume it’s not great because it’s kind of hurt him—emotionally, I mean. So—”

Midoriya keeps talking. Natsuo feels his eyes glaze over, and he just stares in silence until Midoriya wraps up his monologue. It takes a while.

“So you know pretty much everything,” Natsuo guesses.

Midoriya shuts his mouth and nods and flushes red.

Well, at least that spares Natsuo from bumbling his way through trying to keep plausible deniability about Enji’s bullshit. Natsuo clears his throat. “It seems like Shouto really trusts you.”

Midoriya, somehow, looks even more embarrassed by this, and ducks his head. “I guess so.”

As Midoriya goes back to untying his shoes, Natsuo offers, “Just warning you, we’re all kind of out of it. We got some…weird family news this morning and so. Yeah. Fuyumi’s not really up for conversation, and I think Shouto would be fine sleeping for the rest of vacation.”

“Oh, that’s okay. I brought some work to do, if he falls asleep!” Midoriya lifts one strap of his backpack and then drops it again. He slips his feet into a pair of guest slippers. “I figured he wouldn’t be up for much anyway. Is Fuyumi okay?”

“She’ll be okay.”

“And are you?”

Natsuo blinks, caught off guard. He realizes that Midoriya is asking because Natsuo’s eyes are still bloodshot and a little puffy. Natsuo’s been taking a leaf out of Shouto’s book and has repressed everything from this morning, so for a moment he’d forgotten about his cryfest earlier. “Uh, yeah. I’m all good. Thanks. Here, let’s head to the living room.”

If Midoriya can sense that this house has seen a lot of shit, he doesn’t show it. His gait stays confident next to Natsuo, and his soft smile doesn’t falter, and he taps his fingers together and glances at the sparse photos hung on the walls like this is any other house. Whether he means to or not, he’s kind of being a calming presence, and Natsuo suddenly feels like he can release the tension in his shoulders.

“Shouto never stops talking about you,” Natsuo offers. It’d be less of a lie if Shouto talked about anything , but Natsuo has a sudden urge to act like he and Shouto are somehow close—like they have any semblance of camaraderie.

That gets Midoriya’s attention. “Uh—really? I’m sure there’s nothing that interesting—” Midoriya yelps as he trips over his sandals, almost runs into a wall. “—I mean, thank you! I just don’t really know what he’d say. But that’s nice of you.”

They pause outside the entryway, Natsuo hesitating just a moment and Midoriya catching the stutter in his step.

“Is it really bad?” Midoriya asks, in a lower voice than before.

Natsuo doesn’t know if it’s worse than usual, but he can’t think about how Shouto must have gone through this exact thing a hundred times without Natsuo being there.

“He’ll be better now that you’re here,” is what Natsuo settles on.

Midoriya nods, determined. And he steps into the living room before Natsuo, and somehow doesn’t take a sharp breath of horror at the sight of Shouto.

Shouto’s dozing off right now, curled up into one corner of the couch and nursing an ice pack on his ribcage. He’s been drifting in and out of consciousness pretty easily, but Fuyumi says he isn’t concussed so Natsuo’s trying his hardest not to worry every time Shouto falls asleep.

Fuyumi’s not looking much better off. She’s in the armchair nearest Shouto, staring listlessly at the TV, fiddling with one of her earrings. When Midoriya and Natsuo enter, she glances over, and then looks to Shouto before cutting her gaze back to the television.

“He’s had worse,” she says. Natsuo and Midoriya wince. “Don’t worry about waking him up.”

Midoriya starts moving again, in the same calm pacing as before, and kneels next to the couch, and sets his backpack down. The first time he shows hesitation is when he’s poised to put a hand on Shouto’s shoulder, but nobody stops him.

“Hey,” Midoriya says, soft, and pats Shouto’s shoulder gently enough that it won’t be a threat.

Shouto tenses, flinches away from the touch at first, but. Nothing could have prepared Natsuo for the way Shouto’s face relaxes when he cracks his eyes open and sees Midoriya there. He doesn’t exactly smile , but he definitely doesn’t look like that when Natsuo wakes him up.

Shouto mumbles a “hey” back. He uncurls a little bit, lets Midoriya take hold of one of his hands.

“Your brother called me to come over,” Midoriya explains. Shouto knows this already, but nods patiently and listens. “I can sit with you if you make some room for me.”

There’s a whole empty half of the couch for Midoriya to occupy, but Shouto sits up and moves over so Midoriya can perch next to him. Immediately, Shouto falls against Midoriya’s shoulder and pushes his face into Midoriya’s neck, and Midoriya wraps an arm around Shouto’s shoulders and holds him there like they’ve done this a thousand times before. Midoriya’s movements are slow, deliberate, and Shouto seems to have decided to give up all anxiety in favor of letting Midoriya protect him.

It feels too intimate for Natsuo to be watching.  He almost excuses himself and flees, but then he remembers Fuyumi, who’s doing her best to sink into the chair cushions and disappear forever.

“Fuyumi,” he says, uncertain, “do you want to come upstairs with me? Give them some quiet time?”

She turns her tired gaze on him. “Hmm?”

“Let’s head upstairs. Get a nap.”

Fuyumi blinks at him, and then pushes herself out of the armchair and leaves the room without a glance back. Natsuo’s getting more anxious, now, but he just takes a breath and turns back to the kids on the couch.

“Are you good down here?” Natsuo asks Midoriya.

Midoriya nods, smiling easily. His face is lined with determination now, which somehow transforms him from an adorable child to a competent hero student. “I got it.”

“Sorry to put you on babysitting duty, but…”

“No, it’s okay,” Midoriya insists. “I’m sure you need a break and I think Fuyumi needs you more than me.”

“Okay.” Still, Natsuo hovers. “Hey, listen. If Dad comes home, you gotta drop Shouto and go. Shouto will understand. Just get upstairs and I can show you how to get out the back way.”

“I understand,” Midoriya says.

“You’re acting like Fuyumi,” Shouto says, from where he’s folded himself into Midoriya’s side. “Just go take a nap.”

“Watch it,” Natsuo says, but he backs off and heads for the stairs. “Keep it PG in here.”

“Oh god,” Midoriya says, and Natsuo can hear his face turn red again.

Fuyumi has stopped at the top of the stairs, holding onto the bannister and standing perfectly still, looking at nothing. Natsuo takes care not to startle her, but she doesn’t notice he’s there until Natsuo has tapped her arm a couple times.

“Hey,” Natsuo says, when she’s looking at him. “Let’s nap.”

“Yeah,” Fuyumi says. She follows him when he pulls her towards her room, and she pulls the covers of her bed back and gets in without argument. Natsuo decides to try to talk to her after she’s slept off…whatever she’s feeling right now, and he turns off the light and steps out, but then he hears her say, “Could you bring your futon in here?”

Natsuo is surprised, but he just goes and does it. She probably has a good reason for wanting to keep Natsuo in sight, so Natsuo just drags in the futon and flops down onto it and sets an alarm for a ninety-minute nap.

“If I activate my Quirk in my sleep, I need you to wake me up,” Fuyumi explains, monotone, and then she turns over and pulls her blanket over her head and goes silent.

Natsuo, for his part, conks out immediately, even though his nerves are telling him to keep an ear out for the door opening, for Midoriya yelling, for Fuyumi’s ice crackling. It’ll all be fine.

When his alarm goes off, Natsuo rises from his deep deep sleep and slaps at his phone. Fuyumi stirs across the room, groaning, and she pulls the blanket down from her head as Natsuo sits up.

“How are you feeling?” Natsuo asks, stretching out a little.

“Mmm,” Fuyumi grunts. She rubs at her eyes and yawns, and it already looks like there’s more color in her face and in her voice as she answers, “Better. Thanks, bud. How are you?”

“Fine.”

“Did we leave Shouto with Midoriya?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay. We should go check on them.” Fuyumi sits up, reaches her arms up high in a stretch, and then lets them flop down onto the comforter. “Wow, who knew that having a total fucking breakdown takes so much out of you?”

Natsuo scratches his neck, and pointedly watches his phone as he says, “I think it was a long time coming.”

“You’re probably right.” Fuyumi rolls over, stands up on legs that are steadier than they were an hour and a half ago, and then sits back down on Natsuo’s futon and leans against him. “I’m gonna go make tea.”

“I’ll come with you,” Natsuo offers.

“Okay. I’ll move in just a second.” Fuyumi has closed her eyes again.

Natsuo scrolls through his phone notifications and waits for Fuyumi to be ready to walk downstairs again.

To: Touya

were you ever gonna tell us or are you just that much of an asshole

From: Touya

you and fuyumi are clearly not reacting well so can you blame me 

if you tell anyone, i’ll know.

To: Touya

of COURSE fuyumi’s not reacting well asshole

i’m glad you’re alive though.

[Read at: 3:04 PM]

“Actually, I think I’m gonna call Shouto’s homeroom teacher,” Fuyumi eventually says.

“Right now?” Natsuo asks.

Fuyumi has produced her phone, and is looking at the number she’d put in her notes app just last week. “Just to discuss our options.”

She must be feeling better from her nap. Pre-nap Fuyumi had been defeated, and distant, and kind of grumpy. Maybe she’d decided that enough is enough.

“Maybe we should wait until we’re less…tired.” Natsuo has no idea how to refer to the state of emotional fragility that they’re both in. Despite the sleep making him feel a little steadier, he can tell he’s still ready to lose it if something startles him.

Fuyumi seems unimpressed by this. She doesn’t seem to be exuding any of her normal paranoia or anxiety right now—maybe she’s just too tired to pull that off. Natsuo’s never seen her look so burned out, but he’s also never seen her go into a destructive rage or have any kind of disregard for Shouto’s injuries.

Today is full of firsts.

“I think it’ll be fine. You don’t have to talk.” She’s always been better than Natsuo at clamping down on emotion, anyway. Maybe because she’s the one with actual responsibility in Enji’s home.

So, he drops the hesitation and decides to just be there for damage control. “Okay. Do you know his teacher that well?”

“I talked to him at a parent-teacher conference, but that was a while ago. He was on TV, for the apology press conference, do you remember? I think Shouto trusts him. He seems capable enough.” Making up her mind, she presses the phone number and then the ‘call’ button, and then puts the call on speakerphone for Natsuo’s benefit. “Hopefully he meant what he said.”

“Yeah,” is all Natsuo says. He has no idea what’ll happen if Aizawa has only offered help out of obligation, with no intent to follow through. First, Shouto will have some kind of depressing-to-watch reaction. Second, Enji’s going to somehow figure out that someone’s sharing secrets, and—

Aizawa answers the phone.

“Hi,” Fuyumi responds, sitting up straighter, leaving Natsuo’s side suddenly empty. “I’m Todoroki Fuyumi, Shouto’s older sister. I’m calling because Shouto said you mentioned something about a custody transfer.”

“Yes,” Aizawa says, simply. Natsuo wonders if he’s just woken up from a nap, too.

“What did you mean by that?” Fuyumi asks. “Why did you offer that?”

Natsuo takes back what he said about Fuyumi not acting anxious for once. Her fingers are picking at a loose thread in Natsuo’s blanket, pulling it out of the weave, and the entire line of her shoulders is taut. (Natsuo’s not feeling much calmer, but this isn’t about him right now.)

“A few of his classmates have expressed their concerns to me, so I reached out to Shouto and he was willing to discuss it. I don’t know many specifics, but I know it’s not a safe home environment.” Aizawa’s voice is very low-energy. That’s probably part of why Shouto seems to have imprinted on him. “There are a few avenues of action we could take that would avoid a court case.”

“Okay,” Fuyumi says. Her fingers, around the loose thread, are beginning to frost. “What did his classmates say?”

“Is Endeavor home right now?” Aizawa asks. “I sound like I’m on speakerphone.”

Damn, he’s good. “It’s just me and Fuyumi,” Natsuo speaks up. He clears his throat. “I’m Todoroki Natsuo. Dad isn’t home.”

“How old are you?” Aizawa asks.

“Nineteen. I don’t usually live here.”

“Alright,” Aizawa says. He almost sounds relieved—maybe because that’s less children who are constantly subjected to Enji’s bullshit. “Nice to meet you. Shouto’s classmates were worried about some of his behaviors he showed while living in the dorms, and he’s also shown up to school with some unexplained injuries. After looking into it further, I thought it would be best to move him out of that home situation.”

“I agree,” Fuyumi says, without even a hint of an argument. “What are our options?”

“There are a few that we can consider. And, this isn’t meant to sound condescending, but I need you to breathe, Fuyumi,” Aizawa says. “Natsuo, is everyone safe?”

Natsuo hadn’t even noticed Fuyumi’s shortening breaths. While Fuyumi snaps icicles off of her fingertips and tries to center herself, he responds, “Uh—yeah.”

He doesn’t know how he’s supposed to say, Shouto got fucked up today and also it turns out our dead older brother is a supervillain and Fuyumi and I can’t handle it by ourselves any longer please can you just do something for us.

“Everyone’s fine.” Natsuo takes a deep breath of his own, copying his sister.

“Would you like to discuss this in person?” Aizawa asks.

Fuyumi shoots a panicked glance at Natsuo, which he mirrors back at her. If Aizawa sees Shouto like that, Aizawa might have no choice but to report something to the police. And then Midoriya might get in trouble too, for not saying something sooner, and then if Enji comes home and finds another Pro Hero in their living room with the (son?) protégé of All Might —

“I don’t think—” Fuyumi’s voice is choked. “I don’t think that’s a good idea. Can we just talk over the phone?”

“Of course. Of course, that’s no issue,” Aizawa says immediately. Both Fuyumi and Natsuo stop panicking, for the time being. Fuyumi leans back against Natsuo, and he welcomes the warm pressure. “Alright. There are two main avenues that I have considered. The first is letting UA, as an institution, take temporary legal guardianship of Shouto. This is usually an emergency short-term option partnered with a social worker, while a foster care option is negotiated. I could slow down the foster-care arrangements for as long as possible, until Shouto turns eighteen, because that actual transfer will take a court settlement.

“The second option is allowing a teacher at UA to take legal guardianship. This agreement would mean submitting a petition to a court, but we could keep that as private as possible. It would be Shouto’s decision as to which teacher that is. I don’t think the Hero Commission would have an issue with a Pro Hero taking custody of a student for a few years, especially if they want to avoid the news cycle of Endeavor’s child being moved out of his home.”

Natsuo hadn’t even considered getting the Commission involved. It’d always seemed to Natsuo like they’d take Enji’s side in a dispute, but maybe they could twist that in their favor.

“We’d have to talk to Shouto about this,” Fuyumi says, hesitant. “Would the first option mean the social worker would advocate for him? I don’t want UA to be responsible for him. I mean, I don’t necessarily trust them to keep him safe.”

“That’s understandable,” Aizawa says. He pauses, and then says, “I’ve worked with social workers in the area in the past, and could make sure Shouto is paired with one I trust. Whichever option we go with, I will make myself responsible for Shouto’s safety. He would live in the dorms full-time, with limited to no contact from Endeavor.”

Natsuo’s ready to jump in with an enthusiastic fuck yes, Mr. Eraserhead, but Fuyumi is still uncertain.

“How much warning would we have once Dad is notified of this change?” she asks.

“I’ll keep you up to date on how and why information is shared with other people,” Aizawa promises. “You’ll be told before any more steps are taken. I won’t go forward with this unless I can guarantee the safety of you, Shouto, and Natsuo.”

Fuyumi lets out a long breath. She looks up at Natsuo, silently asking what he’s thinking of all this. Natsuo, selfishly, is just glad that it’s not his job to make these decisions.

“Class is starting again soon,” Aizawa says, “so I don’t think there’s much reason to rush into this. You have time to think. I would prefer to get this figured out before summer vacation.”

“I agree,” Fuyumi says.

Natsuo blurts, “This is off-topic, but Dad said you told him Shouto’s been acting up in class. Is that true?”

Aizawa huffs. It might be a laugh, but Natsuo doesn’t know if Aizawa can do that. “No. I’ve never believed sharing Todoroki’s performance in class is something necessary or safe. And I don’t talk to Endeavor unless required for my job.”

“Okay,” Natsuo says, weirdly relieved.

“Shouto’s a good kid,” Aizawa says.

“Yeah,” Fuyumi sighs. She leans back, lets her head bump into the wall. “He is.”

Natsuo ends up leaving Fuyumi sitting on his futon to go get tea for them both. Any new spike of energy she’d had after waking up from her nap is gone after the phone call with Aizawa ends, and Natsuo takes it upon himself to let her take a break for a while longer.

Shouto’s sitting up, awake. Midoriya’s chattering, gesticulating in anger that doesn’t seem to be directed at Shouto, and Shouto’s just listening with a soft, somewhat amused look on his face.
Natsuo’s almost sorry to interrupt, but he makes sure to take heavy enough steps in the hallway that he doesn’t startle them. When he crosses the threshold of the living room, Shouto and Midoriya turn to look at him. Natsuo waves. 

“How’s it going?” he asks. 

“ I’m good,” Midoriya says, “but Shouto’s never seen any of the All Might movies?”

Natsuo snorts, and delicately avoids the unspoken assumption that Natsuo’s seen a single All Might movie himself. “He hadn’t even seen Totoro until we made him watch it last week.”

While Midoriya gasps, Shouto shrugs, unperturbed. “I know All Might in real life. Why would I need to watch his movies?”

“It’s about the experience,” Midoriya insists. “It’s about the culture.” 

“It’s about movie studios making millions of dollars off of him,” Natsuo adds.

Shouto doesn’t look very impressed. It’s kind of his default face.

“We’re watching one right now,” Midoriya announces, and produces his laptop from his backpack. He snuggles back onto the couch with his back against Shouto so that both of them can see the screen, and then he blinks up at Natsuo. “Do you want to watch too?”

“Oh--I’m good. Thanks, though. Do either of you want tea or something?”

“I’m okay!” Midoriya says, and Shouto shakes his head no. Natsuo leaves the two of them to it and later takes the other route back from the kitchen, only partially because he’s skittish of walking in on them doing anything.

Natsuo returns with tea to a Fuyumi who has fallen asleep on her own bed again. He sets a mug on her bedside table and then drags his futon back to his own room to hide for the rest of the afternoon.

Natsuo has to catch the train back to school tomorrow morning. The events of the day mean that he’s frazzled (and a little reluctant to leave until things are back to normal), but classes start again tomorrow and that means he has to go. Fuyumi’s said she’ll call if anything develops with Aizawa or Dabi (or Shouto goes unsaid. Things aren’t going to be great once Enji comes back again and Natsuo’s nervous about that).

He’s packing haphazardly that night when Shouto shows up, wearing pajamas and a blank expression.

“What’s up?” Natsuo asks, and pauses his music. “Did Midoriya leave?”

Shouto nods, shuffles in, and lies down on the futon. 

“Wanna talk about something?” Natsuo asks, confused.

Shouto shrugs. He takes out his phone and proceeds to not make any conversation at all. He just lies there and drags a blanket over himself and keeps quiet.

Natsuo eventually turns his music back on and resumes packing. His phone buzzes, and it’s his girlfriend, who’s supposed to be in the middle of a family dinner.

From: Akiyama Kaori

lmaooooooooo please say something to me so i’m distracted from committing murder on my cousin 

To: Akiyama Kaori

NO PROBLEM

here : tell me why my weird brother just came in and laid down on my futon while i pack. not saying anything

[IMG ATTACHMENT]

From: Akiyama Kaori

aw a sweetheart :(( 

make sure he’s ok :( my sister does that sometimes when she’s nonverbal

“Are you good?” Natsuo asks.

Shouto nods without looking up from his phone.

To: Akiyama Kaori

he said he’s fine?

From: Akiyama Kaori

babe maybe he just wants to hang out 

this is not a judgmental question i’m legitimately asking: have you had a brother before this break? youve literally never mentioned this child to me

To: Akiyama Kaori

lmao sorry

my family is kind of .. dysfunctional

From: Akiyama Kaori

god…..join the mcfucking club 

my aunt announced during dinner that my cousin eloped w the number thirty three pro hero????? like?? last month?? and she hasn’t heard from her since??? hello??????????

To: Akiyama Kaori

wow good for her!

From: Akiyama Kaori

yeah except she was engaged to get married to this rich dude so my aunt’s losing her shit

gay rights i guess

DON’T tell your dad about that oh my god. the press doesnt know

heading back to dinner wish me luck . give your cute brother a hug

Shouto’s behavior is odd, and it seems to be setting off warning bells for Kaori, so Natsuo doesn’t kick Shouto out. Shouto occasionally turns his phone around to show Natsuo a meme that one of his friends sent him, but other than that Shouto sits very still.

Natsuo finishes packing within an hour, and then makes a final sweep of his room to make sure he hadn’t left anything important behind. He goes into the bathroom for a while to start pulling his stuff together in there.

When he emerges, humming a song that’s been stuck in his head since he heard it at Shouto’s New Year’s Eve party, he finds that Shouto’s asleep. His phone has fallen to the mattress, and Natsuo pauses before waking him up.

There’s more than enough room for both of them on the futon. And it’s getting late anyway, and Shouto might lash out to attack--and Natsuo’s own reflexes aren’t as great as he’d like. 

So Natsuo plugs Shouto’s phone into the charger and turns off the lights. He climbs over Shouto and goes the fuck to sleep.

Less than an hour later, Natsuo rolls out of bed to find some water. He almost crushes Shouto, but awkwardly hurdles him at the last moment.

The house is quiet. It’s calmer without Enji here, though--there’s not a constant fear that Enji’s going to be woken up by footsteps in the hallway. Natsuo puts his empty glass in the sink and goes back to his room. Wandering back over the threshold, he stops mid-step when Shouto makes a bizarre choking noise in his sleep.

He’d thought that Shouto had been sleeping peacefully. Looking closer, now, Natsuo sees that Shouto’s face is full of tension, that one fist is clenched and the other is clamped around the other arm, letting off a faint wisp of smoke. It’s a silent nightmare, opposite of Natsuo’s usual ones--but that’s probably because Shouto’s room is right by Enji’s so Shouto had had to learn to shut the hell up.

Natsuo doesn’t know what to do. When waking Shouto up from naps in the past, Shouto has taken a swing in fear, but Natsuo can’t just leave Shouto like this. Shouto’s starting to make barely-audible noises of terror in the back of his throat that are freaking Natsuo out--Natsuo can’t just ignore him.

Natsuo crouches a foot or so away, close enough that Shouto can hear him. “Shouto,” he whispers, urgent.

Shouto’s eyes snap open, wide at first and then quickly resetting to factory-default blankness. 

“It’s just me,” Natsuo says. He reaches out and pats Shouto’s arm, awkward. Shouto jumps at the contact.

“Niisan?” he croaks.

“Yeah. You with me?”

Shouto nods, but it’s not very convincing. 

“You fell asleep in my room and you burned yourself in your sleep so I woke you up.” Natsuo has no idea how to bring Shouto back to himself. “Are you good?”

Shouto’s breath hitches. Natsuo really, really sincerely prays he doesn’t start crying.

“I’m gonna go get Fuyumi,” Natsuo says, when a long moment has passed without him coming up with any ideas to help.

Shouto doesn’t stop him.

Thankfully, Fuyumi isn’t asleep yet. She’s having a soft Skype conversation with a sleepy-eyed Yuuto, who looks like he’s typing rapidly on his computer--probably work or something. 

When Natsuo knocks on Fuyumi’s door, she glances over her shoulder and asks, “What’s up?”

Natsuo says, hopefully quiet enough that Yuuto won’t hear, “Shouto had a nightmare. I don’t know what to do.”

Fuyumi frowns. She turns back to her boyfriend and says, “I’m sorry, my baby brother needs me.”

“Okay, sure thing,” Yuuto says, eyebrows furrowed in concern. “Is he okay?”

“He’ll be fine, I’m just gonna go check on him. I’ll call you tomorrow morning, alright? Don’t stay up too late.”

Yuuto looks like he has no plans to go to sleep anytime soon, but he humors Fuyumi anyway. “Haha. I love you.”

“I love you too,” Fuyumi says, and smiles a soft smile that she only gives to Yuuto. 

“Good to see you, Natsuo,” Yuuto calls, perfectly polite. Natsuo waves back, awkward.

Fuyumi gets up and puts on a sweatshirt and follows Natsuo into the hallway. She rolls the sleeves up so they don’t cover her hands, more of a way to fidget than anything else as she asks, “I didn’t hear anything. Is he okay?”

“I didn’t hear, either.” Natsuo gestures vaguely. “He was quiet but he was clearly--I don’t know. I woke him up but I can never tell what I’m supposed to do?”

“Okay.” She gives him a weird look.

“He fell asleep in my room. I wouldn’t have seen otherwise.”

“Got it.” Fuyumi steps into Natsuo’s room and assumes a nonthreatening posture, approaching the futon in a way that won’t make her seem like an intruder. “Hey, Shouchan,” she says in a much gentler voice than she’d used with Natsuo. Natsuo hovers by the door, feeling out of place.

Shouto is curled up, breathing carefully normal. His eyes are glassy when they skim over Natsuo before landing on Fuyumi. 

“Hi,” Shouto says, much too slow.

“Can we sit with you, bud?” she asks.

“Okay,” Shouto says. He shifts over so that there’s room for Fuyumi. 

Fuyumi settles in and pulls the blanket overself. She gives Natsuo a sharp look before pointing meaningfully to the empty side of the futon. Natsuo finally unfreezes and walks over, climbing carefully over his two siblings to plop down on the other side of Shouto. 

“I’m sorry I woke you up,” Shouto mumbles.

“You didn’t wake anybody up.” Natsuo kicks Shouto’s freezing cold foot away from his calf, and wiggles away until he’s not touching either of his siblings. “Don’t worry about it. Are you okay?”

“I’ll be fine in a minute.”

After the three of them shift around for the most comfortable positions they can find, it’s silent. All Natsuo hears is his siblings’ breathing and the swoosh of cars intermittently passing through the snow outside. 

They haven’t done this since before Touya left, and they’re too big to all comfortably fit in the bed and Shouto’s feet are fucking freezing. Natsuo’s thirsty again, but he doesn’t want to jostle everyone around so he just suffers quietly. 

At least Shouto starts to calm down. He starts acting less like a reanimated mummy and he starts shifting around to get more comfortable, so it seems like he’s becoming more aware of what’s going on around him.

None of them are going to fall asleep anytime soon (Natsuo’s THIRSTY and Shouto’s still shaking minutely and Fuyumi’s fidgeting). Eventually, Fuyumi’s the one who breaks the quiet.

“Now that this is a slumber party, let’s share all our secrets,” Fuyumi says, and Natsuo honestly can’t tell if she’s joking or not.

“Sure, I’ll go first,” Natsuo says. He yanks a pillow over so Shouto is hogging less of it, and Shouto glowers at him. “When I was eight and someone broke the coffee machine that was me.”

Fuyumi’s mouth opens in indignation. “Bastard.”

“Why was I the one who got in trouble, then?” Shouto asks. 

“Because Natsuo’s a coward,” Fuyumi says. 

Natsuo snorts. He delicately doesn’t ask what getting in trouble entailed for Shouto, because he’s already had a panic attack today and he doesn’t want another. “Your turn, Yumi.”

“Uh. I don’t know. I guess, I lose time sometimes,” she says, which is a much different tone than before--but then again, the only shit Fuyumi doesn’t tell others is how she feels. 

When Natsuo cracks an eye open, she’s staring resolutely at the ceiling. “Even sometimes when I’m not at home. I just come back to myself hours or days later at work or at Yuuto’s and I don’t even remember how I got there. Do you guys have that?”

Shouto turns his head, like he’s listening. 

Natsuo doesn’t know what to say, so he doesn’t say anything.

“Yeah. I do that too,” Shouto finally says. It’s the first time Shouto’s directly admitted to dissociating, so maybe that’s progress. “I think I started to do it on purpose when I was younger, so I wouldn’t have to be at training. But now I can’t stop it from happening.”

A car swooshes by outside.

“That sounds scary,” Natsuo says.

“I’m just kind of used to it,” Shouto says. He frowns, then takes to scowling at the ceiling. “I guess it could be scary. But...never mind.”

“But it’s better than the alternative,” Fuyumi finishes for him.

Shouto cringes, but doesn’t disagree. “Has he...ever hit either of you?” 

“No,” Natsuo says, fully expecting Fuyumi to chime in agreement with him. 

“He has,” Fuyumi says, tone flat, and she doesn’t elaborate.

Shouto hums. 

Natsuo’s guilt starts choking him again, so he moves the fuck on. There has to be something to talk about that doesn’t highlight a massive disparity in trauma between them. 

“Do you guys want kids?” is what he finally asks, like an idiot.

“Yikes,” Shouto says. 

Fuyumi laughs, a sudden loud noise that seems to slam into the ceiling high above them. “Yeah, I feel that. Um. I don’t know. They might get hurt.”

She doesn’t say, I might hurt them, but Natsuo hears it anyway.

“I don’t want to have them until Enji is in jail,” Natsuo says. 

His worry is more my kids can’t have a grandfather who could kill them with one strike, but he thinks he understands Fuyumi’s perspective--her only example of maternity had endured at least four pregnancies (had Rei wanted that many kids?), had watched one of her kids burn alive, had caved under intense pressure and melted her youngest’s face off. Rei had been so gentle and had loved them so much--until she hadn’t.

Natsuo and Fuyumi (and even maybe Touya) had been lucky that they hadn’t looked too much like Enji, or they might not have gotten so many good memories with Rei.

Plus, Fuyumi had been angry today. 

“Do you think he will?” Shouto asks, breaking Natsuo out of his thoughts. “Go to jail, I mean.”

“No,” Fuyumi says.

“Not likely,” Natsuo agrees.

Shouto seems to wilt a little at their answers. He doesn’t offer a differing opinion. 

Natsuo yawns, and turns so he’s in a more comfortable position. Fuyumi mutters angrily at him for stealing too much blanket, but the blanket is not big enough for the three of them and it’s Natsuo’s bed so he doesn’t relinquish any.

“Your turn to say something emo,” Fuyumi tells Natsuo, when the talking has lulled for too long.

“Ugh. Fine. I have nightmares every night I sleep here,” is Natsuo’s confession. “I don’t have them at school. That’s part of the reason I never visit.”

“Is it the wallpaper?” Shouto asks. 

Natsuo starts, and looks over. “What?”

Shouto stares at him, impassive. “I think the wallpaper gives me bad dreams.”

Natsuo has never felt so understood in his life. 

Fuyumi doesn’t comment on this. It’s her polite way of expressing that she has no idea what the fuck Shouto and Natsuo are talking about. She yawns and shifts, bumping Shouto into Natsuo. Shouto grumbles but he moves to accommodate her. 

“I don’t have nightmares anymore,” Fuyumi says, long after Natsuo thinks she’s fallen asleep. “What do you dream about?”

“Touya,” Natsuo says. 

Fuyumi lets out a breath. 

“Shouto, do you remember much about him?” she asks.

Shouto has rolled onto his stomach, and his face is in the pillow, but he turns his head to free his mouth to say, “Yeah, kind of. Dad always yelled about how I needed to be better than him.” 

Natsuo winces.

“He was always nice to me.” Shouto makes a movement that might be a shrug. “I used to hide in the closet to cry because I thought it would be quieter in there but he always came to make sure I was okay. I think he hated me after my Quirk manifested. But he won’t answer my texts when I ask him about it.”

Natsuo honestly doesn’t know if Touya had ever really hated Shouto when they were kids, but--Natsuo knows there was a time when Natsuo hated Shouto, just a little bit, right after he found out his Quirklessness meant Natsuo would never even be in the same arena as any of his siblings. Natsuo was thrown away the second it was confirmed he’d never manifest a power, and maybe in the long run that made him the least traumatized sibling, but at the time, he’d taken it upon himself to stew in absolute hatred for Golden Boy Shouto.

That doesn’t sound like a great thing to tell Shouto right now, though.

Fuyumi says, “Shouto, I’m sorry I shut down on you earlier.”

Shouto doesn’t say anything. Natsuo follows his lead.

“After everything, I was really overwhelmed and I got mad because you don’t seem to care that other people worry about you. I guess I didn’t have any more room to feel anything. That was irresponsible, especially because you were injured and I should’ve been alert in case you got worse suddenly. And I shouldn’t have left you to take care of everything, Natsuo.”

Shouto acknowledges, “That makes sense.”

“And?”

“I don’t hold it against you, so I don’t think there’s anything to forgive. I don’t think you should have to act like my mom anymore.” Shouto huffs and turns his face back into the pillow, barely audible when he says, “I don’t think I’m in a place to be mad at people for dissociating.”

Fuyumi makes an aborted sound, perhaps the beginning of an argument, but then she stops and frowns and doesn’t respond at all. Natsuo barely remembers a time when Fuyumi wasn’t a pseudo-mom, and maybe Fuyumi doesn’t either.

“You’re fine, Fuyumi.” Natsuo says. “Also, we’re all getting therapists this year.”

“Okay,” Fuyumi agrees immediately. “Hell yeah.”

Shouto grunts, but it’s not a grunt of disagreement, so Natsuo lets it go.

The three of them stop talking. It’s been a disjointed conversation, and it still feels like they’re just acting like they’re siblings. There’s no reason for them to stay like this; Natsuo’s still the most parched he’s ever been in his life, and if someone has a nightmare, then all three of them will get injured by proximity. 

Still, something in Natsuo’s chest is starting to smooth over. Somewhere along the way, he’s stopped feeling a knee-jerk instinct to avoid everything with the name Todoroki. 

Long after Natsuo thought Fuyumi had fallen asleep, Natsuo hears her sleepy voice ask, “Natsuo, did you leave for school because you hated us?”

Natsuo clears his throat, trying to pull jumbled thoughts together, but what he settles on is a simply, “I left because I hate Dad .”

“I understand,” Fuyumi says. “Well, I wanted to say I’m glad you did.”
“What?”

Fuyumi shrugs. “You’re the only one who could’ve left, so it’s good that you did. We don’t need another one of us ending up like...Dabi. And you seem happy, at school. With Kaori.”

She sounds so casual about it, as if Natsuo’s departure hadn’t ensured she was stuck in this house for the foreseeable future--as if Natsuo’s departure hadn’t been entirely motivated by selfishness--as if Fuyumi hadn’t used Natsuo’s departure against him in an argument mere days before.

“I’m getting there,” Natsuo dares to admit. He looks over and sees that Shouto’s fallen asleep, so Natsuo just addresses Fuyumi when he says, “I hope you are too, Yumi.”

“Thanks, bud,” she says. She yanks some of the blanket back from Natsuo, and settles in to sleep. “Maybe someday.”

Natsuo’s alarm goes off way too early. He pries open his eyes and sits up, then launches himself over Fuyumi and Shouto’s legs to reach his phone where it sits on the carpet. Shouto doesn’t stir, but Fuyumi cracks open one bleary eye to glare at him before she closes it again.

Natsuo wanders through his morning routine, brushing teeth and putting on clothes and washing his face and eating a bowl of cereal, and then he loops back up to his room to find Fuyumi and Shouto still fast asleep. Shouto is flat on his face, somehow sleeping comfortably against all laws of nature. Fuyumi has monopolized the comforter entirely, curled into the tiniest ball possible.

Natsuo slings his backpack onto his shoulder and picks up his duffel bag and considers waking them up to say goodbye. He realizes, with a weird turn in his stomach, that he’s going to miss them.

He turns and leaves. He shuts and locks the front door as quietly as he can.

His siblings don’t wake up until Natsuo is already on the train.

Group: [ GET THAT (REDACTED) ]

XX/01/08

Fun Police: you left?????????????????????????????? asshole

Fun Police: please come visit this wknd for shou’s bday though…...it’ll be lit

Shouto: It won’t be. Please come anyway

Hungry Idiot: shoulda just celebrated it last week if you wanted me to be there so bad

Todoroki Fuyumi changed Todoroki Natsuo ’s nickname to Little Bitch Boy

Little Bitch Boy: i’m just saying this is objectively poor planning!!

Little Bitch Boy: what time will dinner be though

Fun Police: 6 pm uwu

Fun Police: bring gift

Shouto: Don’t

Little Bitch Boy: hmm i’ll see if i can fit it in my busy calendar lmaoo

Fun Police: shouto is going to be the dancing queen if you arent fuckin g there i’ll write you out of the inheritance

Little Bitch Boy: YOU WOULDN’T

Shouto: You can have mine if you care that much

Little Bitch Boy: aww…thank you little man

Little Bitch Boy: wait hold on

Todoroki Natsuo has added Todoroki Touya to the chat

Fun Police: NATSUO WHAT THE FUCK

Touya: wtf is this

Little Bitch Boy: you’re not getting out of this family just because you set yourself on fire asshole. if we can’t then you can’t . 

Touya: i’m wanted by the police. are you stupid?

Little Bitch Boy: oh like the police are gonna be chekcing who todoroki natsuo professional quirkless idiot is texting

Shouto: lmao

Fun Police: DON’T LAUGH AT THAT SHOUTO 

Fun Police: YOU’RE A UA STUDENT YOU CANNOT BE TEXTING THE LOV

Touya: yumi living up to her nickname i see

Fun Police: fuck you honestly i cannot believe this is currently happening and you’re just COOL with it?????

Shouto: @Touya Did you choose the name LOV because it's just one letter away from LOVE

Touya: i wasn’t the one who chose it but…...yeah that’s a hundred percent it

Touya: actually let me go ask if we can change the name to league of villainous extracurriculars or some shit

Little Bitch Boy: are you just gonna go casually ask shigaraki or

Touya: yeah let me just go ask him

Little Bitch Boy: oh cool can i have his number too 

Touya: oh no problem it’s 1-800-eat my d!ck

Little Bitch Boy: NICE

Fun Police: how could you POSSIBLY have known i have the word d/ick censored in this chat

Little Bitch Boy: wait @Touya do you have weed

Touya: ya

Little Bitch Boy: sweet can i have some

Touya: no that’s illegal

Kaori is on the platform when Natsuo gets off the train, and she gives him a broad, albeit sleepy, smile. She’d visited her family in Jakarta over New Year’s, so she’s glowing from the sun she’d gotten and in stark contrast to everyone who’d been living in winter conditions for a few months. Not unlike a plant, she seems to have been recharged by it.

She rushes over to give him a hug, and he kisses her cheek and beams at her. 

“I missed you!” he says. He feels...grounded, and not at all the sad husk of a person he usually is after trips home. It’s a bizarre feeling. “How was your trip?”

“It was freaking awesome,” Kaori says, and kisses him. She takes his duffel bag from his hand and they start the walk down the platform towards Natsuo’s dorm. “How was break for you?”

“Odd,” is the word that Natsuo finally chooses. “I’m glad I went, though.”

“Good,” she says. “Is your baby brother okay?”

“I think so,” Natsuo says. “Thanks for telling me not to kick him out. I think he needed the company.”

Kaori bumps into him with her shoulder. “Hey, always glad to offer some kind of emotional literacy.”

Natsuo’s phone keeps buzzing in his pocket. He’s sure it’s Fuyumi and Touya arguing, which is wild , but he ignores them for now.

“Hey, Kaori,” Natsuo says, all of a sudden. “Would you maybe want to get lunch with me and my sister and little brother this weekend? It’s Shouto’s birthday.”

He’s not prepared for how happy this makes Kaori. Natsuo had met her parents a couple months back, but Natsuo is notoriously cagey about his own family, so maybe he should’ve anticipated how big a step this is. She bounces a little on her feet, and kisses his cheek, and says, “ Yes! Absolutely, I’d love to! I saw that picture of them you posted on Snapchat. Your sister’s hot, babe.”

“Thanks?” Natsuo says.

Kaori laughs at him. “Yeah! You’re welcome."

"I think you'd like her," Natsuo says, and he actually means it. "We're not as close as we used to be but I think we're both trying?"

Kaori nods. She's remarkably awake, for such an early-morning excursion. "That's really good."

"I guess," Natsuo says, and there's a weird warm feeling in his chest that he tries not to reflexively shove down.

Sensing that he's done sharing things about his family, Kaori moves on too. "You wanna get breakfast before I have to run to practice?”

“Absolutely,” Natsuo says, and lets her pull him down the sidewalk.